Summary!

My name is Tatum Buzbee, and my topic is debating whether ghost are real or not. I picked this topic because I use to live next to a house that was said to be haunted. We use to be too scared to go around the house, but now that I have gotten older, I felt I it wouldn't be that bad to go check it out.
Going to the house that I use to live by was an interesting interaction. At first it seemed pointless untill we started taking pictures of the house. One of the pictures had a a fog-like figure infront of the roof. It was only in one of the pictures, which was the weird thing. Then th owner's son showed up, and he told us about his fathers death thirty five years ago. He warned us that the house wasn't safe and told us we needed to leave. He never told us why the house wasn't safe, and it left me suspicious. Also all of the supposably true ghost stories made me think ghost could possibly be real. One story called "Little Girl Following Me", seemed like it could actually be realistic because it was was written by the person who supposably experienced seeing a ghost. He said he was walking down the hall and saw a little girl. She wasn't evil, or trying to get revenge like most stories say, she just possibly died in the house or lived therre before she died.
I have learned that there are a ton of people throughout the world that actually believe in
ghost.
I have also learned many reasons why ghost would exist. Example, they lived in the house before they died so people who moved in later will see then, they were killed and want revenge, etc. I still don't really believe in ghost because i haven't really experienced a real ghost. I think people might think that see figures and assume it could be a ghost. I think if I were to do something differently, I would have gone back to the house to see what was so unsafe about it. I think it would have made the expierience much more interesting and probably scarrier, I might have actually had thoughts abouts ghost being real.

For my interaction, I went the the Bass Cemetery and an old house by my old neighborhood. While me and a couple of friends were at the cemetery nothing really happened. All we did was walk around a little and take pictures of the tombstones. Since nothing was happening we decided to leave and find somewhere else to go. I told them about the old creepy house by my old neighborhood, and they all agreed they wanted to go. Once we go there, we walked up to the house to look around. We took a couple of pictures, and the first one was normal. Then we decided to take another one and there was a big ball of fog infront of the house. After about ten minutes of being at the house, a man showed up and told us that we needed to leave because it wasn't safe there. He said his father had lived there thirty-five years ago before he died.
The Bass Cemetery didn't seem to haunted unlike what others say. But once we got to the house and took that picture, things got a little freaky. I couldn't figure out where the fog came from because we couldn't see it unless we looked at the picture. Also when the man randomly told us to leave it made me a little suspious. This changed my perspective a little about spirits or ghost, but I still can't decide if they could actually exist.

Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina

Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett consists of many different ghosts stories that are suposably true. Most of the stories are about ghost that have died and left behind something or have unfinished business. One story in the novel was about a man named Daniel Keith who was accused for a murder and swore to be innocent. The whole city arrived to watch him be hung. "The soul of an innocent man don't rest"(Russell and Barnett 6)were his last words before he died. After his death, a shadow appeared on the south wall of the jail. The people of the town swore it was Daniel's shadow. They tried to paint over it but nothing helped make it go away. Lastly an eighty five year old man who lived ane passed away. He was the Resident that testifed against Daniel Keith during his trial. And he was the last of those cursed by Daniel Keith to die. Lastly I liked how all the stories were tied together because all of the eighteen stories happened in North Carolina.

I did like this book because it leaves many mysteries in the mountains of North Carolina. The stories were really intereting and made me want to find out what was going to happen. I also liked how all the stories were completely diferent, and they didn't sound like ghost stories we've heard over and over. Lastly I like howw all the stories were tied together because they all happened in the mountains of North Carolina so it makes you a little nervous to go there.

There were also many things I didn't like abut the novel. I didn't like how some of the stories dragged on then just cut off short. Also some of the stories did not seem too realistic to me, but thats probably because I dont believe in ghost. I think the book overall was actually a decent book if you kind of or do beieve in ghost.

Little Girl Is Following Me

An anonymous man swears that on his way back to his room from his bathroom, he saw a little girl who seemed to be the age of maybe four on the left side of his room door. Then he saw a blur down the hallway, and te little girl was gone. That night, he dreamed of the little girl holding on to his leg asking if she could sleep with him tonight. Then he woke up with his left leg so cold it was numb. That wasn't the only other strange thing that had happened to him. "But then i noticedas I looked at my TV, it was on Cartoon Network. When I went to bed, I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher, which happened to be on HBO2." Then after he turned it off, the televsion flicked back on by itself. He says it was the weirdest things, and he doesn't know what to do about it.
I think this is a bit more realistic ghost story than others because it doesn't have anything to do with hauntings. It was just a little girl in a house. She wasn't going after the anonymous man, or trying to get revenge on him, she was just in the house. If there are ghost i think they just are there for historical reasons like if they died there, etc.

Paranormal Activity Clip

In the clip of Paranormal Activity directed by Oren Peli, the couple have been hearing and experiencing werid things in the house. One night they decide to film the room while they were sleeping. The man in the clip says "I think we are going to have a very interesting time capturing whatever is occuring or not occuring." They have proof on tape that there was something strange living in the house. The tape shows the closet door closing on its own while the man and woman are asleep in their bed. Once they are woken up by the strange thing living in the house, they said whatever it is, they can hear and feel it breathing on them. As the clip goes on, they start being harassed by it and bad things go on from then.
Even if there is some type of ghost living in your house, I don't believe you could actually capture it on film. Also, I don't believe that ghosts are here to kill people or harass people, I think if ghosts do exist, then they won't have an effect on people living.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXkMo092Uug

The Insane Old Lady

When a girl named Brenda Star was only twelve years old, her family moved to a house that was further back off the than the other houses on that street. Her family moved there because they bought a restaurant. They were only at the house from eleven p.m. to five a.m. But one day Brenda and her mother came home early before her dad. They heard loud music, and Brenda's mother assumed it was coming from her. She told Brenda to turn down the music, but Brenda explained to her mother that it wasn't her. They tried to discover where the music was coming from, but never did. Then one day when the family arrived home at eleven o'clock, they saw their dog, who was very protective, go crazy by the garage. They opened the garage door and found an old lady in a rocking chair swaying back and forth. Brenda's father went to the car to shine the lights towards the garage. But when he did nothing was there. The old lady was gone. So he turned them off again, and she appeared again. So the family packed up to go stay with Brenda's older sister. Later as the years went by they found out that the old woman in the rocking chair was a woman who went insane after her husband left her (Star).

Knowing that this story was written directly from the girl who experienced it makes it seem more realistic than others. It wasnt just a classic ghost story that every has heard before. I believe that if ghosts really are real than this story is accually true.

http://www.trueghoststories.co.uk/The%20Insane%20Old%20Lady.htm

President Carter's Haunted House

In a small community in Plains, Georgia, it is said to be that a small built in 1840 is haunted by a woman wearing a long white gown holding a candle. Almost a century later a woman named Rosalynn and her husband, Jimmy Carter, moved into the house after he came out of the service. They had repaired the house after they had moved and setteled in. One night when the entire family was sitting in the living room, they heard a loud crash from the attic. They thought it was from the window up there. When they got up there, nothing was seen to be found. Then they began to hear other noises and bangings other days. Neighboors said the could see the old woman with her candel standing at the window. They say she was a wife waiting on her husband, a Conferderate soldier, to come back home from the war (Roberts 8).

I don't believe that the neighbors actually saw the women in the window, I think they wanted to believe the woman was still there. I'm not saying ghosts aren't real, or they are real, but I think the neighboors and the family were psyching themselves out about the whole thing.

Roberts, Nancy. Southern Ghosts. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1924. 5-8. Print.