Ghosts, what are they? The dictionary tells us a ghost is the spirit of a dead person, especially one that is believed to appear to the living in bodily form or to haunt specific locations.
In some cultures ghosts are looked at as another plane of existence. In Japan, your dead ancestors are revered. The Germans had a lot to do with our naming of ghosts here in the Unites states. The word ghost comes from an old Germanic word, gaistaz which became geist in old English. Geist is where our word ghost comes from.