I want your ghost stories!

Have you Googled Paranormal Investigations?

Check out The Shadowlands for various groups with forums. The members there may be willing to share.

One of the most interesting and well-researched experts I know of on this subject is Dale Jarvis in St. John’s, Newfoundland. You can check out his website here: http://www.hauntedhike.com/. He has a folklore degree and researches his stories quite well. His books are quite interesting to read and his haunted hikes are fabulous. Check out the podcasts on the website for some good stories.

On a related note, Newfoundland has a unique ghostly tradition of “hagging” experiences. This is where victims fall asleep and then wakes up, immobilized and terrified, often seeing a ghost sitting on them, holding them down. A wonderful book about these types of experiences is “The Terror That Comes in the Night” by David J. Hufford.

Here's a little story that will hopefully help you in some way :

My dad is an ex-soldier that fought for 14 years. Needless to say, those years left a chaotic imprint on him. I'm saying this because it might in some sort of way explain this event. Anyways, sometimes he falls asleep on the couch. Sometimes he does that when nobody else is in the house except him. On a few occasions, something woke him up. He heard the sound of someone walking up to him. So he opens his eyes and sees nobody. He then hears someone walking away...

I find it creepy and awesome at the same time. Take it for what it's worth. Once again, hopefully helped you in some way. Good luck.

Parmly Billings

I’m a skeptic. On another subject, I believe we are not alone in the universe and as an outdoorsman have spend countless nights under the stars, but have yet to see one object in the sky that was not identifiable.

On your subject, I believe the life force is like energy and matter. It cannot be destroyed, so it continues to exists. If that makes me gullible, so be it. Anyway, for 60-something years I’ve looked for evidence of ghosts, spirits, angels, and so on without success . . . until 2002.

In 2002, I worked for Parmly Billings Library in Billings, Montana. I let myself in at 6:30 a.m. to boot up thirty second-floor computers, flag those showing problems, then shelve books left on tables and carrels. It was winter and still dark. Elevators are shut off and emergency stairwells locked by panic bars, so I climbed the central winding main stairs to begin work and turned on a single bank of lights over the computers, leaving the rest of the second floor research section dark.

I turned from the light panel to see the outline of a man with medium build standing between the far shelves and the windows. The silhouette wore a hat with a narrow brim all around, dark clothing with the sleeves and pantlegs cut short. His shoes were ankle-high brogans with a high "rider's" heel. My impression was the man wore Hutterite garb. Hutterites are a religious group in Montana, the men wearing somewhat similar old fashioned clothing as described.

I turned back to the panel to turn on all the lights and when I looked again, the figure was gone. I walked to the aisle and found several waist-high stacks of books on the floor. Keeping the central staircase always in view, I searched aisles and checked the elevators and exits. All still secure. I didn’t feel threatened and since I’m deaf and could not call anyone, I watchfully booted up computers and waited for the janitors to arrive at 7:00.

They came when I flashed the upstairs lights, I described the incident, told them no one could have got downstairs past me, and we three searched again. Nothing, but neither janitor scoffed or made fun. The head janitor told me to leave the stacked books for the second floor research librarian to see. I was asked to stop work and write a full, very detailed description of what happened.

I thought the report was for Security, but at least one copy went to our research librarian. She questioned me later, and we added further details to my report. She showed me a collection of dozens of other reports of the same figure being seen over the last 114 years.

They call the "ghost" Parmly, the name of the young son of a Billings founder, Frederick Billings. Young Parmly Billings died under mysterious circumstances in 1888, and the Billings family financed the city library in Parmly's memory.

I don’t know if I saw a ghost or the results of someone playing a prank on the old deaf guy.

For additional information, you might contact Research Librarian, "Ghost Archives," Parmly Billings Library, 510 North Broadway, Billings, MT, 59101.

I have had a few experiences, but in an effort not to hijack the thread I will share just two for now. Let me know if you want me to send any others your way.

One occurred approximately a year after I moved to New Orleans. I was in my mid-20s and living with my parents in a French Quarter apartment. The apartment complex, as is common in that neighborhood, had originally been a two-story single family home with a two-story slave quarter across the enclosed courtyard out back. The property was surrounded by a brick wall approximately the same height as the buildings. The estimated date of construction was mid-1820s.

The two buildings had long since been cut up into apartments. However, the slave quarter had been gutted after a fire 30 or 40 years prior. A sagging wooden ceiling/floor dividing the two levels and the wooden staircase on the right hand side were about all that remained. Consequently, that area was used as storage for the tenants but served no other purpose.

A few friends came over one night, and wanted to check out the second floor of the slave quarter. I had never been up there, due to fear of the flooring's stability as well as stories I had heard of hauntings. But not being one to turn down a dare, I went along.

To steel my nerves, I kept loudly making fun of my friends, telling them there was no such thing as ghosts. They went up first, and I followed a few moments later. I reached the top of the steps, took a stride into the room, and loudly announced "See? I told you there was no such thing as ghosts!" Immediately I felt a hard shove centered in my chest. I was facing my friends, who were a good ten paces away; there's no way any of them could have pushed me.

I stumbled backward onto the stairs and felt a different sensation, a firm and continuous pressure almost like a guiding hand. It pushed/guided me roughly but in a controlled fashion all the way down and out of the building. Needless to say, I never went back upstairs, nor did I visit the building at all after dark!

The second story took place several years before the first. I was a teenager when I first visited New Orleans with my parents. We took a ghost tour sponsored by the International Society for Paranormal Research. The tour was led by one of the Society's researchers, and took us inside a number of documented haunted properties.

About halfway through the tour, we were taken to a massive ground floor room connected to the Cabildo in Jackson Square, the heart of the French Quarter. The guide explained that the room had been used as one of the largest slave holding areas in New Orleans, and that it had seen its share of death and torture. She then opened the door.

I had the most visceral reaction of my life. As soon as she opened the door, it was like an overwhelming feeling of sadness, terror and regret had been unleased, and I was smacked in the face with it. Not two seconds after being hit with that feeling, there was another, that I can only describe as unspeakable evil.

I broke into a dead run. I had only been in town for a day or so. I didn't know my way around. I wasn't the sort of teenager to burst into spontaneous emotion and go running like a lunatic around a strange city. Yet some sort of primal instinct kicked in and I ran, feeling oddly like I was running for my life. My mom and the tour guide caught up with me on the diagonally opposite corner of Jackson Square. I was shaking, crying and could hardly breathe.

As I began to calm, the guide asked me to explain what I experienced. She then told me that the research team was divided into two sections -- the scientific researchers and the empaths. She herself was an empath and had experienced virtually the same reaction I had when first entering that room.

Although I was assured that the second time would be much easier to handle, I flatly refused to go back in. After buying me a soda, my mom let me wait where I was until the group was finished in that particular building.

Now, my father was at the time the biggest skeptic of them all. No way could he be convinced that anything paranormal could possibly exist. Until that night. According to what my parents told me, the group was asked to wander the room and try to find the spirits. Without even hesitating, Dad was able to pinpoint each one, identify its gender and age at death, and even pick up the emotion that it felt (sadness, anger, etc.) Since that night, he has never had any doubt that spirits exist (he's also had some other experiences, particularly right after Mom passed away).

Sorry this is so long! Let me know if you would like any other stories!

Ooooooooooooooooh I've got one. And I'm a believer. Not all hokus pokus, but yea, I believe there are things out there.

I was visiting friends at their home, an old home built in the early 1900's...

Everybody was outside drinking (and the beer had nothing to do with my sighting). I went inside to use the restroom, knowing the only person in the house at the time was the friends brother. He suffers from a mental disorder and really just sits around, in the dark sometimes, with oldies or dance music playing on the stereo.

So, I walk in the front door, remember the room is dark and it's also late evening, so no natural light in the room at all...I walk in and head straight ahead for the restroom, glancing to my right - into the living room area and can barely see the brother sitting on the couch in the corner. Nobody else is in the house.

I exit the restroom a few seconds later, passing back through the living room and glace over to the same spot and see a girl standing with her back to me, facing the stereo, wearing a green shirt and blue jeans. She changes the radio station from the pop song that was playing to a Social Distortion song, I believe it was Ball and Chain, really can't remember, I was too in shock of what or who was in the room to note the song title.

To those of you who don't know, Social Distortion is a heavy rock/punk band from the late 80's early 90's...the music to come from the living room on a daily basis is more pop, disco, and killer oldies....so this definitely caught my attention.

I didn't say anything because I didn't recognize the person to be anybody that was previously out in the yard with us, nobody was wearing a bright green shirt. Nobody.

I hop out the door and head to my boyfriend, and ask him who it was I saw in the house. He tells me nobody is in the house. I tell him he's wrong, I just saw somebody, changing the radio station, wearing a green shirt. His reaction, "aint nobody wearing a green shirt...go back in there and see who it is."

So I go back in, maybe all of 10 seconds later, and the girl is gone. Social distortion still playing on the radio. The brother still sitting on the couch.

I check the bathroom. Nobody. I check the kitchen. Nobody. Nobody was in the house.

Who was it?

I must add that the houses on the block have similar stories, some of pets that have been gone for years, spotted behind a fence, strange men coming to the door asking for information on owners of the home, people who had been dead a long time. All sorts of stories.....this neighborhood is a historical neighborhood, all the homes are from late 1800's early 1900's.

I find it extremely fascinating to think of what might be out there.

Adipocere said:

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If you have a personal story (or know one from some one who is credible to you) of some kind relating to the above mentioned subjects, please either post it here or if you prefer not to make it public you can email it to me ([email protected]) or send it in a private message.

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You should ping Siddow, I don't see her posting on AW much lately, but I've heard her tell an interesting story, maybe two, of 'haunting'.