It was inevitable that eventually after all these years of living in a "ghost-free" environment, our luck would run out and we'd be like the rest of the family and find a place already occupied, by permanent tenants. My ex-husband and I had been married for 9 years and after much debate over our current home, we decided it was time to move. So, we found a great place only a few houses away from my mother's home. It would be perfect, our children would grow up in the same neighborhood I'd grown up in and making me closer to work, I thought "this has to be the perfect move"....or was it? Upon our first day moving into the home, it happened. My sister Kimberly came by to admire our new home when it all began. I like to think that if the home was truly haunted, I would have been the first to sense it....but being my sister is so sensitive to these things, she hit me with a bomb shell on her first walk through the house. We began our tour with a visit to the outside storage area, all was fine. I proceeded to take her to the laundry room, where I couldn't help but notice her eyes open wide and she exclaimed "Do you feel that?" She said that the room seemed to have a cold draft in it, and then shook her head as if to shake a fallen spider from it. She seemed awfully quiet through out the whole tour of the inside of the house, but when I saw her head for the door, I just knew at that moment, I could feel it in the pit of my stomach....she is sensing something. I followed her outside, where I found her in the front of the home in a cold sweat. Although I pressed her for information, she was very reluctant about sharing anything she had picked up in the house. Still I asked her again and noticing that she began to look some what ill and pale I thought at that moment perhaps she'd better not break the news to me, just yet. I finally convinced her to come back into the home where I then decided I'd give it another go....and she admitted, with much hesitation and caution, that she had indeed sensed something in different areas of the house. She went on to tell me that after she felt the cold draft in the laundry room, she realized that there was something more to the draft, that oddly at the time, she was the only one who felt it. She said that she didn't pick up too much information in that room, but as she toured the inside of the house, the feeling got stronger. Upon entering the living room, she got a feeling of dread. She exclaimed "All I can say is....I've felt this before and it wasn't good". She said that the feeling immediately subsided when leaving the area and walking through the rest of the house....up until she reached my daughter Avalon's soon-to-be bedroom. Here she felt something again, but it was different than the one in the living room....this one seemed to be a quite and meek energy. "It's harmless, don't worry" she exclaimed. As soon as she stepped back into the living room, it hit her again. This time it was so overwhelming, that she literally had to go outside for fresh air and get herself together. She said as she stood outside, just beyond the wall of the living room, she became very dizzy and light headed. When she reached to wipe her forehead, she realized that she was covered in a cold sweat....and then she said "It hit me. I felt that this spirit was in the living room, peering out at me, through the wall.....angry that I knew he was there". She said the energy was so strong that it was affecting her physically. After a while of convincing herself that it had to be all in her head, she decided to give it another go at going in the house. But she said when she stood under the carport, taking the last few drags off her cigarette; her attention was drawn to the open door to the living room. "That's when I had a vision of this man standing there, near the wall, facing me, with his arms crossed and he had his head tilted slightly downwards, staring at me intensely", she said. She continued "I immediately picked up the name Hector". As Hector stood there glaring at her, trying to intimidate her not to re-enter the house, she felt sick to her stomach. A while later she went home, where something else happened to her. The following day she called me to tell me that her husband woke up to her screaming at the top of her lungs. When she woke up, she said that she felt that this spirit "Hector" had come to her while sleeping and was very angry with her. We're not sure what happened while she was asleep, but what ever happened, when she woke up....her lips were covered with small sores, like cold sores.
The following day everyone came over to continue to help us move our things in. My ex-mother-in-law arrived shortly afterwards. I have to first say that she is very psychic. Almost immediately she began to sense strange things. She said as soon as she entered the laundry room, she was greeted with a cold sensation. Having great, extensive experience with the paranormal, she knew this was not just a draft....this was definitely a cold spot. Upon entering the living room, she too felt the strong feeling of something terrible....the strong, horrible energy of a male spirit. As she continued walking through out the house, she didn't feel anything until she reached my daughter's room....and she felt it again. She left Avalon's room and as she entered the living room area again, her arms were covered in goosebumps. De javu' swept over us all as we stood there listening to her describe the exact things we'd just heard the day before from my sister. We were all shocked. We knew then....there was a great possibility...our house might be haunted!
My ex-husband had his first experience. After everyone had left for the night and we were all asleep. He decided to stay awake to finish a few things up with the moving. As he sat on the edge of our bed, looking around the room, he said something moving very quickly across the room caught his eye. "It looked kind of like a black shadow" is the best description he said he got of this thing in motion. At first he thought that his eyes must be playing tricks on him or that he might have caught a quick glimpse of himself looking around in the mirror on the floor, leaned against the shelf....but after hearing what my sister and ex-mother-in-law said they felt....I think he knew different.
We hadn't been in the house more than a week, when my son Adam's birthday arrived. I invited the family over to the house for a nice get together to celebrate. Most of the family were scattered about the house and outside on the swing. My sister Kimberly and my ex-mother-in-law were in the kitchen. Kimberly was standing at the sink washing dishes, my ex-mother-in-law were standing to her right, preparing one the children something to drink. Kimberly said that while standing there, she felt someone walk up and stand behind her shoulder, to her left. When she turned to look, thinking it was someone wanting to use the faucet, she said nothing was there. She asked out loud "Who was just standing over here?" But no one answered....because no one had been there.
For quite some time, my ex-husband kept seeing things, like shadows and quick movements out of the corners of his eyes, all over the house. At first, he said he was convinced that his eyes were playing tricks on him....until his friend Rich came by for a visit. It was late at night and they were outside in the storage/laundry room area discussing computers, when suddenly Rich made the remark that someone was walking up. He kind of leaned over and peered out through the window that separated the two rooms, thinking someone would walk up, but no one did. After awhile, my ex-husband noticed again, his friend swinging his head around real quick, as if to see something. So, he asked him what was wrong and he answered back that he just saw something, like a shadow moving very quickly by, through the corner of his eye, but when he turned...nothing was there. My ex-husband told him to relax; he'd been seeing the same thing ever since we moved into the house.
One morning while we were having a conversation, my ex-husband had to go outside to the storage area to get something. I wasn't trailing too far back, when I saw the door close behind him. I almost immediately walked up to the door to open it, but to my surprise it was locked. The door has three different types of locks on it, one of them being the type that requires a key to lock and unlock it from the inside and/or outside. As I stood there, dumbfounded that the door wouldn't open, I kept twisting and turning the other locks, still unable to get out of the house. I began banging on the door, but my cries went unheard. No sooner did I give up and walk away from the door, my ex-husband walked in. I stood there, drilling him on why he would lock me in the house, but he had no idea what I was talking about, he was as shocked as I was. I don't know what prevented me from going outside, but what ever it was, it wasn't my ex-husband, because he didn't even have the key on him to perform such a task.
My ex-husband used to stay up late working on computers and stuff. This had been happening for a few days now, but he said he basically brushed it off as nothing. He said he kept getting this eerie feeling....an intense feeling that he was being watched. A couple of times, when he turned to look to see if anyone were there, he would just catch a glimpse of a shadow moving through the room. Then something happened, that he said he could not brush off....and had he not actually experienced this himself and someone else told him it happened to them, he said he would be laughing in disbelief....but this happened and it was pretty freaky. He was in the room where he worked on computers. He said he got an intense feeling of being watched....and when he turned and looked into the living room.....he noticed that there was a reflection of something....like a person standing in the room. There was a shadow on the wall.....right next to the doorway to where he was at.....and this shadow was reflecting off the TV. He said he didn't know what to do, and then it just moved and disappeared.
Again, my ex-husband was working on a computer and he said he had a little free time to kill while waiting for some files to finish downloading. He said he looked up, towards a small hallway that connects the main hall to the room he was in and saw something black, low to the floor, creeping by. He said his mind told him it had to be our cat.....but his gut told me otherwise. So he got up, walked through the living room, down the hall and into the kitchen, where he saw this thing go into. When he got there....He looked around to find the cat, but it wasn't in there. So, he headed back down the hall and into the living room and there the cat was, Thor....lying on the back of the chair, nice and comfy....asleep. He said he thought "Aw man....what the hell is this?"
With so much happening all at once, it's difficult to keep track of the exact order in which these events occurred. Therefore, I will just tell about these events as I can recall them.
There hadn't been any significant activity in months and months. I was at the point, believing that what was happening before, with seeing shadows from time to time....had come to an abrupt stop. In fact, Kimberly asks the family periodically about the recent events happening in our homes, to keep track of everything and only just before this sudden "burst" of activity, I had just told her, that not a single thing had happened in our home, in a long, long time.
It all began one night, while my ex-husband was outside working on the car. He heard what he thought was me calling his name over and over again. He said he stopped what he was doing, went inside the house, to where I was at and asked me what I wanted. I said "Nothing." and asked why. He told me, he thought he heard me calling him. I responded that I hadn't called him. At this point, he said he just figured he must have heard a neighbor calling someone else and mistaken it to be me calling him. The next night....same thing. He said he heard again, what sounded like me calling his name. Again, he came in and asked if I called him and I said I hadn't. Now, he was starting to get a little creeped out, because this time, the voice, he said he knew without a doubt was mine.....or someone or something....that sounded exactly like me. The third night....again, He said he heard the voice calling him. It sounded like it was coming from inside the house. He went through the whole routine of coming to find me, to see if I called for him....and this time, the voice, not only called him by name....but also called him "Honey"....just like I used to. This time, when I said it definitely wasn't me....he freaked out and decided that from now on....he would ignore it when he heard the voice calling him. The forth night. One of my relatives, Glynn, was over visiting. My ex-husband and Glynn were out on the carport. My ex-husband said he again heard the voice calling him....but ignored it. He said he heard it calling him over and over, for about five minutes. That's when Glynn said to him "Aren't you going to see what Toni wants? She's been calling you for about five minutes." My ex-husband didn't answer him. Then Glynn said to my ex-husband, because the calling continued, "Man, won't she get pissed off and come out here yelling or something"? My ex-husband said he stopped what he was doing, knowing good and well, that if he went to see what I wanted, I'd probably end up saying, I wasn't calling him. I'm not one to play jokes like that, so he knew there was no possibility that I was playing a joke or trying to pull his leg. So, instead he asked Glynn to come with him in the house for a minute...not telling him why. They walked in, and asked Avalon and Adam if I was calling him. They said they didn't hear me calling....so, they walked into the kitchen, where I was at. He told Glynn to tell me, what he heard. He went on to ask me if I'd been calling out....I said I hadn't. Glynn accused me of messing around, because he knows my voice and what he heard was me. Still I denied it and asked that the subject be dropped, because I pretty much figured out what was going on....a ghost. And it was obviously imitating me, trying to get attention. After that night....it didn't happen anymore, but the activity, definitely intensified. But at least, for that one night, there was a witness to what was going on.
After the calling stopped, my ex-husband began seeing things again....shadows moving around out of the corner of his eyes and stuff....but not just him....the cats too. He was standing on the carport. He said he could see through the rear view mirror the reflection of my car. What he said he saw totally freaked him out. He said he saw something or someone inside my car....messing around with a chain hanging from my rear view mirror. When he turned around to look, he couldn't see this thing inside the car, only the chain swinging. The chain was still moving, as if to swing like the pendulum on a grandfather's clock. He said he didn't know what to think....but then his attention was drawn to the area towards the alley. He said he saw a real quick movement, like a dark shadow. Then our cat walked in that area and stopped dead in it's tracks, hair on end, hissing, looking up to the area where he saw this thing go by. Then the cat just took off real quick. He walked over to that area, looked around, didn't see anything and that's when our kitten came prancing up. He picked him up and he too, began hissing, looking up in the air, as if to see something. He said he could barely keep him in his arms; he was struggling to get away from there so quick. The very next day, my ex-husband was driving my car down the road and the strangest thing happened. As he turned the corner, he saw something fall to the floor. As he continued to drive, he picked this thing off the floor...it was the very chain, that he saw swinging around the night before. Coincidence? I don't think so.
After the first week, of something trying to get our attention, the activity came rolling in, full force. My ex-husband was sitting on the floor, working on a computer. He noticed when ever he leaned back, he would feel a cold draft near his hand. He said he would turn to look to see what was there, but didn't see anything. This kept happening for a while, until he began seeing reflections and lights, reflecting in the computer monitor. Once, he said he saw a ball of light. It was blue in color and the more he stared at it, the more in focus the center of it became. He could see small people in the core of this circle....it was so weird and it's something, that unless you have ever seen this for yourself, you would have a really hard time believing it. Anyway, while he was leaning back, he again felt this cold, wet breeze around his hand. He looked in the monitor and could see the ball of light again. Slowly, he took his hand, while watching everything through the reflection on the monitor (because he couldn't see this stuff at this point, with the naked eye)....He slowly, slowly tried pulling this light towards him, using the cup of his hand, scooting it along, closer and closer towards himself. After a few failed attempts....he didn't quit, he kept on, because a few times, it seemed as if he could move it with my hands, but along the way, it would slip away. But, finally....he had it in his hand, pulling it towards him and when he could see in the reflection of the monitor that it was right at his leg. He tried picking it up. He said he felt it go in through his thigh....up his torso, travel along his arm and before he knew it....believe it or not....this ball of light, were now beams of light, shooting out through his eyes, like lasers. He swears it happened and it has to be one of the strangest things I have ever heard him experience. In fact, before moving to this house, he was a die hard skeptic when it came to the paranormal. My sister Kimberly used to come over every Friday night, talking about the latest things happening in her house with ghost...and he used to laugh at her, because he didn't believe in that that sort of stuff…the paranormal.
Again, the activity got worse and worse, as the days and weeks went on. My ex-husband began finding himself, every single night, having some odd encounter with what ever was in that house. At first he said he saw one woman and a man (I'll get to these events later) and then, he began seeing another woman. So, at this point, we knew of three spirits in our house. He was sitting on the floor; looking into the monitor, when he saw what looked like something black come over him.....it seemed to drape him. When he moved his head slightly, he could make out a face, besides his own, reflecting in the monitor. It was as if there were someone standing between him and the monitor. The figure had dark hair, with long side burns. Now, the computer monitor wasn't the only place he said he saw things reflecting in. He was in the kitchen one night and happened to be facing the microwave oven...and saw a reflection in that too. He said he saw, what looked like someone near a doorway (which he later found out, used to be the area to where the original main door to the house once was)....and he saw someone sweeping and another person, sitting nearby. The next time he saw this reflection, it went a little further....this time, he saw what looked like two more people where the one was sitting and one was sweeping. This time, another was standing....and then someone walked up, with what looked like a shot gun or rifle....something with a long barrel on it. That's all he said he saw of that scene....the next time he saw a reflection, it was of someone walking down our hall way. And this was something he claimed he would see quite often over time....just someone walking down the hall and when they got up to where the bathroom was, they would just disappear. He then began seeing the same man; he said he saw in the computer monitor, walking around the hall and the bathroom. He had dark hair, long side burns and appeared to be wearing a puffy, long sleeved shirt....definitely something of another era. The two women, he wouldn't see them in the hall....only the living room and the computer room...and they were also in clothes of another era. At first, he said he would see one woman and then see the other in another area....but then he began seeing them together, as if to travel or hang around together.....but never, did he ever see them with this man he kept seeing. These three spirits seemed to have their own boundaries....two women in one area of the house and the man in another.
He also began seeing the lights again. Hanging around the corners of the room. One night, he was sitting on the sofa when one appeared in the corner of the living room. He said he kept watching it, trying not to take his eyes off of it....but it seemed every time he blinked, he would notice it was getting closer to him. The closer it got, the more he would try to move away from it....praying the whole time. Eventually, he was able to move, little by little away from it and leave the room. I don't know what happened, but it didn't follow him...which he was glad.
This all sounded so off the wall and far fetched, that he said he just knew no one was going to believe him when he told them what was happening. So he decided to borrow some equipment from my sister Kimberly to begin trying to document everything he experienced. At first, he was skeptical whether or not he'd get anything, so he started out by setting up the video camera to film while he wasn't in a room, to see what would happen…..kind of like the saying "while the cat's away, the mice will play". But after several attempts of getting nothing...and it seemed like the only time things would happen, was while he was around. So, he began setting up the camera to try and film what he was seeing while in the rooms. He ended up with five plus video tapes of himself and the activity. He gave them to my sister Kimberly to watch and to see if she saw what he saw and also to verify what was happening there. He audio taped three or so tapes, to see if there is any EVPs. Then he took, I don't know how many pictures with the video camera. A couple of the pictures show reflections in the computer monitor of a face and also a man's reflection in the bathroom mirror. Being it was starting to cost a mint to get all this stuff on tapes and stuff....he decided to hook up a camera from our computer, using infrared. He was keeping it going, twenty-four seven....and got some pretty amazing things on it. One of the most significant is of what looks like the aura of a person entering our bedroom....and as it gets closer to the bed; it becomes more of a blob and seems to engulf the room, with solid black. Strange!! Oddly…I must add, all this evidence he had loaded on to disc, the first disc Kimberly put in to her computer shattered in to a million pieces. She said it sounded like a bomb went off. After that, she said the rest of the discs mysteriously vanished.
Now, what is currently going on....is something that we weren't ready for. When all this other stuff was going on, I will say this....at first, I found it frightening, but soon my ex-husband kind of just got used to it. It didn't seem to scare him anymore. But when this stuff began physically interacting with him....that's when he freaked out, big time. At first, he would see things through the reflection in the monitor, while in a turned position; it looked as if the tail of his shirt would lift. I would see what looked like something underneath his shirt, but when he reached back to feel what was there....nothing would be there. So, really when this was going on....we thought that all this stuff was really getting to him and making him imagine that really strange crap going on. But then.....what ever this was began happening more and more. Before we knew it....he was feeling, quite often, something tingling inside his shirt. Kind of like what you feel, when a nerve in your arm is jumping....that weird tingling sensation. And still....he kept ignoring it and trying to tell himself it was just his imagination running wild. But, one night.....I think he knew this stuff was for real and getting very serious. He said he felt something, again in his shirt, around his back area. He came to me and asked me to look and see if I could see anything in his shirt. I have to say, I was scared out of my skin because I could see what looked like the bottom of his shirt, lifting in the air, as if wind was blowing up into it....and I could see something moving around, underneath it. It looked circular in shape, moving all around. Needless to say, what I was witnessing was very upsetting. Then the last thing that happened (4-3-2003), my ex-husband fell asleep in the living room on the sofa. He said he was just going to take a small nap and then get back to some work he had to do. He woke up to something crawling up his pants leg and then something yanked the blanket off of him. He jumped up, and woke up me and the kids. We fled the house...and headed to the closest hotel.
Just a quick note. Before my ex-husband began filming and everything....he had to borrow my sister Kimberly's cameras, tape recorder, etc.... That night, when she came over, he had to run out real quick to buy cigarettes. She decided to go sit outside, near that old tree, where about two years ago, we were getting some really weird pictures around. She was out there by herself and he had only briefed her on some of the stuff going on....he didn't tell her about the blue balls of lights he'd been seeing or anything, because he didn't know what she would think....he just told her a few things that had happened.....so she only knew about some of the activity that had started up again, the shadows, the voices calling, me seeing reflections in the computer monitor. She gave him her equipment to use to try and capture the phenomena. Anyway, while he was gone, she went outside with the tape recorder to see if she could get any EVP near the tree. When he got back, she told us something very strange and it was then that we had to tell her everything else that had been happening up to that point. She said she was sitting on the swing, asking questions and got spooked by what she said sounded like something walking behind her, through the plants. Being it was very dark out there, the only light was about twenty feet away on the carport....she couldn't see what it was walking behind her. She said it could have been a cat or anything. But as she sat there, she said she wasn't taping anymore....just listening to see if what ever was behind her would walk out....because again, she said she thought it must of been a cat or frog or something in the plants. Then my ex-husband pulled up in the driveway. She said as she sat there, she watched as he walked up the steps, opened the front door and that's when she said she saw a blue ball of light, fly out of the house and it seemed to dive into a pan we had outside of water (which, it's actually motor oil, where my ex-husband poured old oil in from oil change). She got up...walked over, looked in the pan, but couldn't see anything. That's when he walked out to see what she was doing. She sat down and began telling him what she saw, but kept saying that what she saw was probably just a bug or something...and the lights from inside the house or the carport, must of made it look round and blue, like a ball of light. But when he told her what he had experienced with the blue balls of light....she just sat there in shock.
Our ten-year-old daughter has now confirmed what we have been experiencing in our home. Although she has had a handful of experiences at other family member's homes....she has never actually ever seen a ghost....until now. About one in the morning she woke up thirsty and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She got back into bed and was staring at her new poster on the wall. She said she heard a noise in the bathroom, looked in that direction and saw her father walk out of the bathroom and go into our bedroom. She said she then began looking at her poster again, when something caught her eye in the hall. She turned to look in that direction, to find a man standing there. She said he wasn't moving or anything...just standing there, staring towards the direction of the living room, with his arms hanging down, on his sides. She described him as a white chalky looking color, with dark hair that was combed back and slightly longer than his shoulders. He had a very thin mustache and a small amount of hair on the tip of his chin, "not hanging down, like a long beard, just a tiny bit of hair on one spot on the end of his chin" she described. She also said that he had very long, thick side burns that went all the way down to the bottom of his jaw. He was wearing a puffy white shirt that was tight around the neck, wrist and waist "like an ice-skater" she went on to say. She wasn't clear on the pants...she thought that they must of either been puffy, like the shirt or pleated, but she definitely knew they were dark in color....and said that she noticed that she didn't see anything from his knees down. She was so scared that she closed her eyes real tight and when she opened them, he was gone. That's when she made the break for our bedroom and slept with us the rest of the night.
I was sitting in the living room, reading. I had the lamp dimmed. I could see the light on in our bedroom, from where I was sitting. I noticed the light flicker, so I got up to check to see what was going on. Just as I approached the bedroom, in the hall area. I was overwhelmed by this chilling sensation all over my body. It was ice-cold and I was suddenly covered in goosebumps. I got the weirdest feeling that I had just walked right through death. It was such an unusual, strange, frightening feeling. I was so freaked out, the first thing that came to mind was to get angry with this encounter, so I shouted out to what ever was around that it better not mess with me or else. I swear, I hope I never experience anything like that again and of all times for this to happen, while I was home alone!
Our son Adam was sitting in the living room, watching TV. He heard what he thought was his father calling him. He got up, went to see what he wanted, to find him sound asleep, taking a nap. He woke him up and asked if he'd been calling him, and he said "no". He said that the voice, kept calling him over and over, but very slowly.
(To see more stories experienced by Toni, go to the page called Strange But True Events)
