Before we get into the actual post —
Hey! Guess what? Got totally taint-punched by the insane October snowstorm that, well, went around on Saturday punching taints across the Northeast. The weather reports were all like, “Blah blah blah rain will change over to snow by 2PM and nothing will stick on the roads and four inches and snargh pbbbt bleaaargh.” In short: “Oh, don’t worry, no big deal.”
Except, I noticed the snow was starting at 9AM.
And starting to stick at 10AM.
By mid-day they revised their weather report to: OH HOLY SHIT EL BLIZARRDO LOCO RUN FOR YOUR LIVES PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN AND SENSITIVE PETS and then just after mid-day we lost power. And that continues to be the case as I type this. (I’m using a relative’s computer to hammer this out, FYI.)
I took a drive around our little forested nook of the area yesterday and all the powerlines look like they were attacked by werewolves. Shredded wheat, all of them. Many laying across driveways! Lots of trees down. Branches. It’s a mess.
It’s cold. We’ve no power. The baby and the dog are not thrilled. The parents (us): even less so.
Regardless, here I am, trying to bang out a quickie blog post for you all.
Let us begin.
I Believe In Ghosts
I’m going to say up front that I believe in ghosts. I, in fact, have all the proof I need that something exists beyond death, and ghosts are part of that equation. I’m sure I’ve regaled you all with tales like this before (though if I haven’t, say so), but I grew up in a haunted house whose haunting many other sane and rational folks witnessed — years before discovering a boy had died on our property before it was in our family, I discovered that boy’s name come up during a Ouija board session.
Which pretty much tweaked my noodle.
It was that Ouija session that actually, I feel, “unlocked” the haunting to some degree. Because after that was when it manifested: again and again, until I went away to college.
So, what I’m asking you is:
Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you think it’s all bullshit? (It’s okay if you do.)
Better yet: ever had any experiences with ghosts? Or anything at all you can’t explain? It’s Halloween. It’s the time of stories like these. So, let’s hear ’em.
Tell us your spooky — and true as you see them — stories.
Adam Short says:
My grandma, who sadly died last month, was a big believer in ghosts. She claimed to have seen an actual apparation of my great-grandfather, and regularly saw two figures she called “angels”, one either side of her bed. They started appearing after my grandfather died, and she kept telling them she wasn’t ready yet, at which point they would politely disappear.
The ghost of my great-grandfather is more intriguing to me, as she was utterly convinced of this, and there’s no suggestion she might have been dreaming or seeing things as she was drifting off to sleep.
She was on her own in her house in Blackburn, Lancashire, looking after my mother and her older brother, and struggling a little. It was a couple of years after the end of the second world war, and my mother wasn’t yet one year old. My great-grandfather used to take care of my uncle so my grandmother could devote her attention to taking care of the baby and the house, but he had died a couple of months earlier.
She was standing in the kitchen, trying to keep on top of everything when she saw him standing in the doorway, leaning on the door frame. She claimed that he smiled at her, touched the brim of his ever-present hat, and disappeared. Things didn’t seem so bad after that.
October 31, 2011 — 7:24 AM
Cassandra says:
I don’t know for sure that I believe in ghosts. I definitely believe in something. I am drawn to old cemeteries, and once I am there, I am compelled to stop in front of certain graves. Stories come to be about the person buried there. As soon as I walk away, I forget them – mostly. I only know about the stories because other people tell me that I’ve told them.
The creepiest experience that I had was while working on an oral history project in grad school. We were taking a tour of the county farm that we were meant to be studying, and as we stood on a hill overlooking the grounds, I found my eyes drawn to one spot in the field. It was under a tree, and I noticed that the cattle were not in that area of the field. I tried to look away several times, but my eyes were immediately drawn back to that spot. After a few minutes of pointing out distant landmarks, the guide pointed to that tree and the area below it. Turns out, there are more than 100 unmarked graves in that spot. That’s where the farms residents were buried if they had no family to claim them or the family was too poor to pay for a burial. Somehow, I knew that before he said it, just like I knew the names of some of the people who were mentioned in the stories we gathered before their names were given. It turned out that those particular people were buried in the field.
I sense things. I don’t think they’re ghosts. They’re more like memories. For a few minutes, I remember for them.
Weird, huh? I’ve never really admitted this before, either.
October 31, 2011 — 7:40 AM
Eve Greenwood says:
I do believe in ghosts. I have had several experiences throughout my life that completely prove their existence to me and my parents have also had experiences similar to mine. Most of my stories have been brushed off by my friends as “you were imagining it”, “you were tired”, “you were just a kid”, but, if I can be really cliché, I know what I saw.
I’m not really scared of ghosts, although there have been times when I’ve been utterly freaked out, but now I’m just like, “Okay, cool, a bit weird but let’s move on.”
October 31, 2011 — 7:41 AM
Amber J. Gardner says:
I want to believe in ghosts. Well, it’s more like I do, but I haven’t had a single experience that proves their existence.
Ghost hunting shows frustrate me more because I feel like its the best way to see real evidence, but the way they act on those shows, I can’t take anything they do or say seriously.
My mom died in my home a few years ago. I bought a Ouija board and everything. I sleep in the same room she died in. Yet nothing. Nada. Not a single tiny little sign of someone trying to contact me from the beyond.
I have had other experiences/messages, but I attribute them more to the existence of God than in ghosts.
One of these days, I will visit a haunted house and can finally make my own conclusions regarding ghosts.
October 31, 2011 — 7:42 AM
Dave Versace says:
I don’t. No personal observations, no direct evidence or suggestive experiences. In the absence of that I go with my usual boring inclination to scientific explanations supported by reproducible results etc. Plus, those ghost hunting shows are spectatcularly unpersuasive.
But – BUT – my mother and grandmother, both of whom I regard as common-sense rationalists with no patience for flights of fancy both used to swear blind that they would often hear Mildew, the old family dog at Nan’s place, lump up the steps and flop down on the verandah every afternoon. They said it went on for years after she died.
When we used to vist Nan’s place, I would sit out there for hours, reading a book (or pretending to), nervously waiting to hear that sound. I never did. Then again, I also never actually lived with the dog or formed any sort of attachment to her, so who knows whether that was a factor.
Funny timing on this post though. I just spent the entire day reworking my novel outline to add more ghosts to the WIP. It just didn’t have enough ghosts. I may not believe in the ectoplasmic bastards, but empirical evidence clearly indicates that more of them is better.
Sorry to hear about your unscheduled blizzard. It’s unseasonal, I guess? It made the news in Australia, but we don’t do snow hereabouts… Hope you and yours stay warm.
October 31, 2011 — 7:50 AM
Adam Christopher says:
Like you, Chuck, I grew up in a “haunted” house and had a number of experiences – the first of which, when I was about six or seven, inspired a life-long interest in the paranormal. Voices, smells, movement of objects (including thrown potted plants, broken mirrors, and even a tug of war between me and thin air over a toy), a figure passing through a wall in front of me, and another figure seen through the viewfinder of a video camera, but apparently not present when I saw it and looked up in surprise.
I should say I have a strong science background (including seven years of postgraduate study) and am an atheist, but I’m also a fortean and I’m happy to accept that there are lots of things we don’t know about or understand. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Happy Hallowe’en!
October 31, 2011 — 7:57 AM
Epicurean Inkblot says:
I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in an afterlife-anything. I don’t believe in God.
I have never had a single experience that has made me doubt my non-belief.
I, however, completely believe in the ability of the human mind to make you see/hear things that aren’t really there, to dredge up random bits of memory you never knew you had at the strangest of times and to generally just freak you out. Countless numbers of people have made money off this fact.
That said, I love reading about all this anyway.
October 31, 2011 — 8:16 AM
Andrew Reid says:
I’d really like to think there are ghosts and spirits that continually press against the veil, trying to reach through and influence the world of the living – it’s such an amazing, powerful idea that I think it would take some serious effort not to be moved by just the thought of it.
The only thing that holds me back is the network of mediums, psychics, and other parlour-trick shills who profit from the credulity of the bereaved. A few years ago, at my cousin’s funeral, there was a very well-mannered, well-dressed, serious, and polite lady who claimed that she had made contact with his spirit, and that he sent back messages of peace and happiness to us. She managed to go ten whole minutes before mentioning her rates for private sessions, after which she was invited to pick the door she’d be leaving through.
As long as people like that exist, I can’t believe, because how bad would the spirit would have to be for someone to stoop so low as to talk through a hearse-chasing lowlife?
October 31, 2011 — 8:19 AM
Harry Markov (@HarryMarkov) says:
I grew up in a generational house which was passed through the various generations of our family. Most of my family members have died in our house, which pretty much makes for a very depressing atmosphere as a whole. I do believe in paranormal activity, though the women in the family are the stronger mediums and my sister says time after time that the ghost of her aunt, dressed in white is watching over her.
I, on the other hand, have had only some electric appliances go wonky on me… *sigh* Which is why I forbade my sister from becoming the next Melinda Gordon. 😀
October 31, 2011 — 9:03 AM
Jim Franklin says:
Once I was working in a club on top of an old electrical shop. it was an old building but it didn’t have any spooky history as far as I knew, it wasn’t an old mental institution or the site of a massacre or anything. I was asked to take a crate of bottles down to the cellar. When I got to the top of the stairs I felt a sort of push on my shoulder. I was pushed but I couldn’t feel the thing that pushed me, just the motion of it. It wasn’t enough to push me down the stairs thank god, but it was enough to make me lose bladder control, drop the crate and scarper.
There was no-one else near me who could have done it, and I never felt anything like that again, but it sure as hell got me believing or at the very least questioning.
October 31, 2011 — 9:05 AM
Lindsay Mawson says:
I think I want to believe in ghosts because to me, proof of ghosts would mean proof of other things (like God? or other things). I think in the back of my mind, I do believe in something else (otherwise I wouldn’t have writen Exposing Dallas or its sequel — not about ghosts, but involves the unexplained) — because I refuse to watch movies involving ghosts or other paranormal things. I know I’d let my imagination run away with me and I’d be “seeing” things all the time after that.
One ‘ghost’ ‘encounter’ that has always resonated with me is this: a friend had a baby, and one day while said infant was napping, she heard something whisper the baby’s name over the baby monitor a few times. She was terrified someone had broken in, so she checked her daughter. Room was empty, and baby was staring up into the corner of the room, wouldn’t look at mom, just the corner, as if something was there. That’s always freaked me out.
I hate walking upstairs from a darkened floor, I hate waking up at precisely 3am, and I hate looking in mirrors at night.
So, do I believe? Who knows. Maybe I just refuse to acknowledge the subject lest the belief actually cause things to manifest themselves to me…
Yeah, and now that I read this, I can see why I am a writer. Ha.
October 31, 2011 — 9:11 AM
Thomas Pluck says:
I hope your power and heat are back soon, my friend. Wishing the best for you and your family. Stay warm. Remember, if we harvested the heating power of the “dutch oven” we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Sadly, human methane is a greenhouse gas. (Laughter also generates energy)
As for ghosts, I am an atheist. I believe we are frightened little monkeys. We only have a short time on this earth and our job is to be the best person we can be, and improve as many lives as possible. I do not believe in a higher power, or an afterlife.
That being said, I don’t disrespect anyone who believes in either. I don’t think we understand our universe completely. While my chips are down on the side of the skeptics, I don’t sneer at the religious or agnostics. I’ve never seen any paranormal behavior I felt could not be explained. I believe we are finely tuned machines meant to detect danger and certain things like ultra low frequencies shiver our spines like a hand’s body heat makes a cat’s fur twitch when it’s inches away. Now that’s my bullshit theory, it until science proves it right or wrong I see no reason why the psychic impressions of a living being might not be the cause.
The closest I’ve come to a ghostly encounter was in my grandmother’s house as a child. My uncle Louis, who died of brain cancer 2 weeks before I was born, raised racing pigeons. They were kept in a coop atop the garage we commandeered as children into our “club house.” One day a pigeon flew to the screen of my grandmother’s bedroom window and seemed to get its claws stuck. I ran upstairs to catch it. I meant no harm to the bird, but I imagine it didn’t want to be kept in the garage as a pet. When I got to the room, and approached the window, the screen fell a few inches.
Back then, that was my Uncle Louis’s ghost telling me to leave the bird alone. Now, I’m pretty sure the bird yanked the screen and it fell, as it flew away.
I love ghost stories and I’d love to haunt the earth as a vengeful spirit but I just can’t believe in them, which annoys me because I love being scared and want to visit a real haunted house.
October 31, 2011 — 9:18 AM
Buffy Armstrong says:
Jury is still out on the whole ghost thing. This past May when we in Savannah we stayed at the Marshall House which is considered one of the most haunted hotels in the United States. One night I woke up and their was something at the foot of the bed. It was illuminated, but I couldn’t make anything out because I didn’t have my glasses on. I couldn’t move or speak for what seemed like forever. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.
This could have been a ghost or dream fueled by alcohol and suggestion. I still think about it sometimes.
October 31, 2011 — 9:33 AM
Christopher Gronlund says:
No ghosties here. I’ve had encounters that others say was was a paranormal experience, but there’s always been an explanation. I grew up raised by a mother who believed in ghosts and paranormal things. My sister believed in paranormal things. But I never believed.
That said, the day will be spent with Ghosthunters on in the background. My wife likes the show and it’s her birthday, so I won’t even make any cracks about the show. My wife approaches the whole ghost/paranormal thing with a healthy degree of skepticism, but she believes [at least] in the possibility of things. She’s had a couple experiences she wasn’t able to explain, but she doesn’t jump to, “Cannot explain–must be real.” She’s just open to the possibility.
As much as a skeptic as I am, I’m fascinated by what it is that makes some minds experience something and jump to, “That’s a ghost!” and minds like mine look at it in different ways. I’m not an asshole about the way I look at things. There are definitely people who are way too quick to call “ghost!” but I’ve known enough rational people who believe, and I won’t knock them.
I don’t get atheists who believe in ghosts. (I have a friend who believes in no gods or afterlife, yet he claims to have been raised in a haunted house.) I’ve been an atheist as long as I’ve been able to think on my own. Even with an overactive imagination, I’ve never believed–even though I think it would be cool if there were things like an afterlife and the ability to communicate with it.
I hope everybody has a great Halloween! (And I hope that things warm up, Chuck!) Despite being a skeptic, I like the history of the day and what it’s become. While I believe in no gods, I know it’s an important day for many, and I respect that…and I love that we still generally take a day out each year to celebrate a childish fascination with creepiness and the possibility that we’re not alone when we crawl into bed at night, making sure our feet our covered and that our eyes are closed to the possibility of all that might be standing next to us watching us dream 😉
October 31, 2011 — 9:45 AM
Simon Logan says:
Don’t believe in ghosts in the slightest. Fakery, paradolia and wishful thinking cover it.
Still love a good ghost story or movie though.
October 31, 2011 — 10:43 AM
Josh Loomis says:
Not sure if it qualifies as a ghost story, but when I was on a retreat with my father a few years ago, we were asked to go into the dark woods around Lake Champion for prayer and contemplation and what have you. I was struggling with some doubts and uncertainties and I found a path into a wooded area that was completely isolated.
I’m positive I saw my sister there, smiling at me.
My sister died in 1995 in a fatal car crash.
She’d be 36 today.
October 31, 2011 — 10:43 AM
Darlene Underdahl says:
I do believe in ghosts, and have had the Ouija experience, but this one came from my father, enjoy:
Dad saw his first ghosts when he was twelve.
He and some other boys were swimming in a wide part of a river. As he stood on the bank, he saw two women approaching, and started to yell a warning to the other boys, since all of them were naked.
Then he realized that he was the only one seeing the women, and froze, watching them approach. They were dressed in old-fashioned, very long dresses, and seemed oblivious to my father and his friends. They passed close to my very still father, and their faces were blurred, but he could hear the swish of their long skirts.
When they disappeared, he questioned the other boys, but none had seen the two women. The boys, however, relayed his story to other people, and a few neighbors admitted they had seen the women, and guessed what it was about.
Many years before, two women had been out in a boat. When it capsized, their long skirts dragged them down, and they were drowned.
Dad always marveled that he could hear their swishing skirts, but not see their faces.
October 31, 2011 — 10:44 AM
Doyce Testerman says:
This is going to sound terribly cynical, but I’ve found that in making up (or playing games about) fantastical, weird, spooky Things for so long, I’ve abandoned any actual belief in them (assuming I ever had any to begin with).
October 31, 2011 — 10:55 AM
Casz Brewster says:
Have had lots of paranormal encounters in my life. Grew up like you, Chuck, in a house that had been there for generations and had many stories not finished, so they walked (floated?) among us day in and out, just trying to communicate to our little monkey heads. When I was in college (the first time) I lived in a loft above an old building that was there during the first oil boom period in Wyoming. A teen girl used to regularly scare the piss outta me in that little hallway of apartments.
Hard to not believe when it’s poking you right in the face. That said, I’ve been told often I have a bit of a radar for such things.
When you want to talk about Sasquatch, let me know. I got stories for that, too.
Happy Halloween. Hope your power and regular routine are restored soon.
October 31, 2011 — 10:56 AM
terribleminds says:
@Casz:
You should talk about Sasquatch right now.
Because, shit, it’s Halloween.
DAY OF THE SQUATCHIE.
— c.
October 31, 2011 — 11:13 AM
Kate Haggard says:
Let’s just say I was the shyster that moved the Oujia pointer to freak out my friends, rigged Tarot readings, and got my entire neighborhood (parents and old folks included) seeing ghosts for weeks along the creek that ran behind our houses. It’s amazing what a few well-placed suggestions will do to a person.
But no. No ghosts.
October 31, 2011 — 11:03 AM
Brian Johnson says:
There was a really bad storm that came through the neighborhood when I was young. My father and I would stand outside on the porch and watch them come in (yeah, I’m a Midwesterner and a storm chaser to boot shameless plug http://www.ruminationofthunder.com).
It was a dark night and lots of brilliant lightning. It may have been the way the lightning was making shadows move around the park, but about half a block from my house, standing behind a tree watching us was a large man. I saw him twice from two big lightning strikes, then he was gone. I pointed it out to my parents but they never saw him. For me, that was the least personal of my ghost experiences.
October 31, 2011 — 11:07 AM
Amy says:
Yep. I lived in a house where all kinds of unexplainable things manifested themselves. Many houses in that neighborhood had strange goings-on.
However, the one incident that I always cite as my proof of otherworldlyness didn’t have anything to do with the house. It happened when I was in my late teens. One night my sister and I had technicolor vivid dreams. We each felt compelled to tell one another about our dreams the next morning. Her dream involved a green sweater that burst into flames. My dream had me dressed as a 1920s flapper (the dress was green) and seeing my grandfather’s face in a mirror (the grandfather that died when I was five).
We told our mother about these dreams and she was visibly shaken. She then told us a story about our grandfather that we had never, ever heard before. In the 1920s, grandpa was a vagrant and rode the rails (he was definitely a character, he ended up being a police detective). While stopped at a hobo camp, he stepped too close to a campfire and his green wool sweater (a prized posession) caught on fire and was ruined. My mother was certain that our grandfather was trying to contact me and my sister that night. We couldn’t help but glance over at the urn on the fireplace mantle that contained his ashes and smile.
I hope your power is restored soon!
October 31, 2011 — 12:09 PM
Scooter Carlyle says:
My step-grandfather built the farmhouse my family’s lived in for 60 years. He also died in it. The bed he died in, an antique mahogany monstrosity, is still in the downstairs bedroom. I usually accidentally-on-purpose don’t tell guests that little tidbit when they sleep in that room, unless I don’t like them very much.
Four people saw a puff of smoke leave my grandfather’s body when he died. Ever since, something’s been tromping around on the old hardwood floors upstairs. It’s also fond of opening and closing doors, and it usually only comes out when children are in the house, and consequently is most active at Christmas and Halloween. When my mom carpeted most of the floors, it moved its activity to the walled-porch.
Is it the spirit of my grandfather? I have no idea.
October 31, 2011 — 12:13 PM
Mark Smith says:
What tweaks my noodle is that for years, people have been breaking their backs looking for evidence of ghosts, and so far bupkis. And before you ask, evidence is not the plural of anecdote.
What I do know is that leprechauns are real and they plague me daily. And if that sounds silly to you, now you know how I feel about ghosts.
October 31, 2011 — 12:56 PM
BlackHat_Matt says:
All bullshit. My mother is big believer in ghosts, and I used to be, but then I took a hard look at what I’d really seen and looked up stuff like “recall bias” and “ideomotor response” and stuff like that.
October 31, 2011 — 1:03 PM
Oliver says:
There was a spot in the corner of my childhood friend’s basement that I always avoided. It was cold and awkward and made you feel uneasy just being near it. I never let my ninja turtles (or the turtle wagon) venture anywhere near it, in fear of them being tainted by the darkness.
Years later, post college, I met up with that friend for drinks. We were shooting the shit, when we got to being all nostalgic. When I mentioned his basement, he looked at me like he was going to be ill. Turns out he had experienced the same feelings, in the same exact spot. In our drunkenness, we concocted a plot to break into his old home and dig up whatever was in that corner.
It never panned out, but having another person independently reaffirm your feeling and superstitions is powerful stuff. I’ve been a believer ever since.
October 31, 2011 — 1:07 PM
Lynna says:
Much depends on what you mean by “believe”. I don’t “believe” in ghosts (or most other supernatural/spiritual phenomena) in the sense of having absolute faith that they do, in fact, exist in an objective sense, and being willing to argue for that position against skeptics. But I do in the sense of being open to the possibility of their existence – as an earlier commenter said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And I’ve certainly had experiences that are strongly suggestive of ghosts and similar things.
I’m a Wiccan (yes, despite my having skeptical tendencies towards most supernatural stuff), and one of the groups I regularly work with occasionally does exorcisms and spiritual house cleansings – basically, going into places where people have had troubling or frightening spiritual/paranormal experiences, checking them out, and dealing with the problem (and just to head off the usual conclusion hardcore skeptics will jump to – no, we don’t charge people money for this). It’s not always specifically about ghosts – sometimes it’s people who believe that someone has a put a curse on them, sometimes one or more people there have been messing around with some kind of occult stuff they didn’t really understand and are convinces a demon or something is after them, and sometimes it’s just that they’ve moved into a place that feels weird and wrong, or where strange things keep happening, and they have no idea why.
And I have experienced some pretty strange things at some of them. No, nothing that amounts to scientific proof – it’s entirely possible it could all be subjective, psychological, etc. But enough for me, personally, to stay involved and interested in this sort of thing. Especially since it seems like what we do does help the people – most of them report afterwards that the problem has stopped. Is it purely the placebo effect – that the people there scared themselves into believing in something, and then once they believed the problem had been sorted by experts, they stopped experiencing it because their anxieties had been addressed? I have no idea. But as long as it seems to keep helping people, and providing me with a lot of interesting experiences along the way, I’ll keep doing it.
But I suppose this comment wouldn’t be complete without a specific story, so I’ll tell you one of the more strikingly weird and disturbing things I encountered at one of them: the place in question was a high-rise apartment, so not exactly your typical “haunted house”. The residents were a middle-aged couple from somewhere in the Caribbean – don’t recall which country. And they had been experiencing a lot of weird shit since their last trip back home to visit relatives – night terrors, sleep paralysis, health problems, weird strokes of bad luck, etc. – which they suspected was the work of a woman they’d had some kind of bad business dealings with there. As we usually do, we fanned out through the place checking out each room and trying to get a feel for what was going on, and the apartment did seem to have a heavy, oppressive atmosphere that made most of us feel uncomfortable pretty quickly.
But where it really took a turn into serious weirdness for me was when I went into the washroom, looked at the mirror – and saw, as clearly as if I was watching a movie or something, all the flesh melt off my face until I was looking at a skull. This wasn’t the sort of hazy, flickering, indistinct image I usually get when scrying into a crystal or mirror or something – it was really clear and vivid, and happening under bright indoor light, not dim candlelight. I’d never experienced anything quite like that before. But in circumstances like that you’re prepared to deal with a lot of weirdness, so after the initial moment of oh-Gods-what-the-fuck, I pointed my athame at the mirror and concentrated, willing the image to disperse, and it did – and for just a moment, I had a clear view of a woman I’d never seen before, looking directly out at me. Then that faded too, and I was just looking at my normal reflection.
I went out and described the woman I’d seen to the couple. They looked startled and said that I’d just described the sister of the woman they’d had their falling-out with – who was reputed to be an Obeah practitioner of some skill. We spent a lot of time there that night, cleansing the place and the people, and sealing everything that could potentially be used as a portal or access-point – especially mirrors.
So there you go – not exactly a ghost story, but hopefully suitable for Halloween storytelling anyway.
October 31, 2011 — 1:21 PM
Chad Kallauner says:
My only experience with the supernatural was when the Aztec sun god appeared to me in the form of a radiant, circular calendar. It spoke to me, but I don’t remember much; it was many years ago. Nothing more since then.
(Just a minor detail — perhaps it’s relevant: at the time of this occurrence, I was in the dentist’s chair and high on laughing gas.)
October 31, 2011 — 1:37 PM
Darlene Underdahl says:
Hope you’re staying warm, Chuck.
I’m not sure when Casz will recount her Sasquatch stories, but I have something from my extended family:
An Oregon resident hunted wild meat for his wife and children many years ago.
While quietly on a hunt in thick woods, he saw something large, dark and hairy standing with its back to him. Thinking it was a bear, and willing to shoot bears, he raised his rifle to kill it from behind. Then it turned so he saw its profile.
It had no snout; it had a flat face like a person. He put down the gun, feeling he would be shooting something almost human. It gave him a long look, turned and disappeared.
When I heard this story, I questioned whether the hunter was known for tall tales or fibbing, but I was assured that he never lied.
October 31, 2011 — 1:40 PM
Athena McCormick says:
Hope your power is back on soon, Chuck. Thanks for taking the time to post in the midst of the madness.
Ghosts. Yes, I definitely believe in them and as far as I can remember, I always have. I come from a big family (7 children) with extremely varied religious/spiritual/philosophical views, but almost universally, we believe in ghosts or ghost-like entities.
My ghost story isn’t really a ghost story as such, but it’s Halloween appropriate, so here it goes: My older brother and I were driving late at night, the streets were pretty empty, but not *too* poorly lit. We stopped at a stop sign and a huge, black, mostly dog-like thing walked in front of our car, stopped in the middle of the street to look at us (glowing red eyes, if you can believe it) and then continued into the brick wall of a house and disappeared. I am prone to seeing things, especially when over tired, so I turned to my brother to tell him what I’d seen – then saw the look on his face and realized he’d seen it too. I got him to describe what he’d seen and it was the exact same thing. We almost could have believed it was a dog, except for the whole disappearing part.
Also, a quick note on the subject of the lowlifes who use grief as a means to extort people: they’re dicks and I imagine well over 99% of them are complete frauds – but they don’t make me doubt that ghosts exist. They just make me sad for humanity as a whole.
October 31, 2011 — 2:45 PM
Lari says:
Ghosts = Bullshit
But I do believe the brain is a complex organ we know next to nothing about. Ghostly experiences may be as “real” as any perception of “reality” but they do not exist because I don’t believe body and soul (which I highly doubt exists in the Western sense) are separate.
October 31, 2011 — 2:47 PM
Lari says:
Agree with Blackhat. I used to believe in them too, I grew up in an extremely religious/superstitious household and the stuff that I experienced could easily be explained away by naturally occurring psychological phenomenon.
October 31, 2011 — 2:49 PM
Angela Perry says:
I would love to hear more about your haunted house, Chuck.
I’m fascinated with ghosts, probably because they used to terrify me. My grandmother was very superstitious. Some parents use the bogeyman to keep children in line; mine used evil spirits.
My only personal experience was when I was about 6 year old. My grandfather had just died. We were close, and I was very sad. It was long after my bedtime, but I was staring at the ceiling and crying. Then I looked around and saw a bunch of people standing around me. One was my grandfather. Another was my uncle who died when I was 3 or 4. Most of them I didn’t recognize. My uncle told me not to be sad. I blinked and they were gone. I was able to go right to sleep. In the morning, I told my mom and described some of the people to her. Apparently, they were all relatives, most of whom had died before I was born and many who had no pictures of them.
On the creepy side, my grandmother was attacked by a possessed cat. The cat was aging and mellow. It was laying in the sun by the screen door one afternoon. My grandmother heard a knock on the door and yelled “come in.” The door swung open, banged shut, and the cat started hissing. Then it’s pupils dilated until all you could see was black, and it flew at my grandmother and dug its claws into her thigh. She started screaming and hitting the cat with a broom. The cat finally pulled away and jumped through the screen on the door, tearing it to shreds. It disappeared for two weeks, and when it came back, it wasn’t the same animal. It was shy and skittish and refused to come in the house again. It died three months later. My grandmother had to go to the hospital and have eight claws removed from her leg, which the cat had torn out when it escaped. Later, her daughter (my aunt) admitted that she and her friend had tried to summon an evil spirit to kill my grandmother, because they were angry at something my grandmother had done.
Happy Halloween 🙂
October 31, 2011 — 3:02 PM
Susan Kelly says:
I don’t believe in ghosts. I’ve made a choice not to, because the whole idea of supernatural crap scares me. I don’t like being scared, totally don’t get the desire to watch scary movies and be all tense and like that. I say I chose not to, because, you know, I’ve never seen plutonium either and yet I believe it’s real. A chemist could prove to me that it exists, but I’d be taking his word on lots of it, wouldn’t I.
I’ve had some odd experiences, though. Once, I was just sitting on a step, thinking about our dog who had died, and he licked me on the cheek. I was so startled, I jumped. Something happened, no idea what. It wasn’t scary.
Another time, I was writing, concentrating on it, and I felt the presence of someone else in the room. I looked up, and there were three tall, luminescent entities who were trying to tell me something, I don’t know what. I didn’t see them with my eyes, exactly. It was more like seeing a memory, only I don’t really have any memories of tall luminescent beings. Again, not scary. I can quite believe that this was all in my head, but then why have the impulse to look up and over there?
Just recently I have been wondering if my aversion to all things horror and supernatural stems from some freaking awful supernatural childhood experience that I’ve successfully repressed.
October 31, 2011 — 3:53 PM
Susan Kelly says:
Does anyone know the sf story (old, maybe ’60s-ish) about the guy who lost his wife to some creepy thing that gained access to his house through the mirrors? It took him a while to figure it out, that that’s the way it was happening. The last para of the story is him saying how they (he got his wife back) moved to a small tropical island, and they had no mirrors anywhere, and they slept handcuffed together.
Anybody know what that story is? It haunts me still (LOL).
October 31, 2011 — 3:58 PM
Louise Sorensen says:
I’ve never had any experiences that I feel comfortable attributing to the paranormal, but recently, I heard three people relate such stories.
One spoke of a direct experience with the ‘ghost’ of a loved one, and the two others spoke of people they knew waking up or seeing a ghost at the end of their bed.
One person, an optometrist with no paranormal leanings, woke up one night to see a friend of his standing at the end of his bed. A shadowy figure of a girl was behind him. These people faded away and he went back to sleep. He phoned his friend the next day. A person answered the phone and told him that his friend had died the night before in a motorcycle crash. The optometrist, a man with no wild imaginings, asked what time his friend had died. It was the exact time he had awakened to see him standing at the end of his bed. He asked if anyone else had been on the motorcycle with him. The answer, his fiancee had died in the crash with him.
This kind of thing happens too often and to too many people for there to be nothing to it.
Even if it’s not ghosts, it may be a residual wisp of electrical energy released by someone dying and reaching someone with whom they are close. There is more here then we understand, and we don’t have all the answers.
Speaking of ghosts, I am working on a Halloween story atm, but only about 2/3 finished, due to the constant interruptions and interference of real life.
Chuck, I feel for you and all the people without power in the grinding cold. Been there. Wishing your power a speedy recovery. <3
October 31, 2011 — 4:21 PM
Kirsten says:
The abandoned house at the top of the hill
-where the old woman’s dishes
sat unwashed in the sink,
her clothes draped over the ironing board,
for fifty years-
was torn down last August
with no ceremony.
When the wind moans
through the oaks she planted,
we can smell her perfume.
October 31, 2011 — 8:25 PM
Natalie says:
I am far too intelligent and rational to believe in ghosts. Even though I have seen one.
When I was six, my eldest brother (then ten years old) was run over by a train and killed while he was lying with his head on the rail to listen for it coming. For weeks afterwards, I would be walking past my mother’s bedroom and see him lying on the bed; curled up and facing away from me. I would stop and step back to look again and of course nothing was there. Just a trick of light and memory I assume. My other brother saw him too.
After a while I moved into his bedroom, and once I woke in the night to see him bent over his desk – all white and ghosty-seethrough. I wasn’t scared – why would I be scared of my big brother?
Eventually my mum told me that my living brother and I had to let my big brother go – we were stopping him from moving on to whatever was next. So we agreed to let him go, and never saw him again.
As I say, I was only six.
October 31, 2011 — 8:35 PM
oldestgenxer says:
I do believe in them, and I believe there is a rational, scientific explanation for them. There are various degrees of consciousness of them–some ghostly images are just that–memory images ingrained in a place or an object with no sentience.
Others have intelligence, but may not be aware of their appearance on our plane. Rarer still are the spirits who do have the ability to make contact with us.
Lots of haunted buildings around here, especially the old ones downtown. I live in St Louis, home of the famously haunted Lemp Mansion.
November 1, 2011 — 12:52 AM
mythago says:
Do I believe that ghosts are real? No.
But I also believe that many things that are not real are true.
November 1, 2011 — 1:05 AM
BlackHat_Matt says:
Oh, and I should mention: I remain open to evidence on the subject of ghosts (though my bar is pretty high). But “evidence” does not mean “this totally happened to me once.” I want something reproducible and verifiable. Otherwise it’s just a story, and anecdote is nothing to hang your hat on.
And I have a *lot* of hats.
November 1, 2011 — 10:21 AM
Thomas Barnes says:
Speaking of the Ouija board, I also had a similarly creepy experience. After its owner died, it was demolished. Many years later, we seemed to contact the owner via the board. I’m still up in the air about it – half of me wants to believe in subliminal micro-impulses that concentration and Ouija translates into meaning and understanding. The other half knows that there was no way we could have known the man’s name (ben), year of birth (’38), cause of death (suicide), dog’s name (max), dog’s illness (blind in one eye) and more that we later confirmed.
November 1, 2011 — 10:56 AM
KRVeale says:
I don’t know what I believe, but I’ve run into some Weird Things that could be ghosts, and could equally the confusions of a tired mind.
I was walking home one night from work, so it was late and I was exhausted. The bus was past a historic graveyard in the heart of the city that leads from a park down towards the motorway, through a heavily wooded area. A shoe came undone nearby, so I retied it on a park bench, and heard *screams* through the trees, or thought I did. They cut off sharply.
There were some folks in the park, and I don’t know how I reacted, but I spooked the hell out of them… which made me realise that they hadn’t heard anything. I stood there for a bit, deciding whether to go in, and… I didn’t hear a voice. There weren’t words. It was like I was remembering someone talking, or remembering the impressions of words: “Does you credit that you want to help lad/m’boy, but there’s nothing for you in there but bad dreams.”
I went through newspaper archives later. It’s an inner city graveyard near a red light district, so badness happens nearby, but the one that struck me was a group of young folks on a drug trip where one girl started freaking out, and one of the others hit her in the head with a rock to stop her from getting them caught. That’s just guesswork, mind, and I still might have imagined the entire thing.
This next one isn’t about ghosts so much as instincts and weirdness. Another late shift, another different job. Finished after midnight in a big shopping district. I’d normally walk through it to get a bus, but this particular night had a bad weirdness to it. The wind was up, and there was *no one around.* Nobody. It was never that quiet. A horn was blowing, like a hunting horn except it was constant. It was probably an alarm from somewhere, but I’ve never heard one like it. Some halogen lights that I’d never seen before were staining the world yellow and throwing these twisted shadows, and turning familiar territory alien. The place was totally deserted. Every step I took towards the main body of the shopping district was harder. I was having trouble making myself go towards it, just like part of my nervous system new that it was enemy territory and worse with every step. Eventually I stopped and called a cab. The sense of relief when I got taken past that zone of threatening wrongness felt ridiculous, but if it happened again I’d have done the same thing.
November 1, 2011 — 4:13 PM
Millie says:
hello everyone, I am here to tell my experience with a ghost that still haves me trying to figure out could this have really happened… just before this all happened I have been hearing a young mans voice in my ear he said Mildred may I lay next to you I was tired falling asleep and woke at the same time I responded yes then I felt the bed go down. and its been numerous of times that he has showed his self to me the first time it startled me but then he did it a few more times I walked behind him to ask him if he was okay? but he disappeared. then the other night I chooses to sleep in my room with the television color turned down so that it was basically dark in there.
I was falling asleep with a clear cautious mind, I felt covers being removed off of me very slowly, and my body being caressed, my body started to respond to the touch of someone touching my body it was a feeling that I have never experienced before I knew I was in the bedroom and that I was sleep and woke at the same time but I couldn’t open my eye’s I wasn’t scared I just wanted to know who was in the room with me. but since I knew that someone was making love to me I felt the thrust of a man’s penis stroking me and hitting every G-spot I had in my body I felt like I was on fire but in a sensual way I then felt my body being levitated a few feet off the bed I hate to admit this but it felt so good to me in away I never felt love making before and before I knew it I had an orgasm as soon as I could open my eyes to see if anymore was there no-one was here I felt down below to see if I was dreaming did I really orgasm from a ghost and the answer to that question was yes I actually had an orgasm I don’t understand why It felt so damn good to me but how did the ghost feel? I know it might sound crazy but did the ghost enjoy me to?
I know about the young gentlemen who died in my apartment I have seen his full figure, color of his skin, hair style, clothes, boots, and jacket, but he wouldn’t let me see his face could his eyes have been a problem from an overdose meaning looking a different color that he thought it would scare me? I don’t know but wow he blew my mind. how could the ghost make a living person explore feelings that a living person sometimes can’t do?
Please if someone out there can relate to what i’m trying to say please give me your comment, or response I would appreciate it very much I don’t want to believe that i’m going crazy… thank you for taking time out to read one of my experiences with a ghosts
take care and God Bless
July 15, 2012 — 12:32 PM