Have you ever seen a ghost?

[trackaghost]

With Halloween exactly a week away I thought it would be cool to share any ghostly experiences.

I've only ever had one and that was years ago. I saw my father, who has been dead for many years, standing at my door smiling. I looked away and he was gone. Maybe it my mind playing tricks on me I don't know but it was strange nevertheless.

My uncle once lived in the most haunted house in Britain and he's told me many spooky tales about living there. For instance, every night he would hear footsteps coming up to his bedroom door and when he opened it, no matter how quickly, there would be no one there. He also said it was unnaturally cold, especially in one room where his housemate slept. His friend had the worst nightmares while living there and eventually had to leave because he felt he was going mad. At the time they didn't know the house was supposedly haunted.

Another uncle of mine stayed at a guest house in Ireland and in the middle of the night was awoken as he felt someone sitting down at the end of his bed. When he looked there was no one there. In the morning he told the woman who owned the house and she told him that the room was haunted and most people who slept there experienced exactly the same thing.

I have loads more actually, including my dad seeing a ghostly figure at the old (and very creepy) mental instituation in Ireland, where he was working as a painter and decorator many years ago, which is kinda freaky.

But anyway, your turn...

[amber]

your post really creeped me out, until i got to your sig, which REALLY creeped me out!
you and your family have a high percentage of seeing ghost. That's cool, about your dad, actually. those other ones were frightening...i would have nightmares, too..I've never seen a ghost. My mom said she felt one..she was standing by a tree or something, in Stockton, on a warm summer evening, and all of a sudden freezing cold swept through her for a minute. she didn't see anything, though, but she says it was a ghost. My mom, aunt, and dad saw a UFO, but that is different...
Amber

[strandinthewind]

Many - I am from around New Orleans

[amber]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Many - I am from around New Orleans

Wow, great story! It's like I was there, seeing the same ghosts as you...

[amber]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

But it's Prince and the muppets! I love the muppet who looks like Prince hehe
I've also got Debbie Harry and the Muppets but the Prince one was funnier.

muppets creep me out, and prince creeps me out even more, especially here, cause he looks all plasticky and like a muppet...it's mostly prince, though, never have liked the way he looks

[DeeGeMe]

I'm half-Irish and I remember being amazed when I was little and finding out my classmates didn't believe in ghosts! I've seen them, smelled them, and heard them! And I spent my early years growing up in Charleston, and the saying there is that Every Old Charleston House has it's very own old Charleston Ghost! I love and adore ghost stories and here are a couple of my favorite ghostly encounters.

Our next door neighbor died when I was about 12. He was an elderly man and he would "sneak" into our yard and cut our roses (we didn't mind). A couple of days after he died, my Mom and I were sitting in our den when the most fragrant smell began to waft over the den and became more and more intense until it was almost overpowering. My Mom turned to me and said, "Do you smell that?" "It smells like roses." I said. The instant I said that, the smell vanished. It was the dead of winter--there were no roses blooming anywhere. We decided he was somewhere now where there were lots of roses he could pick and that was his way of telling us that he was okay.

My mother awoke one night and got up to go to the bathroom and happened to look out the door of my parent's bedroom into the living room beyond. Sitting in an arm chair was my grandfather! He smiled at her and then vanished. The next day, I entered the hospital to have some normal tests--a spinal tap and a cat scan (I was having strange headaches and neck/shoulder pain). I ended up being allergic to the dye they used and went into shock and almost died. I was in ICU for 3 days and was finally released (straight out of ICU) on Christmas Day. My Mom thinks that my grandfather's appearance was to let her know that I was going to be okay.

One Christmas night, when I was about 10, my parents and I were staying with my grandmother. My Aunt lived across the street and she was visiting with us (her husband was home with the kiddies). All of a sudden, we heard the door leading to the porch slam. The only problem? The door was locked and bolted at the time and was within our line of sight. It happened twice more that night and generally scared the **** out of all of us. The next morning, the phone rang and it was someone calling to tell us that my grandmother's sister had died. Now here's the kicker--my grandfather had died on Dec. 22nd, when I was 3 months old. He had been buried on Christmas Eve. Up until he died, he'd been legendary for the fantastic Christmas parties he loved to throw. We always thought that he had come back to warn us that our family was going to suffer another loss at Christmas.

My grandfather also likes to make non-Christmas time appearances. A few months after my grandmother died seven years ago, my Aunt was cleaning up my grandmother's house and all of a sudden, she could smell cigar smoke. Her youngest son and his son came in the house and said, "Was there someone smoking in here?" My grandfather was a cigar smoker. We think it was letting us know that grandma was with him and that he was still annoying her with his cigars.

One night when I was home on summer break from college, I'd had a few friends over and I was standing in the yard saying goodbye to them when I saw this odd light on across the street in my neighbor's yard. I commented on it and my boyfriend said, "What light?" About then my friend piped up and commented, "What light are you talking about?" And that's when I realized that I could see it and that they didn't. About a week later, I was drying dishes when I told my Mom, "There's that light I saw the other night again." My Mom turned white, grabbed me by my shoulders and literally screamed at me, "What do you see?" I described it. My father was still sitting at the kitchen table and I happened to glance over at him and he had his mouth open and finally managed to say, "You can see it too?" I nodded. It seems that my Mom had been seeing it for a couple of weeks, on and off. My Dad couldn't see it but firmly believed that we saw what we said we were seeing. I don't know what it was but our across-the-street neighbors had moved an old slave cabin into their backyard that had originally been on one of the owner's family estate. They'd restored it and used it as a Summer House and that's the general direction that the light seemed to be coming from although it would move, dance around, and grow brighter until becoming dim again. We've seen it several times over the years (that's been about 20 years ago now) but we generally keep the kitchen blinds firmly shut at night so we don't see it!

[amber]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

Wow, Dee great stories. The last one in particular freaked me out!

Talking of grandparents. I when I was two years old apparently I said to my parents "look there's granddad in the sky!" My mother said, "don't you mean the birds or the clouds?" But I told her, "no it's granddad".
A few minutes later the phone rang informing my dad that his father had died suddenly from a heart attack.
Probably a weird coincidence by freaky nonetheless.

Whoah!!!! That's amazing!

[ryan8472]

I haven't ever seen a ghost, but my family has supernatural experiences all the time. My dad tells me a story of how when I was a baby, he had a dream about his uncle who had been dead for twelve years. He told me he talked to him (his uncle) about his new son, and his uncle asked if he could see me. So when he woke up, the door to my room was wide open, my crib was askew and I was crying my eyes out. Then there is the fact that our electrical appliances will sporadically not work for days on end when our family members die. But, I've never seen a ghost.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

Yeah, come on. More details please!

Well, the lady that reared my brother and myself until I was about five, my nanny if you will, was a large African American woman who could see the spirits and call them by name - she could also know what you and others were thinking. She would tell me they loved me and they would pick me up in the cradle. Her sister was what was called a traitor (sic) who could on occasion heal with prayer and touching - but it was tricky because she would get the illness sometimes. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.

Then, this girl I knew in New Orleans could help ghosts appear. She would show them to me on a few occasions. Again, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. She said many of them were sort of stuck here and they did not know why.

This is a crazy topic. All I know is what I have seen. Many disbelieve - but I know what I have seen.

I seen some other things but they are too weird to tell and most think I am nuts anyway LOL

[dissention]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

But it's Prince and the muppets! I love the muppet who looks like Prince hehe
I've also got Debbie Harry and the Muppets but the Prince one was funnier.

Ooh, can I have the Debbie one?

[estranged4life]

and I love every minute of it...This ol' house isnt creepy to us since we have been residents here for over 12 years now, And we both have seen ghosts (There's a child & an adult manifestation here...But they seem friendly so were used to 'em...Or vice-versa)

The child manifestation likes to play with our cats...We used to have a female deaf-mute odd-eyed (One blue eye one yellow eye) albino cat named "Jai" (RIP Jai!!!) who would always chase something that we couldnt see until one night as we were laying on the waterbed watching TV we saw a child running into the bathroom and Jai was chasing behind this figure in a playful mood...First time we saw a ghost in here.

The adult one is usually in the form of a shadow and seems to have a sense of humor...One night as we slept we heard what sounded like footsteps running from one end of the house to the other, So I decided to investigate thinking it was the cats playing but they were all asleep. Deb said she turned the light on in the bedoom and saw a shadow of an adult on the wall, But it wasnt mine because I was in the other end of the house.

The most humorous thing this adult aparition ever did was pull on the light chain on the ceiling fan in the front room in the middle of the night (We heard the chain pulled but again all the cats were asleep) and I had to get up and walk into the front room to turn the light back off, So I talked out loud to whoever was being a smartass for turning the light on "If you're going to turn the light on during the middle of the night then fork over some money to help pay the electric bill...", I think the adult spirit got the message! It was rather funny case even though we hear those adult footsteps still the lites no longer turn on.

But I wonder, Do these spirits like our taste in music? I always play music to fall asleep to, Which can be as varying as Dean Martin (Just bought his Anthology disc) to Rachmaninov ("Isle Of The Dead" is a cool eerie number) to Keith Urban, Fleetwood Mac & Dream Theater.

Brian j.

[DeeGeMe]

Estranged & Strand--I loved your stories! But then again, I'm a sucker for a good ghost story! And yes, there's probably no doubt in anyone's mind at this point why I'm a Chiffonhead!

Come on Strand--tell us stories--growing in up in the Big Easy--you must have a 100 of them--besides, as Jimmy Buffett once said, "If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane."

[strandinthewind]

Okay - my friend in New Orleans and I were walking through the Garden District, which is the section where all the mostly built in the 1800's mansions are. Some of these are in ruin. We were walking along the street outside of one and I was noticing that it was beautiful even in its ruined state. But then I kept looking at the front door, which was no longer there as it had essentially rotted away. My eyes kept being drawn there. Well, it became apparent that there was someone in the hall way. I realized after a minute that it was not a person, but something else. Then, my friend started talking to it in French, which she really does not speak that well. It sort of looked at us and kept mouthing something. Then it just dissolved into thin air. It was weird, but I soon came to expect that with her, although it did not happen all of the time. She and I are still friends and sometimes I just know that she will call on a certain day. It is weird.

[DeeGeMe]

Loved that story! Loved it! I mean, how can you beat a great New Orleans ghost story???? Unless it's with a Charleston or Savannah ghost story--something about those Southern ghosts. . . .

I've had the same thing happen to me about thinking about someone and then out of the blue, they call me.

[strandinthewind]

maybe its the heat that traps them here