; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Reader Submissions: Home Sweet 'Haunted' Home


Here are few short anecdotes, submitted by readers, describing paranormal activity in the home:

We have experienced several different strange things in our house. The house isn't scary. It was built in 1963 by my wife's grand parents. In the first event, my wife took a picture of my step daughter in the living room and two light anomalies appeared in the picture. One had a palm of a hand in it. The other had the face of my wife's grandmother and great grandmother in it. There were also reflections in the back door window of her grandfather in one pane and 2 Yorkie dogs in another. Her Grandparents had Yorkies. Getting that picture enlarged to investigate further, my wife was standing in a line at a copier place, and guy working there asked why she needed that picture enlarged. She explained what the picture contained and the guy behind her in line took two steps backwards and turned and left after she gave him a look at the picture.

Two or three time we had the roll of toilet paper come completely unrolled in the front hall bathroom. I watched it happen one time. At times we hear loud bangs as if something had fallen but, I go to find out what had fallen and there's nothing there to make the noise.

One time we were watching TV on the living room sectional and one of the pillows started moving as if the cat was behind it. We watched it move a couple more times, thinking the cat would come out from behind it. I got up and moved the pillow and there was no reason for the pillow to move.

One evening, I was sitting in my recliner. My wife was on the sectional closest to me and my step daughter was laying on the other end of the sectional. My grand daughter was sitting on the coffee table when, between my wife and daughter, a voice whispered loudly "boys". Everyone heard it but, there was no possible explanation for the voice.

I would say that every day I will see something out of the corner of my eye and I turn to look but, no one or thing is there. We aren't afraid of this house because, the only people that have lived there was my wife's family. I understand that objects can have spirits attached to them. We do have several antiques that we have acquired over the years. Maybe something I've brought there had someone following along with it. We never know what will happen next.

OKC

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I have never tried to contact someone before about this, but here it goes. It's not a traditional "alien" story, but I am interested in seeing if anyone else has seen what I did. When I was 7 or 8 years old, I lived on Oahu in Hawaii, in the Salt Lake City area, which is located next to the base on that island.

We lived in a very populated area in a 12 level apartment building. It was a two bedroom - my parents room was on the other side of the apartment. One night I had a bad dream and got up in the middle of the night to sleep in my parent's bed.

Only my dad was there - I don't remember where my mother was. At some point in the earlier morning hours I had to go to the bathroom. I wasn't scared - I was just sleepy. The bathroom was adjoined to the bedroom. As I walked out of the bathroom toward the bed, something in the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked up and saw a figure in a dark cloak walking past the doorway.

It saw me at the same time. We both were startled, and just stared at each other for a moment. I was scared out of my mind. I couldn't move or scream. One thing that was impressed on me was how little it was. It was my height.

It was wearing a dark cloak that covered its head and was clasped at the neck. Inside the cloak was pitch-black (so much that it seemed unnatural), and two large oval slanted (typical) RED glowing eyes was all I could see.

We stared at each other for a moment, then it jumped out of view. I had no idea what I saw nor what to do - I was completely freaked out and my dad was lying there asleep. So I did what most children do when they are scared - I laid down on the bed, and pulled the covers over my head.

It seemed like I might be imagining it as it happened, but I felt someone pushing down on the bed in a circle around me, and then last pushing on my pillow. I remembered everything very clearly, but didn't tell anyone for a very long time.

It never crossed my mind that it was an alien until much later. I thought it was some kind of demon. There are a lot of stories about evil little people in Hawaii, and I figured that was what I saw. But I met a lady who heard my story and told me about the greys, and the fact that I surprised and shocked it is what I can't get over. She said that it was probably expecting me to still be in my bed and that it was there for my father.

MO

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I was always close with my grandparents. When my mom and dad divorced, I stayed with my them for several years. My grandfather worked as a private contractor for Bell Labs and retired late in life. He worked on America's first radar system. He was a firm believer in UFOs and told me that radar picked them up all the time.

My grandfather's health started to slip in late 1973, several years after he retired. I lived in the Chicago area and met my wife about the same time. We decided to get married in April 1974. Late in 1973 my grandfather had a heart attack and was never the same.

The doctors advised against him flying from New Jersey to Chicago for our wedding, but he did anyway. My grandfather was a big pipe smoker and preferred a private blend only available in a New Jersey tobacco shop. I loved the smell and as a small boy, I would sit on his lap and watch the swirls of sweet smelling smoke travel through the air. I will always remember that smell.

Soon after our wedding, my grandfather passed away. It was about a year after his death that I became a believer in the afterlife. I was sitting in the living room working on setting up a fish tank. My wife was in the kitchen washing dishes. All of a sudden a strong aroma of tobacco overtook the room. It was my grandfather's private blend, no doubt about it. I called my wife into the room and she smelled it as well. We looked all over. Inside, outside, and there was no explanation to the smell.

I know, without a doubt, that it was my grandfather. I think it was his way of letting me know that he was OK and life doesn't end with death. I swear that this story is true.

Dave B.

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For the last 10 years I've lived in a house in old town Orange,California. It started about eight years ago when my daughter was two years old. She used to talk to an imaginary friend that she called Tina. At first I didn't think anything of it until I realized that Tina never left the house. From my experiences with that imaginary friend when I was little, my imaginary friend went everywhere with me. So I started to ask her questions and she told me that Tina went swimming without her parents. I didn't think this was something that a two-year-old would know something about. I would hear her talking in her room and every time I would go in, she would say that Tina just left out the window - as if Tina didn't want me coming in the room.

One day she told me that Tina had touched her face. That was it. I got my husband and he walked around the house and said Tina go home. From then on we never heard from Tina again. That's when all the shadow people started. I would see them walk down the hallway and into the kitchen not ever looking at me - as if I was never there. Friends would come over and say they thought they saw people standing in our hallway. Things would go missing all the time and then show up later in places that we had already looked, etc. One day this lady, that I had never met before, told me that I have portal in my hallway. I don't know how this lady knew anything about anything going on in my house - I had never met her before. But in fact, that's where all the activity was - in the hallway.

I was in a bad place in my life. I was drinking a lot, so I kind of thought that all of this had something to do with that. But as things got better I noticed that the activity was still there. I thought that this is all in my head because my husband would never admit to anything until it started messing with him. At one point we were both awakened in the middle of the night to a strong smell of smoke. When we both woke up out of a dead sleep to check it out it faded to cigarette smell then went away. I watched a doll on the middle of my dresser and raise up and fall off. That freaked me out. Things begin to slow down and didn't happen again for a couple years up until a few months ago. As soon as we started discussing moving that's when the activity started again - as if it doesn't want us to leave. I have a Doberman who would bark at corners and be scared to going to certain rooms - totally out of his character. Static in the phone lines started - my husband freaked when he heard some sort of voice that we had never heard before. It wasn't me and it wasn't him. I don't know who was on the phone line with us but it didn't sound human. Currently we are looking to move not really because of the haunted house but for other reasons, but it doesn't seem to want to let us go. I must mention that never once have I completely felt threatened it's just very unnerving to live with this.

Heather

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I've had at least 3 experiences I can recall that involved the shadow person. My first and earliest one was as a young child. Some nights in my bedroom I would wake to see one stand next to the door. It looked like a man dressed all in black with a top hat. It or he would just stand there until I cried myself back to sleep. Why I didn't see the traditional things that children are afraid of such as a monster or ghost is puzzling.

In later life I saw another one of these things following an elderly relative. This time the shadow person looked more human and less dark, it seemed to be conversing with my relative who clearly had no idea it was there. As soon as I noticed this figure, it vanished. One night whilst doing my accounts I happened to glanced at the TV when something caught my attention in the chair nearby. \A tall and well built transparent man seemed to be sitting in the chair - obviously facing me. I could only see his outline which was a soft light. I went back to my work thinking I was imagining what I saw. Then, from the corner of my eye I saw this figure stand up and walk to its right - passing through a wall. I was a little shaken by this but nothing else happened. I'm either sensitive to such things or perhaps, they are allowing me to see them?

MPM


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Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain

SHADOW WORLD: True Encounters with Beings from the Darkside