ghost stories

[FONT=&quot]Was thinking about this today and thought I would share with you guys. Feel free to post any experiences you have had as well:
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[FONT=&quot]Years ago Iwas working in a museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico called the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. I worked in the maintenance department there. This museum was either built on or near an Indian burial ground (so they say). Native Americans have strict rules about building on burial grounds and sometimes it results in ghost sightings.
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[FONT=&quot]The first experience I had with unusual things at this museum was one day in the maintenance room. We were sitting there drinking coffee an all of a sudden I began to hear noises coming from the second floor right above the maintenance room. At first I didn't think anything of it. But then I remembered that the offices that were on the second floor were unoccupied during the weekends, this was a Saturday. So finally, seeing that no one else was paying attention to this I asked "whose upstairs doing that?" then all my co-workers began to tell me stories of ghosts and weird noises coming from upstairs while no one was there. I honestly thought they were pulling my leg since I was the new guy, but they seemed serious when they were explaining everything to me. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]One day a group of us were in a break room located in the basement level (where the museum is). We were eating and watching TV in there and all of a sudden we hear a bump on the wall. I wasn't sure what was on the other side of the wall, but thinking someone had accidentally bumped the wall or dropped something, I knocked on the wall just to goof around. A few seconds later we heard another knock, like someone answering my knock. We went back to eating and then the museum curator (Pat Reck, I believe her name was (now passed away)) walks into the break room with a box full of old museum stuff. She unlocks a door leading to what now turns out to be a room and the lights are turned off. I get up and peak inside and there's just museum stuff laying everywhere. The curator tells me it's just a storage room. No one was inside and the room was locked. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Months later, I had to stay at work late setting up a room for a conference someone was going to have. By the time I finished, it was late and everyone had gone home. Sometime around 8PM I made my way to the second floor to punch out for the day. The time card machine is right next to the elevator. After hearing all the ghost stories, and being the easily scared person that I am, I was uneasy about gong upstairs by myself to punch out. So I go upstairs and quickly punch out an jump back in the elevator. I press the 1st floor button, the doors closes, then all of a sudden they open up again, like if someone had pressed the button from the outside of the elevator to go down. I freaked out and pressed the button again. The doors closed and as they shut completely, a sheet of paper, probably from the bulletin board near the elevator, slid under the elevator door and into the elevator. It flew in as if someone pushed it in, just perfectly. That left me a little scared. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Then the last thing that I experienced before leaving was this: [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I was going to shampoo the carpets on the second floor. I had to go down to the basement level of the building, where the museum is located, to fill the carpet shampooer up with water. There was a small janitor's room down there which had a large sink that was real low which we used to fill buckets for moping and the shampooer machine. None of the maintenance workers really went in there. But the Janitorial ladies, who cleaned the bathrooms, used that as there storage room, where they kept cleaning supplies. So I go down there, it was real early, and the museum had not even opened yet. I was the only one down there. So I get in the janitors room an start to fill the shampooer with water, and from the corner of my eye I see a blur, and at the time, I assumed one of the janitorial ladies was coming in for supplies, I didn't even look back and I kept filling the shampooer. Then I feel someone tap me on my shoulder, I immediately looked back and no one was there. Then I hurried to the door, which was about 3 steps away from the sink, an looked out the door. There was no one there, and you can see a long way down the hall before the hall curved. There was no way someone could have tapped my shoulder and then ran to hide. Although I was extremely scared, I somehow convinced myself to think nothing of it, and I quickly went upstairs. I also heard stories of doors opening by themselves there, If any of you ever visit this museum ask anyone who works there if its haunted, I'm sure they will share a story with you. [/FONT]

Other than childhood chills from spooky movies and dark corners, I've never thought much about ghosts one way or the other. About 15 years ago, I was in a relationship that challenged that ambivalence.

I met a frail, fragile looking woman from Brazil, possessed of an iron will and a belief in Spiritism (described to me as a blend of christian and african spiritual beliefs and practices). Among the talents she claimed were astral projection and the ability to see and channel spirits. I never challenged her on these claims but she never flaunted them so it wasn't a big deal.

In Brasil, she volunteered as a kind of Spiritist Therapist, helping people in the poorest parts of Sao Paulo. In the US, she was busy surviving, but kept her hand in Spiritism. At some point I was invited to some Spiritist meetings where I experienced some other-worldly sensations without actually seeing anything unusual. I chalked that up mostly to imagination.

Always lucid and sharp, my friend never exhibited any schizo behaviors. But as she became more comfortable and trusting of me, she would open up. We would be walking in a parking lot or down the street, perhaps late at night; No one on the street and she would "see" something or someone, describe them as a lost or broken soul in need of help, or up to no good.

After several of these encounters, I decided to approach her in serious discussion regarding her "abilities". She went into some detail about her talents, the responsibilities that came with them, and about her "spirit guide" who helped her navigate the ether. Expressing some respectful disbelief, she promptly fell into a trance. The halogen light fixture that lit the dark room turned itself down, then off, then on again. I laughed uneasily and blew it off. Then it happened again.

Now I have chills running up and down my spine. It's late at night, quiet, my friend is in some trance, and the light is screaming out an sos. I address my friend and expect to hear her respond in her soft, heavily Brasillian accented voice. Instead, a man's voice, deep, resonant, and slight of accent, responds from her lips, referring to my friend in the third person. After a brief, polite discussion, my friend returned from wherever, and explained that I'd met her spirit guide. I asked her about the halogen light and she just smiled, as if saying "do you believe me now?"

Eventually, my heart slide back down out of my throat. To this day I don't know what to make of it all, and until I have an overt ghost vision of my own, I will have doubts. But I am at least open to the idea and possibility of inexplicable extra-worldly phenomena.

I've posted this before but I figured it's OK to put it back up.

I was 16 living at mom and dad's house and funky stuff used to happen all the time.

Large Pyrex cassarole dish shattered while in the kitchen cabinet. We heard it shatter and could not figure what had broken till I opened the cabinet and tiny pieces of glass rained out like a mini waterfall. Nobody was in the room and it hadn't been touched for at least a week.

Toilets flushed all the time for no reason.

Waterhose outside was turned on by nobody. We had insane dogs that barked like crazy any time a car went by or a person got near the fence. No barking but the backyard was flooded, nobody used the hose that day and it was twisted all the way on. The dogs were standing there not barking, just looking at the hose.

The house was never quiet for a second it seemed, there was always a knock or a pop or a noise of some sort going on.

You could vaccum the carpet making the color of it deepen when it all layed the same way, you have seen that before I am sure. Well you could vaccum away all the footprints and make the carpet a solid shade then turn around and shut off the vaccum and unplug it only to turn around and plainly see new foot prints go from the couch into the closet.

Can of biscuits once blew up and cooked inside the fridge. Huge mess but all the bits stuck on things were somehow fully cooked.

TV's came on, changed channel, and changed volume by themselves. You had to unplug them to turn them off and to regain control.

I saw a half eaten PB&J slide up the arm of a recliner against the pull of gravity. I happened to have an old tennis racket in my hand at the time and hit it HARD so it blew up and got everywhere. OOPS. I was on the phone to my girlfriend when it happened so she heard my reaction and the WHACK!

Any time it got late and I was home alone I got that odd feeling of being watched and once I really did see a shadow move. It was darker than any other shadow in the room and looked like a short someone in a long hooded cloak. It went from being behind me on the left to being behind me on the right as it continued to move to my right it faded out in the middle of the room.

I was home once alone and heard a frantic beating on the side door of the house, so frantic I was a bit freaked. So I stood there for a second at the top of the stairs on the 3rd floor and it stopped. Then the frantic beating started on a new door, on the 2nd floor door to the laundry room. The beating was so frantic I could actually see the door shaking. Then that stopped, the next door up was the one I was standing in front of! I actually got scared, jumped into my room and slammed the door. I grabbed the shotgun I kept loaded behind that door and pressed it up against the door waiting for the beating to start. I was going to blow whatever it was in half if the door started to vibrate. Then it hit me what was going on, nobody or nothing solid could of got into the house and went into that laundry room while I was standing there watching. I realized it was the "ghost" or whatever was doing the other weird stuff and knew my shotgun was useless so I dropped the 12ga and headed for the window of my room. I opened it and stuck out 1 leg and waited, if the pounding started on that door I was jumping. I did not care in the least if I got hurt, nor did I even think about it at the time! I waited like that for 20 minutes and "it" never came.

As I type this I actually have goosebumps again. SO yeah I believe in something, not sure what, but certainly something!

Eventually things calmed down and stopped all together. I found out we bought the house from a woman who could no longer afford to keep it after her husband died. Yeah he had a heart attack and died there. So the wife had to sell and move away with her 3 kids, maybe that angered his spirit? That explanation doesn't make too much sense because we lived there for 6 years before anything odd started to happen.

:shrug:

interesting. Here is another one of mine:

I was in my house one day and heard my dog barking. She is a very calm dog and will only bark at cats, but even then, when shes inside the house, she hardly ever barks. So I was in my house alone with the dog and all of a sudden I hear my dog barking, but it was a different kind of bark. It really did scare me a little when I heard her because it was like she was barking at a burglar or something, it was a fearful/scared bark. So I go looking for her and find her in one of the rooms barking at a small suitcase. The suitcase contained items used in Native American Religious Ceremonies. My dog was barking at it in a defensive mode, with its hair standing up on the back of its neck, and she was scratching right in front of the suitcase like she had seen something go in there. It freaked me out a little and I went in there and kinda slapped her so she would stop. I then looked around and picked up the case an there was nothing underneath it. Very strange.

They do say things like that attract spirits though. I but the suitcase in the closet where it was suppose to be (I was cleaning out the closet earlier and left it out) , and haven't had anything else weird happen related to it since.

AND another one:

One time we were asleep and my dog has the bad habit of wanting to go outside in the middle of the night. I was asleep and I woke up to the noise of her collar jingling and I knew she wanted to go out. I pretended to be asleep an just closed my eyes hoping she would just give up and lay back down. She started to whimper right near the bed, again, because she wanted to go out and all of a sudden the bedroom door swings open and makes a creepy ERRRRRRR sound and my dog was still on the side of the bed. It didn't open just a little either, it opened all the way. I'm a very nervous person when it comes to these things, so I woke my wife up an had her "come with me" to let the dog out.



Another time she was on the bed sleeping and I was half asleep, but i heard a noise like a book being placed on a table somewhat loud, or a drawer being closed, then I heard my dog whimper and she jumped off the bed and got under it.