AmStramGram
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2022
- Messages
- 236
Did a ghost or poltergeist (or your own weird beliefs) ever played any prank or joke on you ? Or did you ever trick a ghost ? Please share your stories.
Here is mine. It could have been a pure coincidence, but it could have been a poltergeist thing too ... So I'll share it below.
About 15 years ago, I was touring around Edinburgh. And since I loved ghost stories, I joined a "ghost tour" to hear some. At first, it also seemed to be a lively and original way to discover the city's history. But as the tour unfolded, we were taken to the Greyfriars cemetary, and the "informative" tour started to turn really silly, with paid actors suddenly jumping on unwary tourists to scare the hell out of them (with no results - what a shame). It was rather a disappointment. And then, the epitome of the tour : we were taken into a closed vault (the Black Mausoleum, if my memory is correct) and told some more boring stories, the guide warning us that we may be physically attacked by the resident poltergeist. Of course, nothing happened. It was just a dark and cold place.
After that, we thanked the guide, and everybody left. I quietly walked back to my hotel, in the old town (I think it was the Holyday Inn) to enjoy a good night of sleep, thinking that all this poletergeist thing was really a crappy story cunningly made up to make money out of nothingness, in a brilliant act of modern alchemy.
My room was a large one. The toilets looked strange to me ... It was the first time I was given a disabled person's room. They probably did not have any standard rooms left. Whatever, after washing my teeth I went to bed to enjoy a well-deserved rest.
However, I had confusing and stressful dreams (whose content I do not remember) and woke up with the sensation that something was going wrong, although I could not tell what. Everything was quiet in the room. It was 2 or 3 in the morning. I thought : "Oh, I had a bad dream ... Let's go back to sleep". But as I was closing my eyes, all the fire alarms of the hotel started to yell all over the place.
"Holy sh*t !". I rose up and went into the corridor to ask my neighbours what was going on. Nobody knew. And there came the hotel night manager, walking straight towards my room. With a stern face, he asked me : "Did you smoke in your room ?". I didn't. I never smoked a cigarette in my life, and did not wait for a scottish trip to experiment with a new vice. A dram of malt whisky was exotic enough for me. So I denied smoking. But he didn't believe me and insisted on checking my room. "The alarm started in your room", said he.
Of course, there was nothing in my room. No smoke, nor fire. The guy was disappointed not to have found his ideal culprit. As the alarms were still sounding like the trumpets of Jericho, we were all asked to leave the place and wait in the street until the situation settled. And so, a horde of tourist in night gowns gathered in the street. That's how I ended waiting for 15 minutes outside in my uggly pyjamas, in the cold hours of the early morning, under an unnerving drizzle.
We never knew what spurred the alarm in my room. Obviously, it wasn't me, as I was immobile in my bed when it started. So I wondered ... Could it have been the revenge of an undead from Greyfriars, for having encroached on his last residence with a group of dumbos ? A few years later, I heard that Jan Henderson, the writer and founder of one the ghost tours which had focused on the Black Mausoleum lost his house and papers to a fire, and suggested it was a kind of poltergeist revenge. So I wonder ... Of course, the most rational explanation was that I simply was at the wrong place, at the wrong moment. But as we never identified the cause of the incident, I like to think that, perhaps, for "going after the ghost", the ghost came to me and played a little trick on me (and my unsuspecting neighbours).
Later on I came back to Edinburgh and took another ghost tour, a much more informative one as it was led by an history student, who was obviously annoyed to play the ghostliest parts of her script ... I would still recommend any tourist to take one of these tours, as some are quite refreshing. It's a worthwile experience. And the British people are really the best I have seen at leading informative and humourous ghost tours (reminder : I am an horrible Frenchman).
Now I look forward hearing about your ghostly jokes ...
Here is mine. It could have been a pure coincidence, but it could have been a poltergeist thing too ... So I'll share it below.
About 15 years ago, I was touring around Edinburgh. And since I loved ghost stories, I joined a "ghost tour" to hear some. At first, it also seemed to be a lively and original way to discover the city's history. But as the tour unfolded, we were taken to the Greyfriars cemetary, and the "informative" tour started to turn really silly, with paid actors suddenly jumping on unwary tourists to scare the hell out of them (with no results - what a shame). It was rather a disappointment. And then, the epitome of the tour : we were taken into a closed vault (the Black Mausoleum, if my memory is correct) and told some more boring stories, the guide warning us that we may be physically attacked by the resident poltergeist. Of course, nothing happened. It was just a dark and cold place.
After that, we thanked the guide, and everybody left. I quietly walked back to my hotel, in the old town (I think it was the Holyday Inn) to enjoy a good night of sleep, thinking that all this poletergeist thing was really a crappy story cunningly made up to make money out of nothingness, in a brilliant act of modern alchemy.
My room was a large one. The toilets looked strange to me ... It was the first time I was given a disabled person's room. They probably did not have any standard rooms left. Whatever, after washing my teeth I went to bed to enjoy a well-deserved rest.
However, I had confusing and stressful dreams (whose content I do not remember) and woke up with the sensation that something was going wrong, although I could not tell what. Everything was quiet in the room. It was 2 or 3 in the morning. I thought : "Oh, I had a bad dream ... Let's go back to sleep". But as I was closing my eyes, all the fire alarms of the hotel started to yell all over the place.
"Holy sh*t !". I rose up and went into the corridor to ask my neighbours what was going on. Nobody knew. And there came the hotel night manager, walking straight towards my room. With a stern face, he asked me : "Did you smoke in your room ?". I didn't. I never smoked a cigarette in my life, and did not wait for a scottish trip to experiment with a new vice. A dram of malt whisky was exotic enough for me. So I denied smoking. But he didn't believe me and insisted on checking my room. "The alarm started in your room", said he.
Of course, there was nothing in my room. No smoke, nor fire. The guy was disappointed not to have found his ideal culprit. As the alarms were still sounding like the trumpets of Jericho, we were all asked to leave the place and wait in the street until the situation settled. And so, a horde of tourist in night gowns gathered in the street. That's how I ended waiting for 15 minutes outside in my uggly pyjamas, in the cold hours of the early morning, under an unnerving drizzle.
We never knew what spurred the alarm in my room. Obviously, it wasn't me, as I was immobile in my bed when it started. So I wondered ... Could it have been the revenge of an undead from Greyfriars, for having encroached on his last residence with a group of dumbos ? A few years later, I heard that Jan Henderson, the writer and founder of one the ghost tours which had focused on the Black Mausoleum lost his house and papers to a fire, and suggested it was a kind of poltergeist revenge. So I wonder ... Of course, the most rational explanation was that I simply was at the wrong place, at the wrong moment. But as we never identified the cause of the incident, I like to think that, perhaps, for "going after the ghost", the ghost came to me and played a little trick on me (and my unsuspecting neighbours).
Later on I came back to Edinburgh and took another ghost tour, a much more informative one as it was led by an history student, who was obviously annoyed to play the ghostliest parts of her script ... I would still recommend any tourist to take one of these tours, as some are quite refreshing. It's a worthwile experience. And the British people are really the best I have seen at leading informative and humourous ghost tours (reminder : I am an horrible Frenchman).
Now I look forward hearing about your ghostly jokes ...
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