Ghosts of Halo

Introduction
Ghosts are just unknown characters that spawn out of nowhere. They usually do not have a gamertag, don't show up on the scoreboard and seemingly have auto-stick capabilities. They can be hostile if provoked, and at some point for no reason at all. They also seem to be indestructible, although some Ghosts can be killed (such as the Ghosts of Turf and the Ghost of Sandtrap. They seemingly appear in random games and sometimes produce an inexplicable scream.

In most cases, Ghosts are just odd blips that show up on motion tracker. In some cases, it was reported that driver-less vehicles can possibly be controlled by a ghost character.

History
A video appeared on Youtube in July of 2006 by a user named AfRoSaUcE who claimed it was over a year old and made by Jump Tactic's Anti Noob (the link and the full description of the video is shown on the Ghosts of Lockout). First appeared on mythica.org, the video quickly became popular and speculations were raised that it was some form of mod. AfRoSaUcE denied the allegation, assuring it to be some kind of a network problem. Although, if it was a network problem, there would be slim chances of it actually saying, "Killed By Guardians" when a player is killed by it.

Since the video's first appearance, several new videos have surfaced with characters who do have gamer tags, running animations, and the like. However, a number of mods have surfaced with players controlling characters without these which can obviously be seen, but not on Xbox Live.

Recently a player called Shadow has claimed that it is not impossible for this to occur on an Xbox without any sort of System Link or Xbox Live. His "Ghostly" encounter is as follows:

Other "ghosts" have appeared on other maps. One such occurrence was the "Ghost of Turf" found and filmed by clan HollywoodHalo. This ghost displayed all characteristics of the Lockout ghost (no Gamertag, sliding across the floor, no weapon animations). The most interesting thing about this occurrence is that two ghosts appeared. It was this that revealed that these ghosts were caused by extreme lag, or a mod.

"Supernatural" Abilities
Ghosts of Halo seem to have some "supernatural" abilities that the normal players don't have. Some of these are:
 * Can make any type of weapon fire out of the ground,but this is classed as "False".
 * Do not need to look up or down.
 * Can perform tricks and super jumps with ease.
 * Can teleport anywhere on the map, at any given time.
 * Have the ability to mimic movements.
 * Take the shape of anyone they meet.
 * Seem to have a mind of their own.
 * Can be docile or aggressive.
 * Always hit when shooting.
 * Have unlimited ammo in all guns and can change guns with extreme speed. However, they still have reloading animation.
 * Can appear during Forge on Local Play, but has also been sighted on Xbox Live.
 * They have no walking animation but appear to slide.
 * Can choose whatever weapons they want, even if the map has specified weapons sets.
 * Can be a Spartan, Elite or Monitor. (In most cases it's "playing" as Spartan character)
 * Have omnidirectional vision.
 * Known to be transparent sometimes.
 * Can appear as yellow or red dots on your radar.
 * Can throw objects and equipment out of thin air.
 * Always stay facing the way they spawned, unless when firing at players, then it snaps to the victim rather than turning smoothly like normal players.
 * Can have their own color, even if the game is a team game.
 * Throws grenades without having a limit.
 * Throws Plasma Grenades backwards, sticking the player behind him.

Theories
(Believable Theories)
 * Caused by extreme lag. This may be particularly true when players are joining the game. However, this is debatable as often the other players move normally and fluidly, while the "Ghost" seems to jerk and glitch around.
 * Caused by "standbys".
 * Caused by a network problem coupled with a mod.
 * Created by Bungie to keep the game moving or as a tie-in to their Alternate Reality Games (i.e. Cortana Letters, Ilovebees, Iris, etc.)
 * A game bot created by Bungie, to practice, but never deleted.
 * Two different online games running on at the same time in the same map, but ending up in the same server.
 * Caused when someone leaves the game (start menu, leave game).
 * Random, misplaced programming for game that Bungie had put into it by accident such as "Player Throw Grenade", "Player Kill Player", etc.
 * Some modders have reported AI codes in maps, codes similar to Brutes. Bungie may have put an AI into Halo 2 and Halo 3 disks, which explains the appearances, and the fact that the majority of games played are offline.
 * Some sightings may be attributed to people's change in perception on them.
 * Deleted sections of game code which have correlated and caused a loop animation or related bug. This is a well-documented computer phenomenon, ironically, called a "network" or "computer" ghost.
 * Balance testing bots, accidentally put into the final game. Bungie mentioned using AI-controlled turrets to test turret configurations on High Ground, which could explain this theory.
 * Some False ghosts sightings can be caused by Overloading the map. It could also be special to each disk, because of scratches that may help some ghosts to come.
 * Bungie members entering your Xbox (360 or not) via Live connections.

Ghost Sightings
These are the major, and seemingly only ghost sightings of Halo so far. Some are very possibly fake, discluding the Ghost of Lockout, and the Ghost of Blackout

Ghost of Lockout

 * A video on YouTube (made by AfRoSaUcE) showed two players (anti noob & The Underdogg) on XBL were playing a custom game. The first part of the video shows one player (The Underdogg) went to go eat. So the other player decided to "jump around" for a bit. After one player went AFC, the other crouched and walked to a wall. As soon as he turned around, his friend had a plasma grenade stuck onto him. After he exploded, a white Spartan was gliding to the corpse and threw another grenade without seeing anti noob. The second, third and fourth part all show the ghost sticking anti noob (each time) and The Underdogg (shown only once). During the final part, anti noob is being pursued by the ghost, until he runs into a corner. The ghost glides past him and the player hides behind a barrel. As he shifts to the side to check if the coast is clear, the ghost is standing right behind the barrel. The player (panicking) pushes the explosive barrel at the ghost. The barrel does not explode and the ghost sticks the player. According to the description of the video, this ghost was created by a player who entered the game, but due to a network glitch, appeared as a "ghost" character. Due to the glitch the player had perfect sticks and invincibility.

Ghost of Turf
The Ghost of Turf was filmed by the clan "Hollywood Halo", this video is rather odd because two ghosts were in it and even more strange because the two ghosts were shooting at each other, ending in one of the ghosts dying. This is very strange because these ghosts are defeatable while ghosts in other videos are not and during the video there were two white-armored Spartans that lost connection. Therefore extreme lag may have caused the two players to become ghosts, or it was a mod. However, it is still unknown why the two ghosts, if really ghosts, were in a firefight.

Other Halo 2 Sightings
There have been numerous other sightings of ghosts in Halo 2, but none are confirmed or have enough evidence to back them up.

One of these accounts occurred in Midship, where two players were playing Slayer. After one shot the other using a shotgun, the shotgun-wielding spartan mysteriously died. This may be a minor system glitch. Another account of a ghost appearing was on the map Ivory Tower in the back hall. One player was killed at the end of the hall, and an exact copy of this player appeared out of the wall and continued sliding into the wall on the other end of the hall. This may have been caused by extreme lag. Other sightings occurred on Coagulation and a few other Halo 2 maps, but are unconfirmed.

Halo 3 Ghosts
The Clan SRDP (Now disbanded) claims to have done extensive research on the Ghosts in Halo 3, and, despite multiple False Ghosts, have encountered actual Ghosts on Sandtrap, Guardian, and Valhalla. A Tech Support On the SRDP's website claims to have found coding for ghosts, on all the mentioned maps, plus Avalanche, though no Avalanche Ghost has been seen yet, and a Ghost of Blackout. A ghost of Blackout has been seen on Youtube.

Ghost of Blackout

 * There is a video on Youtube that contains footage of a Ghost, however, that ghost isn't indestructible so it is unconfirmed whether this is a true ghost or not. The ghost acted almost human-like, toying with the players and was killable. This helps support the theory that the ghosts are in some way actual players.

The Ghost appears to turn to face the player it is attacking when it melees or shoots.

Ghost of Sandtrap (Level)

 * Not much is known about the Ghost of Sandtrap but he carries a Spartan Laser and energy sword. It is known to be extremely deadly. It has been reported that making eye contact causes the player to die. The SDRP did extensive research on this particular ghost. However, it can be destroyed. There are also rumors of a second ghost.

Other Ghost Appearances
There have been numerous accounts of Ghosts in Halo 3, though few have any evidence. Two major hot-spots for "ghost activity in Halo 3" are the maps Valhalla and Sandtrap. On Valhalla, there is rumored to be a Spartan with an energy Sword that haunts the downed Pelican. The ghost of Valhalla is the most popular ghost next to the Ghost of Lockout, and many ghost hunts have been activated towards it. On Sandtrap, it is said that an orange/yellow ghost haunts the map with a Spartan Laser. The ghost of Sandtrap is the third most popular ghost next to the Ghost of Valhalla. There are many other strange happenings in Sandtrap, but are not ghosts, but False Ghosts. The False Ghosts include randomly spawning Mongooses that seem to kill players. These are most likely severe system glitches.

Minor ghost appearances occur on places such as Narrows, Foundry, Ghost Town, Construct, and any other Halo 3 maps. These include things such as:
 * Grenades randomly spawning out of thin air (when it occurs in forge, the player may have thrown a grenade when they turned into monitor by accident).
 * Equipment activating out of thin air (most notable occurrence is the bubble shield activating in Forge: Last Resort)
 * Unlimited equipment that stays placed on the map (such as a recurring bubble shield)
 * Power Drains that only one player on the map can see.
 * Many people have reported seeing Elites appear out of nowhere and then disappear. Apparently shooting at them does little or no damage at all.

These minor accounts are most likely system glitches, otherwise known as False Ghosts. They could very well be hoaxes. The major ghosts of the Halo series are the Ghost of Lockout, and the Ghost of Blackout. It will be unknown if it can appear in other Halo games. The Ghost of Lockout and Blackout(so far) may be the only true sightings of official ghosts.

True, False, or Half Ghosts
On maps such as Sandtrap, events have happened including odd explosions and tank blasts most on the maps Sandtrap and Valhalla. These ghosts could be to blame. The ghosts seem to try and kill players. False Ghosts are strange happenings in Halo that do not depict ghosts, but minor glitches. The term "ghost" used in Halo originated from the famed Ghost of Lockout. This ghost is indestructible, has no movement animations, uses plasma grenades as a primary weapon, can only face the four compass directions, and has no turning animation. Due to this fact of where the term "Ghost of Halo" originated, it is the official description of a true ghost. Anything such as the following indicates a "False Ghost":
 * Vehicles moving by themselves.
 * Random grenades, explosions, weapon fire, and Wraith mortars.
 * Ghost with turning animations or walking animations.

The first two on the list above indicate system glitches, therefore not to be considered as Ghosts of Halo, thus considered as False Ghosts. The last one on the list are usually hoaxes, glitches or mods.

Half Ghosts are a sort of sub-category of True Ghosts. They are actually player models, but seem to be defeatable, unlike True Ghosts. So far the only known Half Ghost would be the recently discovered Ghost of Blackout. This ghost had every aspect of a True ghost, except for the fact that it was not invulnerable.

Some more events include:
 * Random fires bursting out from Fire Grenades but seem to have not been thrown by anything.
 * When on maps alone, seeing Wraith mortars targeting the host.
 * Hearing Scorpion blasts out of nowhere.
 * Bubble shields being activated on random points of the map.