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Ghost Tales From Everyday People

We've been getting down Halloween decorations from the loft over the last week. One of these is an animatronic crow that talks to you if you press a button or clap your hands.

The Mrs half joked "We've got a ghost in this house. I heard the crow go off at 5:20 this morning and thought it was you downstairs?.

It wasn't me, I was asleep upstairs. It takes 4 AA batteries and I had to mix and match some we keep in a large cup to get it working again when we brought it down from the loft. I experimented by giving it a thump this morning which made it talk but tapping it with a finger doesn't work, it's not motion sensor either so I can't see a fly landing on it setting it off. Maybe it's just an atmospheric thing and is sensitive to the temperature in the house?.

It hasn't done it before (that we know of) or again since.
 
Swifty said:
We've been getting down Halloween decorations from the loft over the last week. One of these is an animatronic crow that talks to you if you press a button or clap your hands.

The Mrs half joked "We've got a ghost in this house. I heard the crow go off at 5:20 this morning and thought it was you downstairs?.

It wasn't me, I was asleep upstairs. It takes 4 AA batteries and I had to mix and match some we keep in a large cup to get it working again when we brought it down from the loft. I experimented by giving it a thump this morning which made it talk but tapping it with a finger doesn't work, it's not motion sensor either so I can't see a fly landing on it setting it off. Maybe it's just an atmospheric thing and is sensitive to the temperature in the house?.

It hasn't done it before (that we know of) or again since.
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It could be temperature or humidity or a combination of both - I was well freaked out by a mysterious glow once, but believe it had a perfectly reasonable explanation:
SimonBurchell said:
A piece of minor strangeness last night, perfectly explicable (I hope!), but due to the late hour and my reading material at the time, it creeped me out no end! My wife is away visiting relatives, so I'm scraping by on my own. On top of her bedside drawers are a whole load of little baskets and things containing mysterious odds and ends for personal grooming and suchlike. Well, I was in bed reading the first couple of chapters of my spanking new Polish poltergeist book The Elusive Force: A Remarkable Case of Poltergeist Activity and Psychokinetic Power by Anna Ostrzycka and Marek Rymuszko until who knows what time, probably after 11pm. When I was sufficiently sleepy, I turned off my reading light and lay down... but there was a strange glow coming from my wife's bedside area. Weird, I thought. I turned on the light, had a quick look, expecting some electronic device (although batteries should be flat by now) but saw nothing and turned off the light again - still a glow coming from that area, blinking out every now and then. Bugger, I thought, I have to get to the bottom of this. So I turned on my reading light and looked for the source of the glow - and found a little torch with a flip lid, which turns on when you open the lid, it looks a bit like a lighter. Well, nothing had been disturbed in that basket for quite a while so I was a bit (i.e. very) creeped out due to what I had been reading, and wondering how it had opened by itself. In the wee hours of the morning my half-asleep brain worked it out - it was a cold night, and during the day I use a dehumidifier in my bedroom. Both of these things will increase conductivity. The torch had been open all along, and the increased conductivity allowed the failing batteries to push a little charge into the bulb, enough to cause the weak glow only visible when all other lights were off, and explaining the occasional flicker as not enough reached the bulb for a split second. At least, I'm going with that, and I'm hoping that someone on here with a better knowledge of electricity and physics and stuff will back me up on that!
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SimonBurchell said:
It could be temperature or humidity or a combination of both - I was well freaked out by a mysterious glow once, but believe it had a perfectly reasonable explanation:
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I thought it was probably humidity as well. We've got three animatronics and the crow is the one sitting in front of the living room window although that's double glazed, we did find mould on the wall under that window one year so now we put one of those plastic disposable dehumidifiers there as well as one in our loft. The giggling ghost girl and grim reaper animatronics are further into the room. The crow was the first one we ever bought so it's the oldest, the giggling ghost girl a couple of years later and those two have been stored in our loft in thick sealed plastic bags with the batteries removed because I was expecting some humidity damage to those as well.

I've decided to bag them up again after Halloween but leave them in the spare bedroom cupboard instead from now on.

My Dad told me an amusing similar anecdote about one of my parent's travels. He's got one of those TomTom's (I think he calls it 'Jane') in his car and one night they were stopping in a hotel somewhere. He'd taken Jane out of the car and put her in the wardrobe. They were both falling asleep in bed when Jane's voice piped up from inside the wardrobe "Now turn left".
 
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Swifty said:
I thought it was probably humidity as well. We've got three animatronics and the crow is the one sitting in front of the living room window although that's double glazed, we did find mould on the wall under that window one year so now we put one of those plastic disposable dehumidifiers there as well as one in our loft. The giggling ghost girl and grim reaper animatronics are further into the room. The crow on was the first one we ever bought so it's the oldest, the giggling ghost girl a couple of years later and those two have been stored in our loft in thick sealed plastic bags with the batteries removed because I was expecting some humidity damage to those as well.

I've decided to bag them up again after Halloween but leave them in the spare bedroom cupboard instead from now on.

My Dad told me an amusing similar anecdote about one of my parent's travels. He's got one of those TomTom's (I think he calls in 'Jane') in his car and one night they were stopping in a hotel somewhere. He'd taken Jane out of the car and put her in the wardrobe. They were both falling asleep in bed when Jane's voice piped up from inside the wardrobe "Now turn left".
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Sounds like Jane talks in her sleep.
 
escargot said:
Back at t'depot, I chatted with a colleague who's currently doing the Last Man Standing shift.
Our depot is nicely spooky, as I've described, and Colleague told me about seeing and hearing people moving about in our Brew Room. When she strolled over to investigate she found nobody there. Didn't scare her as she's cool with the otherworldly.

Our manager came in and I said 'This place is WELL spooky. Remember the pink Croc?'
Manager did indeed recall when he and I were haunted by one of my pink Crocs a few years ago!

He then went on to tell us about the strangest experience he's ever had.

He and his wife, and their beloved spaniel, were on a break in the Royal Victoria Hotel in Prestatyn, north Wales.
(@DrPaulLee might be interested.)

Two interesting things happened.

First, Manager and Wife were sitting in the hotel room with the dog when it suddenly looked up and started growling.
It was staring at where the ceiling and wall met, appearing to track something that was moving along there.
Whatever it was, the dog seemed to watch it travelling along all four walls. There was steady growling until, Manager said, whatever it was went and the dog calmed down.

I have met this dog. It is a placid and friendly pet. If that dog growls, something is wrong. :nods:

The other incident occurred when the couple were settling down in bed. They were just past the pillow-plumping stage when they heard a loud, frenzied knocking. They assumed it was coming from the door so Manager leapt out of bed and sprinted over to open it.
The sound stopped as he opened the door.

Next morning staff asked how they'd liked the room. The couple told them about the dog and the banging. Ah, yes, that will be the ghost! came the reply.
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The aforementioned colleague collared me on Thursday last to inform me of her latest depot spookiness. I was very glad to listen. :D

In our job we are in and out of the depot at different times so one of us will often be alone there.
Colleague E had popped back and walked the length of our large locker room to the brew room (kitchen) to make a cup of tea.

She was alone bur heard footsteps following her. When she turned round there was nobody with her. She shrugged and carried on, and when she reached the sink the footsteps stopped and she heard a voice whisper in her ear: Hello (Name)!
Sounded like a child or a woman, high-pitched and quiet.
E said 'Hello!' back and carried on filling the kettle. Nothing stops us making a brew!

I also have an update on my relation's neighbour's priest hole shenanigans. Well, nothing new to report, but a little detail about the aspects that frighten the neighbours.

The trapdoor is in the floor of the wardrobe. Seems there's no need to open the trapdoor to set things off. Just opening the wardrobe and putting clothes in there will do it.
The bedroom was used by a young boy of the family until he refused to go to bed in there because he was afraid of the wardrobe. I didn't get any details but I'm assuming the boy sensed something in there.

So the boy was moved out of that room and his grandfather moved in, and that's when the Granddad was dragged out of bed.
 
I love this one from 2016:

Woman in Padded Coat​

Location: Drewsteignton (Devon) - Prestonbury Hillfort
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 06 March 2016
Further Comments: A woman walking to the hillfort with her family and two dogs spotted a lady wearing glasses, a long black padded coat and knee length boots. The lady briefly moved out of sight, during which she seemed to have descended the debris covered hill at an impossible speed. As the lady passed the family, she looked scared and started to run toward the nearby river while looking over her shoulder at the woman and her family. The family's dogs tugged at their leads towards the lady, but did not bark (like they normally would have). The woman asked her family if they had considered the lady's behaviour strange, only to be told they had not seen her, even though they had walked past moments before. The family walked quickly down the hill to see if they could find the lady, but she had vanished.

https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/recent/index.php

About the location:

http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/resource/site.php?SiteID=652

hill.jpg
 

Another intriguing recent encounter:​


Figures in Green​

Location: Trottiscliffe (Kent) - Road near Coldrum Long Barrow
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1 May 2001, 04.30h
Further Comments: A pair of witnesses reported seeing a smiling man and woman dressed in ornate green clothing approaching them down this road. The figures in green disappeared on a bend of the road just before both parties should have met.

long.jpg


https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/recent/index.php
 
Swifty said:
I thought it was probably humidity as well. We've got three animatronics and the crow is the one sitting in front of the living room window although that's double glazed, we did find mould on the wall under that window one year so now we put one of those plastic disposable dehumidifiers there as well as one in our loft. The giggling ghost girl and grim reaper animatronics are further into the room. The crow was the first one we ever bought so it's the oldest, the giggling ghost girl a couple of years later and those two have been stored in our loft in thick sealed plastic bags with the batteries removed because I was expecting some humidity damage to those as well.

I've decided to bag them up again after Halloween but leave them in the spare bedroom cupboard instead from now on.

My Dad told me an amusing similar anecdote about one of my parent's travels. He's got one of those TomTom's (I think he calls it 'Jane') in his car and one night they were stopping in a hotel somewhere. He'd taken Jane out of the car and put her in the wardrobe. They were both falling asleep in bed when Jane's voice piped up from inside the wardrobe "Now turn left".
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It would have been really weird if they were having sex at the time..... :chuckle:
 
Earthly oddity said:
It would have been really weird if they were having sex at the time..... :chuckle:
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Not as weird as if the owner of that book shop in Rochester that Paul's talking about went on to have sex with that 60's ghost woman. We've all seen that scene in Ghostbusters when Dan Ackroyd gets a blowjob of that ghost woman :). Fair play to both of them. The Horny Dead.
 
Swifty said:
Not as weird as if the owner of that book shop in Rochester that Paul's talking about went on to have sex with that 60's ghost woman. We've all seen that scene in Ghostbusters when Dan Ackroyd gets a blowjob of that ghost woman :). Fair play to both of them. The Horny Dead.
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I've not seen that scene in Ghostbusters..... :oops:
 
When I visited Relation in Next To Ghost Cottage yesterday we chatted about the priest hole aspect which indicates some serious dedication to the Catholic faith at a time of intense persecution.

I offered to lend Relation a rosary to place next to the wall adjacent to where we think the priest hole is. See if we can tempt the ghost out.
Relation and I thought this a capital idea but Relation's partner was NOT amused.
 
escargot said:
Yes you have. He is awoken from sleep and she hovers horizontally above him, and the camera pans to his surprised and then blissful face.
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I think this might have been cut out of some versions? Like some of the dialogue was altered to make it 'family friendly'.
 
catseye said:
I think this might have been cut out of some versions? Like some of the dialogue was altered to make it 'family friendly'.
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Yes, very likely, although it's not explicit like some of the language.
 
Earthly oddity said:
I've not seen that scene in Ghostbusters..... :oops:
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You have. The comedy bit when Ray (Dan Ackroyd) is lying on a bed, a ghost woman appears floating over him, his zipper goes down and he goes cross eyed so it's implied. You're welcome. :)

(I love the fact that one day some special effects crew were paid to wire up the belt and zipper, probably not on Ackroyd himself so they would have used a stunt cock. "How was your day on that new film?" .. "We rigged up a ghost blow job scene on Dave. Is it my turn to put the bins out tonight?.")

 
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Swifty said:
You have. The comedy bit when Ray (Dan Ackroyd) is lying on a bed, a ghost woman appears floating over him, his zipper goes down and he goes cross eyed so it's implied. You're welcome. :)

(I love the fact that one day some special effects crew were paid to wire up the belt and zipper, probably not on Ackroyd himself so they would have used a stunt cock. "How was your day on that new film?" .. "We rigged up a ghost blow job scene on Dave. Is it my turn to put the bins out tonight?.")

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Well I don't remember seeing that before. I will admit I have probably only seen bits of the film when it was repeated on TV. I don't think I ever sat through the whole film.
 
A very recent family account to share…

My maternal uncle died on Thursday, after a lengthy stint in hospital.

According to a cousin’s report to my mum yesterday, my uncle’s wife on Tuesday eve (two days before my uncle’s death) woke up to a man in a royal blue blazer with a clipboard at the end of her bed.

The story has already gone up amongst the cousins it was our grandad who died in 1996; to me, it sounds more like Dennis Nordem (smart clothes were really nothing you could’ve ever associated with my grandad).
 
I was told about a 'ghostly happening' the other night. Unfortunately the fellow who told me is the most credulous and unscientific person you ever met, so he came to tell me about 'the incredible way everything gets thrown about in my house whenever I go out - I come back and all the contents of my living room have been spread around the floor!'

Well, Dave, do you think that could be anything to do with the fact you've got three Labrador puppies and a couple of cats?

Oh, yeah, could have been, I suppose.

Sigh.
 
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