Story of the Month

The Sea Captain's Ghost by Ann B.
When I was very small, my grandmother and grandfather bought a house in a small town in Illinois called Baylis. It was a big, two-story house with a storm cellar and rickety stairs going up. The storm cellar to me was the scariest place on earth, until you walked up those rickety stairs at night. The house was built in the early 1900s by a retired sea captain for his wife. As far as I understand, she died shortly after they moved there. After his wife died, the captain rattled around that house by himself for another 11 years. He died supposedly of a broken heart from the loss of his wife. The first time I heard about him was from my grandmother, and I was small so I thought she was just scaring me so I'd go to bed. But, boy, was I wrong! I didn't see the captain until I was about seven or eight. Back when the house was built, they didn't have electricity in it and there was no light in the stairwell. At first, when I would walk up those stairs, I would hear extra footsteps and creaking. I was too scared to turn around and see what was following me, so I just ran and jumped in my aunt's bed. This happened about four nights in a row. On the fifth or sixth night, I went up and again heard the footsteps and creaking. This time I got brave enough to turn around to see if it was a person behind me, and trust me it wasn't! I stood very still and very dumbfounded. It was a wrinkled up, hunched old man with a cane, a pipe hanging from his mouth, and an old-fashioned sailor's cap - the blue kind with the steering wheel in the middle. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! But I swear he was there. He looked like cloud or, better yet, like how fog sets on the ground over water. He was clearly shaped, but was cloudy inside the shape. I couldn't really make out specific facial features, but could tell his eyes, nose, mouth, and that pipe hanging form his lips! And that hat - it was like it was hanging in the air all by itself! I don't know why even to this day, but somehow I just knew he wasn't going to hurt me. As I stood there with my mouth open, frozen in that spot, staring, he began to come in clearer. Everything about him that was cloudy before began to take on real form. I guess he materialized right before me. I started feeling a little less scared and raised my hand to reach for him. And guess what? He reached back. He actually raised his hand and pushed it toward mine. When his hand got close enough to touch mine, it felt so cold, and I shivered, and my hand went right trough his. After he got his so far he began to close his fingers around my hand and then when I blinked he was gone! I never actually saw his shape again, but every night he would follow me up to bed and whisper in my head to sleep tight and not to be afraid.

Strange-Moving UFO by James G.
When I was 17 years old, a friend and I were at a boat ramp way out in the woods. We had spent the day riding dirt bikes. As it became dark, I found I had a dead battery on my car. As we waited on our family to come get us, I lay their looking up at the stars. I saw one star move. It was real slow, but it moved. It would move in the shape of a triangle. It would go from 12 o'clock to 5 o'clock, across to 7 o'clock to 12 o'clock, then back to the 7 o'clock and so on. It kept doing this until we left.

The Fireball by Stephen J.
I had seen a fireball fly into the furnace room. That night we had a fire in the furnace and I had gone to the bathroom and came back to find my toys all mixed up. I am 10 and I've had things that are possibly dreams come true. I had a dream about my cat biting my bird's head off and it almost happened. While writing this letter, my computer went berserk and something happened that never has before... like it does not want me to share this.

Bigfoot Does Exist! by C. Iverson
Does Bigfoot exits? Yes! He most definitely does. I saw him when I was a young girl in Arizona. He caused a car accident and I later saw the hair that was left on the car that he dented when he ran into it. He was approximately eight feet tall, his hair was kind of a reddish brown. I saw him at night, so I wasn't sure of the color then. It was after I saw the hair on the car that I got the true color. He was hanging around the house I was in. I was spending the night at a friend's house. After the commotion he caused, he apparently got scared and he ran away, looking back at the house he did not see the car and ran into it. He then proceeded to run, and limp away, he ran very fast toward the mountains. We thought it unusual for him to be where he was, but I do not read minds, at least not the minds of subhumans, but see him we did.

Lumbering Bigfoot by Pamela C.
I have seen Bigfoot also. It was in l970, in Northern Illinois, about 20 miles outside of Kankakee. My girlfriend and I were roaming her parents' property, which was mostly wooded and desolate, when we saw this huge, dark-haired creature coming over the ridge. He lumbered to the top and then when he saw us, he just stood there, watching. We were l6 years old at the time and had never seen anything like him. He was at least seven feet tall and had massive with arms that hung down his side. We watched each other for a few minutes and then we ran like the wind in the opposite direction. We never again went that far back onto the property. And we told no one for a long, long time.

Almost Hit Bigfoot by Tscarface
In 1962, the Lena Lake area of the Olympic Range was the destination of my three classmates and me. We took a weekend camping trip to Lower/Upper Lena Lakes. We left late (from Bremerton) and arrived late. On the road to our overnight spot, we had to swerve on a narrow dirt road to miss what looked like a huge brown bear. We slowed down to make the trek easier, but five minutes later we swerved again and this time I got a clear view of this monster's body, height, face, and huge red eyes. Mr. Bigfoot was in my face. In the morning, we checked the surrounding area and found many prints of a creature that was much larger than any bear.

Predictive Dreams by Tracy G.
I do not often have dreams, but when I do they are always so vivid, and not long after something similar to the dream will always happen. When I first met my fiancé, he was driving a blue car. One night I had a dream that he was driving this blue car. He stopped at the edge of a steep cliff, pushed the car over the cliff, and then not moments later a red car came alongside him and he drove off with it. I told him about the dream and he laughed at me. A few weeks later, his mom surprised him and brought a red car home after selling the old blue car. A month or so ago, my fiancé had my engagement ring made for me and then gave it to me. I started having a recurring dream that I was losing the smaller of the diamonds in a shopping center, and I would search everywhere but not find it. About two weeks ago, I was giving the dogs food after coming back from shopping only to see that one of my smaller diamonds was missing. I searched everywhere I could think, but could not find it.

Dark Shadows by Tracy G.
Often at night, but only when I am driving, I can see these dark shadows dashing across the road as I drive. They first started out to be cats, and on the highways I see people. The latest, however, is that I see a dark shadow of a person walking alongside the road. However, when I get to the spot where the person was walking, there is nothing there at all. A few weeks ago, while I was driving home from vacation, I saw a huge truck all of a sudden cross the road directly in front of us a few meters away - once again only a dark shadow. At the time, I was a passenger in the car and I got such a fright, but when I looked over to see my fiancé's response, he was fine. When I told him what I saw, he said that he saw nothing. We stopped at the next stop to get something to drink as I was still in some shock. Is this a figment of my imagination? If so, why do I get such a fright every time I see it? It is so real. My fiancé seems to think that I am slightly psychic.

Morning Demon by Chris B.
It was early in the morning, around 5:52 a.m. I could see shadows and some color, due to the Christmas lights coming out of the sun room. I was just stepping out of my bed when I heard this quiet growling. I peered into the hallway and saw nothing, but as I was going into the bathroom I heard it again, and this time I saw this hideous looking girl, bloated, with blood drooling from the mouth. Her eyes were sockets of puss and she had matted black hair. She looked at me and growled like a beast, and I rubbed my eyes and it was gone. From there on, I had a horrible day.

The Flying Statue by Paul A.
I unlocked and opened the entrance to the house I used to live in. All the double-glass windows of the dining and living rooms were shut closed. Right by the entrance on the right side is a wet bar with glass shelves decorated with novelties. One novelty was the statue of a little man, made out of gypsum I believe. Out of the blue, the head simply flew off with tremendous force just as I was entering the house. It did not just drop or fly two or three feet. It zoomed all at once. I found the head of the little statue at the opposite side of the room. It made a banging sound as it struck the other end. I am a person who believes that the spiritual universe does exist.

Warning from a Stranger by Charlotte L.
One afternoon I was taking some knitting to a local craft store. As I walked through the parking lot, a woman I had never seen before, or since, ran to me from across the parking lot. She suggested that I call my brother immediately so that he could go to my mother's at once as she had fallen and was in serious trouble. She emphasized this as she walked along side of me as I continued into the craft store. Now, she said, you have to call for help for your mother now. And she left me and returned to the parking lot. At first I thought she had mistaken me for someone else. Then it dawned on me: Why would she say to call my brother to help my mother? I was in Southern California and my brother lived about a mile from my mother - in Arizona! I went to the nearest phone and called my brother asking him to go to mother's to check on her - right then. He grumbled, but said okay. I told him I'd be home in 20 minutes and asked that he call me to report. When he did call, two hours later, it was to say that he had found mother lying on the floor of her kitchen. He called the paramedics and they took her to the hospital where she was in satisfactory condition. He had been at my mother's earlier that day and would not have returned for at least another day. Although I visit this craft store frequently and park in the same lot as that day, I have never seen the woman again who warned me.

The Phantom Car by Chaos825
I had a very strange occurrence a short time back. I was 16 at the time. I had my license for only about two weeks. I was coming home late from my job at the restaurant. As soon as I left the parking lot, a big, black car followed me. It looked like it was from the 1950s. This car tailgated me from the time I left work to the time I was about to turn into my driveway. As I reached the driveway, I slammed on my brakes and whipped into my driveway. When I shut the car off to see if the guy wanted to talk to me, there was nothing there. No sign of him or his old car. Needless to say, I quit the restaurant three days later.

My Ivory Angel by Sandi R.
My little cat, Ivory, was born in 1992. He died of cancer Nov. 24, 1998. I've been longing for him ever since as I considered him my baby. I think I hear his meow every so often, but I shrug it off as my imagination. Last month was a year he's gone, and I was still depressed on Nov. 23. The morning of the 24th I found three white feathers in the middle of my living room floor. I couldn't believe my eyes. I searched every pillow in my home for white feathers - none to be found anywhere. Ivory was a white little cat and very, very soft fur. The feathers felt like him. I now do believe in angels.

Singing Angels by Anonymous in Australia
When I was very young, about seven years old, we went on a six-month trip to Europe. For two or three days, when my mum was going to sleep, she kept freaking us out saying she could hear angels' voices singing. I asked her about it a few days ago and she says she heard it and she still has to idea what it was. She said it was very beautiful. I had an experience, too, about six or seven months ago, but it wasn't angels singing. I woke up and was sitting in bed for about half an hour, when I looked in my mirror and saw a lady in one of those 1920s dancing dresses sitting on the chair next to my bed looking at me. Then I looked at the chair and she was gone. And then I looked in the mirror again and she was there, and after looking back and forth for a while, she was gone from the mirror. I leapt out of bed and ran away.

Angelic Encounters by BBead777
I would like to relate two true stories that involve my daughter and father. The first one is about my dad when he was in the Pacific during the Second World War. He was only 19 years old and a Seabee on a ship docked in the Philippines. The alarm went on to muster - several Japanese planes were spotted in the area. They all went to their stations and waited. After a while they were getting thirsty, my dad included. He wanted to go get a drink, but he lost a coin toss and the man beside him won. The other Seabee went down the deck to the water fountain. Just then the alarm sounded and an enemy plane was barreling down on them. My dad heard the sound of a bomb approaching from above. Then, mysteriously, he felt a hand on his shoulder from behind him, and a voice with a distinct Aussie accent said, "Get down. Open your mouth." My father did as the voice commanded, and the bomb hit the ship just afterward. His hair had stood on end with the shock of the shell blast, but he was otherwise not harmed. He turned around to see who had spoken to him, but there was no one there. It had been just my dad and the other Seabee in that area, and no one else was supposed to be in that area. When my dad made his way down the deck to get off the ship, he saw the mangled body of his station mate by the water fountain. There were many bodies lying around with body parts blown off. On shore, he checked thoroughly to see if he could find the "Aussie," but no one had heard of him. My dad never learned about opening the mouth to help relieve the pressure of shell shocks - what the voice had said was new to him!

The second story involves my daughter. A few years ago, when she was six years old, she would get up after going to bed each night around midnight, go into my dad's room to get him up to sit with her until she fell asleep. I was living with my dad at the time. After a while, this was wearing on my dad, but she wouldn't stop doing it, no matter how much I told her to come to my room. After a few weeks of this, one night she woke up as usual at midnight (she told me this story the next morning). As she looked in the direction of my dad's room, she saw a "beautiful lady" dressed in a long pink gown. The lady had long blonde hair and a beautiful face, and she smiled at my daughter. The lady then stretched her arms up in a halting gesture. This lasted only a few minutes, and then the lady disappeared. My daughter fell back to sleep after this without getting up, and hasn't gotten up during the night since!

My Daughter's Connection by Bunny82899
Many strange, coincidental, perhaps phenomenal things happened between my daughter and me when she was small. Hanna and I had, and perhaps still have, a connection of some kind. She would often sing the exact same song I was thinking, in the same place and tone while following me through the house. One event that stands out most in my mind was the time I was showing her pictures of my grandfather who'd died several years before she was born. My family is very close, and I wanted her to know how important he is to our family. I showed her the photo and told her PawPaw died before she was born. She said, "I know." I said, "You do?" She said, "Yes, he drowned." I immediately got cold chills. You see, my grandfather died following chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The procedures were successful, according to the doctors, but they left the blood vessel in his lungs very fragile. While sleeping, the vessels burst, and he drowned in his own blood. The thing that topped the entire experience was that when I asked Hanna how she knew PawPaw drowned, she said, "He told me."

Channeled Message - From Whom? by grissin
About 10, 15 years ago, I was automatic writing. What was coming out by these "writings" was very interesting: a kind of messages of happiness and peace. At the beginning, I was quite proud and happy about the results I was obtaining. After this first thrill, I started to examine the whole thing more deeply: These messages were always "generally speaking": to love one another, to help all our brothers and sisters in God, to follow Jesus Christ's teachings, but I never got a sign that these things were written from a spirit outside me, saying something real I could not possibly know! And when I started to be convinced that it was my own spirit writing to myself, I gave up. Sometimes there were sentences constructed in a very old Italian or there were words I never used (or I never heard). After that, I started experiments tape recording voices, following Kostantin Raudive's teachings and I had many proofs of the "other dimension." I already believed in reincarnation and this experience convinced me of it. This helped me when my mother died and I had very great happiness when I heard her on my tape.

Online Soulmate by Ybom
I recently had a psychic experience while chatting online. Back in late November, I was chatting to my buddies, and I started talking to this girl a little more than the others. We talked for a while, until we both started getting drowsy. I had realized she hadn't told me what her middle name was, and she asked me to guess it. I then guessed her sister's name and on guess number two, hers. Those two names had been the names of two friends that I had at the time, and considered them to be close to me. For this, I am planning a trip to Ireland to see this girl, as she could be my soul-you-know-who. It's funny that when I see how she thinks from an objective point, it's exactly how I would act in the same situation, every time. I believe I had either a vision or mental contact with her that night. There was so much linking between the parts of me (mental, spiritual, and physical) that really made it something I will never forget.

The Visitations by Bob M.
On a Saturday morning, I was working on my computer and typing my daily schedule, when suddenly the cursor went out of control. I could not control its movement. I clicked on "Help." Up came the options. One option was the word "annotate." I clicked on the word. Instead of a definition and help, I was transferred to a dialogue box. To my amazement, the cursor was now typing me a message. The message read: "It's about time you asked for help. Amen." I went back to my schedule. The cursor was now working. Later I called my wife to show her what happened and repeated the "Help" procedure. This time the word was "annotation." When I clicked on the word, up came the definition of the word.

Story #2: Two years ago, I was visited by a man who said God was pleased with me and that he wanted to grant me a wish that would come true. I decided to trust the man and asked for good health because I had been suffering from clinical depression for six months. Then the man told me the story of the Christmas angel who had come to earth to grant wishes. After the wish was granted, the person receiving the blessing of a granted wish is asked to offer wish granting services to other people during the holiday season with the assurance that either the person or God will be able to grant that wish if the wish is from the heart. In 24 hours, my depression was gone and it has not returned. This is my second year of being used by God to grant wishes. And yes, I have seen them come true again and again and again. What is your Christmas wish for the coming year?

Haunted Apartment by Kendra S.
In the early 1970s, I lived in a haunted apartment in Berkeley, California. It was a poltergeist that manifested itself in different ways, even performing nicely for skeptical friends I invited to visit me. That particular evening, the entity did the following: scratched noisily in the cat box in the kitchen when both of my cats were visible in the living room; turned the handle of the front door; and walked back and forth in front of my cats, whose heads turned in unison to follow it. Other things it did were: suspended the living room coffee table over my daughter, who was sleeping on the floor; touched my hand late one night, and growled at me on several occasions; caused a painting I had done in high school to disappear, never to be found. On the day I moved out, it blew the faucet off the kitchen sink with such force that it stripped the plaster off the ceiling - and the water was pure hot water, with no cold mixed in. I checked with the occupants of the apartment a few months after I moved out, and they had heard strange sounds, but attributed it to the tenants upstairs. They thought I was weird for believing in ghosts.

Unexplained Music by Paul W.
This happened about seven years ago. On the fireplace mantel we have a clock that plays the standard "Westminster chimes." It has always done that and continues to play them to this day. Except one time. I was home alone and was in the kitchen. I heard this strange music coming from the living room. I looked in and could tell it was coming from the clock. It was this strange, Bavarian-type music. I grabbed my small cassette recorder and recorded it until it stopped. I still have that tape. It has never played that music again. The clock was made in Chicago and I can't believe that it had two different sounds programmed in it. I just don't have an explanation for what happened.

Psychic Reunion by Dottun
I was in line at the Vital Statistics Bureau to get a copy of a record for my genealogical records. In front of me was a young woman whom I had never seen before. She told me she had been given up for adoption as an infant and was there to get a birth record for her birth mother whom she'd never met. She had just found out her mother's name. The clerk came out and handed her a record; she shook her head "no" and handed it back. All of a sudden, I found myself telling her, "Take it. That is the record you need." I couldn't believe myself, and was rather embarrassed. She paid for the record and asked if, after I was finished, I would come over and talk with her. I was wondering how I would explain my statement to her, especially if it was not the correct record. After the records clerk found my record, I did go over and speak with this woman. She was elated and said, "How did you know? This is indeed my mother's birth record. I gave it back because the first name and middle initial didn't match. I realize now the middle initial stood for Ruth, the name she used instead of her first name. But how could you have known? Had you not told me to keep that record, I would have walked away and perhaps never known any of the information that was on the record." I had to confess that I had absolutely no idea and had astonished myself by speaking to her. I really believe someone else spoke through me. I took the woman's name and telephone number and checked with her a couple of months later to learn that she had had a wonderful reunion with her birth family.

Ghost Keeps Her Awake by Julie
We moved in five years ago and in all that time I could not get one night's rest. Every night, around 1 a.m., I could hear four footsteps in the hall when no one was up. In my room, I would be paralyzed with fear as I could hear objects being picked up and put down within seconds, and yet I did not see them get moved. Once I heard three male voices in my room when I was alone, and it sounded odd because the sound was coming from all around the room. The radio would be heard when it wasn't plugged in. Glass would be heard breaking when none broke, and once my mum was literally poked in the back by what she describes as someone's thumb! I had come to the conclusion that there was a poltergeist living in our house and it wanted some attention, but did not intend to harm any of us. All the same, I was scared at the time, and would feel cold and shudder for no apparent reason. Sometimes the noises would stop for about a month and then start up again. We moved this year, and since then I have felt much relief because the "dark cloud" has virtually been lifted from my shoulders and I can finally get some sleep.