Let's Talk: Real Life Ghost Stories/Experiences

When I was a kid, I believed in everything. Ghosts, UFOs, ESP, Bigfoot... you name it, I ate it all up. I have no idea when or how it changed, but at some point I completely reversed. Now I consider myself highly skeptic, although I do believe there are things we don't yet understand. Anyway, I mention that mainly because my story makes me think that any experience you have is only going to strengthen the beliefs you held going into it.

I was in my early 30s or late 20s, I think, with one of my absolute best friends. He's definitely a believer, and had the experience of receiving a phone call from his recently deceased grandfather. Anyway, we were in New Orleans for a small convention and we decided to take one of those walking Ghost & Bar Tours. We were both fascinated by the subject and wanted to get drunk.

We get to this one part of the tour standing in the street outside of some building. The actual haunted place had been demolished and rebuilt over, so the guide is really just pointing out the location. Before he starts, the guide warns, "This ghost is still vengeful and doesn't like her story being told. Many times on this tour people have had bad experiences or gotten sick, so please be careful." Immediately I lean over to my buddy and say, "One of us should act like we're getting sick while he tells the story!" He just smiles and nods. The guide goes on to tell the story of a cruel society lady who did dreadful things to her servants and anyone else who displeased her. Horrific tales of torture and maiming. Pretty gruesome stuff, but I'm not queasy about that sort of thing (at least not in story form).

As the guide is telling the tale, I start to feel nauseous. Suddenly, I'm *really* dizzy and am seeing stars. I have to sit down right there on the side of the road. My friend looked at me, thinking I was joking, and (he later tells me) he sees that I'm white as a ghost. There's no color in my face at all and I have a blank stare. I don't remember the rest of the guide's story. The tour group moves on, and I just sit there catching my breath. After a few minutes, it's completely gone. We get up and order a round a the next bar, and I feel fine.

But we talked about it for the rest of the evening. My friend is totally convinced that I had a psychic experience, while I'm totally convinced that it was just a mental suggestion placed in me by the guide. We go back and forth on it for the rest of the night, and for years afterwards. Even though it had happened to me, I still refused to believe it was anything extra-sensory. I still do, actually.

I often wonder what made me do such an about-face from believer to skeptic. I don't have any memory of a specific event or occurrence that changed my mind. It could just be the growing rationality that develops in the brain at certain ages. I don't know. I guess my point with this story is that people are going to see what they want to see, and that reality is very subjective.

When I dated the witch's daughter everything was a symptom of the supernatural—there were no coincidences; any three things in sequence were an omen; and the world was alive, things squirming just beneath the skin of reality, in a way it hadn't been for most people in a thousand years. Now me, I was in it for the usual young-man reasons, and while I didn't actually buy any of it, I was more than happy to do some heavy browsing.

Her mom was a level nine muckety-muck or whatever in a local coven, and some of this "authority" was somehow transferred to my girlfriend, at least in the minds of those who bought into such things. And so while they might hesitate to call the mom, the daughter got plenty of Ghost Busters-style middle-of-the-night calls from the teeny-bopper set. I would often tag along as chauffeur and moral support. Most of these calls were typical of the research into "poltergeist activity"—a sensitive teenage girl in emotional distress projecting her trauma on unrelated natural phenomena—in other words, home alone, freaked out, and really just wanting to talk to someone. They would hug and cry and get everything back into the groove while I walked the premises in order to give the reassuring "all clear" at the end.

The night everything changed started like any other—woken by the phone in the small hours, someone clearly upset on the other end. This time my girlfriend called for backup, and so we drove out to get her best friend, C. It was all cool by me; whatever it took to get everybody feeling good and back to sleep. When we arrived, the girl in question was... shattered. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone so out of their mind with terror, and I was concerned the night might end with an honest-to-God psych call. We got her to the couch in the living room and the three of them huddled up as I loitered, slightly embarrassed, and worried this might be the "real thing" in an ugly, real-world way. Eventually they got her calmed down enough to be semi-coherent, and what came out between the heaving sobs was a fractured encounter with a ghost, not a good one, and not for the first time. By now I was sitting, having already checked every nook and cranny for the bogeyman, the adrenaline having long ago worn down into the dopey pull of sleep. I was ready to go but I could tell it was going to be a while... and snoozing in the recliner wasn't an option. Damn.

The three of them were hugging, rocking and quietly chanting when C. suddenly blurted out, "Spirit of the house—show yourself!"

There was only silence as we held our breath, true silence for the first time since we arrived—

—then with a loud CRACK the entire house shimmied like an earthquake.

There are moments where abstract concepts like "belief" and "skepticism" cease to have any meaning whatsoever and you are confronted with the raw, awful Truth that we are just animals with animal senses in a world that can wipe away 10,000 years of civilization with nothing but a single sound. I felt it then—and I never want to feel it again. As animals we all shot to our feet and my girlfriend screamed, "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!!!"

And it did.

In the heartbeat-inflected quiet the house creaked and there was a... sound... from the backyard. I took a reflexive step toward the curtains at the sliding glass door.

"Don't look," my girlfriend whispered.

Did you know your mind can drain like ice water down your spine and out your ass? Because that's pretty much what happened when I pulled the curtain aside and saw... something... crawling up the fence in the moonlit dim, something that turned and looked at me not with a face or even a head but a tiny, naked skull.


Notes:

1. There was an earthquake that night at the precise time of the "event". Pure coincidence, but goddamn.

2. The "thing" was most probably a possum, and while my civilization-trained cortex knows this, the animal in me isn't so sure. Scratch that—the animal in me knows otherwise. Just thinking about writing all this down gave me some serious chills, and it's 9:30 am on a bright, sunny morning. Tonight's gonna be fun...

^^Brilliant ^^

Keep 'em coming

Thanks for sharing these and kudos to Hive God. Excellent prose there and a terrifying tale of your experience.

I've never encountered anything first-hand that I'd call supernatural but I have two stories from my wife and a co-worker that are eerily similar to a couple told in this thread.

My wife's first teaching job was first grade at this rural school in Alabama. The place was built in the 40's or 50's so it's got some history but nothing jumped out at you when encountering it for the first time. No bad vibes or wicked mojo, the place looks like a well built brownstone school from my grandparents era. So the wife works during the summer with other teachers there to get their rooms set up and all is good. Our daughters were like 8 and 6 at the time and went with her to help out at school and avoid leaving them with a sitter. No biggie. There were books and VCRs so they had plenty to keep them occupied. Pretty ordinary stuff until the day the youngest girl comes into my wife's room white as a ghost and clings to her mom. The wife asks here what's happened, thinking another kid scared her or made her mad. I'm told Hannah was white as a ghost and this terrified my wife, because that kid never got scared of anything. She told her mom she had been playing in the library with her sister and went for a bathroom break. On the way back she spots a very male form in one of the doorways. The guy was decked out in white with stringy black hair, with a few more details provided by a terrified six year old. At this point my wife is a bit spooked because she hadn't met anyone that fit that description. They go check out the room and others and don't spot a thing. Okay, nothing wrong and no intruder in the building. Time goes on a bit and the story gets shared until another teacher from the school informs my wife that was "Wally." We never got the whole story as to who the guy was or anything but other kids and teachers had reported seeing a dark haired, lanky man in a white shirt in various locations. The creepy part for us was Hannah hadn't been around any other teachers or kids from that school up to that point and she saw something that would later be confirmed by multiple sources.

The family never spotted Wally again but my wife went on to work there another couple of years and had a few more odd encounters. Most of them involved working there after hours into the evening and objects falling, doors slamming forcefully closed, or erasers flying off the chalkboards. She wasn't the only faculty that learned to get out of Dodge when that started.

My other second-hand story is from a coworker and it's in line with the previous off the road, hidden house that time forgot. The story goes he was hanging with some buddies and in typical teenager fashion they decide to investigate this abandoned place one of them had recently discovered. I don't recall many of the details other than it looked like it had suddenly been evacuated and left as is. Newspapers stacked all over the place, old rotary phone, some dirty mags, and a bathroom full of razors and knives. That's when he said "shit got real" and they started getting a weird vibe from the place. No blood or any thing in the bathroom but apparently the place was covered in butcher knives and other cutlery that didn't belong in a water closet. So they get the urge to vacate the premises and that's when the damn phone rang. He said no one had the guts to pick it up and it was a mud MAD rush of adrenaline surged teens fighting to get out of that place quick, fast, and in a hurry.

*EDIT: it was a MAD rush, not a mud rush...although I'm sure there was some involuntary mud rushing going on.

Mr. White wrote: Well, on two separate occasions, my father was stationed in Huntsville, Al at Redstone Arsenal. This is the same town that Von Braun and company developed rockets for NASA.

Cool, I'm on Redstone Arsenal typing this. Small world and all that, huh? What years were you guys living in Huntsville, El Jeffe?

I'm a total skeptic, but there is an app that some might be helpful:

time.com/4085654/diedinhouse-app-death-address/

It tells you if anybody died in a specific house.

Green Lantern wrote:

Mr. White wrote: Well, on two separate occasions, my father was stationed in Huntsville, Al at Redstone Arsenal. This is the same town that Von Braun and company developed rockets for NASA.

Cool, I'm on Redstone Arsenal typing this. Small world and all that, huh? What years were you guys living in Huntsville, El Jeffe?

We were first there from about the summer of '84 to summer of '85. Then back in the area from '92 til '99. I moved to Austin in '99. I've still got a lot of high school and college friends living in Huntsville. My parents moved back there (from Detroit) about 3 years ago as well.

Shellhead wrote: I'm a total skeptic, but there is an app that some might be helpful:

time.com/4085654/diedinhouse-app-death-address/

It tells you if anybody died in a specific house.

And for only $11.95 per search. If it cost $12.00, I'd be like, no way, that's too expensive.

These are all some really good stories, guys! You know, I love when people get to talking (and writing) about this stuff because it really brings out the storyteller in people. You tend to remember every little detail about these kinds of occurrences, and sharing them really brings these stories to life again.

One thing I hope everyone takes out of all of this talk is that every single one of these stories is open to interpretation- and that's one of the things that makes them so compelling. Whether it's sub bass, group hysteria or actual spirits of dead people, it's all unexplained and we as humans try to fit what we see into a frame of reference. There are things we don't quite grasp yet- both scientific and spiritual, I think- and when something fringe happens it causes our minds to fill in the blanks. It might be some kind of energy thing. It might be ghosts. It might just be coincidences and autosuggestion. But the important part is that it makes you _wonder_.

HiveGod's story really gets at this, especially the bits about witchcraft. That pagan interpretation of things is a good example of working things to fit into a particular explanatory context. I love how his story incorporates so much interpretation.

Thirsty's dog story reminded me of another weird thing I saw once. I was playing with my friends Ricky and Craig in our cul-de-sac, which at the time was surrounded by woods. This HUGE dog, something like a cross between a German Shepard and a Husky, came limping out of the trees. Of course, we were all like "Oh shit, big injured dog, go inside". But we were also dumb kids and curious. So this dog walks right up to us and is SUPER sweet. Obviously hurt on his front right paw, maybe broken. So we go get him some food and water and Ricky breaks out some Webelo shit or whatever (I know NOTHING about Scouts) and puts a makeshift splint on this dog's leg. The dog is totally cool with it. So we pet him, hang out with him. And then he gets up like "welp, gotta move on". He starts walking off and for whatever reason Ricky says "You're not really a dog, are you?". I swear to god this dog stopped, turned around about halfway and looked straight at us and shook his head "no". We all stopped cold and just kind of watched this dog go back in the woods.

Maybe it was just coincidence that this dog made that gesture. No idea. But it was really fucking weird.

Another one. This one is recent, and I have actually never told anyone about it because it's...well...kind of upsetting.

We've lived in our house for about three years now, but back about six months into the place my wife came downstairs completely terrified in the middle of the night (BTW- she is SUPER sensitive to 'haunted' areas, whatever they are). Like, exasperated.

"There is a man in River's room."

I knew right away that she didn't mean like a physical man. I went up into his room, he was asleep, and it was that HEAVY atmosphere. Like, electrically heavy.

I got her to explain what happened. It was probably about 2am, all the lights were off. Our bedroom is across the hall from his. She was asleep and heard him making some kind of sound in his bed so she looked up. In his room, she saw the figure of a man walk across and stand over River's bed. The funny thing is that the way she described it, it was EXACTLY like how people describe the whole "shadow people" thing. To a T. The staggering movement like you're looking at a video image dropping frames and so forth. But she actually had never even heard of that, she's not ever been interested in Fortean subjects. So I thought "OK, that's really fucked up" but being a skeptic I'm also thinking that it's probably a half-awake hallucination or something. But I couldn't deny that something about his room was off. So to make her feel better about it, I broke out the sage and smudged the room (my wife is also Cherokee).

Things got a little weirder. River started talking (he was three at the time) about a black man in his room that would come out of his closet. It sounds almost stupid writing about it because it just clichéd ghost story junk. But there it is, and he was too little to have really any kind of cultural knowledge about that kind of archetype. I got him to draw what he was seeing and he pretty much just drew a black stick figure with a cape for whatever reason.

So my wife kind of got wigged out about all of this and she got in touch with a spiritual advisor. Which I immediately voiced my objection to, because THAT crap is where you start getting into some serious bullshit. But it was this lady that someone she was close to was friends with, very sensitive apparently, and specifically she was a remote viewer. So I was like "OK, and we give her $X today, then we're supposed to pay $Y next week for a follow-up and $Z each month to keep the ghosts out of our house". But she insisted, and we got this lady on the phone and I listened in.

It kind of freaked me out, because she described EXACTLY the layout of our house even though she didn't have our address, was never anywhere near our house and in fact lived in North Carolina. And specifically, she said "you've got some kind of thing going on in what seems to be a child's room in the back right corner of the house, on the top floor." We didn't tell her anything about the "apparition" or whatever. She was right on the money. My blood turned cold.

She explained that there was something- she specifically said "an entity" passing through there and that it was sort of caught for a reason she couldn't work out. She didn't know what exactly it was, but there was an energy there that was sort of not moving. She said she'd do some clearing stuff- all remote viewing- and it would "fix" whatever was going on there. She didn't charge us anything.

But I'll tell you what, the entire atmosphere of our house changed after that. Whatever she did- which may have been nothing more than hanging up the phone and saying "well, that fooled 'em!"- something about the air in our house changed. When we moved in, we kind of felt like the house was always too dark and stuffy, which we figured was just from moving in from another house that was smaller and on a hill. But it literally felt like some weight had been lifted from the house.

Could all be nothing. Maybe my wife just saw a shadow move across the starlight. Maybe it's all just a psychological thing we've led ourselves to believe. Or maybe it really was something, I have no idea. But I love wondering about it and I'd kind of hate for it to be explained away.

1979-1980
Joliet, Illinois
I was working as a janitor at the Hillcrest movie theater. This wasn't an old spooky theater, it had been built in the early 70's and was a huge one screen theater.

My job as janitor was to come in any time between the end of the last movie and be done before the start of the first movie. Clean the lobby, restrooms, pick up all the trash in the theater and mop the theater floor as needed. I had been working as an usher when they fired the janitor and gave me his job and they paid me enough that I could actually sub-contract the job and hire help on days when I felt I needed help (usually after a big weekend like The Muppet Movie and such). When I started, the Assistant Mgr told me I could set my own hours but he added "You don't want to be here alone overnight. Don't ask why, just trust me."

Well, I hadn't planned on being there at night. My plan was to show up at 0600 and be done by 1100 and then head to my college classes, so no problem there. Here's the layout of the place. I would unlock the front doors (the whole front of the theater was glass, massive windows that were 3 stories high), walk across the lobby (it was about 30 ft by 90 ft with both restrooms at one end), and into the back hallway. This hallway ran the width of the theater and had four doors leading into the auditorium.. This back hallway was completely dark and I would navigate to the end, open a door that led upstairs to the projectionists booth and a storage area. Right before I went up the stairs was the electrical room. I would go in there and turn on the lights for the building.

The lights in the auditorium were the typical low level lights you found in theaters back then but there were also emergency lights mounted 3/4 to the ceiling, about halfway to the screen in the auditorium. This meant that the back of the auditorium was in a sort of twilight, while the screen and the curtain were in a blaze of light. Once the lights were on, I went to work. I would get an electrical leaf blower type thing and blow all the popcorn and junk to the front of the auditorium, shovel it into a garbage can, and then mop the auditorium. I would also vacuum all the carpeting in the lobby and clean the restrooms. Typical stuff.

Like I said, on weekends I hired one of my buddies to help me, splitting up the work, one in the lobby and restrooms, the other in the auditorium. Weekends had the most work. Weekends also had the most weirdness. We had a rule that you never snuck up on the guy running the blower in the auditorium (you could hear NOTHING with that thing going), you would stand at the door and holler as loud as you could or wait for him to run around if you needed his attention. I'm running the blower and I hear Brian, my helper, hollering from the door. I turn the blower off and head to the lobby to see what he needs.

He looks at me and says "Have you been down here the entire time?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You're not pulling a prank on me?"
"Prank? Like what?"
"Slamming the stall doors in the Ladies room while I'm mopping the Men's."

I look at him like he's nuts. "Why would I do that?"

We walk out to the lobby and we hear one of the stall doors slam open in the Ladies room. Now realize, the previous janitor that they fired had threatened to come back and get his job back and we heard stories that he had been in prison. We were scared that he still had a key and was in there messing with us. We quietly picked up a mop each and decided that both of use could take him, if need be. We silently snuck up on the Ladies room and walked in. There was a stall door, slowly coming to a stop, like it had been swinging until we turned the corner. Nobody was in there.

Brian looked at me and said "At least it isn't a murderous janitor."
"Did you clean this restroom yet?" I asked
"Nope, and I'm not going to."
"Me neither"

And we cleaned it the next day.

That would happen from time to time, no big deal. But it escalated. When we were both mopping in the auditorium we would plug a radio in on the stage and turn it on, listening to WJJD while we mopped. This was an old knob radio, turn the volume CLICK on and then turn up the sound. One Sunday we are mopping, I'm on the right, Brian is on the left, music is playing. And then the music gets softer and softer and CLICK, the radio is off.

We both look up. Now in THEORY, someone with a key could have gotten in, hid behind the curtain and turned the radio off while we weren't looking. I looked at Brian, "Go turn the radio back on."
"Nope, I'm good"
So I went down to the front and turned the radio back on, walking back to my mop, backwards just to be sure. When I got back to the mop, the radio slowly turned itself off while we both watched. Brian looked at me "You sure you need music?"
"Nope, I'm good."

The radio problem wasn't constant and there didn't seem to be a real pattern other than Sunday mornings were the worst. No music on Sundays. The swinging door would happen every so often, but we finally got to where we would clean the Ladies room even if the door had swung that day. We were getting braver.. but so was it.

Eventually, after about 8 months, one weekend Brian came into the auditorium and announced that he would like for me to fill the mop bucket for him. Whaaaaat? The janitor's closet was an incredibly narrow room, maybe three feet wide, and about nine-twelve feet long, just off the Men's room. You opened the door, the sink was right in front of you and the room stretched back off to your left. If you stood facing the sink, the door was on your right and your left shoulder was up against the wall (yeah, tiny). I asked Brian what was wrong and he said he need help with the mop water. I went to the janitor's closet, the bucket was in the sink. I stood in front of the sink and turned on the water and BAM!
Something flew past my face and slammed audibly into the wall to my left. I jumped back and looked down "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"
Brian looked at me with his eyes wide and said "Yeah, what WAS that? Happened to me too. Least I ain't crazy."
For the rest of that week, every time we used the sink some unseen thing would whoosh past our face and hit the wall with a thud. We dared each other to lean forward whenever we filled the bucket, neither of us took up that dare.

So we got used to these things, the swinging door, the radio that turned off, the Thud (from time to time). Once we heard a bunch of stuff fall upstairs but when we investigated nothing was out of place. Finally, there was the weekend that Brian was sick and I had a test first thing Monday morning. I had to go in at midnight on a Sunday. Nothing was really out of the ordinary. I didn't try the radio, no Thud, no swinging door, I had everything done by around 0700. I walked back to the electrical room and flipped off the power and walked the back hallway in the dark. I got the lobby and stood there in the middle of it, going through my checklist in my head, making sure I didn't miss anything. The sun was coming up and there was plenty of light in the lobby from the sun and the pop machines (single cup serving of your choice of soda). I was about halfway through my list when just over my shoulder I heard
"Heh heh heh heh." Somebody chuckled right in my ear.

I spun around and nobody was there. I got out of there as fast as I could but when I got to my car I realized I had left my coat and my cleaning shoes in the middle of the lobby. My keys were still in the door as well. I stood around about 20 minutes, trying to figure out what to do, when a local cop cruised by. They always kept an eye on things and we let them in the movies free. He rolled down the window and asked if there was a problem. I told him I though somebody was in there but I didn't see anyone. He asked me to clarify and when I explained what happened he said "Ain't nobody in there, go get your stuff, I'll stay here and watch."

It took about another five minutes for me to get the courage to walk into that theater and pick up my stuff and get my keys out of the door. That was the last time I went in at night by myself. Worked there another five months or so, still had the radio problems, sometimes the swinging door and an occasional Thud, but never had another chuckle.

It's no longer a theater, several years ago it was turned into a pet store and a shoe store. I would love to ask those folks what happens there at night.

Wow, that's a nice one...thanks for joining up and sharing it!

Michael Barnes wrote: Could all be nothing. Maybe my wife just saw a shadow move across the starlight. Maybe it's all just a psychological thing we've led ourselves to believe. Or maybe it really was something, I have no idea. But I love wondering about it and I'd kind of hate for it to be explained away.

That's similar to what my brother went through, I'll just repost it from the Changeling thread for the sake of completion:

Columbob wrote: I've never witnessed anything any paranormal ghostly stuff, even after having slept in the haunted room at this hostel by Loch Ness, although those haunted walks in Edinburgh are downright creepy.

But that doesn't mean I don't believe or that they don't exist. Some people are more attuned to these weird forces, witness my sister-in-law. She's had several encounters over the years, and apparently that unwanted "gift" was transferred to their second son, who's repeatedly over the years mentioned seeing someone in the house when there wasn't anybody else around. Although hush hush, don't talk to him about that!

3 years ago, in the early evening when the older kids were already in bed, my brother off meeting with clients, and my s-i-l was rocking/nursing the month-old baby by herself in the living room, around the same time every night or so she'd hear the door click, then often feel a weird, cold touch on her shoulders or neck, or just a presence. She was freaked out. My brother, who's as ghost-deaf as I am, was there once and also heard that door click! So they call this psychic/exorcist or whatever, when he was over he apparently instantly could tell that she had the "sight". It turns out the ghost was the original owner of the house from 40+ years ago who'd recently died, and came back to what he considered "his" house and trying to get these strangers out of there. I think they communicated with him and told him that it wasn't his place anymore and to go rest in peace, and it seemed to work.

Last summer, her sister was over and they decided to go do a haunted walk (WTF?!?) down in the old Québec City. They go to this cemetary/Church, probably one of the oldest in America (besides older Native civs). In that Church she could NOT concentrate on whatever the guide was prattling on about as she kept feeling these gusts of cold wind whipping about her head. Her sister even looked at her wondering what she was doing. She couldn't wait to get out of there.

Reading all these stories, I was reminded of another thing that happened, I don't really want to say "to me" although I was right there, but I totally disbelieve it was anything special.

First apartment, moved there with my best friend on the second floor of this house with a mansard roof, it was a pretty cool place with some character. Owners lived downstairs with their family and took care of/boarded some elderly people down there. My buddy's brother lived down the street 5 minutes walk away with their new baby, so they were over fairly frequently and so we had diapers in the house.

One night I wake up to see if there was anything interesting happening in the bathroom for some reason, the lights are on in the hallway and I bump into my roommate who was up apparently for the same reason, and there's a bag of diapers in the middle of the floor: "Did you put those there? Why are the lights on?" I reply "No, why would I do that?" and think nothing more of it, telling myself he was probably in a sleep-filled drunken haze or something. Next morning he comes back to me with that, and then starts talking about a haunted house, because his sister-in-law felt in or whatever. I never bought into any of it, my friend was frequently drunk nearly out of his mind anyways, right? RIGHT? Who knows? Dumb story and I haven't thought about this in years.


UFO-related:
A couple years ago, there were many different sightings in my town on different nights, but many unrelated people confirmed seeing exactly the same thing. People from both sides of the river saw lights (a plane?) go down into the water, and rightly called 911. The next day they scanned the river from the rescue boats and couldn't find anything. Some days later people saw some weird lights over the forest from many different sides/angles and distances. Who knows WTF was happening there.

One night on the highway coming back from seeing a concert in Montréal with a buddy, we see these weird lights moving about and we're both wondering...until it turns out it was just one of those steel comms towers, newly built there. The movement was just an impression given by the angle of the car following the curve of the road.

Michael Barnes wrote: He starts walking off and for whatever reason Ricky says "You're not really a dog, are you?". I swear to god this dog stopped, turned around about halfway and looked straight at us and shook his head "no". We all stopped cold and just kind of watched this dog go back in the woods.

That's the best damn story in the whole thread.

I've never had any kind of supernatural experience in my life.

River started talking (he was three at the time) about a black man in his room that would come out of his closet. It sounds almost stupid writing about it because it just clichéd ghost story junk.

My parents told me that once my little sister had experience kind of similar to this. When she was 2 or 3 years old, she kept crying when in a certain room in our house. I didn't know the exact room since we moved so often, and my parents never tell us about this until we're into teen age. When she cried she always pointed on a ceiling corner just above the wardrobe.

My mom consulted an "orang pintar" (literally "smart man"), or what would you say as spiritually sensitive/spiritual expert. He explained that there was a small plant beside the wardrobe, and a spirit with unkempt hair resided there. He called it "riwog riwog". He said the spirit was sitting on top of the wardrobe and was actually trying to play with my sister (making funny faces?). But his face was scary. It was a small plant, a small cactus I think. My father picked it off a teak forest when he was travelling out of city (back then we mostly travel by car, not planes). The teak forest was infamous for having strange occurrences such as trucks often having trouble with their engines there. The "orang pintar" just said to return the plant to its original location, and sure as hell my dad did that. Afterward, my sister no longer cried when in that room.