Monday, May 10, 2010

Pipes, Coffee and Ghosts

A recent comment to my post "I Smell a Spirit", caught my attention. As my comment button malfunctioned on that particular post, I have decided to use it this week as a preface to a post later this week.

A man living in the United Kingdom noted that his home occasionally has two smells that leave his family wondering if it has paranormal activity.

The first smell is pipe smoke. It lingers by the lavatory door and into the hall. It is not continuous, and may last a couple days. It returns every few weeks, sometimes not for months.

The man feels this smell of pipe smoke is paranormal because nobody in the house smokes, and smoking is not permitted in the home. He also adds that his dog "Scooby", has been seen staring at the lavatory door when the smell is present.

The second smell the couple has experienced in their house is that of coffee. The strong smell of coffee is found by the stairway and the bedroom door in the evening hours. They are perplexed because they do not drink coffee and rarely keep coffee in their home.

I am still curious as to why the smell of tobacco is so common in places where it is unexpected. If anyone has a theory as to why this phenomenon occurs, please contact me at: gotparanormal@gmail.com, or as always, I look forward to your comments!

5 comments:

  1. Do you think perhaps that the smells may not be totally paranormal but instead, imprinted on the house somehow? I watched ghost hunters once where they went to an old jail and one of the main smells was a sudden whiff of urine. Apparently the old prisoners used to pee on the walls and the paint absorbed the urine and released the smell every once in awhile. Just a thought. Great blog by the way!

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  2. Thanks for your comment Erin! That makes so much sense in your particular example. If you read my previous post "I Smell a Spirit", I give two examples of this phenomenon where I do not think I could agree. I would love to hear your thoughts!

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  3. This is a topic of particular interest to me, as I've had more than one experience involving scents and the paranormal. The first time it ever occurred was the summer after I graduated college...I was jobless, living at home, and feeling overall a bit bleak.

    One afternoon I was sitting in my room when the smell of honeysuckle wafted around me...I remember sniffing and sniffing to make sure I wasn't imagining it...I wasn't, and it went on for about five minutes. There wasn't anything in the house that would have produced that distinctive scent.

    Honeysuckle was a scent that I had always associated with my grandmother, who died when I was 4. She would wear it from a tiny perfumed roll-on stick from Avon (I can still picture it!). I knew, even as I was in the moment, that my grandmother was around me, and she was telling me to hang in there, that everything was going to be all right.

    Within a few weeks, I had a job and my post-college life was beginning.

    I've had other experiences in different contexts involving smells, but that one is the most vivid to me...b/c it was the first, and b/c it was so comforting and so strongly resonated as my grandmother's presence.

    Thanks so much for talking about this topic!

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  4. Yes, those two examples are seemingly harder to debunk although I know in my house, we don't use our fireplace and on certain days when the temperature is just right outside, there is a strong smell of smoke which smells similar to pipe smoke. I was told that comes from the lining of the chimney. As for the coffee, I'm stumped!

    Also, I think perfume would be a hard smell to debunk since it wears off a person after a couple of hours and off fabric in a couple of days. So if someone is smelling the same perfume their dead grandma used to wear years before, I would say that is definitely paranormal.

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  5. I enjoyed your story GoGoLola. I appreciate your comment!

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