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Ghost Stories 2002 Archive		Date Added
	Neighbourhood Haunts	August 2002
	I grew up in a very ordinary house in a very ordinary part of southeast Denver. It was a small house, maybe 1,200 sq. ft. upstairs and 1,000 sq. ft. downstairs. A simple house for my parents to raise four kids in. Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the first ten years of living there but things quickly took a turn for the worse. In 1983 I was fifteen . I began to get scared of the basement and I wasn't the only one, my older sister and older brother began to become uneasy when they were alone. It was cold in a few parts of the basement, something that wasn't the case previously. I have two sisters and a brother, all older and both of my sisters had already moved out. My brother and I each had our own rooms in the basement. There were cold spots that were mainly in my room and a storage room but were prone to move around at times. We both had trouble getting to sleep because we both felt that we were either being watched or at times like there was something's in the basement with us. We both felt like there was more than one presence in the basement. One night I woke up and there was a person floating eye to eye with me only about 10 inches above me. I lost it, started kicking my legs and flailing my arms but they went right through him. Slowly, he shook his finger at me and shook his head as if saying "no, no" and floated back into the corner and disappeared. It took me about five minutes to get the nerve to jump out of bed and run over to the light switch, which was in the corner where he disappeared. I can remember that my brother was not at home that night, I never said anything to my parents but I let my brother know what happened and he believed me. The person (or whatever it was) was not translucent, in fact, other than a large scar under his left eye and that he was floating above me and my arms and legs went through him, he looked quite normal. The next day I was watching the news and I found out a couple living about three houses down from us were found stabbed to death. That REALLY freaked me out. They were a young couple and my oldest sister knew them, not really friends but knew them. I never told her what I saw but I did ask her what they looked like and she told me. The husband as she described him could have very well been the figure above me but I can't be sure it was unless I saw a picture of him. To this day I can still picture him in my mind with the clarity I saw him that night. A few months later I was sitting in my bed and reading with my dog, a small poodle named "Dink" laying next to me. All of the sudden Dinks head shot up in the air like he noticed something and looked over at the door and began growling. The light was on in my room but I could see a large patch of white, very misty, floating in the entrance. It just stayed there for about thirty seconds and then began slowly drifting into my room. I could feel massive chills going up and down my back as I saw it float to the corner and start coming toward my bed. I pushed myself to the back and the corner of my bed, as far as I could to get away from it when it stopped and floated back towards the same corner I saw the figure two nights before and disappeared. I knew I wasn't just seeing this thing myself because I noticed that Dink was following it with his eyes also and still growling. Before it disappeared Dink jumped off the bed and took off out of the door. I heard him a few seconds after it disappeared growling and whimpering by the stairs in the other room and then heard him run upstairs. Once again I sat there for about five minutes, got the guts to get up, peek around the corners, while glancing in every direction around me. I got to the bottom of the stairs, looked around once more, just in case and took off like a shot up the stairs. I swear I must have been three feet in the air when I reached the top and flew into the kitchen. Two weeks later I was asleep in bed when I heard my brother call my name and whisper, "Come here, hurry." I was expecting to get hit by him or by an object when I came around the corner, a practical joke that he used to pull on me all the time. When I entered the room he told me not to say anything but to look over into the storage room. There were no doors in the basement, just walls separating the room and the door frames with no doors in them. The storage room always bugged me because an old couple lived in the house before us and the man was an artist. The wall to the storage room was nearly twenty feet long and the man painted a huge scene on the wall, not just a part of the wall but the WHOLE wall. There were farms, rivers, bridges, cattle, people, trees etc. I don't know why the wall bugged me but it did. Well, my brother pointed into the storage room and to the wall and whispered for me to look. It's hard to explain what we saw but it looked like a patch of air about three feet wide and 5 feet high in front of the wall was moving in waves. At first the patch of air just stayed in one place but then began slowly moving from the left side of the wall all the way to the right and back again, then disappeared. We both looked at each other and were speechless. I sat down on the bed next to him. Nothing was said for a minute or two, like both of us were making sure that it wasn't going to appear again. There were many small occurrences such as things missing and then being found later in places that were already looked at many times before. My brother or I would usually get blamed for this. My sister swore that she saw a black shadow of a man run across the upstairs living room and knock over a vase that was very important to my mother and then dissipate through the wall. My cousin , we'll call him Jim, is a year and a half younger than I and lived about five houses down the block from me. His next door neighbour was an older man in his seventies. He was very good friends with Jim's family but I didn't know him very well. One night Jim was in bed when a large glowing figure of a man appeared in his room and stood there for about thirty seconds while Jim stared at him and then disappeared. He was somewhat scared but not terribly so and was able to get back to sleep. When he woke up in the morning he went in to the living room and told my aunt and uncle what happened. They then sat him down and told him that the man next door had passed away over night. Jim swears that it had to have been his neighbour and that maybe he was checking up on him or saying goodbye. I had a friend, we'll call him Steve, who I went to high school with, a very nice kid with a very nasty father. He didn't treat Steve or his wife very well. At times he would beat Steve to the point where Steve hated him. They lived in a large house about two blocks away. One day Steve was in the bathroom when what he thought was the devil appeared in his mirror and said "I've got your daddy" and disappeared. He ran screaming across the street to another friends house and started crying and telling them what he had seen. Four hours later he got a phone call from his mother saying that his father had died of a heart attack at work. Steve is not one to tell a lie and I believe that he saw something. All of these events in my neighbourhood happened within a one year period from 1983 to 1984. I know that a few of these occurrences may have a natural explanation to them but there are few that don't. There have been no other occurrences in my parents neighbourhood since then, that I know of. I have not lived there in ten years but am in contact with many of my friends and family constantly and visit my parents all the time. They still live there. I have been slightly interested in ghosts and the paranormal since then but I haven't studied and believe it or not, am not totally convinced in ghosts. Maybe someone who is a little more educated in the paranormal or can give me natural explanations or can elaborate as to why it all happened, especially in one years time. Is it coincidence? Part of me wants to say yes, it is coincidence but another part says something more than natural has happened. From : David (strngs@aol.com)
	Kleptomaniac Ghost	August 2002
	When I was 14 years old, I was living in the heart of the San Fernando Valley with my parents and my younger other, 13 years old. We lived in a typical, 3 bedroom tract home in the picture of suburbia. My parents decided to put the house up for sale and move to a bigger house and that's when all Hell broke loose. There is a spare room attached to the garage that used to be painted all these psychedelic colours and bizarre symbols that we covered up with white paint. Soon after the house was listed on the market, we had some rain and my father noticed the ceiling in this shed was sagging from water damage, exposing the wooden beams underneath so he tore it down. Strangely enough, lodged among the beams, we discovered a pair of binoculars, some commemorative coins from an Apollo Space Mission, and a cheap watch. Nothing of any particular value, except perhaps sentimental. But all of us felt a collective chill go down our spines as we wondered who these items belonged to, how they managed to get above the ceiling and why anyone thought they were worth hiding. Soon after, my mom received her monthly bank statement in the mail and noticed a couple of checks that were not written by her but someone had signed her name. Puzzled, she picked us up from school and asked us about in on the way home but neither of us would ever forge a check so she went to retrieve the check to show us, but both of them were missing from the stack. Pretty soon, all of our personal items began to disappear and reappear in the oddest places. At first we thought someone was playing a practical joke or that one of us was responsible and the accusations began to fly. But some of the events that took place were so mind boggling we became sure that no person could be responsible. One anecdote: My mom and I came home after grocery shopping and as we were unpacking the groceries we discovered that a whole bunch of non-food items had disappeared, even though we specifically saw the checker bag them. By this time we were used to this and figured that these things would reappear in the middle of the night in the oven or under the bed. My parents then went out to run errands for a couple of hours and I settled myself to a long gab with my girlfriend. As I chatted, I idly opened and closed one of my desk drawers. It was completely empty but when I closed it and opened it a second time, I saw a bottle of shampoo lying inside - the same bottle of shampoo that was missing from our groceries! I told my girlfriend what was going on and closed the drawer after removing the shampoo. Bracing myself, I opened it again and this time there was a tube of toothpaste! Astounded, I tore out the other two drawers and peered below the drawer, looking for any explanation of this is phenomenon. Even stranger, my top drawer is a lockable drawer so once it's closed, it's completely inaccessible from behind the desk or below. Wanting a witness to verify that I wasn't hallucinating, I called my brother in and without explaining anything, I showed him the empty drawer and closed it. I opened it and inside rested a six-pack of Ivory soap. He freaked out and ran screaming out of the room. At this point I was too excited to be frightened so I continued to open and close the drawer and sure enough, each time, a new item appeared, sometimes two. I even requested some specific items, like my nail polish or hair gel to materialize and it did! After every single missing item was retrieved, I stared at them all lining up my desk in excited wonder, and then the weirdness of what just happened hit me. I began to wonder, if this thing, ghost or whatever it is can dematerialize and tele-transport these items, there's no telling what else or who else it could do the same to next. Gathering up my hard won toiletries, I joined my terrified brother on the front doorstep and waited for my parents to arrive. My girlfriend came running down the street to keep me company as well. This is just one of the many bizarre, implausible yet true events that my family and I came to live with for the next 5 years. Certain things like cash were always missing no matter how closely you kept it against your body or how carefully you hid it. Important documents, term papers, school books always managed to disappear when you needed them most. This ghost was clearly prescient and knew what was most important to you and most inconvenient to steal. No matter how many times we moved, this presence made our lives miserable but with each passing year as my brother and I got older, the activity slowed down. By the time I left for college, there were only two incidents I can recall and now that I am married and 27 years old, nobody in my family has been affected. I could fill a book with all of the things that happened but if anybody out there can offer an explanation for a kleptomaniac ghost or has had similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you. Oh yeah, I've never heard or seen any physical manifestations other than things disappearing when I was looking the other way. From : Anonymous
	Paranormal Childhood	August 2002
	Throughout time my family has had many brushes with the paranormal, it seems as if we are magnets to all things supernatural. I will begin by telling you about my personal experiences. As a child of about age 4 was when I clearly remember things happening. I had moved to a new 2 story house located in a fairly new housing area circa 1979.I have a keen ability to remember everything from age 2 on. I was outside playing on my two swing sets and was a quite rambunctious kid. I often fell a lot. One day I was up to my usual shenanigans and I fell and hit my head on the bar of my play set and heard a voice saying "are you alright" I turned around exclaiming who's there...no answer. As most kids do I thought it was nothing and continued playing thinking it was probably my neighbour. I proceeded over to the bigger play set with monkey bars and fell abruptly to the floor missing my second attempt at swinging...I heard the voice again perhaps even more clearly "are you alright?....who's there?...! ! .its your guardian angel silly!" I ran screaming into my house to get my mom...I never heard it again to this day. Perhaps the eeriest part about this voice is that it was my voice as an adult talking to my childhood self. This was just the beginning. Shortly after my first encounter I started seeing apparitions. I clearly remember that from age 4-5 I heard a strange buzzing noise in my ear every night before going to bed. I remember seeing a young boy reaching out to me saying help me help me...needless to say I didn't sleep much that year...coinciding with my experiences my kid sister then age 1 1/2 wasn't sleeping much either she told my mom one evening that she saw an arm of a child coming out of her closet (she claimed it was Jesus) I thought it might be the boy that visited me for help. I was visited by various other apparitions of all sorts...a white lady on my door...a white spectre...it ended for a long time...until my sister was thirteen and my TV started turning on and off...! ! nothing very major happened until recently. This story gives me chills as it has freaked out everybody around me. Most paranormal phenomenon I experience comes in form of dreams or premonitions. This time I experienced a ghost as an adult. About 3 weeks ago I started having problems with my boyfriend of 2 years. My friend Shane gave me a stone she always wears for strength during this hard time. About 3 or 4 days after wearing the stone I had what I deemed as my first OBE. I awoke in the middle of the night feeling my body laying down but I was physically sitting up. I wasn't asleep I wasn't awake I was in some sort of limbo. I looked to my couch and saw a man in a pinstripe suit sitting there. I didn't freak out I just acknowledged it and went back to my body. As I awoke the stone fell off my neck and into the palm of my hand! I didn't wig just placed it down. My friend called me later that day telling me she needed her stone back. I told her no problem I didn't need it anymore. I spoke to my m! ! other about it and came to the conclusion that it was my grandfather that visited me (we buried him in a pinstripe suit!) letting me know that I didn't need that stone to give me strength. Over the next couple of days I started seeing things in my apt. dark flashes... my clocks digital face was warping...my phone started faltering on me ringing with no one there. I basically just prayed for my grandfather's soul to reach the other side and rest and to not worry about me. Since then activities have ceased a bit. If you are interested in the cont...or would like me to tell you more stories please e-mail me I'd be happy to tell...Take care to all who read this. From : (egg2965@yahoo.com)
	Isabella's Music	August 2002
	Varnado Hall, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana Spring, 1986 Background Information: North-western used to be a convent school about 100 years ago. It is told that a young woman by the name of Isabella came to the convent when her lover left her. She was very anti-social, always moping about. One night there was a storm. All of the people in the convent went to the lower floor of the building, except Isabella, who insisted on locking herself in her room. The storm raged all night. The next morning, a couple of the women went to check on Isabella. After breaking the lock on the door, they found the window open and a bloody handprint on the wall. It was first assumed that Isabella simply ran away, however, since that night, strange things have happened at this location. This is the story told to every incoming freshman (at least the women) by the upperclassmen at NSU. Now, here is what happened to me: One evening, it was a Saturday, quite late (or should I say quite early Sunday morning), I was on my way back to my side of the dorm (Varnado was at that time a co-ed facility). There had been a formal dance, and some of us had continued the party on the male side of the dormitory. Between the two wings, there was a large living area with a fireplace, grand piano, large sectional sofa, big screen TV, etc...all closed off at 9 at night by big glass French doors...locked. My date was walking me across the foyer area to my side of the dormitory when we heard music...piano music. This music was coming from behind the French doors. My date and I looked at each other, both of us mouthing the same word - "Isabella". We looked through the doors toward the piano, and there was nothing there...no person that we could SEE. Yet the music continued. I am sure that this was Isabella. I had greatly discounted stories of her when I became a student at the university, however, many others had similar experiences. There were also times that things in our dorm rooms were moved or missing entirely for days. When we got to a point where we asked her aloud to return them they would show up shortly thereafter. From : Anonymous
	Queen Anne Rocker	August 2002
	I never really believed in ghosts. Ghosts were always a good subject to bring up when telling stories around a campfire or when an older brother or sister felt the urge to scare their defenseless younger siblings. I never believed in ghosts---until the rocking chair. Of all the numerous ghostly tales I have been told or simply heard from one source or another, the story passed to me by a person I'd only been acquainted with for a short time has lingered in my mind for a long while now. It has caused me to pause and put a lot of thought into the possibility of the existence of ghosts. My friend began her tale in a very serious manner by asking me if I deemed it possible for there to be life after death. I thought her question amusing and practically had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing in her face until I realized that she was being totally serious and was actually shaking. Without trying to display my amusement, I lied and told her that I hadn't really given much thought to the subject. She continued to tell me that she had visited some friends the previous evening and had joined them in a game of cards for entertainment. Sitting in the middle of their living room, which was off to the right of the dining room where the card game was to take place, was a beautiful Queen-Anne rocking chair. My friend had already remarked about the loveliness of the chair and had inquired where the couple had discovered such a rare piece of furniture. Their answer in return was that it had once belonged to a great, great, great grandmother and had been passed down to them. After the 3 had seated themselves at the dining room table, they proceeded to shuffle the cards in preparation for their game. The lights in the room immediately started to flicker off and on. One of the couple looked over to the light switch on the wall and calmly but firmly said, "Quit it grandmother!" My friend sat and stared in disbelief as the flickering of the lights stopped instantly. The card game was resumed and out of the corner of her right eye my friend caught a glimpse of movement. When turning her head in the direction from which she'd seen the movement she was in total shock! The rocking chair was slowly moving back and forth as if someone were sitting there and enjoying the rocking motion. Again, one of the couple stopped the card game long enough to tell grandmother to behave herself. The chair stopped the movement as quickly as it had begun. When seeing the frightened expression on my pale friend, the two hosts explained to her that other family members had been through the same occurrences when owning grandmother's rocking chair. Grandmother had apparently been a very God-fearing and righteous woman and wouldn't tolerate un-fit conduct such as card-playing in her presence. At first, my friend reacted in the same manner that I or probably anyone would have reacted and expressed total disbelief. To prove to her that grandmother's ghost truly existed they gathered up the playing cards and placed them into their cardboard container. Immediately the chair which had already once began its movement while the cards were still on the table, ceased rocking! To further prove any doubt, the cards were once again placed out onto the table and were shuffled as if to begin a game. Again, as before, the chair started into motion, only this time in a more violent manner then before. The cards were put away and the couple talked soothingly to the seemingly empty chair. The chair again stood still. After hearing this encounter from another world I actually felt the hairs stand up on my arms and felt cold chills going through my body. I have heard other so-called "ghost stories", which I once considered totally ridiculous, but now leave me to wonder, what if ????? From : Sheila (saeaton@citynet.net)
	Haunted Garage	August 2002
	Like probably millions of American children in the 80's, playing with G.I. Joe figures was a major component of summer fun for myself and several friends. On one occasion, Joe, Gary, my brother Matt, and myself had taken up positions in the garage belonging to Joe's grandmother. The battle was heated, the stakes high. In particular, Joe and I were engaged in a deadly battle, my Snow Cat against his MOBAT, when his grandmother called us to the house for Kool-Aid; we loved her Kool-Aid, because she bought the pre-sweetened kind, but then used the recipe for unsweetened Kool-Aid mix, so the battle was paused for refreshment. Careful to leave everything exactly where they were, we filed out of the garage, closing the main door and keeping an eye on the side door, which we closed behind us, for fear of someone tampering with the action. We drank our Kool-Aid together; no one went into that garage. Thirst slaked, we returned to the battle; my position was seriously disrupted, however, by the fact that the Snow Cat was missing. A frantic search of the garage revealed it was perched on top of a filing cabinet; it was too tall for any of us to reach, so the cabinet had to be tipped over halfway and the Snow Cat caught as it fell. Well, we didn't especially want to be in the garage anymore, so we retreated outdoors to consider a plan of action. Inspired perhaps by "Ghostbusters" a program of testing was agreed upon. We decided to offer the spook a piece of Bazooka bubble gum (I don't remember the reasoning behind that decision); a drawing of straws decided I was to be the one to enter the side door, cross the garage to the stairs to the other side, walk up as far as I dared, and toss the gum onto the second floor (not really a floor, just the solid ceiling; it had enough space for a kid such as we were to walk around on it without bumping one's head on the roof). So into the garage we went, me leading the way, prepared to run at the slightest provocation. I went up the stairs, far enough so I could look around the ceiling area with my flashlight, leaving the gum on the floor, or the ceiling depending on where you're looking from, before panic set in and we fled back down the stairs, across the garage, and out. After a suitable time passed, it was decided that someone must go in to see if the gum was still there. No one especially wanted to do this, and I don't remember who was ultimately nominated, but it didn't really matter, because when we opened the side door again, lying on the floor, right at our feet, was a piece of Bazooka bubble gum; (unwrapped). As far as I know those were the last paranormal events to take place in what was otherwise a perfectly innocent, ordinary, small town garage. From : Daniel Schulz (schulz@dmrtc.net)
	Fingerprint Ghost	September 2002
	It was the last place we would have expected to have trouble with. Our first apartment was in one of the standard large complexes that you see popping up in suburbia. It was about 20 years old, but here were a lot of old fruit trees on the grounds, so it may have been built on the site of an old farm stead, something that is common for our area. Maybe our difficulties stemmed from this. On the other hand such complexes tend to have a high tenant turnover and some residents can leave quit suddenly. Any ways it started out with the usual irregularities that often accompany these incidences. Lights would be on or off when you would swear they hadn't been that way when you left the room. The same goes for doors opening and closing. Objects would be moved from where you had put them, pictures would go all askance. At about the same time when it began to dawn on us that there might be something to these occurrences, the finger prints started. Again, we didn't realize at first what was happening. It just seemed like my husband and I were getting extremely messy. I was constantly wiping dirty fingerprints and hand prints off the walls. At first it was in places that you would expect, around light switches, for example. Then it got stranger. Fingerprints and even whole hand prints began to appear way up near the ceiling, which couldn't be reached unless one was on a ladder. Toward the end, some even appeared ON the ceiling. I pulled desk out to retrieve a fallen piece of paper and found the wall behind it just plastered with hand prints. The prints were too small to be my husband's or mine. we guessed they were the size of a child's, or now, in retrospect, the size of a small woman's hands. one night I wiped the prints off the hall light switch, and then carried some dirty laundry to the hamper in the bedroom. I didn't touch the switch, yet when I came back, the prints were back. I wiped them off, turned, walked away a couple of feet, and turned back. The prints were back. I repeated this 6 times before I gave up, and just left the prints. By this time our walls were just in a constant state of being peppered with prints, to the point that company would stare a little. Michael and I watched one afternoon as the bedroom door unlatched itself (we heard the click), swung open, and then swung shut again. One evening I walked into the bedroom to find a living bedspread composed of bees crawling around on our antique redwood bed. All the windows and doors had been shut. When I returned with the manager, They were all gone except for a few stragglers. The moving objects became more brazen, towards the end. We would hear a loud thump in the other room, or right behind us, and find that something quite heavy had fallen, books would seem to have just flown right off the shelf. Things turned up in increasingly bizarre locations. One evening, I went to retrieve the broom from the hall closet. It wasn't hanging in its usual spot. Now while there is a possibility that I used it and forgot to hang it back up, I know I didn't leave it where I eventually found it: standing in the bathroom, precariously balanced, bristles down, atop the sink faucet. I reached to take it down, and it fell to the floor the moment my fingers grazed it. Here's the grand finale: When I was quite pregnant with our first son, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (big surprise). When I returned, I was in the narrow space between the wall and my side of the bed when I happened to glance down at the floor. I was standing in a spectral woman that was lying on the floor. She was very small and thin-boned, elderly, and was writhing around as if in great pain. The expression on her face was ghastly. I let out a shriek that was in itself bloodcurdling, and jumped onto the bed, clear across my side and onto my husbands, crushing him under me and nine months of baby. To this day, many moves later, I can't sleep on THAT side of any bed -and I still leap in and out of bed-because even though it didn't "get" me that time, there's always next time..... From : Jaye Lee (m_and_jl@sprynet.com)
	Strange Whispers	September 2002
	My house has three floors on it. The den is the first floor, then the kitchen, living room and dining room on the second floor and four bedrooms and a bathroom on the third floor. Everything I'm about to tell you always happens on the third floor. In December 1997 (I was 11) I was sitting in my bedroom (which is by the stairs) and I was on my bed reading. I thought I heard voices whispering. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I could hear voices. I was reading a book for school called 'Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry' and it is not a horror story so I don't think I could have been imagining the whispers. I also had this feeling like someone was in the room with me even though I was home alone. I told the voices to leave me alone and they stopped and the feeling of someone being with me left. In March 1998 I was taking a bath in the third floor bathroom. The faucet was turned off and I was just sitting in the tub and I did not fall asleep! I heard a girl whisper "It's burning! It's burning!" I looked around the room (which isn't very big) and I was the only person in the room. The girl repeated what she had just said and it was still a whisper. It sounded like she was scramming, but I was just hearing it as a whisper. I got out of the tub, got dressed and went downstairs. I haven't heard anymore whispers since March, but when I'm alone, I sometimes feel a presence in the room with me (this is only on the third floor) even though it's clear I'm alone. I also have a problem walking past my parents room, which I have to go by to get to get to the upstairs bathroom and the two rooms which belong to my sisters. I always feel as though something or someone is in there, even though I can never see anyone. One night in June I woke up at 4 in the morning. I remember the time because the clock in the living room chimed four. I'm still not sure what woke me up. Anyway, I heard a sound that I thought was my dog panting. I listened more closely and I realized it couldn't be a dog panting because it was a rhythm. I laid in bed trying to figure out what the sound. I finally figured out that it sounded like a saw sawing wood. I had no idea why I was hearing a saw and why it wasn't louder (I was really soft, but not soft enough to not hear it well). Then, it suddenly stopped. I listened to see if I would hear it again, but I didn't and finally went back to sleep. I know that the whispers I heard couldn't be someone else talking because my house is far from my neighbour's house and no one was home both times I heard the whispers. The TV wasn't on and I couldn't have been my sisters because the are both four years older than me and the whispers sounded like a little girl about five or six years old. I have no explanation for the whispers or sawing I heard and as far as I know, no people have died in or around my house. From : Anonymous
	Evil Kids	September 2002
	As so many things do, it all started out innocently. My Internet Service Provider used to have offices in a shopping centre before they moved to their (comparatively) lush accommodations elsewhere. There was a drop box at that original location. The monthly bill was due, and thus, there but for the Grace of the Net I went. It was about 9:30 p.m. when I left. From my relatively isolated apartments, it's about 10-15 minutes or so to downtown (Abilene has a population of about 110,000). Right next to Camalott Communications' old location is a $1.50 movie theatre. At the time, the place was featuring that masterwork of modern film, Mortal Kombat. I drove by the theatre on the way into the centre proper and pulled into an empty parking space. Using the glow of the marquee to write out my check, I was startled to hear a knock on the driver's-side window of my car. I looked over and saw two children staring at me from street. I need to describe them, with the one feature (you can guess what it was) that I didn't realize until about half-way through the conversation cleverly omitted. Both appeared to be in that semi-mystical stage of life children get into where you can't exactly tell their age. Both were boys, and my initial impression is that they were somewhere between 10-14. Boy No. 1 was the spokesman. Boy No. 2 didn't speak during the entire conversation -- at least not in words. Boy No. 1 was slightly taller than his companion, wearing a pull-over, hooded shirt with a sort of grey checked pattern and jeans. I couldn't see his shoes. His skin was olive-coloured and had curly, medium-length brown hair. He exuded an air of quiet confidence. Boy No. 2 had pale skin with a trace of freckles. His primary characteristic seemed to be looking around nervously. He was dressed in a similar manner to his companion, but his pull-over was a light green colour. His hair was a sort of pale orange. They didn't appear to be related, at least directly. "Oh, great," I thought. "They're gonna hit me up for money." And then the air changed. I've explained this before, but for the benefit of any new lurkers out there, right before I experience something strange, there's a change in perception that comes about which I describe in the above manner. It's basically enough time to know it's too late. ;) So, there I was, filling out a check in my car (which was still running) and in a sudden panic over the appearance of two little boys. I was confused, but an overwhelming sense of fear and unearthliness rushed in nonetheless. The spokesman smiled, and the sight for some inexplicable reason chilled my blood. I could feel fight-or-flight responses kicking in. Something, I knew instinctually, was not right, but I didn't know what it could possibly be. I rolled down the window very, very slightly and asked "Yes?" The spokesman smiled again, broader this time. His teeth were very, very white. "Hey, mister, what's up? We have a problem," he said. His voice was that of a young man, but his diction, quiet calm and ... something I still couldn't put my finger on ... made my desire to flee even greater. "You see, my friend and I want to see the films, but we forgot our money," he continued. "We need to go to our house to get it. Want to help us out?" Okay. Journalists are required to talk to lots of people, and that includes children. I've seen and spoken to lots of them. Here's how that usually goes: "Uh ... M ... M ... Mister? Can I see that camera? I ... I won't break it or anything. I promise. My dad has a camera, and he lets me hold it sometimes, I guess, and I took a picture of my dog -- it wasn't very good, 'cause I got my finger in the way and ..." Add in some feet shuffling and/or body swaying and you've got a typical kid talking to a stranger. In short, they're usually apologetic. People generally teach children that when they talk to adults, they're usually bothering them for one reason or another and they should at least be polite. This kid was in no way fitting the mould. His command of language was incredible and he showed no signs of fear. He spoke as if my help was a foregone conclusion. When he grinned, it was as if he was trying to say, "I know something ... and you're NOT gonna like it. But the only way you're going to find out what it is will be to do what I say ..." "Uh, well ..." was the best reply I could offer. Now here's where it starts to get strange. The quiet companion looked at the spokesman with a mixture of confusion and guilt on his face. He seemed in some ways shocked, not with his friend's brusque manner but that I didn't just immediately open the door. He eyed me nervously. The spokesman seemed a bit perturbed, too. I still was registering something wrong with both. "C'mon, mister," the spokesman said again, smooth as silk. Car salesmen could learn something from this kid. "Now, we just want to go to our house. And we're just two little boys." That really scared me. Something in the tone and diction again sent off alarm bells. My mind was frantically trying to process what it was perceiving about the two figures that was "wrong." "Eh. Um ...." was all I could manage. I felt myself digging my fingernails into the steering wheel. "What movie were you going to see?" I asked finally. "Mortal Kombat, of course," the spokesman said. The silent one nodded in affirmation, standing a few paces behind. "Oh," I said. I stole a quick glance at the marquee and at the clock in my car. Mortal Kombat had been playing for an hour, the last showing of the evening. The silent one looked increasingly nervous. I think he saw my glances and suspected that I might be detecting something was not above-board. "C'mon, mister. Let us in. We can't get in your car until you do, you know," the spokesman said soothingly. "Just let us in, and we'll be gone before you know it. We'll go to our mother's house." We locked eyes. To my horror, I realized my hand had strayed toward the door lock (which was engaged) and was in the process of opening it. I pulled it away, probably a bit too violently. But it did force me to look away from the children. I turned back. "Er ... Um ...," I offered weakly and then my mind snapped into sharp focus. For the first time, I noticed their eyes. They were coal black. No pupil. No iris. Just two staring orbs reflecting the red and white light of the marquee. At that point, I know my expression betrayed me. The silent one had a look of horror on his face in a combination that seemed to indicate: A) The impossible had just happened and B) "We've been found out!" The spokesman, on the other hand, wore a mask of anger. His eyes glittered brightly in the half-light. "C'mon, mister," he said. "We won't hurt you. You have to LET US IN. We don't have a gun ..." That last statement scared the living hell out of me, because at that point by his tone he was plainly saying, "We don't NEED a gun." He noticed my hand shooting down toward the gear shift. The spokesman's final words contained an anger that was complete and whole, and yet contained in some respects a tone of panic: "WE CAN'T COME IN UNLESS YOU TELL US IT'S OKAY. LET ... US .... IN!" I ripped the car into reverse (thank goodness no one was coming up behind me) and tore out of the parking lot. I noticed the boys in my peripheral vision, and I stole a quick glance back. They were gone. The sidewalk by the theatre was deserted. I drove home in a heightened state of panic. Had anyone attempted to stop me, I would have run on through and faced the consequences later. I bolted into my house, scanning all around -- including the sky. What did I see? Maybe nothing more than some kids looking for a ride. And some really funky contacts. Yeah, right. A friend suggested they were vampires, what with the old "let us in" bit and my compelled response to open the door. That and the "we'll go see our mother" thing. I'm still not sure what they were, but here's an epilogue I find chilling: I talk about Chad a lot. He's still my best friend, my best ghost-hunting companion and an all-around cool guy. He recently moved to Amarillo, but at the time this happened was still living in San Angelo of Ram Page fame. I called him and talked to him briefly. He had two female friends with him at the time, both professing some type of psychic ability. I started telling him the story, leaving out the part about the black eyes for the kicker. One of the women (we were on a speakerphone) stopped me. "These children had black eyes, right?" she asked. "I mean, all-black eyes?" "Er ... Yes." I said. I was a bit taken aback. "Hmmm," she said. "One night last week, I had a dream about children with black eyes. They were outside my house, wanting to be let in, but there was something wrong with them. It took me a while to realize it was the eyes." I hadn't even gotten as far as them wanting to come in. "What did you do?" I asked. "I kept the doors and windows locked," she said. "I knew if they came in, they would kill me." She paused. "And they would have killed you, too, if you had let them into your car." From : Brian Bethel (brianbet@camalott.com)
	The Lady	September 2002
	No one is ever going to believe this but I was born in and grew up in a haunted house, all of the events you are about to read are quite true, though not in any particular order just as I remember them. My parents bought a quite large semi detached house not long before I was born, It was on the market for a very reasonable price which was down to the property being in a very dilapidated state, having been abandoned for some time. The fact that a good quality house had been left to decay in a growing suburban area n the middle of a middle classed street is in its self odd. But the house soon became habitable with a lot of hard work, though with little assistance from contract labour, delivery men or even other family members. Some just plain refused to go near the place, some turned up made their excuses and quickly left, not one delivery man would cross the threshold, and by all accounts the house did exude menace in its own suburban way. I should explain that the house was fully furnished, nothing had been looted or even thrown about a bit, all was as it had been. The roof and windows were shot and the rains and weather came in so the furniture had been soaked through, quality furniture abandoned with the house, like the house decayed beyond redemption. My parents as they worked in the house often found the air turn chill and the hairs on their heads raise for no explainable reason and many items, screwdrivers, pliers etc. seemingly vanished without trace, I think they were mad to have stayed but they did. The furniture had to go, broken up and burned mostly though some of the items were quite grand I'm told they were all beyond repair. One large chest of drawers which had seized solidly shut defied all attempts a being opened had to be dismantled with a lump hammer and crowbar. The drawers when smashed apart contained all of the missing items lost since my parents first took possession, including a still wet and warm window cloth my mother had lost just moments before my father destroyed the chest. Some time later, when the house was habitable I arrived, delivered in the front bedroom nothing too remarkable about that but with my birth returned the ghost. My room was fitted with a baby alarm, so that my parents could listen to me screaming (only kidding, you know what baby alarms are for). For a while after my birth renewed sounds of heavy footfalls had been heard upstairs and an odour of burning candles was often commented on by visitors though my mum never used them back then. Also the icy patches had come back and now with the baby link in my nursery my parents had a voice. A kind voice of an elderly lady, usually singing rock of ages, my father tells me it used to freeze him to the spot but my mother would run up the stairs hoping to meet our ghost. She never did, the voice would go as she reached the stairs and all would be as it was before. The voice came regally, and my Mother inquired with neighbour's as a way of ruling out interference from neighbour's' televisions and radios, no link could be found with them and the singing voice. I think my parents just got used to it as time went by, people got more relaxed about the house and the feeling of dread about the place went away. The house looked nice and visitors used to treat the stories of haunting with great skepticism, my Nan my Mum's Mother was the greatest skeptic of all, but I feel that her story of all that I have heard from the house remains the best. It was Christmas, I guess 1970 or 71 I was still little more than a baby and both of my Grandmothers were staying over for the festive season. I must have been out of my old nursery room because I know I was supposed to be moved back to the nursery (box room) to make room for the two old ladies. I also know I wouldn't go I was adamant that the box room belonged to "the Lady" and not for anything would my three year old self sleep in there. My Mum's Mother ended up taking the room in my stead, laughing at my parents foolishness for believing all this haunting rubbish. Anyway I don't know how many nights she had stayed but on one of the Christmas nights my Nan had an interesting experience. It must have been fairly late and my Nan was getting undressed in the box bedroom when another old lady joined her in the room. The other lady looked at my Nan and said "hello Amy (my Nan's name) love, I haven't seen you in ever such a long time." My Nan fled, can't say I blame her, it's a small room to be cooped up in with someone who you know is dead. It later transpired it had been the previous owner of the house, a woman my Nan had known in the past, a woman who died under quite tragic circumstances in the house. I had a little sister the following year, and things got loud again footsteps and candles but no singing just sounds, clicks on the baby alarm nothing specific just wrong. That was that, things calmed down or seemed to I guess the noises just became normal background noise to us and we just stopped noticing them though visitors still found them disquieting. We were feeling our ghost must be getting used to us, as I grew up and entered junior school I can only remember one incident that was even remotely unusual, and that was a glass vase which decided to move along a window sill and then be flicked onto the floor, something I watched while having my breakfast before leaving for school one day. It was much later that I saw "The Lady" and I still hardly trust my own senses, but it felt as real as it could be. I was a teenager and my room was in an attic conversion (a new room that was never accessible to the previous owner) reached by a wooden ladder staircase. On this night I was in bed it was fairly late, am rather than pm but I was awake maybe only half awake but aware. Anyway I heard a sound, it was the sound of shuffling feet on carpet it was unmistakable I knew I was not alone in the room. To reach the room you had to climb the bare wood stairs, which creaked and thumped however hard you tried to be quiet, I had not heard anyone climb them. Anyway I summoned the courage to peep from under my bedclothes not expecting to see anything at all, but I was disappointed. In the gloom I could see a woman in a dressing gown standing at the entrance to the room, she was old and she was moving though very slowly into the room. Oddly I was not too terrified though I did not sleep that night, after I popped back under the covers. I never mentioned it to anyone, I often wondered why I would see her in that room as it could not be accessed in the houses past. I did have a theory well two theories, the first was to do with an item of furniture. In my room was the only salvaged item of furniture from the old owner, the lower section of yet another chest of drawers. I wondered if that had been the draw, but I also wondered if she was curious of the new room and just decided to explore I guess I'll never know. About the same time that I saw "the Lady" my father saw her too, he never told anyone either, it was years later that he told me about it. Like me he had been in a semi doze, and he was lying on the sofa in the rear lounge and he was facing what was at the time the doors of a built in cupboard. He says that he was just staring into space relaxed and cozy when an frizzle haired old woman strode out of the cupboard doors and through the end of the sofa he was lay on. He says she was as clear and solid as any person and he was able to give a fairly good description of her. He later visited our elderly neighbour's and he told them about the ghost he had seen and he gave his description to them. They were surprised to say the least, my fathers description had been a perfect match of the previous owner. Anyway time strode on the noises had long since vanished the candle odour was a memory and the house was bar one spot a happy house. And the spot on the first landing is now the only place that won't get better. I wondered if it was just me, until last year, I have my own house now which I can only describe as 100% happy I never feel uneasy there. One evening we had a group of friends over and we all started on ghost stories, and a theme arose. Had I started it I could dismiss it but it wasn't me that mentioned it first and I sat back amazed as agreement spread through the room. Of all the places that any of them had been going up my mother's stairs was the worst. Non could explain it further than a gut feeling that something they did not want to be any part of was hiding there, so people tend not to linger or look just in case. The first landing is a junction, from there the stairs go straight on and right and to the rear. There is something about that space, you have to check right you don't want to but it's almost a compulsion. Just one last thing, my little sister had a baby six years ago, her and her boyfriend lived at my mothers at the time and her bedroom was one of the two old hot spot haunting rooms. With the new baby came footstep sounds again and something that never registered at first were clicks on the baby alarm, we'd forgotten the ghost. The clicks we began to realize were at the same time every night, 10 after eight and again a little after eleven, after the click the baby would wake every time it wasn't until the family used a baby-sitter one evening that we paid any attention to the clicks as not being anything other than interference. It was my then girlfriend now wife's 21st birthday I arranged a big surprise party at local restaurant, all the family would be there so my sister got her boyfriends mum to come over and look after my niece "Lucy". Jenny the sitter knew very little about us she had only met us a few times she had never heard a thing about our ghost that was for sure. Cutting a long story short after a very pleasant evening we returned to my Mothers t o find Jenny by the front door, at just after eleven she had heard a sound on the Baby alarm, a click it was followed she says by a woman's voice which said "come on come on Lucy love" Jenny was terrified when we got to her the poor woman but we have never heard a peep since, other than the clicks which went on for more than a year afterwards. Well that's all I suppose, when I was about 22-23 my mum was telling me some things and she mentioned a scandal involving the old lady who lived in the house, which involved her son leaving the country in a bit of a hurry. She hung herself soon after I. think I know where. From : Property Services (ga15@dial.pipex.com)
	Drowning Lady	September 2002
	Kathy, her husband, and another couple were spending the weekend camping at a secluded spot on the Clinch River. The other three had left camp earlier, intent on catching fish for their supper, traveling about a mile down the river to a special spot, excellent for fishing. Alone at the camp, Kathy decided to enjoy her privacy by bathing in the river. Finding a hidden spot below the camp, soap in hand, she waded out into the river to a spot of waist deep water, about half way across the stream. There she began her bathing rituals. As she enjoyed the cool water, she was suddenly startled by the sound of a large splash a short distance away, as though someone had fallen or dived into the water. Thinking her privacy had been invaded by an unexpected swimmer, she searched the area the sound came from, and along the river bank for signs of who ever it might be. There was no one in sight, either on the bank, or in the water. She returned to her bath. Suddenly her attention was caught by movement on a high rock ledge protruding into the water a short distance away. To her shock, a woman, clothed in a long, flowing gown, her long hair swaying in the breeze, stood there. The surrounding scenery had magically changed--where the lady stood, suspended on the edge of the rock, was surrounded by empty blue sky-not the tree lined embankments that should be in view. The water, itself, had also changed from the dark colour of the river, to a clear, crystal blue. Seaweed swayed at it's depths, amidst coral formations. As Kathy stood there frozen in shock, the woman began to fall, feet first, into the water below. Time seemed to slow, as Kathy watched the woman sink beneath the water, her hair spreading out around her as she descended. Tiny bubbles arose around her, as she sank slowly to the bottom, and from sight, among the seaweed growing there. The woman did not struggle as she sank slowly into the watery depths. As she disappeared from view, time seemed to return to a normal pace, and Kathy was released from her trance like state. The ocean view had vanished, and no sign of the woman was seen. The entire episode had had a dream-like quality. Shaken, Kathy exited the river, and returned to camp, where she zipped herself in her tent, to await the return of her husband and friends. Sometime later, the fishing party returned, to find a shaken Kathy, visibly upset by what she had witnessed. As she told her story, the men grew quiet. Then, as she finished her description of the woman, and her plunge into the water, her husband chuckled quietly. Thinking that HE had lost his mind, to laugh at such a story, she asked him what could possibly be funny about what she had witnessed. Putting his arm around her, he said," Honey, you just saw a ghost. That woman died years ago, in fact, they buried her right over there in that old fence row." Even more shaken than before, and somewhat disbelieving, Kathy pressed for details. It seems that, in the early 1920's, a woman's body was found along the river bank near where Kathy had sighted the woman fall into the water. She was never identified, and since no one claimed her body, she had been buried by the owner of the land along this particular section of river, in the old fence row, and in an unmarked grave. The law, being very lax in the area at the time the lady was found, made no investigation that proved fruitful, in either determining who she was, or how her drowned body had gotten there. The mystery was never solved, and her spirit is apparently not at rest. Many different people have witnessed exactly what Kathy had seen--the lady falling to her death in the water below. Did she fall? Or was it suicide? And what of the ocean view around the ethereal form? Could she have died somewhere far away, and her body transported to lie in the murky waters of the Clinch? Perhaps we will never know, but let us hope that her restless spirit will soon find peace. From : Paulette Boyd (littledebo@naxs.com)
	Unexplained Happenings	October 2002
	My husband and I purchased our first home in October of 1994. It is situated about a mile from Purdue University. The previous owner was a woman in her 80's who moved to a retirement complex. The house is a small, 3 bedroom cottage that is just over 60 years old. On the day we moved in various family members and friends came from Ohio to help us. My best friend, who is not prone to supernatural experiences, kept seeing a movement out of the corner of her eye. As we continued to move items over the course of the day she started asking everyone if they had seen the cat that was hanging out by the back door. She thought it had wandered into the house. We kept teasing her about "seeing things" but didn't take it seriously. We have two cats of our own, who were back at the apartment, and just thought she was "projecting" their image into the new environment or was seeing "spots" because it was a very sunny day. You know, when you go in and out of bright light you sometimes see dark spots. As we began the task of going through items and cleaning the house more thoroughly, I noticed past traces of a cat in the 3/4 finished basement; pieces of old food, cat hair around the basement windows. I remember laughing and thinking my friend had been right, but really didn't think too much more about it. In the course of our cleaning up we moved an old steel desk that had been left in the basement. As I pulled out the drawers to move it, a packet of papers fell out the back. It was a detailed account of all renovations done on the home by the previous owner's husband. We also found packets of insurance letterhead paper and envelopes. It seems he was an insurance agent who ran the business out of the basement. I guessed, and I found out correctly, that he must have died around 1979 because all the paperwork stopped that year. Time passed, and we began doing projects around our house, i.e. painting, wallpapering, carpeting, landscaping. My parents came and helped us on a number of our projects because, although my husband is a hard worker, he isn't very comfortable doing those types of "projects". Anyway, our first child, Katie, was born last October. As most of you past and present parents know, we both were surviving on less sleep and more stress then normal. I kept seeing little movements out of the corner of my eye on different occasions but dismissed it all as a by-product of our new lifestyle. One afternoon, about 2 months ago, I went out to run some errands leaving my husband to watch the baby. He put her down for her afternoon nap, set up the baby monitor, and headed to the basement to do some work on the computer. About 45 minutes to an hour later he heard footsteps upstairs coming from the front bedroom (we had turned this room into our dining room.) He went upstairs, thinking I had returned only to find a sleeping baby and no one else around. He said he was a little spooked by the incident, but not wanting to give the situation any more "power" by acknowledging it, didn't say anything to me about it. Well, four days ago, I had my own experience. Saturday night, my husband ran to the grocery while I gave the baby her bottle before going to bed. I had just put her down for the night and was sitting in the living room reading when I heard a noise on the basement stairs. We have metal handrails on the basement stairs that make a distinct groaning sound when you use them. I called out my husband's name, rationalizing that he must have quietly returned, and I missed hearing him come in. It's amazing to me how our mind's rationalize unexplained things! I got up and checked the stairs, and of course, he wasn't there. I went to the baby's room, again rationalizing that she must have done something to cause the noise, because I knew it wasn't me! She was asleep. After my husband came home, I told him about my experience and that's when he told me about the footsteps. As we continued to talk, we both admitted we had seen movement out of the corner of our eyes, heard what sounded like inaudible whispers last fall, at night, when the attic fan was running (he mentioned this to me before, but I wouldn't admit that I had heard the whispering too), and also had the sensation that someone else was in the house at various times. We also both concluded that the feeling was not negative. The funny thing is, we both thought it was the same person...the previous owner's husband. We think he probably isn't too happy with some of my husband's "half _arsed" fix-it jobs! So, that's my story. Not as exciting as some of the one's I've read. I still don't know how I feel about the various unexplained happenings. I'm a firm believer in a Heaven and Hell, and I really don't think our spirits hang around...but I can't explain what's happened in our home either! I can't dismiss them as the creaking and groaning of an old house because our house has a steel post foundation and very firm floor boards. From : Kim Copen-Spears (kim@mgmt.purdue.edu)
	Various Ghosts	October 2002
	The Ghost (Part 1) It was the summer of 1960 it was a hot and humid late July afternoon. Ralph and I were on our way home from day camp at Benjamin Franklin J.H.S 55. As we reached near the bottom of the steep hill that was 169th a man suddenly staggered out from between the parked cars down and to the right of us. He was a young Latino deep brown skinned black greasy curly hair worn in the style of the fifties slick on the sides curly on top coming to kind of a coma in front. He was taller than us of course may be five three of a slender build and in his late teens early twenties but old to us. He was limping badly and I thought he may have been hit and had been laying in between the cars stunned. As we were watching him stumble and hold on to the cars making his way up the hill toward us Ralph leaned over to me and whispered , "Should we help him?" "No!" I scolded him ,"Remember Mother said not to go with any one cause they could take us and hurt us!" We slowed down and moved toward the fence putting as much distance between us and the struggling man as the sidewalk would allow. The man never looked at us once but just seemed to be concentrating on getting up to Saint Paul's Place and Washington Ave at the top of the hill. He would walk a little and pause and hold on to the cars and gather his strength then try to walk a little more and end up stopping again to hold on to the parked cars for balance again. I put myself between Ralph and the man so I had a clear view of him all the while we approached each other. He never said anything but grimace ever time he took a step on his left leg. We passed him to his right he to our left we took one step an then I said , "Ralph he really looks hurt , we should help him." We turned and the man was gone. I thought maybe he had fallen between the cars again. We turned and started back up the hill putting a distance between us and the cars just in case he wasn't hurt but hiding. Ralph walked in the street and I walked on the side walk we each looking into the parked cars to see if he was in one. He was nowhere to be seen even an athlete could not have made it up that hill in the second it took for us to turn around. Me and Ralph just looked at each other and said "May be he was a ghost." Because we were thinking about helping this man and going against the warnings of our mother we could not tell any of our family about it but we told our friends that we saw a ghost but because they booed and called us crazy we stopped talking about it. I end here but it doesn't end here..... AARRON It was a warm day the sun was just coming over the tenements of Brook Ave. I had been sitting on the big stoop waiting for my brothers to come downstairs. Growing impatient I stood up and turned to walk inside an look up the stair well to see if any one was coming down yet for the third time. As I started to enter the foyer suddenly it was lit with a bright white light and I spun around to see where it came from and was surprised to see a little boy standing looking at me. Dressed in a short sleeved shirt , white short pants , and white knee socks and tennis shoes with bright blonde hair and every blue eyes and very pale skin but not sickly pale just very , very pale ,and yet healthy looking. He was a very good looking kid too good looking like he was an angel or something and was about my height but seemed to be a bit younger than me. The thing that I most remember was about him though was the light that came off of him it illuminated not only the stoop but the entire inside lobby of 1530. He then said with a smile like I have never seen since. "Hi I know you , and I know your mother Mattie , your father James , your brother Walter (Chucks real name), your sister Theresa ,your brother Ralph and your baby sister Janet." "What's your name?" I asked embarrassed he knew me but I didn't remember him. "My name is Aarron" he said then he spelt it "A A R R O N." I asked him to repeat it for I had never heard it before and he said smiled at my obvious confusion and said , "Aarron , A-A-R-R-O-N" This time spacing the spelling so I could hear what he said. That was when I heard my mother calling me from upstairs over the banisters. "Tell you mother I said hello." he said with that big smile that now some how seemed unnerving. I stepped into 1530 and the light vanished I turned around and he was gone. When I got upstairs I told my mother of the little boy but she said she never heard of him and to forget about him someone was playing a trick on me.... Sometime later as I was walking up Clairmont Parkway to Bathgate Ave to buy school supplies for the new term when an old man in a grey suit suddenly came up to me with a big smile. "Hey how are you , my son told me he saw you." he said , "How's the family doing?" "They are ok," I said trying to figure out who the hell he was. I decided I didn't know him and politely said "Well I got to cross here." Though where I was going was farther up. "Well it was good seeing you tell the family I said hello." "What's your name?" I was forced to ask again. "Aarron" he said "A-A-R-R-O-N" I looked to see if a car was coming and looked back the old man was gone. The Bus Stop Visitation I was in Sound View walking with my best friend Mark. I don't know how I got on the subject but I had just finished telling him the Aarron story and he laugh that laugh he often did when I told him of the weird stuff that happened to me. Now understand Mark has been witness to many strange things that happened to me too and we both may have been abducted from the roof of my building but that is another story. But there comes a point when you hear so many bizarre tales from one person you begin to wonder if any of them are true , as I feel I am soon to reach with your readers but none the less what I tell you is true and Mark will tell you too this happened. Well that being said , I will continue... When Mark reaches that , "Your Stories Are Too Weird For Me To Take Any More" quota of his he unconsciously gives this smile/smirk that tells me no more for now. Any how I had just got that look when a young well dressed black youth walked up to us and asked if we knew where the number so and such bus stopped and not knowing the area we both said no and that he should go up the block around the corner to the taxi stand and ask there. We took a step and I saw the bus stop across the street and we turned to call him. He was gone... Mark said nothing , I did not have to.... The Ghost (Part 2) In 1982 as Ralph and I sat talking about the weird things we had seen in our lives. he suddenly asked me , "Do you remember that old man ?" "Old man ?" I asked. Thinking about Aarron he didn't know about Aarron only mother knew about him. "Yeah " he said " The old man in the grey suit." "Me and you were walking down from 55 and he came out of the street carrying those heavy shopping bags and I asked you if we should help him and you said no because mother said not to go with people. Then when he passed us you said we should help him and when we turned around he was gone." "Is that what you saw?" I asked. "Yeah why did you think I was asking if we should help him?" he answered. A Baby In The Rain It was during my fifth year after I was injured on my job I was reduced to living at sixty percent of my salary from the eighty percent I was receiving while I waited for my disability case to be settled in court and social security to contact me as to the status of my case. My room mate Jean had just got married and moved out and Ralph had died a year before. I had a dollar and a token to my name and I was going out to get a loaf of bread. As I stepped out of the front door it started to rain and I saw a woman with a bundle in her arms standing down from me looking up at the tenement up from me. When she saw me she walked down and started looking up at the building next to mine. I looked away from her and started to walk pass. "'Cuze me...." she suddenly said and I turned toward her. I saw she had a baby in her arms. "My baby is sick an I got no money and I was wondering if..." I looked at her and noticed her nose had dried blood under it. Her eyes were sunken and her cheek bones were prominent. "A crack addict!" flashed through my mind. I grew angry and snapped ,"I ain't got a damned thing for you!" I walked into the street to put a van between me an her. My anger was because of two things. One was because three times since I came to live in Brooklyn I had walked up on crack addicts talking about babies they or others had taken and sold or were fighting over the money they had made by taking a baby and selling it. I know what this sounds like but it is true I reported it but no one listened to me so that was that. And part two was all I had was a dollar and that was for bread so I would have something to eat at least. Then I thought you don't know what the deal is She could have been hit by a boy friend and any way you do have a token and that baby should not be out in the rain. I walked around to the front off the van a to give her the token but she was gone. There was no place she could have went the doors are all locked on our avenue and she did not get into the van.... The E. Ville Ghost.. It was a cold winters night in 1994 about 3:00 am and I had just left the home of my friend Carolyn in the East Village. I had just rounded the corner of 2nd Street and Ave A and was starting up to catch the F train. A brisk wind had swept the streets clean of garbage and Clubers alike and was hurrying me along too. I had just passed the East Indian Deli and was walking pass the parking lots of the high rise when I saw the young man approaching me. He was staggering and really not dressed for the weather now though earlier his attire would have been enough. I remember thinking to myself you'll not make it through this night if you continue going the direction you are staggering like that. Why not just put a sign on your neck saying "Mug me.... Easy prey." To my surprise the youth staggered toward me and stopped. "You won't believe this he said but I have walked all the way down from Broadway trying to bum subway fare..." he slurred " No one will give me even a quarter." I looked at him and was startled how much he looked like the ex boy friend of a mutual friend of Carolyns and mine.... It was just that he was at least ten years younger but damned near a twin of him. He apologized several times to me for being in the condition he was and said he should have known better but he spent every dime he had on a girl and a good time and that they both ran out at the same time. I laugh and gave him a quarter and started to walk for it was cold and he said , "Great all I need now is another dollar." I had thought all he needed was a quarter by what he had said earlier and called him back and said, "Look you need to get your ass off these cold streets give me back the quarter and I'll give you a token." Wobbling he put out his hand and I took the quarter from it at pushed the token into his palm for I was afraid he would drop it and that was all I had was two tokens and a quarter. "Now you need to get on the subway" I said and started to walk toward the station. "Ok." he said but walked the other way I turned to call him he was gone. I walked up the block and called Carolyn to tell her of what happened and about the young twin of Rob I had encountered. After a long pause she told me how when Rob was a young kid he had been stabbed and died on a subway but was brought back to life in the hospital. Was it young Roberts ghost? You tell me..... Are these alien test of compassion , are they ghost, or inter dimensional bleed overs? If any one has encountered these things I would like to hear from you. From : BPLGEUS@aol.com
	Basement Ghost	October 2002
	The most intriguing "ghost/odd" events I have experienced were ones that the animals in my house also confirmed/shared/reacted... and to me that made it "more real". I tend to believe that animals can sense things that we can't and when these events occurred in my house, the fact that the dogs or dogs and cat also responded made me feel that the events were not only in my mind.... or that I "interpreted' normal events in a abnormal way, but that something did indeed really happen. Growing up in an old house in upstate NY, we had quite a few odd experiences. To the point where I and some of my family members definitely believe that there was something "ghostly" or someone that was haunting the house. When many of the events I was involved in also disturbed the dog's/cat then I was more assured that something really did occur that was odd.... as I was young (8-13), I always tended to think that it could have been my imagination except for the fact that the animals went nuts in most of the occurrences. As an example, one night (about 8:00 pm), I was watching TV on the first floor w/ my mother asleep in a bedroom on the same floor. My sister (~15-17) was upstairs in her bedroom (where after she moved out and I moved in - was the place we most heard "odd" noises when no one was in the room. I never heard the "ghost" moving around when Pat occupied the room but only after when I had moved in. They always occurred when I or I and my mother were alone in the house and on the 1st floor (i.e., not in the bedroom from which the noises came. Only once did they occur when we were upstairs.....another story.) At the rear of the house is a backdoor that leads 2 steps up to the 1st floor in the kitchen or down into a very spooky basement (about 15 stairs down). Well, I heard noise at the back door, and all of a sudden both dogs (a lab and a husky) ran to the kitchen door (shut, leading to the level (landing) at which the backdoor opened to.. and leading to the basement... well, I kept hearing a little noise and the dogs were really acting territorial and as if someone were there, so I ran up to my older sister's room and told her that there were noises like someone had come in and was on the backdoor landing....and the dogs seemed to think so also.... Pat realized that she would have to ck it out, since my mother was sleeping (she was recovering from a bad car accident where she had lost her leg, and was not to be disturbed). So Pat and I jokingly (but under the jokes was seriousness) gone into my Mom's bedroom and quietly took my Dad's shotgun down from the gun rack.. it was unloaded but it made us laugh at how someone would react to seeing the shotgun. we walked into the kitchen and Pat opened the kitchen door that lead to the landing....the backdoor was shut and locked, but the dogs immediately BOLTED down into the basement, barking and acting as if they were on the trail of something... Pat and I slowly (I was scared - I hated that basement, and the stairs only had boards running horizontal, so that you could hide under them and grab someone's ankles as they walked down... that ALWAYS came to my mind when I descended those stairs...) Pat and I slowly walked down, reached the light switch and turned the room lights on...(there were 3 rooms in the basement, this was only one..). The dogs were in the corner, standing 3-4 feet from the corner of the room, growling, with their back hairs on end, and Nothing was there..... Pat and I looked at each other, looked back at the corner where the two dogs were fiercely reacting to something that we could not see....and realized that something that we could not perceive with our eyes was deeply disturbing the dogs...then with unspoken words, we both immediately turned and ran as fast as we could up those stairs, bolting the door. When the dogs tried to follow us, and we had shut the kitchen door, they both (uncharacteristically) began to whine and scratch the door urgently....Pat quickly unbolted the door, let them in, and reshut/locked the door. We both then moved as far away from the door as possible into the opposite corner of the house and just sat and whispered ....as to what had happened/what we experienced...... it was awful....so scary........ She and I ended up sleeping together in her room, trying not to think about what happened...and we never spoke about it until years later when my Mom and I started telling her about the noises that were happening in the house..... From : Anonymous
	Weird Apartment	October 2002
	To the best of my knowledge this story is completely true. When my father (John) and my mother (Peti) were first living together, they moved into an old house in Barberton with there two friends (Jerry & Sharol). They were informed that the house used to be old Barberton Hospital and the morgue used to be in the basement. None of them were really bothered with the idea so they moved in. This house was separated into apartments, upstairs was my mom and dad's and downstairs was Jerry And Sharol's. They noticed something was strange the very first night they moved in. The door to the basement had a double deadbolt lock on it and only Jerry had the key it. Also there was a staircase leading to the upstairs apartment that also had a lock on it from my parents side of the door. When the two couples got up the next morning, both the doors were unlocked. No one confessed to doing the unlocking. About 3 days later, mom and Sharol were sitting in the living room drinking coffee when mom caught a glance at the wall. In the plaster, there was just the faintest outline of a face. It was more it a shadow in the wall itself. It was so dim that they thought someone had drawn it there. So Jerry sanded down the wall a little bit and plastered over it and painted it. But when the paint began to dry, they saw the face clearer than before. The thought well, it was just not sanded down far enough or something so they repeated the process. This time the face came back quite clearly. ( I've seen pictures of it). My dad wanted to rip out the wall and find out what was behind it but Jerry said " NO WAY"! It was his apartment so dad had to respect his wishes. So they left it alone. Then the doors started to slam at night. Even the ones that were supposed to be shut and locked. You could hear footsteps running up and down the basement stairs. Scratching sounds could be heard coming from the attic. One night my mom and dad were watching TV and heard footsteps running up the stairs to the attic and the door slammed. Dad thought someone might have broken in ( he couldn't see the stairs from the living room). So he jumped up and ran up the stairs after the guy, only to find that no one was up there. He tore through everything in that attic and it was on the third floor( so they couldn't have jumped out). Where did they go? The final straw happened when a friend came over to visit. Jerry said he had an old lamp that this guy, Mark, could have. Mark had heard the stories about the house and was not afraid of it at all. He was a truck driver, a Harley Davidson , beer drinking kind of man. He stood about 6'4" tall and weighed about 320, so there weren't many things in this world that would scare him. So when Jerry said the lamp was in the attic, Mark didn't think twice about going up there. The next thing they knew Mark came running down the stairs, white as a ghost, and ran out the door without even a goodbye. They called him later and this is what he told them,: " I walked up the stairs to the attic and I felt like someone was pushing my up the stairs. Like they were standing right behind me pushing me as they went up. I thought my imagination was getting the better of me so I ignored it. Then, I saw the lamp. It was just what I needed and you guys had even plugged it in so I could see how pretty it was when it was on. It shined so brightly that I was worried about burning myself on it to carry it down. So went to unplug it just to find it wasn't plugged in at all! The cord was wrapped neatly around the bottom and bound with a rubber band. You can keep your lamp and I'm never coming over again until you move." They all though it was a good idea so they found other apartments and got out of there The house still stands and people are living there. I've always wanted to go there and ask them if anything has happened to them yet. From : slyfoxy@hotmail.com
	Australian Experiences	October 2002
	Both my brother and I appear to be sensitive to the paranormal (as well as fascinated by it). My experiences started as a very young teenager (11 - 12) whilst my brother seems to have developed his sensitivity in his mid-twenties - although he was somewhat sensitive as a child as well as it turns out. Okay - here goes. As a young girl (starting around 11 years old), I was often afflicted by terrible (or what my parents told me at the time) nightmares - I would often wake up and feel like someone was sitting on my chest and trying to smother me. I would hear footsteps at the end of passage way that always seamed to cease at my door. These footsteps sounded quite heavy but also very fast - almost like someone was running up the corridor towards my room (my room was at the end of the passageway). I would hear dining room chairs move around and when I would get up to investigate everyone was in bed and the chairs were as they should be. This happened with almost monotonous regularity for several years - up until I was about 16 or 17 and by this stage I knew I wasn't dreaming. That this was actually happening to me. Firstly, let me explain some background to you. I live in Australia - a fairly warmish client all year 'round. These events or nightmares usually took place on very hot nights - we don't have air-conditioning in the bedrooms just ceiling fans. Now that I've set the scene - I will tell you about one night in particular that still makes my hair stand on end. It was a very hot Summer and I was about 16 (1987ish) - it was Summer holidays (January in Australia) and I was lying awake reading. It had been a sweltering 40 degrees Celsius (not sure what it translates to in centigrade but let me assure very hot) for about two weeks running without a break. As a result the house was quite hot. Around 1.00 am I decided to reach over to my dresser and get a glass of water when I was SUDDENLY pushed back down on the bed! My book flew out of my other hand a and the room temperature dropped rapidly. Then the dreaded pressure on my chest started - I could breathe but not scream or talk - my vocal cords were completely frozen and I felt as though I was completely paralysed. I did not see anything but the room had taken on a distinctly "ozone" type of odour - a similar type of smell that you get after an electrical storm with little rain. I could also hear what sounded like heavy breathing in my ear and the room had taken on a distinctly dimmer quality. I don't know why but I got the impression that this was a distinctly male entity. Now this all seemed to be happening in slow motion - you know, when you're really terrified time almost seems to stand still. I struggled and struggled with whatever it was until I was exhausted but extremely angry. Finally, I thought to myself "We'll Damn you - kill me if you want I don't care anymore". Remember, my vocal cords appeared to be frozen so I couldn't actually say it out loud. I definitely screamed it my mind though! As soon as I said this - it let go. After that event, it went away for a while. Now every couple of years it to come back and does the same thing again - just for a night or so not on a regular basis as when I was younger. As mentioned previously, it always seems to happen in the Summer not Winter. My last experience with it was Christmas (1988). My hubby to be and I were staying at his father's beach house and I apparently woke up screaming - "get it off me I can't breathe!" at the top of my lungs. I woke the entire household (the house is three story's) and quite large and there was more than a dozen or so people staying there so it was quite embarrassing to say the least. Whatever it is it seems to be able to follow me wherever I live. I even had an experience with it once while I was living in the United States. Poltergeist or overactive imagination? I could almost put it down to my imagination if it did not still occur today and if my twin brother had not shared some of his experiences with me (he told me lots of stuff that happened to him as a child once we had grown up because he did not want to scare me when we were younger). My older brother and younger sister have never seemed to have any trouble. If anyone wants to know more I will expand upon my other experiences and/or some of my brothers if anyone is interested. I would also like to hear anybody else's thoughts, feedback, theories as to what it actually is. Also - just a quick footnote: my parents house (where most of this occurred was purchased brand new)! From : s.parker@its.unimelb.edu.au
	Abandoned House	October 2002
	About three years ago a friend and I were what you would call obsessed with the Ouija board. We would search out spooky places and try to contact different ' spirits. We were using a Parker Brothers board and having our spooky moments. One day we bought an authentic board at an antique shop in town and we were so excited. My friend Chelsea, a guy Dave, his sister and I all hiked up a little hill one night in the middle of the winter. We hiked to a little deserted shack that lay empty in the woods in Ogunquit. The police had kept it off limits because high school kids liked to play around and have parties there. But we ignored the keep out signs and proceeded in. As we went in we explored the place. There was three rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room. The kitchen looked old and decrepit, with broken glasses and a rotted out door. The bedroom looked right out of a horror flick with the roof caved in like something had fallen through it, though it was probably just snow collapsing from the weight. The living room was the most normal looking area with a fireplace and a large, open hardwood floor. It looked the most comforting so that is where we sat. All four of us sat down and placed the Ouija board so that it was touching all of us. We placed two fingers each on the planchette and closed our eyes trying to call Andy spirit listening. There was no answer at first but after a while the planchette began to move. It moved very slow at first but picked up momentum as it went. We all sort of looked at each other in amazement. Soon the planchette started spelling out words. "M-R-X" and than it would stop. "T-E-X" and it repeated itself many times. So we started calling the spirit Tex or Mr. X and one at a time started asking questions. To be very honest I don't remember what we asked and what went on for a while. But I'll never forget when the planchette took a break. It just randomly stopped, and of course we continued to ask what was wrong and why he stopped talking. Just silence for a while and then the planchette started moving again. This time it spelled out "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U-G-E-T-A-W-A-Y" and the planchette quickly ran off the board. At this same time a piece of the ceiling came down right behind Dave, who was sitting back towards the bedroom. As if reading each others minds we said "goodbye" and jumped up, running out the door. We still had to hike down the hill in the snow and get to the car. First out the door was Dave, with me and his sister behind. Chelsea took the longest because she had to gather the board and the planchette. As we headed down the hill, I heard Chelsea yell something, but I ignored her and proceeded hauling ass down the hill. When we got in the car we all sat, breathing heavily, scared out of our minds. I had forgotten about Chelsea's yell until she brought it up again. She opened her jacket and there was a red mark on the back of her neck. She said on the way down she had been hit with a snowball or a piece of ice and was asking if we did it to scare her. But we couldn't have because we were in front of her and she was hit from the back. We dismissed the incident and went our separate ways that night. Our interest in the Ouija board started to dwindle after that, but we still tried every once and again to contact a spirit. But we never tried again to go to the Mr. X house, though we spoke and thought of it often. From : Chloe@cybertours.com
	Youngstown House	November 2002
	When I was about 5 years old, (I'm 26 now) me, my mother, and my brother lived with my aunt and uncle on Elm Street in Youngstown, Ohio. I was in kindergarten at this time and was not told about these things until I was a teenager, and I was not aware of them myself at the time. The house that we lived in was rather large, 3 stories with a refinished basement. I was told that the house at one time was some type of jewellery store. The refinished basement was used by the owner as an apartment, where he lived when he was not working upstairs in the store. It was said that one night, the owner met an untimely death, caused by thieves. They had broken in to rob the place and found him, going to the bathroom. He was shot and killed right there on the toilet. Blood spattered all over the walls and floor. The house was sold and the new owners set about to cleaning up and remodelling the house. Everything went quite well until it came time to redo the basement. Of course the mess in the bathroom was cleaned up, but the walls and floor of the bathroom were badly stained. They tried to scrub away the stain, but it would not go away. They carpeted the floor, and many, many, times they tried to paint over the walls, but to no avail, the stain continued to bleed thru the paint each and every time, no matter what the colour. Eventually, they wallpapered and that did the trick. After several years, the home had been sold and resold several times, including to my aunt and uncle. They had lived there about 6 months when we came to stay with them. My mother and aunt seemed to notice the most activity. There were the cold spots and the lights would go on and off with no explanation. The scariest part for them is that a male voice would call their names when nobody else was in the house. My only recollection of that time is that I didn't like living there. I think of all the places I lived as a child, that is the one that I did not want to go home to. I don't know why I felt this way, perhaps the best way to describe it is that the house just felt creepy, my brother told me he felt the same way. I don't remember how long my aunt and uncle lived at that house, but I know we only stayed a couple of months. Today I live only a couple of blocks from Elm street and I cannot remember which house it is, it may even be torn down now, this town has a lot of empty lots where houses used to stand. If I could remember, I think I would go back. From : loewin@webtv.net
	Radio Ghost	November 2002
	I used to manage a popular second-run movie theatre. It was located in a old building that was originally a church and had a beautiful balcony that sat about one hundred people. At the time the owners of our company bought it to make it a theatre, the building was in very poor shape but was on the historical registry. When I began to work there, I had heard a couple stories concerning voices having been heard and doors closing by themselves. No one still working there had witnessed anything, but the building was kind of spooky after closing. One day I came in at noon to do the books and start getting the place open. My routine was always the same: I'd open up, turn off the alarm, go upstairs to the projection booth (which was always locked, no matter what hour of the day) and turn on the receiver to listen to the music that was listened to before the first show and in-between features. The theatre was a pub-theatre and there wasn't really a lobby. I did the books at the bar, which was in the back of the main floor of the theatre. This was in the days before CD players and we just used a certain radio station for music. I believe it was 105 FM. Anyway, the needle on the receiver was always almost all the way on the left when looking at the receiver. At first, everything was fine. I unlocked the projection room, turned on the receiver and the speakers, locked the projection room back up (I was very anal), and went down to do the books. There I am, at the bar inside the theatre doing the books, listening to the same radio station I do everyday when I am interrupted by a phone call. I stepped into the next room to take the phone call and return to my books just about 2 or 3 minutes later. As I'm finishing up, I notice that the music has stopped. We had been having all sorts of trouble with the equipment upstairs and my first thought was that something was wrong with the speakers. "Oh great!" I thought. Just one more thing for me to fix before opening. I dashed upstairs, unlocked the projection room door and started looking for the problem. Everything looked alright: power was still on, speaker amp looked fine, the receiver was still on. But the needle on the receiver was all the way to the right!! It was all the way off the dial. It wasn't even on a station. I turned the dial controlling the needle back to the left as you could hear all the stations as they were being passed on the way to 105 FM. I have to admit that after I turned the receiver back, I just stood there for a couple of minutes to think about what could have happened. But the simple truth was that no one else would be in building for a couple of hours and the door was locked. I never had any other experiences in the building, but in the months that followed, I paid a little more attention to the creaks the stairs gave off in the quiet afternoon hours. Still in the same company but at different location a couple years later, I did hear about some odd happenings in that same projection room. During the week of Halloween, the theatre was playing Rosemary's Baby for the late show. Everything up there completely turned off during the same scene of the movie three nights in a row! Someone had to go up there and restart the projector, the platter system, the amps...everything. Whatever it was, it wasn't a fuse or breaker. From : schmoe55@aol.com
	Forbidden Secrets	November 2002
	My experience began in N.C. in the year 1987. A strange figure appeared at my hammock as I was resting. It had full control over the dimension we were in. There were no noises as I had heard minutes before, such as crickets, lizards slithering under leaves and such. Everything became quiet. He began speaking to me in telepathy. The entire event took five minutes, at least I thought, but actually an hour and forty five minutes were missing. With time passing, I soon felt the urge to move toward the mid-west, where summoned into this dwelling that I detested at first sight. Upon moving in, that night I began hearing the wedding march, and soon after, an infant baby crying. The following day, the doorbell began ringing without electricity. Upon investigation, it never worked in years. As weeks began passing, an imprisoned spirit of the house soon came to me to tell me that she would soon be free. Upon hearing this, she began telling me a story about her life, confessing all the wrong she had done. Soon I had found out about a murder that had taken place within this dwelling, and where her body was. My daughter Angel, was pregnant at the time, and without realizing what the spirit had meant, "I will at last be free," this spirit soon reincarnated into my granddaughter. Then the hauntings and possessions soon took place. This young spirit that had reincarnated into my granddaughter had escaped her evil husband and his aunt. Demanding to know where this spirit was, I went through events that would actually turn any person's hair white. I watched as they possessed my son-in-law, then my dog. Still, I remained silent about the spirits whereabouts. I still find things happening within this house. This dwelling is evil, and may God reach his hand upon it. I have had to change most details because of incidents that have occurred. Bad luck always appeared to follow me, I certainly hope, that I, myself can finally rid my dwelling of these wicked beings. From : Sharta Williams (sharta@icon.net)
	Little Boy Lost In Time	November 2002
	I lived in Montana most of my life. My brother was four years older and we didn't play too much with each other. He had his older friends and I had my younger friends. Everyone lived far away from each other because it is a rural community. I wasn't too old, perhaps 4 or 5, and my playmates were the kittens and our dog, Dusty around the ranch. I had a lonely childhood but a good one. It started one night when I couldn't go to sleep. The house that my family lived in was the oldest house in the county. My great grandfather bought it in the early 1930's. Our neighbour was born in that house. But no one really recalls who lived there first. During the nights I used to get very cold and cry myself to sleep. My parents weren't abusive in anyway, it was just a drafty house. I could have blankets on me but it still didn't help. One night I couldn't get to sleep. I just laid there between twilight and sleep. Suddenly I heard a small voice asking, "Do you wanna play?" I looked over and there was a small boy standing by my bed. He made me feel cold. I said, "Okay." I don't know how long we played but it helped the nights stay short. My parents would come up twice each night to check on me and my brother. During the nights you could hear whispering and quiet laughter. It was me and my little friend having a good time. Mom or dad and maybe both during the night would yell upstairs, "Get to bed!" Sometimes I would and most the time I didn't. The little boy visited me once during the day. I was outside playing in the back yard and I heard him call down from my brothers room, "[my name] here's some candy!" I could see candy being thrown but it never reached the ground. One year when I was 18, I was walking on the fence that encircled our old house (we moved into a new one that dad built) and I felt someone watching me. I turned around and there was a little boy who was 4 or 5 maybe 6 waving at me and there was another entity there. She had her hair in a bun and wearing a a black dress with old lace or knitting from the collar. She smiled at me too. I wasn't scared but relieved. (My great grandpa that bought the ranch was pure German and his wife was pure Swedish). There was also a lot of epidemics and so forth. I like to drive through graveyards and look at all the old headstones. It was during one of those times that I found a little boys headstone. His name was Thomas * * * * * * * *, 18-- to 18-- I don't remember the dates but I do remember that I seemed to call my little friend, Tommy. From : Tanja Peterson (fstjp@aurora.alaska.edu)
	The Dark Angel	November 2002
	I am a believer that there is an afterlife and there are good and evil spirits that have the power to do these things we all tell. I'm sure all of you have heard those ghost stories that people claim to be true but you just cant bring yourself to believe such a thing. And there are the others that send a chill down your spine and keep you up at night hoping it doesn't happen to you. For me, its the little things that scare me. I think that if I saw blood pouring out of a wall or something as simple as a cup sliding across the table, the cup would be the thing that scares me the most. Probably because its more believable and leaves more to the imagination. We all seem to have this fascination with the paranormal. Yeah, I played with the ouija boards and did the circle thing where you try to contact the spirits. I think I scared myself more then the ouija board was supposed to. The spirits never made sense of what they where saying and they lied a lot. So, I lost interest after a while. I guess that thing has different effects on different people. I sure have heard some scare stories though. I have talked to many people about the afterlife, ghosts, hauntings and so forth. It seems that everyone has an experience relating to the field of the paranormal in their lives that they remember until the day they die. It may have happened when they were 2 or 3 years old, or it could have been a week ago. But the memory remains clear in their minds as if it happened that day. We often wonder, “did that really happen?” or “maybe I was just dreaming”. We search for a justified cause as to what happened to us during that particular incident. In the end we remain confused and bewildered as to what this strange force is. These true life experiences become ghost stories that we tell around a camp fire or at a slumber party. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm just an average person with no history of haunted houses, poltergeists, seeing ghosts, or anything like that. I have never experimented with satanic cult stuff , or witchcraft. Just my little curiosity with the ouija board that I think every kid goes through. So, what could I have done in my life to lure in someone from the other side? That's a question I often ask myself. Was this just a random thing? Did someone else close to me do something evil that caused the spirits to come to me? Was I cursed by an enemy (I ruled that out because I really don't have any enemies)? Is there maybe a spirit in the after life that is holding a grudge to something I did to him/her? Is an evil spirit trying to stop me from doing something good in my life? I could think of a hundred more questions that I will probably never get the answer to until I meet my maker and can ask myself. What I am about to tell you is not a long history of a haunted house, or a poltergeist that terrorizes my life day by day to the point of insanity, or being obsessed with a ouija board to the point of possession. It is an event that has happened to me only two times in my life. I don't think about it day by day, and it doesn't keep me up at night, but it definitely had an impact on my life. Some of you may have had this same kind of experience. If you have, you will know what I'm talking about when you read this. It began as a typical night at my girlfriends house in the summer of 1994. We both had to work the next day. The night started off normal. I remember that I had a very good rest. I was sleeping like a log as they say. I think it was about 5:00 in the morning when it began. The sun was just peeking over the city and giving enough light to almost light up the room. I felt myself coming out of a typical nights rest, and suddenly before I opened my eyes even, I knew without a doubt, there was someone else in the room with me, other than my girlfriend. Without even looking, I new what it was. This “ dark angel”, was standing next to my bed looking down on me. It instantly terrified me to the point of being paralyzed. I still had not opened my eyes but I saw it. As my eyes blinked open and shut, I saw it. It was like I didn't need eyes to see it. The best way I can describe what it looked like was a dark, dirty cloud. I could see somewhat of a face and it looked female. This thing stared right into my soul. At this point I could not even breath. I had to gasp for air. And when you heart is pounding a hundred miles per hour that's kind of hard. The dark spirit then moved toward me (it was only about 4 feet away at first). Still gasping for air, I started loosing my train of thought. I was always told that if you saw an evil spirit, tell it to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. My mind fumbled for the words, I couldn't remember. That could have been from the sheer panic, but I don't know. When I finally did remember, I couldn't talk. All I could do was open my mouth and gasp for the air to speak. At this time, my girlfriend had awoken from my panic. She sat up and looked over me and was saying “Chris, what's wrong? Are you okay?” It was obvious that she wasn't seeing what I was seeing. Maybe she wasn't meant to see it. While she was looking over me on one side, this dark spirit was on the other looking down on me just the same, only on the opposite side. They where pretty much head to head. I finally could remember what to say and my mind was screaming it. My mouth, however, could only whisper it. The panic wasn't the worst though. It was the feeling that this thing gave me. Its indescribable, the feeling that this thing gave me. All I can come up with is that it was a deep sinking feeling of horror and evil. That was what scared me the most. As I spoke the words in my mind, it finally started to leave. I could breathe again, I could talk, and finally that sinking feeling was lifting. This whole incident took place in about 30 to 45 seconds is my guess. Maybe less then that. It felt like hours though. When it was completely gone I just wanted to cry. Both because it was so terrifying to me and because I was glad that it was gone. Some of you my think that this is not a very scary thing. Others will know exactly what I'm saying and be able to feel the fear that I felt. The second time was not as bad, but it still gave me that sinking feeling. I came home from a long days work. Not my girlfriends house, but my home with my parents and three little sisters. I went upstairs to grab a bite before bed and was so tired that I fell asleep on the couch in the living room. A few hours into my sleep I woke up with that same feeling. Again I didn't have to open my eyes, I could see it right in front of me. This time I got angry. I didn't go into a panic like the last time, I didn't even say those words I was taught. All I could think was, “ How dare you come into my house with my family. Get out! ” I think it knew that it should not have been there because it left almost immediately. There is a lot of love in my house and it knew it. I know that this was the exact same spirit as the one before. That time I felt almost victorious beating it as quick as I did. But at the same time I was thinking, “What does this thing want from me? “ and “What did I do to have this happen”. I may never know. Not too long ago I saw a TV show about ghosts and hauntings. They had clip on it about this particular thing. There was some big scientific name for it. One opinion on this show was that its not really a spirit, but a condition in your mind. Another doctor said that it was a way that your body releases stress that has been built up in your mind. I know that the mind is a powerful thing, that can make us believe many things that are not there. For example: We have all walked through a forest in both night and day. In the daytime its very peaceful and beautiful. The birds sing, the pine smells good and we are happy to be in that kind of atmosphere. At night, however, any little noise we hear is scary. It smells damp, and gloomy. You begin to wonder if there is a creature behind the next tree waiting to jump out and grab you as you walk by it. As I type this I'm looking over my shoulder! I also realize that my girlfriend did not see or feel anything that I was. I guess it could have very well been in my head. But I personally don't think so. I think she just wasn't meant to see it. I believe spirits can reveal themselves to some and not others. If you have had an experience like this, I would like to hear about it. Please feel free to E-mail me and tell me about it. Thank you! From : Christopher Barnes (PCTV@sisna.com)
	Six Years in a Haunted House	November 2002
	During my years at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, I lived in what can only be described as a haunted house. It was a double-story, 2 flat house with a secretive landlady upstairs and my mother and myself downstairs. Both my mother and myself are susceptible to paranormal occurrences. Things started quietly in 1966 with only a persistent cold spot in the hall and an occasional feeling of being watched. As time went on, things changed. My mother often spotted an old lady wandering from room to room, fading out when looked at, or watching my mother as she worked in the kitchen. I never saw anything, but on one occasion when alone in the house watching TV, there was a loud click from the hall and the light went out. Thinking my mother had returned, I called out, then went to see. The light switch was an old bakelite switch, rather stiff, and certainly not easy to turn off; but it had been, there was no electrical fault. I turned it back on and went back to the TV. Two minutes later it happened again. I went out, and only came back when I was sure my mother had returned! I was rather easily scared in those days. Later I could feel something or someone enter my bedroom at night. This used to scare me too, but I'd wrap the blankets around my head and try to ignore it. I could feel it leave after a while. Sometimes it would come in in the early morning before my mothers alarm went off or after she had left for work (but before lectures started). I could feel the bed sag as it sat down beside me, and at least twice I could feel something scrabbling at my bedclothes by my head and a whispering voice called my name. I never had the nerve to look or answer it. Nor did I look up the history of the house, though I now wish I had. We moved out eventually as the University bought it to turn into offices. That was the end of my experiences there though I have had plenty of others in the years following. From : Max Overton (Max.Overton@jcu.edu.au)
	Fourth Floor McWelsh	November 2002
	Many unusual things have happened to us who live on the 4th floor of Mcwelsh (an all girls dorm). We have to admit the happenings started when we started playing the Ouija board. Shortly after playing the Ouija board one night "Jane" and "Jo" heard footsteps in the hallway. When they went to investigate they found no-one. They asked around and they were the only ones to hear the footsteps. The Ouija board seems to works best for the same two girls "Sally" and "Jill". One night while playing the board they encountered a not so friendly spirit that would not leave until "Sally" placed her Crucifix that had been blessed by the Pope on the board. They then proceeded to go to a Catholic Church to get Holy Water and blessed the floor. It didn't work very well in fact I believe that that is when the strange happenings began. Many things act strangely on our floor also. Lights turn on by themselves. The water fountain turns on by itself and runs till someone turns it off. All our cars break down at once and it is just happens those people who have played the Ouija board. One of my friends "Jo" heard her name whispered outside her door. When she got up to investigate the only person in the hall was me and I was halfway down the hall and I saw no-one else. At times we can hear people moving chairs above us. We are on the top floor. At one Ouija session Jo, Sally, Jill, Shania, and I were talking to one spirit who was only nice to Jill. When we would ask what our names meant it would tell bastard, fucker, asshole, and whore. For Jill it gave her the correct meaning to her name. The spirits seem to follow us and those around us. Jill felt a presence when we were in another building off campus. Sally's boyfriend heard his name being called when he was hunting and he was in a totally empty field except for himself. He has never joined us playing the Ouija Board. This is all we can remember at this time, but we will be in McWelsh till May. Who knows something strange usually happens to us. Many nights we have slept with the lights on and crosses clutched in our hands. From : Kathy Gerlach (Gerlachk@nsu001.northern.edu)
	333 East Third	December 2002
	In the summer of 1979, several of my college buddies and I took over every apartment in a run-down apartment building, address 333 East Third. Everybody who lived there had various forms of paranormal experience. It was a common tie between us, and we had formed our own sort of family. I first remember hints about the old lady when ever the dishes would pile up in the apartment that was Lucy's. This dishes would start rattling of their own volition. We'd chuckle about it, while we all had had paranormal encounters, we weren't going to jump at every little creak and groan in an old house. Then there was the time we had a party in the building, and had nearly 75 guests. One of the guests was heard talking to herself in the bathroom. This was odd, but it was odder when she came and asked who the old woman was that barged in on her in the bathroom. We passed that off too, but a little less quickly. Perhaps she'd had a little too much of the home brew that some one had brought. One afternoon, we were all gathered in Lucy's apartment, and all of a sudden her 4 foot tall pink and black teddy bear flipped from a reclining position in an overstuffed chair, up and face forward onto the floor. We all stared at this, and this prompted a discussion about poltergeists. I was a little bit groggy, and was lying back with my eyes closed, listening to the conversation. I suddenly got this vision of an elderly lady, in a faded calico print shirt dress, hair in a bun, wearing the '50's style pixie glasses with sparkles in the corners. As the conversation progressed about the poltergeist theories, she kept shaking her head "no". When the theory came up that the poltergeists know exactly what is going on, where things are, and are simply trying to send a message, the image of the elderly lady made a gesture with a bony index finger and started to shake her head "yes". At that point I opened my eyes and said "O.k.". Then I reported to the others what I had just seen. In 1984, I attempted to go back to college, and finish my degree. As it so happened, the only apartment available in town was the very same apartment that had been Lucy's. I took it. Nothing outstanding happened, and I figured that the happenings of young twenty year olds had produced some sort of mass hallucination. A few weeks later, I was half drowsing, going to sleep, when I heard a noise in the hall. It was an odd noise, and I went to investigate. I opened the door to a staircase that was engulfed in flames, I could feel the heat, and hear my hair crisping up. I slammed the door and ran for my backdoor. I tripped, fell face first onto the floor. I must have passed out, woke up with a start. Then I doubted what I had seen, heard no fire noises, so I went back to the front door to check it out. No fire. Wow, what a vivid dream! Didn't sleep too well the rest of the night. Two days later, I was talking with my landlord. The back stairs were rather rickety, and I expressed so concern if there was indeed a fire. He told me then that it was funny that I had said something about that. The apartment building used to have a peaked roof, rather than a flat one. There was a fire in the stair well, it acted just like a chimney, went right up to the roof. An elderly lady had been killed in the centre room of the apartment that I was living in. (Where I had "tripped") "Gee, thanks Bob, I really needed to hear that." From : Anonymous
	The Dark Lady in Green Bay	December 2002
	When I was about nine or ten, my mother, my sister and I, lived in an older two story brick house. We rented the bottom half and an older lady lived upstairs. The older lady moved out after awhile, to live with her daughter, so my mother rented the top half of the house too, so that my sister and I could each have our own rooms. My sister got what was the "living room" area of the upstairs apartment (it had once been a bedroom, and I got the actual bedroom. It was really pretty with floral wallpaper and everything, very feminine. Across the room from the door, there was another door which lead into a very smallish room, with slanted ceilings (it was in the "gable" of the house) and a very small window. Off of this little room, was a very little door that entered into a part of the attic. I was pretty excited about the prospect of having my own room once again (we'd lived in many many houses, and most of the time, I had my own room, I was pretty used to it). I even moved my desk in the little room, which for some reason I named "the nursery" even though I was older than that doll age and there was little physical evidence of the room ever being used as such. It was always extremely cold in there and after a month, I moved my desk back. I was also extremely uneasy about having that door open, and I would even prop things up against it, because sometimes, even though it had a pretty good latch, it would open by itself in the middle of the night. Then, I specifically remember one night, I woke up and thought my mother was in the room. My bed was situated so the door to the nursery was at the foot of my bed. Standing in front of the door, at my feet, was an adult shape, but it was all shadows. I think that I covered my head and tried to go back to sleep. Another time, when I was sick, I woke up and the shape was back. I got the distinct impression that I had called out to my mom in my head, and the figure was answering the call. I sat up a little bit, to see if it was shadows from the window or something, but the figure remained. Then I let out a bloody scream for my mom and the figure rushed across the room to the door leading into the hall. It passed directly through the light coming off of the street, and it was definitely a solid black or shrouded figure. I got the impression that it was a sad lady. I never told my mom because I didn't think that she would believe me. Then, after a few more months, my mom moved us back downstairs because she could no longer afford the rent for the upstairs. We moved again after another year. There were some other strange things about this house. There were definite hollow spots in the walls and strange noises came from them sometimes. Also, the basement had several different rooms, including a coal room and this strange meat locker type room. I got the distinct impression of evil that came from that room. Also, once I thought I saw a big grinning face in the dark where that door was. The strange thing about this, which makes me think that it wasn't just a nine-year-olds active imagination (ok, well, the face may have been), is that about two years ago, I was talking with my mom about ghosts and faces that you see out of the corner of your eye. I kept saying "Haven't you ever done that? Thought you saw someone?" and she kept saying "No, never." After I let the subject drop, she brought it up again. She said "Actually, remember the brick house on Shawano? Remember when you girls were sleeping in that upstairs part? I went up there one day when you were in school to pick up dirty towels and I was standing by your closet, looking out the window when I just got this funny feeling. Then I thought I saw a woman standing there looking at me, but when I turned my head she was gone. It was over by that little cold room in the front of the house. Remember that room?" I had never told her about the incident and, while I was growing up, we had lived in about fifteen different houses, so there was no reason for her to just pick that house at random. From : skylarker@online.dct.com
	USS Forrestal Ghost	December 2002
	MAYPORT NAVAL STATION, Fla. (AP) -- Ghosts are fine, traditional things to have around ancient English castles, but the Navy says rumours of one stalking the depths of the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal have spooked a few sailors. Flickering lights. Bumps in the night. Locked doors opening. Voices on disconnected telephones. And a vanishing figure in a khaki uniform. The figure's even got a nickname: George. At least that's what some of the men say aboard the Forrestal, in its fourth month of a six-month deployment in the Indian Ocean and the North Arabian Sea. They were interviewed by Lt. James E. Brooks, who detailed the story of the ghost in a 12-page news release issued last month. The report about George hasn't ruffled any Navy feathers, Mayport Navy spokesman Lt. Park Balevre said Thursday. "I thought it was cute. I think most people did." "What Lt. Brooks had in mind was a fluff piece to show the lighter side of the Navy," said Balevre. But according to Brooks, some sailors don't think the ghost story is at all cute. George lurks in two of the ship's below-the-waterline storage areas, one of them a former morgue, spooked sailors claim. "I've got one guy working for me now who refuses to go down there alone. Our last chief petty officer in charge, who has since transferred, refused to go down there at all," says Petty Officer Daniel Balboa, in charge of the officers' mess. "I've never seen any ghosts but you can hear weird things down there," said Balboa. "I was taking inventory one night and heard a noise like deck grating being picked up and dropped," he recalled. "I'd turn around and look but didn't see anything. When I turned around to begin my work again, the noise started again." One night, Balboa said, he was checking temperatures in food-storage freezers and kept finding open doors he had shut behind him. "It is impossible for anyone to open the reefer (refrigerator) doors from the outside, behind me. To open them from the outside requires a key since the doors lock automatically. "I had the only key with me. That incident puts me on the verge of believing," he said. Some say the ghost is a chief killed during a 1967 flight deck fire that killed 137 sailors in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam, Brooks wrote. Others guess he's a pilot whose body was once stored on the ship. Petty Officer James Hillard hasn't ventured into the haunted areas since he saw George last year while checking out odd footsteps. "He was wearing a khaki uniform, like an officer or chief would wear," he says. He followed the apparition into a compartment but "there was nobody in there, and I swear that is where he went," Hillard said. Mess Specialist 2nd Class Gary Weiss saw a khaki-clad ghost go down a ladder to pump room No. 1. Whoever went down into the pump room never came out and the ladder is the only access, he said. Hillard said he once was helping move supplies when a telephone that was reportedly disconnected kept ringing. "The phone rang and I answered it. This time there was a faint voice calling, `Help! Help! I'm on the sixth deck!' Rumour had it that a crew member was killed down there. I'm very scared to go down there alone. If I do, I get out of there as fast as I can," Hillard said. Others are dubious. "I think it's the guys' imagination," said Senior Chief Petty Officer James Williams. "I'm not superstitious but when I go down there by myself, I find it uneasy. When that happens, your imagination is going to play tricks on you." ... © Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. From : © Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
	The Frail Old Woman	December 2002
	My parents recently bought a nice house on 180 acres. The house itself is not that old-built in the 1950s and sits up on top of a large hill surrounded by trees. Just recently, for no apparent reason, we've had a rash of strange happenings. One day, while practicing her piano and becoming quite frustrated with a particular piece, my littlest sister, Monica, heard a voice behind her saying 'come on Monica, you can do it. Keep trying.' She turned around to see a frail old woman dressed in black sitting in a lounge chair. Monica screamed and got mom & dad but the lady was gone. Not a week later, Monica was taking a shower in mom's bathroom when she happened to glance in the mirror only to see the large face of this same woman staring at her. One of the reasons I believe that she wasn't' lying is because she ran screaming out of the bathroom, naked, into a gathering of my parents friends. Over Thanksgiving, while saying grace at the dinner table, our china cabinets and everything in our dining room began to shake violently much to the dismay of our entire family. During Christmas, we thought it would be fun to hypnotize Monica just for play. She started counting, then started skipping numbers and soon was actually in a different state. It wasn't 30 seconds later that she started screaming at the top of her lungs that 'She's going to kill me!!! She's got a knife!!! Oh my God!!!' When my dad finally woke her up, she could only remember a lady with red hair chasing her in our house with a knife. The final blow was just recently. By final blow I mean it finally convinced those non-believers. My father has a favourite leather chair that he sits in day in and day out. It was in close proximity to a window which my mother opened for some air before a rain storm. Dad, worried about his chair getting wet, told mom not to open the window with his chair there or it will get ruined. The next morning, dad was up early for work and noticed that the den had been re-arranged so that his chair was no longer by the window but instead across the room. Dad left for work, thinking that all the kids did this the previous night. Mom woke up to the same thing and thought dad did it. It wasn't until dinner time that we discovered the room had been completely re-arranged (down to the magazine placements and table leaves) and not by human hands. We figured it was done between 10pm and 5 am in the morning. Not a sound was heard even though the kids' rooms are directly below the den and the den floor is hardwood. Mom and dad used to brush it off, but not anymore. From : Norman17@aol.com
	Prom Night Fright	December 2002
	After my senior prom, my buddies and I dropped off our small-town-Tennessee dates and headed to another friend's house to unwind. The prom had been tough on all of us, we never chose the right dates, and we were watching MTV on the couch (this was '83 you know). After severe 2am boredom set in, one of my friends and I decided to go for a walk on the golf course behind the house and see if anyone else was up at this hour. We walked a short distance, really just from one fairway to the next, and looked with interest at this giant old tree next to the creek at the bottom of the hill. It was a dark clear night and my buddy Mike and I could make out something under the tree. I asked Mike what it looked like to him, and he agreed with me, that it looked like two people and one of them was digging. I thought it was someone up to no good, and the last thing I wanted to do on prom night was get busted by the cops, so I said we should leave. At this point Mike and I were about 300 yards away from the shadowy figures. We turned around and took about two steps before I looked back again. In that one second, the figures had gained about 1/3 of the distance between us, and were closing in fast. Mike and I both screamed profanities and high-tailed it for the house. I shouted "Don't look back!", because the people in the movies that get killed are the ones who look back, but I forgot to remind him of the little knee-high chain that keeps the golf carts from leaving the cart path. As he sprawled on the damp grass I jumped blindly, hoping I would miss the near-invisible chain. I made it, and helped him up, without looking back, and we made it safely inside. Imagine if you were our third friend, of course you would have to go see it for yourself, so after a tall glass of water-we weren't into drinking beer yet-we took Kermit outside. After a short briefing, we went to the top of the same hill and let him go down to the scary part. After a few seconds, we heard that same four-letter word, and here came Kermit hustling up the hill. I was a little surprised that he was running so fast, he was a lot less chicken than we were, but there was no way anyone was going to beat me back to the house. In retrospect, we should have done some scientific tests, or taken some pictures, but we were genuinely tired and crept out. Mostly tired since we had been dancing all night to Rick Springfield cover tunes. So we went back to Kermit's house and crashed. This story was mostly told as a funny icebreaker at boring parties later on, and we never thought much about it as the years passed. As a closing note, years later when my folks finally joined that country club and I played golf there, I saw the two headstones of the farmer and his wife (who used to own the land a long time ago) that are buried near the 6th tee about 300 yards from where we saw those "shadowy figures". From : Johnvirgil@aol.com
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