Share your ghost stories here

Not an orb person but a relative died and my cousin cleaned out the apartment. He took pictures after it was emptied and cleaned in case the landlord decided to clap back.

One of the shows a huge green blob floating in front of the door. It’s not a little dust reflection, it’s something else. Maybe it was the relative saying thank you or what the hell are you doing?

Which ones and how many you want??

Every once in awhile. When I'm scrolling through posts on here. I see the ghosts of Gerg and Teacake.

The same as I've told before. The woman wearing clothing I'd never seen before in my grandmother's vegetable garden and smiling at me. Some sort of long dress or robe and I felt the love she was sending me through her smile. Still stumped by it but it was real. Still real.

Do you think maybe she was an ancestor or someone who once lived on the property? Although it's kind of scary, it's also interesting. Were you scared at the time?

Not exactly a ghost story, but more paranormal.

I had a very close friend in high school, but had an even closer connection with her mother. We lost touch a little bit when I moved out of state, but she would tell me all she'd have to do to get me to call would be to pull out her ironing board and start ironing, and somehow I would call her in the middle of it. It's why she would always say, "I knew you were going to call," when I did.

Fast forward a few years and she'd been diagnosed with ALS while I was in the middle of my career, busier than ever. I went to see her, and hated watching her deteriorate. It's hard watching someone you love fade away.

A couple months after I saw her last and I was on a trip in the Middle East. In the middle of the night, I was asleep, dreaming away when suddenly my dream changed from whatever I was dreaming to me, my friend, and her mother standing in her mother's old house. She turned to me with a sad smile on her face and said, "I'm going to miss you so much!" It was so upsetting that I woke myself up out of the dream. It was 2:15am local time. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, so I got up, went for a walk, and then went to work. Close to the end of my workday, I got an email from my friend's daughter who said I needed to call her, and I did. She wanted to let me know that "our" mom had died. We were both crying, but I managed to say, "I know. She came to say goodbye to me." I asked when she'd died, and was told that it was 2:30am local Abu Dhabi time/3:30pm Pacific time. So one of my closest friends had come to say goodbye to me on her deathbed.

That's beautiful R6.

I think I’ve written about this on DL before, but as a kid I saw a woman in my home wearing what appeared to be yellow pajamas. She had long black curly hair. She looked like a real person but the closer I got to her, the more transparent she became and eventually she vanished. This happened the night before Easter. I have never seen anything like it since.

Once shortly after someone I loved died, I woke up in the middle of the night to find them at the foot of my bed. The light around them was slightly unusual. I asked: how did you get here? "Jesus let me come." I asked: Did you know how much we loved you? "I know." And that was it. Gone. I fell asleep again. Rationally it was grief, deep, deep grief, manifesting. I am agnostic verging on atheist at this point. But I cannot shake the sensation of that light and the... I don't know the purity of the sensations in that moment... it was honestly otherworldly. How does a dream do exactly what you need it do? I guess I'll find out the answer if there's anything goes down once I breathe my last. I doubt it, but not with total certainty. This happened more than forty years ago and the sense and memory of it are as vivid as ever.

Bump

There’s no ghosts-you guys are all full of shit or drunk or both-the only scary is Trump.

If you like scary books, try and get your hands on The Ghosts That Walk in Washington by Hans Holzer. One chapter, called The Oakton Haunt, scared the hell out of me as a child. It’s a good read, whether you believe in psychics or ghosts or not.

Don't know if this is really a ghost story, but My mother my sister and I bought a new house. We got a good deal because the woman was liquidating her dead father's estate. He was a widower, semi retired lawyer who had a heart attack and died suddenly.. Nice house. I was 19 at the time, commuting to college four days a eek, Ma worked and my younger sister was in 11th grade. Neither ma or my sister drank coffee. And they both left the house earlier than me. I would get up around 8:30. Anyway, the first year we were there, many mornings I would wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I'd cautiously wander down stairs to the kitchen, and of course no one was there, no coffee, but the aroma was there fleetingly. About a year later it stopped. My mother and sister claimed they smelled on weekends, too.

Best ghost story of all time: The New Testament. What an ending!

Sort of an on-going thing. My friend has a haunted house.

I went to visit her. She lives in an old Victorian built in the 1880s. It had been converted into apartments, but when she and her husband bought it, all of the tenants were gone, so they rehabbed it. This is important to the on-going story.

The rehabbing alone is a fucking unbelievable story, suffice it to say, they restored it back to her original glory (as best they could) and it’s fucking amazing. It’s also in a “bad” area. At least, people think it is, but it’s not bad at all.

Anyway. It’s haunted AF by four ghosts, one of which I’ve had numerous encounters. He’s one of the butlers. She’s very familiar with him, too.

This dude is very protective of the family. I was visiting her and asked to use the bathroom.

My friend told me to go upstairs and use her laundry room bathroom on the second floor. This is the middle of a summer afternoon, so I didn’t bother to turn on the lights, at it was plenty bright enough from the natural light coming in through all of the second floor windows.

I start up the steps and by the time I got about half way up, the staircase had gone ice cold and the top of the stairs was dark - like some dark cloud was hovering there. I told him (it’s a “him”) that I had to pee and I was going to pee and all of his threats weren’t going to stop me.

Now, I could see that there was still sunlight pouring in to the windows, because I was still walking slowly up the steps, but the landing at the top of the steps was dark and menacing.

Well, I had to piss. I hit the top of those stairs and shimmied past that menacing cloud in a sideways run and that fucker was on me, breathing down my neck. It was a physical sensation of some one pressing against you. I leapt into that bathroom and shut the door. He didn’t follow.

When I came out, he was still there. I walked toward the stairs and he let me pass, but once I started down the steps, he went to block the landing again.

I got to the bottom of the steps and turned to look back up at him, but he was gone.

I worked up the nerve two visits later to ask about him, as people tend to freak out if you say their house is haunted. She laughed and said, “yeah. That’s the butler. He is very helpful.”

I’ll relay some of her experiences later.

When’s the book coming out R15-OMG we’ll all be ghosts by the time we read your life story…

R25 here. About the butler. There are actually two of them - one is black (he’s the one I have the runs ins with). He stays mostly upstairs and is, by far, the most active.

The second butler is white and he generally hangs around downstairs and appears headless when he’s pissed off. (I find this strangely hilarious).

The white butler has become upset that my friend’s daughter, Y, leaves her bedroom an utter mess and has taken to showing up in her room headless and carrying a tray with tea service.

The poor kid (she’s in her early 20s) is fucking terrified of him. On the one hand, I don’t blame her for being scared. On the other, I find the situation fucking hilarious!

Apparently, the room her daughter is using as a bedroom was the front sitting room where the lady of the house would serve tea. White and headless is displeased by the front room being a pig sty and has taken to haunting it in response to this affront.

^^r15, I mean

I’m a medium since I was a child. I think I wrote my experience here before. However I do not have the ability to call spirits by my own will to hear them and see them when I want to have some experience or interaction.They manifest whenever they want at the least expected moments. I call it “visits”. It could be tonight or it could be just at any time. I consider myself pretty developed because I have basically experience pretty much all phenomena, from hearing, to seeing, to being touched. The only thing I have never seen is a table moving or anything of that sort, and I think those are fake tricks done by scammers. But when it comes to the spirit world I have a open mind, I just very skeptical. I need to see to believe. I feel bad because this is something that people should experience but I understand the dangers associated to this. Bad people and fanatics being an example. I also understand that we are exposed to being mocked and treated as liars and even unhinged.. all I can say to gays is that be very glad to be it, because if you had any idea of what all this is truly about you would be very surprised. Do not believe Christianity and any religion, Buddhism? perhaps, but whatever is happening or going to happen to us, will not be because of following a religion but by a power way above us, something that you are not aware of its existence and purpose. Be strong and don’t fear, we will all be fine.

I've always wondered why some people have these experiences and others, like me, do not. Any ideas, anyone?

R15 yes that can be an authentic experience. For instance, I have smelled flowers, embalming fluid and cigars. The cigar case was a cuban Indian spirit, these are spirits that many cubans santeros and mediums work with.

R20 according to Allan kardec books, that I, by the way, do not follow and agree with for the most part with its teaching, but it is very accurate explaining the phenomena, this ability is something that some people are just born with to the point of having some distinctive physical characteristics such the shape of theirs legs. I was born with that same characteristics and when I was little my mother had to correct it with special shoes and rubber bands.

I've always wondered if my old cat is hanging out in my place. A couple of days after he died, I was in bed about to fall asleep when I felt footsteps walking across my comforter. It was so real. Later, I got another cat who came to my yard and wouldn't leave so I adopted it. She was a ragdoll who I later found out was thrown out by a neighbor. She wouldn't sleep on the bed, or come into the bedroom but she had a hiding place in their when she was scared. I named her Asia and had her for 12 years. She passed away this morning and I'm hoping she'll visit me like the last one did.

spooky spookY!

I had a close straight friend who got married and had a baby. Me and my partner loved both of them—both really funny, charming, impish, super smart liberals. They had a chubby sweet happy baby.

I had a dream an extremely vivid dream one night that I was at their wedding. My friend wasn’t there yet and everyone was worried. I found him in his hotel room with my boyfriend and they both looked grim. He explained that he was so sorry to tell us he wasn’t gonna be able to join us and to take good care of his wife. We went downstairs to meet her and she told us she was going to have to do it alone. We were dancing to “I will survive” but it was a sad scene.

I was telling my boyfriend about the dream in bed the next morning when we got a call. Our friend left his wife and baby to run back inside and grab his wallet and suffered a massive heart attack at their front door.

I am so sorry, r22. It’s so hard to lose a beloved pet. It’s like a piece of you is gone.

R20, idk. Me and a friend of mine were discussing this today. I think everyone has some sort of ability, but we don’t always understand when something happens.

Not every experience is as obvious as the headless butler. Some are just weird “feelings” of uneasiness, oppression, or sadness. Sometimes, you just don’t want to go into a room or a building. Sometimes, you smell a perfume or cigarette smoke in an unexpected place.

When I smell a garage smell (oil, WD40), I know it’s my dad around.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s so subtle sometimes that you just miss it. Listen for the whisper instead of expecting a normal speaking voice.

R24, I do not doubt you one bit. But isn't it funny, your friend who had the massive heart attack was with your own boyfriend in the dream? Because I would find that worrying. Not that there was anything going on, but that maybe your own boyfriend is in danger?

R25, Sometimes I wonder about stuff like that because it happens to me, too.

I was cleaning out my grandfather’s apartment in a retirement home after he died. I was stony broke that week and staying in a hotel, because I was about three hours from home. While I was going through his dresser, I smelled my grandmother’s perfume. She had her own dresser and she was long gone at that point. I fished around looking for perfume bottle … or anything…and pulled up a wad of $20 bills stashed in an envelope. At that point I was so emotionally spent I couldn’t even cry. When I wrapped up for the day, I had a hot meal and bought a book to read. I figured that’s what my grandma wanted.

I was sitting in my living room one evening reading a text book on pretty living. I heard a giggle or what I thought was a giggle. It was loud enough to break the silence and startle me and my Boston Terrier. I looked around and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary so I went ahead with my in-depth instruction manual. A few minutes later I heard a very loud fart. It wasn’t me. It was my Boston Terrier. I had given him a fried chicken breast for lunch you see. I never did find out where the giggle sound came from.

I could tell you many stories for example of the spirits that I call “informers” or “.gossipers” because they tell me things in my ear that end up happening, usually even on the same day,some are important information and others that I do not need to know., also my spirit guide himself or the girl that sings like in a medieval way sometimes accompanied by a flute my mother and my father also hear her every time that she visits us.

This is the closest thing that I have found that is eerily equal yo the way that she things, even the singer’s voice is almost the same to that of the spirit. She creates like a eco in her voice that is almost the same. When I showed this video to my parents they we’re shocke cuz they couldn’t believe how similar this was to what we hear. By the way, she sing and she does it loud always at night she awakes us, in the morning we asked each other did you hear her last night? And my mother says yes I did, she had tremenda cantaleta all night., which means that she was singing loud and nonstop.

r20 r21

[quote]this ability is something that some people are just born with

It's like being a radio that can tune in (voluntarily or involuntarily) to certain frequencies that other radios can't. Naturally, the other "radios" think that, because they can't do it, it can't be done. Eh, whatever.

spooks and HAUNTINGS!

R29 — why don’t you try recording the singer you hear? Does she sing in English?

A good friend died by suicide. I lay in bed asking out loud for a sign. My bedroom door was closed and there was a gentle knock on it. It was a pattern to the knock..like knock knock......knock knock knock knock. Ive one friend who visits and would knock on my door at the same force each time, i knew it wasnt his knock but I kinda sat up in my bed fixing my bedhead expecting someone to enter...but no one was there. This was the afternoon at 4pm and I was just laying in my bed scrolling on my phone. This was a few weeks ago and since then i'll hear sounds (like how the house creaks when someone walks around downstairs...its a familiar sound to me when my hubby has come downstairs)...but theres never anyone there. Very obvious Orbs zoom around my videos but never anywhere else but in my house. I repeated the knocking patern and recorded it.

OK. You guys who get messages and are mediums and shit, can you please ask your spirit friends to tell you when Trump is gonna die? And in particular, ask them if they know how to accelerate the process before November 5th 2024?

R34, trust me, you don’t want that fat felon to croak until AFTER Kamala is sworn in.

Not only would he garner “sympathy votes”, but we’d be stuck with Jimmy, who is WAY MORE DANGEROUS and less odious presenting than the traitor.

So just bide your time like Queen Catherine de Medici. “Hate and wait “.

His time is coming. Let him live so you can savor his final defeat and humiliation.

R36, you hit the nail on the head.

R34 February 26th, 2027.

R32 she does not sing in English nor in spanish. In some appearances is just aaaaaaaaaa in a very melodic way but I was always puzzled by her way of singing until I found out that it is like a medieval style by listening to some music on YouTube. There is no way of recording this phenomenon as it is not done materialy and the appearances are very sporadic and unpredictable. I would say that it has been more than a year since her last appearance.

I could literally write a book with each and every single experience including dreams. My last experience was just three or four weeks ago with a “gossiper” or “informer”.

It so happened that two years ago we were going to get this new supervisor and he was transferring from another location. People were panicking saying that the guy was mean and shit like that. I called someone that know who worked in that location that he was coming from, and she told me that yes that he was a nice guy but was super strict.so I said to my coworkers what she told me. Well the guy ended it up being a very nice guy.

So three or four weeks ago I was doing something without thinking of spirits or any thing like that and all of sudden I heard a voice that told me in Spanish. Te va a decir que tu hablastes mal de él, which means he is going to tell you that you spoke bad about him.

The next day when I saw him talking with two other English speaking coworkers and I approached them and I told hey how are you, long time no see, I thought you were on vacation? Guess what, he laughed and in a good manner he said but why are you so worried if I know that you were saying that I was bad.

Later on, I told him what really happened, and he told me don’t worry is fine people here are trouble makers.

If you tell this thing to a skeptical person, they would say that I am either a liar or downright crazy. But it’s ok, I know things have to be this way.

I've only had the one experience that I always mention when the topic comes up so if you've read it you can skip this one. Three of us were trying to get to sleep in a room at the Wawona Hotel just outside Yosemite. The floor was broken up into four separate rooms and there was a door connecting our room to another in Moore Cottage. We were the only occupants that night. It was a quiet peaceful night broken up when a group of people arrived in the connecting room. We saw the light come on through the cracks in the door jamb. Then we heard loud voices with a sense of urgency that quieted down after a short time and we went to sleep. The next morning, we checked out early and noticed as we walked past that the connecting room was unused, the drapes open. I asked if someone had been in the room the night before and the desk clerk said no. Fast forward a few years and I read that in the 1920s a small plane crashed just outside Moore cottage and bystanders dragged the pilot, still alive, into that same connecting room. Unfortunately, the man died before help arrived and since then his ghost has been seen around the hotel by many others. #spooky

As I have said in spite of me having mediumship abilities that I consider quite developed I can not invoke the presence of spirits, if I could I would be making tons of money here in Miami as a “espiritista”.

As I’m so worried about the outcome of this election and although I do have a strong thing feeling that Kamala will will, today I just sat down and invoked my spirits and decided to use geomancy figures to access the situation. I put a picture of Kamala and Trump side by side and I asked my spirits the question who will win and who will lose this election? And I got Lastitia for Kamala and Amissio for Trump.

In the late '90s/early '00s, I lived in a condo in the San Gabriel Valley in the Los Angeles area. There was something seriously off about this place. For the first few years I was in the smaller bedroom, and it always felt like someone was in there with me. When my roommate moved out, and I took the master bedroom, the feeling stopped. But weird things still happened downstairs. I had a bowl where I would place my wallet, keys, ring, and spare change. One day my ring disappeared. I looked all over for it, but couldn't find it anywhere. Then one day, while watching TV, my CD towers (on opposite sides of the TV) tipped over simultaneously. At that point I pretty much knew this place was haunted. What really confirmed it for me was when I was told by a friend to yell at the ghost for my ring back. I did, and the ring appeared in the bowl 2 days later. I literally moved out about 40 days after that.

I’m making love

I don't know if there is a consciousness as we've learned it to be during life that we continue to experience upon death. I very much doubt it.

Matter lasts. Our consciousness doesn't.

I'm content knowing that the molecules my cremains create will become part of a blue sky, white poofy clouds and sunshine that someone alive after I'm gone will experience and enjoy.

Which gets me to why I'm unpersuaded ghosts exist.

For the sake of argument, let's assume they do, and I'll have a consciousness after my physical body ceases.

Why the heck would I linger here? I'd be off exploring galaxies, time, other worlds.

R44 good question, in fact I was going to mention this too. If I were a spirit why would you want to remain here in this world, it doesn’t make sense. However there is one thing that is sure, we just do not know how things function in that ethereal state.

No amount of stories that you read will ever make change your mind and that is good, it is the logical thing to do. I really hope that you havea real experience some day. You will change your mind and you will be as puzzled as I am too.

My friend explained to me. She said her father died when she was in college, and she went home to be with her mother and younger sister. She said she would often feel his presence in the evenings, after dinner, and the way she explained it, as he own grandmother explained to her, the dead have to get used to being dead. So sometimes their spirit hangs around for a while. They may also want to reassure loved ones that everything will be OK. They try to comfort loved ones. And if they were happy in their house they may also want to share that with you, thus the smell of coffee in the morning. That may have been the deceased favorite time of day,

Bump

R2, is Barbra some new age spiritualist type? I wasn’t aware. Shirley, yes.

My Ex died (he was an abusive drunk that smoked like a chimney). I'm pretty sure it was a deliberate heroin OD but it's possible it wasn't.

I hadn't seen him in years, he moved to Maine. (but weirdly my brother found himself sitting behind him at Fenway Park a few months before he died, but I digress)

The day after I heard about his death, I was sitting alone on the sofa when I suddenly got a whiff of fresh cigarette smoke and I knew he was there beside me.

No love lost, maybe he was there to apologize for being such an asshole.

Then he was gone. Never happened again.

I have two.

First: My mom and I were very close. I was returning back to college and as I walked into my dorm my suite mates were pissed to pisstivity! Apparently, my phone had been ringing for like one hour straight (maybe I embellish just a bit but it had been ringing for a long time) and they had become so annoyed that they even tried knocking the phone off of my wall by slammig their wall. I picked up the phone and said hello. On the other end of the line was my mother who said hello and then quickly asked me what was wrong. I told her nothing and asked her why was she calling me. She replied that she hadn't called me because she had just walked into the house. She wanted to know why I had called her since she had not long dropped me off at the airport. I told her I did not call her and she said well, I didn't call you. Still a mystery.

Second: My grandmother had been sick for a short spell. We were very close too. I was walking home from work and as I was walking I felt something just go through me. It wasn't the wind either. It was a beautiful sunny day. But it was... think of it like it was as a strong burst of wind, that hit me from the back and exited from the front of my body. It was seconds. Anyway,entering my house I did some things for about 15-20 minutes and then called my aunt to find out how my grandma was doing that day. She was crying and said; no one told you? Momma just died about 10 or so minutes ago. I can still remember how that "something" felt that went through me to this very day.

Souk al-Safafeer, Baghdad, 1986, I'm dithering over buying a large handsome hammered copper bowl. But it's the dreamboat seller I want to consume. I hear a hissing noise and turn towards a dark corner in the stall and the Whore of Babylon fixes her not unkind but piercing green eyes upon me and says "I see you, you slutty minx! And don't buy that stupid bowl. Come work for me and you'll have more Kassite cock than could wish for, and you'll get paid for the pleasure!"

I was 18, and sitting in my dad's study one Saturday afternoon. The e house was empty. There was another armchair across from me, and our cats was sitting on the sofa. I heard the creaking of chair springs, and looked at the other armchair to see the seat clearly depress as though someone had just sat in it. The cat jumped off the sofa and onto the chair, settled in and began to purr as though she was being stroked. I went cold with terror, and exited the house through the study window, a 5m exit run as opposed to 20m through corridors to the front door. I sat on the garden wall for 2 hours until my parents returned.

R52 Id be more scared if the cat wasn't cool with its ghost person.

I may have posted this before. Living in Brioklyn, just off Smith St. Top of brownstone. Last tenant as house was being sold. I has puled a coffee table of heavy books against the bedroom door, and I slept eith a crowbar beside the bed. Middle if the night the door flies open wide, and the books scatter. I jump up,, bollock naked, grab the crowbar and begin to shout at whoever kicked open the door. I jump out the bedroom door onto the landing, expecting to be shot, and go room to room kicking open the doors and shouting. Going through my head was the newspaper headline"Naked Irishman shot dead in Brooklyn". I make it down all 3 flights of stairs having checked the rooms, and all lower floor windows were intact, doors locked. No intruder. I didn't sleep for the rest of the night, but when found out the next day that a former tenant had been found dead in the room next door after a week and that all sorts of strange stuff had happened on that floor after his death.

I have a feeling I was one of many who experienced unusual happenings during the time of AIDS.

I wasn't there for my close friend Jerry when he was diagnosed. He was my first friend to die from that awful disease. I was horrified by what was happening to him. I felt tremendous guilt over this and was castigating myself. Jerry had a BF and other friends who took up the slack, but I sat in my place alone and crying that night in Sept. of1987 when I heard he died. Through my tears, in the corner of the living room, I suddenly saw what looked like a small golden orb, almost like a small globe of fire about the size of a basketball, floating and revolving in midair about three feet off the ground. I stood up, and as I did this, the orb "exploded" and suddenly the entire room was glittering in a kind of golden haze. I took one step into it and was immediately overcome with a feeling I can only describe as a "Pure Love X-Ray" which went through me and left me with a sense of calm where I had been an emotional wreck 30 seconds earlier.

I have a close friend who has psychic abilities he doesn't like going into NYC with the crowds of people. He goes in occasionally with his partner to see a show. The crowds freak him out, he can tell who in the crowd will died soon because when he sees their faces they become skeletal. This makes him uneasy and he tried not to look at anyone for any length of time.

Jackie O with a basket of dented canned foods at Lee's Market. She smiled at me remembering the several times she bummed cigarettes off me in West Tisbury when I was a college boy.

How big was that house, R52??

I have a few paranormal stories going back to childhood, but the most disturbing one (which I have shared on DL before) involved the house of an elderly couple who were family friends of my mom. I was in high school at the time, and the wife's husband had died in the home after a long battle with lung cancer. She was contesting his will, fighting with his children over his estate. They were a wealthy couple (or rather, he was) and had a gorgeous ranch style home filled with all sorts of beautiful antiques. This woman was VERY glamorous and had a taste for nice things. She was, to put it plainly, a gold digger. She claimed to have felt that her husband was haunting the house after he died, saying she'd seen a dark shadow appear at the end of the hall, and commented she would sometimes hear him coughing. She continued to live in the house for a couple of years after he died. One weekend, she had left to go to the beach and asked my mom to water her plants and check on the house in her absence. I was with my mom at the time running errands, and we stopped by the house. At first, nothing unusual occurred, but we kept noticing that a motion-sensor frog figurine on the patio right outside the sliding glass door was continually being set off while we were there, despite neither of us being near it. After spending maybe 20 minutes there, we were about to leave when we heard a violent thud come from a bathroom that was off the main den. When we went to see what caused the commotion, we saw there was water flooding underneath the toilet. Upon further inspection, the toilet had cracked from the top of the tank all the way down to the base at the flor. Mind you, this was late springtime in the Pacific Northwest, so it wasn't cold outside. Neither of us could explain how this could have happened, and the timing of it occurring just as we were getting ready to walk out was bizarre. We ended up having to call the woman's nephew to come turn off the water to the house. Very weird.

A year or so later, the woman wanted to move out and go to live an assisted living facility, so she and her son were preparing to auction off most of her belongings before the sale of the home. My mother had been helping organize and box up the contents of the house with the woman's son over a couple of weekends. I agreed to go help out one afternoon. The first odd thing that occurred was, while I was boxing up things in the husband's office, I heard a strange groan that felt as though it had originated from in the room—like there was someone standing near me who vocalized it. It scared the shit out of me, enough that it made me jump. Looking around, there was clearly no one else in the room, and my mother and the elderly woman's son were the only people there. I was at the far end of the house where his office was, so I was completely alone.

This scared me of course, but I continued. Maybe thirty minutes later, I was in a different room with the woman's son, when we both heard my mom shriek from down the hallway. Naturally, we both ran in that direction, and saw my mother standing frozen in the foyer, staring into the dining room. The chandelier in the dining room was swinging violently from side to side, as if someone had pushed it as hard as they possibly could. The sight of this made my blood run cold, and I immediately walked out the front door. I had had enough. We collectively decided it was best to leave for the day. I never went back, but my mom did, and she said told me that she and the woman's son would get there in the morning and find boxes moved from where they'd been left, doors opened when they'd been left shut, water faucets would turn on by themselves, etc. I firmly believe that the deceased husband was haunting the house, and was angry over his wife trying to contest his will.

So many of these stories are so boring.

i would hope the afterlife and its denizens would be much more interesting than many of you are suggesting.

Years ago, my husband and I had two friends who bought a lovely 1920s craftsman’s house in Glen Ridge, NJ, where we often visited, always by car because trains didn’t go to and from NYC to their town on weekends.

Since they were a childless gay male couple and taxes were very high in Glen Ridge (high taxes mean good schools) they moved to a house in a blue collar town where the taxes were much lower. When we visited them there for the first time, we asked if they missed the charm of their previous house, since they had moved to a rather charmless contemporary ranch house. They then matter-of-factly began to tell us about supernatural occurrences in the old hoise which became so nerve-wracking and exhausting that after a few years, they couldn’t wait to move.

One night one of them was alone in the house on his computer in an upstairs bedroom they used as an office when he clearly heard 1940s popular music coming out of a radio somewhere in the house. He turned his computer off and tried to trace the sound. It was not coming from a neighbor’s home, and as he moved through the rooms of his house he continued to hear the music but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. After a while he heard a voice humming and singing along to the music, which caused the hairs on his neck to stand up because the music and humming seemed ro be coming from the house itself. And then it suddenly cut out, leaving silence.

They would talk about coming down the staircase of their home and seeing a figure moving from the edge of their vision into another room, but when they looked, there was no one there. This happened often at all times of the day and night. And they often heard someone walking through rooms of the house that they were not in, often overhead on the second floor when they were both downstairs.

The scariest thing was when they were in bed asleep and separately became aware that someone was sitting on the edge of their bed. Each realized the other was wake but was frozen in position and silent. When they finally looked in unison, they say they could see a man sitting at the edge of the bed, head hanging down. And then he slowly turned to look at them. At which point one of them yelled “Go away!” And the apparition got up and walked out of the room.

R56, Methinks you just watched “The Purple Testament” on The Twilight Zone recently.

Nice try though.

R55 Do you think the golden orb was the essence of your late friend, who felt no animosity toward you, relieving you of guilt?

Not a story of mine (though I have some), but I was obsessed with the supernatural and ghost stories from a young age. I had a childhood babysitter who was a friend of our family, and she once told me about her experiences living in a house in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her dad when she was a teenager that she absolutely believed was haunted. Some of the more benign occurrences she described were things like her alarm clock radio going off at all hours by itself, and hearing disembodied footsteps in the house.

Things got much weirder than that, though. She said one morning she and her father woke up and found that toothpaste from the bathroom had been smeared all over the wall in the hallway, and squirted on a cuckoo clock that hung there. The toothpaste tube was lying nearby on the floor, almost completely empty. She also said that an electrician was working at their house once and fell down the basement staircase, seriously hurting himself. He claimed that he felt someone violently push him, and was so frightened by the incident that he refused to keep working in the house.

The scariest story she told me about the house that still sticks with me occurred when a family member (I think it was her aunt) was visiting. My babysitter was sitting in the kitchen with her aunt and father, and both she and her dad noticed that the aunt's attention kept being drawn toward the hallway, which was visible from where she was seated at the kitchen table. After a few moments passed, she asked them: "Who is staying with you?" Of course, no one was, so the question surprised both of them. Her aunt claimed to have seen a man dressed in period clothing (old school, early-20th century suit with a hat) walk down the hallway and into the doorway that led to the basement. Upon investigating, there was, of course, no one there. That story in particular still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I don't believe they knew anything about the history of the house, but clearly something weird was going on there.

One inserted itself into me while my hands were busy working on a spinning load of wet clay.

R63 I wondered about that.