Paranormal Story Archives
July 2002 – Page 9

Noisy Poltergeist
by Benjamin D.

From the time I was 12 until 15 (1992 - 95), I lived in a house built in the '70s with my father, brother, sister and newly acquired stepmother and two stepsisters. It was a somewhat turbulent time for me as well as the rest of my newly reformed family, which perhaps played into these experiences. The experiences consisted of many random oddities, combined with the general "electrified" feeling of "there's something in here." However, there are several that stand out.

The first blatantly strange thing to ever happen was shortly after our move there. My sister was upstairs in her room at around 9:00 on a school night reading. She had three different dry-erase boards, each hung on a different wall. Suddenly, without any explanation, all three boards simultaneously fell from the walls! She called me in and we both agreed it was indeed strange. No noise accompanied the event other than the noise of the boards hitting the floor. The next memorable experience happened about a year or so later. I was upstairs in the bathroom, alone, expecting my parents to arrive back home any minute. Suddenly, I heard the front door shut and I heard my parents having a conversation downstairs. It was very distinct, so I walked downstairs to greet them - which is when I realized there was nobody in the house!

Similarly, on another occasion soon after, I was again upstairs, this time taking a shower. Nobody but me was to be there all day. I had the house to myself. Upon turning off the water, I heard the clanging of pots and pans and the ruffling of plastic bags downstairs. Having the phone in the bathroom with me, I most nearly called 911, assuming a burglar. But my intuition knew better. Eventually, I gained enough composure to come out of the bathroom, and of course nothing was down there. Very weird!

However, strangest and most distinct of all was something that happened about a year later than these events. I was in my room building a model on the floor. My door was open, and all in all I was about 10 feet from the staircase to the basement. Nobody else was in the house (I was often alone!). Suddenly and without warning, I heard rigorous footsteps stomping up and down the staircase. Once up and once down. (I determined this from my knowledge of how long the staircase was and having heard my father run up and down it every day for the past few years.) It was an undeniable sound and I even felt the vibrations in the floor. Somehow I became gutsy enough to open the basement door to peer downstairs, but immediately shut it when I saw the lights weren't even on. I ran out of the house in a panic over to a friend's house, and we re-entered my house and basement to scope it out. Nothing was abnormal. That was the most vivid paranormal experience I ever personally encountered.

It's worth noting that my father claimed that he had seen and heard some strange things, being that he worked in the basement, often late into the night and often alone. He just didn't let it bother him as he is that type of personality.

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