My Experiences with the Supernatural

Diagram of the house and basement

      My experiences with the supernatural began in either the fall of 1979 or spring of 1980 when I was in kindergarden. I had my first nightmare. In it, I was in bed, and our dog came in wanting to be let out. I sat up in bed and swung my legs over the side to put on my slippers when I heard a buzzing sound (like an electric razor) coming from behind me on the other side of the room. Before I could turn around to see what was causing the noise, I felt something stabbing me in the back. The feeling then stopped, and I turned around to see a plug from one of the lamps plugging itself back into the outlet. It was dripping blood.

      I then woke up, but the next day, the dream seemed so real, especially when my mom found two marks in the middle of my back.

      Not long after that, I had the first of many encounters in that house.

      At the time, my dad was working the night shift at the company he worked for, and my brother and I would take turns getting to sleep in the "big bed" with Mom.

      On one of the nights when it was my turn, I was lying on my back in the bed. Mom was in the bathroom down the hall with the door closed. As I layed there, I saw a woman in a long white dress enter the room. She passed the foot of the bed, walked through the dresser, and disappeared into the wall. I layed there in confusion. I know that cars driving south along the road outside made light come in the window. The light shined into the room covers only part of the path that I saw the woman take. Also, a car making the light "move" in the room like that would have had to have been moving at high speed in reverse. A couple minutes after the woman disappeared, my mom returned from the bathroom.

      The next encounter occurred in me and my brother's bedroom. The two of us, at the time, shared a full size bed. I slept on the side next to the door, and I was able to see the corner section of the hallway. One night, I woke up. I was lying there, fully awake, when I saw a figure walk from towards my parents' room towards the kitchen. It looked like a bright blue silouette of a man. I didn't hear any footsteps. I few minutes later, I saw it go back past in the opposite direction. Again, I didn't hear any footsteps.

      Shortly after that, my family and I had just gone to be one night, when I heard a noise from downstairs in the basement. It was my Winnie the Pooh go-cart. I recognized it almost immediately as it made a loud racket when ridden on the cement part of the basement floor. It sounded as though somebody was riding it back and forth from one end of the basement to the other. My brother was still in bed, and Mom and Dad were in their room.

      One weekend after that incident, I went to bed while my parents and brother stayed up to watch TV. I'd left the door open and layed down on top of the sheets due to the summer heat. I was on my back with my eyes closed. I then felt a tickling on the bottoms of my feet. Thinking it was our dog, I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked down at my feet. Nothing was there, but the tickling continued. I bolted out of the room and didn't go back until everybody else went to bed.

      During the fall of 1980, I was in bed at about 9pm. During school nights, I had to go to bed early, and my brother stayed up with my parents so that I would be alone and could get to sleep. The door to the room was always closed until everybody else went to bed so that the noise from the TV wouldn't bother me.

      On this particular night, I was lying on my stomach. I had the sheets up to my shoulders. Suddenly, my sheets began to be pulled off me towards the foot of the bed. I grabbed the sheets and pulled them up over my head and soon found myself in a tug-of-war with whatever was pulling my sheets. The pulling stopped after a couple of minutes, and I fell asleep with the sheets pulled up over my head.

      On another school night not long after that, I went to bed and had the sheets up over my head. A few minutes later, I felt like the bed was being tilted around. Suddenly, I found myself having to grab the sheets on the mattress to keep from falling out of bed. I then lifted the side of the sheet on me to look out and see what was going on. Instead of looking at the wall, I was looking at the floor. After a while, the bed settled to the floor, and I managed to go to sleep.

      In the fall of 1982, I had an encounter that would repeat itself many times over the years. I was sitting at the kitchen table working on some homework. I heard a bang on the kitchen door leading out to the garage. I looked up, and at the window, I saw a black figure standing there. There was no physical characteristics to it other than it was a black human-shaped shadow form. It was there for a couple seconds, and then it ducked down and disappeared. I then slowly went over to the door and looked into the garage. The overhead door was closed. The back door was closed and locked. I couldn't see the attic door, but if any human or animal had gone up into the attic, I would have heard it going over the kitchen.

      That following winter, my brother had a scare in our bedroom. He had gone into the room to go to bed just before me. My parents and I were down the hall in the TV room. The next thing that happened was he started screaming. We went running in. He said that he had been on the bed and he heard the bell on our Fisher Price schoolhouse start to ring rapidly inside the closet. Dad opened the closet. Nobody was inside. Nothing had fallen onto the schoolhouse.

      Later that winter, I was in the TV room lying on the couch in front of one of the windows reading a book. The TV was off. Mom and my brother were in the kitchen. Dad was at work. I noticed one of the curtains moving behind the couch. They ran from the top of the window down to the floor. The windows were tightly closed. I figured that the dog had gone behind the couch where he wasn't allowed. I sat up to get him out from there when I heard a growling sound coming from behind the couch. I quickly got off the couch and ran to the kitchen. My mom and brother were still there, as was the dog, who was sleeping.

      That spring, my dad, my brother, and I were going down to our basement. We got to the bottom steps. We couldn't see much as the light on the stairs wasn't the greatest. We could see the one window on the far end of the basement as there was a little light coming in from the neighbors' house. Suddenly, we saw somebody go past the window in the basement. We immediately turned on the lights, but we were alone.

      One evening during the summer of 1983, I was watching TV. Our front door in the living room (visible from where I was), was open with the storm door closed. Everybody else, including our neighbor's son, was out in the garage. I heard a loud bang at the front door. I turned and looked just in time to see what looked like a figure in a white sheet pull back from the door outside and run off the porch toward the garage. I immediately went to the garage, and everybody was sitting around talking. I asked who was playing jokes on me. They were confused as to what I'd seen, and we then went out front to see who was there. Nobody was around, and no white sheet was ever found.

      That fall, I lost another one of my teeth. Like always, I put my tooth under my pillow for the tooth fairy. I then went to bed. It was a school night so I was alone in the bedroom. The door was shut and latched. If anybody would have entered, I would have heard the thud of the door unlatching. I was lying on my stomach with the sheets up over my head. Suddenly, I had the urge to look out from under the sheets. I saw a woman in a white dress floating up into the ceiling. I immediately felt under the pillow. The tooth was gone, and a dollar bill was in its place.

      Early that following spring, my parents got bunk beds for me and my brother. They were put into the bedroom between our original bedroom and our parents' bedroom. I got the top bunk. One night, I awoke from a nightmare, and standing there on the ladder was a skeleton. I laid there frozen in fear. I then decided to act nice to it so that it might not hurt me. I waved to it. It waved back and slowly faded away.

      Early that fall (1984), I was home sick from school. Before going back to sleep early that morning, I'd asked my mom to wake me up at 10:30 so that I could watch 3-2-1 Contact. While I was asleep, I had a dream in which I woke up after 11:00 and asked my mom why she didn't wake me up. In the dream, she said, "You were asleep, and I didn't want to wake you up." I then woke up. A moment later, my mom came into the room with some folded laundry. I asked her what time it was. She said it was after 11:00. I asked her why she didn't wake me up. She said, "You were asleep, and I didn't want to wake you up."

      Later that fall, the bunk beds were moved back into the original bedroom that my brother and I shared. One morning around daybreak, I woke up on my right side. The ladder was behind me on the left side of the beds. I had the feeling like something was looking at me. I started to roll onto my back when something hit me in the side of my face. I stopped in shock, and then I heard something scramble down the ladder, out of the room, and down the hall towards the kitchen. I rolled over onto my back and tried to figure out who or what had hit me. I managed to fall back to sleep. Later when my mom came in to get me and my brother around for school, the left side of my head was throbbing so badly that I was unable to go to school. I didn't have any marks or anything. Just an unbearable throbbing pain that didn't go away until later that evening.

      During the summer of 1985, my family and some friends of ours went fishing several times up to Lake Erie in our boat. We then would go to their house to clean the fish and hang out. One evening, I was using their bathroom while everybody was outside in the garage. I was at the sink washing my hands when I looked up into the mirror. The black figure that I'd seen before was coming down the hallway and ducking into one of the bedrooms. I afterwards peeked into the bedroom. It was empty.

      On another afternoon, I laid down for a nap in our TV room, putting my glasses on the table of the floor lamp. My dad and brother were outside. Mom was in the bedrooms cleaning. When I woke up, I went to get my glasses, but they were gone! My dad and brother were still outside. I figured Mom had moved them or something. She said that she hadn't touched them. We searched everywhere, unable to find them. A few minutes after we took a break in the search, I went back in the TV room. My glasses were back where I'd left them.

      My model railroad then did something wierd. I had the yard sidings blocked so that the power could be shut off to them. One day while running trains, a pair of engines on one of the sidings started up by themselves. The track they were on had been turned off. There were no electical problems of any kind, and the switch to that track is still in use today with no problems whatsoever.

      Later that summer, my dad, brother, and I were down to our grandparents house just down the road from us. While we were all in the living room, we heard a series of loud bangs coming from the kitchen. We investigated, but nobody was there. We then opened one of the cupboards and slammed it closed. We agreed that that was what we'd heard, but we never figured out how the cupboard doors had done that by themselves.

      That following winter, I had a dream that I was in a car at a railroad crossing waiting on a southbound train to pass. It was off to the left. I looked to the right, and something was on the track that wasn't supposed to be there. I couldn't see it, but the train hit it and derailed. That following January, a southbound Amtrak passenger train derailed when it hit three Conrail locomotives that had run a red signal.

      I then had another dream that haunts me to this day. In the dream, I was at a bridge near my house. At the location, the road runs straight north and south with hills in the distance in both directions. There was a school bus (my bus) that had been heading south and gone off the left side of the bridge. The sun was low in the west to the driver's right. Only one person was on the bus. It wasn't the driver but a student. The student (who had been driving) was dead. A woman was at the side of the road screaming and crying. She looked familiar, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen her. I did know that she was related to the student. In March of 1990, a friend of mine was killed on his way to school by an Amtrak passenger train (HOL.html). He was on a road similar to that in my dream (straight road at a kind of crossing with hills to the north and south). While he was heading north instead of south, the sun was rising in the east (his right), and his car went off the left side of the road. I saw the woman at his funeral. She was his mom.

      During the summer of 1990, I had a couple incidents in the garage.

      In the first, I was at home alone and taking some trash out to the trash can in the garage. All the doors were closed. As I turned to head back into the kitchen, I heard a creaking sound. I looked up and saw the attic door opening by itself. With the overhead door open, this door will sometimes blow closed as it opens out into the garage, but it never blows open. The garage was also closed up. I ran into the house afraid to see what was next.

      Later that summer, my mom was at work, and the rest of us were at home. I was doing some model railroading, and I went out into the garage to look for a tool. I got alongside the minivan when I became aware of a sound like somebody striking an empty coffee can with a nail. The van was blocking my view of the garage, so I cautiously went around it to see what or who was making the sound. As soon as I came around the back corner, the sound stopped. I knew that it must see me now. I looked around in front of me, but I was alone and terrified. I ran into the house. My dad searched the garage and found nothing.

      That fall, I had a dream where I was at school. A friend of mine was sitting in the desk to my right. She told me, "She's dead, and he's in the hospital." I wouldn't find out what that dream meant until May 1992.

      That winter, my brother's clock radio turned itself on twice.

      The first time, nobody was home. Mom came home to find it switched on at full volume.

      The second time, my parents were in bed, my brother was in the shower, and I was watching The Shining on TV. The radio again came on at full volume. The alarm wasn't set. The switch was moved into the "ON" position.

      That spring, I awoke in the middle of the night to find myself floating around my bedroom on my back.

      Later that fall, I experienced a wierd day at school. During fourth period, I was at work in the library when our circulation computer restarted by itself, which the librarians said was impossible. Nobody was near it at the time. We just heard it beep a few times, and then it restarted. Then in fifth period, I was in English class. I was sitting at the front of the class. The overhead projector was on its cart about three feet in front of me. In the middle of class, it switched on by itself. Our teacher just laughed and turned it back off.

      That January (1992), my parents and brother were at a 4-H meeting. It was around 8:00pm. I was in my bedroom. Suddenly, I heard the voices. It sounded as though two men were talking down in the basement under my bedroom.

      Not long after that, I was lying awake in my bedroom when I saw a huge man come storming into my bedroom. He was shirtless with dark reddish-toned skin and a muscular body. I couldn't see his face clearly, but I had the feeling of pure hatred coming from him. A couple minutes later, he stormed out.

      That spring, I was in the living room while mom was in the basement. I saw somebody go past the doorway. I thought it was her and wanted to ask her something. When I called to her, she didn't answer. I then went to the hallway and saw what looked like the back of her dress around the corner like she was bent over getting things out of the clothes basket. I called to her again. She still didn't respond, even though I was about six feet away from her. I then heard a noise in the kitchen. I turned. It was mom coming back up from the basement. I turned back to the corner of the hallway. The hallway was empty.

      That May, my best friend's mom was killed in a car-semi accident. The day when I found out about it, I was in home room at school. The girl in the dream from 1990 was sitting to my right. She asked me and somebody else if we'd heard what had happened. She then said, "Joe's mom was killed last night in a car wreck. His brother's in the hospital." Just like in my dream.

      That summer brought more occurrences.

      One night, I was up late and heard something striking the cupboard doors in the kitchen while everybody else was asleep.

      One day while in the kitchen, my mom and I heard a loud crash in the basement, but we found nothing out of place.

      Then in the middle of the night one night, I was in the bathroom with the lights off when a circle of light lit up on the wall next to me. I waved my hand in front of it to see if it was a reflection or something, but I didn't see a shadow. The light seemed to be coming from the wall and disappeared after about a minute.

      I started college that fall (1992). I thought that I had gotten away from the spirit that had been tormenting me at home.

      I was wrong.

      On a Saturday afternoon in the middle of October, I was at work at the library on campus. I'd taken a cart of books down to the basement level, cleaned the floor (tables, cubicles, etc.), and was shelving books. I was alone at the time, and nobody had come down the stairs nearby as I would have heard the footsteps on the plastic protectors on the steps. I was in a corner shelving some records when I heard a sqeaking noise. I looked out into the aisleway. It was empty and the squeaking had stopped. I then continued shelving. The squeaking started again for a few seconds and then stopped. I looked out into the aisleway again. One of the stools used to reach higher shelves had moved out into the aisleway. I quickly shelved the rest of the records and headed back upstairs, not returning to the basement the rest of the day.

      When I was at home over Thanksgiving, I was in the shower one evening when I felt somebody grab my butt. I was alone.

      After that incident, I felt like it had followed me to campus. I never felt alone in the dorm room. That's when the real terror started.

      I had gone to dinner, and just before going into the dining hall, I decided to make a prank call to my roommate Mark and neighbor Rich. I then discovered that something had happened to them while I was gone. They were in Rich's room when they heard a pounding on the wall in our room. They'd checked, thinking it was me, but the room was empty. I then talked to them that night (Thursday) about what I'd been going through.

      That Friday was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Rich had gone home for the weekend. Mark and I decided to see if we could get some evidence of the spirit's presence. While we went to the library, we left a tape recording in my boombox. We got back and listened to the tape. Right away, you could faintly hear a woman screaming on the tape. We hadn't heard it when we left. None of our neighbors had heard anything either.

      At dinner, we went to dinner with Brett, one of our resident assistants, and his girlfriend. While at dinner, I asked him if he'd ever heard any strange noises coming from our room. We then told him briefly about what had happened (not what I'd seen in the past). It turned out that he had been involved with the supernatural in the past. Brett and I went back to my room while Mark went to a basketball game. Brett listened to the tape. I'd also left the tape running while at dinner. You could hear shuffling noises and desk drawers slamming closed.

      While listening to the tape, I had the feeling a couple times that the black shadowy spirit was in the room. It was first next to the beds and then next to Mark's desk. I made no mention of this to Brett.

      We then went to the lounge to wait for Mark to get back. When he did, the three of us went back to the room. Brett said that there had been a spirit in the room with us before. He described it exactly as I'd seen it and pointed out where I'd felt it.

      I had mixed emotions at that point. I was somewhat relieved that somebody else was seeing this. However, the fear in me was stronger as my worst nightmare was true. We then discussed what had happened in the past. I had never felt alone in the house when at home. I also realized that what I thought of as being paranoia was really my ability to sense spirits around me. The shadowy entity was the main form of it that I'd seen. It usually never appeared physically. I would sense it and get a mental image of where it was and what it looked like. That mental image was then overlayed on what I was seeing physically. And it was always depressing to see the spirit.

      As we were talking, I sensed that the entity was outside the closed door of the room. I didn't say anything, but suddenly, Brett stopped in midsentence and said, "It's at the door."

      Mark suggested that we open the door to see what happened.

      I went over and flung the door open. I was face to face with the entity. I started shaking uncontrolably and broke down. Mark slammed the door closed. I kept asking, "What does it want with me?"

A sketch of the ghost that I made a few days after seeing it in the doorway.

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