The day I got scared almost to death (1 Viewer)

[Scott Hayes]

Before I tell you about this experiance I want to make something clear. I am not a huge believer in the supernatural. Not to say things like that cant exist, I just believe 99.9 percent of it can be explaine by nature or psychology.

A few years ago some friends of mine asked me to babysit their kids for a night. The kids were 13 and 10 years old.

The parents gave me this story about how wierd things happen in the house, lights turning on and off by themselves, the toilet flushing all by itself. Earl (the husband) said the house was old and that explained alot of the odd occurances but his wife Tanya was adamint that the house was haunted.

After they left and I sent the kids to bed I was watching tv when the toilet started flushing rapidly over and over. I jiggled the handle but it didnt help so I shut the water off to the toilet and that solved the problem.

I go back to watching tv and sure enough the power in the house cut out three or four times in rapid succesion, but then was fine.

It was late around 1 in the morning. I am not a huge believer in the supernatural so I dint think too much about it. (Also I work nights so I usually am up till 6 or 7 in the morning, I did not fall asleep.) But then something big happened. The room wich had the washer and dryer in it was an addition to the house. nothing more than a large clost really. No windows or outside access other than the dryer vent. While I was watching tv I heard people talking in that room. Thinking the kids were fooling around I snuck up to the door thinking I would scare the shit out of them. I turned on the light and yelled really loud but there was no one in there. All of a sudden out of the corner of the room a voice said "Hey you come hear". I heard it plain as day. There was no one there and there was no place to hide. I even looked to see if the kids were hiding in the washer and drier but they were not.

Thinking they went outside or that it was wind blowing in the vent (wind can make some wierd noises sometimes when blowing thru small openings) I went outside and circled the house but there was no one around and no wind.

All of a sudden I can hear the kids screaming at the top of there lungs from their bedroom on the second floor. I rush upstairs as they are rushing down stairs. They were almost incoherant, said someone was in there bedroom. I grabbed a bat and went into the room but there was no one there but I could hear people whispering really loud. It was like a thousand people whispering at once. I couldnt make out individual voices. No one was in there and the kids radio was not on. I even unplugged it to make sure.

The kids were a mess, crying and refusing to go back upstairs. So I called their parents and had to have them come home to take care of thier kids. I told them the story of what happened and they were understanding. Tanya said similar things had happened to her in the house but nothing quite as dramatic.

Now, Ive got to say, Ive been in some pretty messed up situations before so I am not easily given over to fear but when I went into that bedroom the hair stood up on the back of my neck I could feel someone in there. I am not saying someone was in there just that it felt like it. The human mind does strange things when it is under pressure, so i am not ruling that out but it was definitly a strange experiance.

Anybody have anything similar or theories as to what could have happened. To this day it makes me shiver when I recount the tale because it was a scary experiance but like I said at the beginning I am unwilling to say it was supernatural.

 

[Bill Catherall]

Kind of makes you wish you brought along a photon excellerator and a ghost trap, eh?
Well I do believe in the supernatural and I've only had one really weird experience. I was in my apartment and felt a "presence" that I'd never felt before. Kind of a cold chilly feeling. But the weirdest thing was that I could almost detect its movements with some kind of a "6th sense." I couldn't see, feel, hear, smell, or taste anything. Just a sense of something moving that was not what I'd call "earthly."
But even though I didn't see anything, my girl friend (now my wife) was with me at the time and she saw it. She described it as a dark shadow, no really defined shape or form...just a shadow.
We high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could go and had an eery feeling of being followed until we were in the company of other people. Weirdest thing I've ever experienced! Nothing else ever happened again in that apartment. Just the one time.
My wife says that she lived in a haunted house for a few months (in New Mexico) when she was a kid. Her brother saw the ghost a couple of times. He couldn't have been faking it because she remembers how scared he was. They also had rocking chairs that would move by themselves. Toys, shoes, other ordinary items would go missing for a while then reappear where they had been before. Sometimes they'd hear noises. They moved out after they couldn't take it anymore.
My sister also claims to have lived in a haunted apartment in Berkeley. And another sister says she taught school in a haunted classroom.
What I'm interested to know is...what were the ghosts talking about when you could hear their conversation? Any ectoplasmic residue?

 

[Brian Kissinger]

I'm neither going to say yea or nea, but simply say that I have been witness to some very strange phenomenon in my life as well. At an old house we lived in, we heard banging, and breaking and other LOUD noises upstairs(even though it was shutoff, and we never used it). We would go up there asuming the wind or a bird or whatever had broken a window, but there was never anything there. My bed was adjacent to the closed door to the stairway, and sometimes at night I would hear footsteps coming down the stairs. And sometimes it sounded like a marble or something bouncing down the steps. Needless to say, I never slept well on those nights. I never experienced anything as extreme as you, but know where you're coming from.

 

[Jack Briggs]

"The human mind does strange things when it is under pressure, so i am not ruling that out..."

Well, that is good. A basic rule in skeptical thought is that when a simple, mundane answer to a question can suffice, it is probably the correct answer.

When a person gets tensed out and experiences the creeps, the imagination kicks into overdrive; you start hearing and seeing things that simply are not there.

Eventually, when our minds evolve to the level required, we will be able to explain everything.

 

[Scott Hayes]

I saw an interesting show on TLC about the earths magnatism and how it affects humans. A scientist (I cant remember wich university) put test subjects in a sealed chamber with all of their scences blocked. While they were unable to see hear smell or touch they were hit with strong magnatism. All of them reported feeling someone in the room. Some said they saw strang lights or shadows and heard odd noises.

That being said I think science can explain alot of the strange things that happen to us, but not all of it. If I ever go in that house again I am bringing a crucifix and a priest.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I've decided I am going to spend my afterlife haunting my home theater.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Recommended reading: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by the late, great Dr. Carl Sagan.

 

[Scott Hayes]

Jack,

You are absolutly right. There is probably a rational scientific explanation to what happened to me or other people in those type of situations, chances are there is something going on that cant be explained with our limited scientific understanding. I think sometimes we humans love to jump at the implossible before the rational because it makes life more interesting.

I tell you what though standing in that room with all of those voices whispiring all around me was the most surreal experiance I have ever had. I try to be as rational a person as possible. I'll admit with the kids screaming and crying like they were and with all of the other strange experiances before hand had my heart racing and the adrenaline was surging. But I've been in highly charged situations before. I've learned thru experiance not to give in to it. My first thought was that someone had snuck in the house or that the kids had turned on a radio with out realizing it but when those explanations didnt pan out and the voices were as loud as ever it was just too freaky.

When Earl and his wife got home we searched for an explanation but there was nothing that we could find. Not to say there wasnt an explanation. It was just too strange.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Hey, Scott: I hear voices surrounding me often when I fire up my home-theater system!
Actually, your little story is a fun read, and I would love to have been there on the premises when the events happened.
I once had an editor who, by all indications, was a quite rational woman. But she too claimed to live in a haunted house. Some of the stories she would tell--and which she surely believed--would make your hair stand on end.
Yet, even though I considered her a bright woman, I never once believed that she lived among noncorporeal spirits. Most likely, she lived on top of an uneven foundation; that old farm house of hers was probably settling into the ground in a big way.

 

[brentl]

" went into that bedroom the hair stood up on the back of my neck"

Same thing happened to me just now!

Brent

 

[Scott Hayes]

Deep down inside I have always suspected it had something to due with the wind or electrical wiring of that house. But to admit that I would have to admit I was scared of nothing, which I am still too macho to admit too

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Would have been a good time to have a battery-operated tape recorder running. Makes for a great story, though.

 

[Paul Richardson]

I always thought that it would be an interesting experiment to take an old Victorian mansion and have test subjects spend the night there. One group would be told nothing about the mansion. Another group would be told that the mansion was haunted with an elaborate story about something that happened "this very night exactly 100 years ago." Then, simply see what happens with each group.

 

[Scott Hayes]

My dad said the same thing. Would it have happened if I hadnt been told the house could be haunted? It is hard to say. Earl didnt believe the house was haunted and made fun of his wife because she believed it. I certanly didnt believe it at first and a small part of me still doesnt, but its hard to say that when you are in the middle of the situation and youve got that cold sweat running down your forhead.

 

[Kevin P]

While I'm a bit of a skeptic and have never experienced anything supernatural (that I know of), I've heard/read/watched enough stories to be a believer. A believer in what, I don't know. But I believe that hauntings can and do occur. No one knows how, or why, but it does.

The reason I posted this message is because just this past weekend I watched a couple of shows on the Travel Channel about haunted places. I wouldn't be surprised if they rerun these shows from time to time, maybe you can give them a watch and see if it's similar to your experiences. I read lots of ghost stories and a lot of your experiences (voices, noises, things moving, lights blinking) are commonly seen in hauntings. That plus the fact that the family living there has mentioned that strange things have been going on further proves that SOMETHING is going on over there.

No one really knows what, yet.

KJP

 

[Ike]

Sound is a weird thing. Where I live, you can hear walkie-talkies from a long way off, real loud. Sitting in your house, and hearing a walkie talkie is really scary the first time.

There's an explanation for most things, and you aren't logically thinking late in the morning, in a scary room, in a house you've been told was haunted, with electrical problems. Jack's right. Occam's Razor should be used in situations such as this.

 

[SteveGon]

I'm neither going to say yea or nea, but simply say that I have been witness to some very strange phenomenon in my life as well.

Yes, you certainly have!
Jack, good call on The Demon-Haunted World - excellent book!
Personally, I think it'd be kind of cool to live in a haunted house! However, I'm much too skeptical to believe in that sort of thing...

 

[Bill Catherall]

Eventually, when our minds evolve to the level required, we will be able to explain everything.

Exactly! There is so much about the world/universe we live in that we don't understand. That's why I say I believe in the supernatural. Basically to me, supernatural events are things that happen in which our current scientific understanding can't explain. Perhaps our feeble minds can't even comprehend it. It's like believing in magic. We've all seen magicians and we've all been tricked by their performances. But they aren't doing anything that can't be explained by science...even science we currently know.
On the one hand science teaches us that humans have evolved from lower life forms and that our basic nature isn't much different from the animals. We're just a mere speck. Yet on the other hand some scientists seem to have a human-centric attitude that we are smart enough and capable enough to understand everything...thus completely different than our not so distant cousins, the animals. We can know all and even control or destroy all. I find that laughable.
One thing that scientific history has taught me is that humans will always be wrong. Almost every single theory ever promoted by science has been modified or changed because people have found it to be false or incomplete. I only wonder what we will find out to be wrong tomorrow that we believe to be true today.
There is an explanation for everything. Even a good scientific explanation. But some things require better understanding of scientific principals we just haven't got a clue about. What may seem like magic to some is chemistry or physics or psychology to someone else. So don't feel ashamed to admit you believe in the supernatural...you're just admiting that you can't explain what you saw/heard/felt and that, currently, science can't do it either.
Edited to add:
There's another thread in this very forum that asks people if they believe in life on other planets...Well, do you believe in unseen life on this planet? If not, why? There's no difference to me. To admit that there's a possibility of life on other planets...intelligent life...then you must also admit to the possibility of some kind of unseen life, or life existing in alternate dimensions.

 

[Chuck C]

man, reading Scott's post, I was thinking that stupid goul was gonna come out of the page like that pitcure of the room and doorway. If it had, I would be dead of a M.I.

 

[Julie K]

On the one hand science teaches us that humans have evolved from lower life forms and that our basic nature isn't much different from the animals. We're just a mere speck.

Heh heh, time to plug a favorite author:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
Stuff like this is what scares me late at night
While science certainly develops new models (which is the great strength of the scientific method - a rigid science is no good! I'm constantly amazed when people criticize science for developing new models of the universe!) and old models are found incomplete or incorrect, I think it's quite a stretch to say anything we can't completely explain with current models is 'supernatural.' These sorts of stories are far better and easily explained by human fears, power of suggestion, and mechanical malfunctions than by forces unexplained to science.