Animal Activity Mistaken as Ghostly

[Malys3]

One of my favorite "ghost" stories is one my mother told.
Our home was out in the country near a railroad track. One night, when my father was at work, she was telling my brothers a bedtime story. It was a dark and thundery night, and they heard a chain rattling outside. She told them, "If that's a ghost, then you'll hear that chain rattle all around the house!" They then heard the noise of the chain wander all around the house! This, of course, scared my brothers half to death, but my mother investigated. It turned out to be a poor abused dog that had broken loose, but he still had a chain attached to his collar. He was quite vicious, and my mother had to call animal control to get the poor beast. She later confessed that the animal was more frightening to a mother with small children than a ghost would have been!

Does anyone else have stories similiar to this?
I'd enjoy hearing from you!

Malys

 

[Anonymous]

So how many years did it take before your brothers stopped going to a psychiatrist? It must have been quite an experience if they were little.

 

[Malys3]

Hey, they managed to live without therapy! I came along soon after, and they told ME the weird stories to work out their "issues".


Malys

 

[Anonymous]

Shakes dust off thread...

I can't believe what I saw.
Coming home from a friend's house on a dark and foggy night, I drove slowly through an unpopulated section of 'wetlands' (translation: swamp), straining to see into the fog. As I proceed, I begin to make out movement in the road ahead. One, two, three hooded figures whose robes trail oddly from their shoulders spread out behind them. I continued to idle forward, unbelieving what I was seeing. Thank goodness, because it was three does, their thickening coats covered in water droplets that reflected my headlights, giving them a whitish appearance.

Next time I'm out in the fog, I will take no notice of anything that walks, floats or slithers by. Swamp gas :hmph:

 

[escargot]

Someone visiting my house noticed a dreadful smell on the landing. He sniffed around and announced that the stink came not from the bathroom or drains, nor any earthly entity- it must be a Message Infernal. Ie, a particularly vicious poltergeist.

All the while, my big dog lay in his basket on the stairs, farting quietly..........

 

[ginoide]

last summer we rented a lovely house in santa cruz, ca, for a week's vacation
after dinner, we left the leftover chicken and stuff on the kitchen table ("we'll clean tomorrow") and went upstairs for a nice, quiet ciggy on the deck, while our 1 and a half old baby slept in the bedroom.
all of a sudden we hear some scary "screams" and claw noise.
we jam to the room where our baby's sleeping.
baby's ok, nothing's out of place, all is quiet.
the noise starts again.
i look for a baseball bat or other makeshift weapons upstairs: nothing. the best that i can find is a blanket. i think to myself "ok, in the worst-case scenario i can throw it on the chupacabra that's besieging us, even though it'll probably devour the blanket first and then me". i go down. nothing. i go upstairs again, the noise starts again and we're fucking convinced the Thing's inside the house.
the same routine repeats itslef over and over. we think it may be a bobcat that found its way into the house, or maybe a huge rat trying to climb on the table to get the leftover chicken. but i look everywhere and there's nothing.
in the end we put the chicken outside, as a bait, and look if the Thing goes and gets it.
well, turns out it's a stupid raccoon. it also turns out that the lady who lived in the house before had a habit to feed the beast catfood. that's why he was trying so badly to get into the house (big claw-marks on the door, as we found out the morning after).
that was scary. i'm such a city guy.

 

[drjbrennan]

Being a real city slicker myself, when I left home and was living in a boarding house, the nocturnal noises of foxes, scared the living bejaysus out of me.