Spooky stuff

[KiltedKnight]

My ex and I purchased a beautiful home when our family started growing and while the kids were still very young, so young that my daughter who will be 28 this year, was an infant and still in a crib. I would wake very early then as I still do now and while sitting alone in the quiet family room with my coffee I would see things out of the corner of my eye that at first I thought was just my sleepy eyes playing tricks on me but other times when I was fully awake these things still happened. I once turned to see a shadow standing in the dining room that just faded away as I watched it. That was the only time that I saw anything with form.

Most every night after going to bed my wife and I heard the very distinct sound of bare feet on nylon carpeting walking the full length of the hallway and always the walking sound would stop just before it reached the line of sight of my bedroom door. I had a perfect view from my bed through the hallway to the bathroom since we left the bathroom light on for our young sons in case they had to get up during the night. I jumped up many times only to find nothing there and of course my tiny daughter couldn't even walk so it couldn't have been her. My children never seemed to experience anything out of the ordinary, only my ex and I.

We had a storm door on the back of the house that I never trusted for security and I would tie the door closed at night so it could not be opened without first untying it from the inside yet one saturday night while in bed my wife and I heard the storm door open and those of you who know what a storm door is know that it makes a very distinctive sound when it opens and closes because of the glass and safety chain. I have never seen another storm door in California. I don't have to tell you that I jumped out of bed and locked and loaded and checked every foot of the way between my room and the back of the house and when I pulled aside the drapery that covered the door it was still tied as tight as I had left it earlier. We had the only storm door in the area so there isn't a chance that I heard another.

Many other small things occured that could have been normal or could have been abnormal but the very idea that the house wasn't completely normal sent me to the previous owner to inquire about what he knew about these happenings. Had someone died in the house? Had he experienced anything out of the ordinary? He told me two things, first, that on the record he didn't have any idea what I was talking about and second, off the record, that I had better not mention any of these things if I hoped to sell the house without any complications which told me volumes.

In any case we never had anything bad happen while we lived in the house because of this and we got used to living with all the strange happenings and when it was time to sell the house and move out of state we did, without a word about the strange things that we had learned to live with.

Chris.

[Piper]

My paternal grandfather passed away a couple of years before I married my wife. She had never met the man, although she may have seen a picture of him. One day, shortly after we were married, we were at my parent's house for dinner. My grandparents lived two doors down from my parents. Some of my younger siblings were playing over in my grandmother's backyard. At the time, my grandmother was out in California, visiting my aunt. My wife went over the call the kids in for dinner. When she came back, she asked, "Who's house-sitting at Nana's?". She said she saw, through the window, a grey haired man, sitting on the couch reading a newspaper. She said the dog was beside him looking out the window, and the man was petting the dog as he read. She didn't see a face, as the man had his back to the window. What she had described was my grandfather's afternoon routine. He would sit on the couch and read the paper, with the news on the tv. The dog would stand beside him on the couch, and watch out the window. I went over and searched through the house, but found nobody but the dog. I had to unlock the house to get in to look, so it's unlikely that anyone had stopped in without our knowing it. Even less likely due to the fact that the dog tended to view folks outside of the family and close friends as a food source. Never saw anything myself, but my bride has always been level-headed. I don't have an explanation, and the incident was never repeated.

[Doomsday]

True Story,
I used to do janitorial work at a church/K-8 school. All us on the janitorial team, there where about 13 or 14 of us, would joke about the place being haunted. I never gave it much credence until late one night when I left the main building to go over to our administration office building. This just happened to be the building that most of the stories where based around. When we were on duty all of us janitors would keep a keyring clipped to one of our belt loops, as we would carry about 15-30 keys for the entire grounds. You should be able to imagine the jangling sound that eliminated from us whenever we would walk, people could hear us coming from quite a way off. So back to the story, as I entered the building I saw an inside door to the front foyer close ahead of me. I went to the door and opened it, that is when I first heard the keys clinking. At the other end of the room was a stairwell up to the second level, a light was on at the top of the stairs. From my vantage point I could not see up the stairway but I could see the shadow of someone as they climbed the steps, and hear the keys in unison, upon the wall at the bottom. Thinking I would give my coworker a good scare I slowly and quietly climbed the steps after they had turned the corner at the top. As I jumped out at the top there was absolutely no one there. Starting to get nervous I quickly searched the entire building only to find that I was indeed the only occupant. Back on the second level I looked out a window and saw the final thing that completed the weird feeling that was growing in the pit of my stomach. My coworkers walking back up from the dumpsters at the other end of the property, too far for them to have been able to have been in the building as I was having a very unnerving time looking for someone that did not exist.

[sathor]

Good read, couple of things that 'alerted' me to the overall point of it. (Aztecs were solar sacrifices, but I digress.)

The more interesting thing is I have had such experiences described in the last part about 'drop it' more than a few times.

I once had a boss, an author, that recently has had some bad luck. But, when I first started working for him, he made a point of explaining the concept of loyalty. Another person that started about the same time as me out of the blue got custody of his daughter. FULL custody. He had been trying, and failing, to get partial custody. He quit his job, to work more someplace else, and within a matter of days, he lost custody, and his other job. He came back for a while, then moved away. There were other interesting things there, but that was the most obvious.

My next job, a strange thing happened, stranger than usual, when 3 guys (this was just after 9/11) came to the kiosk and asked how my boss (the secondary partner, not the active one) was doing. They said he as from his church. I answered carefully, not that I knew much. I turned to check something, and they were gone. The closest store was too far for them to have ducked into. A few days later I saw the boss and told him, and was informed he didn't go to church. It still haunts me today. Though, I learned a few months back that my boss was a leader for the Libertarian party, and important in a group that advocates informed juries. Though the thought that they may have been gov agents actually bothers me more than before I knew the extra stuff about my former boss.

There have been other things, many almost even stranger. I can tell there have been at least 2, perhaps as many as 4 different 'secret' groups I have encountered. Be they branches of something much larger, or opposing forces, I don't really know, but I believe in them. Not something I would have said 10 years ago, to be sure.

cloves,

You are opening up a very terrible can of worms here.

Brian, a very close friend of mine from High School in Santa cruz got his Ph.D. in folklore at UC Berkeley. One of the things his dissertation was on was the internet and the establishment of what he called a "Global Knowledge" pool. His first post graduate position took him to Yale where he was working on compiling stories relating to certain Aztec legends. He did a lot of online research and communicated with Professors of Folklore, Sociology,and Anthropology. He in fact stumbled onto some pretty terrible knowledge. He was trying to

Panache

[EagleJCS]

I was visiting Fort Sumter, S.C. a couple of years ago. On the Northern corner, facing the ocean, behind Battery Huger, is a gun embrasure in an alcove. It is near the foot of the stairs leading up to the upper parade gound and flagpoles. There are two arches leading into the alcove, one from the lower parade ground/stairway (in the "back" of the alcove, and one that leads to the next gun embrasure to the west-southwest (on the left as you enter the other archway). Towards the right is a solid wall.

As I was entering the alcove from the direction of the stairs, in order to look out the embrasure towards the sea, I got a chill down my back (on a hot day in mid-June - still in the sun, mind) and the uncontrollable urge to exit the alcove as soon as possible. I kept right on walking through the archway to my left. I didn't even stop to look out the embrasure, and I didn't walk into any of the other alcoves along the walll after that.

I have since spoken with a couple of other people who have had a similar experience/sensation in the same location.

[Mipi]

Interesting stories. But they are all more or less connected to old buildings and places with history. Any similar stories bounded to new houses?

[sorcererdale]

I have a slight psychic ability and scare some of my friends with predictions, mostly about close family members of either mine or his dying. I have a few ghost stories, but ones I have heard. This is something different and has been around for a long time. I want to go see it this summer. Too much to write about, but the website should give lots of details, except what causes it, as no one knows. There are lights that appear over a road and they move, but have not been determined what could cause them: http://www.backwoodswisconsin.com/paulding_light.htm

DALE.

[TexasMcGregor]

Several years back I stopped into a beer garden to shoot a bit of pool after work.

The pool tables were just inside the door, and it was not uncommon to have to wait for someone to pass before you took a shot. I was playing alone(that way I always win), as I was leaning over for a shot, I heard a man right behind me say 'excuse me'. I stood up to make way, and there was not anyone within 20 feet, and they were all otherwise occupied.

I finished the last of my beer in a single gulp, it was my first of the day, and boogied out the door. I don't think I even bothered to put the stick back in the rack. Haven't been back since.

Even further in the distant past than that, I was 8 maybe 9, my mother and I were going to visit my dad(he was rebuilding a chemical plant at the time, about a three hour drive from home). It was a trip we had made several times, and we had seen a sign for the Saints Roost Museum in Clarendon, Tx. We finally decided to stop in on one particular trip. We thought it would be a neat detour and followed the signs. We pulled up to the gate, and both of us got a very bad feeling in the pits of our stomachs. Mom got no arguments from me when she decided to leave.

[cloves]

wow...this thread got revived over a year later. Great stores. Anybody have any more they want to share?

[kevinkinney]

Hello all,

We were still tripping over the family dog in the upstairs hallway....10 years after she passed away.

Kevin.