It's Thriller Thursday y'all!
4th Place
I'm a military brat, and for the first eighteen years of my life we moved continuously from one house to another, country to country.
When I was five, we lived in an English town called Beck Row. During the Second World War the town had been bombed by the Germans and many of the houses had been destroyed. There were huge depressions in the ground that my neighbors told me were bomb craters. When it rained, they would fill with water, and we would play in them. The townspeople rebuilt houses on the old foundations of the bombed houses, and I lived in one of the rebuilt ones. I was scared to go to bed at night, not because there was a monster under by bed (I wish!), but because the house was haunted. There were two distinct entities, ghosts, whatever, that shared the house with us. Every night I would get in bed and pray that nothing would happen. Sometimes I would sleep through the night. Sometimes I wasn’t so lucky. I would awaken suddenly and just know it was there. It was in the hallway, always in the same spot, fading in and out of the closet at the end of the hall. It was tall, and the shape would change a little, like it wasn't solid, like it was a cloud or a mist. It would come down the hall toward me and sometimes it would suddenly turn right, into a solid wall, as if a door was there. If it didn't turn, it would continue towards me, and I would run back to my bed and hide under the covers or run to my parents’ room and crawl into bed with them. This happened periodically for the two years we lived there.
There was another ghost that stayed in the closet of my parents’ bedroom, but the difference with this one was that my dad saw it as well. I called it the “little man.” Just like the first ghost, I only ever saw it at night. It was a black figure, small and skinny like a child, but I don't think that’s what it was. It wasn’t there every night, but when it appeared, it looked like it would squat down, stay there for a little while, then stand up, and turn towards the bed. I could never see its face, but I had this feeling that it was looking directly at me. My dad saw it one night, jumped up, and turned on the lights, but there wasn't anything there. Even though it never left the closet, it was scarier than the tall one because it knew you were in its house. The tall one never seemed to look at me as if it knew I was there.
Other things happened in that house as well. In England, at the time, phone service was very expensive, and while the house came with a phone, we didn't have phone service. The phone sat under my parents’ bed, unplugged with the cord wrapped around it. Everyone once in a while it rang. We never tried to answer it. We also had an old piano in the house, and every once in a while a single note would sound. My mom hated the place, and my dad said he had an out of body experience there. One night, he woke up and couldn't move. He was finally able to force his eyes open, only to see himself staring at him only a few inches away. His other "self" disappeared a few seconds later, and he jumped up and ran through the house looking for an intruder. No one was there. I was so glad when we moved.
As an adult, when I think back to that house, I wonder if the tall one was a ghost memory of some type walking through a house that was no longer there, reliving its last moments before a bomb exploded the house, over and over. I've discussed this house with my parents several times, and both acknowledge the house was haunted.
So, that is my true ghost story. People can say what they want but I will never believe that ghosts or spirits aren't real.
3rd Place
I have several ghost or paranormal stories, and my kids constantly ask me to tell them the stories over and over. They have also been asking me for the last couple of years to submit one of my stories to you guys to read on air. Apparently they like them a lot and they thought you guys might as well.
The story that I'll share with you now is probably the one that creeps me out the most and still makes the hair on my neck stand up every time I tell it.
When I was 13 we moved to a house near the Breckenridge movie theater, was the address. We were leasing the house from an older gentleman who had recently moved out of the house because his wife had passed away. She died of Cancer and he just couldn't stand to live in the house they had shared together any longer. He did make it a point to inform my parents that she passed away at the hospital and not inside the house. I remember that striking my mom as being odd that he would add that info, but we leased it anyway.
Shortly after we moved into this house, we began experiencing weird things.
There was an upper room of the house that was ALWAYS freezing cold, no matter if it was 100 degrees outside, my mom made it the computer room. I hated that room. I always ran past that door when it was open in order to get to my room (which was right next door). I didn't like going in there at all. I always had a weird feeling I was being watched. I'd shut the door when I was home alone and I'd usually hang out down stairs. On several occasions I would go up to get something from my room and the door would randomly be open. I never saw the door open on it's own, but it sure as hell was opening on it's own, I just never witnessed it.
After probably a 6 month period of living there, we started noticing a dead smell that would come and go. I had seen ghost shows where they talked about ghosts having a strong odor. I asked my mom what she thought about it and she said she always had to wear a jacket in the computer room when she'd be in there working, but that she never paid much attention to any smell.
One night when I smelled it, I decided to get up from the couch and see if I could locate the source of the smell. As I stood up, the smell left, I walked into the kitchen and there was no smell, I walked into the dining room, still no smell, I continued to the landing at the bottom of the stairs near the front door and there was the smell. Just as soon as I had smelled it, the smell went away yet again. I walked up the stairs to tell my mom that I had smelled it, then as I was walking up the stairs I smelled it again, I was able to smell it the rest of the way up the stairs, then I followed it to the landing at the top of the stairs, the door to the computer room was open and I paused at the top of the stairs before continuing on. The smell again, went away.
I knocked on my parents door and as soon as my mom answered I told her I smelled it again and I was able to "follow" the smell from downstairs to the top of the stairs. My mom walked to the computer room and the smell was strong in that room, she asked me to come and tell her if that was the same smell I had been describing, I refused to go in and investigate.
That weekend, I had my friend from down the street come over to spend the night. I told him that I thought our house was haunted and he laughed. I insisted that it was and he just laughed it off. I asked him if he had ever heard that ghost have a smell, he never had. I told him that I guarantee at some point that night he'd smell the ghost. About 11 that night, after my parents were asleep and me and him were still watching tv in the living room, the smell came through. He noticed it first. I told him that I bet we could "follow" the smell to the stairs then it would go upstairs and the smell would go away. We both stood up, walked into the kitchen and caught wiff of it again. We walked slowly sniffing the air and it went completely around the entire downstairs of our house, TWICE, room to room, then it went up the stairs and neither of us followed. My friend got so creeped out by it that he grabbed his stuff and left. For the rest of the time we lived there, he never stayed the night and would only come over during the day. he was literally freaked the hell out!!
Fast forward about 2-3 months. Me and my dog are sitting in the rocking chair in the living room watching tv one night with the lights out. Our back porch light was on outside and the blinds were open. All of a sudden, my dog and I both spotted what looked like the back of a woman's head walk past our window in the backyard. It had shoulder length greying-blonde hair. I didn't see the face. My dog jumped out of my lap and began barking like crazy. I walked to the back door, but I was too scared to open the blinds at first, I guess I though it was going to be a robber waiting to kick the door open when I looked outside. I finally got the nerve to open the blinds and nothing was there. I unlocked and opened the door expecting to find a person in our back yard. I ran out with a flashlight and my dog charged out into the yard, nothing was there. My dog ran around sniffing for a minute or so, then we went back inside. We went back into the house, locked the door and just as we were walking past the front door to go upstairs and tell my parents there was a burglar, the front door handle started juggling. I sprinted up the stairs and busted into my parents room, my mom and dad both jump up wondering what the hell was going on. I said that there was someone trying to break into the front door. My mom jumped up, grabbed her pistol and we walked out to the top of the stairs. Our dog was at the door barking like crazy. There was no noise this time, my mom and I paused at the top of the stairs and just listened, then as my mom was asking me if I'm sure I had heard something, the door handle started jiggling again and the door was shaking as if someone was pushing their way in. My dad had been looking out of the upstairs window, I guess trying to see if he could spot the robbers vehicle or something. My mom started speaking loudly to the would be intruder and telling them if they came in she was going to shoot them. After a few short seconds, the noise and commotion stopped. My dad walked down the stairs and I was right behind him. He unlocked the front door, swung it open and the glass door to the outside was locked (from the inside of course). Both of my parents were looking at each other and trying make sense of what had just happened. There was no way the door handle could have been being turned when the glass door separating the outside was locked also. Until this night, my dad had never believed in ghosts. It was either our ghost trying to get out, or perhaps a ghost trying to get in, but either way, it definitely was NOT a person.
I believe to this day that the woman I saw in the backyard was the wife of the man we were leasing from. I think she is somehow attached to that house and makes her rounds nightly to check out the house, hence the smell. I figure she must've been really attached to the computer room and spent most of her time in there, and that she couldn't stand for the door to be shut to that room.
We continued to have noises happen in the house, the smell was a daily occurrence, I always had the feeling someone was in the bathroom with me when I was showering, but never saw anyone or anything. I still ran past the computer room doorway the rest of the time we lived there up until I was 17. We never experienced the door shaking after that night. I have mentioned to my wife and kids several times that I want to go back to that house and ask the new residents if anything "strange" has happened to them there. My wife thinks it would be a bad idea, that at the very least it might freak the current residents out to hear my story.
I have had quite a few more paranormal experiences, but it would take all day to type them out. Some were from that house, some were from earlier in my childhood and the most recent right before my mom passed away 2 years ago.
2nd Place
My friend Sam has been my best friend since before Kindergarten. My grandma used to keep me every day after school until my parents got off work, and Sam lived 3 houses down from her in this huge house (his family still lives there) and I used to go over there all the time. I’ve never seen a ghost or spirit, but I’ve seen and heard things that they could’ve caused, and most of that took place in Sam’s house.
The house is gigantic. Upstairs, there are 2 bedrooms with huge closets, a bathroom, and a walk-in attic that surrounds the bedrooms on 3 sides. Sam and I used to play upstairs more than downstairs, because there was more room, and we could be louder and play video games.
While playing upstairs, we would occasionally hear what sounded like someone walking in the attic part of the upstairs, and would go check, nobody would be there, and we’d run downstairs scared.
One time, I think it’d have been Sam’s 11th birthday just going by the fact that we watched The Matrix… I slept over at his house, and I was woken up by people talking in the smaller bedroom upstairs (we were all asleep in the floor in the bigger bedroom). I assumed it was his older sister and/or brothers trying to scare us, so I just kinda quietly yelled “shut up!” and the sound stopped. It woke Sam and our other friend up, and they were like “Dude, why are you yelling?” and I said that Sam’s brothers and sister were being loud in the next room. They went back to sleep, but I kept watching and nobody ever came out of the room, so finally I got up, because I thought maybe they were in there hiding and trying to scare us. I walked into the room, nobody at all was there. Other stuff like this would happen over the years. Strange noises, voices, water turning on and off, all with nobody there. And even when nothing was actively happening like that, there was still always this weird feeling in his house. Like the kinda tingly feeling you get when someone is behind you.
Fast forward to earlier this year, around April. Sam sent me a Snapchat captioned with an expletive that probably isn’t safe for the radio… and it was a photo of a doll standing in the corner of the smaller bedroom of the upstairs of his house, the room from which we had heard noises and voices when we were growing up. (I’ve attached a photo of the doll). He had never seen it before, but apparently it was his mom’s when she was little. I showed the photo to my boss, and he convinces me to ask Sam to let us borrow it for a couple of weeks to scare my boss’s wife and the other designer who worked there at the time. Sam agrees to let me borrow it.
The following Monday, I picked up the doll on my way to work. When I get to work, I put the doll in a guitar case, to look less suspicious, since about a week earlier I had taken a guitar to work to play around on during my lunch break. I also figured the guitar case wouldn’t upset my boss’s dog who is always at the office during the day — she doesn’t really like dummies and large dolls. She’s the sweetest dog. She sometimes will bark at people, but when she does it’s never a mean bark, it’s more just excitement that there are people there. But as I walked by her, she started growling, and I noticed she was looking not at me, but at the guitar case the doll was in.
So over the next week or so, my boss and I set the doll up in different spots people. Nothing really weird happens, except any time the dog walks into a room where the doll is, even if the doll is completely hidden, she looks in the direction of it and growls. Toward the end of the week, I got a text from Sam saying I can keep the doll longer if I wanted, because ever since I borrowed it, he hasn’t heard any noises upstairs in his parents house (where he was staying for the summer).
We finally put the doll, who by this point we had named Gladys, after Sam’s grandmother, in the camera gear closet. We were afraid the dog might tear it up if she got ahold of it. One day the next week, I’m looking for my boss, and I ask our video guy if he’d seen him. He says he hasn’t but that he may be in the camera gear closet, because they had a video shoot going on the next day. I walk through the kitchen toward the camera closet, and hear what sounds like someone rattling stuff around on the big plastic table where all the camera gear is laid out. Assuming it’s my boss, I say “Hey!” No answer. The door is closed (it’s not unusual for my boss to put gear together with the door closed though). I open it, the light is off. I turn the light on. Nobody there. Nobody, that is, except Gladys the doll.
Needless to say, I had the doll back to Sam the next day.
