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Ghost in a Field

25 Sunday Oct 2020

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I am not sure what I saw. I don’t know if this is what you are looking for but here it goes.

My brother-in-law bought a parcel of farmland, to start an organic farming operation. He had to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops as well as years where he couldn’t claim the organic label.

Finally, he was able to acquire organic status but at this point, he was pretty broke. The whole family pitched in to help which is why I was out in the field, I’m a systems analyst. I have no experience in farming.

My sister and her husband had cauliflower and cabbage that needed to be harvested. He couldn’t afford to hire outside workers. So he asked for help.

I was out, in the field, harvesting some of the crop. I had been at it all day; the sun was starting to go down. I was looking down my row, to see how much more needed to be pulled and I saw a man, just standing in the field. The light wasn’t great, I thought he might have been one of my relatives or one of my brother-in-law’s friends, so I waved. He didn’t wave back, he just stood there, seemed to be staring at me. I called out to him but there was no response. Nothing.

It was pretty creepy; I was by myself in this section. I could see other people, but they were pretty far off. I guess they would have heard me if I yelled loud enough. I called out to the guy again. He just stood there. I was getting suspicious, like maybe he was up to something, maybe stealing some of the crop. I started to walk toward him, figuring he would run off. No. He just stood there and seemed to be staring at me. It was really kind of scary. I thought about turning around and finding someone to help but, there was no one close enough. The guy would have run off, with his haul, by the time I got back.

So, I kept walking toward him. I could see that he was dressed in field clothes, old jeans, and a shirt. The light was really fading but he seemed to have dark hair, not very tall.

Then suddenly, he was gone. I mean, just winked out. Gone. One minute he was there, the next, nothing.

I don’t mind admitting, I was pretty freaked out. I ran up to the spot where he had been standing. I had a hat with those lights on, we would pick until after dark. I flipped the lights on. He was gone, he was not lying on the ground, hiding. He had not run away. He was just gone. I looked down to see where his footprints were leading. There were no footprints. This is farm soil, there should have been footprints. The air turned cold, ice cold. I was suddenly, completely scared. It was in the air. Fear, I was breathing in, fear.

No, that’s not right. I terrified. I thought I had experienced fear before but not like this. My bladder let go. Embarrassing but I was so frightened, so scared, I had no control. Then I heard godawful moaning sounds. That was it, I took off running. Through the crops. I didn’t stop until I hit the area where we had parked our vehicles, earlier; had to have been close to an entire acre away. My brother-in-law was there, he was with a couple of other people, loading the day’s pick into the back of his truck.

I was leaning against my car and started to vomit. I was shaking, I was completely out of breath, my legs were jelly. My brother in law ran up to me, really concerned. I did my best to tell him what happened, in between gasps of air. He called to the guys he had been with, and the three of them, headed out to investigate.

They came back, a short time later, they had not seen a soul, they had found nothing. I wasn’t surprised. I knew no one was there. It was dark now, the sun was gone. Everyone started to come in. There was a lot of conversation about what happened. Some people laughed, said it was too much sun. Some people just looked at me, like I was nuts.

A few months later, my sister and my brother-in-law came to my place for dinner; my brother-in-law drew me aside. Word of what happened to me, spread through his little town. Probably started as a funny story about city folks. Except, turns out, it wasn’t so funny at all.

There was a previous owner of the land I was working, he used to bring in migrant workers. Rumour had it that he did not treat them well. If the day’s quotas were not met, he wouldn’t feed them. They were forced to find shelter in his barn, with his cows. There were no facilities. No showers. If they wanted to bathe, it had to be in the irrigation ditches.

There were darker rumours of physical abuse, beatings and worse, that the workers were chained up at night. One of the workers went missing. Shortly after the talk of the missing man started to spread, the farmer was busted for his treatment of the workers. Not much was done, the workers were sent home, some of them found work on other farms but they insisted one of their number had vanished. The workers report the disappearance, to the authorities – the police, when the farm was raided. From the looks of things, they were ignored.

The man was a migrant, no status and it appears, only his friends, cared. People assumed he had just taken off, to escape the abuse, maybe heading to the city but some of the workers, insisted, described a terrible beating, out in the fields. They reported hearing screams and seeing one of the farmer’s regular hands swinging a shovel, up and down, the sound of that shovel hitting something. The screams, quickly, stopped. They reported, later, the farmer and his farmhand, were seen dragging something toward an outbuilding and the sound of machinery. The migrants claimed the farmer’s employee had killed their friend, beating him to death and that the farmer helped to dispose of the poor migrant’s body, in a woodchipper.

It turns out, that the field, where I had been working, was the spot where the migrant had been murdered. I am not saying I saw his ghost. I don’t know what it was. I will say that I have never gone out in the fields since, I still help but from the safety of the vehicles. Loading produce.

It Was Only A Candy Tin

24 Saturday Oct 2020

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My parents used to rent a cottage every summer, in the Laurentians. A region north of Montreal, full of cottages, lakes, ski hills.

My siblings and I used to go for walks along a nearby country road, to a depanneur (general store), where they sold comic books and candy.

Most of the road was edged by forest, thick forest but there was a section that had been cleared, obviously a long time ago, way back was an abandoned house and a barn. It looked pretty creepy and so, of course, it fascinated us, and we came up with our own backstories, each of us trying to outdo the other, in creepiness.

The house had most of the windows broken out, the paint was a distant memory, whatever colour it had once been, was now a weathered grey, what was left, was flaking off. There was a veranda, but it was falling apart, you could see that stairs were missing, from the road. One side of the barn had collapsed, inward. It could have been a poster for a scary movie. A single tree, broken branches, in the front of the place, the driveway was overgrown, by raggedy weeds and could hardly be seen.

It must have been July, around 1984 or 85. I was 13. My brother was 15, my little sister was 11, we were on our way to the store, we were getting close to the clearing where the old house stood. I remember daring my brother to go up to the place and look inside. I probably called him “chicken” or a baby. Maybe it was having a little sister call him out or maybe it was a build up of curiosity; whatever the reason, he veered off the road and started to make his way through the overgrowth.

My sister and I ran after him, yelling for him to stop. This was breaking the rules. He broke out in a run, toward the house; we were trying to catch up, screaming at him to wait. He didn’t.

He went in, alone. I told my little sister to wait by the tree, in front of the house; this place looked dangerous. Stairs were missing up to the veranda, and the other ones may as well have been. I remember how they bowed when I stepped on them. The veranda was missing floorboards as well, exposing a dark, scary underbelly. I was sure something was going to try to grab my foot and drag me down to the dark. Even after all these years, I can recall the terror of that place. It smelled like terror – mold and damp, decomposition of who knew what. Just rot. The place was rot, personified.

I don’t remember all of it, I think I’ve probably blocked it out. I recall pieces of furniture, a sofa that had sacrificed itself to rodents, it had been picked apart, what looked like hair was hanging out. Probably horsehair. I didn’t get that close to it. There were old photos, in frames, on the floor, glass broken and the images were now nothing more than water stains and dirt. A rocking chair on its side.

There was a kitchen, cupboard doors were hanging, some had simply given up the ghost and fallen to the floor. There were dishes in those cupboards. I could see that they were filthy. I didn’t want to get any closer, there was rodent poo on, virtually, every surface.

The smell was stifling, even with the broken windows and the air flow, it was like being smothered in rank. There was an old kitchen table, covered, like everything else, in rodent droppings, 5 chairs – 3 of them were lying on their side. There was a door leading out to a summer kitchen, with one of the walls leaning inward. The furniture was still there but like the rest of the place, it was rotting.

My brother called me; he had gone up to the second floor. Yes, a really dumb move, as the stairs were in horrible shape, the bannister hanging with a hope and a prayer. All I wanted to do was to get out of the place but he was calling me and he had urgency in his voice. I stuck to the side of the stairs, closest to the wall but without touching it. There was black and white mold, everywhere. My real fear was spiders or something else crawly. The place was full of spiders, cobwebs. This whole outing was a bad idea.

I made it up the stairs, alone – nothing with multiple legs had managed to hitch a ride or so I remember.

There were 3 entrances, off the second floor hallway; 1 door was closed, the other 2 were open. My brother was standing in the frame of one. His face was filthy but he was excited. The room he was in, had 2 beds, with old, styled metal headboards. There were, I guess they were sheets and blankets at one time. Just kind of shreds now. You could see the mattress ticking and the rodents had been busy here as well.

My brother was showing me bureaus with boys’ items still on them, covered in dust, leaves and grime. He started to pull out a drawer, and the floor gave way under him. The crack of the wood and seeing him fall? I learned, that day, what it meant to be so afraid, you pee’d yourself. Only one of his legs went through, just up to his shin. He pulled himself out and he was pale, even under the dirt; his eyes were wide and teary. Big brother was scared. We both looked at his shin, it was scraped up, pretty badly. There would be a lot of explaining to do, when we got back to the cottage.

I looked at the hole and there was a box, I could make out a bit of the colour and see writing on it. Scare and pain forgotten, my brother yelped and reached in to pull it out. It was an old tin, we wiped off the top with my brother’s sleeve; it was a candy tin.

We rested it on the old bureau trying to pry the lid off. It was stuck. We pushed and prodded, but rust had sealed it shut.

Our little sister was yelling from outside. She was fed up and wanted to go. My brother and I agreed to come back, another day. He grabbed up the tin and we made our way out. Carefully.

We were desperate to open the tin, if you shook it – you could hear things rattling. It was more than he could take; we needed our Dad. The store could wait. We offered up our candy money to our little sister, with a promise that we’d bring her to the store, the next day, so much the richer for her cooperation and silence.

She finally agreed and we started toward the road. We were almost there when she said, “Who is THAT? Was there someone else in the house?”

She was pointing to one of the windows. There was a shape, a dark body shape, in one of the windows, on the second floor. It as there. It wasn’t my imagination, we all saw it. Figuring it was someone living in that mess..someone in “authority”. We took off, running all the way back to the cottage.

I remember we got in trouble, my brother more than my sister or myself. He was, after all, the eldest. We spun a tale of playing tag on the road and that’s how my brother hurt his leg. Story was that we found the tin, on the side of the road, in some weeds.

My parents were just as interested in the tin, as were we. Mom cleaned it off and my Dad went about trying to open it, with Mom telling him to be careful and not damage the tin. Dad finally opened the lid and poured out the contents. It was, obviously, a secret treasure box, for some little boy, long ago. There were 3 mandatory marbles, a couple of pennies from 1920, an old pen knife with a pearl handle, and a couple of metal toy soldiers. My brother was disappointed. I guess he expected real treasure or at least a secret decoder ring. He lost interest and wandered off. I joined him. I don’t know what my parents did with the contents of the tin.

But the story didn’t end there; that night, my brother woke us all up, screaming. My folks ran into his room, with my sister and I, in hot pursuit. He was sitting straight up in bed, there were tears on his face, he was looking at us, over my Dad’s shoulder, his eyes were wild and terrified. My sister and I were invited to go back to our room, by my Mom. We talking about what had happened, scared ourselves silly but eventually went back to sleep.

Next day, my brother pulled us aside and told us what had scared him. Something woke him up, he thought he had been shaken awake by someone or something. Rough. Hard. He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and there was a bruise. A new one. There was someone in his room, he told us. A dark shape, just standing there, as if it was just looking at him, then it started to move toward him and he that’s why he had screamed. It disappeared when we came into the room.

We were at the cottage for another week, the next night, was the same thing, he screamed, we all came running. Nothing was there.

He wanted to bunk in with my sister and I but my folks wouldn’t allow it. They weren’t ogres; Mom offered to sleep in his room and he could sleep with our Dad. Neither of them were too happy about it but that was the only option. Sure enough, Mom woke up, screaming. Dad flew into the room, with my sister and I in hot pursuit. As I ran past my parents’ room, I saw my brother, still in the bed, sitting up – looking like the “O” emoji. Dad turned on us and actually yelled for us to go back to our rooms. Dad yelling just make this all the scarier. My sister and I were in tears, in our rooms. My brother came in, Dad and Mom were still in my brothers’ room, Dad had closed the door, they were talking, low but I could hear my Mom talking a mile a minute, her voice raising and lowering.

My brother told us that he thought this was our fault. That going into that house and taking the tin brought something back. Something bad. For the remaining nights, we all slept in my parents’ room. Vacation was over the night my brother screamed.

As it turned out, that was the last year we went to the cottage. My Dad was diagnosed with cancer, that October. He passed away 4 months later. Mom put the house up for sale. She couldn’t afford it and it was too hard to maintain. We had a yard sale and I noticed Mom had put the candy tin, we had found, up for sale. I asked her why she was selling it as she seemed pretty stoked about it, when we presented it. She just said, it gave her the creeps and she wanted it gone.

A few years later, when we were in our early twenties; Mom suggested we all get together for one more vacation at the old cottage. Time has a way of making your forget so, although we weren’t real happy about it, we agreed.

Our first night, we were sitting around the kitchen table, playing cards, drinking wine; my brother was telling stories about the old days, vacation – my little sister brought up the house. This was the first time my Mom had heard about it. She paled up.

There was a backstory to the house and she knew it. The couple that ran the store told her, when she had mentioned how sad it was, that it was abandoned like that. A man, his wife and 4 kids lived in the house. One of the boys was killed, he was playing in the barn and fell, breaking his neck. The father took it very badly and started drinking, then becoming violent. He beat his wife and remaining 3 kids. Finally, the wife picked up and left. The husband shot himself in the head, in his son’s room, shortly after. We all figure the tin belonged to the boy who died in the barn and maybe it was the Dad who wanted the tin put back.

I guess the moral of the story is to leave things be, if they don’t belong to you.

Sometimes You Leave With More Than Your Luggage.

05 Thursday Oct 2017

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My husband and I booked a bed and breakfast in xxxxx, outside of Ottawa, Ontario. It was an older former farm home, rolling hills, well-kept lawn. Really a nice place. We were only there for the weekend, a wedding.

We checked in and put our bags in our room. It was nicely decorated, antiques – the whole works. My husband was acting strangely, while we were unpacking. He kept looking over his shoulder and was behaving very antsy. I asked him what the problem was and he told me that it was nothing. Forget it.

We grabbed a bite to eat and I was really tired at this point. I wanted to go back to our room and get some sleep, the wedding was the next day, at 11:00. My husband ordered a second coffee and asked for dessert. He never has a second cup of coffee after dinner and absolutely never eats dessert.

I asked him, again, what was bothering him. He repeated that it was nothing and to drop it. He really started to draw out the dessert and coffee. I was getting irritated and told him to finish up, that I wanted to go back and get some sleep. He got huffy but finished up his coffee – left most of his dessert.

When we arrived back at the B & B, he started fussing around the car. Picking at lint and brushing off his dash – he had it cleaned before we left. There was no lint and the dash was spotless. I was really irritated and went in without him.

I said good night to the owners, they were in the living room, watching television. I explained that my husband would be in, shortly.

I headed up to the room and changed into my pyjamas, I heard the door open downstairs and my husband’s voice. He was talking with the owners. I went about my night routine and had finished brushing my teeth when he finally came up stairs. He sat down on the bed. There were two lamps, on the night tables, on either side of us. I climbed into bed and turned off my lamp. I asked him if he was planning to come to bed or sit there all night. His behaviour was peeving me.

He snapped at me so I turned over and closed my eyes. He sat there for a while and then, I guess he realized he was tired as well. He went to the bathroom, did his routine and came back to the room. He sat on the bed again, fully clothed. I remember I was pretty mad at this point. I told him to get into his pyjamas and turn off the light.

He did 50% of what I asked, he put on his pyjamas but left the light on. I told him he had better tell me what his problem was or I was going to get really mad.

He told me that he felt uncomfortable as soon as we arrived. He said he felt like someone was watching him. He tried to laugh but I could tell he was upset. So, I told him to leave the light on but to please lie down and try to get some rest. He was probably overtired.

He laid down and I dozed off. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he shook me, hard.

The light was off – he was telling me to look near the window – there was a woman. I looked over but I couldn’t see anyone there. He insisted that a woman had been standing by the window, staring at us.

I told him, he must have been dreaming and switched on my lamp. There was nothing there but I did notice a definite smell of perfume in the air. It wasn’t mine. It was very flowery. I felt it was best not to say anything about it but he did. He asked me if I smelled something – like flowers. I lied and told him that I didn’t and in all honesty, I was getting a little spooked.

I said that if he felt that strange, to leave his lamp on. He told me that he had never turned it off. I’m pretty level headed but I have to admit, I was getting a little nervous and I was glad for the light from the lamp.

We tried to go back to sleep and really didn’t do much more than doze on and off. I was dozing when he poked me again – he said the smell was back and he looked scared. I think that scared me more than the perfume smell, which was back.

I tried to make light of it and tell him that the owners probably had those spray deodorizer things. Neither of us were convinced but we had to get some sleep. We tried again.

He didn’t have to poke me – I woke up because there was the distinct feeling of someone sitting on the end of the bed and my lamp was out. I didn’t turn it off. I knew I didn’t. My husband and I lay there, holding hands, tightly. He reached over and switched on the light. It felt like, whatever was at the end of the bed, got up, but slowly.

That was it, we knew were not going to get any more sleep. It was about 5:00 am so we stayed up. We decided we would either stay in a hotel that evening or head home. We put out our clothes for the wedding and packed up everything else. When we heard movement downstairs, we grabbed our suitcase and garment bags; my husband took them to the car and I went into the dining room. The lady of the house had coffee prepared and mentioned that we were up early. She asked if we had not slept well and seemed very concerned. I didn’t know what to say, so I just blamed it on our not being used to sleeping away from home. It was a lie but I just didn’t know how else to explain our behaviour.

We had paid for the entire weekend but told the owner that we would be heading back to our home, due to an unexpected business call. We told them we didn’t expect a refund as we had booked for the two nights.

After the wedding we did, in fact, drive home.

That should have been the end of things but it wasn’t. A few nights later, I was reading in our room when I smelled that same perfume. My husband walked into the room and I thought he was going to faint. He became very pale and his eyes were opened wide; he was looking around our room in a panic and I knew he smelled the perfume as well.

The smell disappeared and we prepared for bed, leaving one of our lamps on. We didn’t even discuss it, the lamp was left on.

We slept well that night, after the perfume incident. I think we convinced ourselves that it was just our imagination.

Then, later in the week, we were both awakened by something – the lamp was still on but near our window was a shadow. It looked like a woman. My husband flew out of bed and switched on the overhead light; the shadow disappeared but we both felt like something was in the room with us.

We had brought more than our luggage home.

This went on for a few weeks, the smell, the feeling like someone was watching but we didn’t see the shadow again. My husband and I were exhausted; we didn’t know what to do. This was our home and we felt, unsafe, in it.

I mentioned what was going on to a very good friend of the family and she suggested we call a medium. My husband was resistant at first; he didn’t want people thinking we were crazy but a few more nights of the perfume, with that uneasy feeling and he agreed to the medium.

I don’t know what we expected a medium would look like but she was a surprise. She was dressed like anyone you see in the mall, she was very nice, polite and respectful. We sat down and offered to tell her our story but she didn’t want to hear it. She asked if it would be okay if she took a solitary walk around the place. My husband and I went outside.

After about 10 minutes the medium came outside, she explained that we had an entity in the house. It didn’t feel like it meant us harm although the spirit seemed to be focused on my husband. She asked about the house and its history; we explained that we had never had a problem until the stay at the B&B.

The medium thought that perhaps my husband reminded the spirit of someone and she had attached herself to us.

She arranged to do a “cleansing”, she called it. There were three people and the medium, my husband and I were not present. The medium felt it would be easier to convince the spirit to leave, if my husband was not around.

Whatever they did, seems to have worked. It has been 3 months since the last incident.

(Names and places have been removed by request)

Something on the Lakeshore

11 Saturday Feb 2017

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I thought I would share this with you because you are in Montreal and probably know the area.

In the West Island, there is Lakeshore Road and like its name suggests, it runs parallel to the Lake St-Louis/St. Lawrence. I work close to downtown and occasionally, I just want to take a leisurely drive home to relax.

Last year, I was driving along this route, the Lakeshore and the sun had, pretty much, set; I took a curve at the corner of Lakeshore and Bayview in the Pointe-Claire area and I saw a black shape on the sidewalk, I drove past and looked in my rear-view mirror. There was nothing there. I didn’t really think much of it; end of the day, tired – tricks of the light.

A few months later, I was driving the same route home. It was brighter out, not yet sunset. I took the same curve and on the sidewalk, was that shape. I was startled but you know how it is, I was driving and it didn’t really hit me for a second or two as I drove by. Again, I looked in my rear-view and then my side mirror; I couldn’t see it. I pulled over and looked out my back window. The shape was gone. This time, I knew I had seen something and it wasn’t a trick of the light. I got out of my car and walked back to the spot on the sidewalk when I had seen the shape. There was nothing, I looked around, no one. Could have been my imagination but I felt a real chill, I had goosebumps. This freaked me out and I took off, back to my car.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I took that route home again; it had been a while and I had convinced myself that it was all in my mind. I took the curve, slowed up and it was there again. A black opaque shape about 6 feet tall. I’ll be honest, I stepped on the gas. I looked in the rear view but this time it was still there. I pulled over, sat in my car for a few minutes because I was too shaken to investigate. I looked back and it was gone.

Ghost in the Mirror

01 Saturday Nov 2014

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scary-mirror-girl-live-wallpap-981518-2-s-307x512This made us put our house up for sale after only a few months. I don’t know if it happened to anyone else but the house had a few other owners before us and I wonder if this isn’t the reason.

There were no cold spots or weird feelings when we bought the place. It was just a house. It fit what we needed and it meant we were finally getting on our way. It wasn’t an old Victorian home or a family homestead. It was just a house in the suburbs, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, half decent yard and a finished basement; it was built in the housing boom of the early sixties.

The first creepy thing that happened was when I was getting ready for bed. I was standing at my dresser, brushing my hair in front of the mirror, our cat was sitting on top of the dresser watching me. Suddenly he leapt up and arched his back, he started hissing at something. I turned around to see what had him so pissed off. There was nothing there. He jumped off the dresser and bolted under my bed. I turned back to the mirror and I figured it was just one of those crazy cat things. There was something over my left shower, in the doorway, where Shadow had been staring. It was like a fog but there was a face. It wasn’t clear but I had the distinct impression that it was a man. I spun around, I remember my brush flying out of my hand and hitting the wall. There was nothing there. Nothing. No shadow, no face, no man. Nothing but doorway and the hall beyond.

I was so scared, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even call my husband. I don’t know how long I stood there until I could call out to R. I finally managed and he raced up the stairs. I told him what happened and he told me it was probably a light reflection from outside or just some kind of light trick. I brought up the cat and R. said he was nuts anyway and not to worry about it. I tried to feel better about it but I didn’t sleep very well that night. Shadow refused to come out from under the bed until sometime during the day, while we were at work. I started to do my nightly brushing in the bathroom. I didn’t care what R. thought; I didn’t want to see that trick of the light again.

Later that week, Mr. Trick of the Light was in his man-cave puttering around with something. All of a sudden, I hear him pounding up the stairs, the front door flung open and he was outside. I went to door to see what the problem was and I saw him disappear around the back of the house. He came back a few minutes later; he was pretty upset about something but he refused to tell me what it was. It didn’t matter what I said and he started to get mad at my attempts to find out what was bothering him so I just shut up.

We went on up to bed. It was starting to get cold, so I went into our spare room which was used for storage as well as a guest room. I wanted to get another blanket for the bed. I went to pull the blanket out of the drawer and it slapped shut, just missing my hand. It didn’t just close a little bit, it slammed shut. I was freaked. The blanket stayed where it was, half in, half out of the drawer. I took off to our bedroom, R. was sitting on the bed and I was crying at this point. I told him what had happened and he got up to go to the room, I followed him. I was still crying. I was scared to death. R. opened the drawer and pulled out the blanket. He opened and closed the drawer a few times, there was nothing wrong. It opened and closed normally. This time he didn’t try to offer and explanation. He brought the blanket back to our room and I put it on the bed. We didn’t say a word.

We were lying in bed, and R. told me why he raced out of the house. He was fixing a chair on his workbench, there is a window over the bench. He was turning a screw and looked up at the window. There was a man’s face. An old man, looking in at him. He figured we had a prowler and raced up to catch him. The yard is fenced and his window faced the fenced area. There is only one way out, through a gate or through the house. The gate was closed and no one was there. Neither of us slept very well that night; we talked about possibilities and they were all too flimsy to be believable.

In the morning, we were sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper and drinking coffee. Shadow was sitting on the window sill, grabbing some sun; he jumped off the sill and took off out of the room. It happened so fast that I almost spilled my coffee. My husband, in a really quiet voice said to me “C. look, look at the window!” There was a face. It wasn’t like a real person, the face was kind of misty, out of focus and that window is over 7 feet from the ground. No one could be standing there and looking in, without a ladder. Then, it just disappeared. It didn’t fade away, it just kind of popped out. Gone.

What happened next, sealed the deal for us. The cream flew off our counter and hit the floor. It was about 6 inches from the edge. It didn’t just tip over, it flew off that counter and hit the floor. We packed a few things, grabbed Shadow and called the real estate agent from R.’s parents’ home. We put it up for sale and took a loss. We just couldn’t spend another minute in that house. I don’t know if anyone else had bad experiences, I do know that the house has been put up for sale twice, in the past year.

The Dead Want What They Want

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

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PapaAbout 15 years ago, my mother began to experience problems in the family home. I had always felt “something” in the house but it was also just out of the line of sight. You felt it more than anything else; sometimes, you heard it. By and large, it was easy to chalk up to imagination, which is what I did.

But when the dead want what they want; events can become a lot more difficult to simply dismiss as the “house settling” or a “trick of the light.”

Initially, Mom heard noises and she did exactly what is mentioned above, she assigned them to the house settling.

Then things started to be “misplaced” and she put that down to a failing memory even though she was a sharp as the proverbial tack.

A couple of photos fell off the wall and the noises increased. She also told me in confidence that she felt like she was being watched.

Then, while doing laundry, someone touched her back – she was home, alone. My father had gone out.

The final straw came when she saw a dark, shapeless mist-like form in her hallway. She called me in to help her out.

I have to tell you that I wasn’t too keen on the idea. The house had begun to feel immensely, well – creepy – over the short term. My husband had seen something in the basement, a couple of weeks prior to this and it scared him badly enough that he insisted we leave, immediately.

I decided the safest course of action was a reading of the Tarot. The contact between whatever and me would be buffered. The reading identified the restless spirit in Mom’s house as her natural father. (He had passed when Mom was 4, from tuberculosis.) He was unhappy and angry at the circumstances in which he found himself. Angry that he was taken from his wife and family. Angry at his fate. Just a sincerely unhappy camper and he wanted everyone to know about it.

Mom came up with a plan after we discussed what I seemed to be learning. She put my grandfather’s photo next to my grandmother’s and things quieted right down. Not completely but a definite improvement over what was.

Hag of Bell Island and Mine Shaft 2

18 Saturday Oct 2014

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Bell Island LighthouseBell Island, Newfoundland is rich with myth and legend. For many years, the area was mined for iron; as you may expect, lives were lost. The mines have long since been shut down and entrances sealed but ghosts are not easily deterred.

There are reports of shadows of men leaving mine shaft 2, as if at shift end.

The ghost of woman has been reported, standing and watching the mine entrance, perhaps waiting for a loved one from long ago. Miners reported seeing the ghost of a man who, reportedly, had died after being struck by a falling rock.

The most famous non-corporeal being on Bell Island is the Bell Island Hag. It must be remembered that many of Newfoundland’s settlers were Irish and they brought their legends with them, across the Atlantic.

Apparently, origin of the Bell Island hag is found in a tragic tale of death. A young woman became lost in the Bell Island marshes (Dobbin’s Garden marsh); she cried out for help but the townspeople feared the marsh. They believed the little people inhabited the area. Irish folk do not interfere in the lives of little people in the hope that the little people will leave them alone. Little people are the source of bad luck, missing and broken objects, disappearances and even death. The woman screamed for help but the people in the town closed the windows, doors and ears to the cries which became increasingly pitiful until they suddenly ceased. It is assumed that she died although a body was never recovered.

After her tragic death, men began to report losing days after venturing into the marsh; emerging with confused tales of a beautiful woman or a horrible hag but with one consistent detail – a horrible smell of decay and death surrounding them. The last thing many remembered was being forced to lie down by one of the two figures. (One imagines that the beautiful woman entity has far less difficulty getting the men to “lay upon the ground”)

There are also tales of a Banshee wail prior to the death of inhabitants close to the marsh.

Some people believe that the little people took the woman and are responsible for the missing memories/days of the men who were so foolhardy as to enter the marsh alone.

Royal Victoria Hospital and the Gentleman Caller

18 Saturday Oct 2014

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Some of the most interesting events and inexplicable sightings have come from folks working in hospitals.  It makes sense; many people leave this mortal coil in hospital.  Hospital staff will not part with these tales willingly; there is the potential for job loss, so anonymity is key for them, in addition – like anyone else, they don’t wish to be seen as flakey or plain nuts, so many health care professionals remain “mum”.

This one is from the Royal Vic, a well-known hospital in Montreal.  This is from a nurse who wishes to remain anonymous.

I was working at the R.V. and I had been on this particular floor for several months.  I was pulling a night shift.  Around 1:30 in the morning, a patient required attention; I approached the patient’s bed and she was very agitated.  She asked me why the old man was in the room, walking about.  There were four beds in this room, 3 were occupied and one was open for an admittance; I scanned the room and there was no one out of bed.  The patient insisted that an old man had walked into the room and stood at the end of the bed across from her own.  He turned and looked at my patient, then walked out.  The lady in the bed was very ill and to my knowledge, had not received any visitors in the time that she had been moved to our floor.  It was very sad.

I promised the agitated patient that I would check the floor and ensure the gentleman was directed to leave.  I looked down the hall and did a quick run of the rooms to make sure that the man was found.  No one was out of the bed and there were no visitors.  I called security to report the incident.  The guard came up and did a sweep of the floor – no one.  About an hour later, the patient summoned me again.  I went back to her bedside and sure enough, she reported the man again.  I calmed her down and when I went back to the station, I checked her chart for meds.  Sometimes medication can cause hallucinations; I made notes and intended to discuss the situation with day staff.  Something caused me to look up and sure enough, I saw what looked like the shadow of a man walking into the room where my patient was located.  I called security again and took off down the hall.  I entered the room, no one was there.  The patient who had alerted me was, at this point, extremely upset.  Security arrived and we did a thorough search of the area but the thing is, I saw the man enter the room but never saw him leave the room.  There is no way he could have exited without my seeing him.

We found no one.  The security guard remained on the floor until 4:00 am.  He checked the area thoroughly.  My shift ended and I reported the occurrence to day staff, then went home.  When I arrived for my shift that night, I learned the patient across from my agitated lady had passed away.

I later learned that this gentleman had been seen before and always just before a patient passed away.

Sometimes A Deal? Isn’t.

27 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions, Poltergeists and Things That Go Bump

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Here’s an example of an unusual event connected to something mundane and probably not something any of us would consider but perhaps we should.  This was submitted to me via e-mail.  Feel free to submit your own.  Your privacy is guaranteed.  I will not post any identifying details without your permission. 

estate saleMy wife and I were taking a Saturday drive along the lakeshore.  The scenery is great and the houses along the way are something else to see, huge and most of them are very, very old.

One of the houses was having a yard sale.  In this neighborhood, this was very rare so we stopped.  It looked like it might be an estate sale because it was like the entire house had been emptied on the front lawn.

While my wife was peeking in boxes and meandering from table to table; I started talking to one of the people that seemed to be hosting the sale.  The house had belonged to a very wealthy couple.  The wife had died some years before and the gentleman lived alone with the exception of a housekeeper.  There was no family.  The man became a bit of a recluse when his wife died.  He spent most of his time sitting on the large wraparound balcony, weather permitting, looking out at the lake. When the weather turned cold, he would sit in his parlor, looking out through a large window.

The man had died and left what he had to the housekeeper.  She did not want the house or the contents, instead she planned to move back to Ireland, where she was from and retire, so she put the house up for sale and decided to get rid of the contents.  She just wanted everything gone as quickly as possible so that she could get on with her own life.

The story hit me as being very sad.  Here was this man’s life spread out on his front lawn for strangers to pick at, wag their tongues over.  I didn’t want to stay around any longer, it was depressing.  So, I found my wife and convinced her that she had bought enough, that it was time to go home.

My wife prattled on and on about her new purchases and I told her the history of the house.  I felt bad because she seemed to be a little less happy with her buys.  We talked about the man and how sad that the things he and his wife had collected were going to strangers for the cheapest price.

My wife had bought china tea cups and saucers, some statuettes and a box of silver cutlery. When we got home, she washed everything and put them on display in her china cabinet.

I have to be honest and say that I quickly forgot about the old man.  I have kids, a job and a house to maintain and these take up a lot of my time.

About 2 weeks after the sale, we were having dinner when my wife asked me about how long it takes silver to tarnish.  I had to admit that I didn’t know but told her to look it up on the internet.  She then went on to warn the kids off of touching anything in her cabinet.  All 4 of them denied being in the cabinet and we have 4 boys.  None of them should have been interested in china and knick knacks.  My wife lifted up her hands and told them that all she was saying was that someone had been in the cabinet and things have been moved but it wasn’t her.

The next afternoon, when I had arrived home from work, all the boys had been gathered into the living room and my wife was on a tear.  On the coffee table was one of her estate sale purchases, a little statue of a woman in period clothing, apparently that was where she had found it when she came home from work.  It didn’t make sense because she was home before the boys arrived from school and I’m pretty sure that the statue wasn’t there when I left for work and I’m the last one out of the house.  But to be honest, I didn’t really check to see if anything was out of place in there.  Although, I like to think I would have noticed that.

The boys were all denying touching the thing and the little one was almost in tears.  So I stepped in and cut the discussion short.  I promised my wife that I would look for the key to the cabinet and we would keep it locked in the future.  That seemed to mollify her a bit but she was still glaring at the boys as they made their escape to their room or out of doors.

A couple of nights later, when we were in bed; I heard the sound of the cabinet or something in the cabinet rattling.  My wife was asleep.  I figured it was one of the boys messing around but I had found the key, the cabinet was locked and if they tried to force it?  It would break.  I crept down the stairs and around a corner into the living room.  The light from the street lit the room enough for me to see that none of my kids were there.  I checked the cabinet doors; they were locked tight.  When I turned around?  There, on the coffee table, was the same statue as the other day.  I tried the doors on the cabinet again and they were locked tight.  I checked where I had hidden the key, on the top of the cabinet, a good 7.5 feet.  The key was still there.  I took the key down and opened the cabinet, intended to put the statue back.  When I turned around, there seemed to be a shadow standing next to the table and the statue.  It moved off into the hallway and disappeared.  I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I realized that the drapes were open in the living room and convinced myself that a car must have gone by and that the shadow was my own as the vehicle passed the house.  I put the statue back, locked the cabinet and replaced the key.  I was pretty shook up but went back to bed.  I looked in on the boys, fully expecting them to be gathered together giggling at the joke they had pulled on their father.  They were all in their rooms and sound asleep.  The joke was on me alright, it wasn’t them.

I was the first one up, I didn’t sleep very well.  I couldn’t get the cabinet or the shadow off my mind.  I made it a point to walk through the living room and to my relief, the statue was still in the cabinet, where I had put it the night before.

The day started normally but when I got home, my wife was in a state and the boys were nowhere to be seen.  She was almost hysterical, she pulled me into the living room.  She had the silver case on the coffee table, the silver was black.  Not just a little tarnished as you would expect but black but that wasn’t all apparently.  My wife told me that the statue was back on the coffee table when she got home.  She blamed the boys and had sent them all to their rooms.

I pulled out the silver polish from the kitchen and some cloths; I had my wife sit down with me and we polished to silver together.  I told her that I did not think it was the children messing with her statue but that I couldn’t offer any explanation.  The statue was in the cabinet when I left for work, of that, I was sure because I had double checked.  She started to cry.  I really didn’t know what to do.  I called the boys down and we all decided to go out for pizza, get some fresh air and perspective.  I put the silver away myself and locked the cabinet.

We went out for dinner.  I found myself getting more and more nervous as we neared the house.  I was really scared that the statue would be on the table again.

It wasn’t.  The rest of the evening was uneventful and we all went to bed.  About 3:00 am in the morning, our youngest started to howl, he’s 6.  My wife and I jumped out of bed to see what had happened.  We literally ran into the other boys as they too, ran to see what had happened to the little one.  We piled into his room and he was sitting up in his bed, crying his eyes out.  My wife reached him first.  She looked at me and told that he was shaking like a leaf.  The other three boys were huddled near the door, watching.  I turned to tell them to go back to bed, that we would take care of things and I saw a shadow, standing right behind them.  It had a definite outline of a person about 5’5.  I jumped off the bed toward the boys, pushing them away from the shadow.  My wife must have seen it as well because she screamed; of course this scared all the kids so they all started to cry.  The shadow seemed to melt away, into the wall on the opposite side of the hall.  It wasn’t a car on the street making the shadow.

We packed up the kids and went took them to my sister-in-law’s place.  My wife stayed with them and I came back to the house.  On the coffee table was the statue.  I am really freaked out at this point.  I will be honest, I didn’t know what to do.  I picked up the statue and I almost threw it against the wall.  I threw it on the couch instead.

I forced myself to walk through the house.  I don’t know what I was looking to find.  Which was good because I found nothing.

I left the house, locked up and joined the family.

We sat up talking with my sister-in-law all night.  She suggested calling someone.  Some kind of psychic or a priest.  I kept thinking of the Ghostbusters movie and that we could really use those guys.  I didn’t want to call some weirdo or priest.  This was my house and my family.  It was rough not being able to protect them and I had to go along with the suggestion because I didn’t have a clue what to do.  So, my sister-in-law hit the internet.

She gave me a short list.  A couple of the names were priests and the remaining 3 were mediums or something.  I booked off work, so did my wife and we started to make calls.  We reached the third one, a woman and after telling her what was going on, she agreed to meet us at our house.  The kids were still sleeping, beat after all the excitement the night before.  My sister-in-law agreed to watch them so my wife and I took off.

There was a woman walking around the place when we got to our home.  She introduced herself and got right down to business.  She asked us if we minded staying outside while she did what she called a “walkthrough”.  After about 15 minutes she came out of the house.  Not quite as cheerful as she had been when we first met.  In fact, she was kind of shaken up.  I suggested we all go for coffee.

She told us that the house had a very disturbed energy source.  She sensed it was female and seemed to be attached to the living room.  She asked us a bunch of questions about the house; had we always lived there and we had.  We bought the house, brand new.  She asked us if anyone close to us had died recently and that was a negative.  It was my wife that came up with the idea that the statue was involved.  We told the woman about the estate sale, the story about the old man and that the statue was one of the things we had bought.  The medium or whatever she was, did a face palm.  She told us that we had a few choices; do a cleansing, which may or may not work, sell the piece in which case we would just be passing on the problem or return it to the house.

She came back to the house with us.  My wife decided that everything she had bought should go back.  The woman agreed. She offered to do a reading of the items to see if she could get a better handle on what was happening.

Apparently, the energy attached to the items was the woman who had owned them.  She didn’t quite understand that she was dead and was upset that her “things” had been taken.  That was enough for me.  I went to the garage pulled out a few boxes, the wife and I packed up all the things she had bought at the sale.  When we pulled out the silver box, sure enough, the silver was pitch black with tarnish again.  The medium said the old woman attached to the items was to blame.  Me?  I don’t know.  After what I had seen over the past few weeks.  I was willing to believe anything.

I asked the medium what she was charging us for this visit and she waved me off, told me it was free of charge.  She just asked she be allowed to accompany us to return the stuff.

We drove over to the house, it looked deserted.  I rang the doorbell a couple of times, eventually the door opened and an older woman peered out at us.  We explained that we were returning some goods that we had purchased and told her what was in the boxes.  She said she couldn’t give us our money back.  I didn’t care, I just wanted to be rid of the things.  She agreed to take the items back.  I brought the boxes in and put them down.  The old lady asked me why we didn’t want the items and I didn’t really want to tell her, appear foolish.  The medium answered for me and explained what was going on.  She asked if she could communicate with the former owner.  The request was denied and we simply piled back in our car for the drive home.

We had no more troubles after that day.  Not one.  It was hard to convince the kids to sleep in their own rooms but eventually, they calmed down and were able to get back into normal routine although, I don’t think they or we will ever forget the experience.

A few weeks later, the medium called us to tell us that she had gone back to the house, spoken with the woman looking after the place, only to find out that this was the old housekeeper who simply wanted to sell and go back to Ireland.  The housekeeper confided that we weren’t the first people to return goods that had belonged to the “Mrs.” In addition, she was having a hard time selling the place.  She agreed to let the medium “clear” the house, whatever that means and the medium believes it was successful.  I guess it was.  I drove by the place a few weeks later and it was sold.

This incident left a mark on my wife and I.  We will never buy anything second hand again.

Can Vehicles Be Haunted? Apparently, so.

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

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In the 1990’s, there was a horrible truck accident; the driver died. The company that owned the truck, salvaged whatever parts they could off the vehicle and the parts were then re-cycled for use in their rolling stock. This may sound horrible and heartless but is common practice with any vehicle. If not the company that owns the vehicle, then the scrap yard that receives the wreck.

A driver for this company was assigned a truck. The model of the tractor is usually called a “sleeper” because it is equipped with a bunk. He would often have “runs” that required he shut down and sleep.

The truck drove well and the driver went about his duties. He first noticed a problem when he had to shut it down and take some rest. He was awaked by a nightmare; a crash, fire and feeling like he was trapped. He attributed the disturbing dream to greasy food and fatigue but every time he stopped his vehicle and tried to grab some sleep, the same thing would happen. He would suffer a nightmare and awaken, often more exhausted than he had been when crawled into the bunk.

The nightmares always had elements of a crash, sometimes one, sometimes a few, sometimes all of the terrifying aspects. Fire, the sound of metal crushing, stamping on brakes and nothing happening, the smell and sound of fire, being unable to escape.

The driver soon found himself unable to sleep in the truck at all; unwilling to allow himself to sleep in case the dreams came back. This was leading to a very dangerous situation, an exhausted truckdriver, unable to take time to shut down and sleep.

The truck started to experience some mechanical issues and it was sent to the company’s garage for repairs, some distance away. While the truck was being repaired, the driver began to hear rumours circulating about his truck and a few others. Always the same, the drivers unable to sleep, nightmares and in some cases, feelings of unease, hair standing up on the back of their necks and baseless fear.

The driver was talking to a mechanic about his truck; it had been gone a while and he was commenting on the length of time it was taking to get it back. The conversation took an unexpected turn for the driver when the mechanic told him of other drivers having similar issues but in different trucks. The mechanic told him that these trucks had one thing in common, they all contained re-cycled parts from a deadly accident the year before, the driver had, it was suspected, fallen asleep, the truck and trailer left the road, crashed and had caught fire, the driver either never regained consciousness or was trapped, dying in his cab.

Apparently, the rumours had been circling among the drivers for some time. The truck never made it back to the driver; it was kept at the main garage and was turned into a general utility vehicle. It never hit the road again and the driver in this story? He was assigned another truck and never experienced nightmares again.