There my mother said a stranger, a man in a black car, came and asked if I was okay. This was of memorable quality because we lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone, and strangers were of note. This is how I remember the whole incident, quite clearly.
It became a family joke for many years about the old man with the cane up the lane because no one else ever saw him.
When I was 13 years old, and at a family gathering, everyone was making fun of me again about this incident and my grandmother said, ‘Stop, leave the child alone...the man she saw was (can't recall name) and he was the last Civil War veteran in the county. He was wounded and he used to walk up and down that road with his cane every day. He was a nice old fella. He'd been dead a long time but I have no doubt she saw him.’
No one knows who the ‘child’ was that I saw but, at some point during my teenage years, I saw an artist's rendering of a "grey" (alien!) and recognized the ‘child’ I saw.
Needless to say, I've never spoken of that part of the incident with anyone because it's one thing to see a ‘ghost’ but another thing to see an ‘alien’ creature, not to mention a man in a dark suit in a black car. LOL!
I've been wondering for some time now, as a result of that long ago experience, whether the nature of those ‘alien’ creatures is inter-dimensional. The area where this whole experience happened is a very old area in the USA - an area notorious for paranormal experiences happening to ‘regular’ folks.
Don’t Blame the Messenger
I was 13 years old at the time this happened.
I saw my dead Grandfather's ghost, who told me that my Uncle was going to die about ten days before Christmas. This happened around August time.
I was not that afraid of this but I did think at the time that I must have hallucinated it. Anyway, I told my Mother, who in turn told my Grandmother (the ghost's widow).
My Uncle died mid December that year of heart failure, aged 38 years.
To this day my Grandmother believes that I put a curse on him; she still deems me responsible for his death.
An Unusual Wake Up Call
At the age of 6 years old, after moving into my Grandmother's house after her death, I was in bed and the alarm went off.
Instead of hitting the snooze button per usual, I opened my eyes and saw an apparition at the foot of my bed. No idea what it was! Never saw it again.
Napoleon
When I was somewhere between the ages of eight and ten years old my parents and I were visiting family friends up near the Canadian border.
I slept in the upstairs attic of the house. One night I woke up, for seemingly no good reason and I was sweating profusely. I wasn't sick or running a fever but I awoke hot and sweating to see Napoleon Bonaparte in the bedroom.
I know this sounds completely crazy but there he was, hand in breast pocket, opposite side of his chest. His face was obscured by black smoke. I ran downstairs as fast as I could for comfort.
It was only years later that I realised what I had seen, who it was I saw. I learned about Napoleon in school and then recognised him for the first time.
Two Tales, Two Different Locations
After my Uncle died I was preparing to read a poem at his memorial service but found I couldn’t. I had a hard time starting.
Then, I heard his voice. He spoke right into my ear and told me ‘you can do it’, as if he was standing right there next to me.
Another time when I was visiting a friend's house and staying in their guest room I awoke and saw the ghost of a woman. I asked about it the next morning and the family told me no one else outside the family had ever seen the woman before but that she was their Grandmother and she guarded them and made sure everything in the house was OK.
I was able to describe her perfectly: everything she was wearing, her hair, her height – everything!
The Weeping Ghost Hunter
I was the member of a local ghost-hunting group and we were doing an experiment at the time. I was alone, at one end of a long, dark hallway with an infrared camera, and three other members were on the other side of the hallway. We couldn't see each other.
Within moments of getting to my position, I heard footsteps. They went into a room, just up the hall but the infrared camera did not detect anything. I thought someone was just trying to scare me. Soon afterwards, the sound moved into the room right next to the one where I was positioned. At the time, I assumed that those two rooms were interconnected, but they weren't.
After a few moments, and for seemingly no reason at all, I began crying a river. Full sobs and all!
After a minute or so of me trying to figure out what was happening and what was wrong with me (I didn't feel depressed, scared, or anything similar), I heard sobs coming from the room next to where I was stationed.
It was only the next day that I found out that this location is where the local weeping lady supposedly resides.
Her Perfume Let Me Know She Was Here
My Mother had passed away. I was in bed with my husband (a complete non-believer), watching TV when my Mom appeared to me.
She looked at me very lovingly as she approached. I tried to call out to Mom and my husband, to get his attention, but I couldn't speak.
Mom touched my hair as if she were saying, 'Sweet dreams'. It was as if she was tucking me into bed, just as she did when I was a child. She smiled and then faded.
After a few moments I was finally able to speak to my husband to tell him what I had experienced but before I could utter a word, he said, 'I know, your Mother was here. I could smell her perfume'.
Young Love
I was 16 years old at the time and had just started dating a friend who was a couple of years older than me. He was a fellow who I'd always gotten on well with and I cared deeply for him. Fortunately, he felt the same about me.
It was summer and we, along with some of our friends, were attending the wedding of another friend. In fact, my partner was in the wedding party.
After the wedding, we all went back to the home of one of the ushers. Given my age, I had to be home by a certain time so, when it was nearing my curfew my boyfriend walked me to my car. Again, being underage, I was not legally permitted to drink any alcohol.
Upon saying our farewells, he told me how much he cared for me and said 'I will never let you go'. I will never forget those words, as they were the last words he spoke to me while he was alive.
Early the next morning, my boyfriend and another guy went to a restaurant for breakfast. They were only a block or so from where my partner lived and, on their way home, the driver of the car lost control of the vehicle and it hit a pole.
It was raining so hard that the car slid when the brakes were applied. The driver broke his leg and my boyfriend hit his head on the dash. He was seemingly, otherwise uninjured and after the crash he headed off for help. He collapsed soon after and died a few hours later in hospital from a brain injury.
We were all devastated; I was totally devastated.
The next evening, I went to bed early though I lay awake for hours. At some point, I fell asleep but was awoken by something during the night.
It was dark in my room, so I couldn't see much but I had an overwhelming feeling that I was not alone. This frightened me so much so that I called out to my parents. My Mom came quickly and I let her know what I experienced. She reassured me; said I was only dreaming; that no one else was in the room or in the house, for that matter, except our family.
After she left and went back to her room I was unable to fall asleep again. Though I agreed it was most likely a dream, part of me wasn't so sure. It felt too real!
It wasn't long before that same feeling of not being alone returned but this time it was much stronger. However, rather than frightening me, this time I felt a sense of calm. It's hard to explain. I sat up in bed and was trying to focus my eyes in the dark as I looked around the room.
In the corner, close to the ceiling I saw a light. It was small and not very bright, at first, but it quickly increased in size and brilliance as I watched it.
It was not a solid light. It was transparent, similar to a ray of light when it shines through a window into a darkened room, yet it was more solid than that. It wasn't shaped like a ray-of-light either. It was more circular and grew outwards in the shape of a big beach ball, though not as perfectly round. It’s hard to explain what I saw.
I rubbed my eyes and opened and closed them a couple of times, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me. The light didn't go away. Instead, within the ball of light I saw my boyfriend appear, not all of him just from about the chest up. I was stunned, overwhelmed, afraid, yet not afraid, happy, and bewildered - at the same time. It's very hard to describe the feeling I had and what my thoughts were.
I asked, 'Is that you?' He smiled and, without moving his mouth, I heard him speak. It wasn't an audible sound; it was more in my mind that I heard him.
He said to me, 'I want you to know I'm okay, and I want you to promise me that you won't cry anymore'. I told him I couldn't promise him that as his funeral was the next day.
He then said, 'After tomorrow, cry no more. I am still here. I am okay'. I agreed.
Before I could say another word, he was gone; the light was gone; the room was dark once more.
I pinched myself, not literally, as I thought I must have been dreaming, but I wasn't.
I then got up, put on the light, looked around the room, went and looked out the window, and looked along the hall. Not sure why I did this. I guess I wanted to be sure that I wasn't dreaming. I wanted to check that others hadn't gotten out of bed and it was actually them that I’d heard, not my boyfriend.
Everyone seemed to be asleep. I was going to go and wake my Mom again, as I couldn't believe what had just happened. However, I decided not to do this, as I didn't think she would believe me anyway.
Of course, I really couldn't fall asleep after this. I lay awake trying to make sense of it all.
The next day I shared my experience with my parents and, as expected, they told me it was just a dream. I could understand their line of thinking and that this was natural, given what had happened, and because I was grieving his death.
I told a friend as well and she said the same thing. After that, I decided not to tell anyone else. I simply agreed with my parents and my friend that it was a dream, and it was because I was still in shock after the death of my friend.
That was nearly 30 years ago now, and I still can see, hear, and feel it like it happened yesterday.
I have thought of him often over the years, and although I still miss him dearly, and smile whenever I hear his favorite song, I have kept my promise.
After we said our final goodbyes at the funeral, I haven't cried outwardly for him since. However, I have cried in my heart many times.
This experience was so incredibly real to me. I know in my heart and in my mind that this was not just a dream. I was definitely awake. I believe it was his spirit that I saw and heard that night.
As you’d expect, that experience changed me forever. It has had a long lasting effect on me. Though I have experienced some other unusual things in my life, it was this experience (and one other that occurred not long after) that ignited my life-long quest of researching the paranormal.
I have had many other experiences that I can't explain, since that night.
I have lived in a house that had regular paranormal activity. We shared it with the ghost of an elderly man. I'm not sure if that first experience made me more sensitive to the paranormal. Would I have felt, seen, and heard what I have experienced since if I had I not had that encounter first? I don't know. I guess I never will know.
Suicide Calls
On the edge of sleep, alone in a room at a friend's house, I
heard
a conversation about making (me) jump out a window.
I rose from the bed to look around, but no one was present in the room with me. I lay back down again and, while on the edge of sleep once more, I heard, what I can only describe as evil laughing, very close to my ear. I assumed I was experiencing nefarious spirits, so I commanded them to, 'Stand in the light of Christ', and mentally I visually projected white light throughout the room. The ghosts went away!
In the morning, my friend said that people usually can’t sleep in that room because of the nightmares they have about ghosts trying to kill them.
He also told me that a previous tenant had died after jumping out of the window in that room.
The Ghost in the Cupboard
When I was 16 years old, I was sitting in a friend's bedroom with him and two other friends. The friend casually mentioned that there was a ghost in his closet, which had woken him up intermittently over the years.
