Ghost smells
Keep your eyes peeled and your nose open!
October is the month for the smells of fall: burning leaves, baking pumpkin pies, caramel apples - but it's also the month for ghost-hunting. One under-appreciated facet of ghost-hunting is paying attention to smells.
Most people do not pay very much attention to their sense of smell. Stop what you are doing right now and list all the things you can smell. You will no doubt be surprised at all the smells you have been tuning out as a matter of course.
When investigating a haunting or paranormal experience, the wise ghost-hunter will be paying attention to all their senses, including smell. In fact, many apparitions come with reports of phantom smells.
Of course, it can be difficult to discern between a true phantom smell, and one that merely lingers at the location. The smell of perfume can remain for decades inside the drawer of a bureau where it was once spilled. Cooking smells never quite leave a kitchen. And the smell of pipe, cigar, or cigarette smoke can be notoriously stubborn.
However, many ghost reports include smells. Perfumes and tobacco smells can be so intertwined with a person's sense of self that they return along with that person's spirit after their death. Or it could be that smells can somehow imprint themselves on a location the same way a spirit can.
And then there are the spirits (?) which announce themselves with very bad smells of rotten flesh and decay. Perhaps these are better left alone, to say the least!