What is a ghost? Ghosts-apparitions of dead people or sounds associated with invisible human beings, are the surviving emotional memories of people. They are people who have not been able for one reason or another to make the transition from their once physical state into the world of the spirit.

Their state is one of emotional shock caused by sudden death or great suffering and because of it the individuals involved cannot understand what has happened to them. They are not able to see beyond their own immediate environment or problems so they are forced to continually relive those final moments of agony until someone breaks through and explains things to them.

Those who die normally under conditions of adjustment need not go through this agony and they seem to pass on rapidly into the next dimension of consciousness.

The big difference in a poltergeist experience and either an apparition or haunting is that in general poltergeists events are centered around one or more particular persons, whereas an apparition generally appears in one particular place, and the haunting is directly related to a location or object.

Of course there have been exceptions reported. Poltergeists tend to occur in one place, but usually when the living person {or persons} is present in that location. Apparitions have been, on a few occasions, reported to follow a particular person around. And if and object that is haunted is moved to a new location, the phenomenon may continue.

For some reason, unfortunately, it is more difficult for an apparition to speak than merely appear. Seeing an apparition is more common than almost any other apparitional/spirit encounter, with perhaps the exception of merely sensing the presence of another entity. In looking over the reported cases of apparitions, one would notice that ghosts DO NOT look like white-sheeted, cloudy figures, nor are they green goblin figures. In fact, the way an apparition does appear is often more startling than what is related in those old ghost stories. Ghosts look like people, like you and me. Sometimes they may be a bit fuzzy around the edges, or a bit see- through, but in general apparitions look like solid citizens.

In some encounters one may not even realize they are looking at an apparition, until the figure suddenly vanishes before their eyes. Apparitions have a habit of appearing and disappearing from ones view. Besides appearing and disappearing mysteriously, these figures also exhibit bits of less-than-normal behavior. They can it appears walk or transport themselves through solid objects like walls and doors, or appear in midair levitating their forms off the ground, or of course appear in various states of clarity, fuzzy-focus one moment, sharp and solid the next.

I took the attached photograph of a young girl apparition during the day at an old cemetery in Arizona. I took the photograph of the apparition peeking from the grave at the same cemetery a couple years prior also in the daylight. Theresa Jodray