I seem to recall that there is a special psychological term for when people think they see someone out of the corner of their eye, but nobody is there ... (and no, the term I'm thinking of isn't 'crazy'! It's something else.)

Now, I've seen what I thought was a ghost, and that definitely wasn't out of the corner of my eye, but I've seen what I think might be spirits ...

About the ghost I saw with a few friends:

http://www.alien-ufos.com/forum/showthread...ight=beer+story

Anyway, it being almost Halloween here, I thought I'd share a few experiences that made me ask this question:

When I was a kid, we used to take trips all the time, by car, long distance. On these long trips, I'd often think I saw a hitchhiker by the side of the road. He had a mustache and a few days growth a beard (not a beard, just like he hadn't shaved in a while). He wore a black knit watch-cap, red-checked flannel shirt, faded (slightly oil-stained) bluejeans, black combat boots, and a black leather jacket. He had a black duffel bag, sometimes at his feet, sometimes over his shoulder. He always looked the same. I only saw him on long trips (never short trips). However, whenever I'd look back, he'd be gone. Later, I stopped seeing him.

A few years ago, we tore down our old house and built a new house in the same lot. In the old house, I used to see a girl on the stairs: teenage Japanese girl in a white kimono, long dark hair, pale. The upstairs had three rooms and the room where I used to watch TV was right at the top of the stairs, so that I could look out the door at the stairs. Sometimes I'd see her crouched at the top of the stairs, looking at me. Or sometimes I'd be in another room and catch her peeking around the corner. Once or twice, as I passed the bottom of the stairs, I'd catch a glimpse. I never saw her anywhere else in the house. Only the stairs. I never saw her anywhere that would require her feet to leave the stairs. I haven't seen her since we built the new house, even though it's in the same place, and is still a two-story house.

Recently, when working late, I've seen someone walking past my classroom. My classroom has double-doors, five sets of semi-opaque windows, and another set of double-doors. I'm the last classroom at the end of the hall, and there's a door right outside my classroom that leads both outside and to the cafeteria. I often see students and teachers pass my classroom. Occasionally I look up to see who's going by. Sometimes, if I don't see who it was when they pass the first doors, I wait and see them when they pass the second set of doors. However, there's this figure: Japanese woman with her hair in a bun, who walks past the first doors and then disappears. I'll see her shadow on the opaque windows, but it fades out after the first three windows. She doesn't get to the second set of doors. She doesn't double-back. She doesn't look like any of the teachers, and students rarely wear a bun!

I ask this because I just sort of wonder: is there a scientific explanation for seeing people out of the corner of your eye?

Peripheral vision you mean?

Well, I mean I know that peripheral vision means seeing out of the corner of one's eye, so points to you there ... no, what I mean is seeing things out of the corner of your eye that AREN'T there. So for example, let's assume for a moment that I'm NOT seeing ghosts. That it's a psychological trick. I seem to recall that there's a scientific name for that: a hallucination in the peripheral vision, so to speak. Anybody ever heard this one?

I don't know the scientific name but most people just say "seeing things" i think

Taken from

http://www.powerathletesmag.com/archives/G...th/eyesight.htm

Basically our peripheral vision is the stronger more sensitive of the eye. It picks up the slightest movement so we can turn out heads to look at what the peripheral vision picked up. So it's kind of easy to understand that our brain registers seeing 'something' out of the corner of our eyes, yet when we turn it's just not there anymore.

As for seeing apparition with our normal vision, (not peripheral) that is something entirely different... Either genuine paranormal sightings or hallucinations brought on by mental illness, drug use or eye sight problems.