One night, another person & I were working late. The phone would ring & no one was there. Then the answering machine would reset itself for no reason. It happened over & over. Then the phone rang again and I jokingly said, "Maybe it's the ghost". Just as I said it, beginning with the first of about twenty sets of wind-chimes, every set chimed, one after the other moving from the back of the store towards us.
No wind, no breeze. No explanation!
My Children
When I was 6, my family (mom, dad, sister, and me) moved to a home where we lived for about 3 years.
A woman had died in the home leaving behind several small children. With my sister and I in the home, it seems she wanted to look after us. Each of us had multiple experiences, seeing, hearing, even being touched by this woman.
She would straighten up things, sit in our rooms, move things. My parents tried to tell me nothing was there, hoping to calm my fears. I was terrified because I didn't understand.
After we moved out, I was able to get a confession and collaboration from my family about their experiences. Since then, I've had numerous encounters with other entities.
Who is That Jumping?
I was about 16 at the time, lying on the couch that was opposite the hall and stairs in my old house. As I lay there I heard two large footsteps near the bottom stairs and one large bang on what seemed to be the last step, as if someone had taken a leap and landed with both feet upon the last step.
I was looking at the stairs from the couch wondering what made the noise but did not see anything.
Later, upon recalling the story to my family my brother and sister who were around 13 and 10 years of age at the time, they told me how they too were playing in the front room on a separate occasion when they heard someone run down the steps when no one was actually there.
My mum also recalled a similar event that happened to her that she had told anyone about.
Cheese Toast and A Shadow Man
It was the middle of the night. I was hungry so I decided to make some cheese toast. I got everything I needed and took it into the downstairs kitchen so I wouldn't wake anyone.
As I entered the kitchen I was greeted by a 7 feet tall, shadowy figure leaning out of the bathroom.
I froze when I saw it, and the figure disappeared immediately while I was staring at it. I just stood there for a while. I don't think I even took a breath in that time.
Blood-Stained Wood Floors
I grew up in a Civil War field hospital building that was about 250 years old. The old wood floors were still stained with the blood.
At night, when we all rested in bed, you could hear booted footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall to the middle bedroom where they would come to a creaking halt in front of the radiator and then the metal radiator would make a ticking sound.
We had been told a story by previous owners that it as a soldier who had died in some fighting outside when he had come back for his boots. I was scared as a kid, but then I stopped and thought about it and realized these soldiers died away from their families. They were soldiers. They were walking the halls and protecting us. It made me feel safe.
I was Astonished
It was about 10:00 at night at my best friend's house.
We were sitting in the living room talking and I looked towards the floor in the doorway. In my peripheral vision I saw something moving from the closet toward the middle of the room. As I noticed this, I looked up and saw a black shadowy figure.
As this shadow being moved across the room, it stopped and looked towards me.
In the room there was a desk lamp and a computer monitor that were switched on, so the room was well lit.
This being stopped in front of the computer monitor and I could not see through it!
I kept my cool and did not reveal to my friend and his mom what I saw, and neither did they; neither one of them said anything.
I left that night and came back the next day to inform my friend what I had seen the night before. My words exactly were, "Dude, you are gonna think I'm crazy" and he interrupted me and said, "what? You saw that black shadowy figure move across my room last night?" He then said, "Don't worry, I see them all the time".
I was astonished! My friend, his mom, and I all saw this apparition.
Chinese Ghost
Chinese ghost seventh month: my family were praying and I saw this white image extending it's hand to reach for the duck leg that was used for praying.
I thought it was a factory worker and went over angrily wanting to scold someone.
However, when I saw it, I was in a car, few meters away. As I got out of the car, dashed to the site, no one was there and the food was untouched. I checked out the area to ensure that no one was there. Indeed, no one was there.
Disembodied Hand
I was sitting on a couch and a silver, disembodied hand (feminine, soft), touched my foot.
A Friend's Hand
When getting ready to go to sleep for the night, I was looking in my closet that had no doors and was fairly shallow. An unseen hand appeared to place itself between the clothes hanging up, and all of the clothes from the mid point of the closet slid over to the left hand side for 2-3 seconds, then returned to where they were with a minimum of movement to the other clothes.
Note: the shirt that was being touched belonged to my best friend who had died about 6 months earlier.
Also. I saw a shadow image of a person materialize on the blood spot of the afore-mentioned friend and appear to glide into a closed coat closet.
Party-On
In the late 1980's my wife and I were renting an old house on the east side of… We had all kinds of strange happenings in that house.
We heard footsteps on the stairs, and we could here pots and pans rattling in the kitchen when no one else was in there.
I was in a band at the time and we would have crazy parties. After some of these parties we would let people who had too much to drink occasionally sleep on the couch. Sometimes they would tell us in the morning that they heard someone cooking in the kitchen or people coming up and down the stairs.
Playing with My Ponytail
I was a new mother, and on this occasion I was in the basement washing clothes in an old wringer washer. After washing a load of clothes I would hang them up to dry on a clothesline in the basement. I had my long hair in a ponytail that day and while I was hanging an article of clothing something pulled my ponytail very hard; it was hard enough to jerk my head back. I thought it was my husband, but when I turned around there was no one there, or should I say there was no one there who I could physically see.
Apparition First; Rumour Second
It was daytime, and my husband and I were getting ready to go somewhere. I was sitting in the living room, looking down the hall. I saw a man standing at the end of the hall, outside the bedroom where my husband was getting ready.
The man was dressed in a black coat and hat, like they wore in the 1950's and '60's.
His form was solid, and he was looking down the hall at me. Then he vanished.
I later learned that a man, named… who always dressed like this, had owned the house years ago and was rumoured to still haunt the house.
Since I heard that rumour after I saw the apparition, I believe it to be correct.
From My Childhood
When I was young I always got very strong impressions; I guess they were like spirits but I'm not entirely sure.
I HATED school, and it was starting to affect me physically. Then, I started sensing a woman, sometimes others were with her, who would tell me it was ok, and to not feel stressed and worried, etc.
She wore clothes like robes and cloaks that were beautiful; they were purple and white and gold mostly. I never actually SAW her, but I'm positive of what I sensed.
I finally told my mom, and she said she didn't know what it was, but to remember that bad spirits can appear as good spirits.
I started to wonder whether maybe this lady was a demon in disguise and the lady got really angry, and so I told my mom again because I was scared. She never did come back, and she was one of the only spirits I ever really knew and recognized. It wasn't long after that I started my teen years and I can't really sense as much anymore.
A Full House
We moved into a terraced house with six children and everything was fine until about six months into our stay.
My bed was up against an old blocked off fireplace. I woke one night to hear a toddler screaming "daddy, daddy". Our next-door neighbors were three young college students (this is where the crying was coming from). The next morning I went to ask if they had a little one in there; they looked at me as if I was crazy. To cut a long story short, I said I would come knocking if I heard it again and inform the authorities because they shouldn't have a little one in the premises. This experience happened twice.
Then, other things occurred like radios coming on by themselves at full volume; things would go missing only to turn up in the most unusual places weeks later. I also had the impression that I was being watched and that was scary for me because I was normally on my own.
All of my children had experiences that scared the heebie geebies out of them. My only daughter was the most affected by night-time visitors. We heard footsteps and saw dark shadows that came from the side of the wardrobe in my bedroom.
My two dogs would come upstairs with me if I wanted time out on my own to read a book. One night the dogs stood up on the bed growling and following something at ceiling height; the dogs weren't scared but I was. I ran down the stairs to tell my hubbie what I had seen but he would never go and investigate because he knew we had these visitors.
All this stuff went on for about eighteen months and yet I never had the feeling that I had to move. I learned not to be scared of what was going on, and the occurrences finally abated. Then, we moved house about a year later.
Having the Time of Their Lives
Okay, this also took place in Louisiana, but in a different town.
I had moved in with my dad and his girlfriend. We lived on a 3 or 4 mile, long dirt road and about halfway along there was a cemetery above ground, you know the type? My family and good friends of family were the only ones who lived on that road.
Anyway, I would always slip to buy cigarettes from a store and in order to get there I'd have to walk past the cemetery, into woods then follow a path about 2 miles. On this particular day, I did just that, only as I came to edge of wood to walk thru the cemetery (I didn't hear no inner voice or even a voice in my head) I just knew to duck behind the last few trees.
I didn't know why but I did it. Anyway, as I looked around the trees while I was hiding (I guess you'd call it that), I saw identical twin, African-American boys dressed in cut offs shirts and suspenders.
They seemed to be having the time of their lives, pardon the pun, but that's the aura they put out.
They were playing get this, and leapfrogging over the tombs and graves.
This went on about five minutes and they just leapfrogged till the graveyard met the wood at furthest end; then they were gone.
That was it! That was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me anyway, so I walked rest way home smiling.
Thesis Extract
Chapter 3 Literature Review
3.1 Introduction
In Chapter 2 the body of literature on using the WWW to collect data was reviewed. In this chapter the relevant literature pertaining to parapsychological experiences is examined under three broad headings:
‘nature’ which deals with the issues of definition and terminology, and research difficulties that arise as a result of the multidisciplinary nature of paranormal experiences;
‘incidence’ which examines the current evidence on spontaneous paranormal and spiritual experiences; and
‘impact and integration’ which reviews what is currently known about the effects of paranormal experiences on the experients.
In the final part of Chapter 3 the findings of past surveys on parapsychological experiences, including those that form the basis of the current study, are introduced.
The issue of whether the paranormal is proven or not is outside the scope of the current study but as Feldman and Goldsmith (1991) assert, “one should not necessarily dismiss a phenomenon as untrue simply because it cannot easily be explained” (p.191).
Indeed, three decades ago, the frequency with which these experiences were being reported provoked Greeley (1975) to suggest that “any phenomena with incidence as widespread as the paranormal deserves much more careful and intensive research than it has received up to now” (p.7). The current study and this researcher are inspired by the small number of specialists in the field of parapsychology, including Radin who asserts, “scientific evidence for some forms of psi is indeed persuasive. By the same standards used to establish proof in other areas of science, we can say with confidence that psi does exist” (Radin, 2007b, ¶4).
