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Anyone Seen A Ghost?

A house in my home town has a 'bedroom' ghost that stands over people in bed.

They wake up and see it, react in whatever way comes naturally and then keep it to themselves.

I heard this from a college classmate. Her whole family had 'met' the ghost at some point but hadn't discussed it for fear of being laughed at.

They were sober hardworking Poles who weren't given to whimsicality.
That's a good un.

Yes, the same here - that unique set of circumstances - bunch of strangers meeting another buch of strangers - a load of grieving, sad children still missing their 'real' parents, told to accept the reality of a new, 'blended' family - and us two girls were only days apart in age, so we were pushed together and assumed that we'd get on like a house on fire. We didn't. We are very different characters - nothing at all bad about my stepsister - she and I ended up having a miserable time of it in that house. But we are pretty well opposites. So we were never gonna talk to eachother.
 
Too right, Snail. I pretty well lived in that section of our village library in the 1970s. And when my dad subscribed to 'Man, Myth & Magic' - which I still have and read a lot - I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. He also used to buy me folklore books - Ruth L. Tongue is one I remember and probably should track down an old copy of...

I'm seriously thinking of getting on with it and doing a Yorkshire ghosts book as my next big project. Am convinced there's loads of uncollected and previously unpublished, or very obscure old, stories out there for the finding.

You should write it! Have you come across Harry Ludlum? He wrote such books. I tracked down his The Restless Ghosts of Ladye Place a few years ago, followed by one I hadn't even known existed until then. Bliss!

Ludlum personally collected people's stories and wrote them up in a sympathetic and eloquent style, always with direct quotes so you feel you're listening to the actual witness.

Here's a page about him -
Harry Ludlum

Until I saw that page I knew nothing about him. Didn't even know he was still alive up to 2010.

I'd buy your book! You could interview my niece who lives in Yorkshire. She has a ghostly little boy in her house. Nothing scary, well, she's a niece of mine so it wouldn't rattle her! We like ghosts.
 
Not heard of him so thanks for the tip off. Will investigate! That style sounds similar to mine - I just let the story tell itself in the words of whoever - firsthand accounts are always more compelling than something being re-framed in the writer's words, I think.

Just as soon as I've finished the current one (which is nearly done), think there might be a ghosty one on the way... Would take a while, but there are some great stories out there and have heard a number firsthand which I know haven't been collected. Which makes me think there's a tonne of new stories as well as old, obscure ones (like the black shuck account in the village where I currently live - mentioned in an unpublished set of notes by a man who was famous for something else, but had an interest in Yorkshire dialect - and he re-told that story to record the dialect, with no real interest in folklore or the supernatural... by thinking laterally you can find some great sources!)
 
Not heard of him so thanks for the tip off. Will investigate! That style sounds similar to mine - I just let the story tell itself in the words of whoever - firsthand accounts are always more compelling than something being re-framed in the writer's words, I think.

Just as soon as I've finished the current one (which is nearly done), think there might be a ghosty one on the way... Would take a while, but there are some great stories out there and have heard a number firsthand which I know haven't been collected. Which makes me think there's a tonne of new stories as well as old, obscure ones (like the black shuck account in the village where I currently live - mentioned in an unpublished set of notes by a man who was famous for something else, but had an interest in Yorkshire dialect - and he re-told that story to record the dialect, with no real interest in folklore or the supernatural... by thinking laterally you can find some great sources!)

There are loads of stories on'ere too, though they are plundered for the FT books.

(Which might stop now we're not hosted by the magazine.)
 
There are loads of stories on'ere too, though they are plundered for the FT books.

(Which might stop now we're not hosted by the magazine.)
Yes, I'd have to try and collect stories offline/via email initially, so I was using new material with people's full permission in place, so it would take a bit of admin, but maybe a long slow-burning book I could work on alongside something I can do a bit more quickly...
 
Yes, I'd have to try and collect stories offline/via email initially, so I was using new material with people's full permission in place, so it would take a bit of admin, but maybe a long slow-burning book I could work on alongside something I can do a bit more quickly...

You could have all my scary yarns!
 
You should write it! Have you come across Harry Ludlum? He wrote such books. I tracked down his The Restless Ghosts of Ladye Place a few years ago, followed by one I hadn't even known existed until then. Bliss!

Ludlum personally collected people's stories and wrote them up in a sympathetic and eloquent style, always with direct quotes so you feel you're listening to the actual witness.

Here's a page about him -
Harry Ludlum

Until I saw that page I knew nothing about him. Didn't even know he was still alive up to 2010.

I'd buy your book! You could interview my niece who lives in Yorkshire. She has a ghostly little boy in her house. Nothing scary, well, she's a niece of mine so it wouldn't rattle her! We like ghosts.


I just checked our bookshelf... we have a book listed in that link: "Elliot O'Donnell's Casebook of Ghosts" :)

It's an excellent read. :reading:
 
I haven't but sometimes I hear the sound of paws out side my bedroom door I think it's likely Angelica oh just remembered I have seen a ghost of my first cat who was put to sleep 2 or 3 years ago there was no detail because it was in almost complete darkness. I also remember when he was alive for some reason I'd see cat shaped mists darting around in the dining room wich I have no explanation for.
 
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In the Winter of 1997, I was working for a big life office (I was the Man From The ....) just outside Stirling. I was in IT and working a back-shift, covering the evening batch runs. We always worked these shifts in pairs but my colleague was on the ground floor while I was upstairs on the first.

It was (and still is, I'm told) a big open plan office with my desk at the corner of the L-shaped hall. The lights were motion-controlled and everything was dark except for the pool of light around my desk. I had the World Service on the portable radio for company.

I'd just sat back from the screen to start on my supper sandwich when I noticed the lights to my right going on. Must be the security guard on his travels.

The lights worked their way up the short leg of the L and then round the corner and up the long leg. I watched the lights going on from right to left in front of me... but as they passed me, I saw there was nothing to set them off. The lights went off 10 minutes later, again from right to left.

The security guard showed up about 30 minutes later and I asked if he'd just been round. Obviously he hadn't (have you ever met a security guard that does more than the absolute minimum?) but he said that the wet weather had driven a plague of enormous spiders indoors.

I think I'd have preferred something supernatural to a swarm of gigantic spiders.
 
In the Winter of 1997, I was working for a big life office (I was the Man From The ....) just outside Stirling. I was in IT and working a back-shift, covering the evening batch runs. We always worked these shifts in pairs but my colleague was on the ground floor while I was upstairs on the first.

It was (and still is, I'm told) a big open plan office with my desk at the corner of the L-shaped hall. The lights were motion-controlled and everything was dark except for the pool of light around my desk. I had the World Service on the portable radio for company.

I'd just sat back from the screen to start on my supper sandwich when I noticed the lights to my right going on. Must be the security guard on his travels.

The lights worked their way up the short leg of the L and then round the corner and up the long leg. I watched the lights going on from right to left in front of me... but as they passed me, I saw there was nothing to set them off. The lights went off 10 minutes later, again from right to left.

The security guard showed up about 30 minutes later and I asked if he'd just been round. Obviously he hadn't (have you ever met a security guard that does more than the absolute minimum?) but he said that the wet weather had driven a plague of enormous spiders indoors.

I think I'd have preferred something supernatural to a swarm of gigantic spiders.
Must have been a BIG spider to set off the sensor.
 
A nonagenarian friend of mine worked at Marlborough House, London, in the Commonwealth Secretariat for several years after it was set up in the mid-1960s. As you may know, Marlborough House was Queen Mary's home during the latter years of her life. On a few occasions my friend worked late at the office and witnessed some peculiar incidents that she couldn't explain. She wondered if Queen Mary's ghost was still haunting the place. Given the age of the building, it could well have been Sarah Churchill's ghost.
 
now that ive been able to confirm i havent already posted this here ... in my 20s a deadbeat pal and i and his deadbeat girlfriend were fooling around with a ouija board ... immediately afterwards i felt the ghost of a young girl move down the hallway i was in and through me ... no other way of describing it, sounds very trite, in fact it was extremely vivid emotional experience

then about 15 years ago after fortean sidekick was born and before i exed her mother the house we shared on heys road in prestwich was what i would call haunted for a few weeks with weird happenings ... i would hesitate to say i full-on saw a ghost, lots of sleep-related weirdness (again, sounds pretty run of the mill unless youre in it) and i did see some things, hard to say what it all meant

thread here
 
Either that or he/she is responding to something he/she smells, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad smell, just a new one that is confusing.
(I'm trying to say that a puppy could react to a smell that has nothing to do with your housecleaning. :))
 
Film it the next time it happens.

Good idea. I'll bear that in mind.

Is it an ugly sofa? maybe the pup don't like it

It's fairly old so has throws on it to disguise this / protect what's left. I have not had the dog long enough to comment on its aesthetic sensibilities :)

Either that or he/she is responding to something he/she smells, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad smell, just a new one that is confusing.
(I'm trying to say that a puppy could react to a smell that has nothing to do with your housecleaning. :))

It's an old farmhouse which was uninhabited for some time before we moved in - no offence taken!

He barked a bit in there again yesterday, but when I put my head around the door, Fortean feelers a-twitching, this was just directed at the mirror! The first time around he wasn't near it or facing it.
 
I could have sworn I posted this years ago, but maybe I just thought about it. Here is my personal ghost story, possibly the only thing of Fortean interest that's happened directly to me. Be warned, there's more 'story' than 'ghost' mind :)

Back in the early 1990s I had moved to London and was working in a shop. I really needed to find somewhere new to live, plus my friend had just finished university and wanted to move up too. By some strange luck one of my shop managers put up a notice advertising a flat for rent. On chatting to her it transpired that it had been her mother's flat but that she had died a short time ago and the flat was more or less sitting empty. It had one bedroom ready, and there was another room that with a lick of paint and some work could become another bedroom. Perfect! The other great thing was the rent, this place was cheap, really cheap. Less than half the price I'd previously been paying.

So, we moved in. Everything went great to begin with. There were lots of her mum's old belongings left in the unpainted room, but most of her stuff was locked away in the padlocked spare room. Nothing really out of the ordinary except the door to the living room would occasionally blow open with a really cold wind. Unusual as the windows were all shut and locked tight (it was a ground floor flat right on the edge of the block, bit of a security risk).

Then there were the neighbours. The people who lived above us were weird but never seen. Everything was fine for the first 6 months or so, but then the ceremonies started. In the middle of the night we would all be woken up by chanting and singing and you could make out the sounds of people shouting, kind of speaking in tongues. Then you'd hear loud thumps which sounded like people collapsing onto the floor (this was directly above my bedroom at about 3 in the morning). Strange!

The weirdest room in the house proved to be the padlocked room. We would have friends up most weekends and eventually one of them wanted to move in. My landlady was cool with this and moved all her mum's stuff out of the locked room which already had a bed and furniture in it. This tiny room had a really strange atmosphere though and was always absolutely freezing, even in the hot summer of 1993.

I can't remember which order the ghost sightings came in so I'll start with mine. One night I suddenly woke up and sat bolt upright in bed (unusual). Looking around the room I saw what I can only describe as the shape of a lady made up of thousands of dots of light. The lights were all sort of moving too, so she kind of swayed there in the 3/4 darkness. I did what all good cowards would do and hid under the duvet! I remember this well as it was really hot and got dead stuffy under there, but I refused to come out. I was definitely awake though and this was no dream. The oddest thing of all though is that I forgot about it all though and carried on as usual. At some point my friend who lived in the freezing cold room told me he saw a ghost in his room, I laughed about it but looking back it was very similar to mine. He was in bed one morning and saw the outline of a small figure made up of something like smoke stood in his room. He was also compelled to sit straight up in bed as though he'd felt a presence in the room, and then it slowly faded away.

Pretty soon after this we got burgled and decided to move out. It was only years later that I thought how strange this all was and discussed it with them. It should be noted that my other friend who lived there thinks this is all rubbish, he never noticed anything. Sorry for rambling!
 
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