Trippy Tales #67...Scary Stories To Make You Shiver!

Ghouled Evening my faithful followers, and thank you for visiting the playhouse!

Tonight's Tales were borrowed from ghostvillage.com, and they're sure to give your bones a chill! Enjoy!

"Evil Drawings In A Drawer" by Shauna @ ghostvillage.com

"I moved to California on a whim. At the time (February 1979) I was in the process of getting a divorce, so I was single and had two small children. I was hoping to do a little better for them and myself. I rented a place that was great the first couple of months I was living there. It was a two-bedroom with a large living room, a great back yard that was fenced in, and across the street from me was a liquor store. A block up the street was a convenience store. Life was good. I met many new friends.

About two months after I moved into the house, I noticed that many times when I came home from work something would be misplaced, such as my keys. I would have trouble finding paper work I needed because it never was where I left it. Things moved around, however, I never witnessed anything moving. I knew that my girls were not the culprits, as they were only two and three at the time. They could not have gotten up and put things on top of the kitchen cabinets, or put things in the freezer, or put things in the kitchen cabinets. It just seemed like too much was happening.

One night after I had put the kids to bed, I was just getting into my bed and noticed that I could hear one of three balls rolling around in their bedroom. It was a small, multicolored foam ball that had a jingle bell in the center. I could hear the jingle bell tinkle tinkle tinkling. I was thinking that my older child had gotten up and was playing in the dark. I turned on the bedroom light, and she was sound asleep in her bed, and her sister was sound asleep in her crib. The ball was in the middle of the floor. I just picked it up and threw it in the toy box. I no sooner got into my bed, and again, the ball was rolling across the floor. Now I am thinking that it must have rolled off of the top of the toys in the toy box, so I picked up the ball from the middle of the room and this time I stuffed it down inside of the toy box to make sure it did not roll off the top of the toys. Well, guess what? I no more than hit my bed and it was rolling around again. As soon as I turned the light on it quit again. I was very frustrated and thought that this ghost was trying to make me lose my mind. I had many sleepless nights in that house, as things bumped and banged in the night, but never could see anything. Many times I felt like I was being watched or that someone was next to me, but I never saw anything. The hair would stand up on the back of my neck and arms. I finally got used to it and just would address the ghost when something was missing asking it to please put it back. I was never afraid of this entity, as it never hurt me or my girls. It was noisy at night though.

My girlfriend brought over a medium thinking she could help me. I did not know this person but she would not come into my house. She told me that my house was evil and left abruptly. I was shocked. I did not feel that it was evil at all. April of 1980 I had decided that I was going to move back to Wisconsin. I announced that information to my girlfriend when she was over one evening. We were sitting in the living room watching TV and drinking beer. (I had put the girls to bed already.) My girlfriend was going to run up the street to the convenience store to get us another six pack of beer as we were out. I stayed at the house waiting for her to return. I had a very large sofa that was very heavy. As soon as she shut the door to leave, that couch flew out from the wall with such force it threw me forward and then it flew backward and hit the wall. I was absolutely stunned. I was so scared I could not get off of the couch. It was a very violent incident. When my girlfriend came back, she looked at me and said, "What's wrong with you? You look like you saw a ghost," and laughed as she walked into the kitchen to put the beer into the cooler. I told her what had happened and she again told me that she couldn't understand how I could live in this house. Well, I was planning on moving back to Wisconsin the last week of April. Guess what? I moved back the first week of April! I was going through belongings getting them ready to pack when I opened a drawer that was in a hutch that was built into the dining room. I had never pulled the drawers out completely before, but I was dumping the drawer contents into boxes for moving. I came across some drawings that were underneath the drawer when I pulled it out. They all fell out. I was shocked. It was drawings of devils and demons. Lots of symbols and signs were on these drawings. I never finished looking at them. I promptly burned everyone of them in the fireplace. I was only in that house for another four days. I did not bring any belongings back other than my children, clothes, and the girls' toys. I left absolutely everything in the house. That was the first week of April 1980. In July of 1988 I went back to Valle Vista to see if that house was still standing. It was not. Someone had bulldozed it down and there was nothing left but a lot. I am so glad that house is gone!"

"Ghostly Childhood Memories" by Amanda @ ghostvillage.com

"When I was six, my sister Teri was five, and a visiting friend named Stephanie was five, we lived in a haunted house and saw the most unusual ghost I have ever heard of!

Teri, Stephanie and I were waiting outside for Stephanie's parents. They were visiting from England and had said they were ready to go and it would only be a "minute". Adult to child translation--two hours.

We were standing between our car and their car, discussing how annoying parents are, when we noticed a plane flying extremely close. It was an old, unpainted, gray cargo looking plane. It was more boxy and round than streamlined, at least that's how I remember it.

We were very excited about a plane being so close and watched with fascination as the plane landed ON THE ROOF OF OUR HOUSE! Of course, being children, we had no idea that planes don't land on houses. We were just feeling pretty special and jumping up and down waving at the pilot. The pilot looked at us and laughed and waved back. It seems to me that he was wearing Red Baron like accessories. After a few moments, he took off again. He had come from the left side of the house and gone on to the right.

By this time, we were sick and tired of waiting on our parents, so we went in to see what the holdup was. We found them sitting around the kitchen table chatting. Well, I was just unbearably annoyed at my parents and hers and decided that I might as well be a part of the conversation since that was the only attention I was going to get.

"Did you hear the plane on the roof?" I said. My dad said, "Oh, Jacklyn, you're imagining things." I knew I wasn't, but after I thought about it, I couldn't remember the plane making any noise.

The whole subject was abandoned (not forgotten) until I was about 13 years old.  The family was taking a car trip when I suddenly mentioned the ghost plane event out loud. My sister, Teri, said, "Oh my God!  I remember that too, I thought it must have been a dream!" The correlation proved that it was real and I knew it was anyway because I have an unusually good memory. In fact, I can remember some things from before I could walk.

The really strange part of this is, how could an entire plane have been in the form of a ghost? An inanimate object?

That was not an isolated incident. That house was haunted! The very first night we stayed in our new house, Dad gave Teri and I flashlights in case we needed to find the bathroom in the dark.  Well, I needed to find the bathroom. So I sat up, found my flashlight, turned it on and shined it in front of me, to find a black male figure at the end of my bed.  He didn't speak, only turned his head to look at me.

I was so scared that I just turned off the flashlight, put it back under my pillow, laid back down and shut my eyes. I thought that he would go away if he thought that I was asleep. All night long I stayed awake with my eyes shut listening for the man.  I never heard him leave and so it was light before I could muster the courage to open my eyes. The first thing I did was go to the bathroom because after holding it all night, I was really uncomfortable.  After that, I went to my parents room and told them about it.  They said, "Oh, Jackie, you're imagining things."

When I moved to my own room in the same house, there were new events. Every night as long as I was in that room, a woman would come out of the wall. She was an older woman, kind of scrawny and scraggly. She would come and stand over my bed a moment and then leave the room. I was pretty sure that she was checking on everyone. She would always come back and go into the same spot of the wall that she came out of.

She would lean almost right on top of me so I thought that her eyesight probably wasn't very good.  She must have really wanted to see me. I wasn't scared of her after the first couple of nights.

Anyway, those are the three major things that happened in our haunted house. By the way, my parents never noticed anything.

The funny part of this story, is that this was a relatively new house-- the next one we lived in was over 100 years old and still had the woman's belongings in the second story. On top of that, she died in her bed in the kitchen.  However, nothing peculiar ever happened in that house."

"Unwanted Ghostly Roommates" by Tara @ ghostvillage.com

My fiancé and I had moved into our first apartment in late July. We had just got done unpacking everything about the second week of August and had finally gotten our bed put together. Our bed was situated so that if I laid on my back the window was to my right and there was a street lamp outside the window that was very bright. The first night we slept in our room I woke up about two in the morning. I was sleeping on my side looking away from the window but had a feeling like someone was behind me. I rolled over and perfectly centered in the window was a shadow of a man. There were no clear or vivid features of the man, just a black figure. I sat up really quick and as I did it ran around our bed, opened our bedroom door, and darted out into the living room. At the same time it ran into the living room the phone began to ring in one long ring and was in the middle of the living room floor as opposed to being in the kitchen where it was plugged in and always left. The blinds were swaying and banging into each other also.

I awoke my fiancé who could not find anything unlocked for someone to get into the house. I was almost convinced it never happen until my fiancé closed the bedroom door and we saw a hole in the wall where the doorknob had been slammed into the wall when it was opened by whatever was in the apartment that night. The following night I awoke to a girl standing at the end of my bed in a red polka dot dress with pigtails waving at me. We moved into another apartment the next week!"

Stay Tuned For More Trippy Tales Coming Soon!

~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #66..."Ghostly Roads & Haunted Highways"....Part Two

From Paranormal Haze.com:
 
"When we think about something being haunted, we think of asylums, homes, prisons and cemeteries. However, there is another place that can be haunted, and there are plenty of examples around the world. It is roads, and some roads have more spirits and ghost stories than most apparent haunted houses. So, what are the haunted roads that you should be aware of in your travels? No matter where you go it seems, on any continent, you are going to come across a road that locals and visitors cite as haunted. Here are just a few..."

 http://www.paranormalhaze.com/the-most-haunted-roads-in-the-world/

Trippy Tales # 66..."Ghostly Roads & Haunted Highways"...Part One

Readers tell of their strange experiences while traveling...all stories are the property of about.com. Enjoy!

"Freaky Experience On The Road To Portland"

"I'm still not sure what or who it was that my wife (then girlfriend) and I saw on that dark and eerie September night. We had spent a nice Saturday evening in 2003 at a low-key birthday party for a dear friend in Tualatin, Oregon, and were driving home to Portland in the early hours of that following Sunday morning. My wife had limited her drinking and cut it off a few hours early, knowing she would be the driver that night. I had a few beers, but by the drive home I was sober and in a good state of mind. Knowing we were both in a sober and sound state of mind is what makes what we saw that much more confusing and upsetting.

We were coming up on the I-5 freeway from Tualatin, probably about a mile from the ramp, when my wife saw a pair of headlights coming up on us from behind at a pretty fast rate. The road was otherwise vacant of other traffic. Immediately she assumed it was a cop, so she mentioned it to me. I turned and saw the lights and told her to get over one lane to the left. By now the lights were caught up to us and as we switched lanes the car sped up to pass.

Just before the lane divided and forked off into the on ramp, the car caught up parallel to us. I heard my wife say in a trembling voice, "What the heck is that?" I turned to look in the direction she was looking. What I saw still terrifies me to this day.

The car was small and in the shape of an old VW bug. The driver wore a tiny top hat over his dread-locked hair. His head was turned a complete 90 degrees to the right, as if swiveling on his neck and looking straight at us with no regard for the road. His face is what frightened us the most. He was smiling at us, but his mouth -- his smile -- was not at all normal. It was HUGE. Distorted. It looked like something out of a bad horror film.

As those few seconds passed that we drove next to him, his smile grew... and grew... and grew until the parting of his lips exposed his small sharp teeth. His eyes also changed, but I could not explain in words exactly how... or in to what they changed.

We were silent. I don't remember any noise. Not even the road under our tires, the CD playing in our stereo, or the words of shock I KNOW were leaving our mouths. I do remember, however, that those few seconds seemed to last a long, long time. Everything slowed down and I felt as though I stared at his grin for minutes, hours, or who knows how long.

Then, as the road divided and we headed down the ramp to the freeway, he turned his head back to face forward and I felt as though a daze or weight or even maybe a curse just suddenly lifted and all things turned back to normal. I watched behind us for as long as I could see the tail lights of that car. They quickly faded, and that's when our terror set in.

Do we call the police? Will he somehow find us at our home? What was he? Was that real? Are we okay mentally? Who do we ask for help? Do we need help? Was that the devil? And most important, what the hell just happened to us?

The rest of the drive home was spent watching to make sure we were not being followed. We spoke about it, but both avoided talking too much and becoming overwhelmingly terrified. we got home without being followed and didn't speak of it for days, maybe weeks. But when the day came that we did finally talk about that night, the terror of what we saw became very true and real after comparing our experiences to confirm what had happened and what we had seen.

Now it is a story we have no understanding of. It's something we speak of very rarely, and almost never to other people. This is the first time our story has been told completely and totally for others to read. I guess my motivation for this telling is to hopefully connect with others who have either experienced the same thing or have knowledge concerning what happened to us."

"Black-Eyed Passenger"

"My encounter with the black-eyed people happened in August, 2009. I was heading home on I-75 in Williamsburg, Kentucky, and had just gotten up to the speed limit. A car came up next to me in the fast lane and slowed so that it stayed right next to me. I glanced over to their car thinking it was a coworker because they weren't passing, they were just keeping equal pace with me.

I could not believe what I saw in the passenger seat. It was female with jet black hair and the whitest chalkiest skin I had ever seen in my life. But the worst things were those black eyes. This person -- or thing, whatever it was -- kept staring at me non-stop, and as far as I could tell, unblinking.

They drove right beside me for about two whole minutes, and I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to slow down so they would go ahead and pass me. As they did, the black-eyed thing, person, kept twisting its head, staring, to the point that the head was facing backward and the body was facing forward!

I was so frightened I got off at the next exit so I didn't share the highway with them. I have never seen anything so scary in my life. I felt like I was in danger just being on the same road as they were. Thank goodness from that day to today May 19, 2012, I have never seen anything like it again!"

"The Ghost Van"

 "I believe it was 1985 or 1986. I was driving in a little Datsun 510 with my sister Kristine and friend Connie. We were in our early 20s driving to a party on a rainy night. We weren't familiar with the road. It was a three-lane road going one way and we were kind of lost. There were many cars on the road that night. I was driving at a normal speed (the same as the other cars) when all three of of us noticed, all of a sudden, a gray van right in back of us going about 100km/hr when we were only doing about 50km/hr. He was speeding right into us!

We didn't even have time to speed up or scream! Just as we saw him, a second later he was in front of us! The van went through our car like a ghost! I didn't and couldn't change lanes to my left or right because there were cars right beside me. When this happened my knees went all weak and I was having a hard time driving. For a about 30 seconds, the three of us said nothing because we didn't believe what we saw. Then one of us said, "Did that car just go through us?" We all saw it and experienced it. 'Till this day, when we see each other, it comes up in conversations. I will never forget it!" 

Stay tuned for part two!




Coming Soon...

Trippy Tales #65..."The Three Knocks Of Death"...The Conclusion

More tells of "The Three Knocks Of Death" from around the web...

"Last night, while I'm drinking and playing games on the internet, out of nowhere, (4am-ish) - I hear a knock, fast like a wood pecker one then, one two, three.  I couldn't place the origin of the knock, so I sat still, and called out a hollow "hello?"

Moments passed, and a few minutes, then again was the knock, one and 3 rapids. I say hello again, but get no answer.


I'm spooked and now I begin to pay attention to what's going on around me. I put my beer down. Put my smoke down and listened, then called out for them to come in.   No answer, so I settled down, thinking pipes-winter-frozen, stuff- .


No sooner did I get myself back, then the Knock came again. as soon as I got myself aware and logged into the game, the knock came again! Only much closer to me- past the door- near my desk.


Instantly alarmed, I dropped everything and went in search of these 'knocks', to find nothing. Dad is OK, on his side of the house, and so am I on my side of the house. Except I'm unnerved, three knocks, no-one there and the last knock was so close to me , to make me think it was on my desk. that I made a mental mark -"3 Knocks-look it up on the net"- .

I did not go to sleep for a couple more hours, thinking and listening for this "unknown visitor"- There was a definite approach to the knocking sound. The 1st being,"the front door?" and then the 2nd being,-"Is that my door?" and finally, the third Knock.

What the hell , is my desk breaking?- Where is that sound coming from?

And then nothing, no trace of anyone having been here- just me, and my beers. and that sound- it was an unnatural sound, the knocks came closer each time, yet they sounded like they were here with me in my room.

This has set me on edge. I did not do this to myself, nor would I want to.
I sat down to play some world of war craft, and drink beers. then this happened.

I don't really know what to think about it!

A couple internet sites, say that the 3 knocks means your going to die- shortly.

I don't know, but I do know these 3 knocks are the strangest thing that I have actually tried to deal with.

I mean, I said "Come In!!"- more than once, and well -you know the rest of the story-.

Am i going to die? Is there anything real about the 3 knocks?"

"My experience began in 2002 when I was woken up around 3:30 a.m. by three vehement knocks on my bedroom door accompanied by a woman's voice saying, "Wake up." I didn't recognize the voice as belonging to my mother, but I assumed I was merely groggy. Thinking that something must be terribly wrong, I rushed to the door to find no one there. I smelled a rat and began investigating, but to no avail.

About that time, I heard my mom getting out of bed and came to the door. She looked at me with squinting eyes and asked me who was at the front door. This confirmed my sanity, thank god. I've moved twice and had the same experience, minus the audible voice, twice at one location and once at the last.

I've been thinking about this since it happened, and I finally decided tonight to go online and see if there were any other people out there who've experienced this. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are some people out there who are looking for answers, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a forum dedicated to it, so I sat a few hours aside and started one. I'd love for you to come by and share your ghost knocking story at: http://3knocks.11.forumer.com/

Thanks for visiting the playhouse! I hope you've enjoyed the blog & that that you'll return soon! And also, just as a precaution...the next time someone (or some thing) comes a knockin' in the middle of the night....well...you may not wanna answer it! ;)

~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #65..."The 3 Knocks Of Death"...Part Two

From "Mysteries Of The Unexplained" (online)

Some call them 'death knocks' - an omen of sorts. Others say it is spirits trying to reach out to their living relatives. I have also received emails from readers who strongly believe the knocks to be from a demonic source.   The question which everyone is asking and one that still remains is, who or what is causing the 3 distinct, loud knocking sounds that so many people are experiencing? Unfortunately,  there is no way to know for sure. One thing is for certain- it's happening, and more & more people are searching for answers. 

Charlie said...

"Hi, I just posted this comment in another blog, but seems nice to share it here. I came across this site looking for the meaning of the knockings. I began hearing knocks at my room door in early 2005. Then I used to live with my mom and two sisters. The knocks began to intensify,, each time louder, but always when I was about to fall asleep, for which I came to reconcile them with the experience. So, until I was watching tv, in my room, probably at 1:00 am. It's scared the living daylights out of me, and I ran to mom, woke her up and told her, and she told me not to worry. I finally grew used to it, three LOUD knocks on my door almost every night. Time passed by and I move to an apartment on my own, and for probably the first month I heard the knocks on the door again until they finally vanished. My sister at home reportedly heard the knockings twice, then she really began believing me. Yesterday (29/12/08) I heard TWO loud knocks again while I was falling asleep. It completely crept me out. No explanation I can give to the phenomenon nor any site providing some rational explanation for this. Guess I will have to live in doubt."

 Ghostwriter said:

"Around two months ago I was at home and about 10pm I heard three knocks at the front door, this being very unusual I initially thought it was neighborhood kids playing a prank however as I opened the door nobody was there, ok some stupid prank. Not 30 seconds later I hear it again Knock...Knock...Knock...I ran out front as I was 2 feet from the door and nothing. This got me thinking as there was no time for anyone to run and hide.

Then as I was walking back into the house I hear it again Knock...Knock...Knock however this time it was coming from the back door. Well I bolted out to the backyard and...NOTHING...There would have been no time for anyone to jump a fence nor was there anywhere for a person to hide.

FAST FORWARD TO LAST FRIDAY

I have since sold my house and now live in an apartment in another state.

I am fast asleep and I am woken up to Knock...Knock...Knock which sounds like it is coming from the front door, I open my eyes and look at my alarm clock 3:00am exactly. I first though I was dreaming, until I sit up and hear Knock...Knock...Knock again coming from the front door. Also this time I was watching the baby video monitor and I saw my son get startled from the knocks so I know that I wasn't hearing things.

I ran like the wind to the front door and...you guessed it nothing.Then as soon as I closed the door I hear it again Knock...Knock...Knock this time coming from a far wall in my living room. I was so tired that I fell right back asleep.

I was discussing this with a co-worker the other day and he told me that this happened to him when he was younger."

 From Matt H. at about.com:

"I first heard about the phenomenon of three loud knocks signifying a death when I was quite young through family stories. Back around 1956, my mother's first husband was killed in a car crash. That night my mother's sister heard three loud knocks at the door, but no one was there. They heard the bad news soon after.

In February, 2006 I was living with my fiance in a motel room that was provided to me by the adjoining hotel and restaurant where I was employed. It was reasonably late, around 11 p.m., and after making love we both settled in to near sleep. All of a sudden there were three very loud bangs on the window (it seemed to me to be more focused on the window than the door). They were extremely uniform in their intensity and duration, and had an echo sound, like BOOMboom... BOOMboom... Boomboom.

We both sat upright and I knew there would be no one there. I got dressed and went out to see, and it was quiet. After scaring the hell out of her by looking at her and saying, "Death-knocks," I told her what I knew about them. That scared her even more.

I decided to call my mother living nearby to check on her, as she was suffering from serious cancer at the time. She was okay, and I wondered whether it might be my dad.

I didn't really think about it much after that, but in June that year I received an awful phone call letting me know that my dear friend had lost his estranged wife Sonya and his two-year-old daughter in a car accident. Seven months later my mother passed away from her illness.

Just today I was relating this story to my friend, who had begun dating Sonya a few months before her death. He was surprised and told me that he too had heard three loud knocks at the door of his house after he and Sonya had finished making love on a Saturday morning. There was no one at the door, and looking quickly out the window upon hearing the knocks, saw no one at the doorstep.

I have no idea what this phenomenon is. Maybe an angel, maybe a demon -- who knows? Something out there seems to know a lot about us though."

It certainly does...

Stay Tuned For Part Three!
 
COMING SOON...

Trippy Tales #65....."The Three Knocks Of Death".....(Part One)

Have you ever found yourself lying in bed, just about to fall asleep, when suddenly you hear three distinct knocks nearby on the door, wall or window? Has this happened more than once? Maybe you figured the source and went to sleep. Or... maybe it left you shaking under your sheets! Once all other rational explanations have been ruled out, one then has to ask, who or what is causing the phenomenon and why? Below, are some stories from people who claim to have heard them as well.

From Neal @ The Social Paranormal Network:

" First off, I have never heard of "the three knocks" prior to today, but went online to do some research. The story begins back in the 1920s when my grandmother was in the kitchen and heard three loud knocks on her front door. There was no one there, but three days later learned that her mother had died back in Germany.

In 1973 my parents were awakened with three loud knocks on our front door. Upon inspection, there was no one there, but received a phone call about an hour later that my uncle had passed away.

This was never brought up again until I was telling my uncle about the story at my father's funeral in 1979. He and his wife froze and said that they had heard three loud knocks on their storm door about the same time my father had passed away (they lived in Arizona, thus the three-hour time difference). We have never looked into this.

Two weeks ago, my mother awoke to three loud knocks or bangs on her front door. Again, she got up and found nothing at the door and was immediately scared because it reminded her of the 1973 incident. Three days later, my brother was murdered in Louisiana in the early morning. The strangest fact is that in all of the times a family member heard the knocks, it corresponded to the time of death (give or take an hour) of a family member.

This last case is the only time the knocks came three days prior to my brother's death. It was only last night that a cousin and I were discussing the events and decided to do some online research and came across this post. We are definitely not what you would call paranormal, but are looking into any information on the subject and why our family has had so many occurrences."

And from Shel C. of the paranormal files @ about.com:

"This was in my hometown in Illinois, November 2008, Thanksgiving to be exact. We were having Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt, who is a very straightforward, no-nonsense woman, told us about what she had been experiencing. This was in a offhand manner; clearly she thought it was silly and a bit ridiculous.

She told us she had been hearing knocks, always just three in a row, always loud, always at night. They were always on the back sliding glass door in the kitchen. She would hear the knocks from the living room and get up to see who it was, but would never see anyone.

She said it was strange because the knocks were evenly spaced, not just random knocking. This happened three different times on three different nights. Each time she heard it she would run to the kitchen and straight to the sliding door -- and no one was ever there. She told us it had to be kids just messing around, even though her entire backyard is fenced in with a lock on the gate.

A few weeks later, my uncle -- her husband -- was having surgery. It was about 6 p.m., already dark at that time of year, and my aunt was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital waiting for my uncle to come out of recovery. There was also another woman in the room with her that my aunt did not know.

All of a sudden three hard knocks came from the window directly behind her. She instantly turned around to see no one... nothing. She looked at the woman and saw that she too had heard the knocks. The bit that is really strange is that they were on the 7th floor of the hospital! No ledges were on the outside of window, no walkways or deck of any kind.

She said this surprised her a little, but again she is a no-nonsense kind of woman and dismissed it. After telling us all this, she said it was silly and gave us all hugs as we left.

Five months later, my cousin -- her son -- was killed in an accident. This was her only son. It was devastating to the entire family. He was only 35 years old. At that time, I had not heard about the three knocks of death, so that was never in my thoughts. Grief blocked out many thoughts at that time.

Only later did I read on this website about the three knocks of death. Now I believe that's exactly what they were."

And from John Atkinson at about.com:

"This isn't a story, these are true facts. My mother and her mother have always been gifted by forerunners. You would have to ask her about her mother's premonitions, but I can tell you what just happened with my mother.

We live in a little town, St.Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. This year (2011) November 10th, my mother heard three knocks. She always said that means it takes three days, three weeks, or three months (right to the day) that something bad was going to happen, usually a death.

Well, three days later our cousin shot himself in a hunting accident while hunting with his 7-year-old son. She knew something was going to happen, but couldn't figure who it was going to be. She called my brother in Alberta and told him to stay home and not go out anywhere. She also warned some other family members. She never thought it was going to be our cousin.

From my experience, it has always been young people who have died after a forerunner has visited. It seems it is always the person you'd least expect."

Thank you for visiting the playhouse, and keep in mind that the stories above are just a tiny handful out of literally, thousands I found online concerning the three knocks phenomena...so please stay tuned for part two, where I will delve further into this strange occurrence!

(Oh and just a bit of advice)....
"If the ghost is a knockin'....don't bother lockin!" ;)

 ~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #64..."Time Slip Trips"....Part Two

Time travel, according to modern scientific theory, may still be beyond our grasp. Yet for a number of people who have had unusual time slip experiences, time may be easier to circumnavigate than expected.

A classic example of a time slip can be seen in a note from Lyn in Australia. Lyn had read the book, Time Travel: A How-To Insiders Guide, (Global Communications, 1999) and thought her experience was similar to others featured in the book.

In 1997 Lyn lived in a small outback town that was built in 1947 and had changed little since that time.

"I was driving toward the main intersection of the town, when suddenly I felt a change in the air. It wasn't the classic colder feeling, but a change, like a shift in atmosphere. The air felt denser somehow. As I slowed at the intersection, I seemed to be suddenly transported back in time to approximately 1950. The road was dirt, the trees were gone and coming toward me to cross the intersection was an old black car, something like a Vanguard or old FJ Holden. As the car passed through the intersection the driver was looking back at me in total astonishment before he accelerated. From what I could see he was dressed in similar 1950s fashion, complete with hat.

"This whole episode lasted perhaps 20 seconds and was repeated at least 5 times during my time there, always at the exact spot. I tried to make out the registration plate number but the car was covered in dust."

Lyn wondered if there is someone out there still living who remembers seeing a strange sight at the intersection back in the 50s...of a weird car with a bug-eyed woman at the wheel.

Derek E. tells another interesting time-slip story...

Derek reports that in the 1980's, he and his wife were on a driving holiday in the North York Moors in England. They went to a tiny coastal village called Staithes, which had a steep winding and narrowing road down to the harbor, with the entrance to the houses and narrow footway at a higher level of three or four feet.

"We parked at the top of the village, hamlet really, where the tourist buses and cars had to stop and made our way down on foot. What I remember is a brilliantly sunny day with lots of other people around, but as we made our way down, it just suddenly seemed as if no one else were there but my wife and me. An old woman appeared on the footway opposite us. It became cooler and duller. She asked, in what seemed to me an old-fashioned and very polite way, what year it was. Now lots of old people get confused and it could have been that, but what I remember vividly is her black clothes - handmade, rough and with hand-sewn buttons - really big compared with modern ones. Her shoes were very old fashioned with much higher and chunkier heels than you'd see an older person wearing nowadays. In the time it took me to turn to my wife and say, 'Did you see that?' she was gone. The sun was back and so were all the people. My wife had also seen the same old woman and felt the same chill."

Derek's experience seems strikingly similar to traditional ghost stories. Many ghost sightings are readily explained as individuals who appear out of their normal location or time; but often the ghost also seems to change the surroundings of the witness, giving the impression of a time slip. What is open to question is whether these are glimpses into another time or does the witness or the ghost actually travel in time? Perhaps it is simply different sides of the same coin.

~Queenie~

"Modern Mysteries-Strange But True;Time Slips"

 

Trippy Tales #64..."Time Slip Trips"...Part One

IS IT POSSIBLE??

Reader Report by Ronald at about.com:

"The year was 1992 and I was 17 years old," reports Ronald. "My mother lived in South Bend, Indiana and my father lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had made this trip a half dozen times by myself in the past. I always chose to drive at night because there was less traffic, less road construction, too.

"This particular night, I was driving from my mother's to my father's. I had called him on the phone just as I left, as always. When I arrived at his house he had a look of disbelief on his face and said, 'What are you doing here?' Until then I had not noticed that I had made the 370 mile trip in less than 4 hours. I drove an old Pontiac four-door that was not capable of the well over 100 mph that would have been required for that time. Also, I do not remember stopping to get gas, and that car would not make that trip on less than 1½ tanks of gas. Needless to say, I have always been puzzled by this event."

These stories of apparent time slips always are puzzling, Ronald. According to Google Maps directions, the trip should have taken you about 6½ to 7 hours -- and that's without stopping for gas, food, and bio breaks. Seems impossible, and if your start and arrival times are accurate, it's hard to find an explanation.

But here are more weird stories of time slips:

Missing Time and Out of Place
by Cher

"I was leaving my driveway to drive one mile to town. There were woods and few houses along the way. I had just pulled out and there was a thick fog rolling in. Very creepy at night. I had only gone a half a block at most, and very slowly, when I saw a very bright light through the fog. This was really strange since there was nothing near my house.

As I drove closer, I saw a Phillips 66 gas station that wasn't there the day before. I pulled into it in shock, and a man came out. I asked him how a gas station could have been built so fast and he looked at me strangely. He said it had been there for eight years!

I asked him where I was and when he told me, I began to shake uncontrollably. I was 300 miles from home! I looked at the clock and I had left my driveway only two minutes before! It took all night to drive home and I shook most of the way!"

Blip in Time
by Glenn

"This incident happened to me when I was a university student in Nova Scotia, Canada in about 1991. I decided to take the express bus to my home town one night to visit my parents for the weekend. I sat at the back of the bus and there was nobody around me, but there was a family sitting behind the driver in the front. The bus ride was uneventful until we came close to my parents home town.

I was looking out the window and I looked at the Michelin tire factory as we went by it going uphill. When the bus reached the top of the hill, I got a strange feeling and for some unknown reason I started to imagine many people on the bus laughing at me!

Right then there was a blip in reality and the bus was suddenly about a mile back on the highway! I then had the experience of watching the bus drive by the tire factory again! This kind of scared me and I noticed that the family sitting in the front, who were talking loudly before, were now dead quiet.

I approached the bus driver when we stopped and told him what I thought happened. He looked really nervous and he said something like, "Things like that happen." It was like a distortion in time and space."

I'd like to thank you for visiting the playhouse and I hope you'll join me for part two, as I investigate the mysterious phenomena of time slips!

That's all for today folks...see ya next "time" ! ;)

~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #63..."Spooky Surrency"...The Conclusion

Howdy folks!

Thanks for joining me for the conclusion of  Spooky Surrency, and spooky it is!

If you've been following my blog for the past couple entries (and if not, shame on you! ;) then you know that I'm referring to the town of Surrency, in Baxley, Georgia. And being that I live just a hop, skip & a jump from Baxley (not to mention the fact that I'm a sincere ghost-enthusiast) I've heard quite a bit of "front-porch talk" about the mysterious events that have taken place in & around Surrency over the course of my life. 

I still like to do my homework though, so I've posted an eye-witness account below, from a man who's experienced the Surrency ghost up close and personal.

So come and set a spell y'all...pull ya up a rockin' chair or park yourself here on the porch swing...kick your shoes off, grab a cold ice tea and get comfy, while we explore the strange & spooky world of Surrency, way down south in the thick Georgia pines... 

From Augusta Chronical Columnist, Randall Floyd, a chilling tale told by lifelong Baxley resident, Mr. Herschel Tillman:    (Originally created 05/10/98)

 "Georgia haunted house was world-famous" 

Herschel Tillman was only 8 the first time his daddy took him to see the ghost.

"It was on a Sunday, right after church," the 85-year-old retired postal carrier recalled in an interview. "My daddy drove us out to the old Surrency house in an old buggy. We went inside and saw and heard things not of this world." Some of those things included a clock that chimed 13 times, then spun mysteriously backwards, boots that marched around the room, plates and cups that jumped off tables and soared through the air and an eerie, scratching sound that seemed to come from within the old walls.

The biggest shock came when a shower of "hot bricks" fell onto the front porch from out of nowhere.

"That place was haunted. There's no two ways about it," Mr. Tillman concluded. "There must have been at least a dozen ghosts inside the Surrency house."

The rambling, two-story structure that once served as a railroad hotel in the tiny town of Surrency in south Georgia's Appling County was reputed to be the most haunted house in America. In its heyday, from 1885 to 1925, some 20,000 curiosity-seekers, including newspaper reporters, clergymen and scientists, flocked there to observe the strange goings-on.

After watching several ink bottles leap from a table and listening to unearthly screams inside a bedroom, a reporter from the Savannah Morning News wrote: "The whole house is clothed in darkness and . . . bears the spirit of the supernatural."

That same reporter said he watched the hands on a clock "move around with exceeding rapid motion. . . . It would pause and strike oddly, and this went on for 17 minutes."

A reporter from The Atlanta Constitution said that logs kept rolling out of the fireplace and that books mysteriously fell off shelves. The reporter fled the house when several hogs and chickens suddenly appeared in the living room from out of nowhere.

Stories about the Surrency haunting appeared in newspapers as far away as Russia and Greece. Dozens of books were written about it.

Phillip Dukes, who ran a local grocery store, remembers stories handed down by his grandmother about the house. "She used to spend the night there often because she was Mrs. Surrency's sister. A lot of times when she put her shoes under her bed at night, she'd wake up next morning and find them out in the hallway. That happened so many times she came to expect it every night."

According to the late Rev. Henry Tillman, the supernatural forces haunting the Surrency house rarely disappointed visitors. The Rev. Tillman said his father often described how objects in the house would dance on the table at mealtimes, bedcovers would roll up and down at night, and glowing red eyes would hover over the railroad tracks directly in front of the house.

"My daddy was one of the most honest men who ever lived," Mr. Tillman said. "When he said he saw those things, he really saw them."

Eager to rid their home of their unnatural guests, the Surrency family -- for whom the town is named -- sought the help of scientists, ministers, mediums and psychics. But efforts to drive away the ghost -- or ghosts -- were unsuccessful. If anything, they seemed to make matters worse. Windows suddenly began to shatter at random, doors refused to stay closed -- even when locked -- and scissors and irons flew across rooms.

Tradition has it that a murder was behind the Surrency haunting. One story says that a railroad worker was killed outside the home and that his spirit plagued the house and its occupants until the house went up in flames in 1925.

Another version holds that owner Allen Surrency was rumored to be in league with the devil. One witness recounted how Mr. Surrency once demonstrated his arcane powers by running a stick completely through his hand without spilling a drop of blood.

According to tradition, the ghost -- or ghosts -- continued to torment the Surrency family long after they moved to another home.

"That thing haunted Old Man Surrency until the day he died," said one old-timer. "But when he was buried, the haunting stopped."

Well folks...in conclusion, I just have to say that there are some things in this world that we may never understand, and I believe Surrency, Georgia is one of those things.  We may get closer to the truth, but who really knows for sure what caused the crazy disturbances in that town? Scientists and researchers of many kind are still searching for the answers. It's not just the ghosts and the spook light that fascinate them, but the geological differences as well. Surrency has made them have to re-think the way they thought the earth worked. And one thing is certain...it's sure keepin' them on their toes, whether they're studying a seismic graph...or runnin' from a spook light! ;)

Till next time...this is lil Queenie saying... "Stay safe and keep those night lights burnin' bright!" 

Trippy Tales #63..."Spooky Surrency"....Part Two

A bright yellow ball of light was first seen along railroad tracks near the small town of Surrency in the early 1900s. According to one website, it is theorized that the phenomenon is caused by "a geologic anomaly deep under the town of Surrency. The anomaly, discovered in 1985 during a regional seismic survey, is theorized to be a convex shaped pocket of liquid about nine miles underground, unlike anything else in the world. Scientists are puzzled by the anomaly, since liquid is not supposed to be able to form so far underground."  But sometimes...even scientists don't have all the answers!

 

Below is an eye-witness testimony from "Vidaliasweetonion" at "ghostsofamerica.com"
(edited by yours truly:)

"I saw the spotlight ghost on the Railroad tracks in Surrency, Georgia when I was a teenager in high school. It was my best friend and I, and our boyfriends out together one night, trying to decide on something different to do.
We bravely decided to drive to Surrency and park under the bridge, then walk down the tracks in hopes of seeing the spotlight ghost. So many of our friends had done it and they said it was for real! We lived about 30 minutes away from the town, so by the time we got there, (even though we were all a bit creeped out from driving that dark, lonely highway for so long) we had to go through with it.
As we pulled down the lane to park under the bridge, scary, satanic-looking graffiti jumped out at us as the car's headlights hit them. We parked and my best friend shut off the car. We all got out and set out down the tracks, making a promise that no matter what we saw, we wouldn't run. The night was very still and dark with no stars and no moon, but as our eyes adjusted, we could see that the track seemed to go on forever with dense, tall, pine forests starting at about 25 feet from the track on either side. 
As we got to about the 200 yard line, we had relaxed by then and were laughing and cuttin' up when suddenly, my best friend said ''Look!'' and we all looked up to see a tiny white/yellow light a good 100 yards ahead of us.
We froze in disbelief as the light grew brighter and appeared to be moving toward us gradually down the tracks. As it swayed and hovered (all the while coming closer) it started to turn greenish, then bluish, then purplish, then red, and that's when she said ''Y'all, it looks like its moving faster now! '' That's when I looked behind me to see that my brave boyfriend and hers had just turned on their heels and were high-tailing it back to the car!
I didn't need any more convincing either and grabbed my friend's hand. We were turning and running after the boys as fast as we could, without tripping over the cross-ties. We all made it back to the car and piled in, locking the doors behind us. She cranked up, kicked it in reverse and we backed out of that spot with the headlights once again lighting up the devilish faces and symbols of the local graffiti artists work under the bridge.
We freaked out the whole way home, and my friend's boyfriend was unusually quiet. He did not want to discuss it at all! It scared him that bad!  I couldn't explain it, but knowing it's there is enough for me! I will not be back to those tracks again!"

I hope you enjoyed today's entry and that you'll join me for the conclusion of "Spooky Surrency".....materializing sooooooon!

 

 ~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #63..."Spooky Surrency"...Part One

Hello & thanks for visiting the playhouse!

Today's tale is about a town that is very close to my own hometown of Brunswick GA. It's a little place on the map called "Surrency", in Appling county, Georgia.  Some crazzzy things went down in this town, and are still going on today. For example, the Surrency "spook light" that's been sighted along the railroad tracks. It's kind of a long story, so sit back...get comfy...and enjoy!

From americanghoststories.com:

"Way down south in Georgia, in a railroad settlement on the edge of the Altamaha River Swamp, people talked about the Surrency ghost as if its reign were only yesterday. But it was more than a century ago, in the late 1870s, that the hotel of the Allen Surrency family – the family for whom the town was named- became center stage for one of the most spectacular hauntings in American history. In less than a decade, news of the strange happenings at the Surrency home had spread all across the country with thousands of journalists, scientists and curiosity-seekers pouring in to investigate.

Diaries, books, newspaper and magazine reports and hundreds of personal accounts vividly describe the unearthly activities that occurred in that house:

tables and chairs flying through the air, mirrors exploding in hallways, clocks running wild, hot bricks raining from the sky, mysterious noises ranging from sorrowful weeping to sadistic bursts of unexplained laughter.

Only a handful of oldtimers are still around who actually saw the house; fewer are alive today who witnessed the spooky manifestations before the structure went up in flames early one Sunday morning in 1912. Those who remember speak nostalgically of their town’s infamous ghost, pleased at the attention their community once received.

Phillip Dukes, who ran a local grocery store until his death in 1985, did not believe in ghosts. But in an interview with an Atlanta newspaper right before he died, the elderly Surrency native said he didn’t “doubt for a moment” the veracity of accounts handed down to him from his grandmother. “She used to spend the night at the house often, because she was Mrs.Surrency’s sister. A lot of times when she put her shoes under her bed at night, she’d wake up next morning and find them out in the hallway. That happened so many times she came to expect it every night. She never figured out what caused it, so she thought it must have been the ghost.”

The late Hershel Tillman, a longtime postal carrier for the Surrency district, was also convinced that ghosts were responsible for the haunting. As a boy, he visited the Surrency house many times, but it was stories related to him by his father, uncle and other relatives that convinced him there was more to the Surrency ghost than just talk. “No doubt about it, a ghost was involved,” Tillman said. “I wasn’t old enough to understand, but the poor people who lived in that house always had trouble going to sleep once the ghost invaded the place.”

And from about.com:

In the early 1870s, a Georgia family was at the center of a whirlwind of bizarre and sometimes violent poltergeist activity

"That place was possessed by something evil."

That was the opinion of Herschel Tillman when he recalled his many visits to the home of Allen Powel Surrency when he was a boy in the early 1870s. He was just one of the thousands of witnesses to the strange and sometimes violent paranormal activity that plagued the Surrency home, making it one of the most well-known and witnessed cases of this kind in American history.

Allen Powel Surrency, a saw mill operator, was the founder of the small town of Surrency in southeastern Georgia. When returning home from a trip to Hazelhurst in October, 1872, he found his house beset with the haunting. In a letter he wrote to the Savannah Morning News he said:

"A few minutes after my arrival, I saw the glass tumblers begin to slide off the slab and the crockery to fall upon the floor and break. The books began to tumble from their shelves to the floor, while brickbats, billets of wood, smoothing irons, biscuits, potatoes, tin pans, water buckets, pitchers, etc., began to fall in different parts of my house. There have been many other strange occurrences about my house. These facts can be established by 75 or 100 witnesses."

On the face of it, it sounds as if Surrency's house might have suffered an earthquake. In fact, that theory has been offered to explain the phenomena at the house. But that explanation does not hold up to scrutiny: the strange activity lasted weeks, even years off and on; the Surrency house was the only one affected; and an earthquake could not explain all of the bizarre phenomena described below.

And although the Surrency phenomena is usually referred to as a haunting and was attributed by witnesses to ghosts, the case actually has the earmarks of poltergeist activity, which is a psychic phenomenon rather than one that is caused by a residual or intelligent haunting. In fact, there seem to have been no reports of an apparition at Surrency.

Most poltergeist cases center around an "agent," usually a female of the age of puberty. At the time, the Surrency family had eight children ranging in age from 3 to 21.

News of this "haunting" spread like wildfire, and soon Surrency was the center of a media frenzy. Reporters and curiosity seekers from all over the country (and even England and Canada) descended on the little town in hopes of seeing the activity first-hand. Few were disappointed.

Like the famous Bell Witch case, the poltergeist activity at the Surrency house was extreme and diverse. Here are just some of the reported phenomena:

• Unexplained screams were heard
• Voices came from an empty bedroom
• Plates, platters and books flew from their shelves
• Ink bottles leap off a table
• Doors opened and closed by unseen hands
• The hands of clocks spun fast and even moved backward; a chime clock struck 13
• Hot bricks fell from nowhere and landed on the roof and in the yard
• A pair of boots trod across the floor on their own
• At mealtimes, objects on the dinner table would "dance" around
• Logs rolled out of the fireplace
• Several hogs and chickens appeared in the living room, seemingly from nowhere, frightening one reporter out of his wits
• Bedcovers rolled up and down at night

In an effort to rid his house and family of the terrifying activity, Surrency sought the help of the clergy, scientists as well as spirit mediums and psychics - all to no avail. Even after the house burned down in 1925, the activity followed the family to their new home on the other side of the county.

It wasn't until Allen Surrency's death in 1877, it is said, that the haunting finally stopped. Some, however, say it continues to this day around the town of Surrency. In fact, there is a famous ghost light there - a bright yellow ball of light that appears along the railroad tracks.

Stay Tuned For Part Two, Coming Soon!

Trippy Tale # 62..."The Old Wallpaper"

Hello & thanks for visiting the playhouse! 

Today's tale is one of my favorites. I may have posted it before, but it deserves another round of reading, because this one is a really fascinating story! It comes from Mary C. at about.com:

 

"My grandparents grew up in England and moved here after they got married. Both are very intelligent and are not prone to bouts of idiocy or live in a fantasy world. But my grandmother told me of something strange that happened to her when she was a little girl. She swears it really happened, and I believe her to the fullest.

When she was around the age of 8, her family moved into a rather run-down neighborhood. The house next to hers stood vacant and she never remembered anyone living there at all the entire time her family lived next door. The kids in the neighborhood would make up stories, as kids do, and call the house haunted. She said that even at one time, there was a family of squatters that resided there, but they didn't stay long, only a couple weeks and seemed to leave in a hurry.

One day, for reasons that she cannot recall, her older brother took her into the house to explore. There wasn't much to it, but she says she distinctly remembered a room upstairs that had yellowed wallpaper. On the wallpaper were vertical lines of vines and leaves with doves or pigeons sitting in them. For some reason, the room felt eerie and they left soon afterward. She said that when her parents found out that they had gone in there, they were very angry with her brother and told them never to go in there again in case they fell through the weakening floorboards.

Some days later, my grandmother and her brother were walking home from school. As they neared their house, they heard a strange fluttering sound, and to their astonishment, what seemed like hundreds of doves or pigeons were flying out of one of the upstairs windows of the vacant house. The next day, curiosity got the better of them and my grandmother and her brother again went into the house. But they couldn't find the room with the yellowed wallpaper and doves. They checked everywhere twice over, yet never found the room.

Confused, the children left the house, and that's when her brother noticed he had accidently dropped his toy truck somewhere. He told her to wait while he dashed back in the house to look for it. A few minutes later, her brother returned, looking very pale. She asked him if he found his truck and he simply nodded, but didn't say anything, and they walked back to their house.

Later in the evening, my grandmother asked him if she could see his truck and he said that it was back in the vacant house. Miffed, my grandmother demanded to know why he didn't retrieve it and her brother turned to her, wide-eyed, and stated that the truck was on the wall in one of the upstairs rooms. On the wall? What did that mean? He tried to explain that it seemed to be painted on the wall and got angry when my grandmother continued to ask him to explain. He never did truly explain what he meant and soon got so angry with her frequent questions that she stopped asking them.

Whether he was telling the truth or not, she wasn't sure, but it seemed like he had been. They never returned to the old house and eventually moved out. My grandmother told this story to me when I was younger and I have always associated England with this story."

TRIPPY HUH?!

Stay Tuned For More Trippy Tales!

 ~Queenie~

Trippy Tales # 61..."The Death Knock Phenomena"

There's a mysterious phenomena known as the "death knocks" that is sometimes said to occur when a loved one has either died, or is close to death.  They have also been heard during crisis situations.  But no matter when they choose to "come knockin"...they certainly get the attention of all who hear them!

 From Derry Ghosts.com:

The Death Knock

"There are several stories of ‘The Death Knock’. The following one is authenticated. It was told by a woman who married into a family that apparently heard the three death knocks shortly before the eldest member of the family died.

Three years ago on New Year’s Eve, she and her husband were in their sitting room watching television when they heard three almighty knocks which shook the house. They both jumped in alarm and the woman said that she felt weak and ill. When she looked at her husband, he was as white as a sheet. However, seeing her alarm, he tried to laugh it off as the wind playing tricks. She was not convinced and her husband persuaded her to go out for a run in the car. She was still quite upset and just before they left, his brother came to tell them that his father had taken ill very suddenly and died. Their father was a big strong man who was apparently very healthy and his death was quite unexpected."

And here's another story of the death knocks, coming from "about.com"...

"This happened in my hometown in Illinois. It was November 2008, Thanksgiving, to be exact. We were having Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt, who is a very straightforward, no-nonsense woman, told us about what she had been experiencing. This was in a offhand manner; clearly she thought it was silly and a bit ridiculous.

She told us she had been hearing knocks, always just three in a row, always loud, always at night. They were always on the back sliding glass door in the kitchen. She would hear the knocks from the living room and get up to see who it was, but would never see anyone.

She said it was strange because the knocks were evenly spaced, not just random knocking. This happened three different times on three different nights. Each time she heard it she would run to the kitchen and straight to the sliding door -- and no one was ever there. She told us it had to be kids just messing around, even though her entire backyard is fenced in with a lock on the gate.

A few weeks later, my uncle -- her husband -- was having surgery. It was about 6 p.m., already dark at that time of year, and my aunt was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital waiting for my uncle to come out of recovery. There was also another woman in the room with her that my aunt did not know.

All of the sudden, three hard knocks came from the window directly behind her. She instantly turned around to see no one! Nothing!  She looked at the woman and saw that she too, had heard the knocks. The bit that is really strange is that they were on the 7th floor of the hospital! No ledges were on the outside of window, no walkways or deck of any kind.

She said this surprised her a little, but again, she is a no-nonsense kind of woman and dismissed it. After telling us all this, she said it was silly and gave us all hugs as we left.

Five months later, my cousin -- her son -- was killed in an accident. This was her only son. It was devastating to the entire family. He was only 35 years old. At that time, I had not heard about the three knocks of death, so that was never in my thoughts. Grief blocked out many thoughts at that time.

Only later, did I read on this website about the "three knocks of death"...and now I believe that's exactly what they were. I have not told my aunt this and don't plan to, as she does not need to be reminded of her son's death again. Also, a little strange is the fact that my father, my older cousin, my uncle and now this cousin, all from the same side of the family, were all killed in accidents. All of them in their 30s." 

 And another... 

Death Knocks
by Neal

"First off, I have never heard of "the three knocks" prior to today, but went online to do some research. The story begins back in the 1920s when my grandmother was in the kitchen and heard three loud knocks on her front door. There was no one there, but three days later learned that her mother had died back in Germany.

In 1973 my parents were awakened with three loud knocks on our front door. Upon inspection, there was no one there, but received a phone call about an hour later that my uncle had passed away.

This was never brought up again until I was telling my uncle about the story at my father's funeral in 1979. He and his wife froze and said that they had heard three loud knocks on their storm door about the same time my father had passed away (they lived in Arizona, thus the three-hour time difference). We have never looked into this.

Two weeks ago, my mother awoke to three loud knocks or bangs on her front door. Again, she got up and found nothing at the door and was immediately scared because it reminded her of the 1973 incident. Three days later, my brother was murdered in Louisiana in the early morning. The strangest fact is that in all of the times a family member heard the knocks, it corresponded to the time of death (give or take an hour) of a family member.

This last case is the only time the knocks came three days prior to my brother's death. It was only last night that a cousin and I were discussing the events and decided to do some online research and came across this post. We are definitely not what you would call paranormal, but are looking into any information on the subject and why our family has had so many occurrences."

But is the mysterious knocking always a bad sign?  Not according to the story below...

 "A few years back, my daughter was to have emergency surgery on her intestine and the doctor said that her temperature was high and that things "didn't look good for her". I was beside myself, thinking I might lose my only child.
In the middle of the morning, a loud knocking woke me. It seemed to come from the front door, but the knocking occurred again, rocking the entire house. I got up and walked through the hallway and the third set of knocks became a bit lighter.
Finally, the sound vanished. The next morning, the doctor told me that sometime during the night, my daughter's temperature went down and that the surgery would be successful. I feel the knocking was a good sign to me, alerting me that things had changed."

Stay tuned for more trippy tales about this freaky phenomena in part 2!

~Queenie~