In October of 2010, my husband and I were doing yardwork at a house we are renovating.  It was my mother’s house but no one has lived there for quite some time.  He mowed the backyard and headed for the front.  I was inside the house that faces the backyard.  I distinctly heard two men talking and putting a ladder against the roof on the back of the house.  For some reason, I was scared and decided to remain quiet but watchful.  I couldn’t make out their conversation but they were hammering and moving the ladder along against the roof.  I didn’t look out of the window because I was fearful.  When my husband came in, I asked about the men but he said no one was in either yard.  None of the neighbors were outside either. I have no idea who they were. I’m still freaked out about it.

From Cindi B.

I walked into the living room and was met by boxes. More boxes than I remembered bringing in the night before. This was the part about moving that I hated above all else. The ritual of the UNPACKING OF THE BOXES.

Before I knew it, time had flown by and it was near noon. I was tired and hungry. Ok, more hungry than tired at that minute. I took a lunch break, and then decided that if I didn’t take a nap I would die from excessive box unpacking. Google it. It’s a real disease. Well, if it’s not it should be.

As soon as my head hit the pillow on the bed in my new room, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was in that half awake half asleep stage. I could feel the sunlight coming through the window by my bed and warming my face. The quietness of the moment was broken all of a sudden by the sound of a door opening somewhere in the house. I heard voices talking. Then the sound of a radio started up.

My first thought was that the teen age son of the people I had bought the house from didn’t know that I had moved in. I figured that he was having a little final party with his friends before the new owner arrived. That seemed the most logical explanation for what was happening.

I didn’t experience any fear yet, even though unknown people apparently were in my house with me. Then in less that a beat of my heart, terror gripped me. A voice spoke inside my head. “What ever you do, no matter what happens, do not open your eyes.” The sunlight that had been coming through the window was cut off. I knew that something or someone was standing over me, blocking the light from the window, looking down at me with an intensity I could feel as strong as if I had been touched.

I felt at that second that evil had just come in to pay me a little visit in my new home. I truly believed that if I opened my eyes, if I let on that I was not in a deep sleep, that I would be struck dead. But not before I would see something that would turn me mad first.

I felt the light once again upon my face. I was aware that the house was once again still. It felt peaceful.

The Evil was gone.

I opened my eyes and the room looked just as it had when I came in to lie down. I got up and ran through the house, checking to see if all the doors were locked, if anything had been disturbed. All was as it had been.

I knew though, I had not been home alone.

From Tina S.

It happened 10+ years ago. I’m a night owl and it was about 3am and I was watching TV. I was feeling tired and I wanted to go to bed. I went downstairs to go to the bathroom, and while passing through the hallway, I heard a woman whimpering in our spare bedroom. I paused for a moment, and put my ear up to a basketball-sized hole in the adjoining wall. The whimpering was definitely coming from in there. I didn’t think much about it, because my parents were frequently arguing and in the process of divorcing. I assumed my parents probably got into an argument that night, and my mother probably decided to spend the night in the spare bedroom just so she wouldn’t have to be in the same room with my father.

I continued to the bathroom and heard the whimpering the whole time I was in there. I went back out into the hallway, paused to listen again, and then went upstairs to bed. The following day, I asked my mother who spent the night in the spare bedroom. She said no one. I told her I heard someone crying from that room last night at 3AM. She said it wasn’t either one of them. That’s when the chills went up my spine, because I realized I put my head up the the hole in the wall, and that whoever or whatever it was, could’ve grabbed me.

My mother then told me that our house was built about 10 years after the civil war ended, and that several of my family members have died in the house in the early 1900’s. And back then, they used to hold the viewing in the home of the deceased. I’ve never forgotten what my mother told me that day, and every time I passed by the spare bedroom, I kind of cringed a little.

A few years had passed, my parents were finally divorced, and the house was left to me and my brothers. Again, it was late at night and I wanted to go to bed, but had to go to the bathroom. I went downstairs to the bathroom, and while inside, I started hearing the same whimpering I heard a few years ago. I was completely petrified with fear. I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified to go back out into the hallway and pass by that room, which was now a storage room.

I spent about 2 hours trapped in the bathroom before I built up enough courage to venture out into the hallway. I opened the door and ran as fast as I could. The whole time I felt like something was right behind me. I ran into my room and bolted the door shut. Filled with fear, it took me about 10 minutes to calm down. Afterwards, I slowly opened my bedroom door and listened. I was still able to hear the whimpering.

To this day, I have no idea who or what that was. I’m not sure I want to know. There’s been a lot of hostility, hatred, and sorrow in that house, and I believe that a house can absorb emotions from its occupants, and occasionally play it back like a recorder. Our house used to be blessed once per year by our local church. But the stopped in the early 1990’s. Since then, there’s been a lot of strange occurrences in that house, witnessed by all that have lived there. I no longer live there, but my brother still does. And to this day, he still tells me about the weird things that still happen there.

From Bob M.

This happened to me when I was maybe 13 years old. One night, I was lying in my bed with the light off trying to get some sleep, when all of a sudden I heard something in my room. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, then I felt like something was sitting on bed, I was so scared I could not move. Then all of a sudden I hear my name being called “Anna”. I just laid in bed so scared to move, then again I heard the voice say “Anna take my hand” When I heard that I jumped out of bed, with my eyes closed I found the door to a long dark hallway. I could see my mom and brother in the living room, my brother looked up at me, and came running, he asked if I was ok, but I could not speak. My mom grabbed me and my brother went running to get my dad who was in his bedroom, my mom was trying to ask me what was wrong, then I finally told her that some one called my name and then he told me to take his hand. My dad and brother ran outside and around the house to see if there was anyone there, they could not find anyone. My mom said it was a dream but I knew it wasn’t.

Many years after that I got married and moved up north. I was married to a man for about 17 years and I have four beautiful kids, 25, 21, 19, 17. We ended our 17 years of marriage and I moved in to a three bedroom apartment. In my apartment I always felt uneasy, I would always hear noises, my dog would always be scared looking into space then bark at the space, I always felt this heavy feeling, like I was carrying weights around the house, when I would leave the house I would feel better, I would get headaches I would feel mad and always felt heavy.

Then one night, I was upstairs and the kids were at their dad’s house. I was lying in bed with my dog I had the TV on, when all of a sudden the TV got so loud then it turned off. I just thought something was wrong with it, but my dog Bilie started staring off into space and this time she was growling and ran out of the bedroom. I was so scared that I went around the house and turned on all the lights. I got my dog and we went back upstairs and I fell asleep. Then, around 3:15, I woke up to the sound of my name being called “Anna”. I looked around for Billie but she wasn’t in my bed, I was so scared I could not move, then he called my name again but this time it was different, “Anna, take my hand and it will be all over with”. I looked up and I saw this person with a black robe on. I could not see his face, I just remember seeing his hand reaching out and telling me to take it and it will be all over with. I started praying and crying, I called my mom and she prayed with me over the phone, two weeks later I moved out of that house and moved back down to southern California with my mom.

I still hear my name being called, now there is scratching on the wall, things fall off the dresser, sometimes I smell this awful smell, I see shadows and still have this heaviness come over me, and when my boyfriend leaves for work, around 11:40pm he turns on all the lights for me. You see when I have the light on, so I don’t see the shadows, and with the TV on so I don’t hear the noises that go on around me.

From Anna L.

I worked for a cleaning company in Maine. One of my jobs was to clean a Clinical doctors office. I worked there during the night. My first night I heard noises coming from an exam room. While working there I had heard walking or skipping in the hallway, paper crinkle on an exam bed, my vacuum cleaner would stop on its own, and than work fine.

The worst night was when I sat down at the nurses’ station to pick up the phone to clock out at 2:30 am. The fax machine and printer kicked in, like a powering up sound and I heard and FELT a hand move across my back and the back of the chair I was sitting in. My daughter was with me and witnessed this, as I brought her with me sometimes. I believe there was a playful one that skipped in the hall and joked with me. There was also one that I know was not nice at all, a very cold entity and that one kind of bothered me. My daughter saw a glimpse of an elderly man sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting room one night, she says he had his head down and looked worried. (Of course it was not a living patient, the office was closed.)

Quite an interesting job, but these things have happened to me before.

From Claire

In the early months of 2001, one night I had fallen asleep in my room, when I suddenly became aware that I couldn’t move—not even a finger. Somehow I managed to move my head over and look to my right. To the right was the bedroom door, and beside that, a rocking chair. The chair was moving rapidly…in it, sat a woman which I will NEVER forget. She looked like someone from the Civil War. (This was also very close to the Charleston area of SC). She was wearing a very old looking dress, which came all the way up to her chin with buttons and long sleeves. Her grey hair was tightly pulled back in a bun. But her face was beyond anything normal. It was very white and where her eyes would have been, there were only gaping black holes! Her mouth seemed to be a hole of blackness too.  She kept rocking in the chair so fast, it looked like she was waiting on something.  She seemed to be extremely anxious. Suddenly, she realized I was looking at her and then she came at me and put her hands around my throat. It was only a few moments but to me it seemed to last for an eternity. I tried with all I had to snap out of whatever was happening to me, I could barely breathe. After that night, I never saw her again and of course never wanted to!

Since then I have had countless paranormal experiences but NONE ever so frightening as that, and nothing else I’ve experienced has ever been threatening as that was. I will never, ever forget that face.  It still brings chills to me when I remember it.

From Jennifer E.

I have experienced a lot of paranormal things in my 35 years on this planet we call earth. In my last house, I would say was the most scared that I had been. It started out with footsteps coming from my husband and my bedroom, which was directly over my living room. Over the 5 years that I lived there it got progressively worse. I awoke one night to feel something rubbing my leg and there was nothing or nobody there. It felt like a hand which rattled me somewhat. I had also seen two separate full body apparitions there as well. One was a dark haired man walking up my stairs and then disappearing into the bathroom while I was sat in my bedroom. The other was a young teenage boy dressed in shabby clothing with dirt all over his face. He walked across the landing looked at me, smiled and then walked through a closed door into my daughters bedroom, who was only a baby and asleep at the time.

About a week before I moved out, I was walking down the stairs, in broad daylight. When a hand grabbed mine intently. It made me jump to which my husband was waiting at the bottom of the stairs asked what was wrong as he saw my reaction. I just told him I was ok as I didn’t want to worry him. He doesn’t like to discuss anything paranormal. But even he admitted that he heard things. At my current house I hadn’t really had any experiences apart from a feeling of being watched when I was going up to my attic conversion, which is my daughters bedroom. But I awoke one night at around 3am to see a dark silhouette of a man with a hat on. He was standing on my husband’s side of the bed. He seemed to be startled that I had seen him and disappeared.

I have always had experiences since I was little and still have them now but I still get scared every time. I work night shifts at a local supermarket and have seen the same lady on a couple of occasions. Have had things thrown at me and a man whisper my name in my ear. I have also had my shirt tugged on and have seen the ghost of an old lady once. A lot of my other work colleges have all had experiences including being touched. It has even made a believer out of a once sceptic person.

From Toni F.