What's not to love about a good ghost story?

With Halloween nearly upon us, it seems inevitable that discussion in many circles will turn to ghosts and hauntings, and other supernatural events.

It's interesting to watch how people react. A few people will shrug them off and pretend they're not interested, but kids and teens love to share these stories with one another, especially at night when the lights are off. Even in professional settings, there's no denying the interest a ghost story piques. Once somebody shares one, somebody else has to jump in, and then another person, and then another one. Before long even the person who isn't intersted in listening with rapt attention and vying for a few seconds of attention with a tale.

At least in my experience, though, religious folk always get antsy about these things. The most strictly religious among us will insist that there is no such as ghosts, that when a person dies, she goes to heaven or tell, and anything that claims to be a ghost is merely a demon impersonating the dead.

To such folk, I would say "Calm down." I don't necessarily believe in ghosts, but I love the stories people tell about them.

I heard one ghost story about a teenage girl who desecrated a grave -- she had done something minor like stepping on it as she took a shortcut through a cemetery -- and soon found herself stalked by the ghost. It began to harry her, and at one point physically appeared while she was on the phone and tried to strangle her.

On the other hand, I've heard stories about another ghost who hangs out by a campfire only he can see and still thinks he's in the 1800s. There's a ghost story in Clark, N.J., about a man who died of a heart attack while walking his dog to the train station, and could be seen many as 60 years later, still walking along the tracks. (He finally disappeared when the train station was torn down to widen Central Avenue.)

That hardly seems overtly demonic; nor does Sam, the ghost who allegedly haunts WCN Newspapers. Sam supposedly is a former publisher who feels bad for reporters who have to stay there late, and supposedly has appeared to a couple late at night and put a comforting arm on their shoulders.

Most ghost stories are nothing more than outright fabrications, and most of the rest have a completely legitimate physical or psychological explanation that has been overlooked. The remainder -- a very small percentage to be sure -- may have something supernatural about them, and given the general silence of the Scriptures on ghosts, I'm not inclined to believe in ghosts qua ghosts, even though I find the stories fascinating.

But at the same time, given the general silence of the Scriptures on ghosts, I won't rule out the possibility definitively, either.