Illinois

A "FAMILIAR" PRESENCE?

(Chrissy)

My dad said he'd been hearing and seeing things since he was a kid, and my mom said she'd only started seeing things once they got married, so we think we have a "familiar" that follows us from house to house. My first experience was when I was 14, and we were living in the suburbs. I was lying on my bed in my room, watching tv, when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone peek around edge of the door. I thought it was my mom, since it was female and smiling, so I turned quickly, but it was gone. I called out for my mom a couple of times, thinking she was playing a trick on me, only to get a reply from my dad saying she was at the store. After that, I'd hear footsteps and the dishes rattling in the kitchen, as well as hearing the garage door going up and hearing the door open and close. My brother and I fell for that quite a few times, and thinking someone was home, would run down to greet them, only to find no one. It went on like that, though the experiences were rather few and far between, then we moved some time later.

SOMETHING'S FOLLOWING US!

(Chrissy)

For most of the first year, nothing really happened. Then it was as if our ghost or whatever found us or followed us from our other home. It was mostly footsteps again, movement out of the corner of our eyes, and the like, but then sometimes I'd hear whispering, or a man call my name, who'd I'd always mistake for my dad. When I was trying to sleep I'd sometimes feel little gusts of air on my cheek, like someone was lightly blowing on them. It went on like that for another three years, and then I met the man I was to marry. For some odd reason, this seemed to piss it off! I would see things peeking out of the laundry room, shapes moving in the hallway outside my bedroom at night, and the whispering became more frequent. Then it all came to a head one day when Josh came by to pick me up to go out. I was downstairs in the computer room typing an email when the doorbell rang. It was a minute or two until I finally went upstairs to answer the door. Josh was there, and he asked me what took me so long to answer the door. I replied that I'd been finishing up an email in the computer room downstairs in the finished basement. He looked confused and said "But I just saw you upstairs." I was confused too and said, no I've been downstairs for almost an hour. He then told me how he'd driven up the driveway, saw me sit up off my bed and peek out the window, then get up and head towards the door to go downstairs. This thoroughly freaked me out. My bed was situated right under the window, so if I would hear him arrive while I was reading or watching tv or whatever, I would lift my head up and peek out the window to make sure, then go let him in. But this time, it wasn't me! I told him so, and he said there must be someone in the house. I begged him not to, but being the big burly football player that he is, he went upstairs and searched all the rooms. Nothing. We practically flew out of that house. The small things continued, whispering and such, until we were actually married, and Josh moved in with my family. Once when everyone was at work and my brother was at school, Josh got home early and went upstairs to take a shower. He noticed that all the bedroom doors were closed, but he assumed my mother had the windows open since it was a nice summer day, and had closed them so they wouldn't bang shut. He took his shower, and then went downstairs to watch tv. What happened next petrified him so much that he was still white as a sheet when I got home about a half an hour later. He said he was minding his own business, watching tv, when all the doors upstairs started slamming. He sat on the couch and waited, and it was over in a couple of minutes. He went upstairs, and our door was open a crack, and the bathroom door was closed, though he'd left it open, and there is no window in there to cause a wind tunnel. He said he just went downstairs and waited for someone to come home, he hadn't been so scared in his life. Until the next week, anyway. I was upstairs, napping, and he'd been napping with me. He then went downstairs to drink some milk, and when he turned away from the fridge, behind him he said there was this black smoky mass behind the table, right in front of the door to the back porch. I remember hearing him running up the stairs and shaking me, saying "Chrissy, Chrissy, the ghost is in the kitchen!" I was tired and in my sleepiness, told him "Just tell it to go away," and rolled back over. When he was brave enough to venture back downstairs, it had already gone. There were no more sightings after that, and two months later we moved to the house we currently live in.

THE PROTECTING SPIRIT

(Chrissy)

In the beginning, nothing much was going on. Then at night I'd hear the whispering again, footsteps, and things would disappear and reappear where they had been left, though the area had already been searched. I was very pregnant at this time, so I was extra nervous. One particular weekend, my husband was out of state with his college football team, and my parents were out of town for the weekend. They'd wanted me to stay with my aunt, but I'd refused. So here I am, 7 1/2 months pregnant alone in a house that was built in the early 1900's and I'm terrified once night begins to fall. So I try to busy myself unpacking, watching tv, and eating pizza with all the lights blazing the whole night. I kept hearing something walking in the hall and in the upstairs room above me, but I just hid under the covers and tried to ignore it. I kept feeling cold drafts, but was able to fall into a fitful sleep, somehow, and my parents were home the next morning so I felt better. Ever since my girl was born, she had this tendency to stare at the corners of the room and smile and coo. Now that she's older, she'll laugh and wave. She was laughing and waving at the empty hallway outside of my room just yesterday. I hate it when she does that, it freaks me out! I've also heard the man call me again. The only really strange thing to happen here was about a month ago. I started to sew my daughter's Halloween costume, and she showed an interest in the basket. It is relatively heavy, so I turned it over so she wouldn't get to the pins inside and gave her a spoon with which to bang the wood bottom. I looked at the time and realized my husband was going to be home soon, so I grabbed her and we ran out to pick up some food from the grocery store for dinner. When we came back, I laid her down for a nap and returned to my room to clean up. When I walked in, the sewing basket was right side up, with needles and pins sticking out of the top of it. I wasn't threatened, however; I felt almost like it was trying to tell me, hey some pins spilled out of this basket, look around and be careful your girl doesn't get hurt. I've never really felt this entity was evil, just playful and sometimes even helpful. It still scares me now and then though. Lately it's been rather quiet though, and just as I write this I hear one of the doors unlatch in the hallway, and I heard footsteps on the back stairs. I guess it's still around. I've asked it not to scare my daughter, so hopefully it won't, because she's getting older now and it will be harder to get her to bed!

THE BOY OUTSIDE THE WINDOW

(Debbie)

My ghost story started about 10 years ago. Our house isn't real old, about 45 years old. But we live out in the country where there are corn fields all around us. I first saw our "ghost" outside my bedroom window. I wasn't looking directly out the window and so I saw him out of the corner of my eye. It was a young man with blonde hair and a dark blue shirt, smiling at me and running towards the back of my house. It happened so fast that I wasn't sure if I was actually seeing a person or it was just my imagination. A couple of days later I saw him again. He had the same expression looking right at me, and in the running position. This time I knew it wasn't my imagination. I did not say anything to any of my daughters or my husband. I thought they would think I was crazy. The next time I saw him, I went running to the windows in the back of my house to see if I could see where he went or if it was someone playing a joke on me, but there was no one there. One of my daughters had a friend spend the night. I heard her say that she saw someone run past our living room window. My daughter asked her what they looked like and she said it was some blonde haired boy. My daughter asked her if he was smiling and in a running position and she replied yes. My other daughter asked if he had on a blue shirt and again she said yes. I came into the room and questioned my daughters some more and it seems we all saw this young man but no one told any one about it. It was later revealed that my husband saw him, too, and he is the biggest skeptic on the subject of ghosts. Our ghost visited us frequently over the next few years. He was always in the running position and smiling. We never felt afraid. He was always outside. One day in our newspaper there was a story about an unidentified buried body found off the side of a country road about 2 blocks from our house. There was no trauma to the body and the authorities felt it was probably a farm hand who traveled from town to town looking for jobs. They felt it was a young man. They reburied him in a proper grave. We feel this was our ghost because we have not seen him since this body was buried, and it has been about 3 years now.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOODS THAT NIGHT?

(Tom)

In an area where the famous Woodlawn cemetery currently is, a circus train wreck occurred many years ago. The bodies were so badly mangled that animals were buried with humans. On some nights you can hear calliope music and the sounds of elephants roaring. There was also a devil's hill, which was a huge hill located in between the back of the cemetery and where the barely used railroad tracks are. According to urban legend, if you climb to the top of the hill, you are invisible to the human eye from below. What happened in this area, happened when I was nineteen years old. I was there with my friend Dennis, his girlfriend, another couple and a girl I had been trying to go out with for a while. Just for the record, there was no drinking or otherwise taking place, before or during any of this happening. This girl I had been trying to out with and I sort of wandered away from our friends and went off a little bit into the woods to talk. Part of the woods we were in, was off a pretty well traveled road, but being a suburb, there wasn't really a lot of light out there at the time. It was about seven in the evening and some of the last nice days of Indian summer were still around and the sun was beginning to set. There was a little wading creek, where this girl and I were sitting. After a few minutes of talking, I got an eerie sensation hanging over me. I looked up and saw what looked like blurred movements of things running between the trees. All of a sudden, a thinly veiled fog started moving across the lake. I just got the sense of pure evil come over me. We took off to where our friends were and my friend Dennis' girlfriend told me "Thank God, you're back! We've been seeing shadows running through the trees for the last few minutes and were getting worried!" At this point, the sun was just barely a silhouette against the sky. As I turned to look back at the woods, the girl and I had just come from, we saw dozens of lights coming from the woods, moving progressively towards us. At that moment, we took off running, never stopping to look back until we got to my friend's house. It wasn't until a week later that my friend's girlfriend, who was a sheriff for the police at the time, told us that the area was a site of arrest for a satanic cult. What did we come across that night in the woods? Was it an actual ceremony we disturbed or was it a ghostly remnant of something passed? We many never know.

A FAITHFUL COMPANION, EVEN IN DEATH

(Tom)

When I was 5 yrs old, my family moved further north to rolling meadows due to the fact she was pregnant with my sister and needed a bigger place for the family. At the time we had a little guard dog (a schnauzer) named Tootsie, who would check my brother and I before we went to sleep, check the front door and then would finally go to sleep. When we were moving, the dog stayed at my grandmother's and ended up dieing. She was old and maybe being separated from her family for a few days was too much on her. A few months later my sister was born. At the time, my father was working security for a government defense plant and was always pulling the graveyard shifts, often leaving my mom home alone with us children. We were living in a huge apartment complex, that at the time used the old latch locks. One night my mother went to bed and after a few hours of sleep, felt a tugging on her sheets. She then felt the weight of our dog tootsie on the bed, growling and trying to get her attention. She was telling the dog in a semi-awake state, "Go away Tootsie! You're supposed to be dead". All of a sudden she heard a voice say "Have you checked the door"? She then awoke fully, thinking it must of been a dream. On a whim, she went to check the front door and realized she had forgotten to put the latch in that night. I guess even in death, guard dogs have to come back to do their duty!

A SUDDEN BURST OF ACTIVITY!

(Elizabeth)

I've been having dreams that I have been having conversations with ghosts, but can't remember any of them. I remember having one dream where I was arguing with what I felt was an evil spirit, and I recall telling him or her, I'm not afraid of you and you might as well leave me alone and I recall mocking them. When I got up, my whole body felt very weird, as if I had been scared out of my skin. Well by this time my daughter had fallen fast asleep and I was still lying there tossing and turning. I finally found my comfortable spot, lying on my left side, facing my room. As I'm breathing out, I feel a cold breeze on my face, I open my eyes and there is a man in my face, he's crouched down watching me sleep and here we were face to face! I yell what the f*** (excuse my language) and I move myself back, and realize, there is definitely a man starring back at me! He appeared to be a very old man. He was dark and ash gray in color, a full body size man. I can still recall every detail of his face, in just those few seconds that I saw him. I was so scared, l jumped out of bed and ran to my husband trying (who had fallen asleep on the sofa) and tried to scream, but couldn't. My husband thought someone had broke into our home and ran out to see if he could catch the person leaving through a window. I couldn't even tell him it wasn't a real man until he came back into the house. Before this and when we first moved into this house my children and I were hearing the cries of a young boy calling for his mother. He would whimper at first and then cry "Mommy". He seems to stay upstairs and we've come to accept this, but these two latest incidents are too much for me to handle. I was so scared by this I couldn't control myself, my body was trembling out of control and I couldn't stop screaming (I wasn't screaming out loud, because I still couldn't, but whatever noise I managed to get out of my terrified body is what I was doing) until my husband finally got me to calm me down. My youngest daughter never woke up, but my other two children were very concerned for me. I didn't want to tell them what I saw because I didn't want to scare them. But I surely don't want this to happen to them. All I can say is I know what I saw and I haven't had a good nights sleep since or even before for that fact. Also that same morning, I couldn't find my lip liner. As I was getting ready for work, I heard what sounded like my youngest daughter going through my make-up box, but she was asleep. I didn't see anyone or anything and my makeup box was right next to me, but when I finally looked down, there was my lip liner, as if it were there all along. What I don't understand is why now? Why me? When I was telling my husband what had happened to me, he decided to tell me of his incident. He didn't want to scare me, so he kept it to himself. He said a few weeks prior, as he was lying on the couch, he felt like something was watching him, so when he opened his eyes he saw a young boy looking down at him. My husband said he told the boy "Not tonight and to leave him alone", then suddenly this boy was gone by the time he could sit up. He also mentioned on his day off, he was downstairs doing laundry when he heard someone walking through the house. He thought someone broke in, so he took his handgun and ran upstairs, hoping to find the person in the house. But there was no one there. He searched the whole house from top to bottom. He also mentioned when he sat down to rest, the foot steps continued upstairs in our kid's rooms. I've also heard footsteps walking around upstairs in the kid's rooms, but have accepted that as it is. I've had on many occasions where I've felt the presence of someone following me or watching me when I'm downstairs in the basement, but never have seen anything before. It's been eight years if not a little longer since I've been haunted by a ghost. It was when we lived in our apartment in Cicero. It was getting so bad that every time I went to bed I heard a room full of people talking in my pillow. I couldn't make out what they were saying. It was like they were all talking over each other. If I lifted my head from the pillow it stopped, but as soon as I put my head back on the pillow it started up again. The only way I could get it to stop and finally fall asleep was to pray over and over. There were also occasions during the night where I would feel my covers being pulled off of me and I also felt a hand touch my leg, I felt every finger, I could feel the fingers as if they were indented in my thigh. I never opened my eyes to see what was going on, I was to scared. When I decided to ask my land lady if anyone died in my apartment, she said no, but her sister had died upstairs in her apartment. The look on her face when I told her what I was experiencing was enough to make me scared out of my wit. We moved shortly after that. We prayed that she or whoever it was wouldn't follow us....but perhaps it did!

WITNESS TO THE SUPERNATURAL

(Antonio)

Around 1997, I was working as a runner collecting money in restaurants from gambling machines on the North side of Chicago. There were two of us, each working one day on, and one day off. I suppose the job was too demanding of me because of the lack of sleep or what have you. As weeks were passing by, my thirst was getting the best of me. I felt as if the Sahara desert were in my mouth. On my way to work one night, I arrived directly in front of a cemetery that is on the corner of Western and Peterson. Getting ready to make a right hand turn, I began to feel slightly queasy and a little short of breath, so I lowered the window to my car. It was at this time that I looked to my right and to my surprise, there was a man sliding out of the cemetery fence. I thought nothing of it, because the man was dressed in a nice suit. I thought it was just someone that was urinating there after a bash he must've been at earlier. It was then that I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was inside an ambulance being revived. I was taken to the hospital where upon being revived, I learned that my sugar level was above 800 and had sugar diabetes. To make a long story short, a cab driver that was a regular player on the machines I took care of, happened to be passing by and saw me lying on the street and called the ambulance. About a week after my seeing the man exiting the graveyard, my wife and I took a ride to the sight where I told her of my escapade. I realized then, there was no way any person could have crawled out of where I had seen. The bars on the fence are dug too deep into the dirt, for security reasons I would think. Not long after, my wife and I were invited to her sister's house to eat and play some poker. Right after we ate, Cindy; my sister-in-law and my wife; Betty, began to clear off the kitchen table to play poker. We all finally sat down to play. Cindy's boyfriend Scott sat to my left, facing the wall. Cindy and Betty sat directly across from me at the table, facing my direction. I sat up against the wall where I had a clear view of all the bedrooms and the hallway leading to each. It was about a half an hour later when I witnessed a man coming out of one of the bedrooms. He was a tall slim man, wearing a gray sports like coat, a black turtle neck sweater, dark slacks and a black velvet hat....with a little goatee to boot. The man stopped for a few seconds, stared at me and walked into another room, which I found out later was my nephew's bedroom. I was unaware of their living arrangements, being that it was their new apartment. I would assume that this was the reason for my wife and I being there. Nonchalantly, I asked Cindy if they had company. Surprisingly she asked, "Why do you ask that?" When I told her who I had just seen, she got all shook up and told Scott to go and check it out. He returned in a few seconds only to tell us that there wasn't anybody there. I told my wife very silently we needed to go. We did leave after telling Cindy that I wasn't feeling too well. After all, it had only been a week since leaving the hospital. On the way home I told Betty that the man had scared the living shit out of me, and that I wouldn't make a person like that up, just to get out of there. I loved my sister-in-law. She was kind of nuts and a lot of fun to be with. I promised never to go into that house again as long as I lived. Then one night, Betty had gone to bed and I remained up, watching a movie on cable. It wasn't more then an hour later that I saw what appeared to be Betty, spying on me from the kitchen....or at least I thought it was her. You must understand that I was a new diabetic and being just that, my eyesight was weakening and my temper was always on edge because of the medication I was on. So you can pretty much guess, I was a little upset about being spied on. So, I went to our bedroom to ask Betty why she had been spying on me. She responded, "You must be going crazy! I've never left this room." Being told that, I asked her right away if she was sure. We began to talk about it. I told her exactly what I saw her wearing...which I noticed seemed to frighten her. She got out of bed, went into one of our drawers and pulled out an old photo of her mother. She was dressed in the identical robe I had mentioned or accused my wife of wearing. I had never met her mother...she had passed on 4 years before I met Betty on the north side of Chicago. I was a South sider that had found a job on the North side. This was the last sighting I have had to date. There weren't any shadows, no fog surrounding them....and they definitely weren't all white and lifeless like in appearance, as most people think ghost look like...all these spirits were very life-like looking.

A CHICAGO HAUNTING

(Sara)

I live in a mini mansion built around the 1910's in a north suburb of Chicago. I don't really know the history of the house or anything like that and as far as I know, neither do my parents. Both my sister and I have experienced strange things in that house. From time to time, my parents say it's just all in our heads. They don't believe in that kind of stuff at all. There are three levels on the north part of the house, the first floor, second floor and attic. Then four levels on another part of the house, the first floor, second floor, third floor and attic (not including basement.). About 5 months ago I was home alone, baby sitting my two cousins. One is 5 years old and the other is 7 years old. I just put them down for a nap on the second floor, on the north side of the house. I went to my room; which is also on the second floor, only on the south end part of the house with a third floor above me, then the attic. The floor above me is basically one huge room with a television, computer, pool table etc. Now there is no way of getting to the third floor above my room without passing by my bedroom door to get to the stair case that leads upstairs. I was laying on my bed talking on my cell phone. I could see my bedroom door from where I was laying. Then I heard what sounded like something rolling on the floor above me. It was like someone was rolling a toy car, a skate, a skate board or something heavy, with big wheels. Now, we have a skate board and skates but those are all in the garage. And it didn't sound like it just slowly rolled from one corner of the room to another it sounded like someone rolled the toy , skate whatever back and fourth really fast. Now what is really funny about this is that part of the house has carpet, not wood floors. It just wouldn't make the same sound. Right away I got up to go check on my cousins. They are dead asleep. I told my friend what I heard and she told me it was probably just in my head. So, I went back to my room. A few minutes later, I heard it again. Even though I've experienced things in that house before this all happened, I was still scared. I begged my friend to come over. She finally did. When she got to my home, I took her to my room and we just sat there talking. I sat there, hoping it would happen so she would see it weren't all in my head, but one the same hand, not wanting it to happen again, because it scared me. After being in my room for about five minutes, it happened again. She just looked at me like, "Did you just hear that?"…I just stared at her like "I told you so". We went upstairs to check it out, even though I was very hesitant to…not knowing what to expect. By the time we got upstairs, she was squeezing my hand. We turned on the lights, looked around, no one was there. We both turned the lights off and ran downstairs. I picked up one of my cousins and she picked up the other one. We went to the family room on the first floor and stay there the rest of the day. After that day, I never really went up to the third floor except when I had a large group of people over. One night it was just my sister and I, watching a movie. We were both lying on the same big oversized couch watching tv. We couldn't really see anything, except what was in front of us. Were sitting there watching a movie when we heard a knock. It wasn't loud at all…it was very faint. I didn't think anything of it. Then we both heard it again and just we looked at each other. We kind of just signaled to each other to try and ignore it. Then we heard it again, only this time, we heard 3 knocks in a row. It sounded like the first knock was on the column farthest from us, separating the hall way from the family room. The second was on one of the middle columns and the third on the column closest to us. Then it happened again, only this time, there were five knocks going from the farthest column to closest, then back to farthest. My sister looked at me with tears in her eyes. We were both scared to death. Now there's NO WAY anyone could have come into the house because we would have seen them run between the four feet that separate each column, not to mention we would have heard them enter through one of the doors. I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Then suddenly, it just stopped. My sister and I didn't move until our parents got home. To this day, my sister and I often hear footsteps…not just walking…it's more like someone is running. And not just above us, sometimes on the same level of the house we're in. From time to time when I get home from school, I find my radio or cd player turned on and the volume is set very low. I'll turn it off and come back later, to find it on again. My sister has a bunk bed. She always keeps this certain brush on top of her dresser, yet sometimes, even after checking to make sure it's on the dresser, she will find it on her bed. On another occasion, we had family over visiting. I was in the pool with my cousins and got out for a minute to use the bathroom. I had been in and out of the house in a matter of minutes. When I got outside, my mother shouted at me about opening one of the windows while the air is on. I was puzzled because I hadn't opened any windows, yet she swears she saw one of the windows open while I was inside the house. I know for a fact this house is haunted. Nothing violent has ever occurred….I guess they just want us to know that they're around.

BICKERING

(Jen)

The first ones happened about 7 years ago. I was still in high school, and I would come home and be alone until the evening when my parents would come home from work. On one particular day, I was reading an english assignment on the chair in our living room, when 10 feet away from me, I heard in the doorway to the kitchen, the sound of a man and woman bickering at each other. I couldn't make out what they were saying, just that it was very intense. My dog Petey even noticed and growled looking at the same area. I checked all over the house thinking maybe a tv or radio was on but none were.

DAD DID YOU FORGET SOMETHING?

(Jen)

My dad switched to second shift and had just left for work. I was alone, in my bedroom with the door open getting something out of my closet. Suddenly I heard what sounded like my father's work boots walking heavily down the hallway towards my room but descended into the den next to mine. After they went in there, the door slammed shut. I shouted "Dad did you forget something?" But I got no response. I was a little spooked and opened the door to find no one there. There was no window open so I had to rule out the door slamming shut from a heavy wind drift through the window.

CLEANING A HOUSE THAN NEEDS CLEANSING

(Jen)

After I moved out of my parents I lived in a small apartment about 35 miles away and was working as a maid, cleaning homes all day. There was one home in particular that really spooked me out. An older man lived there and his wife had passed away a few years prior. The first time I cleaned his house, I was vacuuming when I had the strange sensation that someone was watching me and following me. Thinkng maybe it was my cleaning partner, I called her name and she was on the other side of the house cleaning the bathroom. I shrugged it off and continued to clean. Suddenly I felt a rush of cold air brush past me and that eerie feeling of being watched again. It followed me into each room I went into and I felt as if I wasn't welcome. I asked my partner later that day if she ever got an eerie feeling in that home and she said she never has. The next time I came back there, I was cleaning the bathroom, when the exact same eerie feeling followed me. It followed me from one bathroom to the next and was very scary. After that, I requested to never clean that home again, because whatever it was did not like me out of all the maids that have been there.

IT'S PLAYING TRICKS ON US

(Jen)

My fiance and I just moved into our home. I had a day off work, and I was laying down to take a nap, since my recent pregnancy has made me very very tired lately. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a car pull up in the driveway and our side door open and footsteps walking in our kitchen. I sat frozen since my fiance doesn't have a car and was at work, so there was no way it was him. I finally got up and grabbed something to strike with. I went into the kitchen to find no one there and no car present in our driveway except mine. I went back to bed, and thesame thing happened, only this time the footsteps went all the way up to my bedroom doorway. I was so scared I didn't move. I looked over at the doorway expecting to see someone and didn't. Then our cat came running into the hallway and looked intently at our bathroom wall for a long time. Its eyes were just glued to the wall and unmoving. My fiance has lived here for a few years and said that he has had eerie feelings like someone watching him behind his shoulder and lightbulbs blowing up right after he would replace them. Also he told me of a dark figure that he would catch out of the corner of his eye.

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