by Sharon | Aug 30, 2018
Many of you may find cemeteries to be creepy . . . but they don’t have to be.
Some people have some very interesting ideas about ghost hunting and being right in the middle of the action, but would you set up camp next to a cemetery?
I have a respect for cemeteries and don’t get all creeped out by them, but when Larry was about 10 or 11 his parents rented a cabin for the weekend. It was small, next to a lake and had room for the boys set up a tent near the cabin. That evening they cooked their dinner over an open fire and told ghost stories.
Larry’s parents told the boys they could sleep in the cabin, but they wanted to stay in the tent. The ghost stories didn’t scare them and they were looking forward to star gazing before going to sleep.
Strange Sounds In The Middle of The Night
About 2 AM Larry was awakened by the sounds of someone crying. It wasn’t his brother, it seemed to be outside of the tent.
He decided to ignore it, because he didn’t know what to do. Then he wondered if it was someone who got lost, maybe he could help. He woke up his brother so he wouldn’t have to confront the crying stranger alone.
“Pete, there’s someone crying outside our tent,” Larry whispered while shaking his brother.
Pete listened. “I don’t hear anything, go back to sleep.”
Larry couldn’t do that. He listened, but the crying person must have moved on. He did finally go back to sleep.
The next morning after breakfast the family decided to do some exploring of the area. They found an old abandoned cemetery a few yards away.
This was exciting for the boys and the parents were equipped with cameras and tape recorders, along with other ghost hunting equipment.
Their mother was talking about some of the old graves that dated back to the 1700’s. “This is a really old cemetery, I wonder why it was abandoned.”
Their father answered that it looked full. They may have run out of space and instead of enlarging the old cemetery they may have set up another one closer to town.
It all seemed logical and matter of fact to Larry. He didn’t mention the crying he heard in the early morning hours.
Chased Out of The Old Cemetery
Pete nudged Larry and pointed at a dark figure at the very top of a huge rock monument.
Both boys stood riveted to the spot, until the image took flight and was headed towards them. They ran with all their might to get out of the path of the flying apparition. Their mother saw the apparition and ran out of the cemetery leading the way, followed by their father.
Larry remembers the sound of running footsteps behind them, but he always remembered the thing was flying. It didn’t make sense until he turned around and saw his parents behind him.
They ran all the way back to their camp and went inside the cabin. Larry stayed on the porch for a minute and looked back towards the cemetery and the path they took. He saw a faint image of a man standing quite a distance away.
Pete had a pair of binoculars and looked toward the image.
“He looks like he just came out of the grave,” Pete said handing the binoculars to Larry.
When he looked, the image was gone.
The family did pack up and go home. They weren’t scared, but thought there little adventure in the graveyard wasn’t such a good idea. It is a hallowed place and since they were chased away, they didn’t want visitors. They did wonder if they had been disrespectful in any way. Maybe it was taking pictures or tramping around.
What Do You Think About Ghost Hunting In a Cemetery?
There are some who believe ghost hunting in a cemetery isn’t a good idea. There are always abandoned buildings and plenty of places that are known to be haunted.
I don’t find cemeteries to be a problem since I regularly put flower on graves, but this is my job, I do talk out loud, making comments about the flowers and at times I set flowers on various graves just to give the area a bit of color. It’s my little gift to spirits that may be hanging around.
by Sharon | Aug 29, 2018
There is a common belief that 12 midnight is the bewitching hour when ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, what have you will appear.
For ghost hunters, many have day jobs and night is the best time for them. I believe it is spookier at night and having some nice scary pictures to go along with your explorations doesn’t hurt. I believe it adds atmosphere and gets you in the mood. It is also a reminder to be alert.
Remember when you were a kid and how the creepy old house down the street was creepier at night? It may also have something to do with Halloween when we dressed up in costumes and went trick-or-treating in the dark. Maybe at that time in our lives we were only interested in the candy and seeing our friends, but if you remember back it was so very quiet. You could hear your footsteps echoing behind you. The silence was only broken by the occasional chorus of voices calling out, “Trick or Treat!”
There were the creepy lit jack-o-lanterns that adorned porches and fence posts casting an eerie glow to the yard. Some played scary organ music with occasional screams, rattling chains and moaning wind. Things may have changed over the years, but the basic atmosphere and our enthusiasm hasn’t.
In the “still of the night” has been an ideal time to hunt for ghosts.
It is obviously quiet and you have a better chance of picking up something on your recording devices. It appears ghosts don’t like being in crowded places, if they are at all aware of their surroundings. There are haunted houses, hospitals, restaurants, libraries, and open spaces.
There was a mall in a neighboring town that lost its anchor stores and soon became a “ghost town” of sorts. I’m not saying it was “haunted”, but I did feel uncomfortable walking around in there during the day. Others had remarked that they got spooked walking through the empty mall one night after a meeting. So I suppose ghosts prefer to be where we don’t like being.
One personal experience I had recently was at a well known slaughter house in town.
Just the idea of a slaughter house would instantly make one think it would be haunted. The thing about this place is that there have been stories, many have been proven to be hoaxes perpetrated by local teens having fun and perhaps wanting to create an urban legend of sorts.
Well, it wasn’t my intention to go to the slaughter house, but I was out with friends and we saw something that came whoosing out of the sky at us. We followed it to the old slaughter house.
I tried to convince everyone it was an owl, but they gave me reasons why it couldn’t possibly be. So there I was walking along this empty field late at night to this building that had a questionable reputation. The old brick building had been broken into numerous times over the years and visitors would take a brick as a souvenir.
Hoax or not, this was a creepy place. There was this unsettling scent in the air — like death, but the slaughter house hadn’t been used for decades.
The air had a chill in it I didn’t notice until I got closer. I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, just placing one foot in front of the other, not wanting to fall into a gopher hole and twist my ankle.
All of a sudden there was an ungodly screech and this black mass with a white skull face came swooping down upon us! I took off running! The others followed.
Pity no one had the peace of mind to take a picture, but we’re not the bravest souls who go off exploring in the dead of night.
by Sharon | Aug 28, 2018
The easy answer is the unexpected.
I truly wish there was a camera set up awhile back when my ghost hunting friends and I came running out of an abandoned house like scared children. You’ll just have to imagine a group of senior citizens running for their lives down a deserted street.
Was it a ghost or something more sinister?
At the time we believed it to be something more sinister, but in reality . . .
It’s important to begin at the beginning.
One of my ghost hunting friends is a real estate appraiser. He was given the task of appraising an abandoned house. He asked the owner if he could bring some friends with him and the owner agreed.
So there we were in an abandoned house. I do find it strange and rather creepy what people leave behind when they move out. Is it something they forgot or intentionally left? This thought was on my mind while I explored the house. I ended up in the basement when my friend Barbara called me down there.
She heard scratching. I told her it was just a mouse or rat. Then she drew my attention to the warm and cold spots in the room.
I could hear the scratching coming from a closet-type cabinet. I opened the latch and the door slightly. I was braced and ready to run out of the basement if anything came out.
Of course, I was expecting a rodent or something evil.
While my attention was on the cabinet, something behind me made hissing sounds.
I shot up the basement stairs with Barbara right behind me. I didn’t stop when I noticed Ralph running from upstairs and Frank from the kitchen. We kept running out of the house, the yard and even past Frank’s SUV.
Once we felt we were far enough away from any danger we regrouped and returned to the house.
The basement hissing was, of course, a cat that caught a rat.
What scared Ralph was something else entirely.
There was a fully furnished room upstairs. The woman who had once occupied the room had it all neat and tidy. Clothes were still in the closet and the dresser still had clothes in it. The night stands were full of odds and ends, too.
The first thing I noticed was a night gown on the bed.
Ralph assured me that it was the night gown that chased him out of the room and down the stairs. He was sure it was possessed. He kept hearing, “I’ll kill you!” as he fled the room and the house. Of course, we didn’t hear the threat on Ralph’s life.
Frank was in the kitchen when he ran out of the house.
He heard the locks on the back door snap into place. He had a feeling of being trapped.
That wasn’t what had him running for his life, though.
He was doing his inspection under the sink. Looking for leaks and evidence of dry rot.
He heard movement behind him.
“It sounded like a family preparing the evening meal, but when I straightened up and turned around I saw something out of a scifi movie. It was huge and had sharp teeth. It seemed to be eating something.”
Frank didn’t want to be its next course and ran out.
I decided not to go into the kitchen.
There was definitely something going on in that house. I wanted to meet the people who lived there before and hear their story.
Most of the time people like to move on and not dwell on past unpleasantness, but Frank was able to persuade the owner to give out the name and whereabouts of the renters and they were willing to meet us.
The family consisted of a man and his wife, his mother and 10-year-old twin boys.
The boys agreed there was something evil in that house. They couldn’t play video games without the controllers taking on a life of their own ruining the game for them. Even playing with toys was no fun in that house. Whatever was there would make them fly off and sometimes chase them out of the room.
They didn’t want to sleep in their room after awhile.
The grandmother explained that something was in the house. She didn’t think it evil until that last night when her bed caught on fire.
The problem with the paranormal is that she saw what she was supposed to see, but when we were in that room weeks earlier, the bed was not burnt.
The parents of the twins explained what happened to them next.
Connie was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Bill was in the basement mopping up a leak from the water heater.
He was just going up the stairs when he heard and felt an explosion.
The explosion knocked him off his feet and he did lose a leg to the experience.
Bill was the only one with a physical injury, but the water heater did not explode. The paramedics were called and they took him to the hospital.
Frank believed that creature he saw in the kitchen had something to do with it, but Bill was sure it was the water heater.
Can one evil entity cause this much trouble to a family?
Evidently so.
But in so many forms?
That’s the problem with the paranormal, once you think you have something figured out, something new comes along.
It’s no wonder the family didn’t return to remove all of their possessions. When Frank volunteered to pack up their belongs and deliver them, the family politely declined his offer.
I couldn’t blame them. They wanted to get as far away from that house and their belongings as possible. They didn’t want some evil entity following them.
With the family experiencing different things and with us seeing things differently than what the family claimed to happen, we concluded that something evil was indeed going on in that house, but we couldn’t explain it and we weren’t going to contradict them.
It is a strange world we live in when evil forces invade our physical realm of the universe.
Fear does come in all forms, we experienced the unexpected as did the family that lived there. It came in different forms to the different individuals to the degree that got us all to run away in fear for our lives.
Barbara and I got off easy . . . a cat catching a rat . . . I do wonder why such a “natural” thing like that when the men had definite paranormal experiences. Or . . . was the cat and the rat what we were meant to see . . . and in reality it was too easy to get us out of the house . . . and where’s the fun in that for an evil entity?
Please leave a comment to share your thoughts about this Real Ghost Story and perhaps tell us of an experience of your own.
Thanks for stopping by!
Sharon
by Sharon | Aug 26, 2018
I am definitely intrigued by the ghosts of children.
For one thing it breaks my heart that children have died young. Maybe since I’ve been a teacher, they’re attracted to me, or me to them. Whatever the case, I do get my fair share of children ghosts.
I met two young lady ghosts — Emma and Sarah while visiting the local cemetery..
Sarah invited me to visit her Aunt Francis in this old Victorian Mansion just outside of town.
Normally, I don’t want to go ghost hunting . . . or meet ghosts in a creepy, rundown old house . . . but I did.
Yes, I was arguing with myself the whole time. I was definitely telling myself how this was stupid. I knew of this old house and Aunt Francis before inviting my ghost hunting friends on this venture.
My friend Barbara was the only one from my ghost hunting group of friends who could join me on this great adventure. Barbara was all for it, especially since we received an invitation to visit the old matriarch of this old mansion.
I’m torn in telling this “adventure” as Barbara puts it.
You know, I always come out as being anything but brave. Yes, this is no different. You see, Aunt Francis . . . well . . . Aunt Francis is a cranky old woman who nagged her husband to the point where he took an axe to her and . . . goodness, she’s come back as a floating head.
The young nieces dote on their beloved Auntie Francis and she’s insistent on meeting the “human” they’ve grown fond of.
I know the old woman loves peanut butter cookies, so I made some for her. I would have preferred to buy something, but Sarah insisted they had to be homemade.
We needed to time it so that the cookies were “fresh from the oven.”
I don’t know why or how a two hundred plus year old woman would know the difference or care, but it may be her controlling way — as in life, so in death.
So, there I was with Barbara and two ghost girls paying a call on dear old Aunt Francis in a creepy old, rundown mansion in the middle of a thunder storm. Not much rain, but plenty of thunder.
The girls float on up the stairway. Barbara and I walk slowly, testing the boards as we step lightly. Some of the steps are missing so we did our best to continue moving up. Barbara knocked the banister down in her attempt to climb up three broken steps. My hand went through the wall in a couple of places.
This wasn’t unnoticed by Aunt Francis who screamed, “Sarah, tell your clumsy friend to be careful. This is our home.”
Then, a little calmer I heard, “Those cookies better be good.”
Aw geez, now my culinary skills were on the line.
My only thought besides trying not to break my neck was, “Betty Crocker, don’t let me down.”
Barbara and I made it to the landing. I didn’t see the girls, but I heard dear old Aunt Francis.
“Quit dallying, woman. I want my cookies!”
Of course, she had to be another flight of stairs up. Only those stairs were in worse shape than the ones Barbara and I just climbed.
Whatever happened to ladies meeting guests in the parlor? I was getting tired of this charade.
“I sorry, madam, but it’s impossible for me to go any farther. I’ve met you halfway, the only polite thing for you to do is come down here,” I said as forcefully, yet politely as I could.
“Who are you to tell me . . .” she sputtered.
I didn’t wait around to hear more. I motioned for Barbara to go on down the stairs we just climbed.
“What about the cookies,” Barbara whispered. “Shouldn’t you leave them?”
I’m not really up on ghost etiquette, but this woman wasn’t the most hospital ghost I’ve encountered.
“If she wants them, she can come and get them.” I took them out of the carry-all I put them in so she could get a good whiff of the fresh from the oven peanut butter cookies.
“What is that I smell?” the woman bellowed.
“Your cookies. You can find them in the parlor.”
Fortunately, it was easier for Barbara and me to get back down the stairs. Finding the parlor was another matter.
Sarah came down to meet us without Emma.
“Auntie wants her cookies, why can’t you bring them to her?”
“The stairs,” I stammered, “there are no stairs.”
Sarah didn’t seem to understand. Her perspective of the house was locked in time. Too bad I didn’t share her same perspective.
A head bobbed beside Sarah. I almost jumped out of my skin.
“Aw, Francis, I presume.” I said awkwardly to cover up my fright. Her countenance matched the gruff voice I heard.
Barbara wasn’t aware of what I was looking at, but she shared my fright. I must have scared her.
“The cookies!” Francis boomed, shaking the house.
I opened the container again and Sarah picked up a cookie and fed it to her aunt.
It was the most disgusting sight I’d ever seen. Crumbs dropped to the floor. The woman made obscene grunting sounds. I thought I was going to be sick.
I expected a lady of the manor with Victorian manners, but what confronted me was a head that had no resemblance of refinement . . . a head that was badly decomposed.
“What’s that putrid smell,” Barbara whispered.
“Aunt Francis.”
“I need some air,” Barbara said as she bolted for the door.
I wanted to follow, but I had to wait for Aunt Francis’s feeding time to conclude. Four more cookies to go.
Francis nodded for Sarah to take the remaining cookies upstairs.
Why hadn’t I thought of giving the cookies to the girls and save myself all this aggravation?
They just floated away.
“More tomorrow,” Francis said.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “There will be no more cookies.”
“What?” she boomed, knocking me down with the shaking of the foundation.
“Your nieces are polite young ladies. You, madam have no manners at all. I refuse to bake cookies for you again.”
Normally, I don’t stand up to spirits, but there was something about the situation that got my dander up. Maybe it was the lack of appreciation and the demanding tone. I had enough and I wasn’t going to take any more abuse from this disgusting ghost.
I got out of the house as pieces of it were thrown at me under the wrath of a peanut butter cookie craving ghost.
“That went well,” Barbara said.
Was any of this captured in pictures or video . . . of course not — Barbara and I are not professional ghost hunters . . . and besides, Barbara’s camera batteries were drained — I guess Aunt Francis doesn’t like her picture taken . . .
I hope you enjoyed this Real Ghost Story . . . and if you happen to meet Aunt Francis, please don’t mention my name . . . but be sure to bake some fresh peanut cookies.
Thanks for stopping by!
Sharon
by Sharon | Aug 25, 2018
I received a frantic telephone call from my friend Barbara early one morning.
We decided to meet at our favorite coffee shop. I was hoping others would arrive, too, to get to the bottom of Barbara’s paranormal experience.
These spirits Barbara encountered were aggressive. She accused them of drugging her husband so he couldn’t come to her rescue or at least be a witness.
“It started with the cats. The male, Barney,” Barbara began. “He started hissing and scratching violently at the corner of the room. I could see by the street light that his hair was straight up and his ears were pinned back.”
Barbara could only see the cat, nothing that was upsetting him. Then she started to get extremely cold and the hair on the back of her neck and arms were starting to stand up. She could see her breath in the room — it was that cold.
She grabbed a robe and went to the thermostat to turn up the heat. “It got really quiet. I couldn’t hear my husband breathing with an occasional snore as he usually does. The silence was really creepy. I was too scared to move away from the thermostat.”
Barbara heard scratching noises she thought might be the cat, but Barney was in his soft bed washing his face.
She started to get chills again. She listened. Then it sounded like someone was in the office. She could hear the printer printing out something, then there was a loud thud. She went to investigate. Turning on the light, Barbara saw a stapler fly through the air and hit the wall next to the door where she was standing. She also noticed where the paper cutter was thrown across the room and left an ugly hole in the wall.
“I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. Then Barney started hissing and clawing. That’s when I left to wake up my husband.”
Before she could wake him up, the entity followed her into the bedroom and started throwing things off the dresser and pulling out the drawers and dumping them.
When the entity dumped the mattress on the floor with Barbara’s husband with it, he woke up.
What was is?
A few months ago, they saw an advertisement in the Penney Saver. There were bedroom sets, office furniture, a dining set, living room furniture and other items that weren’t listed. Barbara and her husband wanted to set up the spare room into an office and they wanted a new bedroom set so they went to take a look.
They bought what they wanted and put it into the house without smudging it. They had a fairly new mattress that fit and put their old bedroom set out in the garage to advertise the following week.
Everything seemed to be fine, but Barbara remembered scratching noises, but ignored it. Last night was the first time whatever was in the furniture dumped Harry out of bed.
“Where’s the furniture now?” I asked.
“Harry took it to the dump.”
Within half an hour Harry arrived at the coffee shop with a tale of his own to tell.
It seemed that Harry had nothing but trouble since he started loading the furniture on his truck early this morning.
“Everything weighed a ton,” Harry began. “I got Lee from next door and his son to help me. They kept making wise cracks that I had a dead body in the dresser.”
He wasn’t about to tell them of the night before and the damage whatever that was in the dresser or the bedroom set or the office furniture caused in the house.
The truck broke down twice on the way to the dump. “I had a mind to dump the load right out on the side of the road,” he said. “Some guys stopped to help with the truck. We got talking and they said they’d take the furniture off my hands.”
I almost choked on my cinnamon bun. “You just gave it to them?!!”
Obviously, Harry and Barbara were glad to be rid of it, but I can’t help thinking someone tonight or some night soon will be having a similar experience. Barbara just needed to smudge the furniture before taking it into the house. Or if it’s an evil, aggressive entity as this one seems to be, smudging may not have done any good. Perhaps the furniture should have been burned or taken to the dump for that purpose.
The sad truth is that, although you’re not supposed to take things out of the dump, it is done. It is possible that this furniture would have found another home.
I asked Harry about his truck and he said it’s running fine.
It seems the entity didn’t want to go to the dump and was preventing that from happening. I don’t know about who is going to end up with the furniture, but I doubt anyone is prepared for old haunted stuff to raise chaos in their home.
It goes to show that not all “bargains” are bargains at all.
Thanks for stopping by!
Sharon
by Sharon | Aug 24, 2018
I was at my local antique mall quite some time ago and as I was looking around I noticed goo dripping from the wall.
We did have quite a bit of rain, but it wasn’t the normal rain type of drip unless there was something in the attic that made this happen. It gave me an uneasy feeling and I was heading out the door when one of the owners stopped me and asked if I had a minute to look at something.
I asked if it had anything to do with the goo dripping on the wall and she nodded.
I should have walked right out the door, but I followed her up a narrow set of stairs into the attic. We located the place where the dripping seemed to originate.
A part of me wanted to see this through and another wanted to run.
There was a cabinet on that wall. The old kind that could be used for a closet or storage. When she opened it up, I could see there were boxes of things in there. I learned this belonged to a man who had it for sale, but it never sold. He had passed and his family couldn’t be located, so they put it in the attic until they could decide what to do with it.
I noticed scratches on the inside of the door and the walls. These weren’t scuff scratches, these were deliberate scratches where someone was trapped inside and wanted to get out.
One of the other women who worked in the store had a disturbing story to tell about that portable closet.
While it was still on display, a psychic came in and told her that this antique closet had bad energy. Children were placed in the closet for punishment. Most of the time they would cry and go to sleep. Once it was quiet, their father would let them out.
But one child was not let out for several weeks. It seemed as though the father and other children forgot all about him. They were gone for several weeks, perhaps visiting family. The little boy banged on the door and kicked it, yelled, screamed and cried. No one came to let him out.
When the man and his children returned, the little boy was dead inside the closet.
This is a sad story, but it does get worse.
The man buried his son in the woods behind his house. Why it decided to drip goo on the wall was anyone’s guess.
The owners of the antique mall decided to have a séance and invited me to participate.
The night of the séance I arrived at the appointed time, met the psychic and the other participants. Candles were lit on the table, we held hands. There was a prayer of protection. I could hear a child crying. I could feel the pain from hunger and thirst this child was feeling. It was horrible. Others had similar experiences.
The little boy’s name was Dana and he was being punished for breaking a window — he threw a baseball through it. The father thought he did it deliberately and locked him in the closet while he and the other children went to the beach on their planned vacation. No food or water was left for him. No one came to check on him or the house while they were gone.
He spoke of being told to go into the light, but he was too afraid to go. He knew he had to stay in the closet until his father returned.
During the séance, Dana was directed into the light by the psychic. It was a beautiful thing to set this child free.
The women who owned the antique mall were able to scrub and repaint the wall.
They were torn about removing the antique closet from the attic. Although it was a horrible reminder of what an innocent child went through, it did eventually have a happy ending.
I would have discarded the antique closet. It’s not haunted, but it was a place of punishment and also the death of one child. It’s sad to learn how furniture was used by others. I’ve seen many of these antique closets. After this experience, I wouldn’t have one in my garage for storage.
I’m reminded of a story I heard recently about an old abandoned asylum and how the “patients” were deglected and worse . . .
Most of these “patients” had mental illness and some were mentally challenged . . . and there were a few who were criminally insane — having been sentenced to that particular facility.
They were all in that same facility . . . together. The only separation was a women’s section and a men’s section. No other accommodations were accessed in keeping the rift-raft away from those who couldn’t defend themselves.
It is sad to know that such facilities existed.
But it is positive that we do have ghost hunters and individuals who explore abandoned places to give us a “wake-up” call from time to time.
Thanks for stopping by!!
Sharon
