Ghost Stories - Do you have one?

[Poppy Fields]

Do you have a real ghost story?

Given the season and the popularity of ghost hunter/buster shows, it occurred to me that lots of us might have a ghostly experience to share.

I have a little one, a true story:

My paternal grandfather passed away when I was 5 years old, and my parents took me to his wake. They sat me in the back of the room on a folding chair beside my 5 year old cousin, Rosemary.

We were dressed in our Sunday best, with our duster coats and our little Easter purses and shoes. We really didn't comprehend what was going on and, with our parents busy in the front of the room, we were left to our amusement. I remember giggling with her and our trying on each others shoes when I felt a heavy hand descend on my right shoulder and I clearly heard our grandfather's stern voice. He spoke one word. It was:

BEHAVE!

Rosemary heard it, too.

[Lil Bit]

Shortly after my mother died I was doing some laundry. The washer and dryer were in the bathroom so, as I stepped back from the washer I turned towards the sink, and, in the mirror I saw my mom standing behind me smiling. I stared at her for a second, then turned around, and there was no one there. A total sense of peace and well-being just washed over me at that instant. It's hard to put into words, but I feel like mom somehow was able to come to me and let me know that she was okay. Later that night I was tucking my 9 year old daughter into bed. She asked me if I believed in ghosts. When I asked her why, she said because she saw grandma today. Then she said that she didn't get scared because grandma is happy now. What she described to me was almost identical to what had happened to me just a couple of hours before.

To this day I don't know what to think. If it had just been me, I would have thought that maybe my subconscious mind had conjured the image of my mother to give me some peace and because I was constantly thinking about her. But for it to have happened to both my daughter and me, and for our experiences to be so similar. I just don't know.

[MRD]

The day before Hurricane Charley hit here I was walking into the dining room and I felt someone come stand next to me, so close our shoulders were touching. I thought it was my daughter who was 12 at the time, but no one was there. I clearly heard my mom say: "you're going to be alright".
Right after that, my daughter came from the back of the house and asked me what I wanted. I said "nothing, why?" and she said: "but you came in and put your hand on my shoulder". I had not been near the back of the house.

Both things happened within seconds of each other.

That day, the hurricane was still expected to hit 90 miles North of us. It wasn't until the next afternoon that the storm turned SUDDENLY and unexpectedly and came in over us. We lost power, but we had NO damage to the house. We didn't even have branches or trash in our yard. Most of our neighbors and friends were not that lucky. We were indeed ok and my mom told me we would be.

I have several others as well.

[Eastcoastmom]

These stories are giving me chills.

[Ellen]

No stories here. I think ghosts are afraid of me.

[Eastcoastmom]

I don't have a ghost experience of my own but my cousin does. He lived in a very old home in Connecticut dating back to the late 1700's. He and his wife said a ghost lived there who was an older man. They would "see" him at the top of the stairs and there always would be the smell of pipe tobacco lingering in the air. My aunt would visit her son at his home and she did in fact "see" and hear the ghost as well. My cousin no longer lives there but it wasn't the ghost that scared him off but a job opportunity elsewhere.

[hepcat]

No stories here. I think ghosts are afraid of me.

I have a few - I wish they were meaningful like the ones posted here! I've had a few things happen and they're never like Ghost Whisperer where there's a reason and resolution. I would have loved to see a grandmother or grandfather when they passed. Instead it's just random unexplainable things, very very infrequently.

This one time I did at least find out something by researching it afterward. I probably posted about it here on FORT years ago, so I apologize if it seems familiar.

My husband is a train nut, so we go to a lot of train museums. One time we were visiting a museum that we know well enough to be members. I had gotten ahead of my husband and daughter, and I saw a particular observation car that I had never seen unlocked and open before, so I went in. Now this car was beautiful inside. It had been privately owned, so it had a kitchen and bar, and was like a fancy cocktail lounge inside. The museum had restored the car so that everything was period furnishings, Art Deco style, beautiful woods, the works. I sat down in a very plush velvety chair to take it all in.

When I stood up to go, the car gave a jolt and the heavy metal cocktail table fell on my leg - hard enough for me to go "Ouch!" and try to jump to the side. Except that when I looked down, the table hadn't actually moved. It was, in fact, bolted to the floor. I could simultaneously feel it leaning on my leg (painfully) and see that nothing was touching me.

Well, I pretty much panicked and ran out of the car. My husband had caught up and was just lifting my toddler daughter up into the car when I ran out, babbling at him to get out.

Okay, silly story but very vivid to me. I made my husband pull all his resources to find out about this car because the museum had limited information.

Come to find out this very car (traced by the number) was in a terrible accident decades ago that involved a couple of fatalities. It was fixed and re-put into service but no longer as a private car. When it was retired, the men who used it (it had been on a small company's line somewhere in Utah) said there were stories about the car, and everyone knew that if you put something on the back platform, like a chair for your smoke break, it would tend to fall off somewhere on the line when no one was looking.

That's the most closure I've ever had about a ghostly encounter.

[MRD]

I've only seen one on one occasion and it freaked me out. Turned out to be the mother of my friends husband. I was staying at their house and she had been known to appear. Most of my encounters involve my family and a close friend that passed away. I always thought it would scare me, but I usually get the opposite. A feeling of peace and calm and safe. My dad used to do what Ghost Hunters does. Back in the 70's he belonged to a paranormal group. However, their approach was much different. They believed that these souls were trapped here and needed help to move on. They especially hated hotels and B&B's that exploited the fact that they were haunted. His group used prayer and bible verses to help the person "move towards the light". Were they successful? In several instances, the people that lived in the homes where they went said that all activity stopped after the group did their thing. So who knows. But he felt very strongly about the fact that it wasn't so nice to exploit the ghosts. However, I had contact with him on 3 occasions. I don't think he's "trapped here". 2 of the occasions were when something really bad happened and he reassured me. One was just funny and was so my dad the jokester. My mom has now come to me twice. My grandmother once and my dad's sister once. That happened recently. Back in April or May. All 3 woman came to me one night to tell me they loved me. I was going through a VERY difficult time and it looked like my husband and I were going to get divorced. I was crying in bed and they all said out loud that they loved me. I never see anything. But I feel them touch me and I hear them. The experience with my friend was funny too. And he did this to me AND my husband. When he was alive he would joke around that we were "number one" and give us the middle finger. After died he would change the tv channel to channel 1 frequently or change it to programs HE liked to watch. We became Soprano's fans because of that. But it always happened when no one was touching the remote and there was no way the tv could have changed itself. It never did it before and it has never done it since. It happened about 4-5 times and then it stopped. But recently I was staying at his MIL's home when I first moved back and I used to feel someone sit on the foot of the bed when I was trying to go to sleep. And the covers would slide over my feet. And then I would feel them get up. I never felt scared, because I felt it was him. He has been "seen" in that house by several members of the family. It wasn't his home, but he spent a great deal of time there and it's where his family now stays when they come back to visit as they moved out of the home they lived in with him and to a different city. I never believed in ghosts because I was afraid. Ghost hunters has helped that and it's helped that all my experiences were good ones and I always felt a sense of peace when they happened. The train story would have FREAKED me out tho, Oh my gosh. But what an interesting story. That's like the one about the airplanes that got the parts from a plane that crashed and they used to see the pilot who died in the crash on the planes with the old parts. In one instance, someone who worked for the airline was flying dead head and the pilot came and sat next to him. He had known this guy too and it really freaked the guy out. I think it's the Ghost of flight 401 or something. There was a book written about it.

[Columbia, MD]

After my dad passed away and my mom stopped driving, she decided to sell the car. She had what she thought were the only set of car keys. She had made an agreement with someone to buy the car and they were coming the next day to complete the transaction.

That night my father appeared at the foot of the bed and told her about the extra set of keys and where they were. When she got up the next morning she went to the place he specified, and there were the set of keys.

[GuardianAngel]

Poppy Fields, this thread is right up my alley! as a matter of fact, we just found out John Edward is coming to a city near us in May/11. We had gone a couple of years ago to see him, amazing!

When I was married, years ago, my husband and I built a new home, in a new subdivision that had been forest and cleared for homes. We were the 2nd home in the subdivision. It had a wooden curved staircase that led to the 2nd floor, where the bedrooms and bathrooms were located. He at the time was apprenticing to be an electrician, and the job he was at took him out of town for the week, gone Monday mornings, back home Friday night. I've never been one to be afraid to stay home alone, so here I was in my early 20's in this huge 2500 sq foot home.

I was sleeping, one early morning mid week, hubby was gone, I was awoken by a noise, it was around 6:30am. You know how you're sleeping and hear something,and you practically stop breathing so you can somehow hear "louder". It was a distinct shuffle of foot steps coming up the stairs. I laid there, wide awake, listening to the footsteps, I sat up, and as clear as can be, there was a white figure, with a top coat, and a top hat, no face, I yelled, who are you, what do you want, I watched it vanish into thin air right before my eyes. The crazy thing about all this, I've worn glasses since the 5th grade for far sightedness. At the time I was wearing contacts, however I took them out every night, therefore how could I see this figure so clearly?

My father passed away 10 yrs before that, but I don't think it was him. This gentleman was clearly from the 1800's or early 1900's. I tried to get information on the subdivision, but couldn't find anything other than it was just a forest.