Real-life ghost stories anyone?

Strangers In The Night
or
Much Ado about…something???

Ahhhh, North Arlington, New Jersey! Home of, uhhh, home of, ummm, well I remember a pretty decent Stewarts Drive-In Stand, but my year living in N.A. was pretty unremarkable, except for one particular night…

About, I dunno, 7 or 8 years ago I was living upstairs in a Two Family Duplex with a roommate from a previous residence, Jim, and a buddy of Jim’s named Paul. Both were cool guys, and I regret losing touch with them, but I guess I’m just an outta touch kind of a guy. Oh well!

Jim worked midnights, so I rarely got to see him. Paul was a nine-to-fiver like myself.

I had been out late and having trouble sleeping, as sometimes happens when work stresses me. It was around 3 am (these things always seem to happen around 3 am, don’t they?) and I was lying in bed facing the wall, hoping my troubles would fade into the ether and let me do the same, when Paul walked into the room and stood next to my bed.

At least, I thought it was Paul (who else would it be?) except he didn’t say anything, he just stood there. Now, my back was to him, so I only kind of felt his presence. I’m not getting mystical here, but you really can just feel someone’s proximity, whether it’s body heat or subtle sounds or whatever you want to call it. Do you get my drift?

Well, if he wasn’t going to say anything I’d pretend I was asleep and make him wake me (Bad Larry), but as time ticked by, I started to increasingly worry that it wasn’t Paul or even Jim, so I kind of mentally clenched and prepared myself to spring if anything weird happened.

Of course, then something weird happened; he sat down on the bed next to me!

Hmmm, I thought, maybe it is Paul and there’s been some tragedy he needs to talk about? When nothing happened, I resolved to attack whoever it was with my pillow (now that’s clear thinking! ) and suddenly twisted, grabbed the pillow and flailed around the dark room, hitting nothing. I stood on the bed, turned on the light…

…only to find an empty room with a closed door – and yes it had stayed closed the whole time! WTF!?

Rattled, I opened the door to my room and peeked out. I spied Paul in his bedroom across the hall, sitting up in bed and staring at me with a funny look on his face.

“What just happened?” he said.

“I don’t know, nothing I guess" said I rather dubiously.

“Oh, okay,” said Paul, “because I thought I saw someone go into your room just now.”

PANIC!!!

We talked, we paced, we worried, and we agreed that neither of us believed (past tense) in ghosts, but damn, what the hell just happened here?

After a half hour or so the hubbub died down. The lights stayed on in the apartment all night, I curled up on the living room sofa and jumped at every little noise I heard. Paul went back to his room but kept the light on as well, if memory serves.

Jim wandered in around 6 am and wanted to know why I was sleeping on the couch.

“Well, we kind of had a visitor last night.” I said enigmatically, trying to figure how I was going to relate this tale without Practical Jim laughing at me and calling me a fool.

“Oh, you mean the ghost” he replied, matter-of-factly.

Another surge of adrenaline later, I stammered. “What, you knew about this!?”

“Yeah,” he said, “he’s been hanging around for a month or so. He’s pretty harmless, though, I think he just wants to talk. I first saw him out of the corner of my eyes lurking in the bushes outside, and when I approached him he was gone. Since then he’s been wandering the apartment. You should try talking to him.”

This was too much for me. Ridicule I could handle, but this matter-of-fact confirmation of something so extremely wrong staggered my fragile mind, yet oddly comforted me too. I figured this thing meant me no harm and had been around for awhile, so I was actually able to sleep (mostly) nights thereafter.

I never actually saw him, Jim only saw him the one time, but Jim and I both heard and felt him occasionally after that. I don’t know if Paul ever saw him after that first time, but he pretty much kept to himself.

Two months later I moved out, and lost touch with Jim and Paul.

Since I’ve started recounting this tale, I’m amazed at the otherwise practical-minded people who have told me similar stories.

My favorite story comes from my sister’s friend M______., who says that (if I remember this right) when she and her boyfriend were sleeping together at her grandmother’s house, the spirit of her disapproving departed grandfather actually dragged the boy out of bed by the ankles!

My mom also had middle of the night visitations; she would often wake up to see someone standing over her or watching her from across the room. One night, to do me one better, “he” climbed into bed next to her and lay down!

Plenty of you out there are snickering at this, and that’s fine because if I read this elsewhere I’d snicker and call you gullible or a liar. Hey, I don’t want to believe in ghosts, but I’ve got no choice, do I?

A very well told account, Groo, sent a chill down the spine as I read it. As for my spooky story, well, settle down and get a load of this...

Marley was dead; no wait, that's something Dickens wrote, right?

Actually, I do have a spooky tale of my own, but it really doesn't compare... I once had a brick dropped at me whilst at work, it was pushed off the top of a shelf that I was standing next to (the shelf being a foot taller than me), and skidded with unnatural force across the room - I would've put it down to someone playing an inappropriate prank (afterall bricks are easy to come by) but there was no one around who could've done it, plus the gap between the shelf and the ceiling was barely enough to fit the brick, let alone have someone climb up there and give it a hefty shove.

Most people who've been to, or worked in that room have felt an atmosphere, some have heard footsteps, and working in there when it's dark is an incredibly creepy experience.

Wow, interesting post. I dont really have any stories of my own to add but I have heard all kinds of things and I get really weird De'Javu moments all the time. My mother gets really weird feelings before or around the time she finds out someone in our family has passed away. She also had an old lady approach her once when she was a teen telling her about her first born. I dont remember the details but its weird because it would be about me since I am her first born.

Oh and I forgot to mention the time when she worked in the Museum of Art in Richmond, VA when they had the mummy exhibit and she was a night security officer. She remembered going to see the exhibit and there being a sort of flower odor. Alot of times she was wondering around the place and she would feel very alone. She said when the exhibit came through she remembers there being nights when she was in another part of the building completely different floor and she would smell flowers and such that they had used on the mummy's mummification. She said it was almost as if it were following her around.

I once had a brick dropped at me whilst at work, it was pushed off the top of a shelf that I was standing next to

WHOA!!! CREEEPY!!!

Maybe it was the ghost of IGNATZ (the mouse who plagued Krazy Kat by throwing bricks at him, not the monkey from The Venture)

She said when the exhibit came through she remembers there being nights when she was in another part of the building completely different floor and she would smell flowers and such that they had used on the mummy's mummification. She said it was almost as if it were following her around.

That's both Spooky AND Beautiful!!!

Perhaps there should be a new word for spooky & beautiful... Sbeauky? Spookiful?

I wouldn't be surprised if Ignatz, in either mouse or monkey form, had something to do with it, Groo :-)

Thats been my favorite of weird occurances that she has had.

good story groo...

I have quite a few similar of my own. I will just give the gist here...
As a child, a young woman died in our building suddenly died. My mom wanted her apartment, and we moved into it days after. Her name was Archie, and she was a nurse. She was with us the rest of the time we spent there. She moved things, threw things, moved curtains aside to look out, the rearranged them again. She wasn't shy in the least, and was no doubt irritated that we moved in on her. This went on for 3 yrs or so .

The next apartment was similarly enhanced, but the spirit there was nowhere near as friendly. Things were launched down the attic steps, there was a feeling of heaviness and dread up there. My sister and I were often home alone, but really didn't have much trouble accepting that spirit. Aside from the occasional times when the dread would sort of all into the whole house like a fog, and well.. the Ouija board was another story altogether.

The first home we bought had an elderly man there. He didn't like noisy toys, and he really didn't like the sound of my vacuum cleaner. He would always turn them off. He wandered around turning lights on and off randomly, and other harmless things. Sometimes in the summer my kids and I would be sitting outside in the evenings and telling stories and eating popcorn.. or watching a lunar eclipse or something.. and we would see the lights go on first downstairs , the stairway , the the second floor and finally the attic. Before long they would go off again backwards.

My daughter would speak of the man, but only she saw him.

My closest friend in this lifetime and others ( also named Mary) passed when we were 26. She had a damaged heart from rheumatic fever when she was 8, but had had a valve replacement done when we were 15, and was fine. Except the little rocker on the valve broke, and she died. I cannot tell you how devastated I was. One night soon after she came and sat on my bed to comfort me. Shortly after I had a night/dream/visit from her.

When my gram died .. my gram was my unfaulty door... when she died I was also devastated she passed only weeks before my friend Mary. She had loved me unconditionally all of my life. I was inconsolable . I had chosen an outfit for her to be buried in. It was a sheath type dress with a long jacket. Very gram, very pretty. I was a wreck, when she left me. When I chose her outfit, I happened to notice that the jacket was a size larger than the dress. I had a niggling worry that it was not going to work out. I never mentioned it to anyone. As it happened no one mentioned a problem. I was , as I said inconsolable. I had my 4 kids to take care of and they were small, it was 1981 when she and my friend passed. Soon after her death, after Mary had gone as well.. A neighbor of my gram called me to come to her. She was an older irish lady named May. She told me she had a message from my gram. When I got there she told me several things my gram wanted me to know about a will, about where she was and finally.. she told may that the most important thing to tell me was .... that everything was beautiful, wonderful and good.. except for one thing. Her dress was too tight. I had told no one this.

My fathers family is irish and somewhat fey, and it passes down, maybe that is why? The lighted ball that announces a death for instance, the knowings.
Just the usual sorts of things.

When my great aunt Mary died, she stopped by. I was on the phone with my neighbor. Suddenly there was a thundering pounding on all of my doors at once. Margie heard it over the phone. I was pretty sure it was my aunt. Not long after I learned she had indeed passes.

There are some other things, a lot actually, but I will stop here.

I'm not sure whether I've posted this story in Talk before, but I'll post it here. It is the one strange experience I've had that still makes me wonder even today. I was very young (18) and working at a place a couple hours away from my home. In order to be on time I had to wake at 4am and be out of the house before 5. My mom would wake every morning with me and make me breakfast and something to carry to work. On the morning in question, she was in the kitchen at the back of the house, and I was stretched out and snoozing on the couch in the living room nearer the front. It was dark outside still. Suddenly I heard a loud, shrill, piercing "whistle" sound from outside. It was very strange and unnatural sounding. Immediately without thinking I ran to the front door and peered outside for more than a minute, determined to see what had made the sound. I even put my hand on the door to unlock it and go out. After about 2 minutes I started to wonder why on earth I was staring into darkness at that hour of the morning trying to see god knows what, so I turned away and went off to get ready.

Just before I left the house about 40 minutes later, I asked my mom if she had heard the sound. To my surprise she said she had, but that it came from the back of the house. She said she had almost opened the back door to go outside and investigate before stopping herself and turning away. At that point we discussed how strange it seemed that I was sure it came from the front of the house, even somewhere on the street, whereas she would have sworn it emanated from the backyard. It was time for me to leave by then so I went off to work and thought noting more of the incident.

When I got home that afternoon, my mom greeted me with an incredible story. A friend of hers had called that day. The friend claimed that a renowned "witch doctor" in the area had died, and it was common knowledge that he had kept a sort of half human, half spirit creature at his house. The creature brought him luck and wealth so long as he fed and took care of it properly. Apparently, upon the "witch doctor's" death, it was said that the creature had escaped.

The caller cautioned my mom that the creature supposedly roamed the streets during the dark hours, and made a piercing whistle sound, which it used to lure people to it, even out of their houses. To hear the sound is to be summoned by it to some unknown fate. So goes the local superstition.
The story unnerved my mom, as it did me, because we both wondered if what we had heard was the whistle of the creature calling us to itself. The idea that we both almost stepped outside into the darkness, determined to see "the whistler", seemed to lend credence to the story.

Looking back on it now I still wonder what made that sound. I have never heard anything like it since. Maybe it was something perfectly natural, like some animal, and the story of the "witch doctor's" creature being abroad just coincidentally fit. Maybe not. I'm just glad we both kept our heads, and didn't actually unlock any doors and go outside that morning.

Wow, these are some interesting stories! I have never once had an experience of this type, so I don't have anything to share, but it's fascinating to read about.

I've had my fair share of encounters with one spirit in particular. At least I think it was just the one ghost...perhaps it was several, but all three instances happened in the tavern where I used to work. I live in a pretty historic Kansas town that helped give the state the name "Bloody Kansas". It was this town, Lawrence, KS, that was burned to the ground by William Quantrill in 1863. So, it's a fairly storied place to begin with.

Anyway, on the first occasion, I was working the bar on an early afternoon. I had just unlocked the backdoor, to let in any of my daytime regulars that might be waiting to get in. (I always unlocked the backdoor before the front, so I could serve up my regulars before the general public) One guy, Kevin, was waiting. I let him in, and he went to the bar and sat, waiting for me to follow and get him his usual. As he went to the front of the place, I walked into the bathrooms that were in the back of the tavern to see that we had toilet paper and paper towels and stuff for the business day, so he was a minute or so at the bar before I made my way in his direction.

Here's the weird part. As I walked past the storeroom off the hallway between the bathrooms and the main room of the tavern, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked quickly into the storeroom (we always kept the storeroom door open during the day shift, but the lights turned off). Several feet into the storeroom, I could see a figure backing slowly into the dark storeroom. It was dark in the room, but light from the hall spilled enough lumination into the room that I could see him, not clearly, but definitely see him. He was slowly backing away from me as I stood a few feet from the doorway. He was dressed all in black, a black suit, though it was an older style of suit. His attire remined me of how undertakers are portrayed in westerns. He had a beard, the type that civil war soldiers seem to wear in old photographs. His face was very stern or solemn or perhaps even sad. He looked straight at me, and continued to slowly back further into the dark room.

At first, I thought it was another customer. Perhaps Kevin had unlocked the front door for me, as he often did, and someone had come in while I was in the restrooms. Perhaps this customer, I thought, was making trouble or trying to steal something from the storage area. I stepped just into the room, and flipped on the light. In the instant that my eyes adjusted to the light, and focused on the figure, he was gone! I scanned the area, thinking that I must have been mistaken...that something had tricked my eyes...a coat or something hanging in the storeroom that I had mistaken for the shape of a man, but then the fear hit me...in what seemed a literal wave passing over me. I went cold...there was a definite frigid spot in the room that moved past (or through me), and there was a smell with it. It was some sort of chemical that reminded me of Biology class.

Anyway, I slowly made my way to the bar, and Kevin knew right away that something was wrong. He could see that I was genuinely scared. I unlocked the door to the public while I tried to explain what I had seen and felt. He searched the storeroom (I wasn't about to go back in there!) and he said there was nothing...no man, no coldness, and no Biology Class smell. We talked about it for an hour, all the while he tried to convince me that I was mistaken. He was a Lawrence citizen his whole life, and knew the building was nothing special. He said that the tavern was only 10 years old or so, and for the 100 years before that, it had been a music store. Why would a music store be haunted?

Well, a while later, the owner of the tavern came in, and without any prompting, Kevin said, "Jerry, Tell Dano that this place was a music store before it was a tavern." Jerry, the boss said, "Yeah, for nearly a hundred years, it was a music store, but before that, during the Civil War, it was a mortuary. A few of the guys who helped build the bar ten years ago said that they sometimes saw the ghostly mortician that smelled of formaldehyde.

I had trouble going into the storeroom for the rest of my time working there, and that was only the first (of three) run-ins with the Undertaker Ghost.

I have two minor stories. The first involves my grandmother's house, which I believe is truly haunted though I have never seen anything myself there.

When my aunt was a child she saw something there, and to this day will not talk about. She refuses to go inside, will not even crack open a door if no else is in there.

When my sister was a child she was in my aunt's old bedroom (at the house by herself), and ran out screaming. My dad who lived across the street heard her and rushed outside to ask her what was wrong. She said she had seen a boy who she at first assumed was our brother, and tried to talk to him until remembering that he had gone to work that morning.

Very soon after my aunt, the same one as above, got married her husband was in the yard at my grandmother's house, and saw a little girl with blond hair who he thought was my sister - at the time she was about 4- playing in the yard wearing a white dress. He didn't really think much of it until he went inside and saw that my sister was in fact asleep in the house. A couple of years later a woman was visiting my grandmother (I forget exactly who she was), and asked about the little girl she had seen playing in the yard. She described the girl as having blond hair and wearing a white dress. There was no way this lady had ever heard about the previous incident b/c she didn't know my uncle and my family doesn't talk about the incident, and she had originally just assumed that the girl was a cousin of ours that was visiting.

The second story actually does involve me. One night, there was a rainstorm that was causing the lights to flicker on and off (at my house across the street from my grandmothers), so my mom put a flashlight on the coffee table in front of me, just in case. Soon the electricity was out all together, so I reached for the flashlight. I felt all along the top of the table, which wasn't very big, but couldn't find it. I, my sister, and mother assumed it had fallen off the table and perhaps was on the floor - no flashlight. We searched at the base of the table, around the chair, pretty much all over the living room in case it had rolled. Nothing. So, as we were sitting there perplexed and more than a little annoyed that we couldn't find the thing, there was a sudden loud bang as if something had hit the table. More than a little scared, but still curious I felt down on the floor and there was that flashlight, right by my feet, in a spot we must have searched a million times.

One more note about my house, I never did experience anything else there that would make me think it was haunted and I never heard about anyone seeing anything there, but I did find out later after we had moved that my mom had called in a Catholic priest (my mother who is a conservative southern baptist) to bless the house years ago when me and my brother were babies. No one ever said why she did it, and she doesn't talk about it, but there certainly had to be a very good reason.

These are all awesome stories!

When I was working in the Australian Museum on work experience, when I was just about to go home one of the halls was empty and I heard footsteps from people who weren't there. I asked the assistant that was supervising me whether it had something to do with the display of the grave poles from an Aboriginal grave site, and he said he wouldn't be surprised if it was to do with that. He also said the museum has its fair share of ghosts because of the skeletons it houses in a gallery you can visit near the cafe. Most of them are animals but some are donated human skeletons.

I've had odd experiences, and one very terrifying, since I was a child - not so many any more now that I'm in my early 30s. So, I'll recount a few from when I was younger. This could get long...hm...

First off - my personal philosophy on such things: I believe in an afterlife, and I certainly believe in something 'bigger' than us. I believe that energy remains, and that some people are open to visits from the 'other' side - whatever/wherever that is (particularly younger people). As far as my own experiences go, there are some things that I'm not sure are genuinely 'visits' but perhaps were just events my fertile imagination created. But there are others that I just can't explain away.

One of these happened when I was 11. I'd gone to stay with a family friend for a week, out of town to Auckland, where I now live. This woman had an 8 year old daughter. The three of us took a ferry over to Waiheke Island - a lovely, calm island that was sparsely populated at the time. We stayed in a big, old house -run down for sure, but not creepy in any way. A few others kids were there as well. The girl, Rohan, and I slept in one room. We'd lain down to go to sleep, sharing a double bed. There was a tree outside the window, waving about in the wind. The room was dark with a faint light coming from a tiny hole in the wall that lead to another room (less than the size of a hole made with thumb and forefinger).

So there we are, two small girls, getting sleepy, when I guess Rohan and I both felt something - we raised our heads in one motion. I remember seeing her head come up as I looked over her back to the wall. There, on the wall (opposite to the one with the hole in it) were five human shadows. They were perfectly outlined - head, impression of ears, hands, fingers, legs, feet. The one in the middle was upside. All were moving in weird, dance-like motions, arms waving, twisting. I don't know how long we stared - I know we were transfixed, both of us. We were 'released' after half a minute, a minute (a long time to stare at weird human forms when you're 11 trust me) and both hid our heads under the blankets. When I summoned the courage to look up again they were gone.

I've tried rationalising it and failed each time - maybe it was the tree outside. But it can't have been. A tree's limbs can't form into five, solid, fleshed-out human shadows. There was no back light behind the trees and what's more - even if that were possible - those shadows wouldn't be there one moment and disappear the next. Trees don't do that.

Perhaps the other kids poked a camera of some sort into the hole in the wall, and projected them? Can't be that either - the hole was exactly opposite the Shadow Wall, and thus - any projected shadows would have fallen across the bed, and become elongated. These shadows were perfectly proportioned and entirely spread over one whole wall. Plus, it was the early 1980's and these were poor people. They certainly wouldn't have had the technology.

I've gone over this and over it. I can't account for it. Rohan and I never spoke of it. Not one word. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. And strange to think, now, of how we never talked about it.

My most terrifying experience follows. I grew up, as many of you guys have worked out by now heh, in a fairly shitty environment and if it's true that negative energy draws its like, then our house would have been an open door for anything nasty to come on in. It sure felt like it when I experienced what I did.

I used to read until the small hours when I was teenager (you're so right Groo - always 3am! Hehe) and that night wasn't an exception. I was around 14 and I had my kitty, Mottles, on the bed in a sleepy ball. I was engrossed in my book when Mottles sat straight up. Her hair stood up on end (which I had never seen happen before, nor since - not even during a cat fight) and she let out a low-throated growl. I grabbed her, trying to soothe her, and was rewarded with a struggling cat body, and two long scratches. She fled (I didn't have a door by the way, only a velvet curtain - poor hippy parents yanno) and I heard her scrabbling to get out of the window we left open for the cats.

She didn't come home for two days.

Immediately after she'd run off, and I sat in bed, alarmed, puzzled, I heard it. I can only say 'it' because I'm sure it was an it. I felt a presence I suppose - the air certainly thickened. My heart started hammering in fear, and then I heard breathing. Long, slow, harsh breaths - coming from the lounge outside my room. These breaths were between me and my mother although I know I wanted to run to her very badly. I don't know how long they went on, but I remember sitting bolt upright, staring at the velvet curtain, waiting for 'it' to come through. It sounds like something out of a cliched movie, I think, and yet - I had never felt so small, so defenseless, so afraid to breathe myself. As long as that breathing went on, I could barely breathe myself. It stopped eventually. My light stayed on all night, and I stayed awake. For the next two days I thought Mottles wasn't coming home at all.

I haven't tried to rationalise that experience too much, because it was so damned visceral, and real, I know it happened. In the days following I could see the scratches Mottles had given me - she who never scratched. I still wonder sometimes if 'it' might come back one day, or if 'it' was just passing through.

Whoa! That is VERY scary! You wonder if "IT" ay come back, are you living in the same house?

I am a believer of ghosts and am very interested in stories and TV shows on the subject. I find all these stories very cool!

My story is the only thing that I have ever had happen to me. One day, about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I was walking out of my downstairs bathroom. As soon as I opened the door I saw a young lady in a light colored dress with a high collar and puffy sleeves. She had light curly hair that was pulled up in the back in a bun. She had stepped into my living room from my foyer about 3 feet away from me. My bathroom opens up into my foyer, which is well lit with a very large window. My living room is also well lit. I don't believe it was shadow or light tricks on my eyes. I was home alone and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am very logical and not an 'emotional' female. I actually stood in my doorway with my hand on the doorknob for almost 10 minutes because I could not get the courage to step toward the living room. I have lived here for 14 years and have never had anything else happen to me.

My questionable story is one year while I was pregnant with my oldest, we went to a supposedly haunted mansion for Halloween tours and stories. While we were touring I saw a elderly woman dressed in a black dress with a little black hat and she was staring at me with a kind look on her face. I couldn't get the nerve up to talk to her or point her out to my companion. Now I wish I would have tried.

The only story I have is one of the houses I lived in when I first was married was haunted. Whenever you went into the basement to do anything you could hear people walking around in the house above you - even if you were alone. I don't remember how many times I would go back upstairs to see if anyone was there but it would just be me. Also, sometimes I could feel something jump up on the bed with me. If it kept jumping up and down I would tell it to stay still and then it quit.

No where near as spooky as some of the other stories, but this is what happened.

Woah...these are so spooky. I'm glad I'm reading these stories at 1 in the afternoon instead of at night, when I usually log on.

I've never had anything unusual happen to me, but I love hearing about other experiences.

These stories are fascinating and so well told! I've tried to find some non-ridiculous books of real-life ghost stories and they've frustrated me terribly.

Now, I'll share a story. It's a bit different from the rest here...

I grew up just outside New Orleans, a haunted city if there ever was one. As a child on various expeditions into the city, the bayou, and old plantations I was plenty to familiar with being frightened by places and feelings. Try being eight years old on a small boat in the middle of a bayou swamp and suddenly before you, peeking out from behind curtains of Spanish moss, a haphazard cemetery where a small settlement was destroyed by a hurricane decades ago and knowing that because of the nature of the swamp there are no bodies under those driftwood crosses. The point being that between institutional catholicism, vodou, the age of the city, and that we kept our dead above ground, unease was never hard to find.

That said, the neighborhood I lived in was newer, devoid of Spanish moss, and looming ancestors. The houses had been built in the seventies or later and, with the exception of the few undeveloped lots, our houses were well taken care of and neatly manicured. Except, of course, for one.

There was a house on the street over from mine that looked absolutely derelict. The outside was covered in painted, wooden trim - an unusual sight in a neighborhood of squat brick houses. And because of the humidity in the area, the swelling and contracting of the wood meant a lot of the paint had peeled off. The garage had a huge dent and a bit of a gash that you could peek through, as if someone had forgotten to open it and tried to drive through it anyway. The "landscaping" consisted of either overgrown or dead bushes and the lawn was kept mowed, but only, I found out later, because one of the next door neighbors had become so frustrated with it that they hard started to mow it along with their own lawn.

All this is to say, is that every kid who passed by or knew about that house, believed it was haunted because that is what we expected a haunted house would like. It was a source of constant fascination. We knew that a man lived there - there had been a few, but rare sightings by a couple of us. And there was one cat that was sometimes seen lurking around, but no one knew if it actually lived there. (Outside pet cats were quite common in the nighborhood.) And once, during a block party hosted by the neighbors who shared the back fence with them, we had gotten to peek over into the backyard and had discovered that it had gone completely native. The grass was three or four feet high and it was obvious no one had been out there or even thought about it for years and years. The neighbors, it turned out, had complained to the city about the swamp-like smell that emanated from it, but with little luck.

So of course, when we were playing truth or dare, the ultimate, scariest dares were always the ones that involved that house. Go look into the garage (an old car could be seen.) Go try to peek through the windows (heavily curtained but sometimes you could see the lights of a chandelier in one room.) Ring the doorbell and run. Or the ultimate dare I decided to take one day: ring the doorbell and wait until someone opened the door.

Being extremely susceptible to peer pressure, I knew I had to do it. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. And waited. And waited. As my anxiety built, I pleaded, no one was coming, come on guys. No, I had to ring it again. More waiting. Seriously, guys, no one's going to answer. One more time and as I was bringing my hand to the doorbell, we all heard it, a loud, not human sounding at all, voice coming from the upstairs, "Go away and don't come back! Go away! Go away and don't come back!"

We all split out of there so fast, screaming and stumbling over bikes, pale and scared to our bones. I don't even remember deciding to leave just noticing, once I was a couple blocks away, that I was still running.

It wasn't the yelling that was so scary, but the way it sounded. Garbled in a way that didn't sound human at all. Couldn't possibly be human. Because, as it turns out, it wasn't. How could I possibly know this? Let me explain.

I never did go back to that house. I even took to moving from the sidewalk to the street when I had to pass by it. I wanted nothing to do with it.

However, four or five years later, the man who did live there died (how anyone noticed is beyond me) and when they went into the house they discovered that he had removed every light fixture in the house. Not just the lightbulbs, but the fixtures themselves. Furthermore, he had removed the stairs that led to the upstairs of the house. Destroyed them. When they finally made it to the upstairs of the house, they found a large parrot, that lived loose in a room covered in newspapers and mixture of bird food and bird shit. (I can't remember whether the parrot was still alive when they found it.)

Suddenly, of course my "haunting" made perfect sense. The voice I heard was probably not human at all, but was probably the parrot. Of course, obviously that house was "haunted" but I think not by ghosts and more likely by untreated, severe mental illness and the man who was haunted by it.

Ghosts, of course, still fascinate me, but I have yet to have an experience that didn't turn out to be explained by something else.

*pulls up a chair*

Tell another story, twomoredays! I like your style!

I knew the exact moment my grandfather died?

So I feel compelled to leap in here with my first post on LT.

I'm a total skeptic, but I've had a few experiences I've never been able to explain.

One occured when I was 15. I had an extremely vivid dream about my grandmother. She said goodbye and told me it was time for her to go. I woke up thinking that I knew she was dead. The dream itself didn't make me sad, but thinking about it as I awoke did. I had this little superstitious thing that by thinking about it, I could make it happen. I dismissed it as just a troubling dream and made the mental note not to drink Mountain Dew before bedtime and went off to school.

When my dad met me at the bus stop that afternoon instead of my mom (we had to drive 10 miles to catch the bus) he said, "your Mom couldn't make it."

I said, "I suppose she had to go up north"

"She had to go up North" he said, and gave me a weird look.

"Uh-huh, because Grandma died," I said.

My dad was an oddly superstitious person very troubled by death/afterlife issues and I never saw such a strange look on his face as that moment, both stunned and frightened. I felt oddly confident in my answers and I don't know why. My aunt hadn't found my grandmother until about noon that day when she came to meet her for lunch. She had died sometime during the previous night. She wasn't ill, and had just died of heart failure in her sleep. There was absolutely no way for me to have known about her death until my dad told me.

I'm quite sure she came to say her goodbyes and found everyone else too deeply asleep to hear her.

#18 - I would say ghosts jumping up and down on your bed qualifies as spooky!

BTW, I want to stress that before my experience, I was obnoxiously skeptical about ghosts, didn't believe any stories told and figured people who beleive were either flighty, full-scale delusional, or lying.

Now I know better!

#20 - Great story, and a great lesson. Sometimes there really are unknowable but rational explanations out there.

Before I was born, a friend of my mother's committed suicide on her porch. He had gone over to her house looking for his girlfriend and was out of his mind yelling and banging on the doors and windows. At 2:01am he rang the doorbell and then shot himself in the head.

The next day the doorbell rang at 2:01am and when my mom looked out, no one was there. Now, everyone in the neighborhood knew what had happened, so she figured it was some sick prank. But for 11 years, the doorbell rang at 2:01am. My family tried everything. At one point, we had the doorbell re-wired and then replaced completely. We moved and rented the house to someone who complained about the doorbell ringing too. Some people would feel cold or the sensation of being watched while they were on our porch. A few people saw a shadow standing by the door.

One night my brother and my mother were out of town and my dad and I had come home fairly late and we locked the car and came in and locked the doors before going to bed. I am a bit obsessive/compulsive, so I tend to check the doors a few times. When we woke up in the morning, the front door was open, the back door was unlocked and all of the car doors were unlocked (this was in the old days, before automatic locks). I have a hard time explaining that one... unless one of us is a talented sleepwalker.

One day my mom changed the face of the doorbell… it was a fancy iron frame thing and she changed it to a plain square thing. That night the doorbell did not ring and all reports of a ghostly presence stopped as well.

Edited after taking typing lessons

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your stories. Very interesting. And, of course, spooky. Perfect for a damp, dark morning just before autumn is arriving. Makes me think about Halloween - my favorite holiday. Celebration of those who have shuffled on ahead of us.

Iv had a few creepy experiences myself...

Have to admit that I am a sceptic as to the truth behind EVERY story I hear, but I do believe in ghosts and spiritual phenomenon

I moved in with my aunt, uncle and grandmother when i started my university studies, as they lived in the same city as the university, and that = cheap board and free food.

My grand mother became very weak and frail after a bad fall that concussed her and caused a stroke. after that my aunt had to employ nursing assistants full time to look after her. One of these turned out to be a 'sangoma' (witch doctor for non-south africans), and after she came i was plauged by a feeling of ill-ease in the house.

I am a christian, and believe that God has given his followers dominion over demons and spirits... the bible also plainly warns us NOT to go medling with the spiritual forces, you will get burned! but that we are given power to command evil spirits to leave in Jesus name.

BTW what I say following here may sound far off or wierd to those of you who dont have any familiarity with 'spiritual warfare' but here go's...

I noticed that the feelings of dread only came when she entered the house, and left when her shift ended and she went home... so I proceeded to 'seal' my room, pleading the blood of Christ to protect that space that was mine from whatever she was bringing intop the house, after that, my room was the only place in the house that felt safe, but things got progressivly worse...

Picture this, my aunt and uncle have gone to bed, its only 9:30 in the evening, so i wander off to the kitchen to get a cuppa before I turn in, waiting for the kettle to boil, I get a cold prickle on the back of my neck like Im being watched, and turn around to find the biggest black dog in all creation snarling at me, ugly, matted, gaunt, hideous thing with yellow eyes...

I went ice cold, it stood almost chest height to me at the shoulders, i was scared sh#tless! i remember freezing for a moment just staring at it, then praying out loud 'Dear God please help me...' Then I comanded it in Jesus name to leave and it just dissapeared... I dont think I touched grown until I slammed my bedroom door behind me!

Went through the whole house the next day with red wine, course salt and my bible... didnt rear its head again for a few monthes but i did see it a few times after that, but always out of the corner of my eye skulking behind the furniture, or dissapearing into the next room, and I always rebuked it when I sensed it.

The worst part is that my aunt didnt believe me, they all thought that this nurse was the best thing since sliced bread, and that i had a touch of the sun! Between myself my mother and a few people in our church we prayed for half a year to get her out of the house as my aunt refused to fire her, she got pregnant, went on maternity leave and never came back... took her cur with her... Thank you God!

Came out later via the other workers in the house that she had known that I 'resisted her powers' and had tried to curse the house or the people in it, without success... HA! Thank you God in all His glory!

The only kind of experiences I've had is dreaming about my Dad's mom a few times after she passed. I would say hi to her and she would look at me and just smile.

My Mom, on the other hand, has had a number of experiences.

I'm born and raised in WV, but my Mom is from Milwaukee, WI. She moved here to be with my dad.
Her dad died almost exactly a year before I was born.
Before he passed away, Mom was supposed to make a trip up to visit her parents, but her car needed fixed & my Dad was supposed to fix it. Mom was literally harassing Dad to fix her car so she could leave, because she HAD to go visit her parents. She pushed him for about 2 weeks to fix her car. The day he finally started fixing it she told him, never mind, there's no hurry, now.
She found out either that night or the next day that her father had a massive heart attack and died instantly.
She had 2 or 3 dreams afterward, where her dad came to her and told her not to worry too much, because he was fine and he was watching over her.

I used to babysit for a kid who saw demons all of the time. One night he woke up screaming and I ran into his room. Has was pointing to the foot of his bed and said, "there was a demon sitting right there!" I looked at the spot where he pointed and there was a clear imprint as if somone had been sitting on his bed and recently gotten up. I touched the spot and it was hot to the touch. He and I were the only two people in the house at the time and I had been in the room next to him keeping an eye on him, he hadn't gotten up and he certainly hadn't been sitting in that spot.

wow

that one is creepy, january...do you still know him?

Yeah, he saw demons until he was about 12 years old. His parents said that strange things happened around their house all of the time (this they told me after I was their babysitter). Objects would fall close to him nearly hitting him, door would open and close when he walked in or out of rooms, and his toys would be found in strange places. Some time after he turned 12 it all stopped. He's a regular, average college student now. He says that he remembers seeing them, and he thought they were real at the time, but now he doubts it. His mother says that she really believes that the demons were real.

Edited because my brain works faster than my fingers

I worked night shift for a few years in a cardiac telemetry unit and we had some pretty sick patients. One night an elderly woman started crying and screaming about the man in her room. She was in a private room next to the nurse's station so we knew that no one had been in her room. We tried our best to reassure her and eventually I just sat with her in her room. When she started to drift off I pulled the door closed so the noise and the light wouldn't bother her. All of a sudden she screamed and was pointing to the corner of her room begging the man to get away from her. It was her stupid balloons that her family brought in for her. I put them in the bathroom and she slept the rest of the night. She scared me so bad.

I've hesitated to write this because, somehow, if I do it makes it more real.

I'm currently at my mom's helping her through her illness. For years, my oldest son and my brother have jokingly talked about noises and other things in her house. Just a few nights after being here, I could have sworn I heard someone call my name. It was clear as day. I checked on my mom and she was asleep. A couple of nights later I was reading in bed and heard my name again. This time is was like a whisper right in my ear. I jumped out of bed and sat up the rest of the night watching television and shaking. By morning I had convinced myself that I had drifted off to sleep and was dreaming. I'm still hanging on to that explanation.

A few nights ago I woke up with the feeling that someone was pulling on my leg. I actually felt something on my foot and thought maybe my mom was trying to wake me up. No one was there. There have been several occasions that I just "felt" someone there and even thought someone touched me.

I decided that I'd mention it to my mom. I didn't want to scare her, but this was really getting to me. She just nodded her head and said, "Yes, I feel touches frequently on my arms and legs." That was it. Nothing like "oh don't worry, you're just dreaming" which I desperately wanted to hear. She also has thought she heard her name mentioned from time to time, but decided she was dreaming.

My brother has restored the original farm house and lives there with his family. There is a situation involving his home where my son at 3 (he's 26 now) talked to "that nice lady" in the corner of the house. Twenty years later, my brother's son also talked to and took a doll to "the lady that stays in the chair." This happened in the same room, the same corner, of the same house. My son and my nephew both talked very early and spoke in phrases much earlier than their peers. There was no doubt of what they were saying. My youngest son never spoke of the lady, but he has never liked to go in that house by himself. Even to this day (and he's 24) he is very uncomfortable in the house if he's by himself.

My brother's home and my mom's are both on the family farm. I grew up in and around both homes. I never experienced anything like this at a younger age. There were times when I thought I saw things out of the corner of my eye, but that was it. I remember thinking I saw a white dog in our yard many times when I was younger, but when I looked around there would be nothing there. Strange.

Some of the stories above are much scarier than mine! Seeing demons? That is not only scary, but must have been deeply disturbing for the people who experienced it.

Now that I've scared myself to death, I think I'll get ready to go to church.

But why are you afraid? Benevolent spirits are there it seems...
enjoy it and ask them if you can help them in some way. Most likely they had a home there at one time, and are no more a danger than you are..

hugs

k

eta and remember, if there are spirits there they are there because of the same creator that you went to church to worship, right?

I only have one unequivocally spooky experience.

The Law school at my undergrad university was an old and imposing building, ivy-covered and proud of itself with a bit of a reputation as these things do at universities. One night a friend and I went with my girlfriend to pick up some stuff from her office. It was gone closing-time and there were only security-guards on campus, she unlocked the door, turned off the alarm and on the lights and headed in while my friend and I waited outside. After we had been waiting for what felt like some time the lights suddenly went off and the door opened but she didn't come out. So I went up to the door and stepped into the hallway but she was nowhere to be seen and all was heavy oppressive silence. Maybe a minute or so later I heard her hurried footsteps echoing through the corridors as she rushed up to the door and demanded why I had turned the lights out on her and if we had been calling out. Both of which I of course strenuousy and truthfully denied. Needless to say we locked up and got out of there.
Normally I woud dismiss this, electrics are unreliable- indeed they regularly went unexpectedly off and on in that building -and sometimes wind and the creaking of old buildings sound peculiarly human in the dead of the night but the door was another matter. It was a huge heavy door, 8ft tall as thick as my fist and latched shut. I heard the catch click when she shut it behind her and from experience I know I actually had to put effort into opening it which is why they kept it open while the law school was actually open.
I never could walk through the corridors there unless they were full of students without feel uneasy again.

Of more dubious nature I have otherwise been places where I've felt presences but not so clearly as to place. I have also heard people call my name, seen shadows where there should be none and had my dead mother appear to me but sadly I'm more inclined to put those down to a less-than-stable mind aka over-emotional aka delusional aka perfectly normal.

#34 mckait - I'm not really as scared as I made that sound. It has been a bit unsettling, but not anything that feels threatening in any way.

I can't say I've ever had anything like any of these around. I'm naturally skeptical, though, so I'd probably dismiss anything straight away as stupidity. Of course, I've always lived in new neighbourhoods as the first people to live in the houses - no one's ever died in or near the houses or anything like that. One of my friends, despite being a skeptic, has always wanted to take the Canberra ghost tour. She works at Lanyon - one of the oldest buildings around Canberra (only about 140 years old, but for Canberra, that's ancient). She's never seen it, but there's apparently a something or other that wanders around the master bedroom at night.

@36 - Georgia, if it's any comfort, since you seem a little freaked out, there's scientific explanation for both the name calling, and touches.

It's quite a common neurological phenomenon to hear your name called out. Tried to find the name of it, if it has a name, but to no avail. However, I remember reading an article on it: you hear your name called out sharply, usually from one 'side' - when mine is 'called' it always seems to come from the right side for example. (Just last night I heard hubby call out 'honey' even though he wasn't in the room, and I had earplugs in). It often happens when you're tired, getting ready to sleep etc. Just asked hubby and he says it usually happens when he's in bed, like it does for me. I notice you said it was night time both times it happened to you.

Touching - all kinds of neurological reasons behind that too. Do a google search for 'sensory experience' as a start.

Of course, these might not apply to your experiences at all, however I'm inclined to think - especially the name calling, which is so very common - that it does.

Very interesting! I'll look it up!

Will... of course someone has lived there before... this is an old old world...

Georgia... with all due respect to Severn whom I love...
Nothing is impossible, but having been a roommate of spirits in the past, it may be that as well.

When I worked at the vet clinic, it was inhabited. There was a voice that didn't call names very often but did speak out. Even clients heard it. There were footsteps when alone and doors opening or closing. One memorable time, a staff member who could go on and on when talking was pelted with packages of crackers from across the room. This happened in front of a drug rep who suddenly remembered an urgent appt.

Not to mention that a friend who is a psychic and a good one, I have to say from experience, can also see spirits.... more on that some other time..

I find it interesting that things often happen when we are tired or just falling asleep. I wonder if it has something to do with your defenses being down or your mind's ability to mess with you. Maybe that is why most of the creepy things happen at night. Or maybe there is too much noise and light during the day or your mind has better things to do.

Children also seem to see and hear more creepy things around than adults do, but they aren't always creeped out about it. The kid I knew who saw the demons, he acted like they were the most normal things in the world. He told me that the olny time they really freaked him out was when they got close to him and he was afraid that they might hurt him.

I work in mental health and I am always curious about where the supernatural meets psychology.

Heh, don't worry Kath, I haven't defected to the side of the skeptics. :)

It might just be a comforting spirit, no reason why not!

@41 - I agree with you about children. Although I have seen and heard things as an adult, I encountered more as a child. I, too, am curious about that same topic....

I was thinking about this thread this morning while talking to one of my sons.

When I was living in the house with Archie, we had a huge problem with water bugs in the basement. Then people moved in upstairs and brought ( shudder) roaches. My life was a nightmare, scalding dishes before using them, finding bugs all over... nightmare... seriously. Never had a qualm about the non corporeal Archie. but the bugs were another story indeed.

eta

I would never doubt you severn! lol

I think I'd rather have ghosts than bugs... bugs freak me out, I think I could get used to ghosts.

Last night my mom said that in the middle of the night the TV in the Living Room turned itself on with the volume BLARING! Woke her up right quick, LOL (Yes, she lives alone).

I haven't yet read all the posts in here but know that I will be returning often.

I lived in a place in Swampscott Ma where the tv and lights and things went on and off all the time.. or changed channels..

I kinda miss having company here......this house has had a visit or two but no resident spirits

As a child I had experience many unexplainable things. My parents had warned me to keep quiet about it, in fear "they" might take me away. In our household it was considered normal but outside the home I was hushed. My parents passed away in 2005 and for the first time I have started telling my story.

I always thought myself as an outcast, different, strange, never a part of the real world. I read all the stories above, with tears in my eyes. I was never really alone. I now know that there are so many that have had the same experiences as I have, too many to mention.

As an adult there have been some things that have happened that are unexplainable but not as strong as what I had experienced as a child.

Being an only child I never felt I was alone. Sometimes as an adult, with friends and family around, I feel I more alone now than I was as an only child.. I feel that "the spirit", "ghost", or what ever it was is not there with me all the time. I miss "it" more than I have ever missed anything.

I have everyone here to thank for sharing their stories and making me feel that I was not so strange afterall.

Welcome Jack, great to have ya!

I was at the library all morning helping out. Just as we were getting ready to leave, my mother and I both heard what we thought were pages turning in a book. I was putting the last few books back on shelves and I heard pages turning several times. We were ready to lock up so I went to the area where we heard the noise coming from to let the patron know it was time to lock up. Yep, you guessed it, no one was there. There was a book on the table, but no one was in the library except us. It's a very small library so it's easy to hear people and also easy to check to see who is there. My mom said they hear something like pages turning all the time when no patrons are left in the library. It was not the air conditioning and there was no breeze outside to brush bushes against the window. She was not concerned a bit and told me to leave the book on the table.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm being followed! :)

Well If you are georgia. at least it is a spirit who reads :)

When I did my postgrad studies in Cape Town, the collection where I worked was in an elderly, crowded but pretty solid building. As all postgrads do, I spent a lot of time there evenings (in those days computing was on the Uni. mainframe, and a job that would now take a few seconds would run for several hours and so had to be booked at night). The place had been run for many years by an old dear who died at the age of 94, not many years before I started my M. It was quite common to hear her rustling around elsewhere in the building, opening cupboards and (mercifully) putting specimens back where she found them. So I developed the habit of taking a radio to my bay in the evenings to mask the sounds she made ... and quite often left it on in my bay when I went downstairs to consult the library. Even then one didn't waste electricity by turning on more lights than were necessary, so on more than one occasion I came to the dark at the top of the stairs ...

... (sorry fleela)

...

...

there were VOICES in the gloom in front of me

...

It was the radio in my bay.

OMG, Groo!! As I was reading your very first story in post #1, shivers went down my spine and I shook all over. And I'm not even that much of a scaredy cat! :S And it's daylight here! (Edit: it's now 10:25 pm here. I had to save this post in a .txt file for later. So now it's the perfect time to keep on reading, I guess! :P)

I do believe in ghosts. But I'm not afraid of them. Well, I haven't actually seen any or had any kind of supernatural experience that I can remember, so... maybe that's why I say they don't scare me. :P

Hmmm... well, I don't know if this is supernatural or not: my dad died 3 and a half years ago. And a few days after he died, I dreamt about him. He was an architect and he worked from home, had a home office, complete with a drafting table and all. And in my dream, I was sitting in his chair at that table, going through his address book, and he was standing beside me, giving me advice, saying "here are the addresses and phone numbers of all the people who can help you and your mom and sisters now that I'm gone," and instructions like that. And my dad had such a peaceful, sweet smile on his face. And he kept saying "Look! I can walk OK now! I feel fine!" and smiling. (He had a herniated disc on his spine, which was very, very painful, and it had troubled him for months, to the point of not being able to walk or sit straight, he lost A LOT of weight in his final months – he was such a huge man, rotund and robust, 6 ft tall and I don't know how many pounds on him –. And a month before he died, he'd had surgery to correct the condition – actually, he went into the operating room on my birthday –, and it was a success – such a nice birthday present, that my dad came out OK :) –... but on the day he returned home, a month later, well, he died on his sleep, on his bed that morning.)

And then, in my dream, after smiling at me, and comforting me, he started to climb up, up towards the heavens. And I know this sounds silly, but yeah, he was full of light, flying up towards heaven like an angel. (Probably vestiges of my own Catholic upbringing, obviously, but nonetheless...) I woke up crying, but at peace.

I have dreamt of him again after that first dream, once or twice. But I don't remmeber those as vividly.

#21 *pulls up a chair besides cal8769 and waits for more stories* (You guys are amazing at telling stories, ya know?)

# 53 Delirium9 Your ability to tell your story is awsome too.

yes... that is a beautiful story, and most likely it was your dad... so I believe..

I believe it too.

Awww, thank you :)

Yeah, I also believe he was. That dream was very powerful, and it was obvious he was saying goodbye... I hadn't been able to say goodbye properly. :( The last day I saw him, it was on New Year's Day 2005. He was still at the hospital and it was very, very painful to see him there, seeing just the shell he had become, like a very pale imitation of who he used to be. :( And he died six days later, on January 7th. He had come home the night before (I was already living on my own back then), and I didn't go visit him. I'll always chide myself for that. Then again, I like to remember him on the last day he was home before the hospital. That was a happy day, so I treasure it like my last day with him.

Sorry for getting too emotional. I'll stop now.

No need to stop.

I lost my father Feb 4 2005, then my mother June 27 2005. It was the first time that I had experienced someone's death close up and personal.

There are always regrets. Always something one thinks they should have done or said.

My mother was in a nursing home at the time. She didn't take the death of my father well. A few days, even maybe a week later, she asked me if I was sure papa was dead?

Many unexplainalbe things have happen in our home and our surroundings ever since I was a child. She told me that she saw my dad standing at the head of her bed, probably on a stool, because he seemed taller. He said that he had come to say good-bye and he was sorry that he wasn't going to be there for her anymore, but you still have Jackie (tha'ts me).

My mothers never did get use to ghosts and such, and told him that he was dead and she is alright and to just leave because he was making her think that she is going crazy.

While she told me the story she asked if she was going crazy. I assured her that she wasn't and that it was dad saying good-bye. Convincing her that she won't see him again.

And she never did.

I had this not so creepy presence in my room which was a girl's voice, asking me to come and play with her. I think I know why I've been dreaming about a daughter I don't have now. This spirit girl thinks I'm a sort of father to her, and she wants me to play with her because she thinks I'm lonely. A dream after drinking two glasses of milk and a headful of Man and His Symbols helped me sort it out.

Whoever this spirit girl is, she's not trying to eat my soul, but my golden rule is never talk to dead people who don't talk to you first. Which is why this spirit girl keeps approaching me in my sleep instead of me trying to talk to her through unholy methods.

I don't have any ghostly visitations to report - although I believe they are real. But I do get signs from Lee once in awhile. We had a running joke about yellow-headed blackbirds. He always claimed there was no such thing, and that I was imagining my sightings. Now I see them all the time, and I can imagine him laughing.

One day better than a year after he died, I locked my keys in the pickup while at my nephew's house. Daniel tried and tried to jimmy open the door, and failed. I remembered that sometimes Lee would put an extra key under the back license plate, so Daniel went to look. And there, just lieing loose on the back bumper, was a key to the pickup. How did it get there? And if Lee put it there, how did it stay for more than a year before I needed it? I drive lots of bumpy gravel roads. He looks after me, I am sure.

Oh, and just last week I found the pig nose!

Merry, what a sweet story :}

erm

pigs nose?

Not my ghost story but one I noticed in the news recently. Here is the link to the video:

http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=697383

I think it's pretty spooky.

One year the guy taking school pictures whipped out a plastic strap-on pig nose when he was taking Lee's picture. He laughed so hard the guy let him keep it.

Lee had a nasty habit of appearing out of nowhere wearing it, for no reason in particular - except to scare the pee out of me and make me laugh. He and I shared a good laugh last week when I found it again.

aww Merry~ I am so glad he is still making you laugh... clearly you loved each other a lot. That matters.

I think I may have accidentally adopted the ghost girl who's haunting my dreams. Now the dreams are a lot easier to deal with, don't wake up crying anymore.

Call her Maya...

#53 - I'm waaaay behind in reading posts and am sorry I didn't see this sooner. What a touching story, sounds like you really lovd your Dad a lot and miss him. (((((((HUGS DELIRIUM)))))))

#59 -That's actually very sweet. I like the idea that oyu are this spirit's father figure.

#60 - Sounds like Lee to me!!!

Remember the recent post about my Mom's TV going on? (#45). Well, she lives alone, but recently found a pic of my late grandmother and her late husband on the shelf outside the credenza, it HAD been INSIDE the credenza. She had no guests, no visitors, no cleaning people or anything like that.

Cool!

TA I keep wondering if this is not past life dreaming.. perhaps you were her dad, last time you were here?

#59: That's sweet, TA. As mckait said, I also think it may be that you were related to her in another life. I do believe in reincarnation. Don't you?

#60 & 63: Mary, that's so sweet! I believe love that is so strong can transcend all barriers, even from this earthly plane of existence through whatever else is out there... And I love reading stories about your life with Lee, they're inspiring to me, because that's the kind of love I wish to share with someone some day... :)

#66 Thanks, Groo! :)
Ohhh, perhaps they're trying to tell your mom something?

I think Groo's mom is experiencing reassurances..visits, whatever you might call them. Just being told she is still cared for.

@Peeps who think my situation is sweet:

Let's just say I now know why I have such empathy for unusual people like Eminem in Haley's Song when he sings about how much his daughter means to him, and when Sweeney Todd thinks he'll never hug his girl to him again...

Here's a not-so-sweet story. My mom is a retired UPS driver and this happened to one of her customers.

My mom delivered packages to a young woman who worked out of her home. The young woman was new to the neighborhood when my mom noticed that she was looking more and more weary. One day my mom asked her why she was looking so tired and the woman abruptly replied, “I haven’t been sleeping very well.” The young woman was typically very sweet and talkative, so my mom got curious. Over the course of the following three weeks, my mom (the inquisitive and talkative person that she is) learned why the young woman was suffering from insomnia.
Every night, several times a night, she heard loud heavy foot steps running up and down the stairs and what sounded like fists beating on the walls.

The young woman had looked up the history of her house on the internet and learned that a man had been shot to death by police after a day-long negotiation with him. It turns out that the man had kidnapped a 7 year-old girl and kept her locked under the stairs. At night he would stomp on the stairs and bang on the walls to torment her. After months of this treatment, he killed her. Neighbors had alerted the police regarding the noises they’d heard coming from the house at night, but police had no recourse until a detective connected the man to the missing child.

In the month following the young woman’s telling of this ghastly story, the woman hired a priest to perform an exorcism and a blessing on the house. After the exorcism, the house got very cold and my mom says that even at the door you could feel a negative presence. The young woman said that objects would suddenly fly across the room, doors and cabinets would open and close, and electronic appliances would turn on and off on their own. Sometimes knives or heavy objects would fly directly at the young woman almost as if they were thrown at her.

She called the priest and asked him to come back. The priest walked in the door and said, “I exorcized the wrong ghost.” He has exorcized the spirit of the little girl! The murdering madman’s ghost was still in the home and he was angry. The priest performed a second exorcism and all the strange happenings suddenly stopped except the cold. The house was always cold. In the dead of summer, the house felt like a crypt. The young woman left less than a year of moving into the place saying that she could not stand the negative energy in the house any more.

Wow, that is so creepy!

Well, Norman was always one to watch TV in the middle of the night, so I believe it just may be him visiting. Mom is depressed right now, feeling cut off from the family, and we just don't get to visit as much as we'd like, so I think Norman is keeping her company.

Depending on how car repairs go, I hope to go down and visit her one of the next couple of weekends.

I find the stories behind ghosts are often more interesting than the ghosts themselves.

mrgrooism - I hope you'll be able to visit soon. Your Mom's feeling cut off is so sad. I hope you can help her figure out something new to do so she can shake off the depression. Getting older, feeling cut off, being depressed - a very hard combination. And in my opinion, may feel very hopeless, too. I am hoping this is not the case with your Mom.

Wow, how did *I* miss this thread? I may have something more for you guys on this after this coming weekend. We'll be spending a little time in the Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone, AZ on Saturday. :D

In the meantime, I've got a good story from another place we investigated a couple of months back.

There's this bed and breakfast place up in the Lake Arrowhead. The lady told us a story about a reclusive gentleman who stayed there one time because he had to be up there for a family reunion. He was such a recluse that he insisted he be able to check in before anybody else that weekend so he could avoid the crowd.

The owner gave him his key to the last room left open in the place...of course, this is/was the most active room in the building with a notoriously mischievous spirit. So the guy checks in and is given instructions on how to use the keys and when (the front door key is different than the room key) and he goes up to his room. Later, he comes back down and stands at the counter, looking uncomfortably at the rest of the renters that have gathered and are having a good time in the main room. The owner asks if she can help him and he asks for his keys again. She says she gave him the keys...remember when I showed you which to use and all that? He insists he has no keys, so she gives him her maid's key, figuring they'd find the others at some point.

In the morning, the owner comes down stairs to find the maid's keys on the front counter and the guest had left without a word.

A couple of weeks later, the owner receives a small package in the mail from the gentleman who politely states that her place is wonderful and she's a lovely lady, but he'll never stay in that place again. With the note were the room keys that he found hanging on the tab that adjusts the head rest of his car seat after he had parked the car at home.

Gotta luv ghost stories...Thanks for shaing that one kawika. I just started reading The Big Book of Canadaian Ghost Stories by John Robert Columbo. I just can't get enough of these stories. You sound like you might be interested in reading this book.

I enjoy these stories too...hope more are forthcoming!

Wow, the Birdcage! I have heard a lot of spooky stories from there!

I didn't want to say anything but I have a story in the above book that I mentioned. Page 505 if you want to know lol

That's cool. I will have to look for it.

My first, anything, ever published anything. I was shocked that he wanted my story and wanted another one for next year. It is truly exciting to finally be able to talk about what happened in my past.

It's something to be proud of. I can imagine your excitement. I'll be excited to find it.

I wish I could give you a discount

wow! that's great! published!

Amazing actually. My son was always the writers in the family. I am not much of a writer but I have the stories.

It must feel really good!

You should now start to write your own book..
seriously~

I have enough incidences to be able to do that but dont' know where to start.

I am also only now discovering this thread. I haven't met any actual ghosts, but I did get scared out of my wits a couple of times.

One that sticks out: I used to live in an apartment that I shared with three other roomies. One night, I had stayed up late catching up on my Netflix rentals and had just finished up watching Gothika. The movie ended around 2 a.m. Of course, I'd been watching it in the dark. For those who haven't seen it, I won't give anything away, but it is very dark, very intense, and very disturbing. And, of course, it involves a ghost of sorts.

So, I was pretty keyed up as I turned off the TV and attempted to go to sleep. I had just laid down in my bed, which was positioned under one of two windows in my room. As I shut my eyes, I heard the window right next to me start rattling. To be more specific, I heard the screen outside of my window rattling as if something was thumping up against it.

It was not windy. It was not raining. A truck had not passed by. Still, there must be a perfectly good reason why my window is rattling at 2 a.m., right?

Well, my room was on the second floor of a building that was just inches away from the neighboring one-story. My bedroom windows looked out onto the gently sloping roof of said building, meaning that it wasn't inconceivable for someone to be sitting on the roof next door with easy access to my window. And so here I am, at 2 a.m., after watching a scary movie and there is something on the other side of my window apparently trying to get in.

I am sitting straight up at this point, contemplating my options:

1) Ignore the noise. Maybe it will just go away (or maybe they/it'll find their way in)

2) Run and grab one of my roommates. I think only one of them was at home at the time, fast asleep. I was terrified by what was at my window, but I would also be the laughing stock if I woke him up to check out the scary noise and it turned out to be nothing.

3) Open my blinds and see what's out there.

Option 1 wasn't a consideration, since I was relatively certain that my window was unlocked.

I let my pride get in the way of Option 2. If it was something, hopefully I would have enough time to run screaming into the roomie's room.

So I went for the full dramatic effect and instead of merely peaking out the blinds, I decided to use the element of surprise and tugged at the cord to lift the blinds in as fast a motion as I could manage. Maybe my swift movement would surprise the would-be intruder into a tumble off the roof next door.

I jerked up the blinds and saw ... it was a bat. A bat that was throwing itself at my screen over and over and over. After a few moments, it just flew away.

The logical portion of my brain is telling me that it had trapped some bug there and was trying to finish it off. The keyed up, spooked side keeps reminding the rational side that bats had never been seen around the apartment building/neighborhood before and I never saw another one.

I'm sure it truly was just an amazingly coincidental confluence of circumstances that would lead a bat to my window at 2 a.m. on the night I watched such a disturbing movie, but I've never felt my heart beat so fast! It took quite a while longer before I could fall asleep that night.

I have another story, but perhaps it's for another thread. It's not ghostly in nature, but it is scary!

Edited to fix typo

Scary works for me. I would love to hear it. Enjoy the one I just read.

You got it, #91. Hope to type it up tonight (I'm at work now).

super

Okay, scary story #2:

This was back in college. My roommate, Barb, and I were asleep, lights out. It was about 3 a.m.

We had our beds bunked: I was in the bottom bunk and she was up top. Or so I thought. I woke up when I heard the latch of our door click open. Then I heard someone walk into our room.

This didn't alarm me. Barb was always getting up in the middle of the night to use the ladies room across the hall. I figured I hadn't woken up when she left, and now here she was coming back in.

I cracked an eyelid. A figure shuffled into the room. The light coming in from the hallway showed them completely cloaked in a thick blanket.

I was pretty groggy. My sleepy brain assumed Barb was cold and she had wrapped up in her comforter to stay warm.

The figure moved into the room and bumped into a floor fan that was directly across from my bed, about three feet away. Then the figure turned around and walked back out of the room, closing the door.

I thought Barb was acting pretty strange, but I was really too sleepy to care. I shut my eyes again.

Then I heard the mattress above me shift. I looked up and Barb was peering over the edge of her bed looking back at me. She'd been in the room the whole time.

Someone had come in, but it wasn't her.

I was out of bed in a flash. Barb, pretty groggy herself, just flopped back down in her bed.

I ran to the door yelling, "Barb! Wake up! Someone was just in the room! Where's your baseball bat?" I grabbed hold of the doorknob to lock it.

The knob started turning in my hand. Someone on the other side was trying to open it. I managed to engage the lock before the door opened.

"Barb! Someone's trying to get in -- WAKE UP!"

Barb finally came to her senses. I ran to my phone and called the front desk of our dorm while she waited by the door, listening for anyone out in the hallway. I yelled a hundred words a minute into the phone when the desk clerk answered: "MyroommateandIwereasleepandsomeonecameintoour roomandthenleftand THEY JUST TRIED TO GET BACK IN!"

The desk clerk tried to calm me down: "Okay, okay, it's cool..."

I cut him off: "No it's not f***in cool, someone was just in our room!"

The clerk made sure we had locked our door and then told us he would call campus police to search the building.

Barb and I were wide awake now and heard the door from the lobby open and a bunch of footsteps. We knew no one was getting back in the room, so we eventually calmed down enough to go back to bed.

The next day, we learned what had happened. One of the girls two floors up had her boyfriend over and both had been drinking. He left her room to use the men's room and was too drunk to find his way back. He got lost and was walking around the building trying every door until he found her room again. Most of the dorm rooms were locked, fortunately, but we hadn't locked our door that night.

The reason he appeared to be cloaked was because he was wearing nothing but his girlfriend's flowered comforter. The police found him around the corner from our room, chatting with a girl down the hall whose room he had also entered, but she had still been awake and had her wits about her. She was trying to figure out who his girlfriend was to try and point him in the right direction when the police showed up.

So, not a ghost, but certainly had me freaked out at the time!

pesky typo

I enjoyed your story very much. I do believe that I would be as frightened not more frightened that you. I think I would rather have my visitor in the room with me than a stranger wearing a flowered comforter. I am glad it turned out the way it did.

Thanks, callmejacx! I'm glad it didn't turn out worse. I've heard of similar stories where drunk college students walk into other dorm rooms thinking they have found the bathroom and the results have been quite nasty. I really did luck out and trust me, we locked our door every night from then on!

Think of it this way, you now always have a story to tell.
Thanks for sharing it.