Ghosts, anyone?

[CanadianCoyote]

I was wondering if you guys here at RIU had any real life ghost stories to share. I didn't believe in ghosts for a long time... but then I moved into a house that changed that. I only lived there for four months, but it was one scary place to be.

Basically, on a nightly basis... I could hear something going up and down the stairs. There's a little more to it than that, though. When the sounds of the creaking stairs would reach the top... I could hear breathing. Heavy breathing. And I'd hear a few creaks of the floor coming toward my room... the breathing getting louder... then fading away... and then the sound of something going down the stairs. Sometimes this would happen once a night, sometimes it'd happen continuously.

I thought I was being paranoid ... but then my brother mentioned to me that he'd heard it too. His room was right next to mine... and he was laying awake at night hearing the same shit I was. The stairwell was always ice cold... and my brother said he'd seen a black mass lurking on the landing several times. I never saw anything like it, though.

Other odd things would happen around the house too. I often felt like there was something watching me when I was in the kitchen... a 'heavy' sort of presence that seemed to lurk just behind me. In our cupboards, there were lots of plastic hooks to hang coffee cups on... but for some reason, they'd never stay on the hooks. I'd hang them all up and within an hour they would have 'fallen' off. The thing is, you have to physically lift them UP in order to get them off of the hooks... there was no way they were just sliding off.

That stuff really scared me at the time, but now that I think back on it... there really wasn't a reason for me to be scared. Never once did... whatever the fuck was there... bother me physically. It just seemed to be going about its business.

I think that way now because one of my closest friends is dealing with something REALLY scary in his house. It's unlike anything I ever experienced (or even heard of) before. I noticed it years ago... but was too afraid to say anything about it lest people think I'm even more crazy than I actually am. Recently I discovered that everyone that frequents the house (and there are a lot of us) has experienced SOMETHING weird... and not all of it is benign.

I'll tell ya'll about what's been going down there after I hear a few of your stories.

 

[Stoney McFried]

I remember, as a child I used to sneak downstairs and sleep with my parents.One night, I got in bed in between them, and happened to glance over on my mom's side of the bed.There was a glowing pair of red eyes staring at me.It was pitch black in there, there was no light to reflect off of anything,no digital alarm clock,nothing.I closed my eyes quickly, a gut reaction. When I got brave enough to open them, it was gone.













Interestingly, enough...if your friend truly believes he or she is being terrorized,they must drive it out.Very simple ritual: Burn some sage,and carry the smoke around the house, raising and lowering it to waft to as many places as possible. Take some ordinary table salt, and fling it around the house,reciting, "Salt of the earth, bury the dead." Envision your spirit or psyche expanding and pushing it (the entity)out of the house. Then imagine a blue aura surrounding the house. Now, we all know Stoney ain't religious.So let's just say that maybe this works because it comforts the mind of the person who lives there.I don't personally like to discuss my beliefs,so that's all I'll say.Good luck.

I was wondering if you guys here at RIU had any real life ghost stories to share. I didn't believe in ghosts for a long time... but then I moved into a house that changed that. I only lived there for four months, but it was one scary place to be.

Basically, on a nightly basis... I could hear something going up and down the stairs. There's a little more to it than that, though. When the sounds of the creaking stairs would reach the top... I could hear breathing. Heavy breathing. And I'd hear a few creaks of the floor coming toward my room... the breathing getting louder... then fading away... and then the sound of something going down the stairs. Sometimes this would happen once a night, sometimes it'd happen continuously.

I thought I was being paranoid ... but then my brother mentioned to me that he'd heard it too. His room was right next to mine... and he was laying awake at night hearing the same shit I was. The stairwell was always ice cold... and my brother said he'd seen a black mass lurking on the landing several times. I never saw anything like it, though.

Other odd things would happen around the house too. I often felt like there was something watching me when I was in the kitchen... a 'heavy' sort of presence that seemed to lurk just behind me. In our cupboards, there were lots of plastic hooks to hang coffee cups on... but for some reason, they'd never stay on the hooks. I'd hang them all up and within an hour they would have 'fallen' off. The thing is, you have to physically lift them UP in order to get them off of the hooks... there was no way they were just sliding off.

That stuff really scared me at the time, but now that I think back on it... there really wasn't a reason for me to be scared. Never once did... whatever the fuck was there... bother me physically. It just seemed to be going about its business.

I think that way now because one of my closest friends is dealing with something REALLY scary in his house. It's unlike anything I ever experienced (or even heard of) before. I noticed it years ago... but was too afraid to say anything about it lest people think I'm even more crazy than I actually am. Recently I discovered that everyone that frequents the house (and there are a lot of us) has experienced SOMETHING weird... and not all of it is benign.

I'll tell ya'll about what's been going down there after I hear a few of your stories.

 

[Imlovinit]

My old house was haunted. Nothing too crazy though. An old lady and a little kid died in it. The kid died from some type of gas leak. They had to vent the house before letting anyone move back in, and our attic windows kept opening up. Eventually we had to drill some of them shut. They would also take pans off of the stove and put them on our hardwood floors, shut doors and turn on our motion sensor lights, etc... Our animals were always jumpy. Most of this stuff happened while we were renovating. No one was ever harmed in any circumstance. When the renovations were complete they calmed down. We only occasionally experienced anything strange. When i hit 21 and started partying it up they probably left in reaction to noise pollution. I've never experienced any angry ghosts, just curious or bored ones. My old home was built back around 1905 or sometime around then. Usually older homes have something left behind from the prior family's that once lived there. Either way wish you and your friends the best of luck. Peace

 

[CanadianCoyote]

Interestingly, enough...if your friend truly believes he or she is being terrorized,they must drive it out.Very simple ritual: Burn some sage,and carry the smoke around the house, raising and lowering it to waft to as many places as possible. Take some ordinary table salt, and fling it around the house,reciting, "Salt of the earth, bury the dead." Envision your spirit or psyche expanding and pushing it (the entity)out of the house. Then imagine a blue aura surrounding the house. Now, we all know Stoney ain't religious.So let's just say that maybe this works because it comforts the mind of the person who lives there.I don't personally like to discuss my beliefs,so that's all I'll say.Good luck.

I've actually been talking to him about doing a sage burning... and I 'sealed' his room with some salt and a similar incantation. I did it as an experiment and didn't tell him about it... since then, the activity that was concentrated in his room has shifted elsewhere in the house.

What scares me most about what's lurking at his place is that it sometimes affects the way I THINK. Thoughts will pop into my head... awful, terrible, HORRIBLE things that I would never think of on my own. My emotions'll go haywire and I'll feel physically ill. What's weird about what I feel is that there is a strong sense that it's being caused by something 'external'.... something weighing down on me and squeezing me. I've never encountered anything with that sort of power. What's even more unsettling is that I'm not the only one... other people have felt -- and THOUGHT -- the exact same things I have... and in one instance, at the same time. Not zesty.

Thanks for the advice!

...And scary 'bout those red eyes in the dark. o-o;

 

[CanadianCoyote]

My old house was haunted. Nothing too crazy though. An old lady and a little kid died in it. The kid died from some type of gas leak. They had to vent the house before letting anyone move back in, and our attic windows kept opening up. Eventually we had to drill some of them shut. They would also take pans off of the stove and put them on our hardwood floors, shut doors and turn on our motion sensor lights, etc... Our animals were always jumpy. Most of this stuff happened while we were renovating. No one was ever harmed in any circumstance. When the renovations were complete they calmed down. We only occasionally experienced anything strange. When i hit 21 and started partying it up they probably left in reaction to noise pollution. I've never experienced any angry ghosts, just curious or bored ones. My old home was built back around 1905 or sometime around then. Usually older homes have something left behind from the prior family's that once lived there. Either way wish you and your friends the best of luck. Peace

I heard somewhere that sometimes renovating a place can kick up paranormal activity. It kinda makes sense, if ya think about it. ^^

My friend's house isn't all that old, but it is adjacent to a large body of water and is located on the grounds of an old Native American settlement. Both of those things can contribute to paranormal activity, according to what I've read.

 

[MauiLover1]

I smoked a fatty with a ghost one time.

 

[Boneman]

I smoked a fatty with a ghost one time.

Did you guys go to taco bell and munch out too?

 

[CanadianCoyote]

I smoked a fatty with a ghost one time.

LOLO

Yeah, sure. Haha. I'm being SERIOUS here!

 

[dahamma]

When i was a kid I used to see dark figures and have terrible nightmares in the house we lived in. I would see and feel a presence, but my sister who is 2 years older would see nothing. I would tell my parents what I saw, and my father being a believer told me that I had a "gift" from god. Years later my sister confessed to seeing things as well, laughed and said she didnt want look crazy like I did.

 

[CanadianCoyote]

When i was a kid I used to see dark figures and have terrible nightmares in the house we lived in. I would see and feel a presence, but my sister who is 2 years older would see nothing. I would tell my parents what I saw, and my father being a believer told me that I had a "gift" from god. Years later my sister confessed to seeing things as well, laughed and said she didnt want look crazy like I did.

I felt so relieved when I found out I wasn't the only one seeing things... it's an amazing feeling.

That's amazing that you'd see stuff, though. I never saw or experienced things until I was nearly 15 years old... up until then I thought ghosts/paranormal concerns were all bunk.

I used to think that about UFOs, too... that is, until I saw one... but that's a whole other story entirely.

 

[victozap]

I actually have a pretty incredible story, it's more on the spiritual side than the "ghost" side though.

Just so no one gets confused with my story, here's a mini family tree:

Great Grandma
|
/ \
Great Uncle Grandma
|
Mom
|
Me

I'll start off with some background information. My Great Uncle Steven, passed away over a year ago, in November of 2007 of cancer. Now, my great grandmother also passed away 3 months later in January of 2008.

Now let's jump back to that November of 2007, my grandmother was deep in to Alzeihmers, and could not remember anything. She did not remember her kids, her name, what to do, her life, anything. But she was completely functional, and she lived allone, so she had helpers visist her every day to feed her, bathe her, etc. We would visit her occasionally, but she wouldn't remember who we were, but she did remember music from her child hood (wierd huh?), she did not even remember her own kids. So when her son Steven passed away, we did not tell her because she would just be confused, and it would be a huge emotional burder for my grandmother (Steven's sister) to tell her, because she was still very deeply saddened by the passing of him.

So a few weeks after his passing, (remember, she doesn't even know she has a kid named Steven) a helper went over to cook her lunch. The helper was cooking when all of a sudden she heard my great grandmother talking. She was in a full on conversation, but with no one. So the helper asked who she was talking to, and she said, "Oh just my son Steven, he's sitting on the couch right there." And no one was on the couch (obviously). This really spooked me out, and it gave me a whole new outlook on spiritual life.

That's my story.

 

[Ramen Shaman]

My family has all had experiences with ghosts and protective spirits. I personally believe the spirit follows our family. Doors slam and lock, lights go off (usually only when we're fighting, so we're pretty sure it's a relatively calm spirit), rooms suddenly get really cold. I've been living with it since birth, so I'm kinda used to the oddities.

I think one of my oddest experiences was with stairs, though. Late at night, I would wake up and hear creaking up and down the staircase in our house. As a small child, nothing is more frightening than noises in the dark, especially those that occur without any natural source.

 

[Tryingtomastrkush]

I actually have a pretty incredible story, it's more on the spiritual side than the "ghost" side though.

Just so no one gets confused with my story, here's a mini family tree:

Great Grandma
|
/ \
Great Uncle Grandma
|
Mom
|
Me

I'll start off with some background information. My Great Uncle Steven, passed away over a year ago, in November of 2007 of cancer. Now, my great grandmother also passed away 3 months later in January of 2008.

Now let's jump back to that November of 2007, my grandmother was deep in to Alzeihmers, and could not remember anything. She did not remember her kids, her name, what to do, her life, anything. But she was completely functional, and she lived allone, so she had helpers visist her every day to feed her, bathe her, etc. We would visit her occasionally, but she wouldn't remember who we were, but she did remember music from her child hood (wierd huh?), she did not even remember her own kids. So when her son Steven passed away, we did not tell her because she would just be confused, and it would be a huge emotional burder for my grandmother (Steven's sister) to tell her, because she was still very deeply saddened by the passing of him.

So a few weeks after his passing, (remember, she doesn't even know she has a kid named Steven) a helper went over to cook her lunch. The helper was cooking when all of a sudden she heard my great grandmother talking. She was in a full on conversation, but with no one. So the helper asked who she was talking to, and she said, "Oh just my son Steven, he's sitting on the couch right there." And no one was on the couch (obviously). This really spooked me out, and it gave me a whole new outlook on spiritual life.

That's my story.

that is pretty intense dude.

I believe somewhat in paranormal activity but I have never experienced anything myself.
Then again maybe I have heard things or seen things and written it off as something completely unrelated

 

[The Banterer]

Not a personal experience but on Coast to Coast AM the other night, they had on the real world woman whose family was affected from "A Connecticut Haunting". She talked about how her sons were basically terrorized by these spirits, some of which were human (they were living in what used to a funeral home) and some of them truly evil spirits (ie: demons). I wanted to call in and find out if she thought that the spirits had any affect on her son's cancer, but ended up losing track of it and doing something else.

Interesting stuff.

 

[DudeLebowski]

Not a personal experience but on Coast to Coast AM the other night, they had on the real world woman whose family was affected from "A Connecticut Haunting". She talked about how her sons were basically terrorized by these spirits, some of which were human (they were living in what used to a funeral home) and some of them truly evil spirits (ie: demons). I wanted to call in and find out if she thought that the spirits had any affect on her son's cancer, but ended up losing track of it and doing something else.

Interesting stuff.

another interesting fact about that connecticut haunting - the family was in dark times themselves..all their stories conflict....there was heavy alcoholism and drug use..the "dying son" is never available for interview...i wouldnt put too much stake into that tale...

im not dismissing paranormal activity all together, but that connecticut thing is definitly worthy of being called a sham..

 

[hom36rown]

I dismiss it altogether

 

[Brick Top]

I do not believe in ghosts but I do believe in what I experience and something inexplicable has been going on in my home since about 1994.

My mother died in my home and roughly three months later the first odd thing happened. My sister wanted to borrow a tablecloth of my mother’s and I could not find it. I searched the entire house looking in every drawer and closet and it was nowhere to be found. I gave up and told my sister that mom must have given it to her sister or someone as a remembrance. The next day I came home from work and changed clothes and headed downstairs and when I got to the bottom of the stairs the very first thing that caught my eye was a box lying on the bar, a box that had not been there when I went to work or at any other time previous to that. I looked at it and it was the tablecloth.

A number of times I have let my dogs out and in a few minutes one or more would be back inside. The first few times it happened I checked all the doors and windows and found that all were closed and locked so there was no way the dog or dogs could have gotten back inside, but they did.

One night after watching a movie while lying in bed I turned out the light and almost as soon as the light went out a vaporous apparition floated into my bedroom, the room that I had let my mother use because of the master bathroom that went with it, and also the room mom died in. The apparition looked like a beautiful girl of about 18 or 20 and it floated around my bed and came up next to me and did what could be described as some sort of Middle Eastern-like dance. I have to admit that at first I was frightened but in a moment I reached out trying to touch it and my hand passed through it and then it dropped own through the floor vanishing from sight.

Since it was like a mist I named her Misty.

Roughly a month later I was watching an old horror movie and was in a joking mood so I yelled upstairs and told Misty to join me and said it was her kind of movie. Nothing happened. The next movie I watched was "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson and again for a laugh I yelled to Misty saying that it was a really good movie and I was sure she would enjoy it. A moment later the room became very cold but what was odd is the temperature itself did not drop. The thermostat and a thermometer in the room read 71 degrees but it felt like 40 degrees or less. It remained that way until the movie ended and then as quickly as it became cold the temperature again felt normal.

I took in a stray beagle puppy and I took him to the Vet to be fixed. The Vet checked out the pup and she said; "You know this dog only has one testicle, don’t you?" I joked back saying that I did not know him that well, that we were only friends and then joked saying that means the operation would only be half price, right? She said that it was a non-descending testicle and that it was trapped somewhere in his abdomen and it would require a more extensive search and operation so it would cost more. When I brought the pup home he had an incision roughly two inches long on his stomach area just below the tip of his ‘weasel.’ He was lying on his back and since the incision could easily be seen I decided to take a picture of it, since I am a major animal lover and keep many pictures of my furry four legged family members from their entire lives. I took the picture and uploaded it to my computer and saw what looked like a blurry spot so I was going to retake the picture. I decided to enlarge the picture and much to my amazement I found a circle with the face of a woman in it. The face was my mother when she was roughly 28 or 30 years old. I cropped the circle, later I found they are called orbs, and emailed it to various family members and asked if it looked like anyone they knew. They all said it was mom when she was young. My godmother asked where I found the picture and asked if she could have a copy because she had never seen the picture before. I replied saying I just took it the night before and she freaked. She is a Bible thumper and said my home is possessed by demons and told me to not listen to them and to get my home blessed.

I decided to give my niece my mother’s bedroom furniture and I planned to wash it well with Murphy’s Oil soap and polish it before she and my sister picked it up. The night before they were going to come I went to get the Murphy’s Oil soap and it was not where I put it. I know I put it on the front of a shelf of a certain closet where I keep cleaning products but it was not there. I took everything off all of the shelves and then put it all back and it was not to be found. I searched my home and could not find it. I asked my niece and sister if they wanted to wait for me to purchase more and then clean and polish and then pick it up or if the wanted to pick it up as it was. They said they would take it as it was. After the last trip had been made I went into the room where the closet is and right on the front of the shelf I knew the Murphy’s Oil soap should have been sure enough there is was. All I could figure is that mom did not want her furniture given away/removed from my home so she somehow hid the Murphy’s Oil soap and then returned it.

I have walked into my home and heard a woman’s voice that sounds like my mother’s voice and my first reaction was I had left a TV or radio on but as soon as I would go to check the voice stopped talking. I have heard my name called out and it sounded exactly like my mother calling me.

I have friends that will not come to my home anymore. While whatever is hanging around here has never done anything hostile or aggressive towards me several of my friends have had their wits scared out of them.

One friend visited me for a little over a month and one-day he asked if I had been in the bedroom he was using and played a joke on him. I asked what had happened and he said that he kept his shoes lined up under a certain piece of furniture, one of mom’s bedroom set that my niece did not have room for, and he would either wake up or go into his room during the day and his shoes would be missing and he would find them thrown in a pile under the bed. One night he started screaming and I thought someone had broken in and he raced out of the bedroom looking as white as a sheet. He said some dark apparition with glowing eyes, what he described looked like the Grim Reaper, was standing by the bed and held him down and stared at him and then after he began screaming it vanished. He left the following day.

The same apparition horrified two other friends and they left and like the first they will not visit again as long as I live here. Myself I have never seen anything like the three of them saw but I do not doubt what they claim to have seen since it happened to three of them. If only one saw it I would say it was a dream/nightmare combined with sleep paralysis but the odds of it happening to three people in the same bedroom and all describing the very same apparition tends to make me believe they saw what they claimed to have seen.

One night fairly recently I was sitting here in front of my computer in the middle of the night and I heard a somewhat loud knocking. I thought possibly a neighbor had some problem, like an older man next door who has heart problems, and they came here for help. I went to every door in my home, all five sliding glass doors included, and no one was at any of them and no one was in my yard. I listened to the sound and it was three short taps followed by three long taps and then three short taps again. It was SOS. Who was signaling SOS I do not know but I so know what I heard. What made it freakier is that I was writing an email just like this about the odd things that have happened here and as soon as I hit send the knocking stopped and I have not heard it again since.

A sister of a neighbor claims to be psychic and claims to be able to sense spirits and when she was visiting her sister I told her about the odd occurrences in my home and she asked if she could come and see if she felt anything and if so what she felt. I of course said sure and we came here and she walked into the kitchen and froze in her tracks and then shot back out the door onto the deck. She said she never felt anything like it and did not know what it was but it felt very evil to her and she refused to come back in, not even a step for a moment. She said she never wanted to feel anything like that again.

To me I have to believe that if something unworldly is hanging around my home it almost has to be mom since she died here but she was anything but evil. She was ultra-religious and the kindest person you could ever hope to meet so I do not know where the evil could come from. As I said nothing aggressive or dark or menacing has ever happened to me so while at first it did make the hair on the back of my neck stand up and make my blood run cold as a cold shiver ran down my spine in time I grew to enjoy it and to look forward to the next inexplicable occurrence. To me it is cool, it is fun, it is exciting and I always want something new and different to happen.

Many other things have happened in the roughly 15 years since mom died but there are to many to list and for that fact to many to recall them all. I considered selling my home and moving a while back and at first I was concerned about disclosing what has happened here. Being that I hold a real estate license I know that full disclosure is required by law and if I were to sell and not inform the buyers that odd things happen here and they later experienced things that horrified them they could sue and I could end up having to purchase my home from them plus pay additional and of course I do not want to do that. But I also know that some people will pay more for a legitimately haunted house so I have considered hiring some Ghostbuster firm to check out my house and document what is found so I could use it for a selling point and then receive more money for my home from a buyer interested in a haunted home.

Still with all that has gone on here I do not believe in ghosts per say but to many things that are totally inexplicable have happened here to totally rule out all possibility of some sort of entity or entities that are unworldly being involved.

BOO!

 

[The Banterer]

another interesting fact about that connecticut haunting - the family was in dark times themselves..all their stories conflict....there was heavy alcoholism and drug use..the "dying son" is never available for interview...i wouldnt put too much stake into that tale...

im not dismissing paranormal activity all together, but that connecticut thing is definitly worthy of being called a sham..

Yeah, I kind of got the idea from her interview that maybe she was using this whole "haunting" as a means to rationalize her family's struggles.

 

[CanadianCoyote]

That's my story.

And a beautiful one at that. I took a class on Alzheimer's disease and one thing they've found... for some reason... is that music/songs seem to stick in people's brains. Why this is... they're not sure, but it is something to think about.

 

[Stoney McFried]

I personally think if something gives you a bad feeling, ther is a reason for it.Listen to your gut.Might wanna get yourself a nice straw brrom and do a "sweep".

I've actually been talking to him about doing a sage burning... and I 'sealed' his room with some salt and a similar incantation. I did it as an experiment and didn't tell him about it... since then, the activity that was concentrated in his room has shifted elsewhere in the house.

What scares me most about what's lurking at his place is that it sometimes affects the way I THINK. Thoughts will pop into my head... awful, terrible, HORRIBLE things that I would never think of on my own. My emotions'll go haywire and I'll feel physically ill. What's weird about what I feel is that there is a strong sense that it's being caused by something 'external'.... something weighing down on me and squeezing me. I've never encountered anything with that sort of power. What's even more unsettling is that I'm not the only one... other people have felt -- and THOUGHT -- the exact same things I have... and in one instance, at the same time. Not zesty.

Thanks for the advice!

...And scary 'bout those red eyes in the dark. o-o;