The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Terrifying but TRUE Paranormal Stories To Fall Asleep To (VOL 7)

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

10% off with the code TAPE at Manta Sleep - http://tinyurl.com/yw5xkd9b Tonight, we're telling ghost stories around the campfire. I bring you 27 never before heard real life paranormal stories. This is the next part in our scary stories to fall asleep to series. These stories have all been submitted by viewers of The Tape Library over the last few months, I present them as always in the experiencers own words. Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers - https://therealtapelibrary.podbean.com/ Stock footage and additional audio courtesy of Envato, Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library. Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Chapters: 00:00 True Ghost Stories 01:38 Manta Sleep 02:51 Welcome 03:46 Story 1 09:34 Story 2 15:42 Story 3 28:12 STAY 28:28 Story 4 33:43 Story 5 38:33 Story 6 43:13 DON'T GO 43:43 Story 7 54:50 Story 8 1:12:19 YOU CAN'T GO 1:13:15 Story 9 1:18:04 Story 10 1:25:07 Story 11 1:32:54 Story 12 1:37:10 Story 13 1:41:25 YOU ARE MINE NOW 1:41:47 Story 14 1:45:47 Story 15 1:50:50 Story 16 1:57:08 Story 17 2:02:25 Story 18 2:20:14 Story 19 2:23:59  Story 20 2:27:52 Story 21 2:31:51 Story 22 2:38:41 Story 23 2:41:27 Story 24 2:47:33 Story 25 2:53:07 Story 26 2:56:11 Story 27 3:02:07 THIS IS YOUR HOME NOW 03:03:18 The Fire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the tape library. It's time for a long overdue bonus episode. In case you haven't seen one of these before, I'll just quickly explain this episode, but chapters are available for those who wish to skip ahead. This is the latest entry in my scary stories to fall asleep to series. We're going to be gathering around a campfire and I'll be sharing with you some of my favourite real-life paranormal encounters that you have all sent me over the last seven months. This video will have minimal visuals and minimal audio effects. It's just a good old back-to-basics ghost story session for you to relax and maybe even fall asleep to. The fire effect will continue on for a while when the stories end, for those of you that have drifted off. Many of these stories have been featured on my second channel, Night Drive Paranormal. So if you enjoy these stories, then please subscribe there to hear more every month. All stories are narrated as written by the people who experienced them, meaning many are not the work of professional writers. While some have taken a more fancy approach to their writing style, for the most part these are just ordinary people trying to explain something that happened to them. While comments about the individual stories are very welcome, please bear in mind they will likely be read by the person who wrote the story.

Whatever you choose to believe, they claim at least that these events really happen to them. In a moment there'll be a sponsor read and you may get a quick ad break, but after that, there should be no adverts interrupting this episode. If you want to support me, you can do that simply by clicking like, and if you are feeling extra generous, then please do leave a comment below. This episode has been made possible by our long-time sponsor, Man to Sleep. If you are someone that struggles to sleep, I cannot recommend Man to Sleep enough. They are the perfect sleep masks for cutting out any environmental light in your room, or shutting out that pesky daylight if you are someone who needs to sleep during the day. They are adjustable so can offer total blackout for anyone, which I have found to not be true if many other sleepings.

with many other sleep masks. And you can get a whole host of different styles, from weighted masks, cooling eye patches, to a fancy Bluetooth version that is perfect for falling asleep to scary stories. I've mentioned before, but I'm really picky about what companies I will do ad reads for, and I've seen numerous comments from some of you out there talking about these masks and how much you enjoy them. So I'm pleased that this seems to be a product that you guys genuinely enjoy. You can get 10% off your order by using my link below or by using the code tape at checkout. Thank you man to sleep and thank you all for not skipping the hat. You didn't, right?

Because I have a lot of ghosts and demons hanging out in the tape library archives. Now get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable. It's time for some real life ghost stories to fall asleep to. Hey, welcome. No one else is here yet. Come join me by the fire. It's so dark and cold. Just warm yourself up for a moment.

I'm sure everyone else will join us soon. It's weird, isn't it? Camping so far out in the forest like this. You can't hear the road anymore. Just the owls and the crickets. And that crisp wind cutting through. I've got an idea while we kill a bit of time waiting for the others. I know some ghost stories.

I travel around the world, you see, and people just tell me these strange tales of things they have seen but can't explain. Want me to tell you a couple? Okay, let's get into our first one. In the UK in February 1992, there arrived a week of chilly weather and snowfall that made the countryside that I lived in look even more scenic and enchanting. I was living at home with my parents at this time in a small town in the Cotswolds called Dursley. For those of you unfamiliar with this area of Britain, it is well known for its chocolate box villages and old Cotswoldian stone cottages.

In fact, J.K. Rowling named the family who kept Harry Potter under the stairs after the town, because she once lived in the area. But I digress. On this evening in February, my father and I decided to take our dogs for a walk around the surrounding area, so we could enjoy the snow and the magic of winter against the backdrop. of forests, hills and villages. When the snow has fallen, the night takes on a deep, creamy blue hue, and with very limited street lighting in that area, we were able to do our walk without a torch, as the bright snow was so newly settled underfoot, we could see our way about easily. We had been walking for some time and was really enjoying being in the cold night, when we decided to cut across some fields from the lane we were strolling in, so we could get to another lane to start

slowly making our way back home. Our feet by now were getting very cold and we were wanting to get back to have a big mug of hot tea and warm up. As we walked up the field that was on a gentle gradient to cross the stile at the top of the lane, we could hear the distant sound of children enjoying themselves and playing with sledges in the snow. It was my father who first saw a man stood up ahead, next to the style that we were going to have to climb over. He said to me that there was someone there, and that we should get the dogs on their leads in case they started barking at him. The dogs were a bit in front of us, but we didn't really have time to get them back because we both realised there was something odd about the figure standing there.

By now we were about 30 yards away but could clearly see what this man who was very tall, was wearing, a long black cloak, and what looked like something white over his head. Whatever he was wearing on his head looked bag-like, like a pillowcase. And there were two holes cut in front for eyes. That's the only way I can really describe how freaky he looked. Apart from that, he was completely clothed in dark colours. We stopped in our tracks and his head turned to water. us as if seeing us for the first time. He held us in his gaze for a few moments and then he took

a few steps sideways towards the style. We were going to cross and he sat down on the step of it. A fear was slowly rising in me and I could feel my heart starting to beat harder. My father never one to show fear or much emotion carried on walking and I remember walking very near to him as we got closer to the figure. The man didn't move. He was just sat there, seemingly observing us. Even as I recall this happening as of today, I can still capture the same scary feeling about it that I had then. As we got a bit nearer, the dogs then stopped and ran back to us. By now we were about 10 yards away and could clearly see him sat there, completely motionless. As we got even closer and a few feet away, the figure was just literally not there anymore.

The outline of where he sat close up was the edge of the wooden structure of the style and where his head once was became the piled up snow that was settled on the crossover on top of it. It was just as if he was absorbed into the style and what we were looking at was something that looked a bit like someone sat there, but was in fact just an illusion of the snow. It was bizarre. Even looking at it closer, still looked a bit like the shape of a man, but it was just a random configuration of snow in the wooden style

that created this false imagery. We crossed the style still puzzling and looking around us, and all the time talking about what we had just seen or thought we'd seen and looking for clues around the snow. There was no disturbed snow, no footprints except for ours, and nowhere the man could have hidden away. The dogs growled a bit, but didn't seem to show much interest in it either way. We walked down that lane quicker than usual and kept looking back,

but didn't see anything else. On reflection, the whole thing seemed so far-fetched and ridiculous, but we genuinely saw someone standing by that style, and move and sit on it. How to best describe the way the snow had formed, the look of someone sat, only added to the weirdness of the whole situation. For years we talked about it.

My dad passed away 11 years ago, but I sometimes think back to that evening when we both saw the frightening figure and how strange it was. In my mind it has proved to me that there are some things we witness in this, world that we just cannot explain. This happened back in the early 1960s. Forgive me while I first set the scene with some detail. I had to go into hospital for a couple of surgeries as a

very young boy, the second of which was for a tonsillectomy when I was roughly six or seven. Although the main part of our local hospital was old Victorian architecture, the children's wing was newly built in the 50s or 60s, a modern design out back a amongst the grounds. As such, there were two bedrooms rather than the old-fashioned multi-bed wards I'd previously been in. The outside wall of each room was pretty much one huge window, floor to ceiling and side to side, covered by full-length vertical blinds that were left open most of the time. This afforded a lovely view during the day of the grassy lawns and trees of the hospital grounds, with some other buildings in the distance. These days,

A simple operation such as mine is an in-and-out day job. But back then it required me to be in for at least three days, barring complications. So I was admitted one afternoon, with surgery scheduled for the next day, and put in the bed nearest the window. Another boy already occupying the other bed. My parents stayed to settle me in for as long as they were allowed, but eventually were shooed away by the matron and I was left alone. I won't say I was a brave little soldier. I was crapping myself about the surgery, but I had enough of my own toys and stuff to occupy me, until the nurses said, lights out for the night.

Now here's where things got weird for me. I awoke some time during the night and realised that the nurse had left our blinds completely open. The grounds outside were pitch black, a stark contrast from the daytime view, but that wasn't what was scaring me. Right in front of me, as I lay on my side facing the window. There were ten or more people pressed up against the glass. Imagine the sort of zombie crowd like in the Walking Dead, but without the gruesome makeup, all vying to be at the front by pushing against each other, the ones at the front being squashed

against the pain by the ones behind, in an effort to be noticed. What was most odd was that, although it was pitch black outside, and almost no light from the walled corridor. These figures were highly detailed, as if lit by their own source and black and white, like old photographs. They looked like everyday people, varying ages, and both men and women.

I would have expected if they were normal people to have heard bangs or squeaks on the glass as they were moving against it, or their grunts and voices, but there was a conspicuous absence of sound from them. Just the normal sounds of the nightly routine of the ward from further within the building. Needless to say, I quickly turned over and quaked under the blankets for quite a while, not daring to look at the window again.

The next morning in the hospital bustle carried on as usual, and I was eventually prepped and taken down for surgery. I awoke from anesthetic that afternoon, with the discomfort of removed tonsils, and awaited my parents at visiting time. I never told them about the people at the window, as with my previous weird experience. I feared their ridicule. The nurses told them I was mending nicely, and I could be discharged to go home sometime the next day,

as the end of visiting hours rolled around. I tried to get my parents to take me with them, in typical whining childlike fashion, but to no avail. I was doomed to another night in the ward. Sure enough, the nurses have been, had left the blinds open again. I had checked earlier to see if there was some way to close them, but they didn't seem to be, at least not to a six-year-old anyway. Night soon came, but the pain in my throat kept me tossing a turn in, instead of going into my normal deep sleep. In the fitful

sleep of the wee small hours, I turned over to see those same creepy people at the window again. They looked almost pleading, like, see me, see me, sort of. a thing instead of threatening or trying to be scary. But scary they were, to me, by their very presence. So in a repeat of the previous night, I turn over to cow were under the sheets, eventually giving in to sleep again. I could not get out of their quick enough when my parents arrived to take me home the next day. Lots of jelly and ice cream for my sore throat helped to soon remove the experience from my young mind.

but not to be forgotten entirely. You may attribute this experience to pranksters or trespassers on the hospital grounds, but they were a pretty mixed bunch, both old and young, which I would have to say was an improbable grouping, unless they were some sort of cult family. Bear in mind that it was in the early 60s. That would have been some bizarre behaviour back then. Me?

I've looked back on this many times as an adult. and can only summarise that I attracted them for whatever reason, and that they were spirits of the recently deceased, from elsewhere in the hospital, confused about their state and looking for some guidance. Quite why they were held back by the glass of the window, I'll never know. One would have expected them to drift right through as if they were nothing, perhaps being recently parted.

Their essences were still somewhat constrained by physical laws and the solidity of material objects. I do hope they soon manage to move on, and aren't still there, trying to attract someone else's attention. This is my account of a ghost I experienced, probably back in 1982 or 1983. I posted it before on an IMDB forum back in 2004,

but I don't think it was sensational enough to get much attention. I used a quotation marked as I really don't know if it was real or not, but when I was a kid it terrified me. And then as I grew up, I kind of brushed it off as a hoax. But recently, I've been doing what a lot of men my age do, and reminiscing, which makes me think that it might have been real, especially now that I understand the world a little better. So I grew up in a village in Buckinghamshire,

called Haddonham. It's a big village, and we have a church that was around 800 years old, which has appeared in a few films. I went to the church school nearby and made friends with a fellow pupil that I'll call John.

I won't use his or his family's real names as I don't want to speak out of term for them. John and his family live down a street right next to the church, adjacent to the duck pond. It's apparently the oldest street in the village, and his family's house is probably close to 400 years old now. It used to be two houses, but at some point in their history,

they were converted into a larger four bedroom house, which was long and narrow. It was a great house to visit as a kid, due to its huge garden and the fact they had a large room that doubled as a playroom and a music room. Plus John's family were always really friendly and welcoming. They were a big part of the village community, of the village community, quite eccentric and into crafts and history. The house reflected this

with its warm wooden interiors, lots of pottery and paintings on the walls. To a kid barely into double digits it felt like stepping back in time, compared to the modern Scandinavian-style house my family lived in, on the other side of the village. But at school, John used to tell us ghost stories about his house. Things he'd seen or heard. They were creepy for sure, but I didn't really believe them. I thought he was lying to impress us. So on one occasion when at his house for tea, I asked his mum and older sister about the haunting. They both had similar stories to share. The family and their neighbours had heard strange noises in the night, seen glowing mists in the garden, and even witnessed people who shouldn't have been there.

there. However, they both seem fairly nonplussed about the occurrences. In fact, John's mum seemed to like the idea of a friendly ghost in the house. John was less keen. The narrowness of the house meant that to get to his parents' room from his bedroom, he had to walk out onto a small landing, down the stairs, along the main corridor, and up another set of stairs in order to reach them. effectively walking into what used to be a bedroom in another house. If he felt scared, normally he'd wake his sister instead. But as a teenager, she was less patient than his parents. Now, I can't remember what time of year I agreed to stay over one night at John's house,

since this happened around four decades ago. But for some reason, I do remember that it was a cloudless night of a bright moon. I was sleeping next to him on the floor of his room on a thin mattress. We'd gone to bed quite late and then stayed up whispering to each other, only to be hushed again and again by his sister in the room next door. The door to John's bedroom was opened wide, which did nothing to muffle while hushed giggling. It also meant that I could look out onto the small landing at the foot of my makeshift bed.

When we did finally try to sleep, I noticed in the near silence that the whole house made noises, like an old wooden ship. It creaked and groaned as the temperature changed. And even when I rolled over on my mattress, the thick floorboards beneath me squeaked. I'm not sure when I woke up, but it must have been really late, probably early morning. The moonlight was streaming in through John's thin curtains and covering the room with silver highlights and dark shadows. But I was alert and wide awake.

I felt on edge. I didn't know why, so I lay there, trying to get comfortable again. When I heard a solitary piano note, I froze and strained to listen. I couldn't be sure if I'd actually heard it. The plink sounded weak. like someone timidly tapping one of the keys, so maybe it was just another noise from the house. The silence stretched on, then another note was played, still weak but clearer, and I assumed coming from their old upright piano in the music room, directly beneath us.

John and his sister had both claimed to have heard this before, blaming it on the ghost. So at first I felt excited rather than concerned at what I was hearing. The piano sounded again a few times randomly. There was no structure to the notes being played. It wasn't a tune or a piece of music, just random, mostly higher notes. I can't tell you how long between each tap of the key, but it seemed to me that each one was like dripping water. dripping water, and it made me flinch each time I heard it. I asked John if he was awake. He was,

responding to me with a tense whisper. Something didn't feel right. My gregarious and full hardy friend seemed different. I could feel his tension. What I was hearing below us became less frivolous and more concerning. John's reaction told me. John's reaction told me. me that this was serious. The excitement I'd initially experienced rapidly subsided, and my concern turned to an unsettling fear. I asked John if I could sit on his bed, not waiting for a response I clumsily stood up and pulled my duvet with me, looking down at my friend. He stared back at me, Eyes wide, absolutely terrified, like I'd opened a door to a rabid dog. I sat down on those right side of this single bed, pulling my bedding up over me, and waited in silence for the piano.

There was nothing. No noises came from the music room. I'm not sure how long we waited there, listening. But the next sound. terrified me. It was the creek of a footstep at the bottom of the stairs. Then another, and another, as whatever had been playing the piano began to make its way up towards John's bedroom. I felt my friend tense up next to me, scaring me even more.

The movement seemed like that as an old person, slow and steady, not creeping or striding up purposefully, gradually coming up the narrow wooden staircase. I fixated on the open doorway and the small landing. The moonlight gave me enough illumination to clearly see whatever was coming once it reached the top. I covered myself in the duvet, peeking out through a tiny scrunched hole at the doorway. I was too scared to say or do anything. As a kid, I liked the exhilaration of being scared. But this was something else.

I felt actual visceral dread at what was approaching. The footsteps kept coming until I felt sure I could see something appear. But nothing did. Like the piano sounds, they just seemed to stop. I lay there staring at the door for a long time expecting a ghostly apparition to peer around the doorframe at me, but nothing did. I didn't want to get off the bed, I was still incredibly scared, so I just laid there in silence, not even daring to switch on the light. I must have drifted off to sleep eventually, as I awoke with sunlight coming through the curtains, lay next to John on his bed. I tried to talk to him about what had happened, but he wasn't willing.

He flat out refused, and I didn't push him either. I didn't want to think about it. Both of us were out of sorts the next day, which I think our parents put down to the lack of sleep, which might have been part of it. But I slept with my bedroom lights on for weeks after that, something I hadn't done in years. As I got a little older, I started coming up with explanations, of what might have happened, a cat on the piano, maybe a prank by a member of John's family,

or maybe I dreamt it. But I could still see John's terrified face in the moonlight, and my memories of the whole night were incredibly vivid, even to this day. John and I went to different secondary schools, so we didn't see each other for years, but I saw him in one of the village pubs when I must have have been in my early twenties. I brought the ghost incident up with him and he was a little more vocal. As a kid he didn't like talking about the ghost when in the house, as he thought whatever it was might be listening. He remembered that night and was really angry with me at the time since he always stayed silent when he heard the ghost. It heard you and

it came upstairs, he said. I asked him if he it was a joke being played on me, but he said it wasn't. He was adamant that his parents' house was haunted. The footsteps on the stairs had happened to him a few times, but not in years. Weird things still occurred from time to time, but nothing as terrifying as what I experienced. I kind of brushed it off after that and got on with my life. But I told a colleague about John in this house a few months ago as we were swapping ghost and the more I think about it, the more I think it did happen. Sure, the piano could have been a prank and easily done, but the footsteps up the stairs could not.

Unless whoever walked up them waited silently, near the top until both John and myself were asleep, before making their way down them. You couldn't walk up or down those stairs without making a noise. and as a parent I'd never dream of doing anything to terrify either of my own kids and especially not one of their friends in that way if it was a hoax it seemed particularly elaborate but with no actual payoff I haven't spoken to John in decades but I think his parents still live in the house

I have more of you want I can just keep telling you stories until everyone gets here I'm sure it won't be too much longer. I moved by my parents to the Hartfordshire countryside in 1993, and from the moment we settled ourselves into our new bungalow, there was a strange series of occurrences. A young girl chattering away to herself in my bedroom at exactly 4 a.m. on successive mornings, my record player starting up with the manual arm placed on the vinyl disc and the volume being cranked up to full, almost blowing the speakers. when I was in a different room, to a weird couple of weeks of flashing lights in the sky, and in the neighbouring woodlands that were experienced by others, but were met with dismissive responses when the local observatory was called.

It is within this strange and eerie setting that my most disturbing encounter happened 13 years later. I keep a diary so I know with absolute certainty to date. It was Saturday, October 14th, 2006. My parents were away that particular weekend, so I was left to look after the bungalow and to care for our golden retriever Bailey. I had made his lunch and shortly afterwards proceeded to take Bailey up the footpath, parallel to our home, and then walk him down the path that clung by the hedgerows over two recently ploughed fields, separated by a seared. It must have been raining that morning or the day before, as the soil was claggy underfoot. and the clouds above were grey and racing fast. At the end of the second field and the end point of the walk before turning back,

there is a thin stretch of woodland that only takes 20 seconds to walk through, but has always felt as if something terrible would happen there. It feels wrong and disquietening, even in daylight. In the dusky summer evenings it has bats flittering around, which only adds to its uneasiness. months through it and you reach a narrow style it opens out into a rather lovely hilled meadow on this day however i took bailey to the start of the thin strip of woodland and decided to turn back i felt as if the trees or something else was watching me and the oppressive feeling was

more heightened than usual i could sense my walk changing with the curvature of my spine pushing forward more as if to create the maximum amount of distance between the the woods and myself. I did not look back until I had come to the end of the field, convincing myself that we were now safe. It was then that I noticed, Bailey looking back and growling. He had started to stand on his hind legs, and it was a struggle to keep him on his lead. I was so concerned that he was going to be the victor in the struggle that I put all my force into getting him moving, but then I looked up and saw what was distressing him. There in the field was a male figure,

impossibly tall, dressed in what I can only describe as black funeral wear from the Victorian era, a large top hat on his head and coat tails down to the ground. His arms ending with straightened hands beyond his knees. The atmosphere was charged with evil. The figure looked at me

and ran across the field in her direction, faster than any person I have ever seen. When I say ran, I really mean stride. His enormous span carried him with ease across ploughed wet mud with no difficulty, as if it were tarmac below his feet. His arms swung in a weird, exaggerated fashion in tandem with each other. I grabbed Bailey's lead as close to his collar as I could and ran with him while he was still rearing up.

It is one of those moments in life where you develop superhuman strength. We made his across the road without even looking for traffic and into the other field. At this point Bailey completely changed and was now pulling me home as if fear had replaced his previous defensive stance. I looked back one last time and to my amazement the figure had run across the field in a matter of seconds and had placed himself between two oak trees, staring at us. whilst mimicking the crucifix pose with those hideously long arms. His black shape silhouetted against the grey sky behind him, and to be permanently etched into my mind as the most terrifying experience of my life.

We got back home but it took another 10 to 15 minutes for Bailey to settle himself after scratching at the windows and patio door while I was frantically trying to make sure everywhere was locked. I have been back to this place many times since and the woodlands are still as eerie as they ever were. But whoever this figure was and what his purpose was, I will probably never know. Unfortunately I have never seen him again and nor do I want to. This is a true story and one I wish had never happened. The experience I had took place years ago when I was in high school. My best friend and I were bored and they needed something to do. We'd been wanting to do a ghost tour in an old jailhouse that was about two hours away by car. We were young and our parents

wouldn't allow us to go that far at night alone. We were talking about it one day when my co-worker's wife, I'll call her B, suggested she could take us. Honestly, this lady viewed me as her daughter, and she meant the world to me. B was doing much better after her. some medical treatment she had gone through. And the idea of getting to go with her and my best friend was so exciting. It took a little bit of convincing, but eventually our parents allowed us to go. We picked a night in October because we were all wanting to be spooked for the Halloween season. It was a very late tour on the last one of the evening. It was super dark outside beyond the street lights and the headlights that marked the arrival of other people going on the tour.

It was cold out, so not many people were as crazy as the small group of us who had made our way out there. The jail was huge and decrepit looking, big and made of stone and iron. It was a relic to the horrible treatment of those incarcerated in the past. Just being there could make you feel full of dread. Since we had travelled a couple of hours to get there, we made sure to be there early, so we wouldn't be late by any means. We explored the surrounding courtyard on our own, me and my best friend chatting about whatever it was we were into at the time. B was lagging behind us, messing with her phone, and looking quite frustrated.

It didn't take us long to notice that she wasn't with us, and we turned around to ask what was going on. B told us that her phone had started recording all on its own, and every time she would try to stop it, it would just start over again. B had never had this happen on her phone before, ever. We walked back over to her, curious what could be going on. The two of them were immediately serious, thinking it could be some sort of spirit tampering with the device. I thought that was pretty silly at the time, making fun of them for believing that kind of stuff.

B went on, pointing the camera around and speaking out into the air, asking if anyone was there. To our surprise, we could see small orbs of light appearing on the screen. My best friend and B started getting really into it then, frantically watching them and sticking close to each other. I, on the other hand, was feeling quite brave. I thought it wasn't real. It was just bits of dust. And to prove it to them, I decided to walk right out to where one of the dots were. I waved my arms about laughing. and saying it wasn't real and the two of them were being stupid.

In the next few seconds, I would quickly come to regret that decision. I was making fun of them, being annoying and messing around where Yorbe had been. They were telling me to stop it and knock it off. Not that I was listening to them. Suddenly, my entire body froze. The hairs on my body standing up. It was like the air had been sucked out of the whole courtyard, and I couldn't breathe.

There was no wind blowing. There was no one walking nearby. In my ear I heard a soft sigh, a whisper. Like someone was letting all their emotions out with a gentle breath. After holding in all of their sorrow. It was of a woman, I could tell. I could feel the cold breath on my ear

like she exhaled right against it. I'll never forget that feeling. I thought the urge to scream, standing there dumbfounded for a few seconds before I hightailed it right back to be scared out of my mind. It was like I couldn't speak, I was so scared. The voice sounded so sad, so real. There's no way I just imagined it, right? It took a lot in me to make it through the actual tour after that. We made it through with a few little things happening.

but what struck out most of me was when we passed by a window that looked out over the courtyard I felt my blood run cold when the tall guys pointed it out and said that's where the hanging grounds were the prison on Alcatraz Island started off as a civil war fault and then a federal penitentiary by 1933 I'm sure the rock needs no introduction

by the time I visited the island as a teenager the infamous prison had been closed for over 40 years. The main cell house building is the largest and most imposing part of the penitentiary. It is over 100 years old now and housed some of the most infamous criminals of the early 20th century. Stabbings, murders, even a battle took place within its walls. Tortured people called this place their home during their imprisonment. It must have been a horrible place. The weather was Bay Area Summer weather, aka windy and cold, but sunny.

This was my first time visiting the infamous prison. We had just finished with the guided part of the tour, and were allowed to tour the grounds at our own leisure. I was walking along the large cellhouse by myself, taking in an audio tour with my headphones on. As I wandered into the barbershop section, This was where the prisoner's hair and beards were groomed, among other things. Despite being sunny outside, it was quite dark inside the building, and some of the lights were out. This caused long shadows across the cell blocks, making it impossible to see inside some of the cells.

This was cell block D, the oldest cell block, where the older solitary confinement cells were. Also in D block, there is a stairwell in the middle of the street. that led down into the old Civil War jail, integrated into the modern building, supposedly where more problematic prisoners were often kept. I was standing behind a mesh fence that separates the barbershop from Cell Block D, listening to this audio tour when I looked up from my map. Standing in the middle of the section next to the stairwell was a man. Or, what I thought looked like a mannequin at first.

He was wearing a suit and tie in a policeman's hat, the one with eight points. My first thought was, is that a mannequin? He was stood right in the middle of the section, facing the cells, in profile to me, but became even more confused when the mannequin started to move. Only slightly, but as I looked on, I could see the man slowly breathing and swaying, as if standing at full attention, facing the cell blocks. He was standing in the area of full shadow and it was hard to make out his features, but he had on a pretty sharp uniform that I can still remember clear as they.

At that point my next thought was he's probably just a reenactor of a prison guard, there to answer questions and such. But as I stood there thinking about it, It slowly dawned on me that not only was his section closed with the lights off, but the man had no legs or feet, or anything below his thigh. At first I assumed it was because he was standing behind the waist-high stairwell, but in actuality he was standing in front of it, hovering in the air. As I came to this realization, I rubbed my eyes and shook my head a little bit,

and looked around the empty barbershop looking for any employee or park ranger that could tell me what I was looking at. I looked away and looked back, looked away again, and by the time I looked back the man had disappeared. Again my first thought went to, oh I guess he just went away, maybe down the stairs or something. I shrugged and turned to leave. It was late afternoon and the ferry boat was going to leave,

leave soon, so I went down to the dock, sort of mystified as to what I had just seen. As I passed the Park Ranger, I asked him if they had any reenactors or some such people on the ground today. His answer still spooks me every time I think about it. We don't have any sort of actors or reenactors on Alcatraz Island. I know it's getting late, but come on, just one or two more stories. You don't want to head back to your tent before everyone else gets here do you? You've camped so far away from the fire? In the dark. Who knows what could be out there? Okay, another story. Back in 2015, I was working as a security officer on a fire station in South Wales. Unfortunately, I can't name it as it's still in use. My very first shift there was a Saturday morning.

I arrived half an hour or so before my shift started so that my colleague who had worked the night shift prior could show me around. I did the handover with him and settled into my shift. I should point out here that this fire station, at this time, was a retained station, meaning that the firefighters were not stationed there like a full-time station, but were called in for a shout by the means of an alerter or a pager.

We, the security star, was stationed on the first floor in the mess room. Around an hour into my shift I heard the main door slam and footsteps on the stairs. One of the firefighters had come into the station to collect some belongings. His words when he saw me were, All right, mate, you're one of the security guards, aren't you? Have you seen the ghosts yet? I just laughed and had a quick conversation with him, dismissing his comments about the ghosts,

as I knew only too well that firefighters have a reputation for pranks. He soon left the station and I settled back down to my duties. A short while later, another firefighter came to the station. Coming into the mess, he saw me and said, Hi mate, security, yeah? Have you seen the ghosts yet? My response was, to myself, this has to be a joke and they're all in on it.

I just replied jokingly, Yes, mate. Have you got the number for the Ghostwasters? His reply shook me. Without even a flicker of a smile, he replied. No, mate. His place is bloody haunted. He did what he had to do and left, leaving me pondering his reply even though I was on my toes for a prank. Something told me there was an element of truth in what I was being told.

I tried to put it to the back of my mind, but when I was carrying out a patrol, I saw, from a first-floor window, a car pulled onto the forecourt. A man wearing a white shirt with black epaulets with white pips on, indicating he held a higher rank, got out and walked to the station. Immediately I thought to myself I am going to get some answers. I ran down the stairs meeting him outside the watchroom. Exactly the same as the others, his response to seeing me was the same, including asking if I had seen the ghosts. I then asked him outright if this was true, not some joke to wind up the security staff. His response was,

This station is haunted to buggery, mate. If I didn't have to be somewhere, I'd stay and tell you. But yeah, this place is haunted. You'll soon find out. I was taken aback by this, but I let him carry on with what he had to do, and carried on with my patrol at the station. Towards late afternoon, early evening, The first firefighter I had met that day arrived back at the station. I saw him arrive from a first floor window.

I was determined now to get some answers, so I went into the mess room and put the kettle on. As he walked into the room, I offered him a cup of tea. He accepted my offer once he had done what he had to do. When we were both sat around the table, I asked him what had been happening. Please bear in mind these events had happened over a number of years. but this is what he told me. In 1878 on the site of the now fire station stood a colliery. On September 11th an explosion ripped through the mine,

trapping 325 men and boys below the ground. Despite a valiant effort by the rescue team, 268 men and boys were killed or trapped in parts of the mine by the explosion. With fear of more explosions, the local government and the mine men, management, diverted water from the local canal, flooding the pit. When they began salvage work to reopen the pit in 1882, bodies and parts of bodies were found scattered throughout the mine.

It is believed that many of the miners were trapped, and not killed by the explosion, but dying from drowning. The fire station now stands on the site of the old pit head. station was once full-time and then went to a day manning system, when Monday to Friday was manned between 9am and 6pm, and after these hours and on the weekend it was retained. A new firefighter started there when it was day manning. He travelled from Swansea a fair distance away. To save travelling back and forth every day, he sought permission from the senior officers to sleep in the station between his duties. They agreed and gave him a beds, one of the disused officers,

On his first night staying there, he went to bed around 10pm and fell asleep. During the night, he heard knocking on the office door. He called out, come in, thinking a fellow firefighter had returned to the station, but no one came through the door. He shrugged thinking it was a dream, but a couple of minutes later, more knocking came from the office door. He leapt out to bed throwing open the door. finding the corridor empty. He threw on some clothes and searched the entire station. But he found no one else there.

Returning to the office, he was thinking to himself that it must have all been a very vivid dream. He had just closed the door when more knocking came from the other side. He opened it again rather angrily and found nothing. Not wasting any more time, he grabbed his belongings and bedding, spending the rest of the night in his car. After this incident he bought a camper van while stationed here, vowing never to spend another night in the station again. Years after this, the station became retained.

One afternoon a senior officer had come into the station to do some paperwork. He was in the watchroom, and hearing a squill of tyres, he looked through the window into the rear yard and saw a fellow firefighter getting out of his car, with his wife, With his wife, both were having a blazing row. The senior officer, not wishing to be involved in the domestic, carried on with his work. Suddenly, he heard a scream coming from the rear yard. Thinking the other firefighter had attacked his wife,

he ran out into the yard to find the wife sobbing hysterically on the floor, her husband trying to comfort her, but looking confused as he had no idea what had caused this. They brought her, still sobbing into the watchroom. And after calming her down, they asked her what had happened to cause her to go into hysterics. She told them that as she and her husband were arguing, she looked past him up into one of the first floor windows, where she saw the shape of her head there, which suddenly just vanished.

Both men checked the whole station, finding no one else in there. The firefighter continued telling me about the hauntings. In the middle of the night, the crew on call had been alerted to a call and raced a station, where they found all the lights on right through the building and the doors open, again with no one in the building. With most retained stations after a call, the crew will gather in the station to have a cup of tea and a chat, but at this station at night, the crews just get back and go home.

none of them will stay in the station after dark any longer than they have to when there is an adverse weather conditions forecast i.e heavy ice or snow the on-call crew will be called by fire control at home and requested to head to the station to answer any calls the reason being is to save any of them from crashing on route to the station they will all be sleeping in the same room when they hear doors slamming elsewhere in the station and then they will all be arguing as to who should go and investigate the noises, however none of them ever will. This struck me as strange as firefighters are willing to run into burning buildings to save people, yet they will not go around their own station at night.

I do have a deep interest in the paranormal, and I listened to him intently. When my colleague came back in that night, I told him everything, but he played it all down and said flatly that ghosts do not exist, and that it was all a joke. A few days later I arrived around 6.30 a.m. for my 7 a.m. start. My colleague was stood outside the front door of the station. I hadn't even switched the engine off on my car. He had my door open saying something had happened. He was talking rapidly. So much so I had to ask him to slow down so I could understand what he was saying. Some time during the small hours he was looking out the window behind him. And he saw three feet. figures, looking like miners, walking across the room. This was followed by several doors banging through the station. I said to him that I thought he didn't believe in ghosts. His reply was that he had strongly changed his mind after that night duty. On another duty, I was upstairs in the mess room. I finished a cup of coffee and conducted a patrol of the station. I was shocked to find

all the lights on in the appliance bay. And all the doors to the appliances were wide open. I knew the lights were off and the appliance doors were closed from my previous patrol, an hour or so previously. Another occasion I was conducting a patrol on the ground floor and I heard doors being slammed upstairs. Again, I ran upstairs, finding nothing. I was speaking to a friend of mine one afternoon on the phone. He too holds an interest in the paranormal, and I was explaining to him everything I had been told and everything that I had experienced at the station. During this conversation with him, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a figure walking towards the door. I spun around immediately, finding the room empty. Working there was definitely an experience that I'll never forget.

I hope you don't mind me telling you a crazy story that happened to me five years ago during a gathering in Illinois. There are details such as the event's name and the name of the organisation that hosts it that I won't give you as there have been credible threats against them based on religion. I'll also change the names of anyone involved to protect them for the same reason. Just for background on me, I am what you would call a hereditary witch. This means they come from a long line of witches. Not wikens, but the traditional wise women witches. Interesting side note.

and related to Mary Parker One of the women hanged during Salem witch trials My maternal grandmother was a clairvoyant As was her mother And most of the mothers who came before her Another great-grandmother was a well-known medium And healer at the turn of the century in Appalachia And my mother is a dreamwalker

Yes She can enter people's dreams at will And it's annoying Especially when she's pissed at you Anyway, my point is that I grew up not just believing, but knowing the supernatural existed and having my own abilities. All this said, my experiences were limited to ghosts and psychic events, until I attended a summer solstice camping trip. And everything got weird. The camping trip where this story happened is a well-organized, week-long gathering of people who follow the old ways.

In other words, it's a gathering of pagans. It is the most peaceful, loving and spiritually uplifting place I've ever been, and the only place many of us feel safe to reveal ourselves. This was my second year going, and I was in the final phases of editing a book. I was writing at the time. I'm an author, so if this story comes off like a short novella, that's why. My editor at the time had made her corrections and suggested and mailed them to me on a flash drive. The flash drive arrived the day I was scheduled to leave, so I had to have. didn't have time to look at her notes before I exited for the three-hour drive to the campground. However, before I left, I very carefully tucked that memory stick into a specific small pocket

on the outside of my suitcase. I even locked that pocket to make sure there was no way I could lose it. As I'm generally paranoid, I double-checked to make sure it was there before I put the suitcase into my car. Anyway, I made the drive and arrived at the campground. I was sharing a campsite with a friend who was already there, so we unloaded my car. I said hello to friends I'd made the year before, and pitched my tent. The first day at the gathering is chaotic, with everyone arriving pretty much all at once, so after my friend and I had our site prepared for our week-long stay, we helped other campers set up theirs. Then it was dinner time

And I was exhausted from setting up camps in the sun all day I went to bed early Thinking I would get up at about 5am Check my editor's notes And work while there were no distractions I'm an early riser when I camp There's something about the thick dampness of dawn And the way it settles inside my tent

That always wakes me up I was up just as the sun was peeking through the clouds The world was totally peace-and-a-teens And I enjoyed the quiet until others began stirring and no longer alone with the morning. I went into my tent to get my computer and flash drive. And this is where things got weird. When I opened the lock on my suitcase and unzipped the pocket, my flash drive wasn't there.

My rational mind immediately kicked into gear. I knew I put it in that pocket. I remember checking before I left. But I told myself I had to have put it safe. I had to have put it somewhere else. I checked every pocket of my suitcase and then emptied my purse. There was nowhere to be found. I checked my suitcase again and then unpacked it until it was empty.

There was no flash drive. Went to my car and looked there. No flash drive. I checked the pockets of the cargo pants I'd worn when I arrived. Nothing. No flash drive. Even though I knew with certainty, I put that drive in that front pocket. I called home anyway

and asked my husband to look around. He found three flash drives, but they were all ones I'd had before, not the one my editor sent. He checked the envelope it came in. No flash drive. He said he'd look around some more, but I knew he wouldn't find it

because it wasn't there. At this point, I started to experience a creeping, awful feeling. I can't describe it other than to say it was close to shame. I felt like I'd done something horrible and was being punished. Adding to my dread, I knew my editor would freak out if I told

her I lost the drive and couldn't work on the corrections for a week. We were on a publication deadline and she tried to talk me out of taking the trip to begin with so I could get the work done. She wasn't the most reasonable person and I didn't want to have to deal with her when I got home. Anyway, when my friend got up, I asked her to search my tent. She did and found nothing. I paid a neighbouring campus kid $10 to do it again. She found nothing. After several hours of searching, I was not only stressed out about not being able to work in my spare time,

but I couldn't shake the sense that I was somehow in trouble. It was overwhelming. I finally decided to take a walk to chill out and think. I hiked across the campground to an area where our sacred fire was burning. A sacred fire for the purposes of this camping trip, It's a fire that is lit during an opening ceremony and is not allowed to go out. Because it's always roaring, it's a good place to sit and think. I entered the fire circle and walked circles around the fire,

trying to think of what could have happened to my flash drive. I'd been there for about five or ten minutes before I heard the High Priestess's voice coming from the other side of a row of trees. I'll call her Sylvia. It's not her real name. At the sound of Sylvia's voice, I wandered towards the trees to see what she was up to, because she sounded so intense. I saw her through the trees standing barefoot in the sand, shaking a rattle at the sky. This is not unusual for a witch to do. What was unusual was when I

realised she was invoking the fay, or the fairy folk. This is not common at all. Most pagans are shy about or even terrified of the fay I've never seen anybody invoke them but Sylvia was in the middle of a full-on evocation saying something like Oh ancient and noble fay I call upon you to hear me Things in our camp have gone missing

A woman has lost her grandmother's wedding ring A child has lost a beloved toy I have come to implore you to return them and to tell you we are sorry if we've offended you. I didn't listen to the rest. I didn't doubt anything she said and didn't feel like I needed to hear more. I just turned and quickly walked back to my tent, understanding the sense I had that I committed some sort of petty crime

was being called out. The fay are nobody to mess with, even by accident. Coming of age in the pagan community, I know many people who swear up, and down that fairies are real. I never doubted they experienced something and were just trying their best to explain what it was. Who was I to judge? I grew up seeing and hearing ghosts for crying out loud. But as for a fairy experience, I'd never had one. Until then, maybe. I decided that it didn't matter if I believed in the fay or not. I needed that flash drive. I figured I had nothing. I figured I had nothing.

to lose if I went around the back of my tent and begged some mythological creature who didn't exist to return it. And if fairies were real, I needed to at least try to get my edits back. I won't say I wasn't nervous. I knew enough not to mess with the fay. I had friends who claimed she had a chance encounter that went sideways with a group of them. She's not one to tell tales so I thought I'd ask her how to handle the situation. However, when I went to her campsite, I found she wasn't there, but she'd pounded iron spikes into the ground at all four corners of her tent. There was also one in front of the door. At that point, I decided if ferries were too sore a subject with her, and that I would figure it out myself. I went back to my campsite and sat for a minute, thinking,

I wasn't sure how to approach the Faye. There are millions of stories about them, and I was, and being everything from tricksters to downright dangerous creatures, even deadly ones. I decided sincerity was the best approach. I went to the back of my tent where no one could see or hear me. I said, Hello, I'm speaking to the Faye. I was just in the fire circle when I heard Sylvia. I am honestly so sorry if I offended you.

I know this is your home, and I am only a visitor. If I did something stupid, please forgive me. I'm human. That makes me kind of stupid by definition. But I'm not malicious. Look, this is the deal. My flash drive is gone and I really, really need it back. I went on to carefully explain why I needed it.

I remember saying humans don't live long compared to fairy folk and I had spent hundreds of hours writing that story. I explained why that story made a difference and talk about how it was almost ready to be sent into the world and while making sure it saw daylight was so important to me. I told them how much love I put into it, but after my sincere appeal I paused before I got to the part where I made my offer. Everyone knows that making deals with the Faye can be treacherous. They play by different rules and they never do something for nothing. I needed to make a contract of sorts, but I also needed to ensure I didn't leave an opening where the Faye could wreak havoc on me,

I said, look, if you took it, I'm not angry. I don't want any trouble and I'll do something reasonable. I mean, fair and reasonable for both of us to get it back. I think I've read too many rumple-stiltskin stories, so I'm going into this gun-shy. Tell me what you want, but don't get crazy. It has to be something I can and I'm willing to do. The moment I finished speaking, I got very cold, almost like when a ghost is in a room. It's a feeling I'm not unfamiliar with, but I'd never experienced it outdoors on a sunny afternoon.

And then I felt someone was standing too close to me, not touching me, but hovering close enough to make the hair on my arms and at the back of my neck stand straight because it made me so uncomfortable. And then I heard an angry, scratchy voice in my ear, so low and so quiet that I had to strain to understand. But I did. Basically it said, bring us a gift. We want something we can't find in nature. It must be special. Do not bring us a pretty rock or a shell. No braided flowers, leaves or a bit of moss. Do not bring us anything made of wood. And do not bring us anything with a fairy etched or drawn on it. If you do, we will be very angry. Do you understand? Every hair on my body was standing stiff.

I felt sick and a little scared. I simply whispered, yes. A split second later, the cold cleared and my skin calmed. My heart was still ticking like the second hand of a clock, but I knew I was alone. I knew I needed to find something fast, or the offer would expire. So I did just that.

Pagan people tend to be artistic. It's part of our culture. But it's also because for many of us, something in our souls makes us want to create beautiful things to make up for all the ugly. Many of us also believe that bringing forth something where nothing was before is the greatest form of magic. Anyway, because there are so many pagan artists,

there is another area at the camp where artists set up booths and sell their wares. I searched for anything that matched what I heard the voice say. Walking up and down the aisles, found mostly items made from that where exactly what I was told not to bring back, and my heart was sinking fast. Something caught my eye after I'd gone to every booth

at least three times. Tucked into the corner of a display box filled with rings was what I thought was a pile of cheap plastic beads. I picked them up and found they were indeed, baby pink, cobalt blue and Christmas green plastic beads attached to a small keyring by four or five wires. The thing was hideous. It looked like a four-year-old made it. It's a craft project in the kindergarten class. For all I know, one did, but it was the most wholly unnatural thing I could find, so I bought it for 75 cents and returned to my campsite with this small,

ugly monstrosity clutched in my fist. I went to straight back to my tent to speak to the Faye again. I said something like, Hi, I'm sorry to bother you again. I know you're already annoyed with me. I did my best and I think I found something you'll like. If you don't let me know and I'll get you something else. I will leave it under the corner of my tent so no little kids see it and pick it up. I really am sorry for whatever I did to you. If you like this, please bring my flash drive back. I really need it. I hope this makes us even. Just know I leave you this thing, along with better gifts, my greatest gifts, my best thoughts and my finest wishes for your happiness.

I meant every word. I tucked the key ring under the corner of my tent, where I said I would, and went back around to my campsite. There was nothing else I could do after that. I just hoped that I hadn't somehow offended them again. I spent the rest of the day talking with friends and went to bed early, because I knew I'd be up again at dawn. I was. When I opened my eyes the first thing I did was go to my suitcase. I knelt before it and unzipped the zipper of the little pocket where I left a flash drive. My breath came out in a rush and then I sucked it in to stop myself from screaming. There, tucked away where I'd so carefully

packed it in the first place. Was the missing flash drive? In all its shiny black glory. lying there like it had never been gone I burst out of my tent and ran around to the backside I flipped up the corner of my tent where I'd hidden the key ring and searched the ground even pulling the tarp up higher to see if I'd left it somewhere other than where I thought the key ring was gone

I never found it yes I looked for it again a few times but right then I thanked the Faye and spent the rest of the week feeling both blessed and mind-blown. Even now, part of me wants to rationalise away what happened and say I simply misplaced the thing. I choose not to, though.

I have no proof of all that happened that day. But I know it did. Every word in this story other than changing a woman's name to Sylvia is true. As for other people whose belongings went missing that week, there were many. Some got their stuff back, some didn't. The woman who lost her grandmother's ring never found it. The child's toy was recovered. I wondered to this day why they didn't do what I did.

I wonder why they didn't approach the Faye directly and make a deal. I don't know. Maybe they did, but my guess is that most were either too afraid, or unlike me, couldn't hear the bargain. I guess I can thank my grandmothers for that. I hardly ever tell this story, so I hope you're not. enjoyed it. I'm sending you the same gifts I sent the Faye, minus an ugly key ring. My best thoughts and my finest wishes that you and yours are safe and happy, and that your ghosts

and ancestors bless you with what you need to stay that way. What? Oh yeah, I guess no one else is coming after all. How strange. They said they would meet you here, didn't they? Thinking about it. Do you even remember how you got here? Think really hard. You were at home, right? And now you sat here, around this campfire with me. Do you even know who I am? Do you know how you walked into this clearing?

Why did you sit by my fire? Who were you even supposed to be meeting? I wouldn't get up if I were you. Stay Just a few more stories And then I'll leave you be When I was 10 years old My mum and stepdad decided to move away

From the cramped apartment My mum had been renting since Her divorce from my dad And move into a large rental home We lived in a rural area In southeast Virginia Where, although there were no major battles There were some skirmishes

And campments during the Civil War The home dated back to that era and was across the street from a dilapidated house that served as a temporary headquarters for a Confederate general as he and his troops stayed there before moving on to fight elsewhere. The layout of the house consisted of four large rooms downstairs,

each with a fireplace that had long been sealed up and a kitchen dining room that had been added on after the original house was built. Upstairs were two small bedrooms, one at each end of the house, the hallway, with a bathroom in between them, and a large room on the opposite side of the hallway. One of the small bedrooms was for me and my step-sister. The other was for my brother and step-brother. My step-siblings stayed overnight only once a month, so it was mostly just my brother and myself

who used them. The large room was turned into a playroom, since there was no space for our toys in the bedrooms themselves. From the day we moved in until the day we moved out, I had horrible nightmares nearly every night. I became afraid to go to sleep, and would say a little prayer every night, begging not to have a nightmare. One night I woke up and saw what appeared to be smoke

on the other side of the room, as I stared at it, the form of a tall man, wearing clothes that looked like they were from the late 1800s or early 1900s, appeared. I was too terrified to scream or get out of bed. I eventually pulled the blankets over my head and eventually fell back asleep. After that, two other figures began appearing in my room. One was a short, stout man and the other was a woman, both wearing the same period clothes as the first man I saw.

I began sleeping so I was facing the wall to avoid seeing them. Then one, One night I awoke to see not my bedroom wall, but the familiar mist in front of my face. I watched that it took on the form of a hand, poised as if it was about to cover my mouth. This time I screamed, waking my mother, who immediately came upstairs. I hadn't told her nor anyone else about what had been happening in my room, so I said I'd just had a nightmare. The apparitions ended up being the least terrifying experience. One day, while I was in the playroom by myself, I was standing at the windows that looked out over the front yard and at surrounding hedges.

I reached up to adjust the blinds and felt a push on my upper back. Instinctively, I put my left hand out to stop my fall and hit a window pane and had a crack in it. I quickly turned around thinking my brother had come upstairs and was playing a joke on me. me, but I saw no one. I looked down at the floor and saw a red puddle forming, drops quickly expanding its size. I realised the drops were coming from my wrist and turned my arm to see a gaping wound, bleeding profusely. The window pane was broken and a shard of glass had cut my wrist open. I went to the top of the stairs in shock and called out for my mum. After that was a blur as

year my grandmother who was visiting rushed me to the ER, where I received several stitches to close the wound. Thankfully, the glass missed the major vein in my wrist, but just barely. I found out my brother had been downstairs the entire time, so there was no way he could have pushed me. Almost 50 years later, I still have the scar to remind me of that day. Soon after moving in, my mum and stepdad brought a plot a land and began building a home. We moved out of the rental house two years after moving in. To this day when I go home to visit family, I avoid even driving past that house. It still has a darkness about it, and I often wonder if any subsequent residents have been victims of it. I have only ever had one concrete paranormal experience in my life. I wouldn't call

myself a believer in the paranormal, but it does interest me, especially after this experience. For some background, my grandparents owned a large cabin out in the middle of nowhere for most of my childhood. This cabin was likely built sometime between the 1940s to 1960s. However, my grandparents brought this house around 2004. The cabin was located about an hour and a half away from any large cities, in a small town with a population of a little over a thousand. Naturally, I grew up visiting this house every few weeks, as my parents and aunt often worried about their elderly parents living so far away from all of us. The property was rather large, and included a pond, an airplane hanger my grandfather built to house his car projects, and plenty of acres of land

for livestock, although he did not have many animals. The house always was a welcoming and fun place for me growing up, apart from the spiders and flies that always seem to be in every corner, due to the holes in some of the logs. My grandfather also had an office located right off the living room, which had plenty of seats to accommodate the seven children and over 20 grandchildren our family has. I had a childhood dog from the ages of four to. 16. He was an orange corgi named smuckers. My grandparents did not like animals, and they especially did not like animals in their house. As loving parents, my mum and dad, of course, ignored their requests and snuckers in when they were not looking. He was a very well-behaved

and lazy dog, so nothing ever came of it. My grandparents were not completely aged, but they did not take great care of their health, and therefore we're declining quickly. We got a call one day that my grandfather was not doing well. My family drove the two hours to go be with him in his last moments, but I stayed away. I'm not sure if I regret this or not still, as I wish to remember him as he was, rather than his final moments. They had set up a hospital bed in his bedroom, which can be reached near the back of the living room, parallel to my grandfather's office. It passed away in the house, in his room, surrounded by family. After my grandfather's passing, it was no longer possible for my grieving grandmother to stay in the lonesome house.

She was relocated to a nursing home three hours away, where she would be much closer to my father and aunts. However, our time at the cabin was not over, as we had not sold it yet, and it still needed tending to. Our family took turns making the drive to make sure that a house was taken care of. This is when things started to get weird. It started with our dog smuckers. They say that dogs can sense things that humans cannot, and this confirmed it for me. Smuckers, who usually was enthusiastic to be invited into the cabin, pulled on his leash to get away from the house as we entered.

When brought into the house, he shook like a leaf. Very odd behaviour for our usually chill dog. I remember the first night we spent there after my grandfather passed. I was sleeping out in the living room as I have an irrational fear of bunk beds, which are the only beds. available in the house other than my grandparents' old king bed. Smuckers was pacing in the middle of the night, whining, while I was supposed to be asleep, but was instead scrolling through Instagram on my phone. He came over to the small couch I was resting on and jumped up into a space that did not fit him, leaving him on top of me. He was shivering more than I'd ever seen

before, scared out of his wits. The next day we found him curled behind a recliner chair in the living room. staring into the door of my grandpa's office. Again, shivering. Several months later, we visit again, with the same new terrified behaviour from Smuckers. I decided to stay on an air mattress in my grandparents' old room for whatever reason,

while my parents stayed on my grandparents' old king-sized bed. Me being on the air mattress put me right below where the bed ended, meaning I could see under the bed from where I lay. Smuckers, who usually slept with me at night, was again in the fit of fear, shaking and panting. We were all aware at this point, wondering why he was acting so strange. Smuckers was a short dog, but he was elderly and had bad legs that hurt him. Despite these facts, he managed to wiggle himself under the short space between the bed and the floor,

practically crawling on his belly to get away from whatever it was he was seeing. This was not the only strange occurrence we experienced after my bed. experienced after my grandfather passed. They would be tapping on the outside walls of the cabin, almost like someone was running extremely fast around the outside of the cabin, knocking on the walls. It would go in a circle around the cabin, which was not possible due to the size of it.

For reference, there were five bedrooms and an outdoor patio. I'm unable to find the square footage of the cabin, but this freaked me and my siblings out, so we tried to sleep in the living room at night. Around two years later, my grandmother started the decline. My family, including the extended family, were on vacation about four hours away from her when we got the call. We immediately packed up and left, speeding to get to her before she passed.

We made it in time to say goodbye to her. As she passed, she spoke of my grandfather, saying that she could see him, that she was dancing with him. Whether that was spiritual or due to her pain medication, we will never know. We still owned the cabin, but we're now planning on selling it, as we do not watch to keep it alive ourselves. We visited a few more times and never experienced any strange behaviour,

or had any problems with our dog, being afraid of the house. I don't believe in God or heaven, but my only explanation for this is that my grandfather was stuck in the cabin after he passed away. wondering where my grandmother had gone. Once she passed, they found each other again and moved on together. So my mother met her ex-husband in 2002, and she got pregnant. Therefore, she and her new man decided that we should move in his house. His house is in a small area, a village or whatever you call it.

It's very small. Few houses on the countryside. And we did it. in February or March of 2003. The day we moved in and everything was fine. We met his two daughters, their dog, who was such a sweetheart and a cat. A blissful family, right?

It was. We had some type of picnic and we were having a good time. His daughters were already grown up, so they went home. My older brother and I were getting ready to go to sleep in the same room, and my mother and her boyfriend were going to get some more stuff from our old apartment. So basically me and my brother were alone. Everything was fine for the first 20 minutes or so when we were alone in our beds. And then we started hearing creaking noises on the wooden steps.

We were staring at each other wide-eyed, thinking what was that? And my brother stood up and went to go and see. But it was nothing. When he came back and got under the covers with the lights off, It started again. We were awake until 4 in the morning before we fell asleep. A couple of months later, when our half-brother was a few months old, we had a family gathering and were all at a table except for the baby, who was asleep.

We were talking and laughing. When suddenly my mum pats me on the shoulder and says, Are you seeing this? She was looking up those stairs where the bedrooms and the bathroom was. and I was like What are you talking about? I don't see anything And then we hear the baby crying

And my mother was too terrified to go and check So she sent her boyfriend He calmed the baby down And came back to the table And I asked my mum What was that She was debating if she should tell me or not But then she did

She told me that she saw a woman in white With blonde hair floating across the floor from their bedroom, where the baby was sleeping, to the bathroom, right opposite the bedroom. I was like, no, I haven't seen her. You're freaking me out. Then she said, never mind. She might have had too much to drink, even though she wasn't drinking because she was breastfeeding.

She told her boyfriend, he's a sceptic, but he took her to see a psychic or something. and the psychic said there was a demon in their bedroom fast forward two to three years later they got married everything was fairly quiet at that point my mum had to pray a specific

thing each day on the specific time of day I think three times a day if I remember correctly and all of a sudden it started to escalate I was becoming the centre of attention apparently and not her so much anymore I was 16

when it started. The first thing was constant nightmares every night and then it progressed to waking up at exactly 3.14 a.m. every morning for six months. Then it started to pull my blankets off me. I was literally wrestling for it. Now I know this was mean of me but I said, can't you give me a break and do this to my brother instead? And it listened and it did. And it started pulling off blankets off my brother too. He started complaining in the moment. mornings not understanding what was going on. I couldn't hold it in anymore and I told him what happened. We kind of laughed it off. My brother was quite a skeptic. One night when we were woken up by a loud bang in our room and turned on the lights, we were searching for the source of the bang. But we

eventually gave up because we couldn't find anything unusual, so went back to sleep. In the morning when we woke up, my brother says, did you read my books last night? I was like, no, why? He said they're both on the shelf, but they were up on the bookshelf up there. And there is no way they could fall off because they were so stuck in there. And you had to use quite a lot of force to get them out. I said, wait a minute. So this is probably the source of the loud bang in the middle of the night. He said I shouldn't joke about these things.

It's not possible. But I asked him, how do you explain this then? And he was speechless. It went a little quiet from then on, until a few months later. another incident. I was in the bathroom downstairs and my brother was in the bathroom upstairs, the one that my mum had seen the woman in. So I'm doing my business and all of a sudden I hear the front door of the house opening a closing. It was right beside the bathroom I was in. And then I hear an almost whispering outside my bathroom door in my mother's voice. Hey, hey, hey, call your brother.

I just said yeah, he's upstairs in the bathroom. you can call him yourself you know and you don't need to whisper and then my mother's voice says again hey call your brother it's a little more forceful and urgent this time and i said okay okay or do it and then i hear the main door of the house opening and closing again i finished my business and i start shouting to my brother that our mom needs him and to hurry up and right when i finished telling him this or rather shouting it out My mum comes in and she asks where my brother is. I said to her I've told him already that you need him he'll come She looks at me wide-eyed and she said I was working in the vineyard. I wasn't in the house at all I said you were here five minutes ago

She was wide-eyed staring at me and said don't play me like that. I swear to God I wasn't here I said I'm not you were here. I heard you coming in telling me that and then leaving. She said, no I didn't. We were both terrified. A day later when I woke up, she asked me if I had called her by her name. And I said I just came out of my room. Plus, I always call you mum, not by your first name. She said that's true. And that the voice had come from the living room, not upstairs. And then it all went quiet again. Well, mostly, except when we were occasionally sleeping in that room, when we visited. But I tell you this, my brother and I moved out, and five or six years later, I came home for a week just for the hell of it. And that room that my

brother and I was sleeping in was made into a storage room, so I had to sleep on the couch in the living room. Thank God. Every time I had finished my shower and had to dry my hair, the hairdry was in that room, right beside the door on the floor so I could easily reach it with my hand. Something was preventing me from grabbing it. I was filled with dread and didn't want to step or put my hand into that room any further. So I called my mum to get it for me. I know. I'm all worse.

She was laughing at me. I'm ridiculous and I still didn't do it. In that room there is something so dark that I do not dare even look at it. I was in Jamaica for my best friend's wedding. We had stayed at a nice all-inclusive resort. It was built like a kingdom with small portions of a village to go to, restaurants, insane pool clubs, clubs, shops, everything. But you could tell it was pretty old with renovations. I was single then and stayed in my own room, though I didn't spend much time in there because we were out doing stuff.

But when travelling, local food doesn't always agree with me. So one night I stayed in, just trying to find something on the TV and to rest. When late at night someone knocked on my door. I knew my friend might come to check on me at some point, so I figured it was him. But I opened the door to no one there. The halls were big and wide with marble floors, so you could see in both directions, and would surely hear someone running away. Also, the result had two sides to it, family and singles.

I was on the father's side of the side of the same. the single side, so I don't think there are any little kids playing pranks. Honestly, I'd say it's nearly impossible for someone to knock on the door and hide that quickly without hearing them sneak into another room. Oh well, I think. Later I'm sitting in the bathroom, on the toilet again because the Jamaican cuisine didn't sit well with me, and they actually had a landline telephone on the wall at the toilet. How neat. Well, the phone goes off. ringing. I pick it up stunned and say hello. It was a kind of analogue sputtering sound that had no rhythm to it, just clicking in sporadically. So I hung up and at this point I'm really trying to

pretend like both occurrences are just strange coincidences. I told myself if the front desk needed to call me, they'll call back. They didn't. It then occurred to me that I I had only heard the phone ring from the bathroom, and did not hear the phone by the bed ringing, which shouldn't be the case if anyone was to call the room. Having no way to process this logically, I tried to put it out of my mind. I've experienced some strange things before, so I wasn't freaking out. This was beginning to mess with my peace of mind a bit. Anyway, I ended up getting some not-so-great, sweaty sleep and feeling better, but not great the next day.

I decided to take a long shower with the lights off, something I found very relaxing, most other times at least. When all of a sudden I heard three knocks at the door, only this one sounded different, it sounded louder, sounded closer, it sounded like it had not come from the front door of the hotel room,

but the door to the bathroom. I sat in the darkness in the shower naked, replaying the sounds of the knock in my head trying to convince myself I was wrong but I wasn't my brain immediately recognised it as the bathroom door and I have to trust that at that point I knew this was not normal the hotel room had another visitor in it when I mustered the courage to get out of the shower and hurriedly turned all the lights back on I remembered something peculiar that happened earlier in the trip so throughout the trip I kept having problems with my keycar and I had to have a new key card linked to the door twice, seemingly for no good reason.

Once it was two in the morning and I was very drunk and sat outside my door for about 20 minutes, waiting for a maintenance guy to come and help. He comes and links a new key to my door and I ask, why does this keep happening? And he said, this is an old resort. Some strange things happen here sometimes. with a bit of a smirk on his face. My name is Dan and I'm 33 and from the States. I wanted to share with you a short story from my early teens,

a story that to this day gives me the most intense chills. I was 15 at the time and was on a family holiday to Tennessee to visit my cousin Dylan. It was the second day into our two-week-long stay, and after a long day of running around outside and playing in this pool, we decided it was time to head inside to get some sleep. To get to his room we had to walk up a spiral staircase and walk down a long hallway.

I was staying in his room on a couch he had set up against the wall. Once laying down on his couch, you had a clear view of the doorway to his room. Now I should mention this doorway had no door attached, so it was just a clear view into the long hallway. I remember saying good night to Dylan and laying my head down on the pillow and pulling up the scratchy old blanket that he had gave me. I was lying down in the way where my feet were pointed towards the open doorway

and after around what felt like 20 minutes of just recount in my day and looking around the dark room, I drifted off to sleep. Then I woke up to what clearly felt like someone, gently tapping my lower leg to get my attention. I remember jolting my eyes open, but not being too concerned as I was so tired. I closed my eyes again and it almost immediately happened again. Three distinct taps on my lower leg. This time I shook my leg and sat up, looking down at my leg.

And there was nothing there. I looked across the room to Dylan's bed, expecting it to be empty and to find him hiding somewhere in the dark playing a prank on me. To my surprise, I could see through the darkness, his outline laying in his bed, and could hear his slow, rhythmic breathing. At this point, I was scared and started scanning the dark room, slowly, until my gaze reached a doorway. At the bottom of the doorway, near the floor, I could clearly see an outline of what looked like a head, peeking around doorframe as if a person was just laying in the hallway peeking in the head had no features and somehow seemed darker than the surrounding darkness i remember keeping my eyes locked on this figure

tears welling up in my eyes from fear it never moved as if it was just staring back at me i just sat there, looking at this thing, too scared to move. After what seemed like five minutes, I flung myself back down on my side, bringing my knees up against my chest and holding the blanket over my face. The tapping on my leg happened one more time that night, but I ignored it and laid awake with my eyes closed tightly. I distinctly remember staying in that position until the sun began to shine into the room. As soon as there was enough light, I slowly slid the blanket down and shifted my gaze towards the doorway near the floor.

There was nothing. Not a thing laying in the doorway that could have looked like a head. Nothing. I told my experience to my cousin when he woke and he didn't believe me. But he did swear he never got up during the night. All in all that was the only experience I had staying there But the image of that head peering around the bottom of the doorway Has never left me

And always gives me the fattest chills Did you hear that? The sound coming from behind you I wouldn't leave the fire if I were you The light, the heat, it's safe here I can't say the same for back there in the darkness. This didn't happen to me but to my mother.

My parents used to own a two-flat. We lived upstairs and my aunt, uncle and cousin lived downstairs. It was 1966 in Chicago when my mum was pregnant with me and my aunt with my cousin. My aunt had one sibling, a brother, will call him G. G was absolutely thrilled that his sister was pregnant.

He couldn't wait to become an uncle and did everything he could to dote on his sister, as well as my mum since he treated her like another sister, and they were pregnant at the same time. My dad's uncle and G used to work at the nearby steel mill. We lived so close that I remember seeing the occasional tiny bits of metal slag that would shimmer in the summer sun like glitter. Since we lived so close to the mill, it was easy for G to occasionally visit on his way home. A few days went by and G hadn't been by. My aunt was worried because G was a bachelor, and my aunt was his only sibling,

so she knew it was going to be difficult for her to try and find him. She called cousins to ask if they could help search his home and neighbourhood. The police were called, but they had no luck either. About two weeks later, G's beaten body was found along some railroad tracks. He was missing his wife. and other items. The police called it a robbery and closed the case. No one was ever caught. Time went on and my mum had me in December and my aunt had my cousin the following year in March. One morning my mum was washing the morning dishes. My dad was at work and my older siblings were in school.

while I, as an infant, was asleep in the bassinet in my parents' bedroom, which was right off the kitchen. The bedroom door was open so my mum could easily hear if I woke up. My mum said she turned from the sink and saw G standing there. He was dressed in his work clothes and leaned casually against the doorframe between my parents' bedroom and kitchen. He looked happy. my mum said she wasn't scared in fact she said it seemed normal to see him there nothing felt amiss

she said they spoke to each other in some type of telepathy she spoke her thoughts to him in her mind and she heard his responses the same way she asked him what he was doing there and he told her they came to see the babies Then he told her that my cousin looked just like his dad And that I looked just like her

As an aside it's true My cousin definitely favoured my uncle While I resembled my mum the most out of my siblings My mum asked G if he was hungry Could she get him anything But he said no he had to go She said something like Oh, okay

Or whatever And then took a glance at the sink behind her And in just those few seconds of looking away, when she looked back to G, he was gone. My mum couldn't believe what happened at first. She said he had seemed so real when it was only after he was gone that she realised that she'd never actually spoke words when talking to him, nor did he to her. She said she was amazed, but she also thought that since he had wanted to be an uncle's so badly, it made sense that he figured a way to see the children that he missed. She never saw

him again. I grew up in a small First Nations reserve in northwest BC Canada. I have a handful of events that range from mildly odd to downright frightening that happened within our home over those years. Around 2001 to 2002-ish, I would return home alone from school as my father was working on housing construction on our lower reserve areas and both my sisters were gone one working at our local gas station and the other with her boyfriend at the time way up north with his family my mother at the time had been away from the family as she was attending and completing a bachelor's degree program in another city just shy of 600 kilometers away when i would get home from school i would immediately upon entering the home be filled with a sense of dread and unease

as though someone was watching unhappy about my presence. More often than not, I would leave the house and hang out with one of my cousins, either at their place or just play outside in the woods or something. But when that was not an option, I would gather up my dog or one of my two cats and head straight to my room and try to ignore anything that would happen. We had four grey chairs that had small wheels, and on more than one occasion I would hear them rolling by themselves, in the kitchen, dining room area.

My sisters also had their fair share of scares in the house, as well as my cousins who had come to visit. It really seemed like everyone except for my dad was affected by the strange happenings. One night while trying to sleep, I had just got comfy and got that feeling of unease and dread. I opened my eyes and looked at my door and saw my oldest sister standing in the doorway. I asked her what she was doing.

No answer. So I yelled, What the hell do you want? No answer. It wasn't until I finally said, Go away and go back to bed, that she turned around and went back to her room. She had no recollection of this the next day,

so either it was my sister, or something that just wanted to imitate her. Far more strange occurrences happened before my mum returned home with her bachelor's degree a couple of years later and was home for good. But something that was always stuck with me happened when she had just made it back. I was in my middle sister's room while my sister was getting a stern talking to by my mother about boundaries with her boyfriend in her home, watching like any other annoying little brother would do. There were multiple small holes in the wall that separated her room from mine. and her bed was against that wall.

I was standing next to my sister's boyfriend, and we were facing my mother and sister on her bed while the lecture was happening. Out of nowhere, two very long, bony fingers came through the hole in the wall and started feeling around. They were bony, but very large and a sick purple colour.

After feeling around for what felt like a few seconds, The fingers retracted back into the other side of the wall, into my room. I looked at my sister's boyfriend and his jaw was on the floor. He gathered himself and he ran to my room within seconds of that happening. There was nobody in my room, let alone a sickly purple decaying person. From there, my mum, being a very spiritual person, blessed our home with smudging and shot glasses on every window seal with water. and sea salt. On top of this, working to retain normalacy in our home, the salt in my eldest sister's room, turned black. It's worth noting that my childhood home was not the only house on our

reserve to have very strange occurrences, and from what I've heard over the years. Ours was far from the worst. When the GT Railway came through our reserve in the early 1900s, the rail company and the Canadian government made our band members move our graveyard and bodies, issuing $5 a member moved, and $20 for a higher-ranking person's grave, with our local Indian agents saying not to pay at all. This again happened when the highway was put through during World War II. Between all that and the very real and extreme trauma that some band members took home with them from the residential schools, I believe the negative energy feeds. whatever is stirred up around here.

The odd thing or two still happens around my own place now, that I'm an adult and moved out of my childhood home, which is odd as my house, while on the same reserve, is very much new with no prior occupants. I still am a bit sceptical about what comes after death, but at the same time I am hypersensitive, due to many reasons. Traumatic relationships including violence,

at a young age, made me hyper-vigilant. That sensitivity can also be explained by heritage. As far as I can recall, my father was also very, very sensitive to unseen energies, and is still scared to sleep without a light, claiming he senses things. He recalled many experiences of ghost apparitions, but at that time in my life, he hadn't said a word about it. That also meant, at the time the events occurred, I would manifest. confess this same vulnerability as an open door to whatever was there. We lived for a while in an apartment with my mother and brother and I Until she met a man named Charles who was separated long ago and had a son, but my father and mother were separated a while ago

As the relationship with Charles went on, they decided to join both families and move into an old Patrimonial duplex in Tuor Rivera's downtown located on Niverville street. I was 11 years old at the time, and the building was 120 years old. It would be the first time that I was sleep in my own room. I was so happy. As we visited the duplex, I felt a cold, heavy ambience. The walls were very high with big mouldings.

It felt like a whole world still remained there. I washed off the feeling as we chose our own rooms. The home was painted all white and the wooden stairs were the original ones, admirably standing with visible wear. and sounded old as we put our weight on each step. There was a tiny room with a corridor just in front of the stairs. I decided that this would be the ideal size for me.

I always love tiny spaces and feeling like I'm in a cocoon. I still do. The first night was a great night at sleep, which was as a success. I usually had trouble sleeping well in my childhood. I was always very scared, even with my brother sleeping in the same room. Unfortunately, that would be the last effective good night's sleep I would have for the following months. The following night was as usual.

I began to relax in my bed ready to sleep. While doing this, I turned my head towards the corridor and there I saw a black shadow, of a girl in a dress, looking at me, and then running away from my sight. It only lasted a few seconds, but it petrified me. The only time I'd ever felt good and grounded turned out to be over. The next morning I told my mother about it, and she then laughed it off, saying it was because I wasn't used to sleeping on my own. The following nights I couldn't sleep.

I was still afraid, and there was a corner in my room which I would always watch. I didn't really know why. Even with a nightlight right in that spot, clearing all the shadows, I would be scared of it. Every night I heard the stairs, steps cracking, as someone moved up them. Then came the nightmares of that girl on the stairs, moving very fast in a white robe. This was getting out of control and I felt helpless because I was the only one experiencing weird apparitions or sounds. One night I know now that what I experienced in my dream resembled astral travel with the same girl.

We flew away and it was a terrific nightmare. A few months in, still trying my best to sleep in this room, I experienced what I still recall as the scariest sleep paralysis I've ever experienced. As the nights followed without sleep, my mother got tired of my shenanigans, and after a hard week of severe lack of sleep, she ended up arguing that it was in my head and turned all the lights off in my room, shutting the door. I was on edge at that time.

I turned all the lights on and opened the door, hoping I could shake off the argument with my mother. And that was when the paralysis started. I was suddenly floating on top of me, bouncing in between my body and the ceiling, while still feeling totally stuck and unable to move. Then the same girl I always saw or dreamed of, appeared in the corridor,

walking towards me. She came close and went to that exact spot that I would always watch and then she just disappeared and my paralysis stopped. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was so terrified but my mother couldn't handle that and repeated the same speech

as she turned off the lights and closed the door once again. But my stepfather came to me one day and believed the events that I spoke about were true. He explained to my mother and I that he moved into this duplex years ago with his son Samuel and he had slept in the same room as me. He told me that Sam would wake up in the middle of the night, scared and unable to sleep

because he could see someone. It felt really good to be validated. As the family and I moved away to another house, the sleep I craved came back. and the ambience of the new home felt warm and welcoming. I recovered way better from the daily challenges. Life seemed to be easier. What didn't change and still remains is my sleep paralysis

and those weird astral dreams. All of this may be explained both rationally or spiritually, but that doesn't reduce the intensity of the fear and distraught I've experienced in that room on neither of your street. I still think about that girl and what's happened in that duplex years ago. This story took place when I was around 16.

In order for you to understand this story, you need to understand the layout of my home in which this takes place. A whole way has five doors. The door on the left is the entry and exitway of the living room. The door on the far left belonged to my little brother. The door next to his leads to the bathroom. and the door in the middle leads into my room.

And the door on the far right, a couple of feet from mine, belongs to my parents. When someone approaches the entryway at the living room, the lights in the living room would reflect upon the wall that leads straight into my room. This can cast shadows of anyone or anything, such as pets that approach. Now, on to my story. It was a rainy night, and thunder was going wild outside, but I was asleep. I had a very exhausting day at school that day and was taking an after-school nap, which eventually led to me completely dozing off into a deep sleep,

when suddenly I was overcome with an ominous feeling of dread. The feeling of someone or something watching me with malice. Malice so strong it shook me awake. I instantly woke up to find that my door that was closed before I went to sleep was wide open. I stopped and was confused because I was so sure that before I went to take my much-needed nap, I was 100% certain I closed my door. I remember triple checking the lock because I'm a man who loves his privacy. Before I could get up to close it, I saw something, or rather someone, leaving my parents' bedroom.

From my room I could hear both my parents in the living room, which meant it couldn't have been them. To give some backstory, my parents have this strict rule for themselves to go to bed at 11pm sharp on weekdays. This story took place in one of those weekdays, which means that these events took place before 11pm. This would explain why they were still in the living room. And my brother was fast asleep in his room. He actually fell asleep before I did. And since our rooms are so closely connected, I could hear him sleeping.

and my sister who was in her early 20s wasn't home. In fact, she didn't live with us. She moved out years prior to this happening. So it couldn't have been none of us for, or my sister. This person or thing approached closer and closer to the middle of the hallway. At the centre of my door, the door which had been mysteriously left wide open, as it approached closer and closer towards the middle of the hallway, I could make out its shadow.

Was that of a woman, or should I say what appeared to be a woman? It had a long dress on, and I could see her hair. But the one thing I vividly remember even to this day was its face through the shadow. He had like a grotesquely inhuman-sized jaw, like that of a crocodile. Only that this resembled a person, a woman. She looked like she was smiling. Again all I could see was a shadow, but I could make out its features as it moved.

It slowly cocked its head in my direction, as it continued to walk right from my parents' bedroom, past my room, and then it just vanished. It just disappeared. I was frozen with fear and I wanted to speak, but my mouth refused to open. You know how in movies when someone sees a ghost and they instantly freak the heck out? Well, it's real in real life, people. It's a genuine reaction.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, I wanted to close my door as fast as possible, but I couldn't move. It was like I was in a sleep paralysis state. But I was fully awake and I wasn't lying down. I can't for the life of me even begin to explain the terror I felt in that moment, or even debunk what I saw. I'm not a sceptic, I fully believe in the supernatural, but I never saw it again. Thank God. And I never told anyone else this story, especially not my family. My parents refused to speak of anything supernatural, and were Catholic, so this is the first time I've ever shared it with anyone.

The dread I was overcome with while writing the story, even in my twenties, was the same feeling I had back then. and that's a very, very scary feeling to feel. Needless to say, I endured a lot of sleepless nights shortly after this happened. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. I was beyond petrified. Though I do wonder what was this thing. Where did it go? What did it want?

All of this is beyond me. I don't know. And maybe I'm better off not knowing. I'm almost 30 years old and in my mind. life I've had two paranormal experiences, both of which took place years apart, but they occurred at the same exact location. Even now as I recall my experience I find it totally unbelievable. To call myself skeptical would be an understatement. While I find stories of the supernatural quite entertaining, I have no faith, and I only

subscribe to beliefs that can be empirically proven through study. It goes without saying that I'm quite doubtful of other claims regarding the supernatural. For me it's purely entertainment and only out of my personal curiosity in the morbid and macab. In fact, I would not believe my own story had I not experienced it myself. To this day I struggle to rationalise my lived experience. Now let me briefly set the stage for my story. In the early 90s my mother's sister married my uncle and they purchased an old ranch house in Vakerville, California. This old isolated ranch house sat upon a rather large property, complete with two enormous barns, stables for horses, and pens for livestock. In the years to come, my aunt and uncle had

three children, my first cousins. My parents married and then I came along some years later. I've never been particularly close with my extended family on my mother's side. many of them became estranged from my mother following a turbulent upbringing. The only exception was my aunt. My mother and my aunt have maintained a close relationship despite the circumstances. Their new home was less than an hour drive from ours, so they visited semi-frequently. Fast forward to the year 2000. My parents planned an overnight date for themselves, and they arranged for me to spend the night with my aunt and uncle at their home.

I remember being quite excited for my stay, as I had a good relationship with my youngest cousin. I'll refer to him as Alex. Alex was only a year or two older than I was, and as two young boys, we had a lot in common. We had much more in common than my two older female cousins. I was especially excited for my weekend stay as Alex had a relatively large collection of new video game releases, and I was eager to play with him. My parents dropped me off and said their goodbyes. I promised to be good and I made myself at home and went straight for the PlayStation.

After playing Crash Bandicoot for a few hours, with my cousin, my aunt sent us to bed. The first and final night of my stay ended, as I drifted off to sleep in a sleeping bag, on the floor across Maddox's bed. When I suddenly awoke it was before dawn, the faint blue light of a still night sky barely illuminated the room. Although I was groggy from sleep, a familiar noise caught my attention. It was the distinct sound of a zipper being drawn. At once the realisation hit me.

The familiar sound was the zipper on my very own sleeping bag. While this might seem ordinary, I had yet to move since I awoke. Regardless, the sound persisted. There was no doubt about it. Someone was opening my bag. My ears started ringing, and my blood ran cold like ice,

as sudden fear and adrenaline surged through my body. I remained laying totally still on my side, facing away from the opening of the sleeping bag. Now totally alert I held my breath and remained completely motionless and carefully listened. The sound of the sleeping bag being unzipped, continued despite my perfect stillness. I felt the cold air of the room creep into my warm bag and onto my now exposed legs. It was as if someone was deliberately unzipping my bag as slowly

and carefully as possible, so as not to wake me. I waited for the sound to cease before I finally flipped over to get a look at whoever was on zipping my bag. To my surprise, there was no one, or sitting beside me. Before I could process the situation I glanced across the room. In the pale light I could see my cousin Alex, was tucked up in his bed, and fast asleep still. I was totally alone on the floor. I continued lying perfectly still in silence and gripping fear

for what must have been an hour while I waited for the sun to rise. As soon as the first hint of daybreak came, I was. daybreak came I bolted out of my cousin's bedroom and down the hallway to find my aunt making coffee in the kitchen. Before I could say anything, she asked me, What are you doing up so early? For whatever reason I did not tell her about my sleeping bag. I didn't mention a word to her about my terrifying experience. In response to her question, I simply responded, I don't know. My fear abated now that I was no longer alone. By the after At the noon of that day my mum and dad had come to pick me up and bring me home.

I told no one of my experience, not even my parents. Although it was terrifying, I was young and as such I had a short attention span with limited retention. I promptly forgot about the bizarre occurrence entirely and went on to live a happy, carefree childhood. Now you can easily dismiss this experience as the overactive imagination of a young child. also easily propose I dreamt up the whole thing while only partially being awake, and I couldn't disagree with certainty. While it is disturbing for me, as an adult, to recall the experience of some invisible force, delicately opening my sleeping bag, to gain access to my young helpless body, this first experience pales in comparison to what was yet to come, and is not so easily debunked. It was only after I had a

second experience at that old ranch house, that these old memories came flooding back. When I was roughly 11 years old, we paid another visit in Vakerville for dinner, although this time it wasn't just me, but my little brother too. Let's call him Jack. Jack was roughly half my age at that time, and like most little siblings, he followed me around everywhere like a lost puppy. He wanted to be included in whatever I did. So when we arrived, Jack naturally clung to my side, as Alex and I made our way to his bedroom. I hadn't changed much since I was a little boy, and I was most excited to visit my cousin because he had a copy of the video game rock band for Xbox. Not only did Alex have a copy of this cool new game on the brand

new Xbox, but he had the entire set of musical instrument controllers to boot. I closed the door to his bedroom in preparation to rock out. All three of us gathered around the television and began playing along to the music. Alex was on the guitar. I clutched a microphone, and between us, my brother was clumsily hitting the drum set. Although we sucked at keeping time or hitting the right notes, it was fun, and we got deeply engrossed in the game.

It was in this innocent moment of Family Fun that the single most unexplainable event of my entire life occurred without provocation. My attention was pulled away from the screen momentarily, when I noticed Alex's bedroom door handle had begun to rattle. Just as I turned towards the rattling handle, the door swung wide open.

I expected to see my mother or my aunt on the other side. However, with the door completely open now, I could clearly see there was no one there. Instead, a warm gust of air from the long, dark hallway, washed over my body, before I could even register what had just happened. The room's light switch positioned adjacent to the doorway and in my field of view. Flipped up, the light came on and the ceiling fan began to whirl overhead.

Once again in an instant my blood ran cold. My heart raced. I felt a lump form in my throat as my mind raced to make sense of what I had just witnessed. Adrenaline surged through my veins, just as it had before, in that very same room. all those years ago. Having forgotten about the game completely, I turned to face my cousin. My little brother totally oblivious to anything happening outside of the game, continued erythmically bound in the drum kit, Game Controller. Alex's eyes met mine. He must have seen the look of fear and disbelief on my face. Before I could even speak, he casually uttered a single sentence of half-hearted reassurance.

Oh, that's just a ghost. Don't worry about it. Without skipping a beat, his gaze returned to the television, and he continued playing along with the song. I will never forget the sound of Metallica's Enter Sandman, playing in the background, as my understanding of reality crumbled around me. I continued to stare at him, totally speechless,

the casual and nonchalant way in which he had said, it's just the ghost left me stunned. Surely he must be joking. Why is he not afraid? Does this happen all the time here? My brother Jack was none the wiser. He hadn't seen the door open all on its own, or noticed the overhead light come on.

He only understood something was wrong when I suddenly stopped playing and our band's score started tanking while the virtual crowd booed. And the rest of the evening was a bit. blur. I said nothing to Alex or Jack about what I'd witnessed. I cannot recall a single thing that occurred following that moment of pure unadulterated fear. The fresh hell of forbidden insight crept into my life and rendered me unable to rest the following night. I had a renewed fear of the dark and the unknown that left me paralysed and helpless. That night I begged my little brother to come

and sleep in my bed, just so I wouldn't have to sleep alone. Although I was shaken up and had trouble falling asleep alone for the next month or so, eventually I got over it. I went on with my life, I started high school. I spent most of my time playing sports, studying, spending time out and about with friends, and playing video games at my parents, very safe, distinctly not haunted house. At one point a few years later after the rock band incident, I found myself again at my aunt's house. Despite being roughly 14 years old by now, I was still so deftly afraid to return.

I didn't want to go back there in the first place for obvious reasons. But I couldn't explain that to my mother. I still had not told her anything. So I agreed to accompany her without protest. On the day of this particular visit, it was just my mum, my aunt, my cousin Kathy, and myself there at the house. This time I was full of dread and anxiety, burdened with the knowledge that someone or something could be watching me.

It could be feeding off my fear. I no longer felt safe and I anxiously awaited the opportunity to return home. We spent time chatting and having lunch. I began to ease up a bit. However, my anxiety escalated when my mother, my cousin Kathy, and my aunt, all made their way into Kathy's bedroom. Before leaving the living room, my mum simply told me, stay here, we'll be back in a little bit.

More than an hour past while I watched TV in the living room alone. With my anxiety and curiosity mounting, and with nothing better to do, I got up and made my way to Kathy's bedroom. As I approached the bedroom door, I was able to hear my mother's hushed voice chanting, along with my aunt and cousin in prayer, invoking the name of Jesus Christ. When I opened the door, I caught a glimpse of them all standing, holding hands,

and heard her demanding that any unwanted visitors be banished by Archangel Michael. Before I could speak, my mum heard and saw me open the door, and she commanded that I closed the door and stay out. The whole scene was so unsettling and disturbing that I did just as I was told, and I returned to the living room feeling light-headed and shaken. Later that evening my mother and I said our goodbyes and started our drive back home. As soon as we left the property I wasted no time in asking my mum what the hell she was doing in that room.

I think she knew I had caught on already and she simply implored me to never mess with any Ouija boards, seances or any occult adjacent divination. You will open a portal, she exclaimed. Never invite any of that negative shit into your life. If you ever feel afraid, call upon Archangel Michael for protection with his heavenly white light. I didn't ask her clarification. I knew what she meant.

Given my past experience at that old ranch house. Over the years since, I've learned quite a bit more information about the supposed haunting at the house in Vakerville. While I don't know the history of the home, I do know it's quite a lot of. old and isolated. My aunt and uncle and my cousins have grown accustomed to unexplainable experiences over the years. They'd come to understand somehow that there were two different entities in the house, a playful young female spirit and an older malicious male spirit. I heard offhand through my mother that both spirits have materialised into visible apparitions at some point. But despite my own experiences, I find that really, really hard to believe. According to my mother, as told by my

aunt, at some point a few years prior, my cousin Kathy had thrown a drinking party with some of her teenage high school classmates. As cliche as it sounds, apparently one of Kathy's friends from school had brought a Ouija board to the party in an attempt to contact the spirit or entity that Kathy was already aware of. Following the session at the party, activity in the house, generally began to intensify. Whatever they had contacted during the session started targeting my cousin Kathy specifically. The activity had become more malicious and frightening over time. Things started to make sense for me. I had already known about the decline in Kathy's mental health in her final few years of high school. What seemed like a typical case of teenage angst and rebellion was attributable to a hostile and

frightening home environment by a malevolent force, not of this world. Not too long after the DIY exorcism I walked in on, Kathy moved out on her own after graduation and enrolled at a school for cosmetology. You'd think the purported haunting would end there, but she claims to have been followed by whatever evil thing she summoned into our world. While she is no longer tormented by malevolent spirits today and is quite successful in her life and career. She is easily the most spiritual person in our family. I think she found refuge in embracing some new age spiritual protection rituals. My cousin Alex on the other hand denies everything outright, just goes to show how differently certain people handle traumatic experiences. When I think about it all more

deeply, I find this second-hand information quite unbelievable. It's like something straight out of a generic Hollywood paranormal horror movie. I mean, Hasbro manufactures and mass-produces Ouija boards as a game for young people to scare themselves and have a good laugh via the ideomoto effect. Certainly a true, veritable haunting wouldn't be so cliched, right? Then again to this day I cannot explain what I saw in that house with my own eyes. While I'm still highly skeptical, and I don't believe in spirits of the dead, angels or demons from hell. I'll never forget what I witnessed firsthand. I saw the door handle move.

I saw the light switch flip up immediately after, as if someone had come barging into the room. It really is that unbelievable. I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing me. Sometimes I don't believe it myself. There must be some sort of rational explanation. that adheres to my logical, inconsistent world view. But then again, it must have been around three in the morning

when my friend Luke and I were walking back from a party. To get to mine, we had to walk across Blackheath, which has a series of roads surrounded by trees and field-like paths. To get to my place, you have to walk past Greenwich Park, which at this time had its gates closed, and that was frustrating as that took away our option of cutting through the park and getting home sooner. The streets were quiet which is unusual, as there's always some truck drivers on route to a job at that time.

As we walked the long way along the road, we heard a car skidding in the distance. Then it came hurtling towards us, smashing into the bollards, but that didn't seem to slow it down. We didn't have anywhere to shelter, and if we had crossed over to the heath, we would have surely been struck. Out of sheer panic we took a run and a jump, landing on the concrete in front of us. That being the only real option available. As we got up with cuts and minor bruises, we noticed the car had crashed only centimetres away from us. As I got up to see if the driver and passengers were all right, I noticed they were all kids of no more than, say, 13.

They were laughing hysterically and had clearly stolen the car. They then managed to reverse and speed off without any apology. Usually there's some kind of police patrolling the area, but not tonight. Or if they were in the process of giving chase to the kids, they must have taken a wrong turn. As we limped back to my house, Luke and I were in shock. We could have been hit really easily. Eventually we made it home. Luke settled down to sleep in the spare bed and I got into mine, looking at my alarm clock with

red digits reading 5.32 a.m. I began to drift off. After about five minutes I opened my eyes. I had rolled over and for some reason I went to turn to look at my alarm clock. And that's when I saw it. Lying next to me was a boy of about eight or nine years old, glaring at me with jet black eyes. His skin was ultra pale. His hair was also black in an Edwardian slick back style, and his clothes were covered in what looked like mud and white paint. Believe it or not, this wasn't the most scary part to me. Instead, what concerned me even more was that the boy looked as if he were in shock and had a hand over his mouth, as if I'd caught him doing something he shouldn't. My heart was racing and I wanted a call out to

Luke, but I couldn't. Then, still holding the hand over his mouth, the boy stepped backwards and walked through the door and was gone. I stared down at my alarm. It was 5.45 a.m. All this had happened the second we'd gone to sleep. A few months later, I ran into a medium, and I asked her what she made of this encounter. She informed me that she believed the apparition I had seen was a messenger of death come to collect my soul it had assumed we'd been hit by the car and were dead

and followed us from the heath the medium also informed me that no mortal was permitted to look at these messengers and that the spirit had covered its mouth realizing that we were alive and now was ready to receive its punishment

this was an encounter I had roughly two years ago I've always been able to see, hear and talk to things that weren't from this world. I dabble quite a bit in tarot card readings and dream interpretations. I was hit by COVID-19 during its peak in October 2021. When I recovered, I went back to living with my then-boyfriend for the entirety of 2022. This was when things took a strange turn for me and the rest of the apartment tenants. Our apartment building was just comprised of two floors, but each floor had five rooms.

My then boyfriend and I often went out to eat, as the apartment didn't have a kitchen or kitchen area, and cooking was prohibited. One day while talking and heading to our room on the second floor, I noticed a woman standing by the staircase. She was looking down, her hair a medium length, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and a long skirt with it. I greeted her with a good afternoon before continuing to talk to my then-boyfriend about a game we were playing. For a while, none of us noticed anything.

None of us felt anything was off, until one of our neighbours invited each tenant on the second floor for a beach party. While we were discussing things with all of the tenants, our friendly neighbour looked at two girls who lived together and said, You guys should bring with you the other girl that lives with you along too. We all agreed.

All of us except the two girls. Looking at us confused. What girl? they asked. We were all bewildered at this point. The rest of us mentioned the girl with medium long hair, who has always stood by the staircase, or by them at any time of day. We assume they live together.

because when the two girls would be cleaning, leaving their doors open, the other girl was always sitting inside their apartment, seemingly just watching and doing nothing. Everyone started to fill uneasy. The two girls were starting to look terrified, continuously telling us there were only two of them in the apartment. They asked us what the third girl looked like. We all gave the same description. medium length hair, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a long skirt with it. They asked us what her face looked like. None of us could remember her face. Ever since then, none of us saw the girl again.

However, this was just the beginning of the encounters with the paranormal in the apartment building. At night, there were reports of people hearing a dragging noise outside of their apartment doors. Something sounded like it was walking around the second floor, dragging something heavy with it. Every time it did, we'd feel a heavy sense of dread. Our cat would always hiss at the door. Sometimes we'd see a woman standing near our beds, looking similar to the girl we used to see by the staircase before. Our cat would jump at it, and it would disappear.

Eventually my then boyfriend and I moved out. We also found out that none of the original tenants stayed after we left. Until now, when I passed by that same building, I still feel a strange sense of dread. This takes place in a small town in Ohio, USA. I was 14 at the time. My twin brother and I will call him S. We're staying the night at our best friend's house. We'll call her M.

was also 14. We had spent the day watching YouTube and playing games until we got tired. Em's room was very small and only had a twin bed, so the three of us slept in the living room. Em lived in a trailer at the time of the story. The trailer was rectangular and there were two couches in the living room, one on each wall. When you enters into the house, you came into the living room. If you turned left and walked past the couches and bookshelves, about 20 feet, That was the kitchen. The kitchen had an island that had three lights hanging above it, that we kept on all night.

There was a big blank wall that was opposite the kitchen, and you could see it if you were sitting on one of the couches. M was on one couch, S was on the floor, and I was on the couch that you could see the blank wall from. We had watched a movie and fell asleep around 10. I don't know what time I woke up, but I do know it was early in the morning.

probably around 2 or 3 a.m. I was laying face out and I could see the other two and the wall. I had closed my eyes again to try and go back to sleep when I heard this faint giggling. I kept my eyes closed thinking it was M laughing at something on her iPod. I lay there for a little while longer before I hear the giggling turned more into singing. I opened my eyes then and looked over at M to tell her. her to stop. When I saw that she and S were still asleep, as I'm looking at them confused, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I look over at the blank wall and see the shadow of what appeared to be a little girl, dancing. It was like she was standing in front of the island,

and the light was projecting her shadow onto the wall. I stared at the shadow for a probably about a minute before it disappeared. I had a lot of trouble sleeping the rest of the night and did not go back to her house for a sleepover after that. Now here's the strange part. Fast forward to the summer of 2023. M. S. S. is fiancé. My parents and I are all on one big family vacation.

We're all 21 at this point. We were staying at an Airbnb and M and I were sharing a room. One of the days. days we were there, Em and I were chilling in our room, talking about experiences we had had with the paranormal. She had just finished a story about seeing a glass fly off her table, in her old trailer, when I decided to tell her about the shadow I saw when we were 14. After I finished my story, her jaw was on the floor. Em then told me she heard the same thing as I did. Apparently sometimes at night she would feel a presence in her room, and here,

a little girl talking or laughing. Em also said that she had sleep paralysis occasionally and would see a dark figure above her sitting on her chest. Em said that the sleep paralysis stopped after she moved out of that trailer. We were both dumbfounded about this confirmation that what we had seen and heard was actually real. Em's older brother and sister-in-law live in the trailer now and Em's brother has claimed to hear the same little girl. I have a ghost story for you. I have several from my time living on military bases and over in Germany. Women in my family are said to have sight. We can see and know things that others don't see or share with us. My sight has not stayed, but sometimes

I know without being told. It creeps people out, but such is life. In the early 1990s, you were stationed in in Mannheim, Germany, and our family loved to go castle and cathedral hopping on the weekends. I was only eight at the time, but I loved seeing the ancient churches and old castles. Dad taught us German, and we were able to communicate pretty well with the locals. And my dad was great to convincing locals to show him to the far-off corners in the castle. Normally it was fine, we'd get to see some artwork or a statue before going back to mum. There was one castle. It was somewhere along one of the rivers, I don't recall which one.

It was on the same road as the Green Tower Inn, but the castle itself I can't recall the name of, only that it was higher up on a hill overlooking a river. We only went once to this castle. Dad never took us back. Dad wanted us kids to be independent and encouraged us to explore a little bit ahead of him and mum, but not too far.

This castle had a cellar that was sometimes used as a jail of sorts. I remember that the steps were in the main courtyard and so Dad let me go down ahead while my parents wrangled the other siblings. The castle had actors at the weekend we were there.

I had seen several of them dressed in period clothing and had talked to several of them. So I went down into the cellar and saw a blonde woman in a white dress in the jail cell. I figured she was an actor. She didn't look out of place. Her outfit was historically appropriate to the ones I had seen others wearing. She seemed solid, but the lighting wasn't great, and she was behind huge thick iron bars. I talked to her. She smiled at me,

but she was sad. Her presence felt sad, and I remember wanting to cry. It was very cold in the cellar, and while I wanted to talk to her, she wasn't talking back and it was getting colder. Not very strange in a cellar of a castle, and I figured maybe she was sad because she was tired of being locked up in the cold. The other actors were allowed to roam, and so being the kind child that I was, I ran up to the main courtyard to ask if she could be let out now. The castle keeper looked at me oddly when I told him. him about the blonde woman in the cellar. He said they didn't have an actor down there. But I was not having it. I dragged my dad and the castle keeper down to the cellar to show them. When we got down

there, she wasn't in the cell. There was only one way in and out of the cellar. Dad and I had talked about it because we talked about it was a bad defensive position because you could be trapped down there. It's why it was better for food storage or locking up a person. The three of us went down and I noticed it was warmer. Not hot, but warmer than before. And the jail cell was empty. The blonde woman wasn't there. I know she didn't come up the stairs behind me.

We would have seen her in the courtyard. And this is when I realised something about the iron bars to the cell. You couldn't open them. They were broken and rusted over. You couldn't open the door. The castle keeper asked if I could describe her again. I explained that she was about my dad's height, blonde, wearing a white dress and that she felt sad. I explained that even though she didn't talk to me, I could tell she was sad, cold and hungry.

I don't know why, but those three things really stayed with me and I repeated them again. She was sad, cold and hungry. I was becoming so upset at this point that I was in tears. I couldn't understand why nobody was helping her. I knew she was cold, and she needed help, but this castle keeper was acting like nothing was wrong. I was so upset that I started yelling we need to find her. She needs help. My shouting brought down the castle keeper's wife.

She led us out of the cellar and into the little food area, where she got me some tea and food. She explained to my dad and me that the castle, had a few ghosts, and one of them was a blonde woman in a white dress, who was only seen in the cellar. Local law said that she was the younger daughter of a local lord, and that her older sister was jealous of her. The older sister locked up the younger sister in the cell and let her starve during the wintertime, claiming that she got the plague so that people would stay away. The older sister married but died in the next year giving birth. to a monster because of her evil deeds, and she haunts the woods around the castle in a red cloak.

The blonde woman was seen from time to time in the cellar, and her sister in the red cloak was seen fairly often in the woods. My dad thanked the castlekeeper's wife for the story, but said ghosts were not real. He thanked her again and gathered up our family, and he got ready to leave. The castlekeeper and his wife walked our family out to the car and wished to the house and wished to us well, inviting us back any time. I told my parents several times about the blonde woman. I insisted for weeks afterwards that we should go back, but my dad never took us back to that castle. We moved from Germany several months later, and didn't return until 2002. We visited lots of places in our time there, but we never went back to that castle.

I remember seeing the Green Tower in and a castle off in the distance, but Dad really, refused to go to that one castle. To my knowledge that castle was the only one that we never visited again. I think dad does believe in ghosts and he didn't want to chance something coming home with us. This happened about five or six years ago. I was working at a cleaning company, cleaning houses. Most of the time we worked in pairs. There was one house my co-worker and I cleaned, that we never really liked doing, but we couldn't exactly put a finger on why. It was just a strange house. The heart of the house was the living room, with hallways extending down opposite directions. I would start down one hallway, and she would begin with the other, and we would

meet in the middle. The house didn't really have anything else of the ordinary about it, except one room that looked as though it had not been touched in a long time and we were requested not to clean it the most striking items in this room were a mannequin with a wedding dress on it and a book titled moving on after loss sitting on a table beside a sofa chair we had never met the owner of the house but we figured they had experienced something sad in their life

and felt bad for them but didn't think too much about it it. About the third or fourth time we cleaned the house. I was cleaning my hallway, my co-worker cleaning hers, when I heard footsteps approaching from behind. Figuring it was my co-worker coming to speak to me. I turned around to greet her, but there was no one there. Suddenly, a terribly loud sound shook the house, loud enough that I had to cover my ears, like one long low thundering rumble. It was so loud that I felt like the ground was vibrating as I walked towards the centre of the house

to find out what the hell was going on. I entered the living room as my co-worker did and we both looked at each other in confusion. After looking around a moment we realised that the surround sound system had turned on at full blast set to nothing but static. After turning it off, I told her about the footsteps, and she in turn told me how she heard a door slam before the stereo turned on.

Freaked out we finished a house as fast as we could and left. And no, we never said a word to our supervisor. We never ended up being sent back to that house. I know it's not a crazy, action-filled experience, but it was so frightening at the time. Repeating it now, I still feel my palms getting sweaty. We moved just over three years ago in mid-March to a tiny hamlet in Devon called Colford. It's a picturesque place of fatched cottages in the Devon countryside. Our house is from around 1690, so it's pretty old.

On the day of the move we had a distinct sensation of being watched and followed throughout the house. No noises, just the strong sense that we weren't alone. It wasn't a malevolent feeling, just an unsettling one. Our first night has kind of set the scene for the next three years. My partner and I went to bed on makeshift blow-up mattresses. We had only got the key some three or so hours beforehand. We left the bedroom door open to the hallway. We now make a habit of never doing this since.

where we felt watched from the corridor. When I eventually got to sleep, I dreamt of walking around the house, but being followed by a little old lady, wearing a dark brown floor-length dress, a brown blouse, white apron, and white lace bonnet. She showed me the house, pointing things out until eventually standing in front of me, and saying, Hello, my name is Annie. At this I instantly awoke.

It wasn't scary but a very odd feeling. Upon waking, however, there was a sound of children giggling to each other, coming from the room next door. Since then, we've known the ghost to Zanny. In the days that followed, there were still the sensation of being watched. The footsteps both day.

and night, including the sound of someone running down the stairs, upon my partner returning home. No one lives on either side of us, and we don't have any children or pets to explain the sound footsteps, the bumps or things moving. And the nearest children, as we regularly hear giggling, in the hamlet, live about 50 metres away. It got so loud on one occasion, with the feeling of being watched and followed that I said out loud that it's our house and we're here to protect it and we weren't going to damage the house. The rest of the night was a calmer one and has settled to gentle occurrences. To name some of those occurrences we've had lights turning on and off. In fact when the lights flicker and we tell Annie to stop playing with the lights, it instantly

stops. We have doors opening and close. Taps turning on and off, and things being moved or thrown. Both my partner and I have seen this, as have my mother and grandmother who have stayed over. Items such as weighing scales being thrown from the counter to the middle of the room, candlesticks moving along countertops, and a cap from a firmest flask being thrown from the counter and hidden the wooden beam in the middle of the room.

We regularly see a lady in brown around the house, though mainly downstairs in the area of the front, front door entrance and kitchen. She has also been seen by guests who describe her without prior description from us and their neighbours seeing her face in the downstairs window. At times it has sounded like someone has got into the house due to how pronounced the sound of pacing footsteps are. They can be heard all the way up the stairs, along the corridor and on the ground floor. I have got to check on occasion to only have the sound of footsteps stopping at area as soon as they are checked upon. There are a lot of occurrences that tend to

peak each end of May and mid-September. In the last few days alone we've had bumps, including while typing this, seeing a figure in brown and items moving. I have chatted with one of our neighbours, a farmer who was born and lived in the hamlet all his life. He's the oldest resident at around 94 years old and his family have lived in the Hamlet for at least the last 300 years. He indicated two ladies died in that house. They were sisters in the 1920s and in fact named the cottage what it is today. One collapsed in the street and was carried into the house where she promptly died and several years later her sister died but was noted to walk around the hamlet at night searching for her sister.

The deaths of the two sisters, May and September, coincide with the peaks of activity. Indeed, seeing the Lady in Brown is typically around Maytime, including items being moved, and the sound of pacing and footsteps is typically more in September. I have been to visit their grave at the local cemetery. Bizarrely, it was the first grave I saw. Overall, we do have pretty regular occurrences of activity,

to the point now where we brush it. off. Something a little strange happened while I was halfway through reading that story. I heard clear as day the sound of a cat screeching, followed by loud footsteps running around. I assumed the sound of the cat must have come from outside even though it was really clear, but the footsteps sounded like it was definitely coming from inside. I assumed my dog had heard the sound of the cat and run to the window to see where it was. But the dog is sleeping, soundly. I don't know what made that noise. I've never really divulged or discussed this story with many people, barring a very small select few.

Being six years old at the time, I've often felt that it would be met with ridicule, put down to an overactive juvenile imagination. I will always stand by my convictions, though, that the following experiences were very real. As mentioned before, I was six years old at the time, I remember work. I remember well as it was my younger sister's first day at primary school, and it was my second year. At the time we lived in a very modest terraced house of a small town in Lincolnshire, England. Being my second year, I was all dressed and ready to head off to school. My sister, however, was very emotional that morning, with it being her first day. Our mum was frantically trying to get her ready, whilst trying to arrest the understandable emotion

and trepidation my sister was experiencing that morning. Being all ready and raring to go myself, I took situ on the bottom step of the hallway stairway. The hallway was a very small area, directly adjacent to the entrance of the living room where my mum was getting my sister dressed and ready. The top of the stairway had a very familiar creek, no matter where you stood.

As I was sat at the bottom waiting, that very familiar creek was something. heard. Being there was only three of us in the house at the time, with my dad having long left for work and the remainder of us downstairs, this was very out of place. I curiously turned to look up, strangely without any fear. Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at me was a rather a rotund, short, elderly lady, with curly hair, with a rather stern look on her face, almost as if to imply that I was intruding in her home. Despite knowing that this was completely abnormal, I felt no fear at seeing this strange woman at the top of the stairs, nor did I alert my mum to her. I remember being

completely affixed to her, our mutual gaze at each other lasting around 30 seconds or so. until finally she turned herself back around and headed back down the short space on the landing to the direction of the bedrooms. Out of sight again. Weirdly, I felt nothing of it and just nonchalantly went about my weight for my mum and my sister. A couple of months passed from this initial sighting. If anything by that point I had long forgotten the strange woman at the top of the stairs. However, there was one more sighting of her still to come. and this would be a more chilling interaction.

At the time I had a cabin bed with a small desk stool next to it. Like with the top of the stairs this stool had a very audible creak to it when it was sat on or stood on. I was laying on my side at the time facing the wall, having been in bed for around 10 minutes. A bedroom door was behind me and I remember the landing light streaming into my room indicating that the door had been opened. Believing it to be my dad making a final check to see if I was going to sleep, I turned to face the other direction to acknowledge him. There was nobody there upon first glance. But then I heard the desk stool creak, peering over the top of my bed, was the very same elderly

lady I saw previously, with the same angry look on her face. We again locked eyes, neither of us saying a word. However, this time she was about to get far more interactive. She proceeded to claw away at my stomach, digging her fingers deep into my flesh, very aggressively for what felt like a minute or so. This time, unlike the first encounter, I wanted to shout and scream for help,

but for whatever reason I felt completely unable to amissue. to emit any sound to alert my parents for help. Once she stopped, she just stood down off the stool, opened my bedroom door and exited. This time, never to be seen again. As with the first incident, I never spoke about these two encounters until years after. I can still visualize this lady to this very day,

some 33 years on from the two encounters. In my own mind at the time I gave her the rather juvenile name of Chunky due to her aforementioned portly appearance. It turns out that other people, including my parents, had experienced strange incidents in that house and some casual investigating into the history of the property built in the 1960s to not a steep history revealed that an elderly lady did pass away in the master bedroom

before my parents purchased the house. Whether it was the very same woman or not, I'm not sure. But I always will be sure of what I saw and experienced that morning and evening. I've been very sensitive to things all my life. I actively avoid things, places and people, so as not to trigger or alert anything to my awareness. The reason for this is my first encounter was traumatic to me at a very young age. I rarely share this story as it seems so far-fetched

for a seven-year-old to experience. I had written it down when it happened and have not elaborated on it at all since. When I was seven, I went to spend a week with relatives who were very religious. Their life revolved around their church. They were very good, nice and generous, and I love spending time with them.

This is why my parents were okay with sending me to them for a week for my first sleepover. My cousin was much older than me, already graduated from high school. I would be spending the night with her in her room. To be clear, I was not a timid or shy child. I was not aware of death or anything beyond my world at this age. I had siblings, a stable home and family life, and was overall a happy kid. I spent a fun and uneventful day with my cousin and her mother. As the day drew to a close, we were watching a sitcom on TV in her room, and my cousin

and went out to make us popcorn. As she walked out of the room, I felt warm heat near my covered legs. As I looked down, I saw a scaly green hand, with large yellowish claws reaching towards me from the edge of the bed. It rested upon the white sheets and I could smell rotten eggs. I learned years later that this was the smell of sulphur. I screamed and heard my cousin's footfalls as she ran back to the room. I looked up at the door and told her the hand and pointed to where I had seen it.

It was gone, leaving a very clear impression of where it had been on the sheets and blankets. I could see where the fabric had been creased between the weight of the fingers. My cousin, not seeing anything wrong, threw her arms around me and erased all evidence that anything was there. I was inconsolable and my parents were called to pick me up, sleepover would have to wait until I was older. A few things I learned after that incident. When my mother used to babysit my cousin in that house, she always felt like she was being watched.

She hated to leave my cousin unattended while she napped because she felt like something would happen to the baby. My cousin also had strange things happen to her, and she was always told that those who shine brightest in their faith attract those things that live in the darkness. I have found this to be true in my life, when being in the presence of other very devout people. Witnessing my first ghostly apparition was not fun.

I was in my sophomore year of high school and living in a small town in south-central Iowa, where our neighbours were each half a mile from either side, and my house was next to a nearly abandoned gravel road to one side. This road stretched on for a few miles up and down rolling hills, covered with thick forests on the side. Of course, being in the middle of nowhere, there were no lamps or lights for this road to be lit. Also along this road was a broken down bridge, where half of it was demolished, and where I would venture down to when I had free time in the summer, or after school when I was bored.

Whenever I visited this location alone, I always had a sense that something or someone was watching me. This tense sensation of paranoia steadily increased whenever I walked back home on the lonely gravel road. Something was always off about that road. It was about 1 or 2 a.m. when I woke up to my first visual apparition. I hadn't slept well at all that night and it was after a day that I had visited the bridge from the road. I woke up feeling a little off

and I had a strange allure toward the window and to look out of it. I never did this normally, and never during the night. However, that night I seemed to be pulled towards it. Peering out the window, I could see the road, or at least partially, since some of the tree branches and leaves covered most of it. On the road stood a single figure of a little girl. She wore a white dress that waved ever so slightly,

was barefoot and had long black hair. The scariest thing about her, though, was that she was staring directly at my window. Now this road was hundreds of feet away and hidden by a small hill and forestry, so the distance was long, but her gaze was directed towards me. Her shadowed eyes looking at the exact window that I was oddly directed to. I closed the curtains after a few seconds, and with my heart beating, fast, I turned on the lights. I didn't sleep at all the rest of night and never dared to look out the window again. But this apparition wouldn't stop there. She had seen me and locked onto my

location. It would be another month before I saw her again, but this time she was much closer. Waking up at around 2 or 3 a.m. this time, the moment I opened my eyes I saw her. She was on the opposite side of the room, standing near my closet. Within the darkest shadows of the corner, she stood completely still, but always staring at me, with her head bent down slightly. It was the same girl I saw on the road a month before. I was sure of it. There was a moment of frozen terror. My eyes were wide open with absolute fright.

Keeping my focus on her, I stumbled my hands over the wall behind me, before flicking on the room lights. When I did, I briefly, for just a second, looked away to find the light switch. And when I turned back, the apparition had disappeared. Once again, I didn't sleep at all that night. as it so happens in the paranormal field the number three comes up a lot it has its own meanings for some

but for me that year it would mean a third time for this entity to reappear this time was the scariest again around 2 or 3 a.m. I was beginning to wake up and I was in an almost half-conscious state but I couldn't fully wake up this same terrifying entity was suddenly in front of me on top of me

She had very pale skin and dark eyes, almost completely black. She was screaming at me with an extended jaw, but no sound came out. But the anger in her eyes was fierce, and her open mouth only had blackness within. My wrists and ankles felt as if they were pinned down, and I couldn't move. I felt my body writhing back and forth for escape. I shut my eyes and tried to scream too, but nothing came out either. Suddenly, I felt a weight shifting off of me, and I tumbled down to the ground of a big thud. I didn't know how long I laid there, because when my mother came up to check on me,

she said she had heard a bump in the night, but didn't bother to check on it since it came from my room. I told her that I had fallen out of bed, unknowingly, but didn't bother to explain the reason. I knew they wouldn't believe me, so I stayed quiet. Strangely enough, this entity never returned after that night. I wonder what happened to me that night and why it never came back. For years, it puzzled me until last year when I was talking to a medium, where she explained that a guardian angel might have fought with this demonic entity and had shoved the apparition off of me so I could escape its grasp.

I'm a paranormal believer when it comes to entities like demons and angels. So it makes sense to me coming to that conclusion. Ever since then, I've had multiple other experiences of seeing and sensing spirits. But perhaps that can be another story. I'm afraid that's about all I have time for now. I'm going to have to leave you. Oh no, you can't come with me. You need to stay here.

Where I'm going, you can't follow, I'm afraid. But can I offer you one piece of advice? The morning sun won't be coming up any. time soon. In fact I wouldn't be expecting it at all if I were you. But I was being serious about the darkness. You don't want to go back there. You don't want to go back to your tent. You won't like what you find there. If you want to be safe, stay by the fire. Watch the fire. No matter what you hear, no matter what you feel, keep watch the fire and don't turn around. Maybe I'll come back sometime. No promises. But maybe we'll see each other again.