Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts?

Subject: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Fri 12 Oct 2007, 12:49 pm

There are many reports of the ghosts of animals, the majority of which are domesticated ones. Why though, if animals can have ghosts have we not had any reports of dinosaur ghosts?

Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Fri 12 Oct 2007, 7:36 pm

According to this BBC news item, fossilised remains of a plesiosaur (a giant, long-necked sea reptile) were found on the shore of Loch Ness back in 2003.

Now, if we were to assume that people who report Nessie sightings are in fact seeing a ghost of a plesiosaur, this would explain why Nessie is often seen but, never actually physically discovered.. Hey presto, dinosaur ghost reports a-plenty. Smile

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Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Fri 12 Oct 2007, 8:46 pm

Age : 31 Joined : 12 Oct 2007 Posts : 254

This brings us to the obvious question: what's the supposed "lifespan" of a ghost? A century? A thousand years? If I remember correctly what's supposed to be the oldest ghost in Europe is the so called "Bronze Age Knight" who usually made his appearance in an undisclosed South England locality. He has not been reported since the '60s or even earlier. The oldest ghost in the Americas is an unnamed Conquistador on horseback who's supposed to appear in a Southern State when the United States are about to enter a war. The Greeks used to believe that occasionally the battle of Marathon was reenacted by supernatural means: it was consider a death portent or, at very best, a particulary bad omen.
As you can see all these cases go back many centuries but there are no reports (as far as I know) of ghostly Stone Age men or mammuths.
I can offer no explanation for this.
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Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Sat 13 Oct 2007, 12:34 pm

Maybe if there is a hallucinatory component to witnessing apparitions, we need to have some knowledge of the thing we are meant to be seeing.

There are many Roman ghosts that are reported throughout the United Kingdom. It has been said that the Elizabethan’s only ever recorded ghosts wearing Elizabethan clothing though. They were 300-400 years closer to the Roman occupation, so if ghosts fade, why didn’t they see more than we do? When was the first recorded Roman ghost sighting?

One theory is that the Elizabethans didn’t know much about archaeology and had no idea what a Roman soldier would be wearing, although they obviously knew about the Romans (well Shakespeare did anyway). In this day and age we are brought up knowing exactly what Romans, Knights, Medieval Courtiers, Cavaliers, Roundheads and Tudors etc wore and we have reports of people seeing them.

It could be that we can’t see them because we cannot relate to them. Has the ghost of anything totally alien to the witness been seen? Just a thought.

Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Sat 13 Oct 2007, 12:40 pm

Bear in mind that the landmasses have moved considerably since the Mesozoic period. While plenty fossils have been found on land, this is not where the land originally was! Referring to how ghosts are often seen in strange places (ie. through a bed, sitting on a rocking chair, walking at levels that no longer exist etc) it is safe to assume that if there were any dinosaur ghostly activity, it wouldn't occur where we'd expect it to! Mostly, it would occur in one of the oceans, in all probablility. This is not taking into account the ever-changing topography of any landmasses that have stayed above water for the past 250 million years (if not more! if you take into account the animals that predated the dinos).

Another thing worth considering is that most animal ghosts tend to be pets, do they not? Domestication sparks familiarity in our minds. Ghosts are often said to be spirist that are resteless, caused by some trauma or other unnatural occurence that (normally) caused their death. In nature, animals will accept (whether they know it or not) its laws, but domestication seems to cause a break in the "programming" as it were, where animals exhibit behaviours not seen in the wild (dogs for instance- one simple example would be that I have 2 labradors, and both smile when they're happy!).
A lot of the breeds we keep (dogs, cats, rabbits, birds etc) are not natural in any way, and have been conditioned to be that way because of selective breeding.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is that due to our playing with genetics, we have created animals that I suppose can be dubbed "supernatural" in the loosest sense of the word, and thus are halfway to having real supernatural occurrences....

If that makes sense. I suppose I'm trying to say that most animal sightings are not generally animals that you find in nature, so whether by our own familiarity with said animal (maybe that triggers sightings) or the fact that they are not a natural animal, honed by thousands/millions of years of natural selection and evolution, it is these animals that are more likely to become ghosts, as it were.

A break in the programming of life??
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Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Sat 15 Dec 2007, 12:19 pm

I remembered this being an interesting prospect. Just wondered if anyone had any more to say on the matter? I'm still thinking of a tectonic theory, personally.

Otherwise, could be to do with that theory linking ghosts and strong emotions. I don't recall hearing of ghost stories involving wild animals, and yet domestic animals have a fair few. I wonder if domesstication brings out and "encourages" the development of emotions? Personally I believe that all animals will feel some sort of emotions no matter how rudimentary- it makes sense when you consider that fear is the body's way of telling the creature it is under threat. In the wild, given the harsh situations, animals are haridier than their domestic counterparts, and thus maybe the feeling of emotions is not as strong (and possibly varied). I suppose it maybe ammounts to domestic animals "going soft", although I'm sure I have heard of ghostly elephants. Given that elephants display great intelligence and emotional articulacy, could it be that this leads to the formation of ghosts? This can only be specualtive because obviously we do not know the workings of the dinosaurs- I would presume that they were more varied than at least mammals, then quite possibly some of them maybe could convey more than fear, anger, distress and the other more natural basic emotions.
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Subject: Re: Where Are The Dinosaur Ghosts? Sat 15 Dec 2007, 2:04 pm

Thats an interesting point Urisk. I am not sure if I can name the ghost of a wild animal, assuming we don't include Jeff the Mongoose. There are of course tales of legendary or ghostly black dogs, but there is nothing to say they are wild dogs. Shamanic traditions have wild animal spirits as guides but that is not really the same as a ghost or apparition.

Love the new icon by the way Cool