One of the most frequently reported ghosts are apparitions of the dying or recently deceased. As well as breaking ties with the physical world, this type of encounter seems to be a final farewell.

In 1700’s Boston, America a young Englishman wrote to his friend in England about the whereabouts of his brother. Three days earlier the man had seen his brother's apparition in his bedroom looking deathly pale, with a bloodied napkin on his head. He felt that something terrible must have happened. Indeed it had; three days earlier his brother had been hit over the head with a poker and a fractured skull had caused his death. There was no other way that the Boston based brother could have known about his brother’s untimely death in England.

In certain villages in China it is believed that a father will appear to his son, 90 days after he dies. Indeed one son was so scared of his father’s return that he decided to take a plane flight with the hope that it would stop the visitation. However on visiting the toilet he noticed his father standing behind him for a few brief moments, in the mirror.