Ghost Stories

[slyfor]

never seen a ghost, and i hope i never will

[shimmerhawk]

I've had a few experiences with ghosts. The first was somewhat life altering, proving to me that spiritual entities existed. I was taking a tour of Glensheen mansion in Duluth and our tour group had just moved out of the infirmary room, but I was off in lala land just staring at the wall and didn't notice them leave. I thought I felt something touch my shoulder, but it was so faint that I ignored it. Then I was clearly tapped on the shoulder and I turned around to see who it was, figuring it was either my mom or my friend who had come with me. But there was no one there, and having turned around I noticed that the group had filed out of the room.

The second experience I had with ghosts was one that I usually shrug off because there was so much commotion that it was hard to know what really happened. I was actually out ghost hunting with my friends and we stopped at a cemetery out in the middle of nowhere, basically a big, open prairie with the nearest town a couple miles away. We were goofing around and trying to scare each other when we all heard what sounded like children playing. I remember hearing it quite plainly, but it was 3 am and there were no children anywhere near us. Then someone started yelling about thumping coming from underground, which I can't remember hearing, but we were all just playing around and were pretty scared so we took off running. I do think the sound of the children playing was genuine as no one could have imitated it and I haven't found an alternative explanation. The other events of that night were pretty interesting too, though they didn't involve ghosts.

The third experience I had with ghosts was the most frightening. It was night and I was with one other friend looking for ghosts in a cemetery on the edge of town. We had just gotten out of my car and walked around and no one was there. We got back in my car and shut the doors. I hadn't started my engine yet when we both heard voices. They sounded muffled but at the same time were right outside the car. We knew no living people were there having looked around a moment earlier. Both of us slowly turned and looked at each other and said "Did you hear that?!" at the same time. It was actually pretty funny, though we were scared at the time. I couldn't make out what the voices said, but my friend thought he caught one of them saying "they're crazy." I guess I can't deny that, lol. Then my car engine, which was still turned off, started making very loud clanking noises. These weren't the usual clicking and clanking sounds coming from a cooling engine. They sounded like very loud and deliberate banging sounds coming from inside the engine and I've never heard a sound like that from any car before or since. It sounded like someone pounding on the metal with a crowbar. This is when we both started to freak out. The noises continued for a little bit and then stopped, and I started the engine and tore out of there.

[Nousagi]

I've enjoyed all the stories! I don't really have any to add of my own though..

I've been to Glensheen! I was also hoping for a paranormal experience, but I guess the ghosts had the day off. Beautiful mansion though. The daughter there had murdered her mother and nurse, if anyone's curious. (Wiki)

I've also been to Fairlawn, just across Superior, in Wisconsin. When I went, they were still restoring it since it had been set to be demolished in '62. So, there wasn't as much to see.

Supposedly both are haunted, but the ghosts just weren't interested when I went. I don't know about any credible murders in Fairlawn, though.

Glensheen Mansion (Under Cons)
Fairlawn Mansion

[shimmerhawk]

Been to Fairlawn too! Lovely place. I didn't notice any spirit activity there, though I seem to recall getting an oddly creepy feeling.

[krissy]

Oh, ghost stories are so much fun! (Though, just to put it out there, I don't think of these things as "ghosts," but "spirits.")

I've had a few experiences with the paranormal, and each one was frightening. The first one was whenever I was approx. 8 or 9 years old. I lived in an old house that had a ridiculously long hallway since all five bedrooms were all on the same floor. It was dark outside, and the only light drifting out into this loooooong hallway was from my brother's room, halfway down its length. As I walked towards my brother's room, carrying a tray of food for him (because I was pretending to be a maid), I felt as though I were being watched. I looked ahead, and there sticking out of the bathroom's doorway at the end of the hallway, near the top of the door, was the silhouette of a face. I wish I could describe this more clearly, but my best description would be like I was looking at a living shadow. There were no features whatsoever; the head was like a black void, though its shape held that of a man's. Needless to say, I briskly walked the rest of the way to my brother's room, and proceeded to tell him that someone was looking at me from the bathroom. He blamed it on my imagination and sent me on my way to grab his drinks. As I came back down the hallway the second time, I didn't see the head at first, but all I did was look down at my tray, and when I looked back up, there it was again. After that, it never happened again.

My second experience happened while I lived at that same house, maybe two years after the above-mentioned incidence. My brother, his friend, and I were outside at night, and they had my brother's BB gun because they were trying to be macho pre-teens, and we had heard someone messing around outside, jangling with the windows and such. (As a side note, there actually was a person behind those incidences, so the spirit that I saw was not responsible.) Anyway, I was standing near my mom's car in the driveway, trying to tag along with my brother as usual. They were farther out in the yard, and I was being ignored (as usual). I looked to my right into the really deep shadow of the huge tree beside the house. At first, I just had that feeling that what I was looking at didn't make sense, though I couldn't figure out why that was. However, it soon became all too clear as the shadows separated, and a large man-shaped void started moving toward me. It had the same qualities of the spirit that I had seen before, only, in the first incidence, I never got to see the body (I believe the two were one in the same). I had known that it had been tall, since the shadow-head had been sticking out the door up near the ceiling, but I didn't know that it was THAT tall. It was easily nearing 6-and-a-half feet--which, from the perspective of a young girl, seems enormously tall. In any case, I stared at the detail-less figure moving towards me long enough to assure myself that I wasn't imagining it (by then, it was no more than six feet away), and then I screamed and ran into the house, yelling about a man coming towards me. My brother and his friend came in shortly after, and they hadn't seen anything.

My third experience happened whenever I was 16 years old. I was sitting in the basement of my mom's friend's house reading a great romance novel (which are so hard to come by ). In my peripheral vision, I thought that I saw something small in size move along the wall near the ceiling. I looked up, but of course nothing was there, and the fact that something the size of a cat was moving along near the ceiling seemed impossible enough, anyway. I just dismissed it as a trick of the eye, since the lighting was dim over in that part of the room. No more than five minutes later, I clearly saw something cat-sized glide across the floor directly in front of me, seen over the edge of my book. I glanced up just long enough to see the blob-shaped thing disappear behind a cardboard box. I wanted to convince myself that it had been a cat, but the shape had been so vague, almost liquidy. The coloring was a gray-cream mix, which had initially made me think of a fluffy cat, though the lack of solid detail made me second-guess myself. I quickly stood up and looked behind the box, but there was nothing there to be seen. I glanced around the rest of the room, but there was no cat (or anything else) to be found. By that point, I seriously had the heebie-jeebies, so I took off up the stairs into the top part of the house.

Other than those, I have never directly seen any other spirits, though I have lived in houses where activity could be heard taking place in various parts of the house, such as the attic and basment. Such things included dressers grinding across the floor, dresser drawars opening and shutting, objects being strewn all over the floor, creepy footsteps up the stairs, and so forth.

[brighteyed]

Interesting stories ^^ I believe I've experienced ghosts too.

It first started when I was fifteen and it was two months or so after my granny's death (she died from cancer, I didn't go to see her on the last week of her life whereas I had religiously kept going to see her every weekend. As a result I felt incredibly guilty.). I was getting ready for school and I smelt her, that was followed with a soft "I love you, always have done".

The next month and a bit I kept experiencing the same warm presence with the same smell, I saw little orbs of light fluttering past that could easily be noted as just dust particles (during the day I dismissed them, at night with not so much light not so much.). Even my cats reacted, wide eyed and unsure they'd usually scamper when she was near. I also swore I could feel her hand occasionally on my shoulder.

Before I asked her to leave she said for me to tell my mum she was sorry. My mum also got told this by a woman who could sense these things, kept saying "there's a woman who's adamant that you know she is very sorry" (my granny had issues with my mum and such so that made sense).

I started to experience other not so pleasant things. I had 'strangers' come up to me. I saw images they wanted me to see and once I felt pain. I felt my arm was burning and only when i ran it under the cold tap did the pain ease. The feelings I got around those strangers was cold and draining. Those experiences terrified me so much that I refused to stay in my room until I was sure they were gone.

Eventually things died down, only things I experience now is the odd 'cold spot' in buildings or something brushing against me.

[RedFeather]

Sounds to me as if your grandmother was so caught up in feeling sorry/apologizing to your mother that she forgot there was a better place somewhere for her to go. And so, being all caught up in that, it probably started to have a draining effect. Perhaps she just wanted assurance that she was forgiven?

[brighteyed]

She never felt a drain, I asked her to leave because at the time her presence no matter how nice feeling just made me all the more sad (she seemed like the only person who understood me and my quirks.).

After her however I came into contact with 'stranger ghosts' and they did have a leech like affect on me. I was told they were bad and to be avoided after approaching someone with the problem.

Thing is, she's told she's forgiven but seems she still insists that she's sorry. She doesn't follow me around anymore though.

[Earth Listener]

I’m not sure is this is a true ghost story or what it is. I haven’t a clue, but here it goes - About a year back I was in the kitchen taking to someone on the phone during the middle of the day. While I was taking to the person on the other end I hear this roar/hiss/growl of a cat that sounds like it is right behind. Startled/scared/freaked-out me turns around but I don’t see anything. I cannot see how I imagined because it was so loud and clear as day but the sound came out of seeming no where. I was the only one in the house at the time and we have no pets, and the sound I heard sounded like something from a large cat. I couldn’t have come from a TV because no TVs were on at all. We do have outdoor cats that run around are neighborhood that like to hang out in are backyard sometimes (and the kitchen is beside the backyard) but as I already stated the sound was to seeming big and right behind me to be a house cat outside the house. I quickly asked the person I was talking too on the phone if they heard anything but they said they didn’t know what I was so freaked out.

The experience didn’t really scare me, but more of shocked and startled me. I’m not sure if it was a ghost or spirit or what it was.

I’ve also sometimes felt a ‘be watched’ presence or feeling at times or something like that but I’m not sure if I’m just being paranoid or what it is, but I don’t think it is. Does anyone have any suggestions on any of this?

[Equinuus-Felinity]

Brighteyed: I know what you mean about the "leeching" spirits. I've had a few likewise experiences, but from what I've learned, not all such souls are "bad". Often they are just wounded and lost souls looking for someone to help them, or ease their grief. Am glad, though, that you no longer have to deal with that sort of thing. ^_^

Earth Listener: I've heard of a few stories like yours, and even had an experience like that myself. (I was alone in my house during one of the rare times that me and my family didn't have any pets, and while I was reading a book, I quite clearly saw a tiger lope across the room in front of me). I don't have any insight on it, other than what a few people have told me. The common consensus is that experiences with animal spirits are usually a warning or a "sign" (if you will) of things to come. Though I've always been of the opinion that if you really THINK something is going to happen, it's likely that it really IS going to happen because you'll make it happen. It's still a possibility that this is true. And as for the "being watched" issue, I really don't think you're being paranoid either. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there are eyes everywhere, and they often do take interest in us. Sometimes it's because they are keeping watch over us and keeping us out of trouble, and sometimes it's just curious creatures following us around out of sparked interest.

blessings!

-Equinuus-

[Earth Listener]

Thank-you for encouragement, Equinuus-Felinity. That is what I thought was possibly going about the “being watched” a bit myself but I wasn’t sure.
As for the “ warning sign”, I don’t think anything bad or anything else happened sometime around or a while after the time I heard the cat sound, though. Perhaps the animal spirit was trying to get my attention for some other reason or the animal spirit maybe to making me aware of the spirit being there.

Thank-you on the insight.

[Shadowsmoke]

So they were ghosts, Okay now it makes sense.
See I would walk down or up the stairs in my house, and it would be slightly more chilly there then in the rest of the house, and sometimes I'd see a human form, (more often just a face) Looking up at me. It was normally tall about 6"-ish.
I'd go into the hallway, and the same thing, except the form would be more twelve year old sized, leaning against the wall, staring. Sometimes it would be walking toward me,and sometimes the figures would switch places.
One time I had been walking down, (It had been four or five in the morning, the sun had not yet risen, and my father was going to work.) and an hassock sized thing came barreling toward me, Being paranoid about the figures I had been seeing, I automatically ran away from it into the first light I had seen.
Then, another time I had gone into the basement, and had not yet turned on the light when I saw them, one slightly shorter then the other, they had looked like they were talking to eachother, and when they saw me, they instantly vanished.
Each time whatever I had seen was kind of a glowing whitish, and long and gangly, and would have no features.
And occasionally I'll hear whispers, sometimes I hear someone call my name, when no one's around, and then There's skittering and thumping, and creaking. But that may just be the house.
As for the animal thing, Back when I still hadn't awakened, and was still really into tigers, I was thinking about what it would be like to be an animal, and which one I'd want to be, (tiger at the time) when in the corner, I saw a large shadow, It was in the shape of a huge furry dog, and was staring at me, with big, golden eyes. When I went to take a closer look, it vanished.

[justyourlocalredfox]

Yea, I have a couple. I somehow have been able to vaguely see the outlines of people sometimes. It used to freak me out, but I'm pretty chill with it now.

A couple years ago, my sister, brother mom, and I all went to a REAAAAAALLY old barn. It was all closed off, you couldn't go inside, there was no entrance. As we walked around it a little, we started hearing what sounded like chairs scraping across the floor inside. I got kinda excited, but my mom and sister were freaked out. They tried to explain it by a draft or something, but I'm pretty sure that a little wind wouldn't be able to move an entire chair.

I just moved houses because my last house was kinda old. It was about 60 years old. Not too old, but it had been lived in for a very long time. My room was a less nicer one. It was small, and soundproof for some reason. And whenever I was there, I got the EXTREME creeps. I always felt like I was being watched by something bad. And one night, I heard a very faint, soft child’s moan. Like, if you breathed out, but made sound while you did.

Last one! My school, is kinda old too. It was built in the 1950s. Not super old, but much older than me. I was in my art classroom, when I felt a finger tap my shoulder and a presence behind me. I turned around to see, for a split second, a boy who was all white. If you’ve seen Swiss Family Robinson, he looked like the youngest brother. But he was wearing a school uniform. That same day, I felt a presence of someone moving behind me, and I turned around to see just a pair of legs, (again, for a split second) with white school uniform pants, walking behind me. 

So either I've gone nuts, or im just seeing some ghosts