October 31, 2005

• I met quoddy once. Pretty scary....
• For two years here at Longwood University I have lived almost directly across from a confederate soldier's statue. The statue was put there in 1900. You can see the statue in this picture with the Ruffner building in the background.
  
• It is said that at certain times in the day when the sun is right that the statue will cast its shadow on the upper part of the building. Story goes that when the shadow is there then the soldier is inside the statue and everything is fine. But when you can't see the shadow then the soldier is out and about with his rifle causing trouble. Anyways in April of 2001 fire consumed the Ruffner building. Later a photo surfaced out of many taken that night with this same angle on the building.
  
• Can you see the soldier guarding the building with his rifle? Apologies for splitting up the post, image tags bein a pain
• Dutch Witches Get Tax Break for Studies Apparently, Dutch zombies and vampires are furious.
• San Francisco's most haunted.
• Can you see the soldier guarding the building with his rifle? All I see is a guy wearing a pillowcase holding a rope.
• I was never kept awake at night by a story until I read Elias and the Draug. I was more than 30 years old. Unfortunately, the Victorian translator of the linked version has tried to convince her readers of Elias's alcoholism, which detracts from the power of the piece.
• You can find a lot of good ghost stories by Algernon Blackwood on the web for free, some of which are quite chill-inducing. But I imagine you're looking for "true" ghost stories, eh? I usually try to start such a thread every halloween, with mixed results. Personally, I've never seen a ghost or Bigfoot, but I wish I had.
• I used to be cynical about all this "ghost" shit too, Tenacious - and then, not too long ago, I personally began haunting someone. Well - "stalking someone" - if you want to get all fucking technical about it.
• I'll take whatever stories will creep me out - true or not!
• I could tell you about my surgery from a few years ago, but that's usually better with visual aids.
• This one scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. 3 Quicktime audios of Vincent Price reading two occult recipes from an old book and finally a story that makes use of the objects thus created.
• If you like that, here's a treasure trove of other creepy VP audio.
• Here's one for you that I can assure you is the real deal. My second-cousin Jackie is an extremely down-to-earth Presbyterian type who will insist that she does not in fact believe in ghosts. Her father, Sam, was a rather reactionary Jehovah's Witness who had rather strong attitudes about nearly everything. Sam died in the early 80s. Jackie decided to rent the flat her parents had lived in and, after interviewing various prospective tenants, invited a very nice gay couple to move in, as they were responsible and had great references. After a week or so, Jackie got a call from one of her renters. "We can't live here." He said. "Weird things happen." When pressed, he told Jackie that the first night of their stay in the flat, they were sleeping on a large mattress on the floor as their furniture had not yet arrived. During the night, they clearly heard the sound of someone shuffling around their heads as they lay on the floor. Several days later, one was shaving and clearly saw "an old, sour-faced man" standing behind him, reflected in the mirror, who was of course not actually there. Jackie asked for a description. She got one. "That was Dad," she said to herself. The next renters were an unmarried couple. This time, the call came in less than a week. "Somebody keeps coming up our back stairway at night and pounding on the kitchen door," they explained anxiously. "But we keep the door at the bottom of the stairs locked all the time." Since then, Jackie has been a lot more careful about whom she rents to, and she gives warnings. "I don't believe in ghosts." Jackie insists to this day. "But I have no explanation." I still get chills thinking about this conversation. Happy Halloween, everybody...
• Great story, kinnakeet! Check out last year's spooky thread for some more freaky stories.
• Here's one: I just gave notice at my job of 7 years AND DON'T HAVE A NEW JOB LINED UP. This has scared quite a few people I know recently!
• I was outside gardening the other day when I heard a child call out and then come thudding across the grass towards me, laughing as they ran. I turned around expecting to see my son, but there was no one there. True story. I went looking for my son, seriously thinking it had been him and he was hiding, but he turned out to be on the other side of the house. (Probably just a weird mother-thing, but you never know...)
• I believe ghosts or whatever are all around us. Maybe not ghosts, but the energy that used to be people. And I've never told anyone that, because for some reason I am absolutely terrified of meeting a ghost. Anyway, I have two not-very-interesting, er, stories. First, quite a long time ago in White Rock, NM (about 10 minutes from Los Alamos, where I lived), a friend and I were admiring the sunset from Overlook Rock. At the same instant, we looked at eachother in terror and ran for the car as fast as we could. We didn't say a thing until we were a short distance away from the place. The second was just a couple of weeks ago. A movie was just finishing up, with the credits rolling. With the remote being on the computer desk a few feet away, the channel changed to a music channel I'd had on before starting the movie. I'd watched movies this way before (using OnDemand), and when the movie's been over, it always switches back to the OnDemand channel so I knew something was weird. I decided I had a ghost - even with no evidence*, I was already pretty convinced there's an active presence in our apartment. So, I asked the ghost to please not intentionally freak me out, and to watch the cat because he keeps peeing on the carpet when we're at work. The ghost has *not* been watching Gizmo, but neither has he bothered me again. * However, I have been looking for items before, and found them in a place I'd *just* looked. As in, looking for the scissors one day, I made the rounds in the kitchen and not found them on countertops or in drawers. Came back into the kitchen to find them on a clean, clear countertop where I'd not have missed them before.
• Damn, Kittenhead, that IS scary!
• I don't know if this qualifies as a ghostie, but here's another one: A few years ago I lost track of an opal pin that my father had given his mother (he got it in Ceylon during WWII) and that I had since inherited. I was devastated, as this was a very important tie to people I'd lost, namely my father and his mother. I assumed the pin had been mislaid during a trip to visit his sister in another city. I searched for that pin for, literally, years. Every once in a while I'd think about it and rifle through more drawers or dig through suitcases. One night, very late, I was feeling very tired and a little bit, well, weird. I thought of the pin, and said out loud, "oh come on, Dad, you know where it is! Show me!" I heard a faint *ping* and looked down, to find a small satin jewelry case that had inexplicably slipped out of a bag of sundry stuff in a pile next to me. Of course, the pin was inside. I should have felt creeped out, but didn't. "Thanks, Dad." I said aloud. I wish I could say this sort of thing happens to me often, but alas, it does not. There is so much more than meets the eye...
• I believe there is something going on; that past events, emotions, and people can leave an impression in a particular space or object. That said, I wish these fucking Confederate soldiers would get the hell out of my kitchen as I am trying to cook.
• Not a ghost story as such but involving what I think may have been a visitation from the other side. Once I had a very vivid dream about my grandparents (who unfortunately all died in my teens). I'm not the sort to remember my dreams but I had detailed long lasting recall of this one, which was odd. The dream was quite bizarre and involved a cycling trip with the grandparents. The strange thing was that I was on an oversized childs trike. A month or so later I discovered the good lady was expecting our first. Through circumstances I also happen to know the dream occurred on the night of conception. I'm convinced they came to me in my dreams to celebrate. No amount of rational will dissuade me of that either.
• Okay, possibly my longest comment ever... My grandmother was a sort of nursemaid for Alfred Hitchcock's sister back in the day. She worked the night shift. She (the sister) was married to a judge that had passed away years before, but (apparently) always had a bit of a crush on his wife's sister. My grandmother would sleep in that sister's room when she would stay to take care of her. One night, my grandmother heard footsteps coming into her room. She just laid there, and one corner of the bed went down like someone was sitting on it, but she couldn't see anyone sitting there. After a while, she heard footsteps retreating from the room. The next morning, as she went to attend to the judge's wife, the woman asked her "Did you see the Judge? He was here last night visiting me!"
• I cleaned out the refrigerator tonight. If that isn't terrifying, you've not really lived. Other than that, I suppose I could be tasteless and link to a news story.
• Other than that, I suppose I could be tasteless and link to a news story. I could swear I saw that posted around here somewhere already. I'm getting shivers. Ooooooooo! A ghost in the machine!
• Near the turn of the last century Charles Fort wrote several books on collected tales of odd occurances and anomalous phenomena which were reported in newspapers and periodicals. There are many Fortean web pages on the net and at least one HTML copy of his book Wild Talents.
• I've seen or felt a number of ghosts in my childhood, and apparently before I was even born. When pregnant with me, my mom felt someone trying to strangle her in bed almost every night. It would seem like a case of sleep paralysis - except that my mom could barely move, and she would flail at my dad with one hand, waking him up. She couldn't see the ghost strangling her, but my dad could, and would chase the ghost away when he woke up. The ghost looked quite a bit like my paternal grandmother, who lived with us then, and sometimes some of the family would come home, see the ghost sitting in the living room, and think that it was my grandma, only to find that she had not been home at that time. There's a bit more to the story, but that's as much as I can relate at the moment. Maybe more tomorrow (^_^)
• *Runs screaming from the room*
• Yow, Alnedra! Please continue :) (pretty please?)
• Seconded!
• ~DON'T DO IT ALNEDRA~ *gasp!* Who said that???
• Sorry, it was pretty late last night. Let's see.... Not much more to relate. I was born, and the ghost "disappeared". Actually, she didn't - she attached herself to me. For years I thought she was one of my grandmother's sisters (she has six, and I lose track sometimes). Whenever I was alone - which was pretty frequent - I'd see her, sitting in the same room, wearing a white dress with pastel flowers on it, smiling at me. I was about five or six when I realised she was a ghost, I'm not sure how I knew. I recall telling a friend of mine, and she said put a cross somewhere in the room to keep her out. I remember using a pin to poke out a cross in my chest of drawers in little dots. We moved out of that apartment when I was in my early teens, and the entire block was torn down. A few years after that, I was out with some friends and got seriously frightened by a lady ghost. When I went home, I told my dad, and afterwards we talked about the ghost at home. It was only then that my family found out I had seen the ghost for years after she presumably disappeared. Apparently the previous owner of our apartment was a rich man's mistress, and she died in a miscarriage. Her mother brought her body back from the hospital to hold the wake in the apartment, and her ghost got stuck there. That's why she was so angry at my mom when she was pregnant. And perhaps why she seemed to fond of me.
• Wow, Alnedra, that was creepy. How did your parents deal with that? It sounds like something that would absolutely drive me over the edge. I love it!
• My dad and his mother had this "sixth sense" ability/curse as well, although it gets less sensitive as we get older. So it wasn't a really big deal for us. The teahouse I go to used to be located in another shophouse unit around the corner from where it is now. The tables were separated from one another with wooden window-like frames, so you could see fairly clearly the next table, but not so well the further tables. When I was alone in there, I'd sometimes get the feeling that there was someone seated at a table at the other end of the shop. And when I was helping out, I'd sit behind the bar (where bubble tea drinks were made), reading a book. And I'd see a figure walk by on the mirror on the wall behind the bar. I'd look up, expecting a customer, but no one was there. I didn't get spooked out because that's how I kept an eye out for customers coming in anyway, and I would be expecting to see their reflection before I saw them. If I didn't see anyone, I just get back to reading. The place felt uncomfortable, but not eerie. After we moved out of there, the manager confided in me that she and some of the other part-timers had similar experiences.