Things That Go Bump In The Night!

[addicted]

Read in the paper today that a radio progrmme is being broadcast about a  true story  from the 1950s  of a family who were allegedly  pestered by a poltergeist. It got me wondering if anyone on here had had experiences of a ghostly nature. I haven't personally but have been told stories by very creditable people who have had such experiences. The nearest I have had myself is some years ago while running  a small building company we were converting  a large house in North London into flats. One morning the man who lived next  door came in  and asked our workforce if they had had any weird unexplained occurences and it emergred they had. Apparently all 5 of them had had  instances of coming in in  the morning to find tools moved on to different floors and work generally not as it had been left the night before.The neighbour told them it wouldn't be happening again. It seems that each night after everyone went home all hell would break out from the empty house with crashing and banging moaning  and general sounds of disturbance. But it will be alright now he said . We know who is making the racket.  iI is the old lady who was the mother of the family who have just moved out. She died not long ago and she is upset they've gone . We got so fed up with the racket I came round last night and shouted through the letterbox and told her where they have moved to.  We had no more din last night. She'll have gone to their new house  now. And true to his word no more strange things happened for the duration of the contract.

 

Carole

[ranworthbreeze]

Spookily No. 

[Cheesey69]

Rented a cottage in Cornwall from the national trust.

The cottage dated from the 17 centaury. small, it had been extended in the 18 centaury.

One night the dog suddenly jumped up staring into nowhere and started wagging tail as if being petted.

The next night I noticed the mirror slowly rocking. The wall was a meter thick and the original front wall of the cottage and not in any draughts. 

Towards the end of the holiday, the door in that wall suddenly closed. No wind outside.

The dog in no way would walk behind the cottage.

It was only when looking through the old visitor books that we noticed about 3 years before our visit,  That someone left a comment that she was getting negative feelings toward the dividing door between the old and the newish divisions of the cottage.

 

[hazelgirl]

Nope and hope I never do, scares the bajesus out of me anything to do with paranormal.

[NeilB]

A couple of months after my father in law died my wife woke up screaming "stop it dad, your frightening me".  I said what's wrong and she said her dad keeps appearing out of the wall and promptly went back to sleep.  I spent the next 1/2 hour or so keeping a very close watch on the walls and struggled getting back to sleep !!

[Chelsea14Ian]

Ask Marina,she's had a few.I'm a skeptic, however  some years back.I was getting ready for work early morning. I was in the bathroom  and could  hear a noise on the floor in the kitchen. I thought  it was the cat playing  with a spoon,which was an old one for use with the cat litter.I called to her to stop playing. When I went into the kitchen no cat but the spoon had certainly moved.And no it was early morning and no drink.

[MauriceMynah]

I really wish I had had some of those spooky experiences, I think I like most spirits.

 

Oh come off it!  You all knew I was going to post something like that!  :-)

[ExSurveyor]

One or two

We renovated a 1540 Hall house to live in the mid 80s, it was horrendous. We had three full exorcisms performed by the CoE  ' Deliverance ' specialist.

A fascinating experience that is not advertised and can only be accessed by referal from a parish vicar.

We moved after 3 years.

Now I was a fairly down to earth, logic trained surveyor, but what I and many others witnessed persuaded me that there is more we don't understand than we do.

I will still try to debunk many of the examples I come across but, for me, much remains unexplained.

 

[OldBerkshireBoy]

49 minutes ago, hazelgirl said:

Nope and hope I never do, scares the bajesus out of me anything to do with paranormal.

You`ve seen to many Horror movies! 

I have a couple of tales to tell, the first was when staying with an aunt in Scotland where I found small articals would be moved in my room, I thought it was my aunt until I mentioned it and she explained that there was a friendly presence in the house and that there was nothing to fear. The second was when walking home in the early hours and I passed somebody in a lane but when I looked back they were gone. One of my sisters has had many experiances.

[BroadAmbition]

Yes.

When my Dads best mate got killed (RTA) 1970

St Benets Abbey mooring about 1972

Mum n Dads old farmhouse in 1977

A lonely road outside Stirling 1983

When my Mum died 2000

Nowt since

Griff

[FairTmiddlin]

1 hour ago, Chelsea14Ian said:

Ask Marina,she's had a few.I'm a skeptic, however  some years back.I was getting ready for work early morning. I was in the bathroom  and could  hear a noise on the floor in the kitchen. I thought  it was the cat playing  with a spoon,which was an old one for use with the cat litter.I called to her to stop playing. When I went into the kitchen no cat but the spoon had certainly moved.And no it was early morning and no drink.

I too was a sceptic, now I'm on the fence.

Whilst undertaking my Whitbread management training I lived in at a pub that I eventually ran. Now this pub is reliably been dated to the 11th century. But it has been extensively enhanced and enlarged over the past 9 centuries.

Whilst working one afternoon, I was cleaning the glass washer behind the bar. Everything was stripped down and in the sink soaking Now this glass washer was opposite a long hallway, it led right though the pub. Doors off of it led on the left to the accommodation and an open archway, to the food servery, on the right to the cellar and the pub kitchen. None of these openings are opposite each other.

On turning around and looking down the corridor, for no apparent reason. What appeared to be someone, walking across the hallway. it looked like a woman walking quickly, in a hooded cape ( very much like the Scottish widows advert). But.

The figure walked through the walls not through any opening that was in the now pub.

I said nothing to anyone until a few days later when I told the manageress and reported exactly what I saw.

She dropped the bombshell that, one of the bar staff had reported the same apparition to her 5 days previously, with the same description and the same place and same time of day.

[ES2]

Not long after I bought my boat I experienced on a number of occasions three bangs on the bulkhead in the middle of the night. It was always three bangs except once where there were three double bangs.

As a person who takes a while to go to sleep and stays awake for ages if woken it became a bit annoying.

The last time it happened I sat up in bed and spoke to whatever it was, saying that if it was a previous owner of the boat who was deceased it was welcome on the boat in my travels but please stop waking me up at night.

It has not happened since. I wonder if it is still on the boat?

 

[ES2]

This thread has opened some memories of the past of which I would like to relate.

Many years ago when I was a lad I had a little dog, a rather handsome cross breed terrier. 

I used to walk him in the evenings and he behaved himself until we passed a particular house in my street when he would bark and snarl at something I could not see, obviously he could sense something. After we passed the house he just went back to being the lovable little rascal I knew. An elderly man had passed away a few years before in that house. 

The Lion at Thurne had something strange there. I was sitting having a quiet beer and one of the other customers had a dog which constantly growled and barked whilst looking at the open door. I was sitting by the window and could see nobody outside and nobody was standing in the doorway. I mentioned this to somebody who was involved in refurbishing the pub a few years later and he said that some odd things had happened such as tools being moved and other odd things.

Now back on my boat, there have been odd things there which have happened. Quite often when moored on a public mooring having a snooze in the cabin after a lunchtime session dogs have barked and snarled at the boat, and only my boat when in the vicinity. Perhaps my "crew" was upsetting them. It has never hurt me however.

[addicted]

Theobalds Park, near  Waltham Cross Essex is home to the old Temple Bar Arch, a previous owner having bought it when it was relocated from it's old site in London where it had a rather gruesome history having been used to hold  and display the  impaled detached heads of executed people. It lays in the woods  on the estate that border the farm of an old friend of mine. On occasion we used to walk the dogs through and sometimes the horses. As we approached the Arch the dogs used to start to shake  and get very anxious and then hare off in the opposite direction and nothing would persuade them to come anywhere near the arch. the horses used to get very skittish and they too would not be led past the arch.

 

Carole

[ES2]

Carole.

I try to keep an open mind about these sort of things but that sounds really spooky.

However, in my years exploring the canals of the UK out of interest I spent the night moored in Betton Wood near Market Drayton on the Shropshire  Union Canal.

Now, the old narrowboat community would never moor there because what was called a vociferous ghost that would wail in the night.

Well I survived the night and spooky did not show up, perhaps it was it's night off. The only thing I did notice was an owl perched in the trees. Perhaps that was the spook. Now Whoooooooo would have thought that? 

[Chelsea14Ian]

According  to many books,there are a number of ghosts in and around  the Broads.

[ES2]

4 minutes ago, Chelsea14Ian said:

According  to many books,there are a number of ghosts in and around  the Broads.

Yep, there is Black Shuck, an horrendous hound that haunts the banks of the rivers on cold windy winter nights and the ghost at Acle Bridge who was apparently a local bully who was set upon by his neighbours and had his throat cut and his tongue pulled through the hole giving him a "devil's necktie" and he was hung over the old Acle Bridge. Apparently he hangs around the area.    

[SteveO]

Not a poltergeist, but a very strange experience . It was a warm Summer evening around 8pm. We had the conservatory door open.  I was pottering in the study and Nik was in the kitchen, having just returned from visiting her mother who was seriously ill in hospital.  Nik exclaimed "Oh my God" having glanced into the conservatory and seen a large rook that was sitting on the back of a chair in the corner; the chair that Nik's Mum always sat in when she visited. I went into the room with the idea of encouraging it to leave, but it was not for moving. After a 2 minute stand-off it hopped onto the floor and walked out of the conservatory and then flew away, never to be seen again. A couple of minutes later, the hospital phoned to tell us that Mother-in -Law had just passed away from complications associated with a stroke. 

We have not had birds in the conservatory either before or since this incident.  I was sceptical about anything "paranormal" or "supernatural" but now I am not so sure.

[Regulo]

My cousin Melanie lives in an early Victorian house in Wanstead, London. She lives alone apart from Herbert, the occasionally annoying "presence". He doesn't worry her at all, he puts cupboard drop handles in the up position, lays picture frames down, moves things,  and sometimes appears in her bedroom doorway at night. He's dressed in 1920's clothing, and always respects Mel when she tells him to leave her alone for a while! When she dog-sits for friends, no dog will go in the upstairs front bedroom, they just sit and tremble at the top of the stairs. It would frighten the life out of me, but Mel takes it all in her stride. Strong woman is Mel.

My only weird experience was when I was doing my paper round as a 15 year old. I delivered to mainly Victorian terraced houses in Manor Park, London. One morning, just pre-dawn the sky was lightening enough so that as I approached the front door of this house, I had a clear view through the frosted glass front door, down the hallway and the light coming through from the back door at the far end of the kitchen. A typical layout had the stairs coming down to one side of the hall. As I was just about to put the paper in the letterbox, I saw a small light descending the stairs. It was just like a candle flame, or a torch with a low battery, very orange. I thought it was the occupant wanting to see me about something, so I waited. The light smoothly descended the stairs and then moved away from me towards the light from the rear of the house, and just disappeared. I didn't really think about what I'd seen until after I'd delivered the paper, then realised that if there had been anyone there, I would have 1) seen their silhouette, and 2) if they'd turned at the bottom of the stairs, their body would have shielded any light or torch they'd been carrying. I can't explain what that was, but that house got it's paper delivered very, VERY quickly after that!

[MauriceMynah]

19 hours ago, Regulo said:

when I was doing my paper round as a 15 year old. I delivered to mainly Victorian terraced houses

Ray, When you were 15, they were still building Victorian terraced houses!

[Regulo]

You should know, you were the architect!