by Aubrey Hostetter (6th)

Imagine this. You were just finished watching maybe the creepiest shows you have ever seen. You clean up and are getting ready for bed when you hear a creak and see a white light in your door step. It disappears quickly but it leaves behind a lot of questions.  Like what was that? And you have only one idea in mind, the only reasonable idea in mind. GHOST!
 

What are ghosts?You might know ghosts as the scary people from the horror movies but in reality there is a pretty big difference .Ghosts are the spirit or soul of a deceased person that remains in the world of the living. Most people believe the reason they stay is because they have unfinished business( they need to do something), emotional attachment( they remain for a person they loved or feared), and protection or a message( they seek comfort, provide a warning, or seek justice because of their death). There are many different ideas of what ghosts look like, some say they are white sheets with black holes in them, others say that they are pale or gray people who still have their injuries they died of, and some even say they are invisible to the human eye. But we all have our different definition of a ghost.

Now that you know what ghosts are we need to head way back to figure out when people first thought of ghosts When did people first think of ghosts? We believe that people first thought of ghosts around 8000–2000 BC ( before Christ). It can also depend on where you were from. For example  the Mesopotamia people made textual and visual evidence for ghost beliefs coming from this region, including instructions on how to get rid of ghosts found on a 3,500-year-old Babylonian tablet,which is a block of stone people wrote upon,and also it mentions ghosts and the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians believed that the spirit, or Ka, could continue to exist after death. If proper burial rites were not performed, the spirit could become a restless ghost that might haunt the living. People from ancient Greece or Rome believed that improper funerals could cause the dead to return as spirits. In Homer's The Odyssey, the hero summons ghosts to gain wisdom. The Romans also had beliefs about ghosts and used methods like curse tablets placed in graves to exact revenge from the dead.

Are ghosts real? This is the question that has been asked throughout history. Though there is no scientific evidence pointing to ghosts being real, many people believe otherwise.So that brings us to our second question, why do people believe there are ghosts? When people hear a creak or something crazy happens. The first thought will obviously be ghosts but scientists have thought of another reason why people believe they see ghosts. "Ghost" hallucinations are often a result of misinterpretations by the brain, triggered by factors like sleep paralysis, stress, isolation, or even environmental conditions. Scientific explanations include the brain's attempt to make sense of sensory input in low light, the effects of certain gases like carbon monoxide, or neurological phenomena. Seeing a "ghost" is a subjective experience that can be explained by the mind's complex processing rather than an actual supernatural presence.

To conclude, whether you think ghosts are real or   not, there is evidence to prove both things. Next time you hear a creak or a noise don't think first of ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts?