Friday 27 November 2009

The scent of a ghost

Apparently there have been many reports of smells at haunted places. I have to admit, I have had out of place smells around here very occasionally. (Please resist the temptation to be flippant and ask if it was me after a curry or the dog). The kind of smells I mean are things like a very old fashioned perfume - the kind you remember from your granny and now are never worn these days; or in my case here, the smell of strong cigarettes and sometimes pipe tobacco. It isn't drifting in from outside as we live a mile outside of town, so it isn't someone walking past the door and has flicked a fag end into the yard. These smells usually exist for just a few seconds (and we both smell them) and then they disappear entirely as if they never existed. Normal smells don't do that I believe!
If this is the case and these smells exist (and it would be odd if two of us had an olfactory anomaly at the same time) then how are they generated? - from what?. OK, I can deal with the stone tapes theory and the idea that the fabric of a building can act as a film tape and replay happenings from the past when the atmospheric conditions are just right, but this is like saying that smellyvision must exist! - its bizarre!
Is there some logical explanation for it?. If there is I can't think of one. I try to be rational and logical whenever possible, and I am always willing to believe the mundane over the paranormal, but I just think we have a ghost that likes to pop off somewhere for a ciggie now and then.

2 comments:

  1. I can sympathise fully with your 'cigarette smells', as I used to have exactly the same thing happening at my old address. No one in the house - or either of the adjoining properties - smoked at the time.

    The strange thing about this situation was the fact that it was the home of my Grandparents - I was raised by my Grandmother - and my Grandfather had died (when I was five) of smoking related throat cancer. (He was a 60-a-day Woodbines type of bloke!!)

    Whenever we detected the smell, my Grandmother would say: "It's your Grandad come to visit us!!...." I'm not sure whether I found this reassuring in any way as a child, but - in later years - I came to think that such a manifestation was an incredibly ironic way for someone who had died of cancer to remind loved ones of their presence!! Laugh!!

    Regards,

    Nick
    West Midlands Ghost Club

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's true that. The irony is definitely there. I bet he enjoyed his "Woodies" though, even though they contributed to his death. If it's all true and they do visit us they would do something that is typically them - like smoking Woodbines.
    I live in an old farmhouse. I reckon my smoker was an old farmer.

    ReplyDelete

 
Paranormal Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory