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I used to live in a house that was haunted...My daughter heard footsteps in the night that woke her up, and my son, who
was three at the time, was running back and forth between his grandmother's room and my room, and he saw something at the
top of the stairs. He screamed really loud which woke us all up. Then there was this one time when I was standing at the top
of the stairs and I was folding blankets, my daughter was downstairs cleaning with her grandma. Well my sister who was helping
me upstairs, walked out of her bedroom to the stairs to talk to my daughter, and I looked up at that time and seen this
man, who had black hair and evil red eyes. My sister walked through him and when she walked through him he grabbed her head
and it came off her shoulders. She didn't feel anything of course, but after he did it he looked at me with this horrible
grin and he put his finger to his lips, as if to tell me to be quiet. We moved out that night. We heard baby crying
and lights would come on for no reason. Someone would touch me while I slept. There were also reports that there was an old
man in the house. Well the reason why I am telling you this is because this was the worst house we ever lived in, and it is
up for sell. My daughter who is Seventeen and heard the footsteps, wants to go see it again. Her friend set up an appointment
to see it, its a realator's house. I wanted to see if these things actually happened or if we let our mind over imagine things.
I read that you guys would look at the house.....and i would hope that you would look at this one before I let my daughter
go there. The house is in Garber, Oklahoma. I will tell you more if you decide to do this house. Thank you very much.
I really cant explain what happened a couple years ago around the years
1992-1995. ever since those years I had a
long list of ghostly things
happening to me. some of them are things that I think I saw, others I know I
saw.
Around 1992 a lot my friends from pennsylvania were always telling me how
the angel of music(from the phantom of the opera)was
going to get me. and they
would always pretend that they could see them and I couldn't. Of course I
did'nt believe.
One day, one of my friends asked for a sign from the angel of
music. She was sitting in a walk-in closet when she did
it, and a necklace that
was sitting on one of the shelves in the closet fell on her. She put it back
on the shelve(not
very carefuly), and in a few minutes it fell again. This time,
she put it on the back of the shelf and put one of those
magic eight balls on
top of it. After another couple minutes both objects fell. She came out crying
and told
everyone what happened. I did'nt believe her. So I asked for a sign
myself and the next day, I was taking a bath.
After I shut the water off, the
sink (which was right across from the tub) turned on by itself. I ran out in the
nude
screaming "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD". To this day I rarely shower in that
bathroom.
The same year I
went home to Ohio (I was visiting in PA). As I kid I watched
inspector gadget, in one of the episodes inspector gadget
said "there are no
such things as ghosts" just then the pantry door flew open and shut (WAY to fast
to be the wind)
and then the dining room light (which was right by the living
room) turned on and off about ten times. I heard the switch
going up and down,
but did not see anyone. To make a long story short...around 1993 my brother made
this star
(which was in a circle) he made it from some kind of vine or something.
Well, two years later he hung it in his room.
He always had the star part pointed
up. but one day it turned upside down on its own. When he put the star back up, he
turned around just to walk away from it then turned around and it was back down
again within at least 4 or 5 seconds.
Because the circle around it was so tangled
up there is no way it could have slid that way.
I have
so much more to tell, but there is too much.I have seen people, doors
being slammed shut, things being turned on, things
lifting up. To this day
things are still happening. I dont know why.
Ghosts of the Civil War
(taken from a newsgroup posting)
As a quasi Civil war buff, I have been to a lot of battlefields. Battlefields and ghost hunting mix nicely.
Gettysburg, in PA, has a reputation for being haunted. Many people I know of have had experiences there. So many men died
and one civilian. Folklore, stemmed from her death. If an unmarried woman put her finger through the bullet hole in the farmhouse
that belonged to the one civilan casuality, then the woman will be married shortly. Here's our experience. We went on the
auto tour, where you buy a tape, pop it into your car radio and it brings you around the town and the park. The tape is alive,
with sounds of battle and music and such. You really get into it. We also had a book that we bought when we bought the tape.
Gettysburg ghosts. At each stop on the tour, we would check things out to listen to the history and see if there was a ghost
sighting there. Little Round Top is a hill. It was the sight of a lot of deaths, during the battle. The book said that people's
watches would stop working when they got near Little Round Top. Flim, would cease to work in cameras and in video. Even professionals
making documentaries, the film would cease. Ok, none of this happened to us. Watches worked and cameras were fine. But the
tape in the radio went whacko. It started talking in another language, sounding suspiciously like German. What the hell? We
thought. But we figured it was part of the tour. Although it didn't make sense. So, we turned the car off and parked and then
walked up lLittle Round Top. Then we got back into the car and drove off. We rewound the tape. No German sounding language
anywhere on the tape. We played the whole tape again, that night in the hotel room. All English. No foreign language. Other
hauntings I know about there: A man who owns a miniture shop, claimed he met up with two solidiers, face to face. Also, whole
groups of men, have been seen still fighting this battle. Andersonville, is down in Georgia. It was the sight of a Civil War
Prison. The stench from all the dead bodies that lay rotting there reached other towns miles away. There is a ghost there,
a ghost of a priest. A smelly ghost, actually. A young student, whom I forget his name, was visiting Andersonville. He was
walking around the small displays (Shabangs) and feeling pity about all the thousands of men that died while in prison there.
Then he decided to go walk down a path and enter into the cemetary. Clara Barton, had a lot to do with this cemetary on the
grounds of andersonville and was instrumental in getting the dead documentated. Anyway, as he is walking, which is a long
walk, but a short drive, he begins to smell a horrible stench. Each step he takes, the stench is getting stronger. He suddenly
spies a figure up ahead. It is a very tall person, wearing all black and he is very thin. The student is leary as he is walking
up to this figure , who has his back turned. The stench is getting stronger and the student feels like puking. He passes the
man and looks up into what appears to be a skeletal face, frozen in a horrific expression. The student notices that the man
is a priest. He asks the man if he is allright. The man doesn't answer and then just disappears, The student did further research
and discovered that this was a real person, a priest, who came to the prison to read last rights. The student later wrote
a book, which is called Battlefield Ghosts. This ghost was mentioned and the book was sold in their gift shop. I quickly skimmed
the book to find any ghosts on the grounds before I walked out to the grounnds. Andersonville, has a very interesting POW
museum on it's grounds. It's fascinating and is actually for FREE. The POW museum covers the Civil War up until The Persian
Gulf. Although the road to get there seemed very long and desolate, the trip was well worth it imo. Williamsburg, VA is loaded
with ghost sightings. The Van Wythe House, has a very oppressed female spirit in there. In the back of The Governors Mansion,
there is a maze. IT is a small maze, nothing cool like The Shining, which was what I was expecting. Anyway, 3 Civil War Soldiers
have been spotted in the maze. Along with a child murderer. He escaped from a mental instution and axed to death a 13 year
old girl next to the maze. His ghost is seen around the maze.
A Ghost in the Crapper
When my wife was a little girl, her family moved into a house in the heart of little Italy somewhere in MD.
Every day at precisely noon the basement toilet seat would SLAM! closed and the toilet would flush. This used to scare the
willies outta her! It went on for some time until the day her father and his friends were busting up the old poured concrete
basement floor to replace it. Under the stairway, just to the right of the toilet they unearthed a complete human skeleton.
Not wishing to involve the police they took the bones to a nice place and buried them. Word from the really old neighbors
was that when they were little, her house was host to an Italian man that loved to gamble, cheat around with married women,
and live life on the edge. They say that one day he and his cronies were gathered in his basement playing cards. For whatever
reason it got ugly and the man was killed, at noon. They dug a hole in the dirt floor of the basement and left. In time the
house was sold and a concrete floor put in. The toilet slamming and flushing was his way of trying to get someone to find
him I guess. Once his bones had been found and given a decent albeit private burial the slamming stopped. He just wanted someone
to know what had happened to him.
THE BELL WITCH
by
Bobette Bryan
One of the most
notorious American ghost stories of all time is the story about the Bell Witch. The Bell Witch wasn't really a witch, but
was a ghost or possibly even a demon. Tennesseans also sometimes refer to her as: "Ol' Kate." This entity plagued the home
of John Bell, a Clarksville, Tennessee cotton plantation owner of the earnly nineteenth century. John and his wife, had moved
to Robertson County Tennessee from North Carolina. The woman whom John Bell bought his farm from, Kate Batts, claimed, to
any and all who would listen, that she had been cheated by Bell, but no one paid attention to her and dismissed her accusations
as mere senile ramblings. Kate Batts then swore that she would get even with John Bell, even if she had to come back from
the grave to so. But whether the entity that stalked and terrorized the Bells for years was Kate Batts is unknown. Personally,
however, I'm more inclined to believe that it was a demon.
Though the problems did start around the time of her
death in 1817, that could be mere coincidence. It began when John Bell was inspecting his rows of corn one day. He saw a bird
that caused him alarm, for the creature had a face with human-like features. As it sit on the fencepost, staring at him, John
shot at the bird, but missed. Unharmed, it flew away. Several days later, he encountered a snarling dog-like creature in the
cornfield, and once again he shot at it, but this time the creature vanished before his very eyes.
The nine Bell
children began seeing odd things as well. There were often sightings of creatures in the woods surrounding the farm and of
a mysterious old woman sometimes wandering through their orchard. Then came the scratching, knocking sounds as if some animal
were trying to burrow through the wall and get inside the house. Yet, when the Bells searched for the animal, they'd find
nothing. Apparently the creature found some means of entrance for eventually the noises moved indoors, and often the family
heard the loud sounds of wings flapping against the ceiling and dogs snarling and growling. These occurances sound more like
a demonic manifestation rather than a typical haunting. The old saying is that you should never answer the door after three
knocks, least you invite the Devil into your house. Could the Bell's have unwittingly done this?
When word of
the haunting got around no one could understand why such a foul entity would pester such a devout, religious family. Among
those who wanted to aid the family in this crisis was General Andrew Jackson, who had masterminded the stirring victory at
the Battle of New Orleans in 1812, and later became the seventh President of the United States. When he heard about how the
ghost was tormenting the Bell family, he decided that a visit to John, his long time friend, was in order.
The
trouble began as soon as his army wagon drew near, for his horses stood dead in their tracks, refusing to budge an inch even
when the driver shouted and ferociously whipped them. The horses reportedly strained and pulled, attempting to move forward,
but to no avail. It was as if some invisble force held them at bay.
When a voice echoed from somewhere in the
darkness, "Go on, old General," the horses suddenly moved again. This convinced Jackson that there really was a terrible entity
residing on the Bell property. "By the eternal, Boys!" he proclaimed to his men. "It is the witch!"
Nevertheless,
Jackson's determination to learn more about the spectre didn't falter, and he and his entourage spent the night at the Bell
home.
They were not disappointed! Betsy Bell screamed all night from the pinching and slapping she received from
the ghost, and Jackson's covers were ripped off as quickly as he could put them back on. His entire party had similar experiences,
being slapped, pinched, and poked by the ghost throughout the night. Unsurprisingly, by the time morning arrived, Jackson
and his men were ready to hightail it out of there. Years later, after Jackson had taken office, he said: "I saw nothing,
but I heard enough to convince me that I would rather fight the British than to deal with this torment they call the Bell
Witch!"
Shortly after Jackson left the home, the supernatural activitiy within the Bell house intensified. The
commotion rapidly worsed, and the knocking and rapping was incessant, so violent that it broke windows and shook walls. The
roof of the place was pelted with what sounded like stones, but these projectiles were invisible. The family even heard heavy,
invisible chains being dragged across the wooden floors.
Even worse were the attacks on the children who were
chased from their beds by the fearful noise of scratching, gnawing. One night Richard Bell's hair was harshly grabbed by an
invisible hand and yanked so harshly that the boy was pulled from the comfort of his bed. This mode of attack became common
place in the Belle household. Often Betsy was the victim.
When neighbor Jim Jones, a self-proclaimed exorcist
heard about the haunting, he too went to the Bell Manor to see if he could help. After he performed an exorcism, the nightmare
stopped for a little while, but all too soon, the spirit returned with a vengeance.
Again, it targeted the children...seeming
to focus on Betsy... pulling little Betsy's hair and slapping her cheeks until they bleed. Desperate, John and his wife decided
to send the girl to a neighbor's home to spend the night, but the spirit followed her there, and continued the attack.
Soon,
the girl's health suffered from the abuse. As the months passed, she grew weaker and weaker, having fainting spellls and difficulty
breathing, the common affects of anxiety. It was around this time that the spirit started speaking, making its voice heard
to all the members of the family in clear and understandable words. Maybe the entity had learned the language in the months
it had haunted the family or maybe it had somehow summoned more power.
The spirit's desire to speak became more
profound as the the days passed, and it began to recite verses from the bible, or it would utter ghastly threats. Often, it
would laugh maniacially over it's many foul actions.
Skeptics believed that it was 12 year old Betsy herself who
was responsible for the haunting, claiming that she was using sleight of hand, ventriloquism, and other tricks in order to
attract attention. But this theory was quickly ruled out when a doctor came to stay the night at the house. When the ghost
starting spewing its horrible curses, he tightly covered Betsy's mouth...while the witch continued to cackle and taunt him.
Betsy wasn't even in the room the night that William Porter, another neighbor who tried to help the family, stayed overnight.
As porter lay sleeping, the covers were ripped from his body and wrapped into a ball. The man bolted upright,
grabbing the ball of quilting, which he intended to toss it into the fireplace, but the blanket was unusually heavy when he
lifted it. While he stood there wondering what to do, a foul order permeated the air, which became so strong that he was forced
to flee the room. When he returned there a few minutes later, the room was back to normal, and the ghost was gone.
Another
neighbor, Frank Miles, a rather large, stout fellow, also wanted to help. He came to the Bell house with the full intention
of volunteering to crush the Witch in his powerful grip. As he spent the night at the Bell home waiting for the opportunity
to give the ghost the thrashing it deserved, the sheets were yanked off him. He quickly learned that he was no match for the
strength of the spirit that struck him in the face and on the head. Later he claimed that they were some of the most powerful
blows he had ever taken.
Even the Bells' slaves got a taste of the ghost's wickedness. It would periodically flog
them.
However, the spirit wasn't always wicked to everyone. The ghost actually appeared to like Mrs. Bell and
would sometimes sing to her or do household chores to help her out. It seemed like the spirit's attack on Betsy and John remained
the ghost's primary focus. And it almost seemed as if the ghost was jealous of Betsy and wanted to ruin her life.
Soon
Betsy grew into a beautiful young woman and had fallen madly in love with a fine young schoolteacher, Joshua Gardner. And
though this match had pleased both families when the engagement was announced, the witch wasn't too happy about this turn
of events! It promised Betsy that if she married Josh Gardner, she would never know a moment's peace and would be pinched
and slapped until she bled. Terrified, Betsy broke-off the engagement.
It seemed that the witch was also determined
to destroy Betsy's father.
John Bell's tongue would often become so thick and swollen that he couldn't eat or
talk for hours at a time, and he developed an uncontrollable facial twitch, that was sometimes so severe that he'd be forced
to stay in bed for days. In his last days as he tried to gain some strength by walking around his yard, but the Witch would
wage an attack on him, knocking his shoes off his feet and knocking him to the ground.
His son, John Jr., would
tie the shoes as tightly as possible, but that didn't deter the Witch. In fits of rage, it would beat him so terribly that
he required a doctor. The doctor prescribed a potion and left, while John Jr. took to his bed, the same time that John Sr.
got violently ill.
When the doctor arrived, again, he called for the medicine bottle that he had left for John
Jr., but it was missing, and in its place was a thick, dark liquid that would defy analysis. As the Bell's studied the liquid,
the witch laughed frantically and said that it had placed it there.
On December 19, 1820, John's family feared
the end was near when they found him in a stupor bordering on a coma. As they stood around the bed, the ghost informed them
that it had fed John some poison, and it added, "Old Jack Bell will never get out of his bed again!"
The next
morning, John was dead in his bed.
But the ghost wouldn't leave well enough alone. It even cursed and sang profane
songs during John's funeral.
Strangely, however, after John was dead and Betsy's future happiness ruined, the
witch announced to the family that it was going to leave, but would return in seven years.
As promised, it returned
in 1828, making a racket like before, but its visit was uneventful, maybe because only Lucy and two of her sons lived there.
However, the Bell Witch wasn't finished with the Bell family yet, and it promised to return in 107 years, sometime in 1935,
to bother the Bell descendants. Whether that promise was kept, no one really knows. However, in the area where the Bell Witch
once haunted the family, visitors claim that they can still feel a foul presence. And perhaps they're right. I pity you if
your last name is Bell. There could be a nasty ghost or demon out there looking for you. My advice would be to stay away from
Tennessee.
-The End-
thanx to Underworld Classics
RESURRECTION MARY
One cold Winter night in the early 1930's, a young girl was killed in an accident coming home
from the O. Henry Ball room on Archer Avenue in Justice. The legends say that she had a fight with her date and instead of
accepting his offer for a ride home, she decided to walk instead. Tragically, she never arrived home that night. The stories
go on to say that she was buried in Resurrection Cemetery and there she was supposed to rest in peace.
Mary stayed
in her grave for the next five years, but in 1939 a cab driver picked up a young girl on Archer Avenue wearing a white gown.
It was a snowy January night, but the girl was not wearing a coat. She jumped in the front door of the cab and sat by the
driver. She gave him instructions to get her home, saying that he needed to go north on Archer. Suddenly, she told him to
stop and the driver looked out the window to where she had pointed. He turned back to the passenger seat and saw that the
girl had vanished. . .and the door had never opened. The cab was directly in front of Resurrection Cemetery.
Many young
men even claim to have picked her up and taken her dancing with them. Some very reliable witnesses say they have kissed her
and found her lips chilled with cold. As they take her home, she always disappears when they reach Resurrection Cemetery.
One of the most reliable witnesses was a man named Jerry Palus,. One night, Palus asked an attractive young blond to dance
with him. They spent most of the night together although she reportedly talked very little and her skin was cold to the
touch. Later, he asked to take her home and she gave him an address in the Bridgeport area of Chicago, first asking Palus
to take her down Archer Avenue. As they approached the gates of Resurrection Cemetery, she asked Palus to stop and pull over...
she informed him that she had to cross the road but he could not follow. Before Jerry could react she was out of the
car and running across the street. She vanished before she reached the gates.....
Palus maintained the truth of the story
for the remainder of his life, having no reason to lie about the strange encounter. He was questioned many times in interviews
and even appeared on the television program UNSOLVED MYSTERIES before his death.
One night in 1977, a passing motorist
saw Mary holding onto the bars of the cemetery gate. He called the police, thinking a girl was trapped inside of the locked
cemetery. Investigators found no one inside when they arrived but two of the bars in the gate were bent apart and small hand
prints were etched into the iron. Supervisors at the cemetery had the sections of the gate cut out to keep the curiosity seekers
away. They were embarrassed into welding them back into place a year later. Between the time they were removed and then replaced,
the bars were analyzed by a lab for trickery. It was determined that on one would have made those hand prints without applying
extremely high amounts of heat. The indention can still be seen in the gate today
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