I was somewhat loathe to post this week, even though I have a story to tell.
Ghost stories aren't real. Everyone knows that.
But...
This actually happened to me, and I have no explanation. I was there. I didn't dream it, it wasn't a hallucination.
Several years back I worked in a nightclub. About halfway through my time there it was sold, and the new owners closed it for a few weeks to renovate. It was completely gutted, dancefloors and bars had their positions swapped, new doors were installed, the cellar was rebuilt. Big work.
When the work had finished and the grand reopening (a normal night, but the tarts dressed tartier and the champagne was free) was a few days behind us I experienced something odd.
The building was spread over four floors: The cellar and toilets in the basement, the office on the top floor, and two different bars in between. A twisting staircase ran right up through, from the very bottom to the top.
I was in the cellar with the manager at about 8am, getting a delivery in. When we were done we walked up from the cellar, past the ground floor, up to the top bar. We kept the internal door to the top bar locked, so I paused with the manager here to unlock it, finishing whatever stunning witticism I was currently spouting. Having unlocked the door and delivered the punchline I walked into the pitch-dark room (no windows, and weak emergency lighting). John the manager followed just behind, striking off towards the gents toilets in the dark, just on the edge of my vision. I turned all of the lights on, and asked John a question; I forget what it was.
There was no answer.
I went to look for him, checking first in the toilets, then the DJ box, then in desperation (and stupidity) in a small store cupboard. No sign.
I eventually found him in the office. He hadn't followed me in, he'd continued up the stairs, and the CCTV backs this up. Even now, 7 years later, I can remember something following me in the dark, just over my right shoulder, walking from the entrance to the toilets.
Not too weird on its own maybe (expecting someone to be there had possibly made my mind invent someone) but two further events followed.
A week later, about an hour after closing on a Saturday night, I went downstairs with a tray of glasses, leaving one guy stocking up and two girls stood at the end of the bar chatting (Come on girls! Time to lean? Time to clean!). I returned a few minutes later, and the girls did a double take; I had already returned, they said, and gone into the toilets. Of course, we checked, and there was no-one else in the room. They hadn't looked straight at the other person, since they'd assumed it was me, but they both said he'd walked from the entrance to the toilets. Again, we checked the CCTV; again, nothing.
Two weeks later, the bottom bar was open during the day, and a new member of staff had gone to restock the top bar, which was closed. He returned barely a minute later, looking slightly shaken up. He had, in his own words, turned on the main lights just in time to see a figure walking across the room. It looked like "the shadows and highlights you'd see on a person, without the person". When pressed to say where, he revealed that it had gone from the entrance to the toilets.
I'm drawing no conclusions from this. I know what I saw, I just don't know what it was. Nor do any of the other three. A few of us even camped out in the club one night when it was closed, hoping to see something, but we were disappointed.
The only other pertinent thing is the renovation; apparently many other 'ghost' sightings happen after a building has been disturbed. Everything that occurred here happened within a month of the reopening.

TL:DR? I saw something weird. So did three others.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 16:11, 3 replies)

If you say you're drawing no conclusions,
how do you know it wasn't a hallucination? None of you saw/felt the same thing at the same time. Hallucinations and weird feelings are more common than many people realise, and are a far more likely explanation than ghosts.
( urbane legend i have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 18:16, closed)

Is a hallucination likely if it's shared by 4 different people on 3 different occasions in differing circumstances?
The two girls had no idea of what had happened to me, and the guy in the third example knew nothing of any of it.
Serious question, not being snarky.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Mon 17 Sep 2012, 19:04, closed)

Clearly that ghostie either had a
urinary infection or weak bladder.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 17 Sep 2012, 22:37, closed)