Readers' Stories of the Paranormal

Readers' true tales of ghostly visitations, weird clairvoyant dreams, frightening entities and séances gone wrong.  

Ask anyone if he or she has seen a ghost or had some strange paranormal experience, and you'll most likely get a positive response. Strange happenings, it seems, are not uncommon. Since this site began a little over a month ago, I've been encouraging readers to e-mail me their true paranormal experiences. Here are just a few:

Entity at the Window
About three and a half years ago, while I was tossing and turning on the sofa (trying to get to sleep), I felt that if I put my fingers to the window, the rhythm and sound of the cold winter wind blowing against the window would soothe me and put me to sleep ( I have know idea why I thought this.) After a couple of minutes, I started quieting down. All of a sudden, I felt that someone was on the other side of the window. I sat up and turned to the window to see a wispy, skewed skull-like appearance looking back at me. At first I thought I was dreaming. I immediately got off the sofa, made sure I was awake, and looked again. The appearance was still there with its malicious grin looking at me. I sensed it wanted in because of the cold. This was an extremely cold night - arctic like. While I felt sorry for it, I would not let it in as I felt it would wreak some kind of havoc in my life, and it would not betray its nature if I did it a favor. I asked it, in my mind, to move away from the window and not come back, and I immediately went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and calmly think of what happened. It has taken me three years to tell anybody about this. If anyone would ask me if such things could happen, I would say no. But I know it happened. All I received from this entity was an impression that it: 1) is malevolent; 2) had to be invited in; 3) was not extremely powerful (it could cause trouble and illness though); 4) was not demonic; 5) not human in origin; 6) and basic in its nature. Could you tell me what it was? I am very perplexed. If I had to give it a name based on feelings and impressions I picked up from it, I would call it a "moondogger" as its movements are dictated in some way by the moon. This experience does not sit well with my logic. - D.P.

The Séance Effect
A couple of friends of mine in college wanted to try a séance in an old haunted house I was living in. We closed ourselves into an upstairs closet (for complete darkness) and got started. For some reason, I got to feeling impatient after a few minutes, and I began to insult all the neighboring spirits as "chicken-s#$%" and such. My friends warned me to stop, and I said, "No, I want to see something." I repeated my spirit abusing phrases, when suddenly, as I was launching into a fresh tirade, the strangest feeling came over me and I stopped. At that same moment, the wind outside kicked up so loud that we could hear it inside the closet. I started to say something to my friends, like, "Do you hear that?" when I immediately felt that my point of consciousness were rising up above my head - as if I had been jerked up by the spiritual lapels. Interestingly, my eyes felt as if they were merging into one eye in the center of my "head" now floating about a foot above my real head, and I got the distinct feeling that I was now going to see something, and it was going to be bad. I chickened out! I broke handholds with my friends and hurled myself against the closet door, knocking it open, and ran downstairs. I gave a sketchy report to my friends, who were dubious since, aside from the wind and my behavior, they hadn't experienced anything odd. I started to feel, as I watched TV, that I had just gotten excited, and I had convinced myself pretty good by the time I went to bed. My brother lived in the same house - in fact, the closet we had used was in his room, but he had been at work that night and didn't get home until after 3:00 am, and he heard nothing of what had gone on. By morning, I had forgotten the events of the previous night, so I was astounded by the story my brother told at the breakfast table. He said that while he was trying to go to sleep, he began to hear me mumbling incoherently in my sleep from the next room. He concentrated on the sounds, trying to get some sense out of them, but he couldn't. But when he gave up, he realized that his hands were "helicoptering" around on his wrists! He couldn't stop them, and hadn't really noticed when they started. Of course this scared him pretty good, so he tried to leap out of bed - in fact, part of him did, but not his body. As he sat up he could see that his body (with his still "helicoptering" hands) had remained reclining on the bed, though he felt that he was sitting up, and he was seeing from that vantage point. Now terrified, he rolled out of bed and onto the carpeted floor. As he hit the floor, something even stranger happened. He could feel the floor, and as he crawled quickly toward the door he could hear my mumbling getting louder, but now his "eyes" were back in his body on the bed watching his helicoptering hands! He continued to crawl madly toward the door, and when he felt the door and climbed up to the handle, just as he grasped it he found himself whisked back into his body fully, and the helicoptering of his hands stopped. While he was telling this story, I was conflicted about telling him what had happened in his room the night before. I decided to come clean, and no, he has not forgiven me yet! He still brings it up from time to time. - D.D.

Brother's Watchful Dream
In October 1977, it had been raining for an entire week. My first wife, Lisa and I decided to go elk hunting near the Idaho-Montana border with our neighbors, Matt and Kathy. At 3 am Saturday morning, we got up, dressed, ate, and got in my 1966 Chevelle Malibu and headed east from Moscow, Idaho through Deary and Bovill to Elk River, then north on the Elk Creek Basin Road. About 5 am, we were headed north on a gravel road. The sky had cleared after four days of rain, there was no moon and the stars were out. Lisa was in the passenger's seat and Matt and Kathy were in the back seat. The road was level, and we soon came upon bright yellow Caterpillar road-grading equipment to the right, just beyond the grade of the road increase where the road started to climb out of the canyon. It was obvious that there had been road construction to widen the road ahead. As we started up the hill under the starry sky, we immediately began sinking in deep mud. Maybe 50 yards up the hill, it was in up to my axles and almost up to the bottom of the car door. After the car ground to a halt in the deep mud, Lisa, Matt, and Kathy quickly got in front of the car up to their ankles in mud and pushed as I put the car in reverse. We finally got it going back down the hill and I parked at a turnout below the muddy construction area. We washed the mud off in a creek and began hunting. Sunday morning, Lisa and I drove up to Coeur d' Alene and arrived at my parents home overlooking Lake Coeur d' Alene. My mother was in the kitchen making breakfast, and as we walked in, before even saying hello, she said, "Your brother Walter has a dream he wants to tell you about." Walter told me he had a vivid dream that woke him up at 5 am Saturday morning, and it was so vivid and startling that he could not get back to sleep that morning. I couldn't understand what was the big deal about some dream, but Walter went on to explain without any prompting: He said that Lisa and I were driving down a dirt road in my car with headlights on and two faceless people in the back seat he could not recognize. The stars were out, and we drove past some yellow-colored road equipment, up a hill and got stuck, the other three got out and pushed while I stayed in the car and after awhile we finally got it unstuck and it started rolling backwards... at which point he woke up and got out of bed and couldn't sleep anymore. I stood there with goosebumps and chills going up and down my spine. Walter, my mom, Lisa and I were standing in a circle in the kitchen. I then said, with a sudden chill, "That is exactly what happened to Lisa and me at 5 am - while you were dreaming it." This experience shattered my egotistical myth about science as I wondered how in the heck it was possible. I realized at that point it was wise to keep an open mind and not argue against many far-out possibilities, but to listen and ponder knowing we may never have all the answers. - S.R.

The Paralyzing Ghost
I too have experienced paranormal things. It all started when I was about 13 years of age. We were going away, and it was at night so I went out to the car to wait for my parents. I saw a figure out there, and it walked past me - and I was paralyzed. I couldn't scream. I couldn't do anything. I watched the figure go through two trees and then into the house, and the particular entrance it used would have taken it right to the steps upstairs. As soon as I could move, I ran into the house to hear my mom tell my stepdad that she didn't think there was anyone upstairs... did he? They had both heard noises. After that, many weird things happened to me. There were several occasions when I would awake in the middle of the night to feel something very heavy walking on me. The same feeling came over me. I was paralyzed and couldn't scream, speak, or move. This happened the whole time I resided in that house with my parents. The house used to belong to my step grandmother, and when I confided in her, I found that she had many ghostly experiences in that house, as did others. She said my uncle kept seeing a woman. The ghost I kept seeing - when I saw her - was a woman. Mostly, I didn't see anything... I felt it. When I hit my later teens, I remember sitting in my room, and the radio would change stations and all kinds of weird things would happen. It was so spooky! I was very happy when I reached the age to be able to get out of there. Now my mother and grandmother have passed on and my stepfather resides in the house by himself. He claims he does not see anything anymore or that anything unusual happens.  - S.  

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From the Paranormal Phenomena Bookstore:

• Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond
  By Dr. Hans Holzer
  A great collection of frightening true stories from America's premier ghost hunter.
  

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