In honor of Halloween how about we post our best ghost stories DU!

[shadowknows69]

True or not, whether it happened to you or someone you know. Be a nice break from politics for a day. I'll start



I was probably between the ages of 14 and 16 when I first found the old Ouija board in our main living room closet. My mother is a hopeless pack rat and an antique buyer whose habit borders on the compulsive, so rummaging around in any of her hidey holes as a kid always found me any number of interesting treasures.

It was clearly an old board and clearly not the commercial version that was a staple on toy store shelves in those days. It was made of a high quality wood with a beautiful lacquered sheen to its surface and the letters and numbers were bold type with a hint of calligraphy to their design. I immediately asked her about it upon discovery and she told me it was just something she had found antiquing many years ago, before I was born in fact. My mother has always been a devout Christian woman so her possession of an object of divination obviously surprised me so I asked her if she even knew what it was. I explained it to her and she said she had no idea it just looked interesting to her when she saw it.

Since a young age I had been interested in the occult so a Ouija board was old hat to me and she of course said I could have it if I wanted it. It sadly lacked its original planchette so I couldn’t dive right in with the questions to my new mystical board game but I examined my new artifact meticulously and found something that caused me to literally drop it from my hands.

As I was admiring the craftsmanship of the thing and as I turned it over to examine the back I noticed a small engraving in the wood of some words and numbers. I brought it closer to a nearby lamp to attempt to read the tiny lettering and what I read still makes me think to this day.

The type on back simply said: “Patented February 10, 1869”, I didn’t know if this was the exact day the board was made or simply when the patent for the commercialization of it was written. The board certainly seemed like it could be that old but that was not what made me drop the board as soon as I read it. I was born February 10th, 1969, and an adoptee at that so the fact I was reading something that referenced a date exactly 100 years before my birth understandably shook me for a second. Compounded by the fact my mother had purchased it before I was even a concept in her, or anyone else’s mind and my X-Files alarms went off full power. Still infected by some of my earlier Sunday school indoctrination I considered burning the thing or smashing it into pieces right there but my reckless love of the unknown instead filled me with the desire to take it for a test run.

Several nights later a friend of mine spent the night and I unveiled our new toy. Anxious to play we improvised a planchette by using a small cocktail glass and started about our questions to the “spirit” of the board. It worked, we got some creepy answers to creepy questions, both my friend and I accusing the other of moving it ourselves of course. Both of us being from similar church backgrounds we decided to try some religious themed experiments on the board. We brought out a small bible and a lace cross I owned and placed them on it, then asked it if it liked these things. We also had the stupid idea to poke it a couple times with a dart, which was dumb just from the point of damaging an antique. My mother would have probably disowned me if she had seen the act.

We received an answer to our questions but seemingly not through the board itself. At around the point we started poking it with darts a closet door in my room which was kept closed by a powerful magnetic latch suddenly clicked itself open about three inches. My friend and I probably beat several track records fleeing down my staircase to my surprised mother in the living room. We related our tale and she kind of brushed it off as your standard “boys will be boys” activity. My friend still stayed the night amazingly enough but we decided to camp out in the TV room, as if the “hostile spirit” couldn’t make its way down a flight of stairs presumably. Thankfully though, the night ended without further incident save perhaps a bad dream or two.

The next night I was resigned to the fact I would have to inhabit my own bed again. The board was exiled from my room and stashed back into the closet I found it in. I had in some way decided the door the night before could have conceivably opened by some natural phenomenon but I couldn’t see how. It was truly a strong magnet that held the latch and it took a significant pull to open. I was taking no chances though and I blocked my closet door closed with a metal trash can I had which had significant weight to it.

I was fairly religious (Christian) in those days, despite my penchant for supernatural pursuits and I actually did pray before bed every night. Maybe I was putting more faith in my garbage can than my God that night because as soon as I started praying I instantly felt a presence in my room that was like a palpable force in the room. They say “spirits” cause cold spots but this was actually almost like warmth but uncomfortable warmth. Stifling and dry and it felt like it was pushing on my whole being. I paused in mid prayer and tried to get a grasp on what I was feeling and suddenly I heard a loud scraping type sound which made me sit up and nearly leap out of bed to get to my light.

As I flicked on the light I don’t know what I expected to see, and thankfully there was no shadowy figure floating in front of me or anything but I was no less terrified when I finally realized what had made the scraping sound. My closet door with the tough magnetic latch was now fully open and the trash can had been pushed across my wooden floor as it opened. Cue to a repeat of fleeing down the stairs and sleeping in the living room, once again trying to get my mother to believe the weird crap that was going on in our house to no avail.

My room didn’t give me anymore interesting times after that but I still occasionally got the sense of something else being there with me. The Ouija board was used again a couple more times, one in particular at a party where some equally creepy things took place, and then soon after that the thing simply disappeared. I had returned it to my mother’s house but I went to show it to someone again years later and it was gone. My mom has no recollection of getting rid of it, the woman never gets rid of anything I assure you, and even when she had to move out of that house it never turned up. Hope you all enjoyed this true (as far as I’m concerned) tale of the weird. Happy Halloween!!!
S

[NoodleBoy]

1. Too lazy to write it all out, so here's a link-- La Llarona

it's pronounced ya-row-na.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona

This seriously freaked me out as a kid. We were told the version where she was married secretly and has two kids with a wealthy guy's son, but he eventually stops visiting her. Then one day, she sees him riding a carriage down the road with a woman, obviously just being married (in public) to her, and despite her trying to get his attention he ignores her as he rides by. She goes crazy and drowns her kids and herself in the process, but, of course, "she lives on," crying and screaming in the night on the banks of rivers looking for her kids, and anyone she comes across on the riverbank--especially young children--she tries to drag into the water and drown.

[shadowknows69]

3. I've heard of that one

Thanks noodleboy

[a la izquierda]

6. Delete:Dupe

[a la izquierda]

7. Hate to be a spelling freak, it's Llorona

;)

[ColbertWatcher]

43. That is a great story!

Sometimes I wonder if ghost stories were created as a way to keep the kids in line despite their curiosity.

Considering that the story takes place near a river, I wonder if it's purpose was to prevent kids from playing near rivers, especially in a desert climate where rivers can easily overflow their banks.

The recent myths that have come out of Japan are the most fascinating to me because they're all electronic technology-based.

Good stuff, thank you for posting!

[phusion]

49. La Llorona is used here...

as a spooky story to keep small kids away from the arroyos. The version I've heard always has La Llorona hanging out near arroyos looking for her kids.

[mikeytherat]

2. Here's a link to my recent ghost story (from this past Monday):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8203581#8203672

mikey_the_rat

[shadowknows69]

4. I posted a reply over there, thanks mikey!

[a la izquierda]

5. Okay, here's mine before I head off...

to Day of the Dead celebrations in the state of Michoacan, MX. FUN!

My father in law died in October, 2003. I flew to NJ for the funeral. The night of the wake, the family sat around drinking Irish coffee and generally getting drunk (gotta love Irish wakes)..but I was too tired, so I just sat with them listening to stories. I was never particularly close to my FIL.
That night, we went to sleep on the floor in the den of my sister in law's house. My husband passed right out, on account of the whiskey. I eventually fell asleep, but a few hours later awoke, sat up and put on the TV. I felt like someone was in the room with us. I looked into the kitchen, where just a few hours earlier the family had gathered and been reminiscing. Standing there, by the kitchen table was my father in law, just staring into the dining room. In the dining room, we had placed all of the photo collages and some of the flowers from the wake. I know I was awake, because the I had distinctly remembered turning the TV on and ESPN was replaying Yankees playoff highlights. I wasn't scared, just a bit startled to realize what I was seeing.

Weird things had been happening that entire week surrounding his death. For instance, my niece, who was about to turn three, walked up to the casket (closed, of course) and gave it a high five. She had never seen Pa put into the casket. She also knew he "went to the angels" before anyone had told her he passed on. It was extremely odd.

When I told my husband the next morning, I thought he was going to faint. I think he was a little sad that he appeared to me and not him. It was the second time a loved one appeared to me (the first was a month after we put our dog to sleep, and clear as day, there he was in the front yard...I could see him, but my husband could not.)

[shadowknows69]

8. Sounds like you're just more naturally in tune to the unseen than your hubby

Tell him he shouldn't be sad. Maybe your FIL let you see him instead to make sure you were taking care of his boy. Thanks for sharing michele

[Pamela Troy]

9. Mine can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4343670

[SteppingRazor]

10. *requisite skeptical comment that all of this is a bunch of hooey*

:P

[shadowknows69]

11. Sheesh what took you so long!!!

:hi:

[SteppingRazor]

12. Figured I might as well step up, since you just know someone's going to.

:hi:

[cobalt1999]

23. Saved me the trouble.

Thanks.

[SpiralHawk]

32. One entity's hooey, is another entity's Hallo-eee

[shadowknows69]

13. Things that go BUMP in the night

[auburngrad82]

14. I've seen two ghosts in my life

Both were dogs.

The first was about ten years ago. There was an old yellow dog who would sit beside the road and watch the cars go by. I'd see the dog every day and he was almost always in the same spot, although once in a while he'd be up and sniffing around beside the road.

One day I came down the road on my way home from work and the dog's body was laying in the road in a pool of blood. I was devastated. I was so bothered that I changed the route for my trip to and from work.

About a week later I decided to return home using the old route. When I got to the spot where the dog had been killed the pool of blood was still visible, but sitting beside the road, in the same spot that he had been in every day, sat the old yellow dog.

I was stunned. I continued to go home that way but I never again saw the dog. I can only guess that what I saw was a ghost.

The second time was last year. Our twelve year old lab mix passed away on December 29th. We buried her in the back yard and cried a lot but we still had five dogs to take care of.

That night I took two of the dogs for a walk after dark. We walked down the drive to the woods and, as always, turned around at the gate and started back towards the house. I turned towards the dogs, who were sniffing around in the woods. I could see both of them plainly so I know where they were. As I was watching them I saw a large black shape wander by between the gate and myself.

I'm sure that the shape was Porky, our lab mix. The shape moved like her and was her size and shape. I felt like running over and hugging her, but I was afraid if I moved towards her she would disappear. So I turned and walked towards the house, feeling her presence as her spirit followed me on my walk to the house.

I told my wife about it and it was the first time I had been able to talk about her without crying since she passed away.

The next two nights I woke up to the sound of Porky's snoring. The third night it was silent and has been silent ever since.

I miss her every day but I think she was telling me she was ok.

Those are my ghost stories. And yes, I do believe in ghosts.

[shadowknows69]

15. Good one

Yeah, our last furry friend hung out for quite a while, still does some, after she passed. What kind of lab mix was porky? We had a basset/black lab mix. Best dog ever, smart and lovable and just a hilarious looking critter.

[auburngrad82]

16. She was a black lab/chow mix.

She was solid black (even her tongue) and weighed in about 90 pounds. She spent her whole life on a diet which I think helped keep her around for twelve years. Here's my favorite picture of her:



She was the sweetest dog. She was the surrogate mother to our youngest Cattle Dog (now five years old), who learned to roll on dead things from Porky. It was really funny watching Porky teach the then three month old Tillie how to really get her stink on with a dead squirrel.

We have two dogs who are now thirteen, one who is eight, one who is five, and the youngest one is two.

[Patiod]

22. I see our cat lurking around ourside our house when she's inside

Turns out there's an identically-marked brown patch tabby of the same size and weight that lurks around our place sometimes - it's so bad that a few times I've had to drive back to the front door, go inside, and ensure that our own cat had not escaped.

I'm just glad I've seen this stranger-cat now, so if anything happens to ours, I won't mistake stranger-cat for ours coming back to haunt us.

[submerged99]

17. The Ghost in the other room?

My ex girlfriend moved into a family housing unit for the college she was attending. This was a small family unit apartment and was once a Native American boarding school. Anyone familiar with native boarding schools know that many of them were the source of many sorrows and hardships.

The unit she stayed in had a single bedroom which she stayed in. The rest of the unit contained the requisite living room, kitchen and bathroom.

She had a cousin who often would come over to watch TV and sleep on the couch later in the evening. He always told her beforehand so she wouldn't lock him out. The front door had a creak so she would hear him enter, walk around a bit getting settled, the lamp she left on would be turned off and then the TV would come on. In the morning she would get up to find him on the couch, fast asleep.

One night, as usual, she heard the woke to hear footsteps in the other room. She was a bit puzzled because she didn't hear the front door creak open. She listened for a bit and was also wondering why the TV wasn't being turned on. She could see the lamp light shining under the door but it wasn't being turned off and no shadows were being cast.

She sat up and the walking stopped. Thats when she heard giggling coming from the other room. She jumped up and ran to open her bedroom door. When she opened it up, the room was completely empty. She ran to the door to open it and look down the hallway and it was then she remembered she had locked the door that night.

She moved back to her parents home the next day.

[jhain]

18. The Jersey Devil

South Jersey born and bred- this is AWESOME


http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html __.

[shadowknows69]

20. That was very awesome

Bruce was just flat out creepy in that.

[YOY]

19. Jogging once in the woods when I was 18...

It was near dusk and in the autumn but still enough light for me to see and get back before it got dark. I was running through a secluded park trail that attached the park to a nearby suburb...about a 1/2 mile of semi-virgin Ohioan woods. I was listening to Faith No More on my headphones. Despite it being 15 years ago I remember the song was "Land of Sunshine" when it happened. Hardly music that makes you start hallucinating to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_xhbNNhJbE

I seldom saw other folks on my jogs. Usually kids cutting through or folks taking walks. I usually don't even remember passing them when I did see them unless there was something unusual about them. There are only 2 times I remember passing folks on those jogs. The first time was when I passed a trio of siblings. Two boys and their sister playing in the woods. The little girl had a horribly burned face from an accident that I heard of. Her face was what made me remember her. She was no ghost. I hope she is well and happy no matter where she is.

The second person I passed I remember may have been.

I ran past a red haired man walking a happy looking Irish Setter that looked oddly familiar. I saw them as I turned the corner on a path and ran passed them. I never acknowledge folks as I run. I am usually out of breath and covered with sweat. (I sweat when I exercise like a pig.) It was only a moment when I saw them and ran past them really. There was something really familiar about him though that piqued my exhausted little mind as ran past him with headphones on. He smelled of cigarette smoke. I got this weird chill too.

I turned my head just from curiosity. Just turned my head. Didn't turn around. He was gone. Perhaps simply beyond my peripheral vision of where I turned my head. I kept running and tried to process who the guy looked like.

When I got to the park and up a big hill where I took a breather it dawned on me who the guy looked like. Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Lewis had been dead for a few years. Massive heart attack walking his dog. A heavy smoker with a load of kids. He always reminded me of a graying red-haired version of Dick Van Patton from "Eight is Enough" he had a distinctively beak-like nose that all his kids inherited (although many had nose-jobs due to breathing problems from it.) Very involved in his kids life and most of them were in college by the time of his death. Always at the neighborhood pool coaching his and other kids. He loved to walk that dog. It was an Irish Setter just like the man I saw in the woods.

The dog died shortly afterward. He was old and very attached to Mr. Lewis. Broken heart? Don't know really.

Could have been endorphins. My heart was pounding from exercise and the brisk air was crisp in my lungs. Running through the trail meant that I had to keep my eyes open for obstacles. Could have been really a living guy that I just failed to see when I turned my head. Hindsight being 20/20 I find the though of a ghost actually scarier than the though of a ghost of a friendly guy I knew and his dog. What would he do? Threaten me to drive me to the undead swim meet and cheer for his kids? Interesting...

That's my ghost story. Not intended to scare. It is eerie though in a way.

There is only one other time I got such a chill...when I was on a sightseeing in this place:

[shadowknows69]

21. Sweet

[mikeytherat]

24. OK, I'll add one more (a human one this time).

My dad's father passed away when I was eight. Diabetes was consuming him, so we traveled to Michigan to be with my grandma and wait for the inevitable. Grandpa Honey (I called him this because of his bright blond hair - even at 85!) was in the hospice, and on the night he passed, I heard him in the room with me. As the house was full of family, I was sleeping on the couch in the living room, right next to Grandpa Honey's special chair, where he always napped in the evenings. That night, I heard his distinct snoring coming from the chair right next to me! I was thrilled, thinking that he was OK and back home, so I went back to sleep. The next morning I found he had passed at the same time I heard the snoring.

mikey_the_rat

[sarah FAILIN]

25. So many things you don't know where to start.

Right now, the situation is that we built a brand new house last fall and we're seeing things like people walking through the hallway. I was in the kitchen one night and saw a grey shape near the floor go into the mudroom and thought our outside cat had gotten in, but it wasn't the cat. About 2 months ago, we bought a pekepoo and the dog will just randomly go to this hallway and start his "scared/stranger" bark. Nothing too scary though so far other than the knowing I'm not alone.
When I was younger, we lived in a 100 yr old house way back in the woods and there were some things that would happen there that I didn't realize was strange till I left that house. I would be in bed and feel the bed move exactly as if someone had sat on the bed then lain down beside me and that happened all the time I lived thee which was all my school years. Also, once I had an experience where something jumped on me as soon as a lay down and started squeezing my shoulders with long nails. My grandmother was still awake so I screamed for her to help me and it disappeared. It was weirder than the other times because I had always been drowsy when the things would lie down by me, but this time I was wide awake. My grandma said the same thing had happened to my dad when he was a kid and slept in the same room. Since I've been grown up, I seen attacks described like I felt on different paranormal shows and I think it was called a succubus... Scary stuff for me back then. I did the messing around with the Ouiji board when I was in college and that was pretty scary with things happening like lights going out and the radio coming on. Once, all the lights just on our campus went out except our dorm lights and they glowed yellow. Scary and weird stuff, kinda wish I hadn't thought about it again.

[noel711]

26. The husband of a parishoner was dying of cancer...

Mary asked me to come and pray with him.
He was definitely a 'no-churchy' person, but
was polite to me, refused Holy Communion, and
tolerated a prayer. Before I left, he looked at
his wife, and then at me, and said: "No funeral.
When I die, bury me. That's it."

The wife just shook her head.

He died during the night. The next day Mary, the wife,
contact me about a funeral. I reminded her that he didn't
want a funeral. 'He's not here anymore,' she said, 'The service
will be for me and my family.. we need the comfort of religion.'

And that's true: a funeral IS for the living.. a gathering of
remembrance, and committal of the dead, to eternity.

So we planned a simple service.
The night before the funeral?

We lived in the church's parsonage, a home provided to the clergy.
That night I was awakened by someone walking heavily up and down
the hallway upstairs, right outside our bedroom.
Back and forth.
I woke my husband; he said that it was probably the wind.
Go back to sleep he said.
The loud walking continued; our daughter, a young teen,
ran into our room saying: "What the heck is going on?"
I told her I heard it too, and she was welcome to slip into
my bed with me. Both of us lay there thru the night,
hearing the mysterious footsteps.

As dawn approached, the footsteps came right into my bedroom,
proceeded to the window, and rapped sharply on the windowsill...
and then stopped.

When I arrived at the church building for the funeral,
there was a turkey vulture sitting on the cross atop the church steeple.
It glared at me as I unlocked the church.

We held a small service in honor of the deceased.
The family said they appreciated it.
Later the son told me his father spoke to him that night:
"I said I didn't want a damn funeral; why don't you listen?"

After the service, all was quiet.

I have lots more stories; someday I'll write a book.

[Kind of Blue]

27. I've got a story. Well, several but this is the most vivid right now.

In 2002, my beloved father-in-law who was a Marine Colonel died. Soon after I started dreaming of him just appearing to me several times and he stopped coming after I stopped full on grieving. About 2 years later I had another Colonel dream but this time it was different, he brought someone along with him.

I dreamed that he wanted me to go with him to San Francisco and magically we were there and driving up one steep hill after another to a restaurant he wanted to go to. In the restaurant, I asked him what this was all about because I said, "we both know you're dead" and we laughed so hard. Suddenly a thin gaunt faced girl, about 17, with long light brown fine hair, comes over to our booth and says to me, "you're really sensitive - I've been trying to come through for a while." I looked at the Colonel and he shrugged saying, "I don't know her." At this point in the dream I got really scared and woke up in a panic but forgot about it until my husband came home from work.

I told him about the dream and he said the girl's description sounded familiar. He got a box out of the attic and pulls out his dusty high school year book, flipped through and stopped and asked, did she look like her? All time and space just vanished at that point because I was staring at a photo of the girl in her 1978 senior photo. My husband said she had a big crush on him in high school when he and his family lived in the Bay Area. She died in a horrible fall after loosing her footing on a cliff. The funny thing he said was that people could hear her repeatedly calling for help at the bottom of the cliff but the coroner said that it was impossible because her neck snapped instantly and her head was completely crushed.

My husband says he felt very bad about treating her like a friend as he knew her true feelings for him. Up until his early 20s he constantly dreamed of her. He felt bad and uneasy because he had to tell her that she needed to move on. He said that she was really sad but never came back. I think she just wanted my husband to know that he's still in her heart without pissing him off with another visit.

[vanderBeth]

28. I never had anything scary happen to me. :(

I always have to tell the lame story about the girl with the ribbon around her neck.

[Lochloosa]

29. McCain Wins.

Do I win?

[shadowknows69]

38. That is the scariest!

:scared:

[Forrest Greene]

30. My Ouija Board Story

It's not very dramatic, but is kinda neat.

I'm the youngest in my family by several years. My sister, the oldest, is twenty years older. She got married & started having kids, so I became an uncle at the age of three. Eventually, my sister provided me with two nephews & a niece, but because of the closeness of our ages, we are more like cousins. She & her husband & the kids would drop over fairly often for a visit to my parents & I.

One rainy springtime Saturday afternoon when I was about twelve, they showed up. It being too wet to play outside, my nephews brought along something for indoor amusement: a Ouija board. We set it up in the living room, where the TV was on so that the adults, sitting around the kitchen table talking, could keep track of the Kentucky Derby, being run that day.

We asked the board some questions, mostly trying to scare ourselves, with inconsequential results. Then someone suggested we ask the board which horse would win the race. The planchette made a couple false starts, then began moving decisively under our fingers. I forget how many digits it pointed to, but we ended up with a number. We put the board aside to watch the Derby.

Well, of course, you know how the story ends. The Ouija board's pick won the race.

[Contrary1]

31. Here's mine:

Back in the early 80's, we bought a house that was a real fixer upper. More than we bargained for, as after we moved in, we found there were holes in some of the walls that had been hidden with furniture and pictures.

Anyway, I was working in the hallway, patching and sanding, when I notice out of the corner of my eye, something by the front door. It was filmy, almost cloud like. I explained it away to myself as dust, or too many paint fumes, or whatever.

It happened many times over the next several weeks, always by the front door, and only when I was doing something in the hallway. For whatever reason, I sensed this thing I was seeing was female.

I was never startled or afraid when I saw it, even the first time. I had not mentioned it to my husband, or anyone else. How do you explain something like that to someone? Besides, I was home all day with two little ones, so there was always the thought there that I was imagining things.

But, one night, I broached the subject by asking him if he had ever noticed anything unusual in the house. I asked him just that way, without going into detail.

He responded, "Are you talking about that woman by the front door?" I almost fell out of my chair.

To this day, I have no idea what it was we had both been seeing.

[sickinohio]

33. I'm posting my story here also.

My husband passed away in May 2008 after a 7-month battle with cancer. My husband has a recliner downstairs that he ALWAYS sat in. Christmas, Thanksgiving, all Holidays or any other family get together, that was his chair. It was his chair to watch the football games in, the chair that he read to our grandchildren while he sat there with them in his lap, his chair where he fell asleep with them, or just fell asleep when no one was around. Anyway, toward the end, that was the only place that he could sleep that would help alleviate some of the pain that he was in.

He passed away in Cleveland Clinic, which is about an hour and half from our house. That was a very long and hard day. By the time that my best friend (who is like the sister I've never had) and her daughter, my god-daughter, got back to my house, it was very late. The three of us sat at my dining table, crying, talking, and laughing about some of our favorite memories. My god-daughter was sitting facing the living room. All of a sudden she says Uncle S's chair is rocking. My best friend and I both turned and looked. The chair was rocking. It was as if someone was actually sitting there rocking. Then, after a few seconds, it just stopped rocking. A sudden stop. The three of us looked at each, cried, and said "he's made his way home". He's letting us know he's ok.

For a couple of years I have wanted to get rid of that chair and get a new one. I especially planned on getting a new one for him after he got so sick. But, with all of the time that my husband and I spent going back and forth to Cleveland for my husband's treatment, I was not able to do that. Now, I don't think I will ever get rid of his chair.

[Javaman]

34. The case of the old haunted church...

way back in my late teens, I was attending a community college on Long Island. It was built upon an ooooooold military base.



It was build in the early part of the 20th century as part of the immediate town but then was included into the military base when that was built. It had the classic old small town new england style church look you have come to know in every Steven King/scary ghost story you have read or seen in the movies. Very simple box structure with it's classic looking steeple.

It had been converted into the college theater and I was a theater tech at the time.

Anyway, there were always all sorts of ghost stories surrounding this particular building. A mysterious piano that would play at midnight, cold winds blowing through the upper rafters during the hot hot muggy summers while rigging lights, that skin crawling feeling as if you know you aren't alone.

Well, for me, it happened one very cold november night. A buddy and I volunteered to hang lights for the production that was starting in a week and we were a bit behind schedule.

The theater is such that the balcony (where the organ once stood) was were the lighting and sound rooms where installed. One could either take the stairs to get to them or, like many techs would do to save time, scale the very short parapet above the back row of seats.

The wind was blowing pretty good and there were several other students there as well, but they, one by one, drifted off home or to places unknown.

Art and I were the last two. The building, being very old, dusty and after a good rain, smelly, creaked and groaned in the wind.

However, the stairway to the balcony had two very distinctive sounds. When one would walk up the stairs, there would be a "snap" and a "thud". It became a running joke. If one was alone in the theater, you could always know when someone was going up to the sound room by the very distinctive, snap thud.

So, there we are, Art and I just finished hanging some lamps. We wanted to kill the lights for the night. There was only one master kill switch and that was in the lighting room. It would turn out all of the lights.

So while we are looking over the lights, we hear the "snap thud", we both look at each other and grin, thinking it was one of our fellow techs. We wanted to scare the crap out of them. Art sprinted down the isle to go up the stairs and I scaled the wall. As I got closer, I could hear the foot steps. Just as I mounted the wall and started running down the isle, up the stairs comes Art and we run into each other. No one was there.

Thinking we somehow missed them we looked into the sound and lighting rooms. no one there. This kind of unnerved us a bit. We decided to call it a night and began to make our way down the stairs when all the lights went out in the church.

At first we thought it a power failure, but no, peeking around the corner down the long isle into the lighting room. The glow of the small blue lights on the control panel were still lit.

The lights had just decided to go out.

Like two ninnies, straight out of an Abbot and Costello movie, we sprinted out of the building, down a connecting hallway into the only other class open late that night. A adult ed pottery class.

We bashfully explained what happened. The teacher laughed and said, "oh that's just the old saint that keeps watch over the church".

We went back. the lights were back on, we closed up and went home.

[iamahaingttta]

35. I have a picture of a ghost!

I'm working on a project converting an old brewery building in Brooklyn NY into band rehearsal and recording studios.
The building was abandoned for many years, and it's pretty spooky!
In the course of doing work removing debris, etc, three of the workers saw a ghost of an old man several times, one worker even ran out of the building and refused to return.

One day I was there with some potential clients, and we were in the room where the ghost was seen.
I just happened to take the picture below, at a moment when one of the clients started getting a creepy feeling.
There was one person looking in the old smokestack, who you can see in the picture.
The other two people were in a different room, off to the left.
When I looked at the photo on the camera, I said "What the hell is that!" and the others came to look.
The woman, who was in the other room, said that she had just gotten this really weird feeling, right before I yelled that out.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/uKkcwDR0wqQ1tsLtRZFBzw?authkey=c42uwRHYJX4"><img src="" /></a>

There were several other photos taken right before that one, and several afterwards.
None of the others had the blur.
We thought maybe it was condensation or something, except for the movement, and none of the other photos showed this.

I'm willing to entertain other explanations, except for the fact that at least 3 other people saw the ghost in that room!

Oh yeah, and there was an old urn in the building that someone took home, until strange things started happening to him.
After he took the urn back to the building, the strange events stopped.

Ghost story?
You decide!

[csorman]

36. I still remember my experience vividly.

It was 1998 and I was a senior in college. I lived with my boyfriend (now my husband) and 4 others in a rickety old house on the east side of campus in Madison. It was the kind of house that gave you the chills even if you don't believe in ghosts - the foundations were uneven, the basement was cold and dark and had an old coal-bin in the back corner. The house itself would give anyone very strange feelings.

Weird things started happening shortly after we all moved in that fall. The strangest thing is that the stove burners would frequently be on when we entered the kitchen - my husband and I attributed it to one of our roommates who we were not getting along with at the time, but she swore she never did it. This happened constantly - burners being left on, the refrigerator door opening, and the oven having turned on.

The front bedroom on the main floor of the house was also very creepy. Our roommate who slept there often felt uncomfortable, and it was prone to cold spots now and again. Also, the front "mudroom" (a 2nd living room of sorts) always gave me the creeps, and when I'd study in there alone, I felt someone was watching me.

So after months of these random occurrences, we had a few friends over one night in the late fall. We decided to get the Ouija board out and sit in that front room with it. The board rested upon a very thick glass coffee table, and we were all seated on our butts, cross-legged, with our wrists relaxed and our fingertips lightly on the planchette (4 us - the rest of the folks were watching). I was asking the questions, and we immediately got responses from the board, and the planchette moved jerkily and quickly between "Mom" and "No" over and over again. I can't remember the questions I was asking, except for the final one - "Whatever is in here, are you bothered by our trying to reach out to you?" Just then, and not a moment later or earlier but at the exact second I finished the question, the coffee table shattered. It felt as if a huge, weighty force had dropped from above (like a giant fist) and some of us heard a "whoosh" sound. We all jumped up and ran out onto the screen deck, literally screaming at the top of our lungs and getting stuck in the door.

For the next 2 hours we sat on the deck, chain-smoking (even those of us who didn't smoke), and trying to make sense of it all. After all these years, there is nothing to explain it. Even my boyfriend and his brother - two infamous skeptics - were terrified and couldn't explain it (though they tried - nothing ever came together). There was zero pressure on the table, and the thick glass top had taken its share of beatings over the years since I'd had it - including a drunk friend falling into it at one of my earlier apartments. The whole thing made us cringe. One of my roommates joined me later that night as we grabbed the board and once again started contacting whatever was there. We came to the conclusion that there was a very unhappy spirit there, maybe who was kept against their will, who was abused, etc. We didn't get the specifics - but the general message was there.

A few years later we met a couple of guys who my boyfriend's brother knew through the theater we all did some work with. His brother told us we HAD to meet them because they had a crazy story we couldn't believe. So, one of these guys had lived in the same house the year before us. We asked him to tell us if he had witnessed anything weird, and he told us about burners being left on, the stove turned on, and cold spots in the front bedroom which he occupied. We all stood there, frozen. He said that he had met another couple who had lived there just recently, and they all had similar stories.

I'll never forget the feelings from this place - just plain creepy, and we were happy as hell to get out of that place that spring. Every once and awhile when we drive back to Madison, we drive past the house - still looks the same - and for a moment those feelings wash over us again.

[lazyriver]

37. The Hookerman...it's long but every word 100% true as it happened.

In the quiet northwest corner of NJ where I grew up their was a local legend of the Hookerman. I don't know exactly all the details of the more widely accepted (across north Jersey) version of this legend but by the time I was 13 I had heard all the very local stories from all the older local kids (and some adults). The story, as I'm sure most ghost stories do, had evolved and been embellished in probably every circle of friends that told it. The version my friends and I heard basically made the Hookerman out to be a ghostly serial killer who wandered the railroad tracks of our area carrying a lantern and killing anyone he found out at night with a large meat hook that may or may not have been a replacement for one of his hands depending on who was telling the story. He would come upon kids playing in the woods by the tracks, kill them in horrific ways and scatter their butchered remains along the railroad tracks. Adult deer hunters used to tell tales of finding the small skulls of children in the woods pierced by some sort of sharp object. Friends who knew friends who had uncles or fathers who were railroad conductors and engineers had all confirmed these tales with their own stories about missing children and human remains found on the tracks. Older kids loved scaring the hell out of the younger ones in my neighborhood by telling these stories of the Hookerman - old "classic" stories we heard before and new ones recounting their own first hand experiences when they walked the tracks at night looking for him.

It seemed all the older teenagers had made pilgrimages to the section of tracks where the Hookerman was supposed to be most prevalent. You could say it was a local rite of passage or statement of bravery that got you off the "he's still a baby" list with the older cooler kids. It also seemed every kid who made the trip had seen the Hookerman but somehow managed to elude him and escape with their lives to tell the tale. My neighbor and his friend, both 17 at the time told my best friend and me the story of their night several years ago at the tracks looking for the Hookerman. They described what so many others had described when walking a particular section of track on a moonlit night: first, from a couple hundred feet away or so you see the lantern he's holding, he usually stands very still and doesn't move hoping you come close enough for him to hook you. If you dare to move closer you'll see the glint of the steel hook in his other hand as he tries to hide it behind his back. If you move closer still, he vanishes most likely into the woods where he waits to jump out as you pass by. Most kids turned and ran when he vanished not wanting to push their luck any further. They could return home with their lives and entrails still intact and say proudly they had seen the Hookerman.

And so it came to be after what seemed like weeks of ribbing from the older kids in the neighborhood, that my best friend and I decided to go see the Hookerman ourselves and become "men". We planned it out so our trip fell on a weekend during a nearly full moon. We planned to camp out in my parents' backyard as we often did and sneak out on our bikes after dark. When the moon rose, we set out on our BMX bikes for the tracks carrying three flashlights, an air rifle and a couple hunting knives for self defense. The tracks were about three miles away down the backside of what passed for a mountain in NJ. It was not a smart ride for bicycles even during the day but a hair raising, white-knuckle ride down to the tracks in the dark. When we got to the RR crossing our adrenaline was really flowing as much from fear and anticipation as the bike ride. I can still remember the heightened senses and that feeling of my heart pounding in my chest and making a boomp, boomp, boomp sound in my ears. We knew exactly where we needed to go and after making some half-assed "escape" plan for when he came after us, we stashed the bikes and set off down the tracks to meet our destiny.

The moon cast just enough light to walk on the ties without flashlights. We moved very carefully and quietly as I clutched my hunting knife and my friend his air rifle. We didn't speak a word and got more and more creeped out by the always eerie sounds of the night. Every step forward was pure danger and we prepared to face death alone in the dark. After about five minutes that felt like an hour, suddenly my friend jabbed me with the butt of the air rifle and made a sound like "Unnnfff!" He pointed ahead and to the left with the gun and my eyes caught it almost immediately - a strange small light about 150 feet in front of us. It looked to be about chest high. We froze and stood their silently. Had he seen us? I lifted my head and looked down the tracks. The light was still there hanging motionless in the sky. "Should we run?", my friend whispered through his teeth. "I don't know", I quietly mouthed back. We stayed hunkered on the tracks for what seemed an eternity before we agreed to get a little closer to see if this light was what we had come to find. We reminded each other of the escape plan and agreed to execute it when either of us yelled out the cue, "NOW". He would take a head shot with the pellet gun to slow him down just before we would sprint through the woods on the way back to the bikes.

All the stories of the Hookerman I had ever heard played back through my head as we inched a little closer. As the description of him hiding the hook behind his back raced through my mind, I saw the glint of steel a couple feet from the light. Oh shit, was that the hook??? I nudged my friend and he nodded silently but for some reason we took a few more steps and he raised the air rifle to his shoulder. We focused intently on the light and the shiny object and took one, two, three more steps and then it happened. We were about 100 feet away when the light and the steel object fucking disappeared right before our eyes. I heard a noise starting to build, kind of like the sound of screeching brakes way off in the distance then realized it was coming from deep in the back of my throat but also a similar noise from off to my left where my friend stood. Suddenly I hear the loud pop of the air rifle and something that resembled the Fay Wray scream from King Kong barreling from my friend's throat. He tried to scream "Now" but it came out as "Neeeeeeyaaaaahhhh", as he turned and sprinted down the tracks before veering off into the woods in the opposite direction of the bikes. I took a quick look back to where the light had been as I begged my legs to unfreeze. In a second I was sprinting into the woods as well in what I believed to be the direction of the bikes. I managed to hold on to my knife but dropped the flashlights on the tracks as I ran

I have never been so frightened as I was for the next hour - lost in the woods in the dark with a phantom serial killer on the loose, separated from my best friend who was certainly being dismembered as I wandered in desperate silence hoping to find him or my bearings. I couldn't call out to him out fear of giving my position away to the Hookerman. I was haunted by the thought of him being killed, of me being killed and even worse, me living and having to tell his parents where to find whatever was left of his body. I threw up twice as I struggled with the terror. With my head spinning I crouched down with my back against a large tree and sat silently in the dark clutching my knife nearly sobbing.

When I first noticed the crunch, crunch, crunch sound, it was behind me, getting closer. As it did so, it became clear I was hearing footsteps. It was getting nearer and nearer and moving fast directly toward the tree that served as my shelter. Soon I heard the raspy breathing. It wheezed and strained, huffed and puffed and sounded like evil itself. I couldn't see what it was and didn't want to. I decided when it rounded the tree I would lunge with my knife and hope to hit something vital, making my last stand right there instead of prolonging my fate. I gripped down hard on the knife and cocked my arm hoping it came around the tree on my left side instead of my right but then the footsteps stopped and a weak light emanated from the other side of the tree. I realized my legs were shaking so badly my boots were rustling the leaves. It had heard me.

Some people superfluously say, "I was so scared, I peed my pants". I am not ashamed to say that actually happened to me when that light came on. My pulse pounding in my head was so loud I was sure the Hookerman could hear it. We each remained silent and motionless, me waiting for him to get close enough to stab, him, I was sure, straining to hear more of that leaf rustling that gave me away. Then a voice squeaked, "H-H-Hey man? Is that you?" It was Kyle with the third flashlight. Thankfully for both of us, he was able to form words, for in about five more seconds, he would have gotten six inches of cold steel in his neck.

It took us only ten more minutes to find our bikes since between the two of us and our lost wanderings we were able to eliminate three directions where we were certain they were not. I think we pedaled back up the mountain faster than we coasted down. We spent the whole night hanging out under the street light at a marina near my house telling each other the details of our stories (his was even scarier than mine, I'd share but only he can really tell it and do it justice) and reveling in our improbable survival in the face of certain death.

Disappointment came the next day when we proudly sought out Chris, Mike and Tom, the older guys in our neighborhood, to tell them of our exploits and announce we were real men (there was no mention of screaming or wetting of pants, of course). They were impressed with our bravery but then broke the news to us that the Hookerman wasn't real. The actual rite of passage was being old enough to figure that out. We insisted and told them what we saw. Chris drove us down there in the daylight and much against our will, brought us down the tracks where we were the night before. The Hookerman was some sort of post with an indicator light on one side that turns on and off every so often and a reflective number plate on the other side that catches the moonlight. He explained as you move closer to it, your line of sight changed and the reflection disappears. It so happened the light went off at the same time as the reflection change when we approached it.

We certainly did some growing up that previous night and even more as Chris laughingly let us off the hook the next day. Our stories (modified for optimum terror and minimal embarrassment)were added to the local folklore hopefully still scaring the shit out of neighborhood kids to this day.

[shadowknows69]

40. A great read lazyriver thanks.

[lazyriver]

41. You're welcome. Thank you for many great reads. I've enjoyed

many a shadow post over the last 2+ years since finding DU and look forward to more.

[philly_bob]

39. The girl and her little dog Anjo

There was a young woman, an orphan, who lived on the edge of the Brazilian forest. The girl was very lonely, except for her little white dog Anjo.

One day at the market she heard a man singing a beautiful song that melted her heart. She stepped forward to see who was this singer, but Anjo started yapping and the man ran away.

The girl was very mad at the dog for this. So the next time she went to the market, she tied Anjo to a tree and went alone.

Sure enough, she heard the song again and stepped forward to see who was singing. He was very handsome. He said hello to her. They talked for a while, and he offered to walk back from the market with her. They laughed and talked and as they got close to her house, she asked him if he would like to stop in for a glass of fruit juice. He said yes, but when they got to the house, Anjo started yapping again and the man ran away again.

The girl was so mad that she took a rock and killed Anjo and buried him in the yard behind her house.

So the next time the handsome man walked her home from the market, she asked him to stop in, but just as they were nearing her house, she heard the voice of Anjo yapping from the grave, and the man ran away again.

This time the girl was so mad that she dug up Anjo's body and carried it the ocean and threw it over a steep cliff.

So finally, she went again to the market and met the handsome singer and they went to her home and there was no yapping Anjo to warn her. She suffered and died in the most gruesome manner, for the singing man was the devil himself.

- Adopted from Brazilian folktale.

[ColbertWatcher]

45. I love these kinds of stories! Thank you for posting! n/t

[Zhade]

42. I used to be conservative. And a christian.

Hey, it scared me.

(Actually, neither of the above ever took, thankfully.)

I also used to believe in woowoo bullshit... which I suppose is the same as the other two things.

[ailsagirl]

44. A little off subject but on Hardball, they had some guy wearing a

McLame/Failin' tee shirt trying to sell them in New York. He was roundly ignored. Except for one lady who asked him if that was his Halloween costume!! She said something like, "Now THAT'S scarey!!" :eyes:

[DireStrike]

46. Sad to say, I have none of my own...

I was always into the supernatural, always looking for evidence. Eventually I settled on Aliens as the primary harbingers of terror - science, I was sure, would soon solve the mystery of ghosts(After all, the Ghostbusters seemed very professional), and most monsters could be defeated if you just threw enough hot lead at them.

In my youth, I would spend part of my summer vacation in upstate New York at my grandparents' house. A beautiful place, situated on near a hundred acres of land, with a pond behind it. The stars shone as brightly as anything I'd ever seen, to embarrass the feeble wire-and-glass bulbs of the city that I was used to. The silence was deafening, except of course for the crickets, and the stock-horror-film-like howling that came from a corner of the old building as the wind bit into it. My cousin and I had spent days winding ourselves tighter and tighter around the stories we'd heard of what aliens did. They're more likely to strike in the country, where there are fewer witnesses, we convinced ourselves. They can put everyone to sleep, except their intended victim. There was no defense.

Except, of course, for all the traps we built. The tinkertoy contraptions would definitely be effective against ultra-futuristic technology, and they might not have antidotes ready for the venom of the plastic poison dart frogs we set above the door, to surpsise and attack any invaders.

I guess it worked - I never saw any aliens then or since. Except that one that kept me up for several hours staring at its shadow, as it stood there on the stairs. What is it waiting for?! I asked myself. Turns out it was waiting to stop being a vacuum cleaner.


Now my mother has seen a few ghosts. Well, not really seen. I can't really tell her story but I'll tell you what happened.

The first event happened when she was young. She and a friend were playing by themselves, in her friend's house. Suddenly, a clattering ruckus caused my mom to look up.

"Did you hear that?", my mom said.
"Did you see that?", said her friend.

Her friend had seen a kitten chasing something across the room. She had heard nothing. There were no cats in the house.


Later on, in college (or perhaps afterwards), mom had a small apartment by herself, upstairs from an old man that was renting it to her. One day, the landlord approached her. "I don't mean to pry, or complain", he said, "but why was that man pacing around in heavy boots in the middle of the night?" My mom, of course, had seen and heard nothing. She was asleep in the room at the time.

[Luna_C_06]

47. I had a little freak-out a few years ago.

My family and another that we are close friends with went on a road trip during Thanksgiving break and we had to pull over to read our map. Of course we had to pull over next to a grave yard and as we were driving up everyone, except my dad, saw a round, pure white, solid orb race across the graves and up into the only tree there. People in both cars saw it, I saw it, my sisters saw it, my mom saw it, and everyone in the other car saw it. Since this other family is very religious, their kids immediately went to the tree to see what it was and nothing was there. Whatever it was, it couldn't have gotten away without us seeing it. And we checked everywhere, but still could not find it.

[BoneDaddy]

48. Succubus on a sophomore

I was finished with my exams my sophomore year in college running on about 2 and a half days without sleep, high on coffee and books. I crept into my dorm room which consisted of a small cell with a bunk bed in the corner that my room mate and I crashed into every night.

So I stumble into my sanctuary in the middle of the day, drunk on exams and sleep deprivation and crawl into my bottom bunk. I pull the top bunk sheets and blankets down around me at the foot of the bed and the side that was open, sealing myself into my own little cocoon. Lying there I could hear the Beach Boys on my next door neighbor's radio and found myself drifting in between sleep and consciousness. I remember being fully conscious as my body fell deeper into sleep...strange feeling.

Then I can hear the door open and a person enter. For some reason I thought it was a woman and was my friend's girl friend who, frequently, would crash at our place. So I hear her walk in and approach my little cocoon of blankets. Whatever it was I felt it move the sheet aside and came close to my face. Think about shutting your eyes and placing your hand near your face, it felt that close....warm, close in proximity. The presence felt definitely female and negative or harmful for some reason. This contradicted my experience with my friend's girlfriend as she was rather friendly and nice.

But whatever it was moved from one side of my face to the other side and my conscious mind could not understand how she could possibly do such a thing physically as she would have to be leaning totally across the bed to be on my other, left, side. At this point I began to panic and I tried to move, and found that I could not. Whatever I was experiencing was perceived as evil and destructive and I tried to move and was paralyzed. I spent a few moments in this state and being a good Catholic raised boy I began to recite the Hail Mary. Once I did, the "evil" spirit left my face, I could hear it leave the room and the door shut. The second the door shut I lept out of bed and opened the door and found the hallway empty.

I am not a religious person and have in fact left the Catholic church so this is not some lame appeal at petitioning a Catholic response. I believe that if I uttered any personally powerful mantra, the "evil" spirit would have left. Regardless, I was confounded with my experience for over ten years until I learned of "Old Hag Syndrome". Apparently, cross culturally, a solid (10-15%) of any population have experienced something akin to it. The way it has been explained is that it is a Succubus or "female vampire" that "rides" a person (male and felmae) until dawn, sucking the life energy from them. The psychological answer is that it is a Hypnogogic State or "night terrors" by others. All I have to say is that regardless of how you describe it, it was still one of the most terrifying happenings of my life.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

50. Mine is quite simple and more of a spirit than a ghost story.

It happened over 8 years ago.

It started when the love of my life was in the hospital, going in and out of consciousness. When he fell into a coma I had an exceptionally vivid dream of his being awake and looking radiant on his hospital bed. In the dream, the bed was located between his room and the hallway, and he told me that he was going to be okay and not to worry about him. I knew when I woke up, he was going to die. He did the following morning.

A dear friend of mine is a talented psychic medium, and after he passed over, she acted for a short while as a conduit between the both of us. She related things from him to me, that I never shared with her. There is no way that she would have known such detail unless she was in contact with him. She also told me that he was okay. The same words in my dream.

Although he passed over, I felt him all around me. I had goosebumps as if he was touching me. Odd things were happening to the electric appliances in the house. The phone would ring and no one would be there.

I then learned about EVP. Electronic Voice Phenomenon. It is a technique that "ghost hunters" use to record voices of ghosts. It utilizes a tape recorder, preferably digital, and supposedly if the speed is slowed down on replay, you can catch the voice of someone who has passed over.

I purchased a digital recorder and in the absolute quiet of my home started to talk to Tony. I would then leave long pauses to catch his response. I did this three times... my voice was the only one recorded. On the fourth try... I received a message from him... I love you (my name). That was the last time I had that kind of contact with him.

For a year or so, I felt him near me, and occasionally, even now I can see him smiling at me in my mind's eye, but that recording was tangible proof for me that his beautiful spirit lives on.

[shadowknows69]

51. Fascinating Ommm

And thanks to everyone for some great stories!!!