What Are Apparitions? Exploring Ghostly Figures and Spirit Encounters
Updated: Oct 13
I was about eight years old when I saw something I have never forgotten.
My older sister and I shared a bedroom. Our beds were positioned side by side, and one night I woke to find a little girl sitting on the edge of my sister's bed, near her pillow.
She was close enough that I could almost have reached out and touched her.
The girl appeared to be about six years old.
She was wearing what looked like an old-fashioned nightgown and nightcap, the kind of clothing I now associate with the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Her hands were folded neatly in her lap.
And she was staring directly at me.
She didn't appear as a shadow or a fleeting movement in the corner of my eye.
She looked like a real little girl sitting on the bed.
I was absolutely terrified.
Not because she did anything threatening, but because I knew she shouldn't have been there.
Who was she?
Why was she sitting on my sister's bed?
And why was she staring at me?
I was so frightened that I couldn't even call out to my parents.
Instead, I pulled the covers over my head and stayed completely still.
I never looked again that night.
And I never saw her again.
But there was something else about that house that has stayed with me.
My younger sister, who was only a toddler at the time, had what we understood to be an imaginary friend.
A little girl she called Kristy.
Was the girl I saw that night the same little girl my sister spoke about?
I honestly don't know.
At eight years old, I certainly didn't understand what I was experiencing. And even now, decades later, I cannot tell you with certainty who or what I saw.
But I know what the experience was like for me.
I was awake, looking across our bedroom with my ordinary eyesight, and there appeared to be a little girl sitting on my sister's bed.
That encounter has remained with me throughout my life.
Since then, through my own mediumship and the extraordinary stories shared on The Mediums Table Podcast, I've encountered many different accounts of people seeing figures they cannot explain.
Some appear completely solid.
Some are fleeting.
Some seem aware of the people around them.
Others appear to move through a location as though they are repeating something from another time.
And occasionally, people describe encounters that seem to have a very specific purpose.
So what exactly is an apparition?
Is it the consciousness of someone who has died?
Could certain places retain impressions of people and events from the past?
Or are we using one word to describe several very different kinds of experiences?
I don't believe every apparition necessarily has the same explanation.
And that is where I think this subject becomes particularly fascinating.
What Is an Apparition?
An apparition is generally described as the visible appearance of a person, figure or presence that someone cannot readily explain.
The word is often associated with ghosts, but reported apparitions aren't necessarily transparent figures floating through dark corridors.
Some people describe seeing a shadowy outline.
Others report a fleeting figure that disappears almost as quickly as it appears.
And some describe seeing someone who looks so completely solid and human that they initially assume they're looking at a living person.
That was certainly how I experienced the little girl in my childhood bedroom.
She wasn't transparent. She wasn't surrounded by mist. And she didn't resemble the dramatic ghostly figures we often see in films.
She looked like an ordinary little girl wearing clothing from another time.
What made the encounter extraordinary wasn't how unusual she looked. It was the fact that she was there at all.
But seeing an unexplained figure doesn't automatically tell us what caused the experience.
Lighting, reflections, mistaken identity, sleep-related experiences and the way our brains interpret visual information can all influence what we believe we've seen.
And sometimes, even after considering those possibilities, people are left with an experience they cannot confidently explain.
Within spiritual and paranormal traditions, apparitions have been interpreted in several ways.
Some believe they may represent the consciousness of someone who has died.
Others suggest they could be impressions of people or events from the past, somehow associated with a particular location.
There are also accounts in which a figure appears to interact with someone, deliver a message or seemingly intervene in a situation.
I don't think we can assume that every reported apparition belongs to the same category.
And I certainly don't think we understand enough about these experiences to declare that they must all have one explanation.
For me, the most interesting question isn't simply whether somebody saw something unusual.
It's what they experienced, the circumstances surrounding it and whether the figure appeared to have any awareness or intention.
Is Seeing an Apparition the Same as Clairvoyance?
This is an important distinction, particularly when we're discussing mediumship.
As a medium, I experience clairvoyance as one of the ways information may be communicated to me.
I may see a person, a place, an object or an entire scene.
Sometimes those impressions appear almost like photographs.
At other times, they can become incredibly detailed and immersive.
But that is different from how I experienced the little girl in my bedroom.
I saw her with my ordinary eyesight, as though she were physically sitting on the bed.
I wasn't deliberately connecting with spirit.
I wasn't conducting a reading.
And I wasn't consciously entering a mediumistic state.
I was a child who had woken during the night and appeared to see someone sitting beside my sister.
In my own mediumship, clairvoyance involves receiving visual impressions through what I experience as a connection or blending of energy.
An apparition, as I personally understand it, is something that appears to be visible within the physical environment itself.
That doesn't mean the distinction will always be obvious.
A person may experience a vivid internal image and describe it as seeing spirit. Someone else may report a figure that appears to occupy the room around them.
And some experiences may be difficult to place neatly into either category.
The important thing is to understand what the person actually experienced rather than assuming that everyone means the same thing when they say, "I saw a spirit."
If you'd like to explore how mediums experience visual impressions, I explain clairvoyance and the other spiritual senses in What Are the Clairs? How Mediums See, Hear, Feel and Know Spirit.
Are There Different Types of Apparitions?
When people talk about apparitions, they often imagine the same thing: a ghost appearing in front of someone.
But the experiences people describe can be remarkably different.
Some figures appear to acknowledge the living.
Others seem completely unaware that anyone is watching them.
Some appear only once, while others are reportedly seen repeatedly in the same location.
And occasionally, an apparition is described as appearing at a particular moment for what seems to be a very specific reason.
I believe it's possible that we're dealing with several different kinds of experiences rather than one phenomenon with a single explanation.
That doesn't mean we can confidently identify what causes each encounter.
But I think the differences are worth exploring.
Apparitions That Appear Aware of the Living
Some of the most intriguing accounts involve figures that seem to respond to the people around them.
They may look directly at someone, move towards them, gesture or appear to intervene in a situation.
My own childhood experience left me wondering about this.
The little girl sitting on my sister's bed appeared to be staring directly at me.
Was she aware that I could see her?
Was she deliberately making herself known?
Or was I interpreting her position and gaze as an interaction?
I cannot know.
But I've since heard accounts where the apparent intention behind an encounter is even more striking.
One of those stories was shared by Aynne during an interview on The Mediums Table Podcast.
The Woman Who Stopped a Horse and Wagon
Aynne shared an extraordinary story from her family history, dating back to the 1800s.
Her grandfather was travelling with his family by horse and wagon during a night of heavy rain.
Visibility was extremely poor.
They had only a lantern to help them see the road ahead.
As they travelled through the darkness, a woman reportedly emerged from the woods.
She approached the horse, took hold of its bridle and stopped it.
And then she disappeared.
What made the story so remarkable was what lay ahead.
The river had flooded, and the bridge they were approaching was gone.
Had the horse continued forward, the family could have travelled straight into the flooded river.
In the family's account, the mysterious woman had prevented a tragedy.
Aynne's grandfather survived, and generations later, Aynne was able to share the story.
Who was the woman?
Was she an apparition?
Was there an ordinary explanation that became lost as the story was passed down?
Or, if we entertain the possibility of spirit communication, could this have been an intentional intervention?
I don't know.
But what fascinates me is that this wasn't simply an account of somebody seeing a figure standing in the distance.
The woman reportedly interacted with the physical situation and appeared at precisely the moment the family needed to stop.
It's the apparent purpose of the encounter that makes the story so memorable.
Residual Apparitions: Can Places Hold Memories?
Other reported apparitions seem very different.
Instead of interacting with people, a figure may appear to repeat the same movements or follow the same route.
Someone might describe seeing a person walking along a corridor, passing through a doorway or appearing in the same location at particular times.
The figure may not acknowledge anyone watching.
These experiences are sometimes described within paranormal traditions as residual hauntings.
The idea is that a place might somehow retain an impression of a person, event or moment from the past.
I find this possibility fascinating.
I've often wondered whether locations associated with intense human experiences might retain something of what happened there.
Prisons, asylums, hospitals and historic buildings frequently feature in reports of paranormal activity.
Places associated with suffering, fear or trauma seem particularly prominent in these accounts.
But I also wonder about places associated with extraordinary happiness, love or celebration.
Could those experiences leave impressions too?
What if certain places hold memories?
It's a question rather than an established explanation.
We don't have reliable evidence demonstrating that buildings can store and replay human experiences in the way a recording stores sound or images.
But as a possibility to explore, the idea raises fascinating questions about time, consciousness and the relationship between people and places.
If an apparition appears to repeat the same action without acknowledging anyone, is it an aware presence?
Or could somebody be witnessing something that resembles an impression from another moment in time?
I don't think we can confidently answer that yet.
Apparitions That Appear to Deliver a Message
There are also encounters where the figure seems to appear for a particular purpose.
Not necessarily to frighten someone.
Not necessarily because a location is haunted.
But perhaps, as the person experiencing it interprets the encounter, to communicate something important.
Julie has shared an experience with me in which she described an angel appearing to her and delivering a message of reassurance that everything would be okay.
For Julie, the encounter carried a very different meaning from the frightening ghost stories we're accustomed to hearing.
It was comforting.
Reassuring.
And deeply significant to her.
Accounts like this make me question whether every apparition should automatically be understood as the spirit of someone who has died.
Some people interpret their experiences as encounters with angels, guides or other forms of consciousness.
Others may understand similar experiences through their own religious, spiritual or cultural beliefs.
I cannot tell you which interpretation is correct.
But I do think it's important to recognise that an apparition doesn't have to be frightening to be extraordinary.
And sometimes, the meaning of an encounter may be just as important to the person experiencing it as the appearance of the figure itself.
Can Apparitions Look Completely Real?
One of the biggest misconceptions about apparitions is that they must appear transparent, misty or somehow different from a living person.
But that's not always how people describe them.
Some witnesses report seeing figures that look completely solid, with recognisable facial features, clothing and physical proportions.
In some accounts, the person doesn't realise anything unusual has happened until the figure disappears or something about the encounter becomes impossible to explain.
That's what made my childhood experience so frightening.
The little girl sitting on my sister's bed looked like an ordinary child.
There was nothing obviously supernatural about her appearance.
It was her presence, in the middle of the night, that frightened me.
And that raises an interesting question.
If an apparition can appear completely human, how many encounters might initially be mistaken for an ordinary interaction?
Of course, an experience that feels physically real isn't necessarily evidence that a figure was objectively present. Perception can be affected by lighting, expectations, sleep transitions and other circumstances.
But I think these accounts deserve to be explored carefully rather than automatically dismissed or accepted without question.
Can Apparitions Appear in Photographs?
Not every reported apparition is witnessed directly.
Sometimes people discover unusual figures, faces or shapes in photographs that they didn't notice when taking the picture.
And occasionally, what appears in an image can be deeply unsettling.
During Episode 60 of The Mediums Table Podcast, Alicia shared photographs taken during a visit to a house described as haunted.
What made these photographs particularly interesting was that they were taken using an older camera, where the images couldn't be viewed immediately.
It wasn't until the photographs were developed that Alicia could examine what had been captured.
In the images she shared, numerous shapes appeared to resemble faces and human figures.
But one photograph stood out to me.
In the window of the front door were what appeared to be two children standing together.
Their faces looked particularly unsettling.
They reminded me of something from Stephen King's The Shining.
And they certainly made me look twice.
Were we seeing something genuinely unexplained?
Could the images have been affected by reflections, lighting, the photographic process or our natural tendency to recognise faces in ambiguous patterns?
Or had Alicia captured something that wasn't visible to her when she took the photograph?
I can't confidently answer that.
What I can say is that the photographs were intriguing enough to make me want to examine them more closely.
This is also where I think we need to be careful.
Human beings are remarkably good at recognising faces, even where no face actually exists.
It's a phenomenon known as pareidolia.
We might recognise a face in a cloud, a pattern on a wall or an unexpected arrangement of light and shadow.
The same thing can happen in photographs.
Once somebody points out a particular face or figure, it can become difficult to see anything else.
That's why I think it's important to look at the original photograph, consider the circumstances in which it was taken and allow people to examine it before telling them what they're supposed to see.
Unusual figures aren't the only things people report capturing in photographs. In What Are Orbs? Exploring the Strange Lights People Capture on Camera, I explore mysterious lights, unusual movements and some of the footage shared through The Mediums Table.
Not every unusual image is evidence of an apparition.
But I also believe that investigating these photographs with curiosity can lead to some fascinating conversations.
And Alicia's photographs certainly gave us plenty to talk about.
Are Apparitions Dangerous or Something to Fear?
When we hear the word apparition, it's easy to picture something frightening.
A dark figure standing at the end of a hallway.
A face appearing in a window.
A ghostly presence lurking in an abandoned building.
Hollywood has certainly played a part in shaping those expectations.
But I don't believe that an apparition should automatically be associated with something evil or dangerous.
I was absolutely terrified when I saw the little girl sitting on my sister's bed.
Yet when I look back on that experience, I realise something important.
She never actually did anything to frighten me.
She didn't approach me.
She didn't threaten me.
She simply sat there, with her hands folded in her lap, looking in my direction.
My fear came from encountering something I couldn't understand.
I was eight years old, and there was a little girl in our bedroom who shouldn't have been there.
That alone was enough to terrify me.
But fear and danger are not necessarily the same thing.
Consider the story Aynne shared about the woman who stopped her grandfather's horse.
If we interpret that encounter as an apparition, the figure appeared to prevent harm rather than cause it.
And Julie's account of an angel appearing with a reassuring message represents another very different kind of experience.
Of course, these accounts don't establish what caused the encounters or prove that apparitions are harmless.
But they do challenge the assumption that every unexplained figure must have frightening intentions.
Perhaps we need to separate how an experience makes us feel from what the experience actually means.
I think curiosity, careful observation and an open mind are far more useful than immediately assuming the worst.
What Should You Do If You Think You've Seen an Apparition?
If you experience something that appears to be an apparition, I think the most important thing is not to rush towards an explanation.
Whether the experience is comforting, unsettling or completely unexpected, take a moment to consider what actually happened.
What did you see?
Were you fully awake?
What were the lighting conditions?
Did the figure appear to acknowledge you?
Was anybody else present?
Did anything unusual happen before or afterwards?
These details can help distinguish what was directly observed from what we later interpret.
If a photograph or recording is involved, preserve the original wherever possible. Similar questions arise when unexpected voices appear on recordings. In What Are EVPs? Exploring Mysterious Voices Captured on Recordings, I examine unusual audio captured during interviews, trance sessions and paranormal investigations.
Avoid relying solely on enhanced images or somebody else's description of what you're supposed to see.
And consider ordinary explanations too.
Reflections, shadows, unfamiliar surroundings, sleep-related experiences and visual misinterpretations can all produce convincing impressions.
That doesn't mean every experience will have an obvious explanation.
It simply means we should investigate thoughtfully.
For me, remaining open-minded doesn't mean accepting every unusual sighting as paranormal.
It means being willing to explore an experience without deciding what it must be before we've properly considered it.
And sometimes, the most accurate answer we can give is simply: I don't know what I saw.
FROM THE TABLE
E77: Aynne — The Woman Who Appeared in the Storm
Could an unexplained encounter change the course of a family's history?
During this conversation, Aynne shares a remarkable story passed down through her family about her grandfather travelling by horse and wagon in the 1800s.
On a stormy night, a mysterious woman reportedly emerged from the woods and stopped his horse just before the family reached a flooded river where the bridge had been washed away.
The woman then disappeared.
It's an extraordinary account that raises questions about apparitions, apparent intervention and whether some encounters might have a purpose beyond simply being seen.
▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE
E 60: Haunted House Investigation with Medium Alicia
What happens when photographs reveal details nobody noticed at the time?
In Episode 60, Alicia shares her experiences investigating a house described as haunted, including photographs taken with an older camera that couldn't be reviewed until they were developed.
Among the unusual shapes visible in the images are features that appear to resemble faces and human figures, including what Alicia and I interpreted as two children near the front doorway.
We examine the photographs and discuss what might have been captured.
It's a fascinating conversation about paranormal investigation, visual interpretation and the questions that arise when something unexpected appears in a photograph.
▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE
Are Apparitions Real? What I Believe
After everything I've experienced personally and heard through The Mediums Table Podcast, I believe apparitions are a genuine phenomenon worth exploring.
But I don't believe that means every reported apparition has the same explanation.
Some experiences may involve ordinary visual misinterpretations.
Others may be connected to sleep, memory or the circumstances in which someone witnesses something unusual.
And then there are encounters that leave people with questions they cannot easily answer.
Personally, I remain open to the possibility that some apparitions represent consciousness making itself visible.
Perhaps, in certain circumstances, a spirit has both the intention and the ability to manifest in a way that someone can physically see.
I also wonder whether some locations retain impressions of events or people from another time.
And accounts involving angels, apparent interventions or meaningful messages raise another possibility entirely.
Perhaps the word apparition describes several different experiences that we don't yet fully understand.
I often think back to that night when I was eight years old.
The little girl sitting on my sister's bed.
Her old-fashioned nightgown.
Her hands folded neatly in her lap.
And the way she looked directly at me.
I wonder who she was.
I wonder why she was there.
And I still wonder whether she had anything to do with my younger sister's imaginary friend, Kristy.
Decades later, I don't have those answers.
But I no longer look back on the experience with the same fear I felt as a child.
Instead, I look back with curiosity.
And perhaps that's one of the most important things these experiences can teach us.
We don't have to understand everything we encounter to be willing to ask questions about it.
Because sometimes, the mystery itself is where the conversation begins.
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