When I a) realize I'm getting tired or b) realize the time and need to get to bed, I shut down the computer, TV and living room light to head off to slumber. I'm fairly night-blind once the light goes off, but thankfully there is some residual light that comes from the street through our living room window.
So after lights out, I feel my way down the hallway. I make a quick stop in the restroom, blind myself again when that light goes off, and shuffle into the bedroom. Once there, I close the bedroom door far enough to leave a finger-width opening so the dog can paw open the door when he needs a drink or the cat can push her way in to join us on the bed (or wake us in the morning!)
Once in the bedroom, there's enough residual light between the cracks in the curtains and the digital alarm clock to find my way to bed, fit my CPAP mask (with the machine adding a little more light when it is turned on), plug in my earplugs, give the dog and husband a goodnight pat and settle in for the night.
OK, it's pretty boring and possibly more than you really wanted to know. The point is that it is a routine and doesn't change. When something is different, it is noticed.
Sometimes, I get a chill that sends the hair on the back of neck standing on edge. Another time, the hallway is a little darker than normal. Occasionally, I get a little creeped out before turning on the bathroom light to see there's nothing there but me and the bathroom.
Most of this can be attributed to a couple of different things: 1. I like horror movies and TV shows, 2. I do some late-night research on monsters and creepy legends, 3. humans have a primal fear of the dark and things that go bump in the night.
Not everything can be explained away that easily.
Everyone in our house has seen a human-size figure pass by out of the corner our eyes. Our roommate's bird, who normally doesn't make a sound unless he hears or sees someone nearby, will start making a racket when no one has gone downstairs. The 18-year-old cat sits in places Morningstar would lay and caterwaul, as if mourning his passing. Jack has stared at a space under the dresser and barked his head off - unusual because he's not a barker and the space was a favorite hiding space for my well-loved cat. I will occasionally toe-bump a lump pushing out the bed skirt and hear a small mew. Strange? No, unless the only cat we have is sleeping in the living room. Also, she's not one to lie half hidden by the bed skirt. That was Morningstar's hiding place.
One night, I left the cat snoozing on the couch and headed toward bed. I followed my nightly routine, closing the bedroom door behind me and preparing to settle in. Sitting on the bed, I could hear the twin snoring of dog and husband. After I fitted my mask and plugs, I picked up the dog so I wouldn't kick him off the bed when I laid down. He moved off my chest and settled back into his state of ragdogness between me and my husband. I don't think he even woke up!
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| Not my bedroom... just setting the scene. Photo from ticket-to-deepness.blogspot.com |
That's when things got a little strange. I could see light coming from the direction of the living room - the bedroom door had apparently come open. This is not unusual because the door will sometimes open a little due to a draft, but this time the door was open the whole way.
I can also fully see the digital face of the alarm clock from where I lay. Every couple of minutes, the numbers disappear as if something is passing in front of the clock. It is quick; they are only gone for a second. At this point I am fully awake with no desire to sleep - only to watch. I can feel that primal fear and try to push it down, all the while chanting in my head, "Close the door and go away. Close the door and go away."
My husband rolls over, shifting his snore. The dog spreads out to claim the new open territory. I can hear that Zippy is awake, now caterwauling in the hallway.
The shadow figure passes in front of the clock a couple more times, pacing a total of six times before the numbers stay visible. I do a quick check of my blind spot - I find it, but not in the position I was laying and looking at the clock. I can feel a cold spot to my right, beside the bed. Looking toward the ceiling and the patch of dim light cast by my CPAP machine, I notice that it is partially obstructed, but not by a static shape.
I can see that the door is still open, by the dim light cast from the living room window. As I watch, it starts to close again. As that patch of light narrows, the area of luminescence on the ceiling grows to its normal size.
Zipity caterwauls one last time from the kitchen and all is back to normal. That primal fear creeps back to its lair, deep in the recesses of my mind. The whole experience lasted about twenty minutes.
Despite the primal fear of things unknown, I felt that there wasn't anything that could hurt me. I didn't feel endangered. Mostly, I was in awe. It's been a long time since I've had anything like this happen to me. I'm out of practice. I'm no longer used to it. I was caught off-guard.
I'm no stranger to the paranormal. The supernatural has always been a great interest of mine. I believe in many things that haven't been proven real. I also believe that many of those things have not yet been disproven. Of those things I have seen, I can't say how many were honest-to-goodness experiences compared to those few that may have been trumped up by an overactive imagination. I do not have physical evidence to share; I have only my memories. Those I share here are the clearest.
I grew up in a haunted house. Our home had been around since the mid 1800's. It has plenty of history, has most likely seen the Civil War, and has been home to many families. It has been a farm, apartments and a Bed and Breakfast. My parents still live there and do not wish for it to become a hot spot for paranormal investigators. In my own opinion, there are better places to find proof. To my knowledge, there haven't been any record-worthy incidents in the since I left home.
We had a guardian spirit.
At some point in its history, our house was home to a farmer. We aren't sure of the full story, but one record suggests he was killed in an accident not far from the property. My guess is that he loved his land enough to watch over it in the afterlife. We've always called him Joe, though we've since learned the two owners were separate people.
Originally, the five-acre farm consisted of a large two-story barn, a carriage house and the old two-story farm house. People have reported seeing a figure watching them from a window in the upper part of the barn. Whether a reflection or a spirit, no one knows for sure.
Shortly after my parents took possession of the property, that barn was destroyed in a wind storm. Anything that was light enough, i.e. the tin roof and some of the boards, was blown toward the residence. The only thing that stopped them from doing any damage was the clothes line set up in the yard between the house and barn.
By the time I came along in '75, there was a smaller barn for the goats and later, the sheep. The large barn and carriage house had come down. The foundation of the barn would be used for pigs. A small hen house had been erected and a summer house turned garage stood next to the house.
In the twenty years I lived there, I can't recall ever hearing strange noises. Things weren't moved around and there was no poltergeist activity. Aside from a couple of times that will not be discussed tonight, I never really felt in danger. The only areas of the house I didn't like going to were the basement (spiders) and the attic (it was very creepy). Otherwise, my childhood home was a safe haven.
My first memory of seeing anything strange was a figure crouched behind my parents' bedroom door. I couldn't have been more than five or six years old. I think I may have been playing hide and seek. Because someone was there (I felt no danger), I went to find a different hiding spot. By the time I was found, my mind had moved on to other things and I never told anyone about the person I saw.
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| My childhood home, today. |
The most sightings I can recall were between 1984 and 1989.
During that time, my mother was a teacher at the Franciscan high school my brother attended. Most of the teachers were the priests who lived on-campus. In an effort to help them get some time off-campus, some of the staff meetings were held at lay teachers' homes. Our home was large, so it was ideal for some of these meetings.
A couple of the most notable sightings of Joe were by these teachers and men-of-the-cloth. Several teachers had been asking who the new teacher was. They had seen a man wearing glasses, black pants and a white shirt standing on the upstairs balcony. Mom had to change pace and explain about Joe and how he was seen around the property.
I saw him again in either '88 or '89, but I can't say for sure. It was a clear and beautiful day. I know I hadn't reached high school, because I hadn't moved into my brother's room over the garage, yet. I still had the room we shared until he hit high school. There was a window facing the barnyard and another facing the road.
One day I stayed home from school, sick. I don't know what prompted me to look outside. Maybe something just caught my attention, maybe I heard a noise. I looked out to see the goats and sheep had broken through a gate near the barn and were moving into the yard. I turned away from the window to try and figure out what to do. When I turned back, there was a man wearing glasses, a white shirt and black pants putting the gate back on its hinges. Once he herded the animals back into the pasture and closed the gate, he turned, looked up and waved directly at me. It was as if he knew I would be at the window looking at him. He then walked across the yard toward the road.
By the time I crossed my room, maybe eight feet from window to window, the man was gone from view. There was no trace of a vehicle or of him walking down the road. By the time I crossed the room, he shouldn't have even made it to the road. And he was gone.
I told my mom about it a few years later. Even though she knew about him, how could I tell her a flesh-and-blood man fixed the gate then disappeared into thin air? Needless to say, she believed me and said it must have been Joe.
I don't know of any other physical manifestations from Joe since that time. I have seen other apparitions around the house, though.
We had two dogs while I was growing up. One, my brother's, was a Dalmatian named Nipper. Every year, I would visit my grandparents in Hornell, New York and every year when I got home, Nipper would curl up beside the foot of my bed and spend the night beside me. The last time I visited my grandparents was also the year after Nipper passed. I came home like normal and went to bed that night. I woke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. There, sleeping in a pool of moonlight beside the foot of my bed, was Nipper, taking his post as he had for so many years. He was still there when I returned from the bathroom. He didn't move and I didn't dare touch him. I went back to sleep knowing my sentinel was protecting me.
The other animal spirit at my parents' home is more easily observed than physically seen. When our poodle, Ani, passed, we spread her ashes around the pond my parents had dug in the pasture when the goats and sheep were gone. Their home was a favorite of hers. Even when her little body was filled with cancer, she would get excited when we arrived and would leap out of the car to run down to the pond. Before greeting anyone else, Ani would run around the pond a couple of times. This was the most exercise she would ever voluntarily take.
The first time she visited, she even explored the edge of the pond, finding one particular spot where she could get close enough to inspect the water. The poor puppy got too close and fell right in! She got out safely, but never needed to get a close up look at the pond or koi living in it again.
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| Looking across the pond. Both dogs fell in just to the left of the long grass. Photo taken by J. Wachhaus. |
Jack, our Shih Tzu mix, followed Ani into our lives. Jon has told me of his dream in which Ani was playing in a meadow as if to say it was OK to take in another dog. Shortly after, Jon decided to visit the local animal shelter and found Jack. Out of all the dogs barking to get his attention, this one just sat staring at Jon, as if to say he took long enough to get there. The two went into one of the play rooms and the pup peed on him - another good sign, as good choice dogs in his past had done the same.
Jon came home to consider the decision he needed to make. He had another dream of Ani, this time playing with the new dog. He took this as a sign that she approved. Jon told me about the experience and we decided to go pick him up.
Jack adjusted well to the family. During his first visit to the farm, we took him down to the pond to run around. He inspected the edge just as Ani had done and fell (maybe got pushed?) in at the exact spot she had done. Afterward, he started running around the pond, looking over his shoulder as if he was playing with another dog. We believe he plays with Ani every time we visit the pond.
I've had several other experiences outside my home that are worth mentioning.
During a time after high school when I felt more in touch with my spiritual self than ever before, I was driving with several friends. During that night, I saw a male figure in the rear view mirror, sitting between the two girls in the back seat. He stayed with us for a good portion of the ride, but was gone by the time we reached our destination. I was the only other male in the car.
You may have also heard stories of hitchhiking ghosts. While I've never witnessed one of these and I don't think the one I just mentioned counts, I have seen what I call "runners". These are similar to those shadow people we see out of the corner of our eyes; those dark figures slightly blacker than the shadows of the room. These runners are out as a warning to drivers. I have seen them during the day, but mostly at night. They tend to remain on back roads and move across the road in front of the car. I suppose their purpose is to slow the car down to a safe speed. It's almost as if they want to get hit, only to disappear by the time they reach the opposite side of the road.
My final story is of another guardian. This one would watch over me when I lived in the Scranton area.
I was living in a house owned by my fiance's grandparents. They lived downstairs while I had the second floor. My apartment consisted of four rooms. Coming up the stairs, the kitchen was at the back of the house, the living room in the middle and the bedroom at the front. A long hallway ran beside the stairwell connecting all three. The bathroom was at the front of the house on the right, behind the stairs.
I give you the layout so you can understand what I heard at night. It was disconcerting at first, but after my fiancee explained what was going on, it became comforting.
Most nights, though not every one, I would hear footsteps in the hallway. They would start by the kitchen and work their way down the hallway, pausing at the living room and again at my bedroom door. The first couple of times, I would stay in my bed and stare at the door. I like to sleep with my door closed. I think I would have been more scared if the door opened, but it never did. After the pause by my door, the footsteps would head back to the kitchen. This would only happen once during the nights when it did happen.
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| The Scranton house. Picture from Google Earth |
The house had been previously owned by my fiance's great grandparents. The bedrooms were all originally on the second floor, where I lived. The largest room, the kitchen, was presumably the master bedroom. Every night, her great grandmother would check the childrens' bedrooms to make sure they were safe in bed. I took comfort that she still had her ritual and was making sure I was safe and sound in my bed.
There are some crazy horror stories out there. I take heed when I hear them or tell my own as cautionary tales. My stories tonight are only of those spirits I never felt threatened by. While I know there are harmful ghosts out there, I believe there are more that watch over us protectively, both human and animal. They may not make their presence known all the time, but when they do, thank them for watching over you.
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