Ghosts of Halo

Introduction
Ghost are unknown characters that spawn out of nowhere. They usually do not have a gamertag, don't show up on the scoreboard and seemingly having 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). 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 driverless vehicles can possibly be controlled by a ghost character.

True or False Ghosts
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:
 * Vehicles moving by themselves
 * Random grenades, explosions, weapon fire, and Wraith mortars
 * Ghost with turning animations or walking animations
 * Ghosts that are killable

indicates a "False Ghost". 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 two on the list are usually hoaxes, mods, or Bungie Staff.

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's 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.

"Supernatural" Abilities
(Not In Introduction)
 * Can sometimes make Wraith mortars or any other type of weapon, fire out of the ground as in the Guns N Roses '86 incident.
 * 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.
 * Can 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 (however it does have reloading animation) in all guns and can change guns with extreme speed.
 * They only appear during Forge on Local Play, but have also been sighted on Xbox Live and normal Forge (no Live connection).
 * Can choose whatever weapons they want, even if the map has specified weapons sets.
 * Can be a Monitor, Spartan, or Elite.(In most cases it's "playing" as Spartan character)
 * Have omni-directional vision.
 * Known to be transparent at some time.
 * 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.
 * Can have their own color, even if the game is a team game(team slayer, etc).

Theories

 * Caused by extreme lag. This may be particularly true when players are joining the game.
 * Caused by "standbying".
 * 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.)
 * Bungie entering into people's games on Xbox LIVE. (Could possibly explain Ghost of Blackout)
 * 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.)(as in the xJeffGordon24 incident.)
 * Random, misplaced programming for game that Bungie had put into it by accident such as "Player Throw Grenade", "Player Kill Player", etc.
 * Some hackers 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 peoples change in perception on them.
 * Deleted sections of game code which have correlated and caused a loop animation or related bug.
 * Bungie users somehow tapping into the players server to scare themor keep them from modding and cheating.

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 (assuming panicking) pushes the explosive barrel at the ghost. The barrel does not explode and the ghost sticks the player.

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 killable 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, however, it is still unknown why the 2 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 occured 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 occured on Coagulation and a few other Halo 2 maps, but are unconfirmed.

Ghost of Blackout

 * The Ghost of Blackout is an orange ghost, filmed on the map Blackout. It spawned at the base of the gravity lift. The ghost slided around like most ghosts do, but is still considered a False Ghost. It is considered a False ghost because it will still die like most players do. The ghost also seems to act very human-like, as if it was teasing the players. At one point in the video, a player started inching back as the ghost was a few feet away from him. As he was inching back, the ghost lunged at him and killed him. For this reason the ghost is thought to be a Bunie Employee that is toying with the players, and is therefore a False Ghost. However, this ghost could easily be a hoax.

Other Ghosts of Halo 3

 * There have been numerous accounts of Ghosts in Halo 3, though none have any evidence. Two major hotspots 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 and Lockout. 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, and strangely disappearing elephants that cause the game to glitch. These are most likely system glitches.

Minor ghost apperances occur on places such as Narrows, Foundry, Ghost Town, Construct, and any other Halo 3 maps, though these should be thought of as glitches and not ghosts.

Games

 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3

Related Links

 * Edgework Entertainments Forum
 * Ghost of Ascension