I am awful at staying up to date with this, I know I keep saying I’ll get better and I’m so sorry I haven’t. I do keep little sticky notes around my laptop, though, with ideas of what to write about. If you have any topics you want me to discuss leave a comment and I’ll do it 😀
Soooo ghosts. The paranormal world is one of those almost taboo subjects that people like to hear the stories, especially if they’re real-life experiences, but then don’t want to believe them. I’m one of those in-the-middle people; I’ve experienced things that are completely unexplainable despite me trying to debunk them or find solid reasoning that they couldn’t be paranormal. I’ve mentioned before (at least I think I have) that I’m atheist so the idea of believing in ghosts and spirits but not believing in God, Satan, angels, demons, etc. is odd. I will say this, despite my disbelief in God and His posse, when I used sage to smudge our new house I also carried a rosary and an amethyst with me.
That’s another thing, I like stones and crystals! Not only are they pretty, but I love their significance and healing powers. Even if it’s all in my head, it doesn’t hurt to like them. That’s not really related to this entry, I guess, so I digress and will get back to the topic 😉
Growing up I always loved when my mom would tell me scary stories; she’d tell me some of the experiences that our family or her friends have had in regards to ghosts or paranormal and I would listen, totally mesmerized. As I grew up, though, and started to gain a better understanding of life and all of that good stuff I believed it less and less, mainly because it didn’t make sense; there wasn’t a solid reason or evidence that ghosts were here so I just didn’t didn’t believe.
However I have had a few things happen with me and now with my daughter (who just turned three and doesn’t even understand what ghosts are) so I thought I’d share those:
Happening #1 – Part One:
I’m from western NY and we had a serial killer in the 70s (Arthur Shawcross a.k.a. The Genesee River Killer) who targeted prostitutes. He dumped their bodies in various spots, but two of the bodies he dumped in the same park (Turning Point Park). As a junior in high school a few friends and I went down there around 11:30 pm. The way the park is laid out (the part where he dumped the bodies) is like a giant oval on it’s side. The parking lot was about smack dab in the bottom part of the oval and the path to the left lead to a big opening (roughly 1100 sq. ft.) and then the path continued down hill to the Genesee River. Reports have it that he dumped one decapitated body in the water and the second he threw in the woods just past this giant opening before the path continued down hill.
Well I was a smoker at the time and as we were walking I had a cigarette in my right hand (imagine how one holds a cigarette) and on the palm of my hand and in between my fingers my hand got tingly, like it had fallen asleep. I shook it off and didn’t pay any attention to it, just tossed out my cigarette. We got to the giant opening and something literally stopped me. I was the only girl in the group and my friend Bob* (names changed for privacy) was at the front of the line holding the video camera that had a light on it. I spoke up saying, “Guys, I don’t feel comfortable..something isn’t right!” and they all stopped and came around me trying to calm me down but Bob had the camera light right on my face and it was blinding, so I told him to turn the camera away. We talked for a few minutes but I just couldn’t (phsycially) move any further forward and so we turned around and called it a night. A few days later Bob called me and said that I had to get to his house – I wouldn’t believe what was on the video. So my boyfriend at the time (who was with us that night) and I went to Jim’s and we crowded around his TV. You could hear us talking and joking and you could see a little bit of my cigarette smoke floating in front of the camera. Then you hear me say, “Guys, hold on..” and a blue orb floated past the camera screen (totally plausible that it was dust, but wait for Part Two) and went into the woods to the right and then you could see this gray transluscent mist come walking up the hill (from the river) and it stopped at the top of the hill facing us (none of us saw it because the camera was facing that way while everybody talked to me). That’s when you could hear Bob say, “Okay, let’s just leave.” and he closed up the camera and we left.
Happening #1 – Part Two:
So now it’s 2006 (four years after part one) and some new friends and I go down to Turning Point Park to walk the whole thing since it was afternoon. I had just gotten a brand new digital camera, charged up the battery and was excited to test it out. My friend Tom* (names changed for privacy) was the only smoker in the group and in the one picture where he had a cigarette I was about 50 feet away testing out the zoom feature.
(This picture below is without the zoom)
(The picture below is with the zoom)
These two pictures are taken at the bottom of the hill (the water is the Genesee River) and this pier that they’re on is where one of the bodies was found. As you can tell it was getting dark so we started back up the path and I kept feeling like something was following us. I kept checking but nothing was there. Finally my friend suggested taking a picture so I did:
(The picture below is of the path behind us – note: the blue orb was the same one we saw on Bob’s video camera four years earlier)
We got to that giant opening and both my friend Marie* and myself felt really weird. I kept feeling tinglies on my body (remember from part one I said it felt like my hand fell asleep?) and Marie said her head was pounding, she couldn’t think straight. We stopped (Tom was going towards the car, not with us at this point). I kept hearing something in the woods and I took a picture:
(Below is a picture of the woods where the blue orb disappeared to in part one)
At the same exact moment both of our cell phones shut off, Marie’s watch stopped, and my camera flashed once and then completely died.
(Below is the last picture that was captured by my now-dead camera)
Marie and I ran to the car and locked the doors and sped off. At the end of the street our phones turned on, her watch started and my camera turned back on. I haven’t gone back to Turning Point Park since this happened.
Happening #2:
This one happened in a dream so I don’t know if it counts in the way that other ghost stories do but I think it is really special.
When I was a senior in high school one of my older friends (who had graduated and joined the Army) had commit suicide at the park right up the street from my house. His little brother found him. It took everything in me to go to the wake and I was just so drained that I couldn’t get the energy to go to the funeral, so I stayed in bed and just cried.
About a week later I was feeling so guilty that I missed the funeral that it was just eating at me. I was becoming physically ill because I felt so selfish that I couldn’t just go say goodbye. Well one night I went to sleep and I had this dream that I was walking through the halls of my school and Steve (my friend that died) was in the back corner (where a lot of us hung out) and he was just playing hackey sack. I smiled and waved and went to class. In class an announcement came on over the PA and said we were to all meet in the bleachers on the football field (Steve played football). I walked out there and everybody was already there so I found a spot all alone in the bleachers and looked down at the field and there was a casket with the flag draped over it. I couldn’t stop staring at it and then Steve opened up the casket and climbed out, walked up the bleachers and kneeled down in front of me and said, “It’s okay…I’m okay now…you can let go.”
It was right then that I woke up and I instantly felt lighter and like I could breathe easier. I went to the cemetery that morning and I sat down on the still fresh grave and I told Steve my dream. When I got done I told him that I’m sorry I didn’t go to his funeral, that I love him and just didn’t want to say goodbye. Right then a cardinal came and landed on the headstone and sang his little song and flew away. Something just told me that everything was okay.
Happening #3:
There was an old house in my hometown that everybody used to say was haunted and that at midnight it’d glow green – I never witnessed that – but I was fascinated by the house because it was a huge and beautiful and it didn’t fit in with the other houses in the area…or the whole town for that matter. Well, anybody from that area can tell you that the Easter of 2004 was so hot that people were already swimming at the beach! Mike* (names changed for privacy), my bf at the time and the same guy who was with me at Turning Point Park, and I decided to go for a walk and as were nearing this house, we decided to walk around the property since it was vacant (and had been for years).
We started with the barn (to the left of the house) and as we were walking on the far left side of it we could hear and smell horses. We could hear them kicking in their stalls and neighing. Around the far back side of the barn there was a balcony of sorts but the wood looked all burned and charred. At the top of the balcony there was a set of french doors that had stained glass windows and the doors themselves were fine – they even looked new – but the wood around the doors was completely burned up like the rest of the balcony wood.
On we went. Behind the barn just to the left (if you’re looking at the front of the house the structure is to the right of the barn, behind the main house) there was a smaller house (it has since been torn down but I learned that it was the servant’s quarters) and we were able to look in the windows. There was still furniture in there and there was a small kitchen table with glasses and plates still on it like somebody was about to set the table. There was one door off the kitchen that looked to be a bedroom (I could see the corner of a bed). We switched windows and were looking the other end of this house now and I could see a middle door (kind of separating the kitchen and living room) that was a bathroom; my eyes suddenly caught a rocking chair moving and the third door (at the far end of the living room) slammed shut. We jumped back from the window and kept walking.
We approached the main house and started in the back. There was a set of concrete stairs that let to nothing…literally just a wall. Then there was a a big ditch that lead to the basement of the house – kind of like there was supposed to be cellar doors there and they just weren’t anymore. There was a piece of wood that was placed inside the house and attempted to board up the opening to the basement, but it didn’t cover the whole space (so there was a triangular opening to the basement). As we walked by that there was a huge blast of cold air..so cold both Mike and I saw our breath (keep in mind, it was at least 90 outside that day). We kept walking by it trying to feel the cold again, Mike even climbed down the slope and put his arm inside the building and the cold was just not there. So we walked on to the east side of the house (in the picture it’s the right awning) and as we approached the concrete slab (all the white fencing was not there) we could hear kids laughing followed by a door closing. We walked on towards the front of the house and near the front left window we got a really strong smell of bourbon. It was so strong we actually looked in the bushes to see if a bum had left a bottle there!
Now, I was talking to a town hall member about this experience and he told me that in the mid-1900s a man lived there with his family but suspected that his wife was having an affair and so he killed her along with his kids. He remarried and his new wife loved horses so he bought her two horses for the barn and things were good. Then he suspected her of cheating, too, and locked her and the horses in the barn before setting it on fire. That front, left window was rumored to be his study where he’d go to drink and reportedly took his own life there. The servants didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to be accused so they fled. I have tried researching this story and can’t find anything to validate it, all I could find is that it was a working farm and the owner owned a local coal company and the Rochester-Buffalo-Pittsburg Railroad. The property is now offices and for sale.
(The below picture is a semi-recent picture of the house)
Happening #4:
We recently bought a house and where we moved to is about 30 minutes from major stores; a trip to Wal-Mart is about a half hour and through farm country. One day after leaving WM my daughter (who was two and a half at the time) started screaming, “Stop! He look at me!” and seemed truly upset. Naturally I pulled over and jumped out of the car to search the back and there was nothing, I finally concluded that she just saw her distorted reflection in the shiny handles and that was that. She acted this way in the car for a few weeks, but it was lessening. Finally one day we went out to the car and I opened the door and she goes, “Hi! I miss you!” and chatted with nothing during all of our errands. We got to the grocery store and she pointed at the side of the car that originally scared her and said, “Okay, I be back. You wait here!” That’s when I started getting curious so I took pictures of the car, the inside, outside, each seat, and I posted them in and paranormal group I’m part of. I told them no details, nothing about my daughter’s behavior, just the photos. One woman, who is a an empath and can connect with spirits, responded and said that my daughter has the gift (now mind you I told her no details, not even that I have a daughter) and that our area is rich with history and it appears I picked up hitchhikers, of sort, in my travels, that we had an older woman and her grandson in the car and they were using our vehicle as their portal to get where they needed to go. She suggested driving around the area to see if it made a difference so we did that one day and after about 20 minutes I heard Charlotte say, “Bye! I miss you!” and she hasn’t mentioned it since!!
Happening 5:
I was at the jewelry store here in town and the owner had her dog there so Charlotte kept petting the dog but kept looking in the back room asking about the other dog, the big white one. I didn’t pay much attention to it and told her that the other dog was back there sleeping and she had to stay out here because the back room was only for employees. As we were paying I asked the owner about her other dog in the back and she said she doesn’t have one back there, that the little French Bulldog was the only one in the store. I looked at her confused and asked about the big white dog that Charlotte was talking about and she told me that her white lab died there in May.
Happening 6:
I had just got done donating blood and afterwards was strapping Charlotte into her carseat. She was watching me more than usual and then suddenly put her hand on my cheek and said, “God will bless you mama.” Keep in mind, I’m atheist so I’m not discussing God or blessings with her, I work from home so she’s with me all the time so I know she’s not hearing that from other people, so it was a very bizarre thing for her to say. I asked her to repeat what she said and she smiled and said, “You be blessed mama,” and then went back to playing with her toy. Odd but I shrugged it off. So recently, about a month and a half after the post-blood donation thing, Charlotte was playing and kept talking about Sophie. Sophie this and Sophie that, Sophie loves God, we be blessed, etc. Weird things! She doesn’t like watching “Princess Sofia” so I knew it wasn’t that (and I asked if her if that’s what she was saying) but, again, I shrugged it off and chalked it up to toddler imagination.
I was on the phone with my mom just a couple days ago (we’re states away) and she was telling me about the psychic fair that she and a friend went to; they go regularly so it’s not out of character for her. She had been really stressed out about some work and family stuff so she felt like that stress was blocking her energies, but one of the readers told her that a motherly figure was visiting but since my mom’s mom and her mother-in-law are both alive she felt like it wasn’t accurate and went about the fair.
As my mom was telling me about her day it reminded me of Charlotte talking about Sophie, so I mentioned how I’d love to bring her to one because of it. I asked her if we had anybody in our family tree named Sophie and she got really quiet for a few seconds and asked, “Why do you ask? That’s a really strange question…” so I told her about Charlotte mentioning Sophie and the things she said about her, to my surprise my mom started crying! She then told me that her grandma, my great grandma, Charlotte’s great great grandma, was named Sophie and she was an a spunky Catholic woman who went to church every day and said the rosary every night, she always used to tell my mom that she’d be blessed! So the psychic was right – a maternal figure was visiting, she was just visiting my daughter!
So that’s that. All of these things I can’t really explain but are interesting, at least to me. Do you have any experiences that are paranormal or unexplainable? If so, I’d love to hear them!
yogacupsandcoffeepants 