Trippy Tales #44..."Thanksgiving Ghost Stories"

Hello and welcome to the playhouse!

It seems that ghosts don't appear at just Halloween, and in honor of the Thanksgiving holidays, I've included some Thanksgiving ghost stories, taken from "about.com". I hope you'll gobble 'em up!;) 

"Great-Grandpa's Thanksgiving Visit"

"This took place November 25th, 1982, Thanksgiving night. My entire extended family was over for the holiday. I was 12. We all sat down in the dining room to eat our big dinner. My Dad had led the prayer. My Grandma started to cry and said we need to pray for Mom, meaning her mother, my Great Grandma. Her name was Bertha. She was now 100 years old and in a care home. She was about to turn 101 years old, and her quality of life was not very good. My Grandma asked God to take her, she's tired. The entire family bowed their heads and agreed.
I gobbled my dinner down and snuck away from the table to play with a toy my Grandma had given me earlier in the day. I went and sat at the top of our basement steps, while everyone continued to eat. I was sitting there when I heard this shuffling noise. I looked to the bottom of the stairs, and this elderly man with a hunch back wearing a black suit and using a cane walked up to the bottom of the stairs. I froze. He turned his head and looked at me and shuffled off, out of my view.
I jumped up and ran to tell people at the table what I just saw. I got the old Shoo! We are talking. I was scared this person was not a guest that night.
The next morning the phone rang. My Dad turned and told everyone Great Gran died this morning. I never ever forgot what I saw, but never understood who it was until 2005 when my Mom passed and I received a huge box of old family photos. I saw the old man in one of the photos. On the back it said Otto. That was Great Gran's husband. He passed well before I was born; I had never seen him. I knew then that there is definitely life after death. I saw my Great Grandpa in the basement. I think he was there for the holiday, and to take his wife Bertha to Heaven the following morning."

"Thanksgiving Shadow Giant"

"This incident happened to me when I was very young, and it still chills me to the bone to this very day. My parents, my brother and I went down to Virginia to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins for Thanksgiving. Since my cousins' house was full of relatives, my family got the basement to sleep in. My brother and I both got cots to sleep on and my parents on the roll-out couch. The basement was located on the lower level of the house and there were twin double-glass doors (covered by a thin white curtain) at the back of the basement that led into the backyard. My brother's cot was closest to these doors.
One night I awoke and rolled over, wondering what had awakened me. For some reason, the backyard light was on and I distinctly remembered hearing my aunt say that they would turn it off so we could sleep. So why was it on? I glanced at my sleeping parents and then back at the the light shining through the white curtain.
That's when I saw it: an enormous dark shadow was standing outside. I could only see the outline of it since the curtain was drawn. It had to of been at least 9 feet tall and its "arms" (or were they wings?) were stretched out on either side, reaching at least 5 feet in length. And it just STOOD there! Didn't move. Didn't do anything.
Terrified, I squeaked out, "Dad!" to no avail. I looked at my father sleeping soundly on the bed next to me and then my brother sleeping close to the double doors and the thing on the other side. Deciding to awake my brother instead, I scrambled out of the cot and went to move toward him when I heard a strange, scratching voice say, "They can't hear you, Lindsay."
I remember almost jumping completely out of my skin! To be addressed directly by an unknown enitity is the scariest thing to happen to you, believe me! I quickly crawled back into my cot, tossed the covers over my head, and began sobbing and shaking uncontrollably until I finally fell back to sleep. (The thing was still outside in the light when I fell asleep.)
The next morning, I told my parents what happened and they just laughed, saying it was probably just a nightmare. I know what I saw though. I can still remember what it felt like to touch the freezing cold basement floor with my bare feet.
Later in the day, something weird happened. I overheard my grandmother on the phone with someone. I didn't catch everything she was saying, but I did catch a certain sentence which was: "Well maybe that is what Lindsay saw outside the double doors last night." I ran upstairs and asked my parents why they told everyone what I saw, and they both looked at me and insisted they didn't tell anyone because they were certain I just had a dream. So I confronted my grandmother and asked her about what she said on the phone and she looked at me blankly and said that she hadn't been talking to anyone on the phone, that she had been in the kitchen the entire day, helping with the preparation of the turkey. My Aunt even vouched for her.
To this day, I am mystified about what happened to me that Thanksgiving all those years ago. I know it wasn't a dream. And what would've happened had I thrown back the curtain to reveal what the shadow creature was on the other side?"

"Thanksgiving TV Apparition"

 "I was the only one awake at about 6 a.m. after an all-night stint of cooking to prepare for the Thanksgiving dinner I was preparing (gotta love that English/American background, twice as many holidays). Anyway, I was watching a children's show called "The Hoobs" on channel four which was about to end in favor of some American sitcoms. The adverts came on and in the midst of an advertisement for some upcoming awards show, I had an urge to take a photo of the TV and did..."

To read the rest of the story, click the link below: 

http://paranormal.about.com/library/bl_tv_apparition_lg.htm

 ~Queenie~

Trippy Tales #43...Return Of The Shadow Man!

Hello and welcome to the playhouse!

Whether you're a first time visitor or a returning reader, I do appreciate you dropping by!

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, then you're probably familiar with my posts on the "shadow man"...if you haven't followed it, then please allow me to introduce you to him.


Or perhaps, like many others, you've already met him...


Below are some tales from people who have.

"SHADOW MAN AT THE WINDOW"

"One night I got up to go to the rest room. When I looked toward my window, I saw shadow of a man in a hat shaped like the one Dick Tracy always wears. Then all of the sudden it banged on my window, violently, three times. I hid under the covers, scared to death. I fell back to sleep in the fetal position, and awoke the next morning knowing it was not a dream. I have heard and think that when you are in that state where you are half-asleep, I think you can see things you normally can't see or maybe even block out while you are awake. My friend agrees. When I told her about my experience, she said, "You see the gray man, too!?" Apparently, she and her husband have both seen almost the same thing. She came out of her house one morning, kind of tired, and saw this man that was gray in color with some of the same feature I described earlier, though he was more than just a shadow - he had a face and he looked right at her; he looked as if she had surprised him, like she shouldn't have seen him. At first she waved it off, blaming it on lack of sleep, but when she told her husband about it later that evening, he replied, "So you finally see it, too." They have also had other paranormal things that happen in their apartment, like ghost sightings and such. It is a weird world, isn't it?"

 "CAMPGROUND SHADOW PEOPLE"

"I was in California, Santa Maria to be exact. I was visiting a campground near the dunes, just sitting around talking with my friends. We saw what looked like distant torches or lights coming across the way. We thought nothing of it at first, but there seemed to be more, so one of the men went to take a closer look. He came running back as fast as he could, and this is not a person that scares.

He said, "Turn off the lights and be quiet." We did because he was so scared it scared us. We asked, "What did you see?" He said, "They look small. I'm not sure." So we waited. We could see "them" -- small, about three feet tall, black globular forms, shaped similar to a bowling pin, but black, no distinct features on their "faces." They did not touch the ground and seemed to be oblivious to us they were close -- about 50 yards, a group of them, maybe 8 or 10. They made the atmosphere seem heavy.

We watched for a while and then they seemed to fade. I have looked in Native American folk tales and everything that pertains to the description of these shadow creatures, but have found nothing. If anybody knows, please let me know."

"HALLWAY SHADOW MAN"

"I'm from Pulheim, Germany, near Cologne, and I want to tell you about my horrible experience last year. It was the 11 November, 2008 in the morning. It was a full moon. I am the director of a kindergarten. My duty began at 7 a.m. I arrived at maybe 10 minutes to seven.

As I opened the door, I felt uncomfortable, so I closed the door. If someone wanted to come into the kindergarten, they'd have to ring the bell. Then I started my job, and laid the tables. You have to know: We have two groups, and this means two rooms. If you want to go into another room, you have to go through the hall.

I just laid the table in one room and wanted to take some plates out of the kitchen. I was just entering the hall when I saw this shadow thing walking from left to the right through the hall, looking at me. It was about three meters away from me! I heard no noise, and it looked like it was walking, but I think it was floating through the hall... it's difficult to explain.

It was a man-like figure -- a black outline. It was a bit like a big Oscar figure in black. Like a man in a Superman costume, totally black, without any face. But I knew it looked at me without any face; it was just the posture of the head.

I was standing in front of this creature, watching it. I couldn't believe it. I felt a fear I never felt before. My hair stood on end (and this is not just a phrase) as I watched this figure for about three to four seconds. Then it disappeared behind a wall. After this figure was gone, I started to run after it, but it wasn't there. But there was no way out. There was a door, but it was closed.

Now, next week will be October, and I'm very scared it will happen to me again! Since then, I am very happy to see that this is an experience of many people, and that I'm not going crazy."

Before I started this blog, I had not heard of the shadow man. I wasn't aware that such a thing even existed. And were it not for the literally thousands of stories on the internet about this being, I'm not sure that I would even be inclined to believe in "him"...but after reading all the stories and seeing all the accounts from different people all over the world, I can not deny that it could be possible. That such an entity really could exist.

How about you?

 

Have you seen him?

 Has he seen you?

 More trippy tales coming soon!

Trippy Tales #42..."La Luchesa" & More!

" La Luchesa"

"This happened about 10 years ago, or at least before the Mexican drug cartels began making tourism to Mexico the extremely perilous voyage it is today. Ten years ago, I was about 18 years old, and my best friend invited me to attend a family reunion which was held in Matamorros, Mexico. Matamorros is a border town, and if you've ever been to Mexican border towns, you know how impoverished they are.
We got to the bridge that separates Mexico from the U.S. via Brownsville, Texas at about 10 a.m. Since neither of us had ever been to Mexico before, we had a bit of a struggle trying to find the motel where a lot of her relatives would be staying during the reunion. Being lost in a foreign country, even if your home country is just a few hours away, can be kind of scary.
When we finally found the motel, we were greeted by the sight of four men in a doorless, topless jeep, with one of the men holding a machine gun. He wasn't brandishing the gun in any threatening manner. It was more like he wanted everyone to see he was heavily armed, and messing with him would not be wise. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite like that before. It was yet another of several firsts that my trip to Mexico would thrust upon me.
My friend and I were contemplating whether we should get out and look for the "rooms" where her family was staying, or remain in the car. Thankfully, the guys left the motel parking lot and we continued on. My friend and I were very apprehensive about staying at the motel after seeing those militant-looking guys.
When we got to the room her parents were staying in, we were shocked to see that there were only dirt floors, no air conditioners or fans to cool off from the intense summer heat, and there was only one toilet and shower that everyone at the motel had to share. I really didn't want to stay there for one night, let alone three (which was how long the reunion was to be). But I didn't want to be rude or seem like a spoiled American, so I kept quiet.
When I stepped outside for a cigarette, my friend quickly followed behind me to tell me that she really didn't want to stay at the motel either. We decided to party until midnight, which is when the border closes until morning, then stay at a motel on the American side of the border until day two of the reunion. The reunion was going to be at a big ranch owned by one of my friend's relatives.
Since we weren't familiar with any of the roads, we followed my friend's parents to the ranch. When we finally got there, the reunion was just starting to get fun. There was a dj, some bouncy houses for the kids, and more cases of Corona than I've ever seen in my life. I was careful not to drink too much since we were planning to drive back to the U.S. later.
Unfortunately, my friend started partying really hard. By 10 p.m., she was passed out. I was fairly confident that I would be able to find my way back to the main road that leads to the border crossing as long as someone could tell me how to get from the ranch to the main road. Just about everyone there was either drunk or didn't speak English very well. I started looking around to see if I could find any of my friend's relatives that I knew, but the more I searched, the more I began to realize that I didn't recognize anybody.
By 10:45, I managed to guide/carry my inebriated friend to the car. I figured I could call my friend's parents on my cell phone to ask for directions on how to get the main road. Of course, being out in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't get a signal. I tried for about five minutes to get some kind of signal, and when I didn't, I decided to try to find the road on my own.
Where we were, none of the roads were paved, or named for that matter, which wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway since there were no street lights to help us see. The roads were extremely narrow at certain points, and there were several areas where, if you were just a little off, you could fall down these very steep drops. I assume these drops led to ditches of some sort, but they were way down low. If we had fallen down one of the steep embankments, days could have gone by without anyone even noticing. There were no guard rails or reflective signs to warn drivers where the steep drops were, so I drove very slowly.
As I was driving around looking for anything familiar that might confirm that I was at least headed in the right direction, I was also simultaneously trying to get a cell phone signal, wake my friend out of her stupor, and checking the time on the car radio.
By 11:45, I was legitimately lost. There was still about a half tank of gas, but with no way of knowing where I was, I might as well have been on empty. I decided to turn back around and head back in the direction I was coming from. I realized that once again, nothing about the landscape seemed familiar.
About a mile down the dark and very desolate dirt road, I saw some kind light. It was dim and it didn't look like car headlights. The light lasted only a few moments and then it just went away. As I drove further, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a person standing on the side of the road. You may recall that due to the dangerous driving conditions I mentioned earlier, I was driving very slowly.
I drove another 30 or so feet and again, I saw some kind of figure, which was now standing on the opposite side of the road. I began to feel extremely uneasy. Whatever I was seeing was following me. I began screaming my friend's name as loud as I possibly could to wake her up. I wanted so badly to just drive as fast as I possibly could, but if I did that, I probably wouldn't be here writing this today.
Anyway, my friend came to and I frantically explained to her that not only was I lost, but that something was out there, following us. Right as my friend doubtfully proclaimed that nothing was out there following us and that I was just being paranoid, we heard an awful, piercing screech followed by the sound of something slamming down on the roof of the car! I tried so hard to focus on my driving despite the fact that I could no longer see anything because now I was crying out of the sheer terror. My friend, who was also screaming and crying suddenly went silent.
"Gina," she whispered. "Look. Look out your window!"
When I looked, I saw this large humanoid creature running alongside the car. I pressed the gas and accelerated my speed up to around 35 mph. The creature easily kept up right along with us.
"What the hell is that?" she screamed. I took my eyes off of the creature so I could focus on driving, when I looked again, the creature had vanished. Thinking maybe whatever it was had left, I slowed down a bit.
Then it landed right on the hood of the car. It landed with such force that the hood caved inward. It looked right at us and revealed a set of razor-sharp claws. I did the first thing that came into my mind which was to slam on the breaks to hopefully throw the creature off. It let out an even louder, more blood-curdling screech before hitting the road. It wasn't as hard a jolt as I would've liked; it certainly wasn't enough to kill it, but it did throw the creature off. Then the creature stood up and darted off into the pitch-black landscape.
My friend and I were in a state of pure terror, unsure of what was to come next. The whole ordeal felt like it lasted for no more than 45 minutes, yet when I looked at the clock again, the time was around 5 a.m. We somehow lost about 4 hours, which I found to be quite disturbing. If I had really been driving for so long, I should have been out of gas by then. Yet, the gas gauge was slightly below the quarter tank line.
After about 20 minutes had passed since the creature last attacked our car, we were still quite lost, but with dawn approaching, we quickly found locals who could direct us back to the main road. After we reached the motel, we told everyone about our terrifying experience. We were told of a legendary creature known as La Luchesa. It's similar to Native American creatures called Skinwalkers. They are supposed to be witches who disguise themselves as owl-looking creatures.
As you can imagine, we didn't exactly get to enjoy the trip as much as we had anticipated. We cut the trip short and headed back to the U.S."

"Second Avenue Poltergeist"

"The year was 1976 and I was eight years old. My parents rented this house from in International Falls, Minnesota, on 2nd Ave E. Things didn't happen right away. Then one night I woke up cold. My blanket was gone! And wouldn't be the last time either. I sat up, looked around. I saw my blanket was under my bed, all neatly spread out. I just grabbed my blanket and went back to sleep.

In our kitchen, my mom had these four wooden plates that were hung up above the cupboards. One night I heard something fall. I got up, walked through the house and didn't see anything until I got to the kitchen and saw the plates on the floor. I was just a kid. I didn't know what to think. So I got a chair, pushed it to the counter, climbed up, and hung them back up. I tried telling my mom, but she said I was dreaming. How was that possible when I physically hung them back up?

I told my best friend Debbie. She kinda believed me. My dad was on a baseball team, and he was playing that day, so I stayed home with Debbie. It was starting to get dark out. We were watching TV when all of a sudden the bathroom faucet turned on! We looked at each other, got up, held each other as we walked to the bathroom. The hall light was on, and sure enough the water was going full blast! We crept closer, turned the light on. I turned the faucet off, then we both took off running and screaming to her house.

She was a believer. My parents didn't want to hear it. I never stayed in that house alone -- ever.

Several days later, again my parents were at a baseball game. I was next door. We were bored, so Debbie suggested, "Let's see who can make the fastest peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We walked outside to equal distance of our doors. Then she yells, "GO!" I took off running and ran into the house. The living room was so dark; the heavy drapes were drawn. So I started my sandwich when something called my name, "Crystal...." in a long, drawn-out whisper! I jumped, turned around, and stood frozen to the spot. The living room was so dark! I couldn't move! I think I stopped breathing. I don't know how long I stood there.

Finally, I just took off running. I saw Debbie and she yelled, "I won!" Then she saw my face and she said, "You are so white!" I told her what happened. From that day on, I never ever went in that house alone, day or night.

We moved two years later. I am 40 years old now. Sometimes when I am alone and relaxing, it comes to me -- my memories of those events, still fresh. I'll never forget."

More Trippy Tales...

 Appearing Soon!

Trippy Tales #41..."Disappearing Victim" & More!

 "Disappearing Victim"

"Let me start by saying I'm a total skeptic when it comes to ghosts and aliens and other paranormal stuff. Seeing is believing and I had never seen anything paranormal before this and I haven't seen anything since. But I'm sure of one thing -- I have absolutely no explanation for what my boyfriend and I, as well as at least six other people, saw.
The incident I am writing about took place in Michigan in the spring of 2008, sometime in late March to early April. I was in the car with my boyfriend on I-96 headed West; it was a little after 3 PM. We were coming up on the exit for Farmington Rd when my boyfriend shouts, "Holy @$#%! Look at this!"
I look over to the left and see this girl sliding down the grassy bank on the side of the expressway. She looked about mid to late twenties; she was really pale with shoulder-length brown hair and she was wearing and old-looking cream colored slip like you would wear under a dress and no shoes.
She looked absolutely filthy, like she'd been in a dungeon for years. I couldn't believe my eyes as she started running across the expressway. It was mid-afternoon but the expressway only had a few cars on it at the time, but the cars that were around slowed down to avoid hitting her and probably to watch in amazement, like me and my boyfriend -- so I know we were not the only ones who saw her.
She scrambled over the cement wall median and across our side of the expressway. When she got to our side I could see her a little closer and it looked like she was running from someone or something. She looked terrified, as if she was scrambling to get away from something.
As she started climbing up the other side of the of the expressway and our car was almost right next to her, she just disappeared into thin air, just like that!
My boyfriend and I both said at the same time, "Did you see that? She disappeared!" We got off on the Farmington Rd. exit. The whole time my boyfriend was looking out the back window for her. We even pulled over in the gas station right off the exit and got out and looked around for her but she was nowhere.
I don't know if she was a ghost or from another dimension or what, but I know what I saw was real and so does my boyfriend. I know the people who were in the other cars on the expressway that day saw her, too."

 "Intrusive Bedroom Ghost"

"Even though I wasn't the main witness to this story, I was the main character. The following story happened to my wife and I on October 9, 2011. My wife and I recently got married this past June and she moved in to my apartment.
At her house, she had a long history of paranormal encounters, which included watching a lady in yellow walk in and out of her room at basically any time of the day! she also had the feeling of being watched at night.
Me, on the other hand, had witnessed a few things in my house, but nothing to the point where I was paranoid. As a side note, my favorite color is red so I painted my room walls red and the top and bottom part of them black.
This night we fell asleep at our usual time, maybe 11 p.m., not knowing what 3 a.m. had waiting for us. I sleep on the right side of the bed, which is the opposite to the wall. To my right I have the TV maybe four feet away from me. My wife claimed she started having the feeling of being watched. She ignored it, but the feeling was so intense that she opened up her eyes to see a woman around 30-35 years of age just staring at her with an odd, blank face. She then tried wiping her eyes, thinking she was still asleep, but the woman was still there.
At this time she had tried to call me, but I wouldn't wake up, so she just ignored her and eventually she disappeared. That's not all. She fell back asleep when maybe an hour after the incident she awoke to find me asleep face up with my right arm stretched as I normally do. This same lady was now lying next to me, on my right arm and with her head resting on my chest, watching her with that same look.
My wife tried waking me up again, and when I did the woman was gone and I did have a strange feeling in my right arm. I tried to be brave and told her it must've been a dream, but in reality I couldn't. I was frightened!"

"Touched By Evil"

"Location of occurrence: Norman, Oklahoma. Time: June-July 1993. Type of occurrence: Evil spirit, shape shifter, scary sounds, disappearing apparition, black smokey swirling mass, bright flashing lights.
I was 18 years old and had just moved into my first loft apartment with my high school sweetheart. It was a two-story loft with a balcony on the second floor that we could overlook down on the first floor and hear everything.
The first few weeks we were there, nothing out of the ordinary happened. My boyfriend worked long hours as an irrigation worker and left at 5 a.m. I did not work and I was enjoying my first summer after graduating from high school with my friends.
One morning he got up for work and left at 5 a.m. and I woke up and heard him leave and decided to put a cd on and go back to sleep. I woke up for some reason and I saw my boyfriend kneeling by the bed just quietly staring at me. He did not blink and had no expression on his face. I stared back at him and wondered why he was home so early. I glanced at the time on the nightstand and it was 8 a.m. exactly. I was too tired to ask, so I just stared back and smiled. I noticed his clothing and it looked like he was wearing work clothes, but he had sweat bands on. I thought that was strange because I knew he didn't own any.
Here's the part that changed from sweet and innocence to complete horror. He stood up and tapped my arm three times and walked into the wall and vanished into thin air. This startled me and I sat up quickly in bed, and my arm was tingling from where he touched me. That tingling sensation went up my arm and through my whole body and it was in control of me. I watched my hand in horror as my fingers moved by themselves in a robotic sort of creepy way. I tried to say something, but nothing would come out of my mouth. Nothing. The room was eerily quiet, but I could breathe just fine.
I tried three times to say something, and every time I tried I kept telling myself that this time I would really really try... and nothing. Finally, I said to myself that I would scream and as I was screaming I heard a faint sound and it got louder and louder and I realized it was my scream coming to me. I could hear myself again and had control over my bodily functions and couldn't believe what had just happened.
I jumped out of the bed and ran to the wall where I saw my boyfriend disappear and looked in the closet, the bathroom, and downstairs and I realized that nobody was home. I grabbed the closest pair of shoes I could find and grabbed my car keys and ran out the door in total panic and fear. I would not go back until I was sure my boyfriend was home.
I told him what happened and he looked at me like I was crazy. I dropped it because I knew he didn't believe me. I was wondering if I was crazy and didn't mention it again.
A few weeks later, I was having horrible fights with him. We could not get along and there was so much hatred and jealousy between us. It got to the point that I decided to sleep downstairs on the couch. I was wide awake lying on the couch and listening to a cd when all of a sudden I saw a bright flash of light. It looked like someone took a picture in the room. Then I saw what I can only describe as a black swirling smokey mass coming toward me. I was so frightened that I ran upstairs and was tripping over myself in a panic. I jumped in the bed with my boyfriend and curled into a ball and couldn't even talk.
He was very concerned and kept trying to get it out of me. I started to catch my breathe and right when I was about to tell him, we heard glass breaking downstairs. It was not the sound of just a single glass breaking; it was the sounds of large chandeliers falling and breaking into a million pieces. It was loud and coming from downstairs inside our house. It happened about four or five times and stopped.
My boyfriend looked concerned and he said, "Wait here. I will be right back."
"No," I said. "I am coming with you."
We crept down the stairs. He went first and we were both expecting to see glass everywhere, but there was nothing. We checked the cabinets and couldn't find anything that broke. My boyfriend looked at me and said, "I believe you." I told him that I was moving out that very next day because I knew I couldn't possibly stay there and feel unsafe.
I moved to North Texas to be near family and have never had an incident like that happen again. It was an evil entity and powerful and I was afraid of what it was capable of doing. In a moment all my beliefs that I had been taught as a child had been shattered and it changed my perspective forever. I was taught that ghosts can't touch you and I learned that they can!"

Trippy Tale #40..."The Haunting Of Laura"

 

As promised...

"The Haunting of Laura"

 

Traumatic events can sometimes trigger poltergeist activity, but for one young girl, the torment seemed to have no end...

It is currently theorized that poltergeist activity arises out of the subconscious of a living person, called an agent. This agent, very often a young girl, usually is known to be under some kind of stress, whether it is emotional, physical or psychological. By some mechanism that is still unknown to science (and paranormal researchers), this inner stress can manifest as phenomena outside the agent. Turmoil inside the body and mind of the agent becomes a physical reality in the form of knocks on the walls, lights and other electrics flicking off and on by themselves, objects thrown about, and more.
The case of Laura B. might very well qualify her as a poltergeist agent. As a young girl she suffered the anguish of an alcoholic father, who often lashed out in violent anger. It's not surprising, then, that Laura was terrified of her home's basement at night, since that is where her parents' bedroom was. "The creepy feeling in my basement intensified as his alcoholism and addictions grew worse," Laura says, "and I would refuse to go into my parents' room for any reason. There was always a negative feeling in the room, but I always attributed that to my dad."
Evil in itself is not paranormal, and we can easily understand why Laura would get negative feelings from that room. About five years ago, however, her parents divorced, and that's when the line began to be crossed into the unexplained - when the poltergeist activity began.
RED AND GREEN LIGHTS
"All of the negative feelings that had been in my parents' room suddenly moved into my room and intensified," Laura says. Now on one level this could be understood as a psychological reaction. Many children feel responsible or guilty for their parents' divorces, and Laura might have been transferring the negative feelings she once had about her parents' room (her father) and brought them into her own room (her unjustified guilt).
But now that she was directing this fear and trauma inward, it began to manifest in outward phenomena.
"I had taken the TV from downstairs into my room but always had to sleep with it on or with me facing the other direction," Laura says in explaining how the phenomena began. "If I looked around my room at night, I would always see a tiny red orb zip across my room. I would watch it zoom from one side of my room to another, almost like the red dot from a laser pointer. Shortly after I would see this red light, if I looked at my TV there would be a small green square flashing at the center of the screen. This square would get larger with each flash and looked like it was an image, but I was way too scared to look at it. The flashing TV sent me extremely bad vibes and I would always turn on the lights or the TV afterward so I wouldn't be in the dark, terrible, silent dark."
If this happened just once we might dismiss this experience as a hallucination, but the phenomenon repeated night after night for Laura. "Each night I would see the screen flash once and be too terrified to even consider looking at it. I realized that the red light was a sign that the TV would flash, so I would always turn on the TV or slam my eyes shut when I saw it. I got so scared of the red light and green flash that I stopped sleeping in my room altogether."
THE SLEEPOVER
Fast forward to a year after Laura's parents divorced. It was the end of the school year and Laura decided to have a sleepover party with a few close friends to celebrate. Laura planned for them to sleep in the living room, making the excuse that her bedroom was too small. "I had other reasons for saying that, she says."
One girl was intent on sneaking into Laura's room, however, and when she did so, Laura had a disturbing vision. "What I saw made me go cold," she recalls. "Black, smog-like gunk was oozing out from the crack under my door into the hallway. It was one of the most disgusting looking things I have ever seen."

Laura was at her wit's end. She asked another trusted friend, who happened to have an interest in the paranormal, to investigate her room. She went in and came out a while later looking white-faced. "Whatever is in your room is the most evil thing I have ever encountered," she told Laura. "It is not human."
To be objective, we don't know whether or not Laura's friend is a suitable judge of such matters, but she did perhaps feel the same negativity that Laura was dealing with. Laura believes this was a turning point.
ALL HELL UNLEASHED
"After she investigated my room, it was as if Hell had been unleashed," Laura says. "I believe that acknowledging the entity for what it was gave it power. The negative feeling in my room spread to the entire house and made being there feel oppressive. I no longer felt safe in my house."
It all seemed to come to a head one summer night when Laura and this friend were in the house alone. "Even though it was the summer, my entire house was cold," she says. "A heavy, malevolent feeling seemed to creep ever closer to us. We were cold, so we decided to make some soup. As we were in my kitchen, we heard a scratching noise come from the inside the microwave. We opened it up to see where it could be coming from and the noise stopped. We couldn't find the source so we shut the door... and the scratching started up again."
Laura's dog began to act strangely. He would stand, look nervously at the TV, whine with discomfort, then sit down again with his ears pinned back submissively. The two girls decided to put on a movie to calm their escalating fears.
"I was sitting on my couch with my feet tucked under me when I felt something cold, thick and pointed brush from my heel to the arch of my foot," says Laura. "It was very deliberate and the worst sensation I have ever felt. I screamed and jumped up, and my friend and I ran outside and got onto my trampoline and just held each other in the semi darkness.
"I looked toward my room and I could see a shape in my window, even though no one else was home. My dog started to freak out again and there was a rustling noise in the grass. I saw what looked like a black cloak being dragged across the grass. The shape circled the trampoline several times and then disappeared."
GUARDIAN SPIRITS
The disturbing activity continued for Laura until she got some advice from an online friend. "He said he had two guardian spirits that he would send to me to take care of the creature, one light and one dark," Laura says. "I was desperate for any kind of help, so I agreed."
Most of us probably would not have taken that solution very seriously, but Laura insists that she witnessed a phenomenon that she interpreted as those two guardian spirits.
"That night I stayed up all night watching three orbs of light fly frantically around my house," she says. "One was an inky black color that seemed to ooze and drip. The others were a large black ball and a smaller white ball. The white and black ball were chasing and bumping in to the inky blot as I watched wide-eyed. The black and white spirits forced it out of my house, and for a while I thought everything would be alright."
Things were not alright, however. Laura continued to be haunted by menacing shadows and experienced one particularly terrifying illusion. "A couple of houses down the street there is a family that has large Rottweilers," she says. "One night I was walking home when I looked at that dog. It was staring at me with inky black eyes. It also looked like its jaw had been ripped off and its tongue was just lolling out of its mouth. I ran to my house and in front of my driveway was a cat with the same ripped out jaw, but its eyes were normal. It was strange and disturbing, but luckily I only saw that phenomenon once."
Today the phenomena have subsided, but Laura admits that her faith has been shaken by this ordeal. "I'm not sure what I believe anymore," she says, "but all that I know for sure, is that there is true evil in this world!"

 Stay tuned for more Halloween Horror...

Coming Soon!

Trippy Tales #39...Halloween Screams!

Welcome to the playhouse! Thank you so much for dropping in!

Halloween is fast approaching, and I hope you'll enjoy the following gory-stories...they were hand-picked just for you!

People report paranormal phenomena at all times of the year, but there’s something about Halloween night that heightens the senses and, perhaps, connects us more readily to forces unexplained. Consider these chilling true tales of Halloween horror from the about.com website...

Evil in the Attic

"Attics can be scary places... maybe even more so around Halloween time. Take it from Eve, who as a young girl ventured into her attic alone in search of costumes. “My mum and sister went to my neighbor's house, leaving me alone in the house,” says Eve. “It was about 4:30 and already beginning to get dark. I took that opportunity to sneak upstairs into the attic to try on some Halloween stuff. I quickly ran up the steps, knowing that if my mum came back and caught me, I would be in deep trouble. Although all the windows were shut, I felt a cold breeze pass through me, but I thought nothing of it at first because I had had no past experiences of paranormal phenomena.”
Eve rummaged through the bag of Halloween costumes and pulled out a witch’s hat, which she tried on for size. Almost immediately, some unseen force hit the hat. She dropped the bag and quickly turned around, but found nothing against which she could have knocked the hat. “As I bent down to pick up the bag, I saw the handle to the bathroom door turn and the door rapidly opened,” Eve says. “I walked cautiously into the bathroom, wondering what had caused the door to open in such a way. I had a feeling that there was another presence in the room. I looked out of the window to check if my mother and sister were still outside, and sure enough they were. Just as I was about to turn away form the window, I saw the reflection of the cupboard door sliding open. I turned around hastily to try and see what was causing these incidents, but I wasn't quick enough to catch whatever it was.”
Terrified, Eve threw the bag back into the cardboard box and ran downstairs and out into the front garden, waiting anxiously for her mum to return home. “That night, I had a nightmare about what might have followed if I had stayed up there any longer,” Eve says. “Evil, gleaming red eyes stared at me from the bathroom cupboard, locking me in the toilet and causing complete havoc all around the house. Several unexplainable things have happened up there since then, including ‘self-breaking’ objects.”
What was it, beside her own equilibrium, that Eve disturbed in that attic that evening?"

The Phantom Car


"It was Halloween evening 1995 when Pamela and her brother were heading home on a country road near Greenbelt, Maryland. At the time, I was not licensed to drive, so as usual my brother was the driver. As it was darkening, Pamela reckons that they were moving at about 25-30 mph on the two-lane road, with her brother at the wheel.
Suddenly appearing behind them, and approaching quickly, was a black vehicle with two large, round and glaringly bright headlights. Almost as quickly, the car was beside them on the left, as if trying to pass. But, Pamela says, it seemed that the old black car was floating rather than riding the pavement. “This old car was in the path of head-on traffic,” Pamela recalls. “It seemed like those other cars kept going without interruption. My brother and I looked over inside the car and there were four young teenagers, two young men and two young ladies.”
Strangely, they looked to be dressed in farm clothing from the 1930s or 1940s – and they all looked as white as ghosts. The young lady in the front passenger turned her head slowly to Pamela and her brother and smiled, then turned back. The two people in the back seat just stared. Then, inexplicably, the car floated past them... and vanished into thin air.
But that’s not the end of this ghost story. “In 1997, my brother and I were on the same road, around the same time, again coming home,” Pamela says, “and the same spirits appeared and repeated the same scene. In 1998, my brother was alone driving home on this road and the same ghosts appeared again, repeating the same scenario.
“Maybe these teens were going out on Halloween and got into some terrible accident. They are clearly stuck on this road driving! God rest their souls!” 

 STAY TUNED FOR MY HALLOWEEN SPECIAL, "THE HAUNTING OF LAURA" COMING NEXT TIME ON TRIPPY TALES OF THE PARANORMAL!

  
~Queenie~