Personal Experience
By:
annegordon93@hotmail.com
My name is Anne. I have only had one significant encounter
with what I
would call a
spirit. It was back in the summer of
1994. My boyfriend (now
my husband) and I were
visiting his parents at their home in
Rica. It was my first visit there, and I was very
excited about our trip.
We arrived on a wet, and
rainy afternoon in the middle of June—rainy season
in
us retired for a nap to
our respective bedrooms. The room that I
was given
was towards the back of
a very large house. Luckily for me, it
connected my
boyfriend’s bedroom,
with a bathroom in between. Anyway,
after a very good,
but short nap, I awoke
to a figure standing over me. I never
saw his face,
and I say “his” because
he was, unmistakably, a male presence. I
blinked a
few times, disoriented,
and then ran to my boyfriend’s room. I
told him
that I was never going
to sleep in that room, especially by myself!!
Upon
retelling this story to
his mother and other family members, I was intrigued
to learn that the house
had been “haunted” for years. Since my
husband’s
childhood in fact, young
children and other guests, have reported weird
visions, spirits, etc.
Although this spirit
seemed rather benign, there had been another entity in
the house that was
anything but friendly. My sister-in-law
says that as a
young girl she was
afraid of going up and down the stairs, because a
man?/woman? In a black
cloak would chase after her with a long knife.
When
my in-laws finally
acknowledged the presence of this spirit and had a priest
come to exorcise the
spirit, he found something strange.
Behind a painting
that my mother-in-law
had, he found another painting of a
witch slicing the
neck of a goose. The painting had been recently purchased on a
trip to
painting, or stuck it
behind this other painting!!). The
priest said that
that painting was
associated with many hauntings. Do you
know of this
painting? And can these kinds of hauntings occur
through artwork? Also, I
have not sensed nor seen
the other spirit in the house. We now
live fairly
close to my in-laws, and
my 2 girls play at their house often.
They also
have not said anything
to me. Should I worry about these
spirits? Or have
they moved on?
Thanks for reading
this. Any insight that you could give me
would be
greatly appreciated.
By:
EmeraldBluzAngel@aol.com
Not sure if this would
be private residence or not...but in South Weymouth, MA there is an apt that is haunted by a baby
that had been suffocated to death...when no one is in the apt, you can hear the
baby crying all night long, it seems that the mother couldn't take the crying
anymore and smothered the baby to death. I heard the baby crying all night
since that wall was our bedroom wall...my mom and I thought it was just the
baby who shared the same nickname I had crying 'cause she was teething...it was
not until later that we found out that the family had not been home and we
heard the tale of the smothered baby...this was during the late 1970's......
The Roof
By:
LinkinPark354@aol.com
I had my best friend,
Brittany, over. We were both sitting on our giant couch in our den. We were
watching t.v. when the wall opposite of us started to shake. We first looked at
each other and asked the other if they say that. I mean you could literally see
the wall shake. We had a candle holder mounted on the wall and it fell off. At
first we thought it was an earthquake. But it wasn't since it was that one wall
and only that one wall. We just shrugged it off not knowing what it could have
been. Well I told my parents and they said it could have been our dogs. Now I
know that couldn't be false because we have 3 huge dogs. 2 akitas and a st.
bernard and they fight and rumble sometimes which causes things to bump. But I
knew it wasn't them because there was a banging on the roof and they couldn't
have hit the house so hard to knock the candle holder off. From my friends and
neighbors on our block we've heard that someone jumped off our roof and killed
themselves. But that was never disclosed to us, only that the previous owner
was an elderly woman who had a heartattack and was rushed to the hospital where
she later died. I still don't know what to believe, but I think that it's a possibility
that it was the ghost re-enacting his death.
They're Everywhere
By: Scooby91271@aol.com
I've experienced many
things over the years in different homes.... My first recollection of something
odd was in the apt building we lived in for 13 years.....the basement was
divided into 3 sections: there was a small apt for the superintendent, an area
to wash clothes for the tenants and the boiler room...the superintendent was a
quiet man ..he kept to himself; in the summertime he liked to sit in the boiler
room -(which had a small back door that led into the alleyway) -, smoking his
cigarettes and listening to the classic oldies radio station...long story
short: he passed away in the local hospital but still liked to visit his
favorite spot.... from time to time you could smell cigarettes; hear the music faintly and if you were quick
enough you could catch a wisp of smoke
in the air from those cigarettes but as soon as you turned on the light there
would be nothing
Later on we moved to a
one family house that was located over an embroidery...there were 2 presenses:
I could clearly hear 2 sets of footsteps padding on the carpet..I never really
"saw" them...more like sensed that one was small or young in age and
a bit mischievious...he would bump the end of my bed when I was laying on it
listening to music....the other was larger...I was not quite sure what to make
of this other one; just that it scared me...the hair on my neck would stand up
and my skin would get goosebumps when it was within 10 feet of me...also it
seemed to" reside" in the family room at night...right above where
the heavy cutting machines in the embroidery where kept....My family went on
vacation and wasn't able to go with them..although I arranged to sleep over a
family member's home there were 2 occasions where I wound up having to stay
home My room was always a "safe
haven" for me; whatever was in the family room never ventured into my
room...on those 2 nights that I had to stay home I was suddenly stricken with
such a fear...such anxiety...I felt that if I did not get out of my room at
that very moment I was going to die...of course I didn't actually believe this
it was just the feeling I had at that moment...and I wound up sleeping in the
family room -of all places! However from my room I heard noises such as the
boards creaking and the closet doors moving back and forth... Walking home one night I noticed the light on
in the family room window and saw someone leaning on the window sill ..I assumed
it was my mother waiting up for me to be sure I got home safe...but when I came
upstairs I found that the lights were off and that everyone was asleep--I know
this for a fact because I had to wake them to tell them I was home...so who was
in the window? On another
occasion my mother decided to sleep in
the sofabed because the bedroom was too hot...she started calling for my father
frantically.......Later that morning she would tell me of how she heard
footsteps and then felt the sheet lift up and feel the mattress sink in where
someone had gotten in .....she thought that it was my father coming to join her
on the sofabed and reached over to put her arm around him only to feel cold air
and nothing else and then started calling for my father convinced that someone
was in the house with us and a search of every door and window proved that it
was impossible because they where locked
Eventually we moved to a
new home...brand new construction....in central jersey For the first few years things seemed
fine...well they still are fine... however I am sure that we have had a few
passersby...I have felt that bumping of the bed on occasion...and there had
been a knocking in the wall for a while ...at first I was the only one who
noticed it....then one morning around 5 am
the knocking started with such force that my parents jumped out of bed
and came running thinking that it was me trying to call for help by banging on
the wall...my father searched everywhere but could not find the source or a
cause for the sound. On another occasion my little sister came home from her
ccd classes and she had been chosen to bring a statue of the virgin Mary home
to" visit". We had Her for a
week until my sister's next class at which time Mary would go home with someone
else Every night during that week we would sit around Her and recite the rosary
and every night I would feel that there was another being in the room aside
from my family ...I had the distinct feeling that the visitor was a she and
that she seemed to take comfort in hearing the prayers...I have also heard
footsteps across the floors....However nothing has happened since
then...incidentally..the house over the embroidery burned down to the
ground 2 years after we moved out
...with the exception of the intruder in mom's bed and that horrible banging
noone else has ever noticed anything...my dad says I have a vivid imagination
and he refuses to believe in such things but I'm pretty sure my mind's a little
more open to things because it has happened on a few occasions where I have
"known" things before they happened... I guess that is also why I've
sensed these things as well.... my mom has also had visits from her
grandmother...once on the last night of her viewing ( she passed away ) many years ago when mom
was in her early teens and then again 5 years ago....I feel that both times
were because she sensed the my mom was going through some emotional
crisis...the first time obviously due to her grandmother's passing ....The
latter has an interesting twist to it...mom was again going through much heart
ache and grief during a family crisis and she told me that one night she as
though there were a cold hand on her back squeezing her spine and she remembers
feeling very scared and paralyzed...unable to move even if she tried
to.....then she saw her grandmother at the foot of the bed but she looked very
angry almost furious and mom says she remembers thinking that maybe her
grandmother was mad at her...however she says that when her grandmother
appeared she felt warm and safe again and that cold, squeezing feeling was
gone.....another family member said in response to this story that maybe mom
attracted some negative energy with all her sadness and grief and that her
grandmother came back to protect her
What do you think??
My Brother's Story
By: kingericmsu@comcast.net
I have never personally
had a paranormal experience, but my older brother has, this is his story. First you have to know that my brother is a
very practical person, an engineer in the Army to be exact. No one in my family really believes in ghosts,
but I believe this story because he called me the next day really freaked out
and said "you're never going to believe me, and I think I'm crazy,
but..." He lived in TX (is in Iraq
now) and his apartment complex was located on the same road as an old cemetery. This is exactly how he told me what happened:
One night he was laying
in bed on his back, having trouble sleeping (so he says he knew he was wide
awake.) He said the covers on his bed
started getting tight as if they were being pulled down from both sides. The covers got so tight that he could barely
breathe. He was wondering what was going
on, but couldn't move. Then he got really
HOT and then really COLD. All of a
sudden, he says he felt tingling and then his mouth flew open and a long rush
of air was like being forced out of his mouth.
He said it didn't even feel like it was his own breath. He felt like it was coming from someone else. After that, the temperature returned to
normal and the covers loosened. Then he
heard footsteps going towards the door of his bedroom, and he heard the sound
of a little child giggling. After that,
he said he laid awake for hours just scared and trying to make sense of what
had happened to him!
To me this sounds almost
unbelievable, in fact I'd never believe it if it wasn't my own brother (who
would not make something like this up).
He was really afraid when he told me and I just have to believe that it
happened. Now that I've read all the
other stories on this website, I can tell him he definitely isn't crazy...
probably just had a ghostly encounter!
Ghost in the Chair
By:
LinkinPark354@aol.com
I've had many ghosts
experiences through the 14 years I've been on this earth. But my first happened
at the 2nd house I lived at. My younger sister and I used to share a room,
she's always rocked and made noise. Well 1 night I was asleep and she started
crying and rocking in her crib. I couldn't stand the noise and needed my sleep
for school the next day. So I grabbed my blanket and pillow, went into our "living
room" and crashed out on the couch.
I awoke to a strange
presence that something was watching me. I opened my eyes and across from me on
our brown chair was a hazy yet solid figure. I can only describe him as
well dressed. A gray suit, a tie, buzz cut, and a mustache. He sort of looked
like my grandfather (who had passed away) I couldn't believe what I was seeing
so I shut my eyes and opened them again. He was still there. He just sat there
staring back at me. After awhile I started to fall asleep again. I didn't have
any nightmares. But I woke up to the door of our garage being opened. I looked
around and the figure was gone. I later discussed it with my parents. They said
that wierd stuff happened in that house to them too. They told me that they
woke up to our back door being shut. That they thought it was me letting out
the dog. But I was sound asleep in my bed. Out of all my experiences this one I
can't forget. I found out later on about the history of the house. The old man
who lived there before us died of a heartattack. He was kind to all the kids of
the neighborhood, his wife had already passed on and he was just waiting for
his time to go.
Amity Hall and
Gettysburg, PA
By: Jennyl3al3y@aol.com
HI! I just wanted to give you an update and my
most recent experiences ghost hunting in the area. I looked all over Middletown for the cemetary
with the brick wall round it and had no
luck. Is it the obvious one that's right
in town or is it outside the immediate Middletown area? Anyway, starting about two weeks ago, here is
what went down at Amity Hall....
Three friends and I went
up late after checking out Middletown's cemetarys. I guess it was around 1 am on a Sunday
night. We sat in the parking lot and
killed the headlights and the engine. We
saw a few orbs but the most significant one was bluish and near the car. It was changing shape, sometimes
disappearing, and flickerking, becoming brighter. We were also pretty sure we were catching the
"imps" refered to on the shadowlands site out the corner of our eyes
though we can't be too sure.
I went back a few days
later with another friend and the one guy who was with us when we saw the
orb. I have a Chihuahua puppy and he
goes everywhere with me that's legal -so he was on my lap sleeping. Not much was happening, we were all talking
about stupid stuff, non -ghost related and my puppy, (Tito) woke up and started
to look around. While my friends were
talking, I heard a noise in the distance, at first it seemed like dogs barking
a few miles away but then it became clear that they were voices! My friend noticed as well and we'd heard the
voices again, and then again right after, each time getting closer to the
car. I wasn't driving this time so my
friend decided to pull out of the parking lot and get outta there. When we pulled out of the parking lot the
voices stopped. Then as we were at the
stop sign right by the place, we heard RIGHT OUTSIDE THE CAR what sounded like
giggles. It was so loud! It was like they were right outside the window! It sounded like teenagers but definetly a
young woman and some other muffled voices that were less obvious. We peeled away from the stop sign, the
giggles followed along side the car for a few more yards, then were gone. I've been back up, trying to witness or hear
more but have had no luck. Those were
the only times ever in the years I have been checking the place out, that I'd
ever noticed anything out of the ordinary.
I recommend checking it out soon!
Today, the same usual
friend I go ghost hunting with, Nate, (who was with me both times at Amity Hall
by the way), was along with me and Tito to check out Gettysburg. We got there around 6 pm and it was getting
dark pretty fast. We drove around the
battlefield then decided to get out at Devil's Den. I was walking with Nate and holding Tito on
the street above the boulder formation.
The three of us heard something strange behind us in the woods, apart
from the people we heard below us on the rocks.
Just as we turned to look in the direction of the noise, we heard what
sounded like a body or maybe a canon ball? crashing down through the
trees. I ran! haha It gave Tito a start too. I decided I'd already had enough so we walked
back down the little path by the area where the dead soldier was "posed"
for a picture. We were at the corner of
Devil's Den that is further away from Little Round Top and I looked over beside
me to see a bright blue light between two sandwiched boulders. It was a very obvious shade of blue and just
as I was about to comment, Nate confirmed what I'd been looking at. Again, all the times I have been ghost
hunting in that area, and this was the first time I'd experienced
anything. Maybe it's just me lately,
being more in tune or something really has the spirit world stirred up! I called yet another friend to tell her about
the orb and she told me that after the last time she and I had visited
Gettysburg, her digital camera stopped working completely.
Anyway, those are my
stories and I will keep you informed if you'd like. Please let me know if you experience anything
new, especially in the Amity Hall area.
Bye!
Dragsholm Castle,
Denmark
By: jebir@jebir.dk
Hello
As a start, I'd like to
say that I've been a frequent visitor for 2-3 years, and been very interested
in what I've read.
Personally, I've never
met a ghost... I think...?
But to start my story; I
will need to give you a bit of background knowledge of the place. Dragsholm
Castle is one of Denmarks most haunted places. There are 3 famous ghosts, and
an unknown number beside these. The first one is the Earl of Bothwell, who was
a captive at the castle, and died there. The second is a white lady, who was
trapped in a little room in the wall, as she had gotten pregnant with a man
from the local village. The third is a grey lady, who keeps the place in order.
Besides, the halls are haunted by a white stallion, who - the history say - was
taken to see it's owner, who was dying. But it went berserk in the halls and
had to be shot. In the castle, there is also a theater (this is not related to
the story, but pretty interesting...). Back in the days when it was used, they
would use people who had been convicted for crimes and had to be executed, if
they needed some fighting on stage. This meant that a lot of people were
murdered in the theater, and the staff in the castle claims that there are at
least 20-30 ghosts in that area of the castle.
Now, the story... I and
my GF was at a medieval-party in the castle, which is now a hotel. We went to
bed early (around 01.30) in our room in the northern wing of the castle. The
castle is surrounded by a moat, and was only open towards the north side.
Unfortunately, the swedes attacked from the south some time in the 17. century (I
believe), and was able to cross the moat and get in to the castle's courtyard.
The room we were staying
in was directly at the top of the staircase, which was no more than 50-70 cm.
wide (two people couldn't pass eachother), and was one of three entrances to
the north wing. As I told you, we went to bed early, and the rest continued
their party. During the night, we heard people walking the stairs several
times, and in the end we got quite annoyed - we thought that it was some of the
other guests going to bed, and being quite noisy. What struck us, was that we
never heard anyone talk, just the footsteps on the stairs.
The next morning when we
got up, we found out that we were one of only 3 or 4 couples who lived in that
part of the castle, and at least two couples lived on the ground floor... We
did not see any thing, but we sure heard it...
True Ghost Experiences
By:
teelaharvey02@yahoo.com
Hello! My name is Teela,
I have several stories that I have experienced over the years. My first one was
when I first moved to Indiana, from Florida. The people that my husband and I
bought the house from had a little girl of about 7 or 8 years old. She choked
to death in my youngest daughters room. After a couple of months of being here,
everything was pretty normal and after that it started changing. The first
incident I noticed was, I was in the bathroom getting ready to take a shower
and I was just getting in there, and i was taking off my jewerly and I noticed
the door knob kind of jilting back and forth. I dismissed it, thinking that my
oldest daughter(4 years old) at the time, was playing a trick on me. All of a
sudden I heard a tapping noise that of tap shoes, when I started for the door
the noise in a way kind of took off running. I went to check and see if it was
my oldest daughter, when i checked she was fast a sleep. I asked my step son if
he had heard that noise and he said that he never heard anything. The 2nd
incident, I didnt see but my daughter and step son saw. They had taken are
dog,Peanut, outside to use the restroom. When the 2 came back inside they
walked in through the back door and where they were standing it went straight
threw into my office. Well the dog started barking like crazy, and the two of
them said that they had seen a little girl, in a foggy white color, look
directly at them and then took off running through the wall that lead to the
outside of the house. The 3rd incident happened
fter my family and i returned from eating out. The ceiling was dripping
with water from a leak in the roof. I had placed a bucket on the top of a
cabinet and there was no way the buck could possibly fall off, we were all
standing in the kitchen and all of a sudden the bucket just flew and slammed
onto the ground. This is a few of the things that had been happen around my
home.
My Dad's Experience
By:
bbranson05@comcast.net
My dad was in the army
in the sixties and seventies. After he
was out of Vietnam he was assigned to Okinawa in Japan to guard a chemical weapons storage there. Each night him and four others would patrol
the area. My dad and two others had
guard dogs with them. One night one of
the other ones that was patroling called for back up that he had spotted someone
on top of one of the chemical weapons mounds (they are buried underground). The three with the dogs led the way and as
they approached the mound the dogs would not go one more step. These were German Shepards who were mean and
were never scared and none of them would go past a certain point. They decided to tie them up and go ahead
without them. The plan was the guy with
the shotgun would go up the back of the mound and flush the guy down the front
toward the other three. As the guy
headed up the back this thing that they said was misty and dark colored came
running down the side. All of them
started chasing after it. These are
19-20 year old guys and the thing they said was moving in slow motion and was
pulling away from them. One of the guys
yells at it to stop and pulls out his pistol and puts 5 shots right in the things
back from point blank range. It did not
even phase it. They were headed toward a
10ft. fence with barbed wire on the top.
The thing just glided up and over the top of it like it was not even
difficlut. On the other side there was a big muddy area and by the time the
patrol got around to it the thing was gone and there was no footprints. Okinawa was the site of a major battle in WW2
and this is only one of many expierences that he had while there.
Hauntings at My House
By:
sh0rty415@sbcglobal.net
When we first moved in
my house on Navajo in San Francisco , everything seemed normal . We all felt
safe and nothing seemed off or weird . On 2000, we started to encounter odd
sightings and sounds at the house. My mom was doing laundry in the garage , usually
she only has one light on but this time she turned both of the garage lights on
. As she was getting the clouds from the dryer , she saw a young teenage boy
standing near a parked car we had inside . He slowly moved toward the garage
door and disappeared . Later on a few weeks past , we didn't make much of it .
One night , my sister was sleeping alone in her room . It was just me and her
at home . I had been watching tv with the mute on waiting for my parents to
come home . Then I saw the door knob slowly move , I had the door locked
and I could look under and no one was
there . The following day I woke up with bruise marks on my arm. After that ,
my sister had felt and saw someone all in black sitting at the edge of her bed.
My brother had seen the same young boy
my mom saw downstairs in the guest room we have . After my sister got married ,
she and her husband stayed with us . Everynight , she recalled being awakened
by someone . She would feel like someone was laying next to her on the opposite
de of where her husband was and touching her . It got worser that we had to
call a spirit channel person . She took the ghost away . But it wasn't over .
Everynight in my room , I see objects changed from place or things on the floor
when i havent touched anything . I've heard repeated voices calling my name ,
knocks on my door , someone walking in the kitchen , turning on the faucet .
The last sighting i saw was at night . It was 10 pm . No one was home but me .
I was doing exercisese and I turned around and I saw a women standing at the
doorway for my kitchen as i winked and blinked , i saw the faucet running and i
felt a cold chill , when it was REALLY hot weather that day too .Whatever it is
, it just wont leave til it gets its message across.
Haunted House
By:
tweety4u@pennswoods.net
The other night me, my
daughter, and my little sister was walking around town. On the way home, about
a half of a block away there is a supposibly abandoned house. when we was
walking past it i looked up at the upstairs window and i saw a figure in the
window. i told my sister to look and she saw it too. we stood there watching
it. it was a human shape but you could see right through it. I started to get a
very ad feeing and just at that moment it moved its hand like it was pointing.
i began to leave, i told them to come and i looked back up at it and it just
vanished! it did not take us long to run to my house. People that i tell this
too laugh at me but i know what i saw and it wasn't a living person.
I have a few other stories of things that are
going on in my house, if you want to know of them let me know i don't want to
bother anyone. i like you am very into hauntings and such but it is a different
story when it happens to me. i have come to find out that i really didn't have
to go far to exerience ghosts. My area
is quite good for that thing.
Experiences in Wisconsin
By:
only_star_69@hotmail.com
I was reading your site
and I used to live at the Delta Zeta house in Whitewater Wisconsin. I had a strange experience in the attic
there. I was pulling out random items
for one of our sorority functions when I heard boxes moving in the opposite
corner of the attic. I saw a box move and
figured on of the other sisters was already up there. I went over to see who it was and if they
needed help and there was no one there and it was really cold. It was opposite the window and it wasn't like
a draft it was just cold. All the hair
raised up on my arms and I figured it was just something wierd so I went to go
back to what I was looking for. When I
went back to where I was just at, the items I was looking for were sitting on
top of the box I was going through and I didn't put them there and no one else
was up there with me.
In another incident I
was trying to move a dresser downstairs when I was moving in and it got stuck
so the girl that was moving it with me went to get a guy to help and when I was
up there, trapped behind a dresser mind you, I heard someone walking down the
stairs. I was on the stairs already and
looked up and saw no one. The steps kept
coming until they were right next to me, stopped for a few moments and
proceeded to go "through" the dresser and out the door. The door never opened it just rattled a
bit. I just figured I was crazy so I
kept it to myself.
Also in Elkhorn,
Wisconsin you might want to look at some stories concerning the "Beast of
Bray Road". I have no personal
information to offer on this, however.
Experiences on a Haunted
House
By:
Seraphiminlove@aol.com
I am submitting this
story to be published on your website at shadowlands.com.
I and several friends
and family members have come to believe that my house is haunted. These are a
few of the incidents that have occured in my home just over the past few
months.
My house is very old.
Dates back to the 1800's. After a short time we started to notice strange
happenings and sounds. Footsteps, whispering, thumps and slamming doors. Let me
first say that these things are unnerving for other reasons then the obvious,
that it is a ghost, but is also frightening because you can never be sure if it
is ONLY a ghost or that someone is actually breaking into your home. Which is
something I fear more than the dead. The dead aren't going to steal your t.v.
or kidnap your children. Ghost I can live with, I just hate it when they are so
damn noisey.
Ok, story time. My
husband works 3rd shift, so I am often alone at night in the house. When I can,
I opt for company, usually a family member will stay with me. One night my
husband was leaving for work and with our children away (remember that part) I
asked my cousin, Nicole to stay with me. Eric, my hubby, was doing his usually
routine of running about getting ready and saying his goodbyes. As he was leaving
he kissed me and said "Bye baby, I love you, I'll see you tomorrow
morning.", which I said right back to him. He said "Later
Nicole" and she waved good bye to him also. This was the normal run of
things EXCEPT for the abscence of our daughters who are usually the last to say
good bye to their daddy. Eric exited the backdoor. A few seconds later Nicole
and I heard the voice of a child eminating from upstairs say "bye
daddy". It was as clear as a bell and as real as me or you. I looked over at
Nicole who was just staring ahead with a frozen look of fear on her face. I of
course said "Did you hear that?!?" even though I knew she did just by
the look on her face. She said "Yeah I did, but I don't want to talk about
it until morning." I think we were both a little freaked out for the rest
of the night. We had known that the house was haunted, but we did not expect
actual interaction with them.
My second experience
happened just a few weeks ago. I told you my husband, Eric, works the a late
shift and so he usually sleeps during the day while our daughters are in
school. On that particular day I had a few errands to run, so my sister,
Maggie, decided she would tag along and we would go have lunch together. We
were away from the house for about 3 hours and when we arrived home we entered
the backdoor that leads to my kitchen so we would not disturb my husband who
was fast asleep on the couch in our living room. As it happens our kitchen is
seperated from the rest of the house by a big wooden, swinging door that leads
to our dinning room. Now please note that when we shut the back door in the
kitchen the air from it will cause a suction and make the swinging door swing
back and forth on it's hinges. I am used to this seeing it happen so many
times. As I said we entered the backdoor, Maggie going in first and sitting
some groceries down on the kitchen table, I came in last, sat down my things
and proceeded in shutting the door behind me. I automatically look up (as did
Maggie) to see the swinging door moving on it's hinges, no biggie I knew what
caused it, but as the door swung outward I saw a man standing about 6 inches
away from the door frame. He then grabbed the door and held for about 3 seconds
and just stood there looking back at me. I gasped and he let the door go. I
told Maggie to get out of the house, that I saw a man in the dinning room and
without a phone in that room (there is no phone jack there due to the fact that
my dog decided to eat it) I did the dumbest thing I could, I grabbed the
nearest object which was the frying pan I had fixed scrambled eggs in that
morning. I then did what came natural and holding the frying pan out in front
of me I pushed through the swinging door using every stealthy move I had ever
seen on all those cop shows! I know it sounds funny now but I was so scared,
all I could think was there was someone in my house and my hubby was asleep on
that couch! I pressed my back to the swinging door so if anyone was standing
behind they would be flattened to the wall, in which case if they were I guess
I could've smacked them one with the frying pan, but who knows, I was running
on pure adrenaline! I then ran to the living room looking all directions at
once and woke my husband. We searched every room and found nothing. I told Eric
exactly what the man looked like, I seen him plain as day. There was no trace
of any forced entry of any kind. I have never been so terrified in all my life.
It was like the man had vanished. I am still not sure what to think of it.
TV and the Baby
By: StoneStone13@aol.com
My son was about 9
months old when this happened. He was
fighting sleep, didn't want to take a nap, although it was his usual
nap-time. He was crying, and I was
frustrated. We were both stressed. I laid him on the couch. And I was wondering if maybe one of his
videos would help him calm down. As I
was thinking about which video he would like, I noticed the tv came on behind
me. At first I thought I had stepped on
the remote. Or maybe the baby was laying
on it. But no. The remote was sitting on the table and had
not been touched in any way. I thought
this was strange, and have tried to find an answer for why the tv turned
on. A stray signal from something. Maybe a garage door opener, or cell phone, or
something. But this level of our home is
below ground, so very little could penetrate the walls from the outside. A few months passed, and my wife, son, and I,
were all busily assembling a bookshelf.
We were having a good time, and I thought that it was nice that the tv
wasn't on. Just good old family time,
together. After we were finished with
the bookcase, we sat down and started to watch tv. Then I realized the tv was on after all. And had been on for quite some time. This is a different tv than before. Neither my wife or myself had turned it
on. And there was no way my son could
reach the remote, or the buttons on the front of the tv. Twice.
My son, and myself, and 2 different tv's. Not sure what to make of this.
This is Our Story
By:
senamendoza1@yahoo.com
We lived in a house in
the country in Frederick OK that was most definitely haunted. We lived there
for two years before moving here to Sallisaw OK. The way to get to that house
is pretty easy as the dirt roads are in mile sections. Right across from a
store called ALCO is a paved road. You take it to the first intersection and
turn right onto a dirt road. You take it down to the following intersection and
turn left. At the next intersection you turn right again. The house sits on the
lefthand side of the road. It is now abandoned, as I am sure no one dares to
live in it. We are not ordinary people, as we have seen and lived in haunted
houses before, as we go back to Frederick on a regular basis, we keep up with
the old house.
Some other people know
about it, but few are brave enough to enter it. I'm just curious as to what
tragedy happened there to cause such violent spirits to inhabit it. We know it
was a family home for generations, and that the kitchen was redesigned for a
crippled woman at one time, so the counters are shorter than normal. We also
know it was abandoned for 15 yea before we found it and renovated it. When we
discovered it, it was in very bad shape, no running water, windows broken out,
it was in severe disrepair, but we worked on it a bit and moved in.
The very first night there I heard a sound in
the attic like a child would make of about two years old. This wasn't no
squirrel, man! The kids heard it too and were scared.
We saw a small child
periodically with blonde hair and very blue eyes. He is very pale and I sensed
evil coming from him.
There are seven spirits
in all in the house, at least that's what we believe, whether there are more or
not, we don't know.
My son saw a car driving
down the road that looked like it had been underwater. He said it was rusty and
it had a devil head on the license plate. We believed him because he was
frightened very badly.
We also saw demonic looking creatures in the
girls bedroom. They had bodies like men but hooves like a goat, I am not joking
about any of this, you could check it out for yourselves, their eyes were red
and they were pure evil, some of their heads looked like deer heads, others
looked like partial skeleton cow heads with big thick rounded horns. They
terrified the girls and they said they couldn't wake us up when they saw them.
Sometimes the gas to the
propane heater we had would be turned on full blast when we woke up, or the
stove. Sometimes they would hurl objects in the dining room, open drawers,
throw knives and forks and spoons, whatever they felt like doing.
I know I may sound crazy, but I am not lying.
The most trouble was in
the attic. We were going to make our room up there, but never did, because the
hauntings were the worst up there. You could also feel things touch or tap you.
There were very cold spots in the house even in summer when the temperature was
108.
The year we moved out (we left a lot of our
stuff there when we moved, as we moved in a hurry) we went back to see what
stuff we might retrieve and the house looked like it was well cared for (there
were even new cars in the driveway) the house looked painted, looked like it
had new screen on the porch and everything. So I thought somebody had moved in,
but I found out later that the house was never inhabited again after we left
it.
That was five years ago.
Just recently we went back (my brother lives there and we got a group together
and went out there together after dark) and took some sceptics with us, about
nine o'clock. I wasn't sure if anything would happen that early because when we
lived there things generally didn't happen much until about eleven at night or
later, sometimes they did, even in the daytime, but mostly after eleven.
When we got out there
there were lights on in the house. One in the dining room and another in the
living room. They went out as soon as we drove into the driveway. We were
afraid that someone else might be out there, so we cautiously walked around the
house shining our flashlights into the windows. There wasn't anybody there. It
was empty and there was nowhere for them to go that fast.
When we entered through
the front door ( it was standing wide open) it was eerie because most of the
stuff we left was still in the house. In the closet that leads up to the attic,
my youngest daughter's name, Alysia, still remains in crayon.
When we entered the
dining room ( a real hot spot ) something touched my ear with a force. I
thought it was my sister in law just messing with me, but she was scared and
said it wasn't her. She felt something slide in between us when it happened.
They will never go back to the house. That's what they said. We all felt pretty
freaked out, and to tell you the truth, I felt I was in mortal danger. I don't
know why they wanted to hurt me so bad, but I know they did.
Also, before we moved
out, my son, then twelve, saw an army of what looked like zombies around our
house. We could hear drums, like BOOM, BOOM,BOOM, BOOM, and then a drum roll
and then over again, outside the house. He says he could hear them marching
like an army around our house. He says it sounded like a battle when they got
there. All we heard was the drums, but they were pretty scary by themselves.
Well, that is all I can really remember about
it, at least all the major stuff. We took pictures the night we went there, but
I don't have them developed yet.
We might have a good
photo, I don't know, but as we were leaving, we took a picture of the attic
window because all of us saw a man standing up there by it. Also, my niece has
a vcr tape they made at an earlier time in the house, and they claim you can
see little white things floating around in the dining room, but I don't have
the video of that.
I swear that every bit
of this, as unbelievable as it may seem, is true. If you don't believe me, go
to the house. I gave good directions on how to get there
Radiator Cat Thing
By: StoneStone13@aol.com
When I was a young boy, maybe 3 or 4, I
had an experience that I cannot explain.
My mother was up early in the morning.
She was a farm girl, and to her, getting up at 2 or 3 in the morning was
not unusual. I was awakened by the sound
of my mother sweeping in our kitchen.
As I sat up in bed, I looked out of my
bedroom door to the hallway beyond. The
sweeping sound was steady and grew louder.
Then I saw something move in the dark hallway.
A flicker of light, at first. But it quickly took shape. Moving into my bedroom, in time with the
sweeping sound, I saw a transparent creature, shuffeling through my
doorway. The creature was see-through,
with a white outline. Kind of like
Wonder Woman's invisible jet was drawn in cartoons.
It's body looked like a radiator. Long, thin, and segmented. It's head looked something like a cat, with
big almond shaped eyes. Imagine a
radiator, with a cat's head attached to the side. And it had 4 feet sticking out of the
bottom. It had no legs. I could see right through it. It came steadily towards my bed, looking
directly at me. Needless to say, I
freaked out! I screamed for my mother,
who stopped sweeping, and came running towards my room. The cat-thing stopped, and stared...
motionless. As my mother burst into the
doorway, she moved THROUGH the thing. As
she did, it faded like smoke in the wind.
My mother told me I was dreaming.
But I'm not so sure. I have never
seen the Cat/Radiator-thing again. But I
will never forget it.
BRONCO'S BAR FAREWELL
By:
Jess1Anderson@aol.com
I moved back to my
hometown in Michigan after being away for many years. I have many stories to share, but this is a
recent one that stands out.
A fixture in my town was
a burly guy named Bronco. Bronco was the
typical bar bouncer-type (not surprisingly, this was his usual job). When I was younger, he used to drive this
Blue Ford Bronco. My family knew him
well, as my mom ran the after bar breakfast restaurant, where all the party
people congregated when the bars closed.
Since I had moved away years before, I lost touch with the old 'party
crowd.' I DID hear, however, that Bronco
sold his beloved truck a few years after I moved.
Anyway, it was June of
2002 (I think) and I was driving on I94.
I saw Bronco's old blue truck driving on the opposite lane and mentioned
it to the person who was in the car with me.
I hadn't seen Bronco in a few years, but knew I would undoubtedly run
into him at our upcoming 'Venetian Festival' and would mention the sighting to
him then.
A few nights before the
Venetian Festival, a friend and I went to a local bar to hear the bands rehearse. As I walked into the place, I spied Bronco on
the far side of the bar. I raised an
eyebrow at him and he acknowledged me in his cocky way from across the room. My friend and I went to look for a place to
sit--once we found a table I told my friend that I saw Bronco and wanted to go
say hi and tell him that I spotted his old truck the week before. As I made my way thru the crowd to the bar, I
heard the band dedicating a song.
They were dedicating it
to BRONCO and said he had PASSED AWAY! I
was sure it was a joke. I finally made
it to the bar, where he was sitting. NO
ONE WAS THERE. I was absolutely
perplexed. I walked around trying to see
where he went, to no avail. Finally, I
questioned a ton of mutual friends and they confirmed that he had died of a
heart attack or something the previous April.
I was in total shock! He was only
in his early 40s when he passed and one of those muscle-bound types. Even now, when I look back on this incident I
am so amazed, because I SAW HIM CLEAR AS DAY.
Anyway, I thought it was
pretty nice of him to remember me after he passed like that. I guess he knew I would appreciate the drama
and the irony!
PARANORMAL EVENTS
As I read a seemingly
whimsically titled book, “The Everything Ghost Book” by Jason Rich, I feel compelled to document
personal occurrences, both psychic and paranormal. I did not realize until this
moment that they are, in all likelihood, related , at least in as much as I
have a “connection” or ability, or any number of adjectives to describe the occurrences in my
life. It seems to be all about energy and about
opening one’s awareness of the energies around them. Well I don’t know
about that but what I do know is that since I was a child I was convinced of
the “other world”. I did not have many experiences but they were profound. I
remember them as if they occurred last week. I wish to document them in this
personal account, if for no other reason than to have them, perhaps in their
place. For a sense of continuity I will describe them in chronological order,
to the best of my ability.
THE SCARIEST OF ALL
Let me preface this
story with this fact that there have been many tales on both my mother’s and my
father’s side of “ghostly” sightings or occurrences but because I did not
witness any of them first hand I believe that they really have no place here.
However, if these things are familial, ie: run in families , all the more
reason to believe that my experiences were valid.
One night when I was 12
years old my mother , my sister and myself
were alone in our house . It was not a typical place for a “haunting”;
it was a typical 50’s three bedroom ranch
built three years after I was born. My sister was sound asleep in one of the
bedrooms; she was 5 years old. My dad was out for the evening at his monthly
card club meeting. It was around 8pm and my mom and I were sitting in the
kitchen enjoying some spareribs. Our dog, a poodle named Tessie, was asleep at
our feet. We began hearing a noise from
the living room which was adjacent to the kitchen. At first it was not
discernible but then it became clear that it sounded like someone in our
overstuffed chair was snoring. It was very localized to that chair and crescendoed
into a very loud snoring sound. It was not like any other sound. It went on for
several minutes and my mom and I were very frightened. I started crying and the
sound immediately stopped. For several minutes we were simply stunned. Then we
started trying to “explain” what had happened. We checked on my sister who was
quietly sleeping in her bedroom. The dog had never stirred. We opened the front
door which was not far from the chair and hoped against hope that the
neighbor’s dog would be found there sleeping. We checked the HiFi stereo which
was off. The TV was off. We simply could not figure it out. We went back into
the kitchen and the cold ribs were just not appetizing anymore. Several minutes
later, as we were talking about what had happened, it started again. Only this
time it became very loud very quickly and this time the sound seemed almost
deafening. It again was very distinctively that of a person snoring coming from
the same chair. I became hysterical and grabbed my coat, screaming that I was
getting out of the house and going to the neighbors’. As my mom tried to stop
me and my hand was on the doorknob to exit, the snoring suddenly stopped. We
never heard it again, nor did anything more ever happen in that house that was
significant to me. She told me the next day that she was convinced that the
snoring had been that of her deceased father who had always had a propensity
for snoring loudly and she told me that that was the chair that he had sat in
during the one and only visit that he had made to my mom and dad in that house.
My grandfather’s relationship with both of them was strained to say the least
so I never remember him visiting with us. He had died a few months prior to
this “haunting”. My mother and I both occasionally recollect that night with
the same vivid details and we are both grateful that there were the two of us
to validate the story.
A REASSIGNMENT
I was working as a nurse
on a medical-surgical unit at Greenville Hospital. I was always the “charge”
nurse on this unit and often worked the evening turn. As I made my drive to
work on afternoon in 1981 I suddenly “knew” that I was going to be “pooled” to
another floor that evening. (If staffing was low on any unit the administration
had the prerogative to reassign nurses to that shift to accommodate the
staffing need.) I , however, had never been pooled and I had no reason to
believe that I would be that night. But I knew. I also knew where I was to go
to: 3 West. I walked into my unit and sure enough the nurse in charge for dayturn
apologetically informed me that I was to report to 3 West for the evening
shift. She was a little perplexed by the
fact that I took it so well. (Nurses do not like to other floors which are
unfamiliar to them.) I had had plenty of time to mentally prepare.
THE TORNADO
In 1985 I was working as
a head nurse in the Va Medical Center in Bay Pines, FLA, a government facility
in St. Petersburg, FLA. On the night prior to May 31st,1985 I went
to bed as usual. I had a dream about a tornado in my hometown . I must admit
that I have , occasionally, throughout my life had dreams about tornadoes.
Perhaps it was the damn Wizard of Oz scene that affected my psyche. Regardless,
I had never had one as vivid as the one that I had that night in my dream. I
omnisciently knew that a tornado was coming. I went to warn my parents but when
I went to their house they could not see me. In my dream I could see all that
was happening and felt helpless to do anything about it. My parents were on the
back deck which was just off of their two story bedroom. They were pointing to
the woods in our backyard and were hearing a tornado, or the typical “train”
coming. They seemed very frightened and I kept trying to tell them to get to
the cellar but , again, my attempts were futile, as they could not hear
me. Finally, as the “train” got closer
they went to the cellar . I woke from my dream shaken. I was in a cold sweat .
I thought that perhaps I was just homesick, as I was 1200 miles from them and
that fact had contributed to this very troubling dream. I went to work on the
31st and at lunch I sat with an acquaintance (whose name I have
since forgotten) , a man who worked in the social service section and who was a
psychologist. As we had lunch together I felt very compelled to share my dream
with him. He was very supportive and I recall feeling better having gotten it
off of my chest. That evening I was watching TV in my townhouse with my
roommates Sheri and Jeffrey. The news flash was terrifying: several tornadoes
had ravaged the northeast, particularly some towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Specifically Niles , Ohio and Wheatland and Hermitage PA had been hit the
hardest along with several other remote towns. The casualties were mounting and
no more specifics were coming out of the area as communications were down. My
entire family and friends lived in Hermitage and the surrounding areas. I tried
in vain to call and call. I was about to go out to the Tampa airport and buy a
ticket home when I finally reached my mom late that evening. She was extremely
shaken. The massive tornado had touched ground literally a few blocks away. In
fact its path had been directly behind them west of the woods in my dream and
cut a swath to the south of them. I believe that they did not know what was
hitting them at the time but I believe that they did go to the cellar. The
first indication that they knew that something really bad had happened was when
they described hearing hundreds of ambulance sirens all around them. There were
at least 38 deaths in their immediate area. The tornado had occurred hours
after my dream at 5pm on the 31st.
That had been a Friday. All whom I loved were safe so I staying in
Florida. On Monday I saw the man with whom I had had lunch with on Friday and
he immediately asked if any of those tornadoes were close to my hometown. He
was incredulous when I told him just how close they had come.
THE REGATTA TRAGEDY
I was living in
Pittsburgh,PA having moved from Florida
a couple of years before. When my roommate and I got to Pittsburgh we discovered
a yearly event which was the Regatta. It consisted of several events over a few
days in August, culminating in a high speed boat race on the last day of the
Regatta. (I believe that we had seen the
previous two year’s races in 1986 and 1987.) I believe that it was 1988 that we
were positioned on the bank of the Allegheny River with some other friends for
the final race. I remember saying to everybody as the boats sped around the
course that it made me nervous that the boats were so close; it was a wonder
that no accident had ever happened. Not two minutes past that statement we
became aware that that the boat race had suddenly stopped and there was a lot
of commotion at the area to the left of us. A boat had lost control and had
exited the water only to land in the Regatta audience not 80 yards away from
where we sat. We went to see what had happened but we couldn’t get close.
Ambulances came and went and the Regatta was cancelled. It turned out that
several people had been critically injured as the boat had literally ripped
through the audience. Sadly a boy had been critically injured as well. This was
naturally disturbing to all of us and we went home as there was nothing else we
felt like doing. About a week later I awoke and had had a dream. I called to my
roommate Sheri and told her that in my dream I had had a vision of a newspaper
headline and it had read “BOY 7, DIES FROM REGATTA INJURIES”. She became
visibly shaken. She had just gone outside a little earlier and to get the paper
and there on the front page was the headline exactly as I had seen it in my
dream (even the comma was there). How could I have possibly seen that exact
headline in my dream? This I swear to be
true.
PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT
I was on my way to work
at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh,PA in the late 80’s. The exact year is unclear
to me; I would guess 89. I worked dayturn in the VA in the capacity of a
vascular clinical nurse and was associated with the vascular lab nurses because
I remember calling them , quite upset by what had happened that morning. I was
driving down Route 88 towards work when I came upon an accident. It had
apparently occurred just moments before I had arrived, as there were no people
gathered and certainly no emergency vehicles. In fact, my car was the “first
responder” so to speak as it was the first to encounter the accident. There was
a large commercial truck stopped in the road with writing on it denoting a
plumbing company. To my horror I realized that under the truck was a woman
pedestrian who was pinned under the vehicle. I quickly got out of my car and
immediately went under the truck to the aid of the woman. She was conscious and
obviously in shock. She seemed to be partially crushed by the underworkings of
the truck but she was still alert. I heard people around me indicating that
emergency personnel had been summoned. She was very frightened and all I could
think to do, being a nurse, was to maintain a patent airway and to reassure
her. That is what I did. I did not leave her until the emergency personnel
arrived and I was quickly dismissed and frankly quite relieved. I got into my
car and had a strong knowledge come to me that her name was Mary and that she
was 51. She had not been able to talk while she was under the truck so she
could not have told me her name and age. I called work and told them about my
experience, including the fact that I “knew” her name and age. The next day in
the paper, sure enough, there was an entry that a pedestrian had been
critically injuring on Route 88. The pedestrian was identified as Mary (last
name forgotten), age 51. To this day I do not know if she survived but I know I
will never forget her.
CURRENT EVENTS
Since the late 80’s I
have really had no memorable experiences other than normal ones such as
marrying in 1994 and having two very special children in 1994 and 1997. I spent
14 years at the same address in Bethel Park, PA and as much as I would have
welcomed a “sign” from my long deceased grandmother, nothing came. Nor did I
have any more psychic experiences (although the girls at work still ask me to
pick their horses, to no avail!) In August of 2001 our family of four moved to
a larger home about ½ mile away from my previous address. This current home is
a lovely Craftsman style ranch with a twist of Frank Lloyd Wright in the design
especially with regard to the corner style windows. It was custom built in 1950
by one of two brothers who raised his family there. The second of the two
brothers had also built a home on the homestead property about 200 yards from ours.
After the original owner (husband) died on a golf course, the home was sold to
a young family of four who lived there for about 10 years. They in turn sold it
to me as they had been offered a job promotion in Harrisburg.
From August of 2001 to
the beginning of 2002 I did not notice anything unusual. In late January of
2002 I was wiping down the hardwood hall floor which is a dead end to three
bedrooms. I started at the bedrooms and in my typical fashion scrubbed the
floor on my hands and knees (husband calls my strong Hunkie woman!), backing up
towards the floor in my living room. I had finished the hall and was about to
start the rest of the hardwood when I noticed footprints on the hall floor.
They were very distinct and heading in the direction of the bedrooms, in other
words, away from me. I called for my husband to come and look and he agreed
that they were footprints but attributed them to my son. I had never left the
hall and certainly would have noticed my son walking in front of me as I was scrubbing
a floor! Besides he was not in any of
the bedrooms, nor was anyone else. I found this to be very curious and a few
days later I wet down the hallway floor again to try to reproduce the prints,
thinking that perhaps someone in the past had walked on a waxed floor. I could
not reproduce the prints.
One day within a couple
of weeks of the “prints” I was sitting on the commode in the bathroom (where
else would a commode be?) . The light was on and suddenly the light turned off.
It was daytime but it was dreary out. There is a small hallway that precedes
the bathroom so it wasn’t a child prank. I would have seen them flicking the
switch on the wall. The light switch was down in the Off position. The switch
was not loose; you have to push it down in order to turn the light off. Nor
were the bulbs burnt out. The light switch was able to be turned on and off as
usual.
I had hired a babysitter
Sheila who had come to our home that school year and she spent the days there
with my then 4 year old daughter Samantha and her own infant son Christian. She
was a lovely girl about 23 years old and was very reliable and mature. My
daughter loved having them here. In March of 2002 I came home from work and
Sheila proceeded to relay and experience that they had had that day. Sheila had
heard some commotion in my bedroom and went in to investigate. Some items on my
highboy had been disturbed : my grandmother’s picture and some knickknacks. She
assumed that the cat had done it, although the cat was not in sight. She stated
that she was busy tidying the dresser and had both children in the room with
her. She described an intense feeling of someone else in the room with her and
she felt that she were being watched. This was a very unusual sensation for
her, one that she had never experienced. At this point she told me that she had
never believed in ghosts. She grabbed her baby and my daughter and led them
down the hall. As they were walking toward the living room the TV suddenly
turned on of its own volition. The remote was secure. Sheila was very
frightened and my daughter can validate this story to this day. Incidentally I
had never told Sheila of either of the prior events. It was at this point that
I realized that there may be an entity in my house. Because the picture frame
was that of my grandmother I speculated that it may be her. But why here and
why now?
During the summer of
2002 I remember that my son would notice that the electric burners were on on
the stovetop but noone had turned them on. It was erratic. One day it would be
the left back burner; another day it would be the right front burner. I did not
make much of this except that I was concerned about a fire. I did call a
maintenance person who “fixed” the left back burner and there have been no
incidents since.
The fall of 2002 was
uneventful as much as I could see. However in December of 2002 something
happened that seemed more divine that ghostly. My children had played for years
with large alphabet mat letters that measured 12x12 inches and had the letters
such that they could be punched out. They were interlocking pieces that could
make a floor mat. Over the years we lost pieces and the children had tired of
playing with them. I recall throwing several of the pieces away just to debride
the pile of toys that they had. Only a few of the random letters remained and I
was unaware what those letters were. On December 10 of that year my mother went
into the hospital with recurrence of seizure activity that she had had during a
hospitalization in September of that year. On December 11, a Wednesday, I
received a call from my sister that our mother had gotten dramatically worse
and was in the intensive care unit. I was to be at work that day so I planned
on calling off to go the 90 miles to the
hospital. Except the weather that morning was so treacherous with ice that the
roads were impassable. School had been cancelled and my babysitter could not
get to my house. I was stuck and felt as helpless as ever. I called my sister
back and told her about the weather. When I hung up the phone I was feeling
frantic. I remember walking into the gameroom in the basement just then and
there on the floor was the word HOPE spelled out vertically on the gameroom
carpet by four of those alphabet letters. I was stunned and just stood there
looking at them , trying to understand how they could be there. I called the
children to the basement to ask them if they had been playing with the letters
and they said that they don’t play with them at all anymore. I am pretty tidy
about the house and so I know that they weren’t laying there the previous
evening. I could only believe that the word was for me, for me to calm down and
keep up my hope that my mom would be OK. I did start to feel a sense of calm
and began to pray. She did go on to suffer a stroke two days later but has
recovered well since. I did take a picture of the letters to document this
incredible occurrence.
The year 2002 ended and
for the better part of 2003 I did not notice anything unusual. In September of
2003 my mother-in-law took a fall which eventually led to her demise. Shortly
after she was hospitalized she unexpectedly had a severe stroke. My husband
received a call from his sister that night and the outlook was grim. It would
only be a matter of days before his mother’s death. We went to be as usual and
in the morning my husband woke me up and asked me, “Why did you do that with my
keys?” I had no idea what he was talking about. Dan is a creature of habit; he
rarely deviates from his routine. He had placed his keys in a bowl in his
drawer in the basement as he always does. His keys are on a sturdy solid chrome
ring and consist of a car key, a house key and a work key. When he had gone to
the basement to get his keys to go to work he found that they had all been
taken off the ring and lined up in the drawer. We drilled and drilled the
children (again) who looked pretty perplexed that we were asking them about
Dad’s keys. I do not believe that the children were ever in that drawer. I keep
pretty close tabs on them and if they were in the drawer I would have known it.
It seems like the keys
incident was the beginning of many more.
I was cooking some
lasagna one day in late September. I still have the same oven that was
mentioned previously. The interior oven light has not worked for as long as I
can remember. It may have been burnt out; I simply did not check it. Too busy.
Anyway I was checking the progress of the lasagna and I thought to myself, “Boy
I wish I had a real oven with a light in it.” I turned my back and when I faced
the oven again the oven light was on. I was able to turn it on and off at will,
as if it had never been broken or burnt out. The next time I went to use the
oven light, it would not work. Who didn’t know that?
On a Sunday morning in
October my husband was out early doing his weekly grocery shopping. I had just
gotten up and both of the children were in bed sleeping. I was busy tidying the
house and looked at the clock, realizing that I should get the children up soon
so that they could get ready for Sunday school. I went into the bathroom and
began to get my toothbrush ready when I heard footsteps of someone walking down
the hall towards the living room. My first thought was, “Good, at least one of
them (the children) is up.” Immediately I followed the footsteps into the
living room, dining room and noone was in sight. I looked into the bedrooms and
the children were still sleeping soundly. Desperate to explain it I rushed to
the window to see if Dan’s truck were back in the driveway and that somehow he had
gotten past me to walk down the hall. Dan was still at Shop and Save.
Sometime in October it
became very cold. I had bought a good winter coat for Joey the previous year
and it was navy with bright orange trim. I bought it at Kids R US for 60$. We
started looking for his coat one day and it was nowhere to be found. We looked
in all the obvious places: his closet, downstairs closet, drawers, floor of
closet, etc. I personally went through his (small) closet at least four time
trying to find the damn thing. I was very frustrated because 1) he had lost a
practically brand new coat and 2) he need coat to wear! He looked at his lost
and found at school. We checked the daycare lost and found. It was not to be
found. Then one day early December on a Saturday we had our first big snow. I
think it was December 13. Joey came out to me in the kitchen with a very odd
look on his face. He almost looked scared. He said, “Come here, that coat is in
my closet.” There in his room in the front part of the closet that we see and
use every day was his winter coat. With the bright orange trim that noone could
have missed that many times searching the closet. The obvious thought occurred
to me that Joey had found it and placed it in his closet. But after talking at
length to him I do not believe that to be the case. It just reappeared. Just in
time for the big snow.
One weekend in November
there were two unusual events. The first one occurred on a late Saturday
afternoon. I was out in the garage contemplating dusting off the exercise
machine called the Nordic Track. I had not used it in years. I pulled it into
the middle of the garage and tested the skis of the track and they were still
working fine. (Damn). However I realized that the device on the bar of the
machine that always documented the time of torture and distance skied was not
working. I took off the plastic lid of the device and set it on one of the ski
tracks. Just then my daughter entered the garage and asked what I was doing.
She never touched the machine. I told her that I need to find batteries for it
and took her by the hand to go upstairs for batteries. Joey and Dan were
upstairs at the time. We easily found two batteries and set off to go back to
the garage. When we got there the device was not on the track. In fact it was
nowhere to be seen. The garage door was closed and noone else had access to the
garage. This frustrated me to no end. I
asked Samantha if she remembered me putting it on the track and she said that
she did. I traced my steps upstairs,thinking that I was losing my mind, and
maybe I did take it upstairs with me. No, I had not. I expressed my complete
frustration to my husband who followed me down to the garage. He stood there
looking at me as if I had lost it. Seconds later he was walking around the
garage and reached into a bin full of baseballs and there it was. He asked me
it that was what I was looking for. The bin was at least 10 feet away from the
Nordic Track. He was as amazed as I was. There was the device that had
apparently moved itself 10 feet into a bin of balls. This was November 22.
The next day November 23
another strange thing occurred. The children were outside riding their bikes
and I was in Joey’s room running the sweeper. It is a rather small but cozy
room and has a sizable TV. Dan had come to Joey’s doorway to ask me a question.
One of our pet peeves with the children is discovering that one of their TVs is
on when they have gone off to do something else. At the point when Dan came to
the doorway there was no TV on or we both would have gone ballistic about it.
He left and joined the children in the driveway. I finished running the sweeper
and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I then heard loud voices
coming from the bedroom area. I quickly went down the hall to find Joey’s TV on
full blast. They were all out in the driveway where they had been. That TV had
not been on . And then it was.
December of 2003 was a
really active month. It seemed like the incidents were escalating as the time
intervals were becoming shorter and shorter. During the week of December 8 ( I had become acutely aware of dates and
started documenting them) I was in Joey’s bed reading and trying to get him to
go to sleep. He is 9 but still needs an occasional backrub to get to sleep. Dan
and Samantha were sound asleep and had been for about an hour. Joey and I both
heard what would best be described as a loud “boom” in the house. Almost like
the furnace ducts expanding or contracting (like someone pounded on one of the
ducts). We had been in the house for 2 ½ years and I can honestly say that I
have never heard that sound. I checked the house and found no source of the
sound. It was around 10pm at night. The very next night I was in bed with Joey
again at around the same time and Joey said, “ I hope we don’t hear that sound
again.” Not two minutes later we did. Again I checked the house, outside the
house and assured Joey that there was no danger. We have yet to ever hear that
sound again at this house.
On December 12 I was