By:girty@surfglobal.net

On a hot summer day I went to my fathers grave and sat on the tomb stone which is a bench.  It was so...... hot, yet windy(at hot wind). When I sat down on the bench the wind around the stone seemed to stop, when all of a sudden I could feel someone sit beside me and put their arm around me.  Knowing that my father is my guardian angel I new who was sitting beside me.  In the same token I was scared and got in my car and drove away and this isn't the first or last time my father has visited me.

Fire in Crosses Eyes

By: davisw2@hotmail.com

yes when i was 14 yearsold we lived in aold house,one night i woke up to see fire in the eyes of a cross above my bed,at first i thought i was dreaming,but i closed my eyes and opened them again and saw the same thing. late at night you could here something in the upstairs stomping on the floor real hard, this old house was very haunted.

Fogmore Island

By: lucydtravis@hotmail.com
    In 1972 I went to beaufort to visit my best friend who was station there. they took me over to the island one night.telling me the story of a light that is seen there. and that sometimes it would chase you in. well when we got there it was pitch black like you could not see your had in front of you. As soon as my friend said sometimes it will chase you in, I turn to look out the back window, and there it was a big ball of light coming upon us really fast. My friend turn off to the side of the road. and it just disappear. we turn around and park under this big tree, an waited a few minutes,and wasn't long at all, my friend said here it comes. again this ball of light was coming around the curve head straight for our windshield, my hair started to raise on my head, I close my eyes for a second and when  I open them there was a little red light going back in the direction  that it had came from. There was a lighthouse on the island but it had been clos!
e for many of years.Another strange part when I got back home to nashville, I was watching national geographic, and they had been there trying to flim it & they could all see the light but it would not show up on the tape. It made my hair stand on ends again, I had a lot of strange thing to happen over the years but this is the only one to raise my hair.

By: cleady@alaweb.com
 

Back when I discovered The Talking Tree,I was living in a 3 story house my grandfather
had built when he was about 20,21 or 22.He soon died at the age of 35.My mum,
father,baby sister,and I had moved into the house shortly after his death.And one night,
I heard a scream outside my window,a scream what sounded like,an old man being put to
his death.I didnt think any more of it,so I went to sleep.In the morning I was to scared
to mention anything about it to anyone.
So I got my bookbag,and headed to school,when I stepped outside our house door,
there was a big oak tree outside of my bedroom window,which I hadnt seen when
we moved into the house.So I went to school.In the evening I came back home,and
right before i stepped inside of the house,I heard a wisper,not a yell,not a scream,
just a wisper,that said "Help me."I turned back to see nothing,I walked toward the voice
a little bit more,and I noticed I was in front of the big oak tree.I thought I was
hullucinating,but then it said a second time,"Help ME."And then at the time I couldnt think
of anything else to say but "help you with what?"
The tree didnt speak back.So of course you know someone would have freaked out,
that was exactly what I did! I went into the house talking really loud and i was saying
"go outside a talking tree help me now i heard a voice!!!!"But of course everyone
thought I was crazy,and needed a therapist.But I told them to come outside and hear
the tree.They still thought I was crazy.But after this things still happended.After that I knew I was the only one that could hear the tree,but the question is...................why??????
Of course things have changed now,and i am no longer living at the house and no
longer feared by the tree.

Growing up with a Ghost

By: Richduerr@yahoo.com

The house I grew up in (in Hamilton, Ohio), from birth until I joined the Navy at 18, always made me uncomfortable. There didn't seem to be anything unusual about the house itself, it is even a little plain, nothing really much to talk about, though I know little of its history. However, as early as I can remember, I always felt uncomfortable being alone in any room of the house, even when in sight of somebody in another room. When I was about 5 years old, I would sit in my attic bedroom (which I shared with two brothers) watching TV while everyone else was gone at school. While watching it, I would swear I could see something looking like little black fingers of flame flickering behind my brother's headboard (of his bed), which was just a couple feet to the right of the television. Whenever I would look directly at it though, I could see nothing unusual. I tried to convince myself that it was my imagination, but I usually got nervous and would go back downstairs.
One day, when I was about 7 years old, I headed up to the attic bedroom and heard voices from the bottom of the stairs, and thought my brother left his AM radio on. I headed up the stairs, and as my eyes came above floor level of the attic, I could see a picture on the black & white TV and still hear voices. On my next step, and a blink of an eye, the picture and sound instantly vanished. Knowing that the picture should have shrunk to a bright dot in the center before fading away, and knowing that the top of the television would be warm if it was indeed on, I decided to investigate. I felt the top of the TV and it was cold, clearly I had imagined the whole episode, though I didn't hang around in that room much that day.
We had often heard floorboards creaking in the rooms (especially at night), and were always told by my parents that it was "the house settling", which we accepted for a while. Eventually I was moved to another bedroom, just downstairs from the attic bedroom (my bed was right next to the door). As the days & nights passed, I began to notice a strange pattern that took place every night. It would start with a creak in the attic floor, then another on the attic steps near the top, and again near the bottom. Then the attic door would make a slight cracking sound (as if lightly pushed upon), then on the ultra-squeaky board near the head of my bed--just a slight little squeak. Then my door would make a cracking sound, then a squeak out in the hallway, and lastly on the steps headed toward the living room. This would occur every night just after midnight (not kidding) and would occur in the reverse order after 2 a.m.  The sounds did not go by in rapid succession, they moved quite slowly, perhaps even a bit slower than a very old person would be walking. Until I got moved to another bedroom (the only one I didn't feel nervous in) at age 16, I never got a decent night sleep waiting for this apparent thing to pass through the room.
These noises did not only occur at night when almost everyone is asleep (they were just more noticeable), and they did not always follow the same pattern. One night, I was lying there awake and heard a couple squeaks coming from the floorboards in the attic. They were light and far apart, not at all like the heavy and close together sounds of one of my brothers getting out of bed and walking across the floor. Suddenly I heard the sound which sounded like a small AA battery (something small, cylindrical and heavy) fall to the floor, roll across the bare wood part, and down three steps. Then, total silence.
My two older brothers’ beds were at the extreme other end of that room, and they could not have knocked something over in their sleep that would land anywhere near the steps (we're talking over 20 feet). The next day when both brothers were in the living room, I asked them if they had knocked over anything during the night, anything that could have rolled down the steps, or had they found anything lying on the steps in the morning. My mom heard me ask the question and said that she had heard it also, and assumed that they had bumped into something while headed to the bathroom. They said that they had not bumped into anything and didn't find anything on the steps.
Sometimes, I would be sitting in the living room by myself, reading a book and hear a floorboard squeak in the same room. I would try to ignore it, though when you've witnessed some strange thing happen you become suspicious of every sound you hear. Sometimes we would be sitting in the living room and hear a couple dishes in the kitchen cabinets clink together, or hear the sound of something falling over in the next room. Yet when we look around that room for anything that might have fallen, everything is in its proper place. Rarely (though it did happen a few times) we would find something fallen over, but with no indication as to its cause.
One evening, my sister and I sat on the couch in the living room, she was reading the newspaper and I was reading a paperback. We both noticed movement off to our right and looked over to see a closet door open FULLY, all by itself, silently. This was most unusual because the door was usually stuck closed. It also dragged on the carpeting (because the door wasn't trimmed when carpeting was installed) when you did open it, this allowed it only to be opened about 3/4 of the way.
We knew we had just witnessed the most obvious display anyone had seen that there was indeed something in the house. I got up and inspected the door and closet found nothing unusual. Great force was necessary for me to get the door closed because of the carpeting, and the hinges squealed loudly while doing so. It took a couple bumps with my shoulder to get it closed into its frame again. On top of all this, the screw on the door handle was missing, meaning that when you try to turn the knob to unlatch the door, you had to push the knob downward somewhat (so it could grip the shaft) while turning it. If you turned it too far, the knob would slip and the door would re-latch with a loud snap. Furthermore, the latch assembly and the door hinges needed oiling and squeaked loudly when turning the knob or opening the door. Yet when the door opened by itself, it opened COMPLETELY silently.
Something interesting to note about this closet, is that it is only about six to nine inches deep, and apparently was the front door at one time. I did not think of that when this event occurred, but more recently I remembered having noticed the faint outline of a doorway on our front porch, and asked my mother why it was there. She said that the front door was located in that position before the old front porch was replaced, and that it had been filled in and a new doorway was installed to match the new porch. Though they filled in the outside to look like the rest of the house, the inside doorway was left there as a small closet. This is the same closet whose door opened all by itself.
One Christmas Eve around 7:30pm, we were having our annual family gathering and the living room was quite crowded. I decided to sit on the floor next to my mom (sitting in her recliner). It was quite noisy as there were two conversation taking place at once, each with several participants, however, I was not in either one. As I often did, I sat there listening to both conversations, waiting to hear something interesting.
Suddenly, I heard a noise off to my left, in the dining room (which was dark because the light was off), it was just a little noise that got my attention for a moment. My attention returned to the conversations, though I was feeling a little strange. Then I noticed movement off to my left and looked to see that the hanging macramé’ planter was swaying gently (as if caught in a draft or lightly bumped). I thought that to be odd, but I returned my attention to the conversations. Suddenly I felt this cool draft on my back and my neck, and felt my hair being lightly brushed against. This sent a chill down my spine, and I looked to my right and saw the other hanging planter suddenly begin to lightly sway.
I had enough, I wasn't going to experience anything else that night unless someone else did too. I got up, crossed the room, and sat between my to older brothers who were also sitting on the floor.
One other occasion made all others pale by comparison. I sat with my mom as I waited to depart for school (I was about 14) and watching the "Today Show". It was just another typical weekday morning, all my brothers and sisters were all at work or at school, and my dad was asleep upstairs (we could hear his loud snoring from the living room).
Suddenly, we saw something to our left, we both turned to look, and saw a styrofoam picnic cooler, that had been in the kitchen, flying through the air. We saw it enter the dining room from the kitchen, as it flew a strangely downward curving path (not natural looking at all). It hooked downward from about 4 feet from the floor, and suddenly forward, lodging itself under a dining room chair.
We gaped at each other for a second, then I hopped up and quickly checked the kitchen to see if anybody could have somehow been there, but as I knew, nobody was there. I even checked all possible avenues of escape, but the back door was locked and the bathroom was empty. Nobody else was home anyway, and there is no way anyone could have been there without us hearing them.
I know others may wish to experience a ghost, but I swear to you that I hate it. Nothing scares me more than something that is not alive wandering through the house. None of my friends understand why I never get homesick, but I never want to go back to that house, even for a visit. Even now I suffer. The other night I tried to write this, and left a shirt hanging near the window. In the middle of writing, a sudden breeze blew and caused the shirt to move. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw it move from the corner of my eye, but sure was relieved to see what it was. I occasionally have nightmares about these experiences, and they always involve objects suddenly moving, or pages of a book turning all by themselves, only I am always the only witness. This was always, and apparently still is my greatest fear, being alone when these things happen. When you are with someone else, its not so scary, you know you are not going nuts and that others will believe you when you tell them. However, when you are alone and suddenly witness evidence that you are not COMPLETELY alone, that something not-alive is with you, its quite scary.
One night when I was about 15 years old, I was lying in bed (wide awake as usual), dreading the beginning of the series of creaks and cracks that made their way from the attic through my room, and down toward the living room every night. Suddenly, it started with the usual creak on the attic bedroom floorboards, then another closer to the top of the steps. Then the slight cracking sound as if someone were lightly stepping onto one of the steps. Then as usual, another sound near the bottom of the attic steps.
I waited, expecting to hear the sound of the attic door (which was only about three feet from my bed) to make its usual cracking sound as if someone were pressing firmly against it. Then something happened which I didn't expect, and which began to make me very nervous. That something was silence. The pattern was suddenly broken, the sounds made their nightly succession down from the attic, but stopped at the bottom of the attic steps this time.
After what seemed like several long minutes of silence (time has a way of slowing down when you're scared), suddenly the silence was broken by a scratching sound against that door. It sounded like fingernails scratching at the door. I was totally petrified, nothing like this ever happened before, and I really wanted to wake up my brother who was sleeping soundly in the other bed, but I figured he would think I was nuts, so I just listened. As the scratching continued, I tried to think of ways that might scare it off. I always tried to pretend to be asleep whenever those sounds would pass through my room, so I decided to act like I was waking up. I started tossing and turning making plenty of noise, but the scratching would only stop momentarily, then continue.
I tried clearing my throat a few times figuring that if I didn't scare it away, at least it might wake my brother, who might also witness the scratching. Neither worked. The scratching continued, and my brother continued to sleep deeply. By now my heart was pounding so hard that I thought I might have a heart attack, my chest ached and my stomach felt queasy, and I was sweating profusely. Still, the slow scratching continued at the door just a couple feet from my head. I gathered my courage and decided to sit up in bed (eyes tightly closed) thinking that the sudden movement might chase it away. It did stop for a minute, but then started up again. Next, I decided that I would have to sit up, pause long enough for anything there to disappear, then turn and face the door with my eyes closed (again to allow anything there to disappear), then slowly opening them. The scratching continued, so I finally decided that I would have to go over and open the door, though my biggest fear was the possibility that something might be there. It was bad enough I had to witness a door apparently opening by itself, and a picnic cooler flying through the air, and the squeaky boards and the clanking dishes in the kitchen, the only thing I was more afraid of is actually seeing this thing.
I went over to the door, looked all around the outside for anything that might be causing it and found nothing. I then grabbed the handle and slowly pulled the door open. As soon as I started pulling open the door the scratching stopped. I looked all around the inside of the door, assisted by the streetlight outside shining into the doorway. I could find nothing unusual, but I figured if anything had been there, be it an animal, or something else, I probably had scared it away and could expect to get some sleep. My heart rate started to return to normal and I started to relax, confident that my suffering was over for the night, but after a couple minutes the scratching started again.
That was enough for me, I got out of bed and went all the way to the basement where my dad was drinking beer and messing around with his Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. He knew something was wrong but didn't ask, and I didn't tell him what had happened, I just hung out with him down in the basement until after 2:00 am before going back to bed.
Strangely, after that night I never heard the succession of floorboard squeaks coming down from the attic or going back up. In fact, I never saw or heard anything strange again. I waited for until a month had gone by, then started asking the others if they had seen or heard anything in the past month, and nobody had. For the next three years before I joined the Navy and moved out, I never saw or heard anything strange again, and I haven't heard from the others about any more incidents.
Please feel free to E-Mail me if you have any comments or questions.

By: Amber N.
 

This story may not seem freaky to you, but put yourself in my place and you'll see why I think it's scary. I was at my friend Chelsea's house and we were playing a game. We were getting tired of the game and decided to go and play hide and seek in the woods. We got her brother Devin to play. It was about 9:30pm. It was light enough to see but still dark. Devin was the first to count. He sat on the trampoline and waited for us to hide. I hid down by the river behind Chelsea's house. I was about to go back to were safe was when I heard a noise. I turned around and looked for the source of the sound. I couldn't find anything. So I knew I must've been hearing things, so I turned around to go back. I heard the noise again! It sounded like a little girl crying for help. I knew then that I definitely wasn't hearing things. Chelsea and her brother had told me earlier that there was a girl that once went swimming in the river and the undercurrent was to swift for her to handle. She was swept underneath the surface. Whenever her head came ubove the water she would scream for haelp. Unfortunately Nobody could hear her cries for help. I turned around and raced back to the trampoline to tell Chesea and her brother what had happened. We all went back to the place where I heard the screams, The screaming had stopped but there on the dirt was the word halp with a slash across it. You may think that somebody could have been playing a joke on us but, nobody lived clos enough to her for them to be able to play a joke on us. That is the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me. The screams go on at her house only once a month now. And they are just as creepy as ever.

The Woods Behind My House

By: Ickiris66@aol.com
 
 

i moved in the neighborhood i live in at the age of 12 im 20 now, ever sence
i moved in here i was told of the woods and the strange things that went on
in it (sounds of drums, voices, screams, ect. needless to say the woods is
creepy, so creepy i wont go there at night. let me explane, the woods
concists of two parts the frount and the back its the back part that scares
the begezzus out of me. in 98 a girl was killed in the frount part of the
woods, she was raped and left for dead in the could, next to the old tractor,
a tractor that had been roting there you at least 30 years, well sence the
girl was killed there had been some violent storms that have taken their toll
on the trees surrounding the area of the death. my friends and i would go to
this spot every now and again, untill that night. I had a girlfriend at the
time that lived on the road across the woods so to get to her house you could
take the short way which was throught the woods past the spot where the girl
was killed. i had walked my girl home and i was returning through the woods,
when it got cold, now mind you this is fair summer's ending type weather, so
there was no reason to see my breath. i turned to look over at the tractor
and i felt depressed all the sudden, deeply depressed, started to walk twords
the tractor and i heard crying and a girls voice say "why are you doing
this". it was not long after that, i high tailed my butt back to the house as
fast as i could. the next day i told my friend about what had happened, so
from then on he walked with me each time i dropped my girlfriend off, hoping
to hear or see something. It never happened to me again but months later i
was talking to afriend who still hung out in woods at night and he told me he
was sitting on one of the fallen trees and he heard a girl crying. He said it
startled him so he went to go leave, just as he got up he heard a louder
vioce say "why". he said he felt depressed and ran the rest of the way out of
the woods. The woods has had alot of odd thigs happen to it, like fires that
start and go out by then selves, houses ajasioned to the woods had there back
yards vandalized, or the sounds of some one nocking on the back doors
I was also told there was a forgotten cematary some where back in the woods

By: KateWa@homeproperties.com
 

My parents still live in the same house I grew up in with my older sister. My experiences with ghost began at about age 8. One night i had just gotten into bed and was waiting for my dad to come tuck me in. The lights were still on and the hole family was up stairs i wasn't alone or anything. I was wearing a nightgown. Suddenly I felt two hands run quickly undernieth my nightgown, up my legs and over my body. I screamed bloody murder and my parents came running in. I don't remember if they believed me but I never slept in that room again. I traded rooms with my sister. Once she had begun sleeping in that room she would tell us in the moring that someone would sit on the bed and say her name while they rubbed her head, but she never opened her eyes during those encounters. A few years later, I was getting my dad and I some ice cream in the kitchen. There was a new bag of candy on the counter infront of me. Suddenly it flew accross the counter. I ran and told everyone, they believed me when they saw the candy on the other counter. Another time stayed home sick from school. I was laying in bed watching TV, and I kept hearing what sounded like marbles being dropped in the attic right above my bedroom. I was so scared I called my mom and she sent her friend over to stay with me. To this day the TV in our kitchen turns on and off by itself, and my aunt reported hearing music being played in the family room when everyone else was outside. Last weekend my family gave me a bridal shower at my parents house. When I got the pictures back almost all of the pictures have orbs in them. I couldn't believe it. Who ever it is is still there and still trying to be part of us. Creepy!!!

Gettysburg War Cries

By: Snowleopard327@aol.com

It was my first time going to the Gettysburg war site. First, we visited
their museums and looked at old clothing and war supplies. Then, it was time
for the tour of the battle site. It started off regularly, the guide showing
us all the memorials and explaining this and that. Then it was time to get
out of the car and look out over a field where a charge was made. It was a
nice view stretching out before us and behind us was a slope with a grove of
trees to the right. While the guide talked, I noticed sounds of what seemed
like a great number of people yelling and screaming down the slope near or in
the grove of trees. It was quiet at first, but it got louder, then quiet
again. I asked the guide if there was a reenactment going on down there. He
just looked at me funny and said no. Confused, I asked if he heard it, he nor
my dad or sister knew what I was talking about. I asked my Mom and she heard
it too. I was frustrated as I could clearly hear the noises and only myself
and mother could hear it. The noise continued as we walked back to the car,
but as I turned around to look, it stopped. I asked my Mom later about it and
she thinks it was where the Confederate soldiers mustered up their courage by
screaming war cries before they went to battle. I have been trying to find
stories similar to mine ever since but I have found none.

Ghost Children

By: grahamdellow@hotmail.com

My friend Will and his girlfriend Dawn moved into quite an old house in Ipswitch about 4 years ago now. With-in 2 weeks of moving in, Will began complaining to me about noises that both he and Dawn kept hearing. He said it sounded like children running around the house. I was the 1st to visit the couple in their new home. At about 11:30pm conversation was stopped dead by the noise of footsteps from upstairs. It sounded like there was more than one as they suddenly began running around in circles in the bedroom directly up from where we were sitting. The footsteps got louder and faster untill the ceiling light of the living room began to sway. The noise was accompanied by childrens laughter and went on for about 2 minetes. Then it stopped, with the biggest crash also comming from the bedroom. Dawn suprised us both by darting out of the room and straight upstairs to investigate. Me and Will followed, to find that the large heavy wooden wardrobe that was already in the house when they moved in had been turned compleatley upside down with its legs now pointing in the air. Although that was the most physical thing that ever happened the noises continued. But about a year later something happened that prompted Will and Dawn to finnally move out. They often looked after Dawns nephew and had taken a photo of him playing in the living room with his toys. After having the photo developed they noticed the ghost of one of the children standing near the doorway to the stairs. She looked older than we had expected, about 11.  But more disterbing was the childs stance. It looked as though she was pretending to hold a gun to her head. Not too suprisingly Will and Dawn moved out soon after. Im sure I have a copy of the photo somewhere. If I do find it I will let you know. Well done on the site.

By: drum96pa@hotmail.com
 

 My name is Paul Boccadoro and I have been a Civil War reenactor for about 4
years now, attending living history events and reenactments throughout the
Mid-Atlantic States.  I'd like to tell you about an experience that my
reenacting group had at Antietam National Battlefield, MD.
 My company, Company G, 96th Pennsylvania Volnteers, annually has a living
history event at this famed Civil War battlefield.  It was here that in
September of 1862, one day's casualities amounted to 23,000 - more killed,
wounded, or missing in one day than the casualities in all of America's
previous wars, combined.  At one point during the battle, one American was
injured with every second ticked by.  I'd like to note that this was the
ground upon which we were camping on.
 To continue my story, we traditionally take a walk into the battlefield to
a small lane known as the Sunken Road.  Here, Confederates hunkered down in
a road that had been worn down by years of wagon travel, holding off wave
after wave of heroic Union soldiers advancing upon them.  Eventually, the
Union forces swarmed over the Confederate's right flank and fired into the
Rebels from down the road, driving them off.  This is where we annually took
a midnight tour, hoping to catch a glipse of energy left from 1862.  Please
note that even though the park closes around 10pm, the rangers often allow
we reenactors to walk around - this is because if WE found ANYONE defacing a
monument or even shifting a pebble, that person would be praying for a
ranger to come by and save him.
 So this night, about a dozen of us strolled down the Sunken Road, and
eventually came upon a monument located in about the center of the lane's
length.  We sat down along the banks of the road to relax and take in the
atmosphere.  About 20 minutes passed with silence and a few pictures taken
here and there of us around the monument.  Soon, four of us, myself
included, chose to walk the remaining distance of the road to an observation
tower, climb it, take a few snapshots, then head back.  So we walked down to
the tower, ascended the few flights of stairs, and took a look around.
Meanwhile back at the monument, our Captain decided that everyone had better
get back to camp, so he sent two men to go retrieve us from the tower.
 No sooner had those two begun to walk down the road, when the remaining few
men heard shoes and heelplates (horseshoe-like plate we wear on our leather
shoes) on the gravel and earth down the road.  First 2 pair, then 4 pair,
then 6...and so on.  Equipment could be heard rustling around on the body -
knapsacks, canteens, cartridge boxes.  If anyone knows what it sounds like
to have men marching on a dusty road with full gear on, it's us.  The sounds
continually crescendo-ed until one man sat up, looked down the road, and
stirred the other men to listen.  Just as they began to sit up and peer into
the darkness down the road, the sounds faded away just as quickly as they
came in.  Another man jumped up, went down the road and looked over the
fences and banks only to find weeds and small shrubs.  We figure that if
this was some sort of 'ghost regiment,' it may have followed those two men
who had begun to walk down the road to the tower to fetch us.
 I also have another story I experienced first hand during a sleepless night
in an old gun mill.  We also used to have an annual event at Jacobsburg
State Park, PA.  On the land is the Henry Homestead, including a mansion and
a house whose basement was the gun mill.  The house now is a museum to the
Henrys, and the mill below it is open to see the machinery and processes of
old time gun making.  The history of the homestead dates back to flintlocks.
 Our event took place very near the homestead, and since it was going to be
extrememly chilly that night, the caretakers were kind enough to allow us to
sleep in the house that night.  Little did I know about the death that
occurred in the house long ago.  A young girl had contracted a contagious
disease - one of those terrible, yet common, diseases of the old days.  She
had died, and since it was thought that her illness could be contracted even
though she was dead, the viewing of her body was not a traditional one.  Her
body was placed on the large window sill inside the house, of a 'window
outlet' that protruded onto the front porch.  This way, the viewers could
stay out on the porch and peer in through the windows to see her on the
window sill.  Of course, now adays ghost stories fill the house.
 So now it was time to go to 'bed,' you could say, more like hit the
hardwood floor.  Of course, the lucky guy I am, I got a spot directly next
to the large window and window sill.  I lay there half the night, listening
to each hour tick away on the clock in the next room.  Eventually, I had
enough so I moved to a spot farther away from the sill.  I laid there for
some time, and then heard something.  The noise was coming from - it sounded
like - downstairs.  The best description I can give is it sounded like an
older lady mourning, or crying.  Possibly over the recent death of her
daughter?  It was not the house settling or creaking, as it continued for
what seemed like years - ok, well maybe a few minutes.  My house also creaks
a lot, and it sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before.  Scared out of my
wits, I frantically tapped on the leg of my 1st Sergeant, laying just a few
feet away from me.  He awoke and I told him to listen.  He heard the sound,
too, but not even wanting to ponder over it, he nervously said "Wonder what
that was," and quickly laid back down.  The sounds soon died off (no pun
intended).  Sleep was pretty much out of the question now, so I laid there
another hour or so until I heard something else.  This one is easy to
describe.  Imagine being outside, and 2 other people are far away from you
having a conversation.  You can make out murmurs, and tones in voice, but
not individual words.  Almost like being underwater and someone is talking
above surface.  That's what I heard, only it seemed to be between a lady and
a child - probably a young boy.  Again, the sounds came from below the floor
in the basement.  These didn't last as long - possibly because God answered
my prayers for them to stop.
 That night, I heard every single hour chime by, and every minute crawl
past, and every second tick by on the clock.  Needless to say, the next
morning I wasn't a happy camper.
Hope you enjoyed my stories - and YES they're true.  I told them just as I
know them.  Have a good one.

Ghost in France

By: kim@brd.com.au

This is my first encounter with the paranorml but not the only one.
My family have close friends.
They have now moved to France though.
Before they moved the spent 3 weeks in their new France Mansion.
On their last day they got their professional photographer to take a photo of them all at their breakfast table.
There were all there, Mike & Michele (the parents), their 2 children, Debbie and Megan, their grandmother and even their dog, Selby.
They got their photo developed and they sent the first copy to us and got another copy blown up and pinned on their walled now.
When they first got their picture there was an adult-like person figure standing next to Mike.
It had (what they thought was) it's arm around Mike.
They got it checked out and it came back negative.
It wasn't a finger print.
Four months before Mike's father, John (Deb's and Meg's Grandpa) had died of a heart attack.
John had owned the mansion and had passed it over to Mike in his will.
I looked at the photo myself when I was about 9.
The figure (I'm sure if I can remember) was a glowy whitey-yellow with a blue glowing outline.
It looked like a thumb print only it had an arm sticking out and a hat on.
My mum thought it was John's sailor hat.
My mother can't remember where she put it though she does have it online somewhere.

Ghost of a Friend

By: MRI [mri@mri-vt.com]

I have really enjoyed the stories that have been contributed by so many
people.  It is comforting to have people who believe and understand the fear
and self doubt that goes along with seeing a ghost along with the disbelief
of others when conveying these stories.
For some reason I have had what I call warnings throughout my life.  They
are usually really simple and insignificant.  Many of you will laugh at the
first one that I can remember and I don't even know why I would have this
'psychic premonition'.  I was in the sixth grade at the time.  It is the
time when you start to have your first little romances.  A kiss here and
there and holding hands in the hallway on the way to class.  Such sweet
little kids we were.  Well I went home from school one day and I said I
don't know why but I know that two boys are going to ask me out.  (I told
you...it is really simple and insignificant)  I knew which boys they were
too.  Well sure enough the next day they both did.  They had not previously
given me any indication that they liked me at all that is why I hadn't
really believed that they would, until it happened.  This is how these
little warnings happen.  They happen all the time.  What happens often is I
will be thinking something and whoever I am with will start talking about
what I am thinking.  It is just a strange thing, but I like it.
I only state that because I believe they have something to due with a sort
of psychic awareness that some people have.  It is not a great power at all
for me anyways, but I believe it relates to the reason that I have had some
experiences with ghosts.  Maybe I am open to them?
Anyways, my first experience was after a friend of mine had drown at a
swimming place.  I was walking across a parking lot to the ATM machine when
I stopped to think about him out of the blue.  I just thought what a good
person he was.  Out of the blue.  I went along with my business not really
thinking too much about it until late on that evening I found out that he
had died.  The time he had been at the swimming hole and the time I had this
random thought were right on.  It was a terribly sad time for everyone who
knew him.    The following day we went to the water where his body still
lay.  They could not find him.  I walked to a spot and touched the water at
the spot where they eventually found him.  I looked at the stones and saw a
small gold peace sign.  It looked as though it was from a necklace.  I knew
that it wasn't for me though.  A friend of mine had been the last person to
see him right before he jumped into the rough waters and I knew it must be a
sign for him.  But I thought he would think I was just being weird.
A couple of days later we all gathered at a spot we used to like to go.
Someone played the guitar and sang.  I went home that night to an empty
house.  My parents were away in Maine for the week-end.  I layed down in my
bed when all of a sudden someone said my name.  It was very dark in my room
but a figure was sort of kneeling down next to my bed and when I turned he
moved to sit on a toy chest that was next to my bed against the wall.  It
was a really fluid movement.  I was completely freaked out.  I couldn't
believe what was happening and I was extremely scared because it is just so
overwhelming to find out that ghosts are real!   I turned back over and
covered up and kept saying over and over "just go to sleep, just go to
sleep".  Well I finally fell asleep and when I woke up in the morning I
found my brother in the kitchen.  I thought to myself ok there that is my
explanation for last night, a logical explanation.  And I asked what he
wanted last night and whey he came into my room.  He said what do you mean?
I just got here.  But don't tell mom and dad because I was supposed to stay
here last night so you wouldn't be home alone.  I knew it had to be my
friend coming to say goodbye, but why me?  Later I didn't tell many people
but one person I told said that maybe he thought I was the most open one to
this kind of visit and now I wish I had talked to him, and not freaked out.
 

By: rich_farley@hotmail.com

I was in a mechanized Infantry company in Germany back in 1989-1991.  We use what is called a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, it weighs about 51,000 pounds and looks like a tank.  We were doing live fire exercises at night and we finished about 2 am.  I was driving a Bradley in a convoy of about 10 other Bradley's, returning to the motor pool.  The drivers used a large night vision scopes to see by (it's like watching green TV) and the Bradley commanders use one that attaches to their helmets.  While driving a commanders is to stand on his seat so that half of his body is outside of the vehicle, so that he'll have a better view of the surroundings.    At about 3 am, I saw a man standing by the dirt road we were traveling on.  I figured he was one of the German range patrolman and that he was just waiting for us to pass.  Right after the Bradley in front me passed, this (man) walked right out in to the dust of that Bradley.  I hit the brakes to avoid hitting him.  At exact moment my commander said watch out but it was to late. I new I must have had hit him, I didn't see him come out on either side.  My commander then asked me if I had seen a man walk out in front of us too.  I said yes, and then he said that he had too.  But when he turned around to check for a body, there wasn't one any where on the road.  This dirt road was about 50 feet across and when we returned to the motor pool, took a flashlight and checked the whole front end and found nothing, no blood, no piece of clothing there was nothing.

By: Woofswoof@aol.com
 
     Onto the Cheesy Intro!
      It all started one night.  I was ninteen or twenty, its been a while 5
years or so.  I was driving home from by girlfriends house, it had been
raining all day and in hte summer nights it would often get very foggy, so I
thought nothing of the pachy fog all the way home.  About a mile or so from
home, it was a 10 mile drive, the fog suddenly got so thick that the road
disapeard in front of me and I was having trouble seeing the end of my hood.
Naturaly I slowed way down but I knwe this road had a reputation for trucks
to just keep going through any thing that they encounreted so I pulled to the
side of the road but kept moving.
      It got so thick that I was forced to determain taht I was still on the
road by finding the edge with my right front tire.  Eventulay it was too much
and I stopped.  However not wanting to be in the car if it was hit I got out
and went down off the road figuring if nothing else that I could walk home
and come back and get the car the next morning.
      This is where things get a little weired.  This is aslo where most of
the people that here this story scoff and walk away.  The area just off the
road has since become a wet land preservation arean and rightfully so, it is
home to a very lage population of birds and various wildlife.
      I'm walking along and things are cool, a little creepy the way noises
echo in fog.  I'm trying to keep track of the road off to my left but its
late and the last car I heard was several minuts past.  After walking for
several minutes I realise I should have come to an intersection, a big one
with lights and all that, stuff you can see through fog.  I stop turn about
45 degrees to my left and walk towards the road.  After several more minutes
I'm not there.  Now I'm scared! I have no idea where anyining is and even as
I go through a lilttle routine to calm my self I realise that that moment of
panic erased all of the little sence of direction I had.
      I paused to think.  OK to my north is a one of the roads I'm looking
for, to my west is the other one.  To the south and to the east is a housing
development.  However there is a body of water aproximatly fifty feet across
and mostly marsh in the middle.  So what do I do? I walk, and walk and walk
some more.  After a while I feel like I should be in the next county.  At
this point I'm tired, the fog has me soaked and I just want to get home to a
warm soft bed.
      As I paused to consider this current state I will remeber to this day
the following events in PERFECT detail.  I saw clear green grass, perfectly
dry and the whisps of fog avoiding it like there was a glass bubble around
it.  I natualy walk right in and as I look up I can see the stars above me
like the eye of a huricaine, and moon light shining on one side of this
tunnel above me.  My attention was drawn back down to the only objest in this
clearing, a branch that seemed to belong to no tree about four feet in the
air.  There were some leaves but as I thoght about aproaching this hawk
landed on the branch.  This is the only hawk I have been close to in my life.
 I almost lost control right there.  It was huge at least a five foot wing
span and standing no more than five feet fom me on this branch.  It never
made a sound. It looked at me, then looked arund then looked at me again.  I
was completely captured by the image of this amazing creature.
      It may have been moments after it landed maybe hours I don't know.  It
spread its wings and in an amazing display of aerobatics it circled me twice
in the maybe ten feet of area that we were in.  It then flew up in to the
tunnel, looped adn came strait for me, I was in shock, at the last posible
moment I pulled off and shot strait away from me in to the fog.  I had no
choice.  My feet ran after it and the rest of me followed.  I ran blind
through the fog expecting any second to hit something.  Then from the
distance I heard the hawk cry one time and presssed on and it cryed again
and I stoped, I don't know why but is was like it was telling me to stop
right there.  I did and I realised where I had been.  I cant tel you how I
know or why it happened to me but I had taken a walk to the other side.  Its
the ony way I can expalian it I don't know what I was on the other side of
but thats what it was.
      Standin there I noticed and change in ghe fog, it became lighter and I
could see road right in fron of me I began to take a step forward.  Just as I
did the hawk swooped out of no where and struk me in the head with a wing.
It knocked me back hard, I was sputtering for breath and realised I had a
large feather in my mouth.  I pulled it out and began to take a step forward
again.  As soon as my foot hit pavement a cement truck came out of nowhere
and just about killed me.  I looked at the fether in my hand and considered.
      Shortly after that the fog had lifted enough that I found my car not
fifty feet from where I was standing on the road.  The rest of the drive home
was easy after that.
      Some other time I'll wright about my other encounters with that hawk,
my friend.

Ghost Stories

By: lord-grail@home.com
 

 My name is Heather and I live in Omaha, Nebraska.  I have only seen a
few ghosts or spirits in my life.  Sometimes I do get the chills though,
like someone or something is nearby.
 The first spirit I saw was when I was younger, about 13 years.  My
Mother told me to go into our basement to get some candles, which wasn't
unusual.  We spent a lot of time in the basement, playing slot cars and
electric trains, and my Dad has a workshop down there for models.  As I
fetched the candles I felt watched.  I scampered back upstairs, startled
and panicked, and told myself not to be so silly.  I gave Mom the
candles, (I don't remember why she needed them) and felt the nagging,
watching feeling again.  I opened the basement door, and a round
green-white light was bobbing slowly up the steps, I think about three
to four feet off of the ground.  I grabbed my jacket and ran outside, to
my Grandma's house down the hill.
 I never saw it again, whatever it was, and everyone laughed at me for
it.  But I remember it clearly.  It was green and glowing with a soft
white light.  Mom laughed and said it must have been a glow-in-the-dark
Halloween candy bucket, from the size and color.  But she couldn't
explain how it was floating...
 My house is quite old, a about 80 years, and nothing like this has ever
happened again.  We are the third family living here and nothing violent
ever goes on.  I still get the odd feeling, but it's never been strong
enough to make me panic again.

 The second spirit I saw really floored me.  I was 14, and was riding my
bike around town, since it was a nice summer day, and I ended up on 22nd
and Q, about three miles from my house.  There's nothing there but cheep
houses, and it's not a bad neighborhood, but it's not the nicest in the
world.  But it's not a cheep, run down area.  Just... relaxed, second
hand.  Nothing violent ever happened there before (it's become a
run-down area now) and there was no graveyard, or ancient indian burial
ground or anything that I or anyone else know of.
 I wanted to go to Dairy Queen on 24th and Q, and I was behind it.  As I
came to 22nd I saw a flat field where I knew there should be houses.  It
was filled with what I can now describes a short, rectangular
tombstones.  I saw a woman standing there, dressed all in browns and
earth tones.  I couldn't see her face or her hands - she had a
head-scarf on and her hands were held in front of her, covered by her
sleeves.  I think she had on brown shoes, but I don't really remember
her having feet or not.  (I'm inclined to think not.)  I asked her what
this was, but she didn't answer.  I turned back to the graves, which had
vanished and replaced with the things that should have been there:
street, houses, sidewalk, trees...
 I turned back to the lady and she was gone.  I had a very chilly,
uneasy feeling, and a few dead leaves fluttered by.  I rode away as fast
as I could.
 I once saw a strange figure in the mirror, a girl my age, 13, but with
dark brown hair with thin bangs and braids past the bottom of the mirror
frame.  She just startled me, but caused no harm.
 The last one I saw left me breathless and thrilled.  I was staring out
the window to our front window when I thought I saw something in the
clouds.  It couldn't have been lightning because it wasn't fast enough -
it resembled very slow lightning.  It was white and long and crooked.  I
got up and tried to stare out by the light was at a bad angle, so I
stood up and walked to the front door.
 As I peered out the glass I saw a flash or lighting and a giant pair of
silvery-white eyes, rimmed with blue, which then vanished in a flash.
The outside of the window was covered with condensation, like breath,
which smelled really sweet, like milk. I wiped it away.
  I've come to the conclusion that the first three were just random
encounters, but the last one was a kind spirit, one that was looking in
on me.  I haven't seen anything so clearly after age 15, but sometimes I
see 'holes' in my vision, weird things.  After rubbing my eyes and
refocusing, they're gone.  And sometime I can hear odd noises and voices
no one else can.  I don't think I'm psychic or anything, but I do think
I'm a little more 'sensitive' then the people around me.

Nothing Too Unusual

By: CNelson700@aol.com

I am not sure how much I believe in the supernatural, I am a skeptic - even
though I have experienced the two stories below.

I am a 28 year old male now.  When I was about 17 - 19 yrs, living with my
parents in NW Indiana, I had a very frightening experience.
I was sleeping in my bed when I was awakened by a woman calling my name, my
full first name, 4 or 5 times.  My family members and close family friends
are the only people who call me by my full first name.  Nothing seemed too
unusual - yet.
I was laying on my front side and lifted and turned my head in the direction
of the female voice.
When I cracked my eyes open, I saw the most frightening thing that I think I
have ever seen.  A translucent human figure standing at the side of my bed
with arms, palms up, reaching towards me.
I was frozen with terror by the site of this figure leaning over me about 2
feet away.
As soon as the initial terror loosened it's paralyzing grip a little, I
immediately stuck my face back into my pillow and pinched my toes together
over and over as hard as I could saying "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God"
over and over as fast as I could.
The fear was so great, the feeling so intense, I don't think I could ever
express with words how it felt.
As I regained some logical mindset, I slowly cracked open my eyes once again
and slowly lifted and turned my head towards the figure.
I was gone.
My head fell back down with a sigh of extreme relief.  I lay there with my
face down and eyes shut wondering what just happened, and why.
I woke the next morning still wondering what happened.
My Grandmother, who was more close to me than anyone else, I think, had died
in the recent past ( within a year ).
The figure was about her height, but had reddish hair coming down to almost
half the way down its back.
The face did not exist, it was completely transparent.
The arms were transparent, but I could see the hands.  They were like the
hands of an adult white person (my family is white).
The shirt was striped.  The stripes were about an inch wide and were
vertical.  They were in 3 colors, red, white, and transparent, and followed
that sequence.  The shirt went from about mid bicept to neck to waist.
The voice stopped as soon as I looked up at the figure.
Anyway, that is story #1 and it is my most descriptive story.
Story #2 is less interesting.
I lived in a house in a Chicago suburb with linoleum flooring in the finished
basement.  The basement was basically a kids play room.  I used to hear the
kids playing, but not talking.  I could hear them moving toys around.  I
noticed that sometimes I thought they were downstairs, but then found that
they were not.
I thought nothing of it.  Until one day I heard the 'big wheel' being dragged
across the floor.  I yelled at my children and told them that they were not
supposed to be down there because they were grounded from the basement for
poor behavior. Then I found out that there was nobody down there.  This was
frightening, but I was older and more informed about ghosts and such - plus
it happened in the middle of the day - so it was not as frightening as story
#1.
I am not sure if this next bit is associated with ghosts, but I will tell it
to you.
In that same house as story #2, I came home to find a large crow or raven in
my kitchen, even though the doors and windows were locked shut.  So, I went
downstairs to get a towel to shew it away and I found a second large black
bird down there.  I thought it was odd.  Anyway, I opened the door and shewed
them both outside.  I still don't know how they got in.
Those are my stories.
Hope somebody figures (and proves) this whole ghost thing out someday.

By: PGalli8536@aol.com
 

It was around 1981, my [then] husband was 19 when he met and married a local
girl; when he couldn't find work in the area, he enlisted in the Marine Corp.
 While he was stationed in San Diego, he got the horrible news that his wife
had been brutally murdered.
After some years had passed, we met, became a couple, and eventually I
moved in with him in his apartment which was a small apartment on the 2nd
floor of an old house so many stairs to climb.  Shortly after we became
engaged, I had a dream, still very vivid in my memory and it went like this:
One Friday evening, My fiancé & I were relaxing on the couch, watching TV
when there was a knock at the door - nothing too unusual. Mike went to get
the door and all I heard was this joy in his voice of someone he obviously
hadn't seen for a very long time; as he brought his guest into our home, I
realized who it was - it was his deceased wife!  She looked very beautiful
and at peace: she had long brown hair and wore a beautiful white gown that
drifted and flowed in the air as if she were standing in front of a fan.  The
two of them sat on the couch together, holding each other tightly, laughing &
talking as if nothing were out of the ordinary, and I sat on the other end of
the couch feeling a little jealous and like a third wheel.  Finally, Sunday
evening came along and it was time for them to say good-bye; they stood at
the top of the stairs, crying, hugging and saying their good-byes - she
floated to the bottom of the stairs, drifted through the door, and she was
gone.
I woke up and thought it was somewhat odd but didn't dare say anything to
Mike since the death of his wife was still a sensitive subject.  Finally
after about a year, I told him the whole story of my dream. He got very quiet
and looked down as if he were going to cry and said, "I had the exact same
dream about the same time!"  I made him swear that he was telling the truth
and he did.  I think we had been given the blessing of our upcoming marriage
from someone we didn't expect.

'The Creepy Old House'
I never realized how ghosts actually existed, but since I've read Echo
Bodine's 'Relax, It's Only A Ghost' I'm a firm believer of their behavior.
The "symptoms" as she described in her book convinced me:  I lived in an old
two-story, three bedroom house, with a brick basement held together with dirt
in the older part of town.  The house was solid, built sometime in the 1930s
but I never knew the history of my old house - I just liked it because it was
old, it had history, and spacious, and underneath all that lead-based paint
was some beautiful wood that I'd hoped one day I would uncover and refinish
to it's original, natural beauty.  I often felt the presence of someone and,
of course, when I turned around no one was there - even when I knew I was the
only one home, and often felt cold spots.  One morning when I was in my 8 ½
month of pregnancy, I was resting in my recliner when I heard someone walking
down the hall upstairs; I looked down on the floor thinking it was just the
dog but she was lying on the floor beside me, and the most bizarre part was
she was looking upstairs to see who was up there, too!

Ghost Story of Onyx

By: ELitkowiak@zebra.com
 

I have one experience to share with you - you need to know that before this
event, I was a confirmed skeptic. Never had anything funky happen to me,
ever. I am not even religious.
About 17 or so years ago I was living in Evanston, Illinois and I had 2
cats; Bibber (a.k.a. Blizzard) and Onyx. Bibber was all white and Onyx,  all
black.  I'd found Onyx at a Sav-A-Pet tent event held at Old Orchard in
Skokie. He was about 1-1/2 years old at the time and it was an instant bond.
He also got along famously with Bibber.
Onyx was about 4 when one day, I couldn't find him. This was a Monday, and
they're both indoor cats. I thought it odd, but went to work. Came back home
and still couldn't find him, so I searched the house. Found him in the
basement hiding on top of the duct work. Brought him down and he advised me
loudly that he was in pain. He was ok once I put him down.
Called the vet and described what was going on, and the vet felt that it
could wait until the morning. So, Tuesday am, I rushed him to the vet.
Wednesday I get a call saying that Onyx had what was apparently a hereditary
based kidney failure and was on dialysis, but was doing very well. There was
hope for a complete recovery.
Onyx was to stay at the vets under observation at least until Saturday.
Friday night, I was sitting with my girlfriend Liz Condit, watching TV.  It
was probably around 10:30 pm.  All of a sudden, I had this very distinct
impression that there was something forming about 2-3 feet in front of me.
It didn't take up a lot of area, maybe only about 2 feet in diameter. I
could not actually "see" anything, but I had the impression of something
slowly swirling, almost like smoke or cloud.
Then I had the impression that it was cold, extremely cold, like dry ice. It
paused for a moment in front of me and then it came toward my chest and went
directly through me, very fast. The cold was unbelievable and lasted less
than a second.
Immediately I screamed and started crying uncontrollably; couldn't stop. Liz
asked what was wrong with me and I told her that Onyx was dead and he'd come
back to say goodbye. It was an absolute knowledge and it shattered me.
This was so long ago and as I'm writing this, I'm crying again. Can't help
it.
Well, to say the least, when I got a call at 8:30 the next morning, I
already knew what they were calling to tell me - Onyx had passed away around
11 pm the night prior.
Since then I have not changed my opinion about the existence of a god, but
there is NO doubt that something does survive at least the immediate death
of the body. Don't know if it lasts any longer than a few minutes, but there
is at least, a brief hereafter.

By: cifer_x@hotmail.com
 

I have always believed that ghost or spirits exist, but I'm also a big
skeptic. Although I have never actually seen one, I think that I might have
one at my new home. In an old house one would expect "old house noises"
because moisture would get in the wood and it would expand and such. So
weird noises never really bothered me. But sometimes I would hear someone
trying to open and close doors or someone moving around in the dark - so I
would grab a stick and look around the house to see if some one is trying to
break in... nothing.
This happened very often so I just ingore them now. One night I was sleeping
in my room then I suddenly felt very hot. I though I saw red lights and
smoke coming from under my door. I thought the house was on fire and I
started to panic, so I jumped out of bed and I noticed the smoke was gone. I
opened the door and nothing, no fire, no activity.
My girlfriend is another strong believer of ghost. She was actually the
first person who saw the moving shadows. One afternoon in broad day light,
we were watching tv and she was sitting beside me. Then she just suddenly
grabbed my arm and lifted her feet off the floor because she saw shadows run
from the door and tried to grab her feet. I did notice there were a lot of
shadows on the floor but I pretended it was nothing, so I told her to calm
down and just ignore it. She never wanted to come back to my house and took
me a whole month to convince her to return.
One night I was in the basement(my brothers room) watching tv. It is always
unusually cold in the basement even in the summer(If this is cause by the
ghost I definetly appreciate it). My brother has this toy that talks when
you put it on your hand or anything that conducts. Well while I was watching
tv this toy just started talking away. It did this several times until I
walked up to it and picked it up it stopped - it was on a wooden table.
Ever since I've acknowledge this presence it has been playing tricks on me.
Now it has began hiding things from me, turning up the vol on my tv, and
worse following me around. How do I know if follows me? I once read this
article that sometimes the presence of a ghost will cause motion sickness to
a person who is exposed for a prolonged period of time.
I had severe motion sickness and a doctor had to prescribe me pills for
them. My doctor said that vertigo is very uncommon to people past puberty.
As soon as I read the article about ghosts causing vertigo, it just made
sense.
I think my house ghost is friendly, it keeps to itself most of the time and
I've grown quite fond of it. I am definetly thankful for those cold spots in
the summer because it is a relief from the heat.

Pre Wedding Haunts

By:toshiemo@msn.com

two days before i was to be married i was sleeping in a bedroom adjacent to my future wifes bedroom when i was awoke by a willowy white figure he turned to me and wished me luck as he turned from me i recognized it to be my future wifes first husband (deceased) he then walked into my future wife's room next subject                i dreamt i was visiting a friend of mine in the hospital who was in a coma. in the dream he was wide awake laughing and talking we conversed for a while and he told me he was so happy because he was leaving the hospital. this dream was on a friday night on the following monday morning i received a phone call that he had died the previous ffriday afternoon.

By: Salem@oknet1.net

It was around midnight.  My friends and I were bored so we loaded up into my
van.  We didn't know where to go because everywhere was closed.  Someone
suggested that we visit Hopewell park, a supposedly haunted place that I had
never visited before.  So I drive us into the mountains, to a 2 lane road
that goes through the woods.  As we near, one of my friends tells me the
story of how a family was murdered by a man in the 50's in the park.  I
later asked around and found the story to actually be true.  It would
explain why no one went to the park anymore, and why the grass was so high
that it was impossible to even see some parts of the park.  So we arrive at
the empty park.  There are no lights anywhere except for the headlights.  We
are scared, but see nothing, so I keep driving.  Then I hear everyone
screaming and I look to my side and see a huge blue flame coming from the
woods.  At first I try to drive away because we are all scared and don't
know what it is.  Then we calm down some and I pull over.  By that time, the
light had gone out.  Half of us get out, while the other half stay in the
car with the engine running.  We use the headlights as our only source of
light as we walk toward where the flame had been.  As the headlights from my
van begin to fade behind us, we keep walking until we come to an open fridge
that someone had abandoned.  We realize the flame had come from inside of
it.  There was no one around and no reason it should have caused a flame.
Since then, I've gone out there many times, and had many odd things happen.
For some reason, every time I go out there, there is only one other car
parked at the park, yet no matter how long I stay, or how hard I search, I
can never find a sign of the other person.  It is rumored that cults/KKK go
to the park at night, though it is probably just a rumor...but one thing I
do know is that lately, every time I go up there, cops are there.  We still
have no idea what the cops are always doing and why they are blocking anyone
from entering.

Small Boy

By: Ispritdreamer@aol.com

Thank you for this site. My family and I are being haunted now by a small
boy. He's not hurting anyone but he loves to hide my keys and play with my
son's cars. My doag MooMoo was the first to see him. She was laying on my lap
like always and started growling at something behinde me. I thought it was
one of our cats but then when she started looking up to the ceiling and then
back to ther door and all around barley able to keep up with the movements I
knoew then it was a spirit. I am the one that usually feels them first, I
have since a little girl seen and felt spirits but this one kept his presence
from me. Since then I turned to a Psychic to help me to find out things about
this spirit and she was the one who told me that it's a little boy. I should
have known since he likes to play with my son's cars. LOL I haven't found out
alot about him YET, but I will, and I will let you know how it all turns out.
I like you Dave have lived in haunted houses most of my life. Thanks for
letting me write this.

By: bear@inreach.com

This took place during college while I was taking classes in both
anthropology (spirit healers) and parapsychology. The parapsychology class
had gone to a little town north of Sacramento, California to investigate a
supposed haunted (half-way) house. We, the class, were told that a woman,
the original owner, had died there some years before and that many people
had seen her. The half-way manager wanted some kine of confirmation from
our group.
We went there and set up our equipment at 5:00 PM, and by 1:00 AM nothing
had happened. We all decided that we would probably not see or experience
anything that night and all headed for various rooms to sack out. My (ex)
wife and I were in the living room, she on a couch and me on the floor. I
was abruptly awakened by something jumping onto my chest and then running
out of the room. My wife said that she had been awakened by a small dog
licking her face.
The next morning I asked if anything had occured with anyone else. The
couple in the room next to us said that they were awakened by a small dog
running by them making whimpering noises. The half-way house manager said
there were no animals in the house, cat or dog.
Later research of the woman who had died explained this mystery. She had
died and it was about a month before anybody discovered her body; laying
with her was her small dog that had apparently died of starvation and/or
dehydration.
This event proved to be a beginning point for me in seeing animal ghosts.
Human apparitions I've seen and documented, but I haven't really heard too
much about people who see and/or interact with animal spirits.

By: thenorrells@home.com

Hi Dave,
    A few years ago, I was at the house of a friend whose children went to the Catholic school I was then teaching at.  She told me about a ghost who resided with them.  I was interested in the stories that she told, but was somewhat skeptical.  I come from a large Irish-Catholic family and ghost stories are not that unusual.  At any rate, we were standing on her front porch as I was readying to leave and I felt something heavy and cold put it's arm on my shoulder.  Theresa was on the other side of me...no one was on my left wrapping their arm to the right, which is what I felt.  Theresa stiffened and said, "He's here."  I guess that my face had gone ashen because she told me later that it was obvious that the ghost had let me know of his presence.  After the "hug", (this sounds weird, I know...)it felt as though something was trying to "put me on" like a jacket.  I remember being very frightened at that point and saying to myself, "You're scaring me, please stop."  It went on for a second longer and then the feeling vanished.
    If you'd like, I'll give you the name of the family that originally lived in the historic house.  The ghosts in the house have a reputation for following people home.  I have 2 children and don't want them involved in this.  The family has quite a history in Fort Worth.

Ghostly Experience at Gettysburg

By: baarmani@aol.com

Hi My name is Andrew. I'm a big fan of your website. A few years ago I went
to Gettysburg. While I  was there, I had a few weird things happen to
me.First,when I was visiting Lee's HQ, I had a feeling that something was
watching me from behind. But every time that I turned around, no one was
there. Well, I thought it was pretty weird. Soon after that, I forgot all
about it ands moved along. But later that day, something more physical
happened to me....
                  I was at the high water mark area (the place were the
North defended the center position from the South, also known as Picketts
charge). I was looking at a sign about what happened, and someone, (or
something) touched me on the shoulder. But it wasn't any kind of touch. it
was like someone was looking over my shoulder at the sign. I had thought it
was my Grandpa, who I had run ahead of, when I turned around to say something
to him, he wasn't there. He, and everyone else around there, was 20 feet
away. Pretty weird, huh!
 Well, that is a true story about what happened to me at Gettysburg. BELIEVE
IT, OR NOT.

Unexplainable Sightings

By:janet_beers@madasafish.com

Ever since childhood I have encounted strange unexplainable sightings of which nobody
I've told really believes me. They interpret what I see as my Imagination and generally
laugh which in turn makes me doubt myself. I just tend to keep it to myself for fear of
being branded as an Idiot.
As a baby I can remember waking in the night as I lay in my cot beside my mothers bed.
The bedroom door which was directly in front of me was ajar and this woman was standing
in the doorway looking at me. She did not frighten me, in fact I felt quite comforted by her
appearance although I obviously wondered who she was. She was dressed in blue, the
the strangest blue I have ever seen, I cannot really describe the colour in depth as it seemed
to give off a luminous light. Her hair was shoulder length and dark and she appeared to have
a beam of light above her head. She had a kindly expression on her face. I feel she was an
angel. In the morning I questioned my mother as to who the lady was and she was completely
confused. We never found out.
Years later when I was married with children we moved up north to oldham, and stayed there
for a number of years before moving down south again. When selling our house a family came
to view it and stayed for a couple of hours, they were husband and wife quite elderly and their
grown up son and daughter - in - law. On their departure I asked my husband where the older
man was and made him search the entire house looking for him even though my husband
insisted that only three people came and he didn't see an elderly man. This really upset me
and to this day I cannot explain it, he was very quiet and let his wife do all the talking.
When I gave birth a few years earlier to my first daughter we were living in a flat and one
morning when she was a few weeks old I opened my eyes upon waking and the whole of my
head was surrounded in a kind of fog, so dense I couldn't see through it at all. After closing my
eyes and looking again it was still there, in confusion I wasn't sure what to do, so I closed my
eyes again only to find it had vanished.
Presently where we live I occasionally see sightings of a man, at least I assume its a man
because he won't reveal himself, I just think he must be shy. Usually its just a glimpse of a foot
at the top of the stairs, although the other day he dashed into our small bedroom while I was making
the beds and I saw him as I turned around. My son has seen other sightings. We do not normally
discuss these sightings or talk about ghosts in general, but I often wonder about them and what
they mean.

Ghostly Happening

By: haidee@thot.net

Hi Dave:  Many years ago we had invited an elderly uncle into our home because he was alone and ill in the town hotel.  We also gave room to his longtime friend Ol' Pup who was milky eyed and rheumatic.  Uncle became more ill and the doctor said he was in the last stages of heart failure and sent him to the hospital.
   About 3 days later I was home alone reading and suddenly I felt like someone was watching me.  I looked up and what was even weirder, Ol' Pup raised his head, wagged his tail, gave a joyful little yip and acted as if someone was patting his head.  His eyes were clear and shiny for just a moment.  Then he sank down and whined for a moment and I also felt as if the room was now empty.  Within a half hour my mother arrived to say my uncle had passed away in the hosp but then Ol' Pup and I already knew that as my uncle had already been there to say goodbye.
  Hope you find this little tale of interest

By: carolinec@aiglon.ch
 

My name is Caroline, I'm half english half usa. All my life i have been
seeing ghosts it has become part of my daily life. here are a few of my
experiences with them:
The first time I ever saw a ghost was when i was 3 years old, i still have
very vivid memories of it, this was when i still lived in England in a place
called Letherhead ( its near London) we lived in a converted pub from the
16th century. There was this huge mirror outside my bedroom on the hallway
on the second floor. i had just come from eating supper (thats dinner to you
guys) and was going to my room to go to sleep for the night, anyways as i
looked into the mirror i saw a boy that was a few years older than me, he
was smiling at me in the mirror, he was dressed in rags and was really
dirty. not guessing that this was something people would be scared of i
smiled back, i saw him from then on at the same time every night and would
feel his presence in my room sometimes. I still feel it now.
My second experiences were right here in the house i am in now, the first
one was at 6 in the morning, i was going off to a swimm meet and was waiting
for a friend by the stairs, a girl came walking down the stairs, she was
dressed in a long white nighdress and had long dark hair, when she reached
me she looked up and smiled and wished me good luck, still being tired and
somewhat dazed i smiled back and thanked her. a few seconds later i
recovered and thought that i had never seen her before in my life i went
down the stairs to the main floor and looked aroung there was no one there,
the second one in this house was quite scary,at about 2 in the morning i
woke up suddenly and sat upright, i looked around the room and saw the door
was open when i got up to close it i saw a "thing" there is no other way to
describe it, it was on the floor on all fours its head was angled and it was
looking straight at me it face was twisted and horrible, least to saw i
quickly jumped into bed and turned away from it hoping it would go away.
I see them all the time, my mother and father too, i hope you find use in my
experiences to continue your studies.

Ghost Everywhere

By: Elke_Eastaugh@hines.com
 

Ever since I was a little girl, I have had contact with spirits.  No matter
where I've gone, they've been around; my mother thinks I'm psychic.  I know
from my grandmother that when I was a little girl I would say "strange"
things, and for a time I said so many "strange" things that my mother kept
a diary of them!  She burned it in the mid 1980's, apparently I'd said some
things she didn't want to remember - she still won't talk to me about them.
The only things that I remember myself are the death and violent acts
predictions that stopped when I was in high school.  I used to wake up and
tell my mom and dad that      something horrible was going to happen, and
it always did - the assassinations of John Lennon, Anwar Sadat, Lord
Mountbatten; the shootings of the Pope and Ronald Reagan; and the
Challenger disaster were some of the more memorable experiences.  I
apparently cried for two days before they found the Jonestown cult dead in
the jungle.
The first encounter with a ghost that I remember is when I was about 6
years old.  We were in a drugstore in Bowling Green, Ohio, and I saw my
grandfather a couple of aisles away!  I ran over to see him, and gave him a
big hug; he told me he loved me, and to tell my father that he loved him
too.  My mom called my name, very angrily, and I ran back to her and told
her to come quick, Grandpa Sten was there!  She told me that he couldn't
be, he was in Louisiana.  I was adamant that he was there, and my parents
got really annoyed with me.  They started treating me differently the next
day, though - after I went to bed that night, my uncle called my dad to
tell them that Grandpa had had a heart attack on the kitchen floor that
afternoon, alone, and died.
A couple of years later we moved into a new-ish townhouse in La Crosse,
Wisconsin.  As far as I know, they were pretty average places with no bad
history.  Not long after we moved in, SOMETHING started hanging around me,
especially when I was alone, which was a lot since both my parents worked.
I vividly recall this thing picking me up and taking me across rooms and
even down stairs.  It wasn't mean to me, it never hurt me at all.  As a
matter of fact, I got so used to it that I would tell it where to take me!
I would stand at the top of the stairs and wait for it to float me down.  I
would sometimes even fly around the living room!   One day I came home to
find the whole living room full of flies - I mean literally hundreds of
them!  Shades of Amityville Horror!  I was much to young to have seen that
film, but I remember the flies - they were mating all over the living room,
it was the strangest thing I've ever seen.  I called my mother, and she
came rushing home after yelling at me on the phone to stop lying - she
freaked out when she saw what happened, and we moved out soon after that.
There was a really creepy basement in that townhouse that I used as my
playroom, and I think that there was something not so nice down there - I
would be happily playing records down there, and suddenly come running up
the stairs, scared to go back down.
We moved away from there, and not much happened to me from about 14 years
old til I was about 21; that's when I moved into my grandmother's house in
Houston.  Weird stuff happened there - I'd wake up and see shadows in my
room, strange lights would fall from the ceiling to the floor, and my
closet scared me to death!  I had lots of dreams of devils in the closet,
crouched up on the top shelf waiting to get me, but I never saw one while I
was awake.   The oddest thing that happened to me there was a night I came
home late from work, and my grandfather was still awake.  He showed me that
they had just bought two hedgehogs (this was during the hedgehog breeding
craze of the early 90's) and they were spending the night in a covered box
in the garage.  Fast forward a couple of hours, and I'm asleep in a
Laz-e-boy in the living room, having fallen asleep watching TV.  Suddenly
SOMETHING with a commanding male voice shouted in my ear, GO LOOK IN THE
GARAGE RIGHT NOW!  I was scared to death, I jumped up and ran into the
garage just in time to find one of the hedgehogs falling over the side of
the box and onto the garage floor, with the other one right behind it.  I
put them back in and placed a weight on the lid so they couldn't get out
again!  My grandmother, who is very hard of hearing and sleeps through
hurricanes, asked me the next morning if something had happened with the
hedgehogs - I told her Yes and asked how she knew - she said she'd heard a
loud male voice telling her to go look at the hedgehogs, but that when she
was putting her robe on the voice told her to go back to bed, I had taken
care of it!  We have no idea who it was, but my grandfather slept through
the whole thing.
Fast forward again to a rented house I shared with my now-husband in
northwest Houston.  I have no idea what had happened in this house, but
from the moment we moved in I felt a very strong male spirit presence
there.  I knew it was male because it liked to get into bed with me and
snuggle up behind me while I was sleeping.  It would wake me up and scare
the hell out of me, because my fiance would be lying with his back to me,
right in front of my face!  The first time it happened I thought it was a
prowler, and I screamed  - my fiance woke up and found me curled up in a
little ball!  As soon as I had screamed the thing had disappeared.  I
thought I was dreaming, but them it started getting into bed with me while
I was awake - I could feel the sheets behind me moving, and then it would
press itself up against my back.  I would ask it to go away and it would
disappear for a while.  Then it started coming up behind me while I was
cooking dinner; I would think it was my fiance coming to kiss me on the
neck, but I would realize there were no hands or arms to go with the
feelings.  It got worse when my fiance would travel on business - the
dining room lights would rattle, and I started inviting my sister over to
keep me company, or I would go stay at my mothers house.  Whatever it was
would sometimes stand on the stairs and watch us - our parrot would go
insane for a while, and then he would be fine; sometimes he would attack an
unseen person, pecking and flapping at SOMETHING that we couldn't see.
After one particularly close encounter while I was lying awake in bed, I
finally stood in the dining room and told whatever he was that he was
scaring me, and that I wasn't whoever he thought I was, and I would be most
appreciative if he would PLEASE leave me alone for good.  The dining room
light started to sway slightly, and then it stopped.  I never had another
problem.  After we moved out, I asked the landlady if anyone had died in
the house that she knew of - she said that her husband had died there only
3 years before!  She and I have very similar builds and are both blondes -
I wondered if the spirit thought I was his wife.
We don't seem to have any spirits in our current house, although I still
have the occasional run in with a ghost when I travel - just two weeks ago
I was in Scotland with my husband, and we had a ghost in two of our hotel
rooms.  They were pretty funny, they seemed to just want us to acknowledge
their presence, and when we did they left us alone.
Luckily, I haven't had any run ins with any malevolent spirits lately - I
hope it stays that way!  Thanks for reading my story, weird as it may be.
I'm going to submit some wedding photos as well, so you can see all the
orbs at our reception (I think they're my father!)

Ghosts From My Childhood

By: sarah.callan@worldnet.att.net

my name is sarah.  when i was about 4 yrs old we lived in a house in long
valley,nj.  it was a very old house it was built during the civil war.
anyway i had some freeky expeareances there once me and my parents were
upstairs watching tv nobody was downstairs and we heard a human cough!
about 5 minutes after i forgot about what we heard so i went downstairs and
saw a red human form run after me i know this sounds crazy but i am just
saying what i saw i screamed like hell.  another day it was early in the
morning i woke up and my dad was sitting on my bed and we talked then all
the sudden he dissapeared in front of my eyes! then my parents woke up
wondering who i was talking to. also one night i was in bed and i felt
something weird it was freaking me out it felt like an arm and i was groping
it then it smacked my arm i was so scared that i froze all night! i remember
other strange happenings there but not as scary as the stories i mentioned.
we moved out when i was 8 yrs old.   when i was 21 my dad and i visited our
old house and the nice family that lives there now let us see it they lived
there for 8 yrs at the time and they seemed to love the place. when i was 23
my parents and i reunited with friends i havent seen since i was about 4 or
5 yrs old and one night my dad and i were at there house and charlotte and
greg the friends i just mentioned were talking about an old wooded chair
that they kept in there house for my dad .  this is before i lived in that
house in long valley. anyway our friends had a freaky expeareance with that
chair charlotte was doing her laundrey downstairs where the chair was and
she herd someone breathing loud perpously to scare her no one was there
until then she would not do her laundrey! then after that thats when my dad
took the chair back to that haunted house i lived in. so now im wondering if
it was the chair that was haunted and not the house. it was mentioned that
the chair was made by a tree that witches were hung by(im not sure). anyway
i hoped you liked my storie.
 

By: Wookette19@aol.com
 
      I just found your website a few days ago and I wanted to tell you
about my experiences.  For 18 years, I'm 19 now, I lived in a town in
Massachusetts.  My house was only about 50 years old but the land was a part
of the farm, in fact we have found old farming equipment in the ground.  Well
anyway my first experience was when I was about 4 or 5 years old.  My brother
and I were playing with some of his toy cars when he had to go to the
bathroom.  As I was sitting there playing with the cars I happened to look
into the kitchen and I saw an elderly woman in a dress float across the
kitchen into the cabinets.  I ran to the other room where she should have
come out but she didn't.  For some reason I don't remember really being
scared.  My next experience was a little more freaky.  It was Christmas Eve
and it was around 2 or 3 in the morning.  Being only around 9 or 10 I was
very excited about Christmas.  Anyway, I turned to my door and I saw an old
man in my doorway.  I thought at first it was my grandfather but then I
realized my grandfather was at my uncle's that night.  Anyway the spirit was
wearing a farmers outfit.  The overalls and a hat.  He looked at me and it
almost looked like he was sad.  He motioned for me to follow him I was too
scared and I just shook my head no.  He looked sad maybe even worried but he
just turned and walked away.  That was the most a spirit has really
interacted with me.  The next time I was living upsatirs and I had my cousin
over.  We both woke up around the same time which was odd all in of itself.
ANd we looked over to my wall and we saw 2 shadows on my wall kneeling
looking like they were praying.  The weird thing is that our shadows weren't
anywhere.  And I didn't have anything in my room that could have made a
shadow of let alone 2 human shadows praying.  The last memorable experience I
have is of a couple of years ago.  I had to get ready for school but school
started really early and I was grumbling to myself about having to wake up
and get out of bed.  All of a sudden my door opened right up.  I jumped out
oof bed and said "Ok Ok I'm up I'm up."  THe spirits in my house really never
seemed to want to harm me.  My friends and I think that I remind the spirits
of a granddaughter or daughter thaat died and they try to protect me.  I
don't know if it's true or not because I'm the only one in my immediate
family who has had these experiences.  Any advice might be helpful.

By: Michelle.Robertson@gfsinc.com

I am 23 now. As a child in our home. My mother, younger sister and I have witnessed a few sightings in our home. We have never recorded them, but we believe since we have all seen the same one. Also one time these people came and told my mom that there were a presence of Dominican preachers in our home. My mom went and blessed all the rooms.
When my younger sister was a baby, she was ill and asleep in the bed where my mom and dad were sleeping. My mother was awakened by a presence and she opened her eyes to see what looked like the grim reaper. She has seen it another time since then.
My sister and I were always affraid to be in my parents room or to pass by it. It was like we sensed something that we didn't want to be a part of.
When we were about eight or ten we saw the ghost for the first time. It was a shadow the size of a young child. It would pass from one room to another. We never caught a sight of this while in the rooms but only if we were at the other end of the hallway.
Also in our own rooms we have experienced different things. Things being moved from where we left them. And a face that would always peer at us from within the closet. All the little things that make you so scared to get out of bed.
Now that my sister and I have moved and we are years older. We live in a house together and have experienced some things where we are currently renting.
On our home we have security gates and a security alarm which goes off when a door or window is opened in the house. One day my sister and her husband had left to go to the store. I was still lying in bed, and I heard all the locks on the door unlock, and the beep from the alarm that the door was opened. I looked out the window. There were no cars in the driveway. I then walked into the living room to find nobody there. And that the locks werent unlocked, it was just as if it were just locked. It was frightening.
We have also witnessed some noises and occurances in one of the rooms in the house. The television has come on and no one was in the room, the volume starts low but ends up at high volume. I have also heard noises coming from that room like someone was hammering something. I had the only hammer at the house in my hand and as soom as I opened the door it quit.
 

By: wh10hobsos@home.com

 One time me and my family stayed in a house on the beach in Lincoln City, Oregon. Well one time me and my sisters and one of my cousins found this secret door in the closet in the room that we stayed in. Once we found it we went inside the secret room.When we were up there we heard some knocking under us. (because we were upstairs) We went down stairs and nobody was there. We went back upstairs to the secret room and the knocking came back. We went down stairs again and we found two footsteps on the bed.
My dad and aunt had something happen to them too.  My aunt and my dad were staying in the same house by themselves in the winter.  In the middle of the night my aunt heard my dad talking in the living room.  After a while she got up to see what he was doing.  She heard the voice as she went around the corner but when she got into the living room, no one was there and my dad was sound asleep in his room.  The next night my dad heard the drawers in the kitchen being opened and closed.  Then he heard the noise in the bathroom.  When he got up to see what the noise was it stopped and no one was there.  My aunt was sound asleep in her room.  We know of two other people that have had strange experiences in this same house.  The owners told us that over the years there have been many stories of noises, voices and things like that in this house.
Whatever these things really are we don't know but we're going back again next year!

Grandma's Ghost?

By: markandcharlotte@msn.com

From 1996 to 1997, during a span of about a year and a half, I lived with my aunt and uncle, who are siblings, in my Grandmother's house, which was the house they grew up in with my mother who is the eldest of them.  My Grandmother died in 1989 of cancer, when I was about 12, and my Grandfather had remarried by the time I took up residence there, but lived elsewhere with his new wife. They lived only a few months in the house, but my grandfather's wife was always complaining that she felt as if she were competing with my grandmother's ghost all the time.  I am pretty sure she meant that figuratively, but maybe she sensed something and did not realize it.  My aunt is a nurse, and my uncle was a cross country truck driver at the time, and I ended up spending a lot of time alone at home.  The home is a large tri-level ranch style built in the mid sixties, with four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, laundry room, two fireplaces, with the garage and laundry room on the lowest level. The long main part has the four bedrooms--two on each side of a long hall which terminates in a bathroom at the end of the house.  The hall is in a direct line of sight of the flight of stairs that leads to the top floor of the house where the family room, kitchen, dining room and den are.  This is where the story really starts.
I was not living at my grandmother's house when the activity first started.  I was visiting my aunts and uncle for the weekend.  My other aunt, the second eldest, was living there with her children, who were about four and two at the time. We were all sitting upstairs in the family room watching TV when the two year old, who had been looking down the stairs into the hall suddenly asked, "Mommy, who is that lady?"  My aunt got this stricken look on her face, and slowly turned her head to look where my cousin was pointing, but she saw nothing.  We had all stopped talking, because there was no one in the house but the six of us, and my aunt asked my cousin to tell us what the lady looked like.  To our shock, my two year old cousin described a woman that sounded like my grandmother--a woman that had died years before she was born. And without prompting, she told us that the lady walked down the hall, looked into my uncle's room, and then went into the master bedroom.  Nobody but my little cousin saw anything. Of course, we hadn't been paying attention.
Later that night, after my aunt and I had put the children to bed, we were back upstairs, and my aunt told us that her husband had seen my grandmother's ghost two weeks earlier.  He had been going down the stairs into the hall and had seen exactly what my cousin saw.  He had been the only one in the house at the time, and the experience, in his words, had "scared the crap" out of him. He knew immediately what he saw. That is the reason my aunt looked so upset at what my cousin had said.  Her husband had told no one but her what he had seen, and they had agreed not to say anything about it because they had not wanted to frighten the children. This was the first indication that anyone had had that my grandmother was checking up on us.
Now, during the time I lived there, I slept in the master bedroom, where my grandmother had spent most of her illness.  In fact, I slept in the same bed.  She hadn't died there, though.  I don't think I could have stayed there if that were the case.  I am as afraid of the supernatural as I am fascinated by it.  I know that sounds weird but it's true.  But back to the matter at hand.
When I moved in my aunt told me that first night to leave the door of my grandmother's closet ajar and keep the light on.  I instantly remembered the events that had occurred two years previously, and being the coward that I am, I did not argue, only did as I was told.  I did not sleep well that first night, but noticed nothing.  It was not until a week later that I, still with the closet light on, could hear the sound of the coat hangers in that closet clacking and shifting around.  I assure you, I was frightened!  As I said before, when it comes to the supernatural, I haven't got much courage. I could not get up for fear of what I might encounter.  I pulled the covers over my head and eventually fell asleep.
This scenario happened many, many times over the next year and a half.  Four to five nights a week, I would hear the hangers in grandma's closet banging around.  When I told my father, he said it sounded cool (He would. He prides himself on not being afraid of anything).  So he came over and sat in the closet for several hours.  He saw nothing.  However, when he came out of the closet to talk to me, and this time he shut the door, several minutes later we both heard the sound of the coat hangers shaking.  I looked at him and he looked at me and he went over and opened the closet door.  I held my breath.  But when the door opened, we both saw the hangers swaying slightly.  It was so weird.  At least he believed me.  I never felt threatened though.  I was just scared of seeing something I really didn't want to experience.  The coat hangers were enough for me, thank you!
I know this is not really scary, except to me and my relatives who were there, but this is the only experience I've had that can be corroborated  by several people, so I thought it was worth sharing.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.

By: martialman_1@netzero.net

I am intrigued so far about this site. Here is my true story. I grew up in a small NJ town in Mercer Co. called Pennington. This town was on the cusp of leaving its' agricultural roots when my family first moved there in the early 1960's. We moved into an old two story farmhouse built in the early 1800's. Even as a small child I could "feel" energy or prescences in the house...sometimes just an uneasy feeling, sometimes cold spots, but also incidents. Incidents included dogs looking up at the ceiling and cowering and whimpering while running from certain rooms on occasions; dog adamantly refusing to go up the staircase into the attic even when being beckoned by a family member at the top of stairs and encouragement from family member standing with dog at bottom of the stairs...dog would look up at the top of the staircase, whimper, take one or two steps, then back down and often run downstairs. Other happenings included books flying off of bookshelf, stamping feet going up and down the stairs, knocking on closed bedroom doors, turning of doorknobs, heavy wooden doors swinging open, heavy curtains blowing in the room on a breezeless day, chairs rocking, sightins of black cat and black raven in the house when we had neither, lights flickering on and off, ect. I hope this offers enough of a flavor of my childhood haunted house.

By: TAGGETTER@aol.com

i HAVE BEEN READING SHADOWLAND FOR A WHILE AND THOUGHT IT WAS TIME FOR ME TO
PUT DOWN WHAT HAPPEN TO ME IN 1995 DURING A HOLLOWEEN PARTY.
IT WAS ABOUT 9PM THAT NIGHT WARM AND WEIRD FOE A HOLLWEEN NIGHT, BECAUSE AT
THE TIME MY FAMILY LIVED UP IN THE FOOTHILLS. i WAS INVTIED TO A FRIENDS
HOLLWEEN PARTY FOR THE NIGHT WHICH WAS ONLY SIX PEOPLE THERE, ALL CLOSE
FIRENDS. WE WERE LAUGHING PLAYING GAMES AND JUST ENJOYING THE NIGHT. wE WERE
IN THE BOTTOM APARTMENT OF MY FRIEND'S PARENTS HOUSE AND THEY WERE UPSTAIRS
WATCHING TV, TELLING US NOT TO WONDER AROUND AT NIGHT. THEY JUST BOUGHT THE
PLACE AND WERE UNSURE OF IT HELD ANY DANGER. fOR A WHILE I LOST TRACK OF MY
FRIEND AND COULDN'T FIND HER. lOOKING UP THE DRIVE WAY i SAW A DARK SHADOW
STANDING THERE IN THE DARKNESS, THINKING IT WAS MY FRIEND I YELLED AND RAN UP
THERE LAUGHING. i WAS FIFTEEN AT THE TIME, WHEN I GOT UP THERE WAS NOTHING,A
CHILL SEEM TO WRAP IT SELF AROUND MY BODY AND THEN THE FLOOD LIGHTS CAME ON
AND MY FRIEND'S PARENTS WEE YELLING AT ME. I TOLD THEM WHAT I SAW AND THAT WE
WERE PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK (WHICH WASN'T TRUE) I TOLD THEM I THOUGHT MY
FRIEND WAS UP HERE SO I CAME TO TAG HER, BUT NO ONE WAS THERE. I DO REMEBER
SEEING A LIGHT GLOW FROM AROUND WHERE THE EYES WERE, I THOUGHT IT WAS MY
FRIEND BECAUSE SHE WORE GLASSES AND JUST A REFLECTION FROM THE LIGHTS. THE
SHERIFF WAS CALLED AND A REPORT WAS FILED. THEY NEVER FOUND NY FOOT PRINTS
JUST MINE AND EVERY ONE THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE I PULLED, BUT TO THIS DAY I
SWEAR I SAW SOMETHING UP THERE AND WOULD NEVER JOKE ABOUT THAT. I ONLY WISH I
KNEW WHAT IT WS I SAW, BECAUSE IT FELT SAD BUT ANGRY. LIVING IN THE FOOTHILLS
IN A OLD GOLD RUSH TOWN I HEAR THAT THERE IS MANY WANDERING SPIRITS THERE. I
ONLY WISH THAT I COULD OF KNOWN WHO THE SPIRIT I SAW THAT NIGHT WAS!
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME WRITE TO YOU ABOUT THIS, IT HAS BEEN AWHILE SINCE I
TALKED ABOUT THIS BUT NOW I FEEL BETTER BEING ABLE TO WRITE TO YOU!

Haunted House

By: Leggygirl00@cs.com

When I was about 9, I lived in a big two story house in my current town now
in illinois.    I had found out from my mom that a older man had died in that
house at the dinner table.  This instantly brought together some of the weird
happenings I am going to tell you about.  All of this is real.
If you sat in our living room, to the right of you was our kitchen, and to
the left the staircase.  if you turned everything off in the house and sat on
our couch, you would here footsteps go from the kitchen, walk right in front
of you, and then go up the stairs.  After awhile, the footsteps would come
back down the stairs and go back into the kitchen.
In our bedrooms, our music boxes would play by themselves.  Every night, one
of our music boxes would start playing and then after a few minutes just stop.
One night, my sister actually had her fan fly off the desk and land in the
middle of her room.  That was the only time that ever happened.
Our babysitter after awhile refused to babysit for us because everytime she
walked into a room, all the picture frames would be turned aroubd backwards
on the wall.  That was enough for her.
We recieved phone calls, but when we picked it up, no one would be there, and
you would just get that "feeling".  Lights turned on by themselves, and
dorrs, even locked doors at times, would open themselves.  Real People, Real Ghosts!!!

Haunted House Experience

By: sburke152@hotmail.com

I live in Topeka, Kansas. In the late 70s I took a job babysitting for a fellow nurse friend of my mother. She had the graveyard shift which is appropriate because her house was near the Rochester Cemetery, one of the grounds for sightings of the famous Albino Lady ghost figure. From the beginning she offered her bedroom as a place for me to sleep but I always said I'd just sleep on the couch. This went on for a few months. The reason she needed a sitter was because she was going through a divorce. She asked me testify on her behalf as to her psychological condition the months I sat for her because her husband was asking for sole custody of the children accusing her of having Delusions of Grandeur. I agreed and took the stand and answered the questions of both lawyers. She won her case and was allowed to keep the children with full custody. Now she still insisted I sleep in her room every night and getting fed up with her plying and fed up with my foolish misgivings I did it. Everything seemed like it was ok and I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was waking up with my eyes still closed. Waking up so much that I was not the least bit drowsy but something was wrong and I knew it. I felt someone was there but I also told myself I was being ridiculous. I went back and forth a few times debating on whether to open my eyes or just stay frozen like that not knowing until someone came. So I decided to do it and get it over with and disspell my crazy imagination so I opened my eyes. Right up close in front of my face was a hand with fingers splayed out of a normal size and there was nothing else in the way of a body part. I immediately closed my eyes and started praying that I would make it through the night without more terror. Now this is stranger than the hand that I saw and that was fast as my heart was beating and pounding in my chest and with much labored breathing and fright and not being able to believe what was happening to me I somehow fell back asleep. I did not mention what happened to the nurse until some months later but I stayed on the couch and never ever slept in her room again. So finally I told her what happened to me and the look on her face told me she wasn't surprised or unbelieving. Then she told  me in her room sometimes the walls would disappear and she would be able to see all of her large backyard and that Jesus would come and talk to her. Well after what happened to me I was not about to doubt her. Was it mean of her to insist I sleep in her room knowing this all the while. Yes, I think it was because it was after the divorce was final and there should have been no reason to want me to know she had a valid cause for her Delusions. Was it the Albino Lady's hand, I don't know but it was white. I will never set foot in that house again and I pray the people who live there now are not frightened out of their wits, but I never had a problem when I slept on the couch after that incident happened it was only that room and the girl's bedroom upstairs which I will convey at another time. Yes, I stayed on for several months more because I felt sorry for her situation, she didn't have any friends that came over to her house the entire year and a half I sat for her and she was bitter about the divorce and in a lot of mental pain. I know she saw some strange things in her room and was not making them up just for attention. Maybe she just wanted someone to believe her and that's why she wanted me in her room without warning me for if she did she knew I would never go in there for any amount of nudging. Sandy

Haunted Theater

By: MORG244@aol.com

I used to work at an old movie theater in San Francisco.  It still stands
there but is now a banquet hall.  I worked there in my first year at college
until it was sold to some yuppies and was renovated.  It was called the
Regency 1 and it was a single screen theater that took up a whole block on
Van Ness.  It was about 4 stories high and has 3 floors below.  On the second
floor was an old Masonic club of some sort that performed strange theater
plays.  The third floor was an old dance hall with extremely old toilets,
they said "John Company."  Which I was told that's how the name for a toilet
is also a "John."  And the top floor had a cathedral, which was pretty much
closed because we had to use a small spiral staircase to enter it.  It was
complete with huge wooden chairs, a pipe organ and stained glass.  The First
bottom floor had a huge fan room in it in which was soiled with about 100
dead pigeons.  Every night, someone had to turn it off by flipping a huge
Frankenstein switch.  We didn't take turns, we did rock paper scissors. (I
usually made my girlfriend come with me).  And the last floor contained a
ballroom that extremely resembled the "Golden Room" from the Shining.
Everything in this whole place was original, the rope barriers, the couches,
the balconies, the curtains and carpets.  The boss was an ancient woman named
Pearl Stimmel.  She always had her Chihuahua named Chibi walking after her.
She told me that 3 people were killed in the theater since she's been working
there.  One woman fell from the balcony while trying to get her friends
attention.  A woman fell down these really steep iron stairs that lead from
the back of the screen and a man was beaten to death in the bathroom during
the movie "Jesus Christ Superstar."  Everybody including me has seen things.
Shadows walking on the balconies, I would walk up thinking it was people
sneaking up to have sex and there would be nobody there.  Walking into the
screen room and there would be dust flying everywhere...I would tell my boss
and she pointed out that the chandeliers were swinging back and forth.  These
things were from the 20's and were huge.  I don't believe that a small
earthquake could do that without us feeling it.  There was a knot in the wood
on the back of one of the bathroom stall doors that looked like a man.  And
we used to find really old things on the tables in the lobby in the morning,
like a rocky keychain from the 70's, Stamps and dollar bills from the 40's
and the coolest one was a box of cigarettes with a tax stamp from 1921. It
think it was either ghosts or roaches.  I would like an e-mail from anyone
who had been to this place and had experienced anything.  There's a lot more
to tell about this place but I have to walk my dog.  I would also like to see
a group of investigators check that place out.

By: butterflyanw@yahoo.com
 

To begin with, I have always been somewhat "gifted", ever since I was
little. Let me say I have never seen an apparition, but I do have unusual
dreams. I will get a slight headache that gets worse and worse, until I am
forced to lie down and sleep just to get away from it (and being a college
student it kind of hampers the social life). When I dream I will have vivid
dreams, sometimes of places and people I have never seen or known. When I
wake up I find out my dream has come true. Two examples for you : 1) I
dreamt about the Oklahoma City bombing 2 weeks before it happened, and
being little then (only 13) the children crying disturbed me greatly, and
2) I dreamed my uncle would have to go to the Gulf War, and he did, exactly
as I dreamed it.
I also have had dreams of ghosts, and even though I cannot see them awake,
they are quite vivid and seem real in my dreams...
I am working on developing my talents, and I now do some tarot and readings
(mostly just for friends, and ALWAYS for free) and I belong to a ghost
investigation team.
Just a little background for you...Now on to my house. I live in a "normal"
ranch style home in Michigan, that is haunted. We (my mother, stepfather,
and I) hear strange footsteps coming up from the basement, through the
hall, and stopping right outside my bedroom door. The floor creaks so I
always know if someone (even the dog) is outside my door. There are noises
almost every night that sound as if someone is breaking in to the house,
but whenever we go to check,there is no one there.
We will leave to go out to dinner or something, and come home with every
light on in the house (and you would have to know my parents to know that
NEVER would happen). There are taps on my window (and the guest bedroom
window) at night, with no one there.
The worst (maybe scariest ) incident was last summer (June 2000). My family
and I have noticed that the noises are the most frequent in June, July, and
August, tapering off in the fall, and are completely gone by early
December, only to return again every summer.
I was lying in my room, trying to fall asleep with another one of my
strange headaches. This one was so bad I was practically in tears. I
finally had drifted off into sleep when I heard a THUD and felt my bed
shake slightly. Jumping up (as I was alone in the house) I opened my door
and went to go investigate the noise (taking my dog with me, of course).
The hallway was clear, and then I heard a STOMP, STOMP STOMP and then a
dragging noise coming from the stairs leading down  into our basement. It
sounded like the kitchen windows were shattering, with a breaking noise and
then the sound of glass falling on the floor. I was standing in the
kitchen, and not a window was broken. I stood there in the middle of the
kitchen trying to calm down (I had read that fear antogonizes ghosts) and
refused to move. The last straw was when I heard a faint whispering in my
right ear. I whipped around and nothing was there. That was it! I ran into
my bedroom with my dog and called my boyfriend. I put him on speakerphone
so he could hear the stomping outside my door. After it stopped (about 2
hours later) I finally drifted off to sleep. That morning (it was like 4 am
when I finally went to sleep again) I had a strange dream. I dreamed about
a man with glowing skin like parchment and eerie gray eyes who was wearing
black gloves, and a plaid shirt and torn up jeans. I SAW him (in my dream)
dragging a body of a woman (I think but I can't tell b/c I can only see the
head and the legs) up my basement stairs and then dragging her through the
kitchen into the bathroom, where he was sawing at her with a hacksaw and
washing her in the water...It seems like I was standing in the doorway to
my bedroom watching, and as i watched in horror, he turned and smiled at
me. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed, drenched in sweat,
with my dog trembling in bed next to me.
I told my mom and my step-dad the next day, and we tried to research it at
the library. The problem is, the city I live in was undeveloped forest with
cabins dotted throughout the land all the way until about the 1960's, so it
can't really be traced who he was.
I am convinced, though, that what i saw was real. Ever since my dream, I
have had a bunch of other strange dreams about the same man, and he still
pulls the same pranks, plus new ones.
On a side note, when I went to my friends' mom the other day for a reading
(she is Lebanese, and does tarot, palms, and aura readings) she asked me
who the man was standing behind me. When I loked puzzled she explained to
me she saw a man standing behind me in a plaid shirt and gloves with gray
eyes. She said she kept getting the name "Arthur" and that he was a very
bad man, very wild and nasty. She said he had attached himself to me b/c I
looked like his sister, and b/c i was more "attuned" to the spirit world
than others.
I'll keep you posted and let you know what goes on in the future, b/c as of
today, May 31, 2001, I still hear the noises and still have the dreams....

Many Signs of Haunting

By: the_goddess_bastet@yahoo.com

 I read of your personal experience with ghosts and I have one to share
which terrifies me still.  My house is/was haunted.  There are footsteps,
voices which sound muted and far away as if they are being funneled
through something.  And I have had grim experiences with black figures
which scurry animal-like across the floor and another entity which it
seems is harmful/evil.  At first I thought I was imagining it all, and
then when I met my fiance and invited him over to my house he confirmed
what I was feeling.  Being somewhat mystical, religious, and possessing a
kind of psychic connection that is not as strong as my own, my fiance
told me that he felt as though there were several presences in and around
my house, one of which may be harmful or evil.  My fiance practiced wicca
for a while, and is a deeply spiritual person.  He has told me to tell
the forces that they are "unwelcome" and that only God, angels, positive
spirits are welcome here.  My fiance says that if it isn't invited then
it can't come in--those are the rules.  He also put a kind of protection
around myself and my house.  Since then, most all of the experiences have
gone, but my fiance says that he still feels very uneasy in my house as
do I.  Even though I have the ability to say YOU'RE NOT WELCOME, STAY
OUT, I still feel as if certain spirits/demons (whatever they may be)
want to hang around.  I've considered having my house blessed by a priest
but I'm not catholic and I'm afraid I might be viewed as "eccentric" (to
put it nicely).

By:Anonymous

Your site is very well done and extremely fascinating.  I have a mini story and a few questions, if you can help me out.
I just moved into a basement apartment last year and have often sensed some kind of "presence".  At first, I would just shrug it off, thinking it was my nerves.  But in March, I started experiencing some relatively freaky stuff.  I pretty much knew we had a ghost, but never said it out loud really.
I was asleep one morning when all of a sudden I felt myself falling into some kind of trance.  I was wide awake, but couldn't open my eyes.  I found myself in my parents' home, in the basement.  (I live in Toronto, they live out in Ottawa) I looked over to the staircase and saw a young man sitting on the stairs.  I never saw him before in my life but immediately knew it was "the ghost from my apartment".  I sensed that he wanted to say something and I was majorly freaked out, so I ran away.  (I have always been able to control my situations in dreams, like running away, or grabbing a weapon for protection.  Don't ask! :)  I woke up wondering what it was all about.
Exactly a week later, I was sleeping and again, found myself falling into the trance.  This time, I was in my roommate's bedroom, except it was furnished differently.  I noticed a brown wooden dresser with an intricate design in green wood.  Next to it stood a young man with dark hair.  I knew it was the same guy from the other dream and he wanted to talk.  Again, I freaked out and woke myself up.  I went and talked to my roommate about it.  He said that he woke up that morning (around the same time I had the dream) and saw a shadow cross over his bed.  Freaky, huh?  He wasn't going to tell me about it for fear I would think he was nuts.
Then, a month or so later, I found myself for the third time, falling into a trance, and I saw the brown and green dresser.  I was accepting this time, and was willing to hear the "spirit" out.  However, I lost the dream and woke up.
I was talking to my housemate a week or so later.  She brought the matter up, saying that the girls who used to live in my apartment, now live on the 3rd floor.  They have often asked her if she ever met the ghost.  They said it was a young, good looking man.  He sometimes goes up to the 3rd floor and appears to them.  Keep in mind, I never spoke of my experience to these people, and never told anyone that I knew our ghost was male.
I have yet to see him when I'm not sleeping.  Other things have happened, subtle things.  I was once very sad, in bed, and I felt someone holding my hand, and this warm feeling ran through me.  Perhaps it was just my imagination.
Anyways, sorry to ramble on so much! :)  I'm just wondering if ghosts are known to act that way.  He hasn't tried to contact me since, and I kind of want him to, now that I'm not so afraid to listen.  I know some people have had weird dreams involving ghosts, but I'm wondering how wise it would be to actually say "I'm ready to see you now, Mr Ghost"?  I guess I'm just curious now, since he went to so much trouble to rob me of my sleep before!  I'm thinking that he's harmless, but it would be best to leave it alone, because it's never good to mess with the supernatural.

By: Mommy2Makenzie@aol.com

Apartments Oshtemo, Michigan, I believe are haunted. I
lived there for my first 18 years of life. I've had things happen to me, and
to neighbors. That's why I believe it's the apartments in whole. I've been
upstairs in my room, alone in the house, and I'd hear women talking
downstairs. I'd go downstairs thinking it was my mom, nobody was there,
nothing was on. I've been woken up out of my sleep to something pulling my
sheet off and it being on the floor, I'd go to pick it up, something would
hold the sheet down. My mother has woke up to feeling a presence, and not
been able to move or speak, and barely open her eyes, and see a male figure
(she believed to be her brother who had recently died) standing at her
bedroom doorway. Neighbors have spoke of things too. One told me that one day
she and her infant daughter were alone in their apartment, only a candle
burning in the living room. These apartments have sliding glass doors, and
hers broke from the inside . . . although nothing hit it. The outside pane
was still in tact. Another time in that same apartment, she and her husband
were in the living room, their front door was locked. It slammed open,
although nobody was there. I've been in a lot of these apartments in this
complex, and could feel a presence in just about every single one. These are
just some of the stories that stick out more.

By: Nomad122@aol.com
 

Hello. I've bean reading the stories which other visitors to The Shadowlands
have posted and have decided to share my own experiences, which in retrospect
are downright amusing (but still eerie). Both my parents are believers in the
spirit world, so I guess that's why I am more open to these experiences than
some. When I was a kid I used to sit up at night and beg my dad to tell me
ghost stories- he's had more than a few encounters of his own. However, I
consider myself a rational person not easily spooked and approach stories of
the supernatural with a healthy dose of skepticism. With that in mind, I'll
tell you about my experiences last year. I am a college student originally
from Florida but going to school in VA, and last summer I decided to stay in
VA to work instead of going home. I rented a bedroom in a house outside the
small town of Montpelier, VA, about 20 miles west on Route 33 from Richmond.
The house was a two-bedroom cottage with no indoor shower- there was an
outside enclosed camp shower by the back porch. Anyway, I shared the house
for three months with my current roommate, and we both had numerous
unexplainable experiences there. We often heard unusual noises- footsteps,
etc- or had a feeling of presence, particularly in the bedrooms. When lying
on the couch in the living room, reading (usually when I was alone, but my
roommate was frequently gone anyway), I would hear human sounds- a man and a
woman talking in low voices, a child giggle, a woman laugh, a man cough-
coming from my roommate's bedroom, on the other side of the wall. No
television other than the one in the living room, no radio, and the area is
very rural, so it is doubtful these sounds could have carried from even the
closest neighbors. The landlady and her husband lived next door, but they
were usually away or asleep when these things happened, and their house was
on the other side of the property anyway. At the time I didn't have a bed, so
I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor of my room and had plugged my
alarm clock into the outlet on the wall next to me. On several occassions I
woke up to discover I was late to work because my alarm clock was either
completely unplugged or blinking as if it had been unplugged and plugged back
in- could have been a power surge, but all the other clocks in the house were
fine, and the house was so small that most of it ran off one circuit.
Thinking to put a stop to this (maybe I had unplugged it in my sleep?) I
moved the clock to the other side of the room, where I couldn't possibly
reach it except to turn it off. I found it unplugged again the next morning
and on several occassions after that. Well, about this time I heard from the
landlady, via my roommate, that the house was supposedly haunted by a ghost
named Helen, a previous owener of the house who had raised a family of seven
children there decades before. Helen liked to play tricks on the tenants to
make her presence known. Mind you, I hadn't told my roommate about any of the
things I had experienced because I didn't want to seem crazy. I told her
then, and she told me she had also been hearing things in the house when I
was out, although Helen's practical jokes seemed focused me for a while. She
also dropped a kick-knack on my head once from the shelf above the back door-
I was standing looking out the window and happened to look up at the shelf
when this ceramic thing came crashing down and hit me square between the
eyes. It didn't hurt (much) but it certainly stunned me. I know very well
this object had not been close to the edge, because a few hours before I had
moved it back from the edge where it had mysteriously and gradually slid over
the past few days (from the door vibrations, I thought, even though nothing
else on the shelf had moved). No one had been out the door since I moved it
back, so that can't account for how it suddenly fell on me. Anyway, I guess
Helen just didn't like that particular knick-knack. When my roommate had told
me about the supposed haunting, she'd mentioned that the ghost liked to "run
on the rafters". I didn't understand what she meant at the time and put it
out of mind until one night, almost a month later I was trying to go to sleep
and I heard a very strange noise in the hall, quite unlike any normal
house-settling sounds. It sounded almost like a small dog pattering up and
down the hall between my room and the living room, except there was no sound
of toenails clicking on the hardwood floor. My roommate has a small dog, but
she swears that the dog was in her room and asleep all night, and I never
heard her bedroom door open (the doors are very squeaky, and her room was
right next to mine). Anyway, the steps sounded like they came up to my door
and retreated to the living room at least a dozen times, but they never
passed my doorway and, being too petrified to go look for myself, I never saw
anything. Later I talked to the landlady myself about it, and she laughed an
told me that it was Helen "running on the rafters" (even though it sounded
very much like it was coming from the floor). I never heard it again. Anyway,
aside from the oddness inside the house itself, the woods surrounding the
house had a "strange" feel. I always felt horribly naked and unprotected when
walking up the path to the front door, like something was watching and
waiting in the shadows of the woods on my right. I often heard strange
noises- sometimes almost like moaning, sometimes unidentifiable animal
noises- coming from them. Taking a shower (outside, remember) after dark was
always an ordeal. My roommate and I would actually sit on the porch and
"stand watch" while the other was in the shower. Once while doing this I
heard a sound like young children laughing and talking in the woods behind
me, and this was at 11 pm. What kids would be out in the woods that late? And
we didn't have any nearby neighbors on that side. I think part of it was just
the heebie-jeebies from the woods being dark and spooky, but I'm sure of what
I heard and felt. Some weeks later my roommate and I got brave and decided to
explore the woods at night and face our fears. We went out with flashlights
and explored as much as we could without getting lost. Didn't see anything
but a lot of old, rusted-out stoves and paint cans and unusually dead and
bare trees (it was the middle of summer) but I swear I heard footsteps in the
leaves behind me; when I told my roommate to stop because I heard something,
they continued for a split second and stopped. Well anyway, the landlady said
she when she acquired this property the cottage was all overgrown with woods
and the house itself was in a shambles- hadn't been lived in in decades. The
cottage was originally 3 or 4 tiny bedrooms, but she tore down the walls to
make a larger living room and 2 larger bedrooms and completely remodeled the
place to make it rentable. My theory is that doing this disturbed whatever
spirits or residual energies inhabited the place and made "Helen" (who may
not have been the only spririt there) more active, and eager to make it known
to the living residents that she was still there. Plenty of other strange
things happened- noises, shadows from the corner of my eye, objects being
moved- but after a while it became so commonplace that I stopped taking
special note. I actually talked to Helen sometimes, when she was doing
something especially irritating (like the thing with the clock), and I think
she listened and eventually respected my right to live there too. In the last
month or so I lived there, she didn't make much of a stir. It was almost
disappointing, because having her around, asserting her presence, was fun and
challenging in a way, but I guess by that time she had come to accept us as
we accepted her. One thing is for certain- Helen made a believer out of me!

By: lala1@citlink.net

I have a true story to tell. If anyone thinks that it is fake, then let them come to my house. Anyway, I was walking along in my house a while ago and happened to look at the screen door.(It was night and I was home alone.) I saw a figure standing there looking at me. It was way darker than the night outside. I slowly moved over to the knife rack and picked up the sharpest one. But my eyes must have left the screen for one second because it wasn't there anymore. Then, about a couple of days later, I was just about to fall asleep and I heard something. I put the covers away from my ears and tilted them up to hear better. The noises I heard was voices of some little girls. They sounded like they were coming through the wall, which is my brothers room. I sat up, thinking that my brother snuck out and was talking to one of his girlfriends. But there was no boys voice and the voices were distant. They were saying this:
"Cousin! Where are you? Does she still live here?" The last question seemed to be aimed at another girl, who sounded older.
"She should. Do you think that she'll remember us? Hey! I wonder. Is that her?" I think that they were talking about me.
"No that's not her. That's someone else in her bed. Man! I want my cousin!" I heard a different voice cry, getting fainter and fainter as it started sobbing.
By that time I was wide awake and a little scared. The next thing that would happen would scare me half to death. I was looking at my poster on my wall as I thought that they had left. In the very dim kitchen light, I saw something white sitting on top of it. I got out of bed, I have no idea how and why, and slowly walked to my poster. Staring at it, I saw that it looked like a really small person. By then I was freaked! I had to put my hand on my mouth to keep from screaming! Then the tiny person left as I crawled back to my bed. Just when I was about to fall asleep again I heard a tiny voice in my ear. It said:
"Don't be afraid. We're not  here to hurt you." Then I felt warm and fell asleep instantly.
 

By: Dixie090186@cs.com

        When we first moved in I felt uneasy about the whole thing.  Not really
uneasy like scared.  I don't know it is hard to explain. You feel like
someone is here with you, and you look back and around to see if someone is
there, but no one is.  Well, when we first moved into the house, we'd lived
here probably about 6 months.  My brother and dad were gone to baseball
practice and my mother and I were here at home.  My mother was cooking dinner
in the kitchen and I was in my room doing homework.  I got that feeling, like
someone was there with me, and I looked up.  Everything was quite and no one
was around.  Soon as I looked up, something, sounding like it was right in my
ear said my name "CARRIE."  It was a whisper, but one of the loud sharp
whispers, like it was trying to get my attention.  I sort of freaked me out,
so I left my bed room.  Well, nothing else happened again until one night
when I was laying in bed.  My bedroom door was open.  All the lights in the
house were out except the bathroom.  We have a floor heater in our house that
is in the middle of the hall way.  When someone steps on it, it goes down and
you can hear it.  It makes a rather loud boom sound.  Well, my bedroom door
was open and I woke up.  The house was silent and everyone was in bed. I
could see into the hall from here I laid, and I heard something in the
kitchen.  You know when people wake up, and walk, and they are still tired,
and when they walk their feet drag across the floor making a sound?  Well,
that's what I heard.  It just was silent, and then I heard it on the tile
floor in the kitchen.  Then I heard the footsteps fade unto the carpet in the
living room.  Seeming it was getting louder and closer, then it was right in
front of my room.  It sounded like someone was walking right through the hall
way.  Even the heater went down and made that boom.  But the thing is, no one
was there.  I could see into the hallway.  The hall wasn't even dark because
of the light shining in from the bathroom.  No one was there, but something
was making footsteps.  Then, they faded on into my brother's room where he
was asleep and the house grew silent again.  I laid in bed....thinking.."what
in the world was that?!"  It was the strangest feeling.  Then about 5 minutes
later, my brother left his room and came to me and said, "Carrie, is it all
right if I stay in here and sleep with you tonight?"  I told him yes, but I
didn't ask anything about it.  If he heard it to or anything.  He is a lot
younger than I am.  The other night I was talking to my cousin at my
grandmother's house and I told him in front of my brother that once I heard
footsteps in my house late at night and my brother started crying.  (he is 9)
My grandmother told me not to talk about it anymore so I haven't.  But the
third time something has happened was late at night not too long ago.  About
8 months ago.  My brother and I had switched rooms, and I now had his bed
room.  I woke up one night with a feeling like I wasn't alone.  It was such a
strong feeling.  Very strong.  I scared.  It was late again, and silent and I
was alone, and I heard something.  It seemed to be coming from the attic
above me maybe?  I don't know.  But it was above me.  It sounded like someone
had a rake in the attic and was scraping the rake across my ceiling.  I'd
wake up and it would do it a while longer and stop.  I laid there and decided
that I shouldn't be afraid.  So, I tried to go to sleep, since it had
stopped.  When I went to sleep, I immediately got woken by the same sounds.
Again I tried to sleep but was waken.  This happened about 5 times.
Everytime I woke it would stop.  I had gotten pretty scared, and the feeling
was over welming and I felt like crying.  But then I said....STOP....I am
sleeping....Dont bother me...leave me alone.  It quit, and it didn't wake me
again.  I have just told my mother about this.  She hasn't had anything
happen to her.  Things have only happened to me.

By: tangirlsc@webtv.net
 

about 3 years ago i lived in a trailer with my 3 year old daughter and
my boyfriend.anyway,one morning after my boyfriend had gone to work,i
heard the water running in the bathroom,and i tried to ask who's in the
bathroom,but i could not say anything  nor could i move.then the water
went off,and i could hear someone walking down the hall,but i saw no one
and when it got into the livingroom,i was able to get up.and my daughter
was asleep,and there was no one else there. i am not sure if it was a
ghost,but it was something that i could not see but i could hear it and
it would not let me get up until it was gone.
 

Chicago Chills

By: DorothyBiron@cs.com

I lived in a haunted house in Chicago, Illinois for 11 years, and this was
one of many of the frightening experiences that happened to me, . We moved
into this house when I was 9 years old and we were only the second family to
live in it.
I awoke one very hot summer night to the hissing and growling of my very
pregnate Calico cat who slept next to me all year long. We were sleeping in
my parents bedroom, and as my cat started growling and howling I felt someone
take my mattress and give it a violent shake it was so hard that I remember
my cat's howls sounding choppy from the sudden shaking motion and at the same
instant I felt a large hand wrap around my wrist and squeeze.The odd thing
was that even though I felt the impression of a large hand there was no
substance, you know skin for one thing!!!!
I know that the two events were happening at the same time although even in
trying to relate this story it sounds weird. As quickly as the grabbing of my
wrist and the mattress shaking started it ended, but not before I was able to
scream for my mom who still believes me and was witness to seeing our very
lazy and fat cat move as if her tail was on fire out of the room . As soon as
my mom and dad made it into the room who ever was there left.
I left home ten years later but I never slept in that room again. As a
footnote my folks sold the house when I left and the lady that is still
living there to this day is even afraid to mention the events that have
happened to her because she feels that it makes the house mad. I for one
believe her !!