I am a natural skeptic, and don't believe in ghosts or other supernatural BS, but I've actually seen a ghost 3 times. As a skeptic 20 years later I still want to think that it wasn't real, but I can't come up with any other explanation.
From 1990-1992 I was living in an apartment Leesburg, Virginia. Three times during those 2 years I lived there I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the head and upper torso of an old woman dressed in 1800s style clothing floating above the bed.
All three times I rubbed my eyes (just like in the movies when someone sees something they don't believe
), but it didn't go away. I started thinking of things it could be, am I still asleep? No. I literally pinched myself. I was awake. Is it light from the window shining on the ceiling that just looks like a ghost? It was too detailed. I lay there for about a minute each time staring at it before it just disappeared. Each time I got up and went into the living room and turned on the light to make sure I wasn't actually dreaming. I stayed up each time for quite a while. My wife is a sound sleeper and never woke up.
I don't know what I saw, but I did see it. I wasn't dreaming. It wasn't light from the window. It wasn't imagination. The logical, scientific me thinks there must be an explanation. But I can't find it. It was real. It happened.
Edit: this stuff happened before we had the internet, and I've never google before to see if anyone else had seen a ghost in Leesburg. After posting this I decided to do it and it looks like I'm not the only one.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102301036.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...832r/?page=all
The second link mentions the Battle of Ball's Bluff, a civil war battle that took place just down the road from where I lived. It is a small park now. I used to go there to walk through the woods (there were no trees there during the battle but it is wooded now). There is a small cemetery with confederate soldiers that died there. I would walk the trail through the woods and sit on the cliff overlooking the Potomac where the battle took place. The North tried to cross the river at night and were pretty much massacred by the South who were sitting on top of the cliff. It is very peaceful now, at least during the day. I had a hard time imagining a battle going on there.