Footsteps On The Stairs

[razorblimp]

Just thought I'd post this episode from my teens.

I was brought up as a Jehovahs Witness, and as such was taught that any paranormal activity was Devilish machinations, which of course you would believe if you'd been indoctrinated like this from birth.

When I was about fourteen, I was taking one of my occasional baths when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The stairs were extremely creaky, and it was impossible to climb or descend without making a noise. I shouted hello, thinking it was my father, with no answer. The footsteps stopped for a second, then continued until they'd made their way across the landing and stopped outside the bathroom door. I lay in the bath, quietly listening.

After what seemed like an eternity, the footsteps walked away, across the landing and down the stairs again, except they stopped halfway down and never restarted. If it was genuinely a person, I've no idea how they got down the last few steps without making a noise.

The only other people who had keys to the house were my Father and my Sister, both of whom were visiting my Grandmother on the other side of town. There were no signs of forced entry in the house and all the windows and doors were locked, which sounds a bit like a lateral puzzle. If the steps hadn't stopped halfway down the stairs I wouldn't be thinking about it at nearly two decades later, especially as it still gives me goosebumps. When I told the elders about it, they simply put it down to some Stephen King books (?!!) allowing a demonic presence into our home!

My sister tells me there was another event more spectacular than this from when we were babies (she's a year older than me), but as both my parents are now dead I can't press them on the subject. When I talk to others about my experiences, I appear to have led a colourful life, a long way away from the way I was brought up.

BTW, I've also had episodes of sliding, premonitions, reading other peoples thoughts (unintentionally) and ghostly voices for as long as I can remember, some of which still happen from time to time.

Anyway, as this is my first post, hello.

 

[elffriend]

Fantastic first post!! Welcome razorblimp :hello:

I can't wait to hear more of your other experiences. Can't explain the footsteps though. I have had a similar thing happen to me though, it's quite unnerving.

Are you still a Jehovah's by the way?

 

[razorblimp]

Hiya, what a quick response.

Jehovahs Witness, no way! I became too interested in divination and having an open mind to stay.

 

[elffriend]

Hiya, what a quick response.

Jehovahs Witness, no way! I became too interested in divination and having an open mind to stay.

Nice one!!!

 

[Laney05]

Hiya, what a quick response.

Jehovahs Witness, no way! I became too interested in divination and having an open mind to stay.

Good for you! My partner is an ex-JW, so I know exactly how difficult it can be to get out.
Great story by the way. I'll look forward to reading more of your posts.

 

[razorblimp]

Thanks, always nice to get a warm response.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, interesting post. I was wondering, has there been any paranormal activity in that house other than the footsteps, that you think you be linked to some kind of ghost activity?

 

[razorblimp]

Nope. Not a sausage. This was the only experience in that house I remember.

 

[Anonymous]

Strange. Do you think it was a ghost? :shock:

 

[razorblimp]

Good Question!

I'm not entirely sure I believe in ghosts, but it was definitely something!

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, definatelty sounds like you weren't alone in the house! Eerie to think that we may not be alone when we think we are. Well, whatever it was it's something to keep the mind wondering!

 

[decipheringscars]

razorblimp, what do you mean by unintentionally reading people's thoughts? :shock:

 

[razorblimp]

Nothing major, just when there's a lull in a conversation, I often say what the other person is thinking. If I ever try to do it on purpose, I get nothing. I think it's the same thing as knowing who's on the phone before you pick it up.

 

[Anonymous]

Do you ever think you can tell what someone is thinking even if they're not having a conversation with you? Do you think it's a psychic thing or just being around someone and picking up on their patterns of speech and behavior and being able to predict it that way?

 

[razorblimp]

Never really thought about it. The only time you know you've been reading someone's thoughts (sounds corny when actually written down) is when you say something and someone gets freaked out by it. It can happen a few times and people either accept that it happens, or think you're a bit weird and ignore your answer machine messages. The person it happens most with now is my wife. I believe a lot of older couples finish one anothers sentences.

Like I said, it's nothing major, and I'm sure lots of people do it without realising it. I wonder how many ideas or theories have been pinched without someone having meant to, once the idea is in the global conciousness?

 

[giantrobot1]

Nothing major, just when there's a lull in a conversation, I often say what the other person is thinking. If I ever try to do it on purpose, I get nothing. I think it's the same thing as knowing who's on the phone before you pick it up.

I've had that (or something like that) once.

I was walking with a close friend past a famous greasy spoon cafe, famous for it's fry-ups. My friend said "they do a huge breakfast in there..,"

And I thought the heart-stopper

He continued "... they call it the heart stopper."

:shock:

It was really quite strange. It's as if I just knew with perfect and calm certainty what he was going to say. And then he said it. There was a distinct 'feel' to the experience - it wasn't the same kind of mental sensation as guessing, but more like knowing, if that makes sense. It hasn't happened again, unfortunately.

[edited to add: there wasn't actually something on the menu called the 'heart stopper', he'd just made it up...]

 

[razorblimp]

Odd feeling isn't it?

I like your Avatar. Alan Moore fan?

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting thought, eh? Like you, I think that when you spend a lot of time around someone you do get used to how they think and so can pick up on these things. The thing I find really fascinating is when someone who doesn't know you at all, like a medium, can tell those things. It's so unexplainable - which is why it interests me so much I think. :shock:

 

[giantrobot1]

Odd feeling isn't it?

It reminds me of what Colin Wilson goes on about with this theory of Faculty X - as if your consciousness just 'clicks' into a certain state, allowing you access to the supposedly 'paranormal' capabilities of your mind.

I think he's on to something there. Anything weird I've experienced (usually crappy precognition) has had a very distinct feeling with it, that makes it feel completely different to, say, guessing.

I like your Avatar. Alan Moore fan?

Isn't everyone?

(They should be )

 

[Laney05]

Odd feeling isn't it?

I think he's on to something there. Anything weird I've experienced (usually crappy precognition) has had a very distinct feeling with it, that makes it feel completely different to, say, guessing.

I also read minds(very rarely these days, but it does still happen). The most bizarre one for me is when I read the minds of random strangers. Bear with me here, I know it sounds weird!
For example, two days ago I was walking behind a lady in the street, I was minding my own business, and I almost heard her say out loud, 'damn, I forgot to go to the bank'. She stopped in her tracks, and went back the way she came. I have no proof whatsoever that it actually was what she was thinking, but it wasn't a thought of my own. It felt weird, and didn't belong in my head. I've had it for years, and rarely remember it happening. I only recall this one as it happened recently.

Also, when you've been with someone for a long time, I think your brains tune into each other. My partner is organising a romantic break for this weekend as its our anniversary. I usually organise all our breaks and holidays, but he's done the whole thing himself. I'm not supposed to have a clue where we are going, no one has droppd hints, and he's booked the whole thing from a friends PC so I can't look at the history. Unfortunatley I know exactly where we are going. It's ruined it for me, as I now have to act suprised, but I just know. I would bet my life on the fact that we are going to York.

I'll let you know when we get back where it was! :lol:

 

[giantrobot1]

Unfortunatley I know exactly where we are going. It's ruined it for me, as I now have to act suprised, but I just know. I would bet my life on the fact that we are going to York.

I'll let you know when we get back where it was! :lol:

I'm from the York area - it's great. You'll love it.

 

[razorblimp]

It reminds me of what Colin Wilson goes on about with this theory of Faculty X - as if your consciousness just 'clicks' into a certain state, allowing you access to the supposedly 'paranormal' capabilities of your mind.

I can understand that, but it's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't had it, or doesn't want to understand.

I like your Avatar. Alan Moore fan?

Isn't everyone?

(They should be )[/quote]

I knew someone who wasn't a fan, but when I tried to explain that Halo Jones had actually changed my life in my late teens, it threatened to turn ugly.

 

[krobone]

Kind of reminds me of the classic James Thurber story, 'The Night The Ghost Got In'.

The ghost that got into our house on the night of November 17, 1915, raised such a hullabaloo of misunderstanding that I am sorry I didn’t just let it keep on walking, and go to bed. Its advent caused my mother to throw a shoe through a window of the house next door and ended up with my grandfather shooting a gun. I am sorry, therefore, as I have
said, that I ever paid any attention to the footsteps.
They began about a quarter past one o’clock in the morning, a rhythmic, quick-cadenced walking around the dining room table. My mother was asleep in one room upstairs; my brother Herman in another; and grandfather was in the attic. I had just stepped out of the bathtub and was busily rubbing myself with a towel when I heard the steps. They were the steps of a man walking rapidly around the dining room table
downstairs. The light from the bathroom shone down the back steps, which dropped
directly into the dining room. The steps kept going round and round the table; at regular
intervals a board creaked, when it was trod upon. I supposed at first that it was my father
or my brother Roy, who had gone to Indianapolis but were expected home at any time. I
suspected next that it was a burglar. It did not enter my mind until later that it was a
ghost.
After the walking had gone on for perhaps three minutes, I tiptoed to Herman’s room.
“Psst!” I hissed in the dark, shaking him. “There’s something downstairs!” I said.
Instantly the steps began again, circled the dining room table like a man running, and
started up the stairs toward us, heavily, two at a time. The light still shone palely down
the stairs; we saw nothing coming; we only heard the steps. Herman rushed to his room
and slammed the door. I slammed shut the door at the stairs top and held my knee against it. After a long minute, I slowly opened it again. There was nothing there. There was no sound. None of us ever heard the ghost again.
The slamming of the doors had awoken mother; she peered out of her room. “What on earth are you boys doing?” she demanded. “What was all that running around downstairs” said mother. So she had heard the steps, too! We just looked at her.
“Burglars!” she shouted intuitively.

Funny shite!

 

[plusk]

Hi razorblimp,

I don't know if this is the explanation for your footsteps experience, but we had a similar situation in the house I used to live in as a child. Almost every evening about 7 pm, footsteps would be heard going up the stairs, stopping about three quarters of the way up. My dad, who was a physics teacher and as rational as they come, finally worked out that the bottom three quarter steps were slightly loose. During the day as people walked on them they would be pressed down. In the evening as the central heating came on the steps would expand (especialy in winter when their was more moisture in the air) and go back to their original position. As one went back it would trigger the next and so on.

 

[razorblimp]

I'd have said 'possibly' to that, except it happened in the mid afternoon and went all the way across the landing and back again. I don't recall the heating being on at the time. A logical answer confounds me (spent a long time thinking about this). The nearest thing I had to it was when I was really young, probably about the age my daughter is now (five) or a little older, went to the toilet in my local cinema and heard load moaning.

This could be explained more easily (I was young and didn't investigate. I was out of that loo like a shot and no, I didn't stop to wash my hands), anyone could have been in any of the cubicles, drunk or even worse. The years since have embellished the details, but I was just as scared then. Also to put into context, Jehovahs Witness's in the seventies were heavily into fear of demonism. That kind of thing plays on a young mind.