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August 1999

Where Is My Hair? by Kelvin T.
I'm a psychic (hate the word) in Houston, Texas. About 15 years ago, a young woman came to me asking that I rid her of a ghost that was continually giving her scares. This "apparition" would appear and ask her, "Where is my hair?" Finally, I agreed to come to her apartment just to see what this thing was. And after an hour of drinking coffee and talking, the air tightened and something moaned, then moved through the room. Following it, I asked to speak to her as she passed the bathroom door. This wasn't what I was used to seeing. She wasn't a ball of energy or a disturbance. She had form. Vague, but there. The only thing I could get her to say was, "Where is my hair?" I didn't understand. This image had full, shoulder-length hair that didn't seem to be missing. None of the emotions I associate with spirits emanated from this image, she was genuinely confused and dazed. After an hour or so of what was just futility, I gave up and told this client there was nothing I could do. About a week later, I watched a Mexican funeral go by, and was doing my usual scuffle to get out of the way, when I noticed the mother. She was holding a long braid of hair, and all her misery was concentrated upon it. The funeral was for a child. It dawned on me then what had happened to her hair. After a talk with the manager of the property, I was able to get in touch with the family of the previous owner in a round-about way. When I walked through the front gate, I knew this wasn't going to go over well. I approached the mother and explained to her the situation and asked if she would come speak to her daughter to possibly give her some peace. All hell broke loose. She started screaming at me, and other family members started to close in with not too good intention, and I took it as my invitation to leave. As I was going down the street, a real serious-looking guy came up behind me and asked me to wait. He had been having real bad dreams about his sister and wanted to see if he could talk his mother into going. He said if his sister's ghost was around, that meant she wasn't at peace. About two days later, I met about five of the family members at the apartment We all sat around and waited for about two hours. The ghost had come every day, and I prayed today would be no different. A woman started crying in the kitchen. I could tell by her demeanor the mother recognized who it was. I suggested that it would be hard, but she and she alone should go in and to take the braid in question with her. It was real quiet fort about 20 minutes. I've never seen people look so bug-eyed and afraid. Then this wail began. It was the mother. When we went into the kitchen she was alone. As well the braid she was holding was gone. I didn't find out what happened, I don't want to know. I've never been through an experience like that since and I don't want to again. It took everyone involved through an emotional trauma. I don't think they'll ever forget.

Coincidences or Not? by Abbistars
When I was younger, I often spent the night at my best friend Sandi's house. Sandi's house is out in the country, and I think I remember her telling me that it was built on an Indian burial ground. One Friday, I went right to Sandi's after school. When we got to her house, there was a message from her mom saying that she had gone to Harrisburg and that she wouldn't be back until after midnight. There was also a message from her dad saying that he was going to be at the gym with his friend, and he wouldn't be in until late. She has a dog named Bert that we took for a walk after we put my stuff in her room. When we came back, we watched TV for a while and just sat around talking. Then we got bored, so we went up to her parents' room to jump on their bed. We knew we weren't supposed to be up there, and we definitely weren't allowed to jump on their bed. We both hit the bed at the exact same time, and just as we did, I heard very clearly from downstairs, her mom say, "Hi, Berti. Where are the girls?" We both stopped before we bounced off of the bed and looked at each other, scared because we knew we had been caught. We crept over to the door and looked down the stairs. The coast was clear, so we darted down and sat in the living room. We started a conversation in the middle to make it seem like we'd been there all night so she wouldn't know anything about us being in her room. After sitting there for a few minutes, we noticed that Bert was lying under the coffee table sleeping, in his usual spot. Looking completely undisturbed. When her mom came home hours later, we asked her where she went. She looked at us as if we were retarded and asked if we didn't see her note. We said we saw that, but that we meant when she came home and left again. She said she didn't know what we were talking about, that she had just then gotten in from Harrisburg. This totally freaked out Sandi and me. It was the strangest thing that we both heard the exact same thing at the exact same time. And yet, no one was there to have said it. That same year, I was at home and Sandi called me. She sounded really distressed. She said that she was home alone and she saw blue flashes coming from the living room. She walked out while I was still on the phone to check it out. As she walked closer to the kitchen, she heard what sounded like someone turning on the water in the kitchen sink. She peeked around the corner and sure enough, the water was running, but no one was around. The house was completely empty. One day, about five years later, Sandi said that she was doing something in her bedroom one day and her mom was upstairs in her room. She came out of her room for one reason or another and walked out to the living room. Her mom was standing in there and looked very puzzled when she saw Sandi come from the back of the house. Sandi asked her why she looked like that. She told her that it was impossible for her to be coming from her bedroom because she had just come downstairs not two seconds ago and that Sandi had been up there with her. Sandi insisted that she was in her own room, never having been upstairs with her mom at all that whole afternoon. They still don't know what's going on in that house. Whether or not it has anything to do with being built on the Indian burial ground, they don't know. It doesn't make any sense. But hey, sometimes things are just better that way. 

Pushed By Unseen Hands by Melanie S.
My ghost story is a little humorous now that I think about it, but I was spooked for a long time afterwards. Back in 1982 there was a popular restaurant in Rockledge, Florida called Gentleman Jims. You can read about it in one of the haunted house guides. The story was that a woman had been murdered on the railroad tracks that were just yards from the restaurant. At the time of her murder in the 1920s, it had been a pub. I was asked out on a double date by a guy that I had a huge crush on and we all agreed to go to Gentleman Jims because there was a chance that we would see something other worldly. Besides, they also had great food. We arrived at the restaurant after dark and had to go up a long, narrow flight of stairs and sat down and had a really great dinner. We did see the lamp over the salad bar sway continuously all night. That was one of the ghostly happenings, so we were pleased and felt that we had gotten our money's worth. As we were getting ready to go down the stairs, I told my date to get in front of me because I was known to be a klutz and didn't want to fall down the stairs. So they all got in front of me. We were all making jokes about the ghost and feeling pretty frisky. As we were going down the stairs, I felt a huge shove against my back and fell down the stairs, my wonderful companions moving aside to let me make my way down on my own. As I got to the bottom I noticed that there had been no one behind me on the stairs. Bewildered, I stood up and the hostess told me that I had been pushed by the ghost for not taking it seriously. The hostess then told me, "Miss, your dress is open." I looked down and sure enough my button-down dress was completely unbuttoned all the way down. The ghost had gotten the last laugh. I never went back.

Church and Theatre Ghosts by Logan
My mother is a secretary at a church, and one day my friend and I went up to work with her. We went into the sanctuary. We were the only ones in there. The door was locked and the only keys to the sanctuary were locked in with us. Out of nowhere we heard footsteps walking around. At first we thought it was mom, so I said, "Mom?" Then I realized the keys were right by me. No one could get in without them. Chills went up my spine. We said, "Hello." The footsteps stopped, and they sounded as though they were leaving. We left immediately. Here's another story. My friend works at a movie theatre. And supposedly a worker died in one of the theatres by falling down some stairs. My friend was cleaning, and out of nowhere a shadow runs across the screen. Then he saw the shadow continuing up the stairs to the door. He was freaked out. When he was cleaning after closing (this is a two-story theatre), the elevator door opened and then it shut by itself and went back up. It came back down again. The door opens and an empty trashcan is in the elevator. The door goes back up. The door comes back down and it opens and it is full of smoke. It closes and goes back up. So they send six people up: three on one stairwell and three on the other, so that way the person would be trapped. Turns out no one was on the floor at all. How did all that stuff happen? Well, this trashcan isn't done. Later that night, someone was counting the money and they were all by themselves, and out of nowhere a trashcan comes rolling by. No one else was on that floor. No one could get on the floor. A week later, the guy is in the vault and no one is in the building and he hears a knocking at the vault. He goes to check... no one is there at all. He runs out of the building. The next day the popcorn thing goes off by itself.

Premonitions of Death by Des
I get premonitions of death. That is to say, for several days even weeks before a death, I sense death. I experience a feeling that I am going to die. I even get symptoms. For instance, when I was about 21 years old, I woke up in the middle of the night with my knee bothering me and I felt like I was having trouble breathing and my heart was racing, and this deep sense of fear that I was dying of something or that I was going to meet with a fatal accident. Later that same morning, my neighbor who lived in the same duplex came over to tell me that his best friend had been killed in a motor cycle accident. He had a leg severed at the knee in the accident.

Keys on the Counter by René P.
Over the past four to five years, I was working a part-time job where my hours were afternoons and evenings. My children would get home from school then call me at work to let me know they were home safely. One night I came home and my son told me that he had heard me come home about 15 minutes prior. At that time I was driving home and thinking about all of the things I had to do when I got home. My son, a very straightforward, no nonsense teenager, said he heard me walk into the kitchen and put my keys down onto the counter, which is my normal habit. He was in the basement at the time and went upstairs to say hi. He walked all through our small ranch style home and could not find me. Eventually, I found out this happened much more often than he ever told me. Over the next few years, these episodes happened to the three of us (myself, my son, and my daughter). We finally decided that if one of us hears the noise of a door closing and the keys on the counter or the footsteps, we would look at the clock and write down the time. One particular incident really got our attention. My 12-year-old daughter was home alone when she said she heard the outside garage door slam shut, the inside door open and shut, footsteps, and the keys on the counter, just like always. She looked at the clock and saw it was 10:00 a.m. Just at that moment, I was on my way home, wondering if my daughter wanted to run my errands with me and that I had to pick something up and leave right away. I looked at my watch to check my time and saw it was exactly 10:00 a.m.! When I arrived home, my daughter was at the door and told me it happened again and described everything. When we found out it happened at exactly 10:00 a.m. and I was thinking of her at exactly 10:00 a.m., it really freaked us out. Needless to say, she didn't stay home alone for the rest of the day. What is this? Is this the so-called "psychic connection" between parents and children?

Strange Experiences by Emi R.
In the 1950-60s we lived in a house in Long Beach, California. Our daughter and her baby girl lived with us. The little girl started screaming, claiming that she saw a bear in the corner of the room she and her mother slept in. During the Christmas season the ornaments would fly off the tree, (not "fall" off) and land across the room with my granddaughter again saying, "The bear, the bear." She was about two then, and just learning to talk. I was usually in the room with her when the ornament flew off the tree, but not in her bedroom when the "bear" frightened her. Later, her mother remarried and she and the baby left us, so I used the room they had occupied as a family room cum guest bedroom. My nephew who was in the Marine Corp at Camp Pendleton often came to spend the weekend with us and slept on the divan-bed in the same room. One morning he told us of being awakened by someone or something trying to pull his blanket off. He said he had to really hang on to it, to keep covered, and added that he didn't sleep much after that. Since that time, we had not had any odd experiences until we moved to the house where we are now living in Springfield, Missouri. It was about two years ago that I began to experience some strange episodes. I began experiencing the "talking in strange tongue." When I am starting to go to sleep, I will begin voicing strange sounds, and at times it seems that there are two or three people speaking - arguments, mostly heated and angry. At times it is as though two women are talking as they perform some task, for without intent on my part my hands and arms will start moving while I am talking in this strange tongue. One of the sounds I make most often is "mwoeh" or "mwoah." 

Halloween Haunting by Cheryll H.
About 12 years ago, I went to my friend Shannon's house for a Halloween slumber party. All six of us girls were lying on the living room floor talking about boys and stuff like that, when the lights went out in the house and the front door flew open. None of us had moved and the front door was locked with two locks  - the doorknob lock and the deadbolt lock. Thinking this was a joke her father was playing with us, we just shut the door and turned the lights back on. We had to flick the light switch off then on again for the lights to come back on. About 15 minutes later, the same thing happened again, but this time we heard footsteps coming from the upstairs loft. We were terrified this time because at that moment the phone rang and it was Shannon's parents telling us they were just then leaving the Bingo Hall where they were at 15 miles away. We ran outside and stayed there till her parents got home. We later found out that a minister had committed suicide in the house on Halloween.

Voice on the Tape by Lessa B.
I was listening to the Art Bell show. They had a guest host who had an interesting experiment for people to try. The experiment consisted of taking a tape recorder with a new blank tape and setting it down in an empty room and saying, "Is anyone there?" before pushing record. I decided to try this. I had a microrecorder that didn't record well, which I figured would help me to know if it were real or not (anything that recorded, that is). I put the recorder on the far side of the living room and said, "Is anyone there?" and pushed record and quietly tiptoed back to my PC. I had already turned everything down and kept as quiet as possible to make sure the recorder trick worked. I really didn't expect anything to happen. After about 45 minutes, I walked quietly over to the recorder, turned it off, and rewound it. After 15 minutes I suddenly heard "hello" on the tape by a very speeded up and childlike voice. I nearly screamed it was so unexpected. I continued to listen to the rest of the tape, and after another 15 or so minutes of static another sound emerged: a speeded up sound like that of someone laughing or sneezing.

Ali Summoned by Turgut K.
The only story that I have is my grandfather's, who swears it's true. He was in England, when he was in his 20s, and he stayed with a family who was into spirits. One night they called someone, and the spirit moved the heavy oak table up and down thumping, announcing its arrival. When asked its name, he wrote through someone's hand with pencil,  "Ali." It turned out it was someone from our family, a boy, that had died young many years ago.

God Kept Me Dry by Danni H.
Here's the story of my own paranormal experience. It should be noted that I am a strong believer in God. I decided to take a midnight stroll down my street. It was a hot, muggy night, and I remember wishing that we would finally get some rain. Just as I was returning to my driveway, it started to rain. Anxious to cool off, I tried to get as wet as possible. However, although I could see the raindrops, I wasn't getting at all wet. I walked to the middle of the road (at midnight there was no danger of cars) in an attempt to get out from any shade I might have been under. By this time the rain had progressed from sprinkles to the beginning of a torrential downpour... but it was raining everywhere but on me! After several minutes of standing bone-dry in the rain, I walked inside and, shaking, inspected myself carefully in the mirror. There was no water on my skin, no water beads in my hair, and no water stains on my clothes. I was completely dry. Being a religious person, I attribute this to God.

Unheeded Warning by Lockhart.
On October 30, l995, as my husband and I raced our way along the San Diego, Ca. freeway to be on time for the birth of our future goddaughter, a voice in far back of my mind kept bothering me while I drove. I could clearly understand what it said, over and over again. "Accident. Accident." Although, it made me quiver somewhat, I disregarded it, thinking it was just my nerves. As we stopped in a gas station to ask for directions to the hospital, the voice just got louder. I decided then to let my husband drive. As we were about to get off the freeway, the voice literally yelled at me, "Accident!" and it was the then when a car on the left lane hit us on the passenger's side. No one was seriously wounded, however.

The Man in the Window by Bob W.
I have just recently moved from a old farm house in Westlake, Ohio. During the ten years that I lived in the house I could not keep a door closed to a upstairs bedroom. The house did not slant and the door was plum and had a barn style door latch that when closed you could not shake it open. Before I went to bed I would secure the door closed, and every morning it was open. Years later, we used the room for my two-year-old son's bedroom and he would calmly tell us of the "man in the window" and would no longer use the room. The dog's hair would standup on his back when he entered the room. The other strange things about the house is that pictures and wall clocks would become tilted in various directions when we were not in the rooms. All of these things seemed to stop when the house next door was torn down. The past owners of that house had told me that a attic crawl space door would also open even with it screwed in place.

Angels in the Hotel by Stratford C.
My husband had an appointment at a V.A. hospital. Since his appointment was early in the morning, we decided to go the day before. We checked into a small hotel near the hospital. The hotel had twin beds. When we went to bed, my husband and I got in the same bed. Later I was feeling crowded, so I went in the other bed. Later I woke up. I felt what I thought was my husband lying against my back. But when I looked towards the other bed my husband was sleeping in it. I got very frightened. I couldn't get out of bed and the light wouldn't turn on. I felt this evil spirit. The more frightened I felt, the more solid the presence behind me felt. I realized my fear was giving it energy. So I prayed for God to send angels to protect my husband and me. Instantaneously I saw an angel beside my husband and one beside me. As soon as they appeared, I felt the other thing getting weak. I was able to get out of bed. I ran to the other side of the room and turned on the light. This time it came on. Of course I didn't see anything in my bed. I could still feel its presence, but it was losing its power. I got in bed with my husband. I told the entity, "Go away. You can't hurt us." I felt it leave. A calm, safe feeling came over me and I was able to go to sleep. The angels were beautiful beyond description.

Ghost on Videotape by Cindy M.
My husband and I were on vacation in Oregon and we went to my mother's and step-father's graves. As we where leaving, I was filming on my camcorder and saw a vision appear on my screen. I didn't think anything about it because I don't believe in ghosts. I told my husband that I swear I just saw my step-father's image, and he said it was just a reflection. A month or so pass and my children were here and I showed them the tape so they could see where their grandparents were buried. All of sudden, that same image appeared. We rewound the tape and played it back and forth so many times, and we all believe it is a ghost!

Thieving Ghost by Curlyfry
My daughter and I have lived in this apartment for about three months. We have both felt like someone has been watching us, and have seen "something" out of the corner of our eye and, of course, there is never anything (or anyone) there. Well, we have been finding things missing, and one of those was her sheet music. It was missing for at least two months. This last week she had a dream, and in her dream she was in bed asleep, when her door opened up and in through it came a light. He said that he came to apologize to her, and that he had hid her music, and that she would find it under her night stand. When she woke up she looked and there it was. Her night stand has to be lifted to put anything under it! She has also been missing her bible, and I decided to try and talk to him while my daughter was away. I asked him if he hid her bible, and that if he did to please return it. When we got home from church, it was lying on her bed!

The Tenet Ghost by Lisa-Ann H.
While living in an old two-story house while in college in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I experienced what could very well have been encounters with ghosts. One of my roommates and I were sitting on separate couches across the room from each other watching TV one night. We had no candles burning, neither of us smoked, nor had we been drinking. As we were watching, we both saw a fog-like substance drift across in front of the TV set. You could see above it and below it, but could not see through it. It raised the hair on the back of my neck and gave me the shivers. I looked across at her and asked if she had, indeed, seen the same thing that I had and we both agreed that if we were going to be seeing things, we might as well go "out on the town" so we'd at least have good reason for seeing things. We left all the lights on in the house and left. It was really spooky. The strangest experience that we had in that house was after the upstairs renters had moved out for the summer. A group of us were sitting in the house one morning having breakfast or early lunch, and heard what we thought were a table and chairs being dragged across the floor. It made quite a lot of noise. We thought at the time that maybe the landlord was doing something up there, and kind of blew it off. Later in the day, while thinking about it again, we did hear some more noises that sounded like footsteps or how footsteps sound when a person has on boots with heavy heels and the boards squeak. I called the landlord, asking him if he had been over checking on something upstairs for any reason. He said he hadn't. I told him of our experience and he said that he hadn't told us the history of the house when we moved in. He didn't want to influence whether we rented from him or not. There had been a number of people die in the house over the years and although he didn't believe in ghosts, any number of his renters had experienced paranormal activity in the living room, our bedroom and upstairs.

Ghost in a Housecoat by Roxanne S.
When I was about 13, my family moved to an apartment in a rather rundown, rural complex. I heard many odd stories about the family that had previously occupied it from the kids at school. The oldest son, who was in his late teens, was allegedly murdered shortly before we moved in. In addition, several people told me that the boy's mother had died in the apartment, supposedly from cancer. Several months after we moved in, I was alone in the apartment, which had four bedrooms. I was sitting in a chair in the living room, with a clear view of the entire hallway; the door to all of the rooms were on the sides of the hall, but anyone going into or out of them could be seen. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman in a housedress leaving one of the bathrooms. Since no one else was at home, I immediately felt shocked. The woman appeared fuzzy around the edges; she almost seemed luminous, glowing faintly in the dimly lit hallway. To this day, I can picture her form. She walked from the bathroom to the back bedroom, turned left and disappeared within. Her back was to me the entire time, so I never saw her face. I called out my to my sister and my mother, even though I knew that the apparition was not either of them. Finally, I went to the bedroom and found it empty. The experience was chilling, and I wondered for years whether it was the product of my overheated imagination. Finally, about 15 years later, I told my older sister, with whom I had shared that bedroom, about my experience. She was shocked. She said that she too had seen the woman when alone in the apartment, walking down the hall into our bedroom. The apparition had disappeared, just as she had when I saw her.

Close Encounter on 377 by R. Joseph L.
In November of 1998, I was traveling to work on highway 377 north from Granbury, Texas to Fort Worth, Texas. It was still dark at 5:00 a.m. As I was passing the Willis Ranch, on my right I noticed a glowing reddish pulsating light, that appeared to be behind the Willis Ranch and near some large power lines. I could see beams of lights, like laser beams, being shot up into the sky. I tried to call 911 but could not get an answer. I had WBAP AM radio on waiting for the news. The news room immediately asked if anyone was passing near Benbrook, Texas and had seen strange lights to please call the newsroom. Benbrook was about ten miles ahead of me on the same highway. After three attempts, I reached the newsroom on my cell phone. I identified myself as a deputy sheriff, and that I was going into work when I observed this strange light source near the Willis Ranch. The gentleman ask if I had seen anything else. I explained that I did see a small aircraft, possible a high-winged Cessna, flying toward the light source. He said that was their spotter plane. As I was about to explain about the beams of lights shooting into the sky, I lost all of the electrical systems in my car. My radio went off, my lights went out, my engine shut down, and even my cell phone went out even though I had it on it's own battery power. I had to coast to the side of the road. When these weird events were taking place, I felt an energy hit me on the top of my head and run down my body to my feet. It didn't hurt, but felt like someone had poured warm oil over my head. I recovered in about three minutes. I checked my watch. I hadn't lost any time. My car started right away. My radio had lost all of its programming. My cell phone came back on and was usable after I unlocked the code. However; I did feel confused for a few moments. I was knocked off the radio so I couldn't explain to the newsroom what had happened. I decided not to tell any of my fellow officers, because I knew no one would believe this story. When I arrived at work, three officers said they heard me on live radio. They said others had called in identifying the same thing I saw. This made me feel better that I was not the only one to see this. That afternoon I called the radio station again to see if anyone could explain what I saw. They said it was still a mystery. The newsman seemed to have lost interest and did not want to talk any more concerning this. To this day I have not been able to find out anything else about this.

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