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Parris Island Haunting
By:    david.roman@live.com   
 
I've known about The Shadowlands for a long time.  Probably since the late 90's.  I don't visit the site too often (probably 3-4 times a year) but when I visit I enjoy it.  Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of stories that kinda dawned on me while reading the site today.  While I was reading your site I remembered some of the experiences I had at Parris Island, specifically in the rifle range area.  Well, when I searched on the
internet for Parris Island haunted I came across this story:  http://www.wirenot.net/X/Articles/2008/E-F/firewatchghost.shtml  This same event in regards to fire watch happened to a friend of mine.  He was so spooked that he woke me up early for fire watch duty because he couldn't take it.  He saw a figure in the mirror in the bathroom!  The difference between his story and the story from the link is that he saw the figure in the mirror but to him it looked as if he was in the bathroom.  The bathrooms were in the large area we call the squadbay.  The drill instructor's office was typically there.  My friend had me go in the bathroom but I didn't see anything.  I took over his shift and worked mine.  I recall hearing sounds like someone moving in the bathroom.  I checked a few times but I didn't see anything.  If I'm being honest I was hoping that I would which is why I didn't mind taking a double shift.  My second story is an interesting one because it was an experience we all witnessed.  Again this was in the same barracks where we stay for the rifle range.  We had all entered the barracks after lunch and we were all standing in front of our foot lockers as our drill instructor, Sgt. Minix, was yelling at us over something.  He was standing right at the door that we always use to enter and exit the barracks.  We were on the 2nd floor of the three floor unit. Well, while he was yelling there were three distinct knocks on the door.  It was the three knocks that all recruits had to do in order to approach the drill instructor at his office or when a recruit has to enter another squad bay.  By "knocks" they were not traditional knocks on the door but more like hand slaps against the door.  As soon as the third knock was heard he flung the door open.    Now, if someone was standing there they would've had a door to the face.  There was no one there and there was absolutely no possibility that someone could have jumped out of the way, or hid.  They would've had to run up or down the stairs, or jump over the railing and taken a very high and nasty fall, and it would've been obvious just hearing footsteps.  He looked up and down the stairs and said, "Must have been a ghost."  It was the time of day where all platoons would have returned to their barracks so it wasn't some recruit falling behind or a drill instructor late.  That just didn't happen.  Parris Island is very orderly in everything.  Of all the ghost stories I've heard I've never read or heard of one where a room full of people experienced the same thing. 


Another True Scary Story
By:    ronloof@aol.com
Wanted to share a story with you about something that happened to somebody I knew when I was a young man in Minnesota that always sends chills down my spine...When I was about 12 years old (which would have been about 1977), my brother Royce was working in a town named Worthington, MN, about 30 miles from my hometown of Jackson, MN. He worked at a lumber yard called UBC and had a friend that worked at a local grain elevator. The silos for the grain elevators in that part of the country rise hundreds of feet into the air and have the capacity to store tons and tons of grain, whether that be corn or soybeans, whatever the silo is being used for at the time.  Occasionally the employees of the elevator climb a ladder on the outside of the silos and get into the silo via an access door at the very top in order to inspect the grain inside, making sure it's not too wet, rotting, or whatever. Inside the access door there is a catwalk that circles around the entire circumference of the silo. My brother's friend climbed the outside ladder, opened the access door, and lowered himself on to the catwalk that circled the inside of the silo.  After walking halfway around the silo on the catwalk, my brother's friend (I don't even recall his name any longer) observed what he thought was an excessive amount of moisture on the surface of the corn, which was what the silo was being used for at the time. So, being an industrious young man, he jumped over the catwalk rail and walked out on to the surface of the corn to roughly the middle of the silo to take a closer look.  After inspecting the corn, he decided to just continue his journey across the surface of the corn to get back to the catwalk on the other side of the silo. As the catwalk was a few feet higher than the level of the corn, he had to grab on to the catwalk rail and "bounce" to get his foot up to the catwalk platform and swing his leg over the rail.  As he swung his foot over the rail, he heard a noise behind him. Balancing with one leg over the catwalk rail and one leg on the catwalk platform on the outside of the rail, he turned around to see what the noise was.  Much to his horror, the corn that he had just walked across was falling straight down, hundreds of feet to the bottom of the silo, which was cement floor. It landed with a crash a few seconds later.  Instead of walking on a solid surface of corn as he had assumed, he had actually walked across a "crust" of rotten corn that had formed on top of the silo when corn had previously been stored in the silo. The remaining corn had been removed from the silo the previous week.  He spent a few minutes sitting on the catwalk, staring down into the depths of the silo, and then silently got up, went out the access door, made his way back down the ladder on the outside of the silo, and took the rest of the day off.

Hotel de Saint-Florentin
By:shinydevil@gmail.com
I would like to submit an addition to your haunted places listing.  The Hôtel de Saint-Florentin (also known as Hôtel de Talleyrand-Périgord, and usually just called the ‘Talleyrand building’) 2 rue Saint-Florentin, Paris.  It’s on one corner of the place de la Concorde.  A decent picture and links at, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hotel-de-talleyrand.jpg  The Talleyrand building used to be a part of the U.S. Embassy, housing the visa, passport services and American library.  I am not sure of its status as of now.  I was stationed there in the late 80's as a Marine Security Guard.
 I have a few personal experiences in this building, as do most of the Marines I served with.  At night, the Marine Guard on duty checks the security of every door, window, and office in the building.  We make damned sure that we are the only ones on post.  If we see or hear something at night, it could be a security breach and we check it out.  It was a regular occurrence to hear doors opening and closing, footsteps, and the elevators going up and down by themselves.  Strangest of all, to me, the toilets would flush.  The basement was the most likely place to hear odd things.  It is connected to the Paris catacomb network, and had also been modified with detention cells by the Nazis during their occupation in WW2.  The cells were still there in 1987.  Each one is about 5'x 8', fitted with a fold-down shelf for a bed, and a solid iron door.  A seriously creepy place to be in the wee hours of the night.    One of the best stories from the Talleyrand, was the night a Marine on post patrol came across a man in the second floor ballroom.  The Marine, following his training, challenged the stranger to identify himself.  When there was no response, he drew his service revolver, and instructed the intruder to get on his knees.  When the intruder began to walk towards the Marine, he yelled "Stop, or I'll shoot you!"  The stranger continued to approach, so the Marine fired one shot, to the center of the man's chest.  As soon as the shot was fired, the stranger disappeared, leaving a single bullet hole in one of the mirrors that cover the ballroom walls.  The next day an investigation was started, as there always is when a weapon is discharged on Embassy grounds.  The Marine was accused of screwing around on duty, practicing his quick draw in front of a mirror, and negligent discharge of a firearm.  The officer conducting the investigation settled on the most plausible explanation for the incident, and pressed charges.   However, the accused Marine stuck to his story.  He had seen a guy on his post who wasn't supposed to be there, and he did what he was trained to do.    That evening, in the Marine bar, the investigating officer began to listen to the other Marines as they told him of their own strange experiences in the Talleyrand building.  The young officer was invited to visit the post at night, and form his own opinion.  Charges were dismissed the following day.The bullet hole was (and probably is) still there.    I spent a year and a half on duty in Paris, and rotated watches through the Talleyrand several times a month.  When people have sometimes asked me if I believe in ghosts, I think back to my time there and answer truthfully, "Yes I do."  American citizens may be able to visit the Talleyrand building, and see the ballroom.  It's maintained in a very nice, early 1800's style.  You have to climb the stairs to the second floor, in the right hand wing. (As you face the building.)  The rest of the offices are off-limits to most people.  Make sure and say hello to the Marine on duty.  Maybe he will tell you his own story.  Semper Fi. 

The Hands from the Well
By:    neboshoh@yahoo.com
Location-San Mateo, California Residence-a post war house, part of a small housing project in the Hillsdale area on 28th Avenue.  The property, located at the base of the hills, was once a ranch.  The house in question was built over the former well. In fact one of the original out structures still existed in the back yard at the time of the experience but I didnt find this out until years later.  All the past history was unknown to me when we moved in during the first part of the 60's.  The house stood out from its cookie cutter neighbors by its dreary grey and blood red paint in the midst of the optimistic white of the post war houses.  The inside was even worse with dirty faded mustard and brown walls untouched since first painted. Even though our neighbors boasted flourishing gardens on either side, nothing, except stubborn evergreens would grow on our property for long no matter how hard we tried. I was a teenager at the time and had the back bedroom where the experiences originated.  At first the encounters would begin at the edge of sleep, when the mind has just started to slip over to the other world.  I would feel a heavy plop on the end of the bed, after a moment, pressure would start to cautiously progress up the side of the bed not unlike a cat sneaking up to a pillow, except we had no cat. If I looked, it would immediately stop only to start again from the base as I once again slipped into sleep.  This might happen nightly, other times a week or so between.  But at one point it began to escalate. Becoming bolder, it would begin its stalking up the bed while I was still awake-always unseen but definitely heavy pressure slowly moving up the side of the bed towards my head depressing the blankets as it went.  Then the dreams started. As soon as I fell asleep, I saw a dark bottomless hole open up.  Reaching out of its darkness were elongated hands attached to pasty white arms that stretched back into the abyss.  The hands would land on the bed and then begin their crawl until I would pass out.  There was never a body seen, nor did I feel it was ever anything human. This was the nightmare I lived with constantly until I was old enough to move out on my own.  None of this was experienced in any other part of the house, just in this one room in the bed placed in the corner.  As I later found out, this was the exact location of the old ranch well, now covered over.  The house is still there.  I know the experience was not my imagination-I have had psychic abilities since a small child.  But I wonder to this day if anyone else has had these encounters in that back room.


Little Historical House
By:    tib70@yahoo.com
In 2001 I started living in a two bedroom, one bath house near the corner of Old Santa Cruz Hwy and Summit Rd in the Santa Cruz Mountains.This house was the last remaining cabin from when this 72 acre property was a resort in the early 1900's.  Part of the house still has original windows and walls from that time. I have been studying and reading about the spirit world for a lot of my life and have had many experiences over the years in different places I have lived, starting when I was a little girl. I lived in this house for about 3 years. I had some  very interesting experiences in this house.  Before this, I definetely had the ability to feel a presence and know exactly where they were walking or standing. This is the story: I woke up in my bed in the middle of the night or early morning,  and I was sitting up in bed. It took me a second
to realize I was looking at two people standing in my room very close to the end of my bed. One was a lady in maybe her early to mid 20's and a boy who was about 8. They were dressed in early 1900's very nice clothes. They were completely solid. I couldn't stop staring. The woman was wearing a dark long dress with puffy sleeves and had a hat on. She looked like what you would see on one of those cameo pictures. The boy had on a page boy outfit. I stared and stared, not wanting to miss a second. It was completely fascinating. It went on for maybe 30 seconds? Then they just Dissipated. I  laid back down and immediately went back to sleep. Then, a week or two later, I had fallen asleep on the couch in the family room on my side facing towards middle of the room. As I opened my eyes, the same two people were standing in front of me about 5 ft away. Each time the boy is standing a little bit in front of the lady(his mom?). The way I was laying on the couch, and the perspective I was seeing was that they were still completely full bodied and solid but I could only see from about the waist down. All of a sudden, the boy leaned down to check me out.. Oh wow! That startled me! He moved! Obviously seeing me too! I jumped a little and then just turned over on my side and  just went right back to sleep. Not long after, within a week or two?  I had fallen asleep on the couch again. Again on my side facing the room. This time when I opened my eyes, the little boy was staring into my face! He was right next to the couch leaning down staring at me. He had this look on his face like he was annoyed, squinting his eyes at me. I think I jumped like 3 feet! I  tuned him out and turned over and immediately went back to sleep. My next experience I was asleep on my back in my bed. I woke up because something was  tickling my right check. I reached up  half asleep and scratched my face and accidently tore my skin I scratched so hard. I have never done anything like that before in my life. Soon after that, a couple days, not sure, I was asleep in my bed on my back and woke up in the middle of the night again. My head was towards the left and my eyes were looking down at my sheets. I turned my head towards the right and standing right next to my bed about 2 feet from me was an old lady. That really startled me! She was from a more current time frame. From maybe the 60's to the 80's?  She looked like she was in her late 70's to her 80's. She had white curly short hair and was wearing glasses. She had on polyester type orange? pants with I think a print top.  She was also looking at me in that same squinty eyed annoyed look . I turned my head towards the right for a second, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and then looked back for a second and couldn't see her anymore. Then, just like the other times, went right back to sleep.   There were many times when I would be laying in bed reading and I would have this feeling like there were a bunch of people just hanging out in my room standing around..like when your at the trail or bus station..About six months after I had moved out, I went back up to visit the people who owned the property. The wife and their son and I were standing outside this house on the porch talking and having drinks celebrating 4th of July. I asked Dustin if I had told him about the ghosts I had seen in the house. He said no so I started telling him the same story. As I was into the story I saw the look on his face and thought he was looking at me like I was making it up and I said "what?" and expected him to tell me I was full of b.s. and I thought to myself that I shouldn’t have brought it up. There were a couple other women who had rented out the house before me. They had told me about the three of them. This one in particular they never took seriously because they thought she was on drugs. So, Dustin tells me that this one girl who did the drugs had told them she had seen two ghosts in the house, but they didn't believe her. I was blown away! It was so validating for both of us. I had not let myself fully believe that what I had seen was real because for many years in my life I had woken up to see weird things flying across the ceiling of my room where ever I lived and I wasn't sure if I was just dreaming. It was a huge turning point for me with acknowledging that I really was having all these experiences through out my life.



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