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What Are Your Favourite IHTM Stories?

The story that crept me out was one where the poster woke in the night and sat up in bed and found his wife was also sitting up in bed, but asleep, and running her fingers through her long hair as if washing it.

I have no idea why that had such an impact on me.
 
For some strange reason I liked those stories with people who might have been aliens in disguise. Especially the one in the restaurant, where they didn't seem to know how to behave.
 
Dingo667 said:
For some strange reason I liked those stories with people who might have been aliens in disguise...

In the Fens it'd be a bit difficult distinguishing some of the locals from aliens...the aliens would probably be the less weird ones...
 
Timble2 said:
Dingo667 said:
For some strange reason I liked those stories with people who might have been aliens in disguise...

In the Fens it'd be a bit difficult distinguishing some of the locals from aliens...the aliens would probably be the less weird ones...

Hehe so true 8)
 
One of my all time favorites is from the person who claims they got inside of some type of small pinhole/vortex in their living room one day----I never forgot that one and think of it from time to time. :shock:

And the transdimensional gas station also gets my vote.

It's hard to choose!
 
My favorites (or better, the ones that creeped me out the most) are all the stories about the black-eyed people that show up on people's doorsteps or car doors and ask in a weird way to be let in. *shudder*

But if I had to recount the scariest story I've ever read -- and I'm not sure if it was here or somewhere else -- I'd have to say it was the story of the kid that came up on her mother doing the dishes and all of a sudden the mother whips around and has a totally demonic sneer and her face looks horrible.

I once saw someone's face shift (well, actually, I saw it more than once, but the other times were not threatening) and suddenly he would tell me something about "a commitment to be made," but I shouldn't worry, "it's no big deal, but if you make this commitment, you can have ANYTHING you want." If I've ever heard the devil talk, that must have been it.

I can't even imagine how horrifying it must be when your own MOTHER, possibly THE person you love and trust most, turns into such a terrible thing. I think I'd be traumatized for life.
 
Faith, please tell us the details of the face-shifting you witnessed!! :shock:
 
Since it is part of one of my favorite IHTMs, I was able to quickly find faith2faith's face-changing experience: here
 
PeniG said:
It's true that the thread is about "favorite" IHTMs, not those you find most plausible. One may enjoy a story without believing it for a moment, or accept it and wish you'd never heard it.

Storytelling talent is not uncommon and is an independent variable from truthfulness. Fiction writing is a different matter. If you want to make a true story sound false, apply fictional conventions to it! Counterintuitive, but true - we don't tell made-up stories the same way we tell those we believe.

For my own part, I accept all of them. I'm honest, within the limits of my capacity to confabulate, so why shouldn't the tellers be? It's not for me to tell people they didn't experience what they think they did. And what's the fun of having people on if you don't reveal the joke in the end?

(Incidentally, I get lots of receipts with no information on them but the numbers, especially from hole-in-the-wall places like that gas station. )

Personally I enjoy stories much more on here if I believe them. If I want to read make up stories, I'll get a ghost story book :p
 
I've not posted on here for ages, but had to post after reading this thread. I can't remember exactly what the thread was, but I remember it was something about someone walking along near a football pitch or something, and a weird alien type man chased him and jumped over a huge fence, even though it would be impossible for a human to do it, it seriously creeped me out.

Also wasn't there one where this guy in the UK found a abnormally large spider under his shed?
 
MY MOTHERS EVIL FACE

I cant help but say that my story has always been one of my favorites because it really did happen to me. (link below) I also have a few more that just gave me the TOTAL creeps and I have to re-share them here! I hope you all enjoy them as much as I did.

Here is a link to mine, posted some time ago on IT HAPPENED TO ME.

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... highlight=

~Kim~
 
The family in the 'Wrapped in Black' story don't believe it's personal to them, but it sounds like one of those ancient family spookinesses to me.
Like a bean sighe, except that it sits around quietly instead of wailing.
 
markbellis said:
The waitress story is obviously bad fiction - one really glaring gap in the narrative is when, using a cliche from horror films (along with the rapidly moving monster), the narrator glances in the rear view mirror and sees the monster waitress sitting in the back seat - he's already said in the story that it was screaming loudly, and was still screaming in the back seat, yet the narrator only notices it is there when he looked in the mirror!

And? I've encountered dozens of supposedly-true Paranormal accounts where a ghost or other entity is reportedly seen only in a mirror, so this would seem to be well within the normal parameters for this type of experience.

What I'm looking for is some type of mechanism which explains how something can be invisible to the naked eye, as such, yet can be perceived as a mirror-reflection.

If such a mechanism exists, of course.
 
infinitysymbol said:
My favourite from here has to be Finehair's terrifying story about the dwarfs in the wardrobe;

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... c&start=45 (scroll down to near the end of the page).

If I remember correctly the poster was an Australian woman who has since been banned. I personally don't think she should have been banned (although she definitely owed another poster a sincere apology), but I don't make the rules here.

She published several hair-curling personal-experience accounts here on the FTMBs, under two different screen-names, which I found myself implicitly believing, although - in all fairness - many others in these parts did not.

The scariest one for my money was her tale of the "old hag" encountered by the roadside as she gave her son an early-evening ride. They almost gave the hag a ride.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
...If I remember correctly the poster was an Australian woman who has since been banned. I personally don't think she should have been banned (although she definitely owed another poster a sincere apology), but I don't make the rules here....
She owed several other posters sincere apologies, which were not forthcoming. She had her chances, and blew the lot. And we don't bluff. Added to which, her breadth of bizarre and scary experiences did seem to grow in the telling somewhat...

Anyway, my fave, among many?

Tin Circle. Small scale, low key, and all the more un-nerving for that.
 
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Cannot find your requested document on our server - please check the url and try again.

Document: /happened/tincircle.shtml

Spooky.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
If I remember correctly the poster was an Australian woman who has since been banned. I personally don't think she should have been banned (although she definitely owed another poster a sincere apology), but I don't make the rules here.

She published several hair-curling personal-experience accounts here on the FTMBs, under two different screen-names, which I found myself implicitly believing, although - in all fairness - many others in these parts did not.

The scariest one for my money was her tale of the "old hag" encountered by the roadside as she gave her son an early-evening ride. They almost gave the hag a ride.

I actually don't believe the dwarfs in the wardrobe story anymore, although it is fantastic fiction. Judging by some of the authors other posts, she seems to be a rather unpleasant individual and like another poster said, she had rather too many bizarre 'personal' experiences. She was probably a mental case looking for attention. She was also a nazi.

What was the other name she posted under?
 
escargot1 said:
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Cannot find your requested document on our server - please check the url and try again.

Document: /happened/tincircle.shtml

Spooky.
Arse! I hate this bloody site sometimes...

In a nutshell, poster comes downstairs one morning, and all the tins had been taken from the cupboard and placed in a neat circle on the kitchen floor. All doors locked, husband suitably unnerved as well, burglar alarm would have picked up someone wandering around downstairs. And that's it - simple and alarming.
infinitysymbol said:
...What was the other name she posted under?
Again6. An entire cellar of salt should be taken when reading any of her ravings, IMHO.
 
stuneville said:
She owed several other posters sincere apologies, which were not forthcoming. She had her chances, and blew the lot. And we don't bluff.

Stuneville, I wasn't criticizing in the least. You are a Moderator, a very fair one, and I am not. Things are probably much better that way! <g>

Added to which, her breadth of bizarre and scary experiences did seem to grow in the telling somewhat...

The strange thing is that I found myself intrinsically believing them. And I do usually attempt to maintain at least a modicum of skeptical objectivity.
 
infinitysymbol said:
She was also a nazi.

I loathe Anti-Semitism, let alone Nazism. But I didn't get that impression from the examples I've read (which is by no means all of them). Can you cite an example?

By the way, my favorite, the story of the "Old Hag" by the roadside, was published under the Again6 screen-name. I found nothing unbelievable here. My only real question is whether the event was truly weird or else a perfectly mundane scenario dragged kicking and screaming into the Paranormal.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
infinitysymbol said:
She was also a nazi.

I loathe Anti-Semitism, let alone Nazism. But I didn't get that impression from the examples I've read (which is by no means all of them). Can you cite an example?

Sure, here is an example of something she wrote about Diana's death. Of course she doesn't mention the word Jews, but its pretty clear she means them. She's not even original. She's just regurgitating classic anti-Semitic conspiracies.

finehair~ said:
Diana was murdered. This is the belief of the majority. The man on the street doesn't need to be provided the facts, although he wouldn't mind having access to them. But Mr.and Ms.Everyman are right to trust their gut-feeling. Two and two still make four and Diana's death didn't add up.

Killing Diana solved a lot of problems for a lot of thugs. Some of those thugs are the same thugs who arranged both World wars and all those which have followed. The same scum who live everywhere but have no ancestral home of their own; apart from that which they've usurped. They're committed to the destruction of Britain's Royal Family; they're committed to trashing the British Isles and to polluting the final remnants of its true people. They Anglicise their names; they buy titles; the insinuate themselves into every aspect of Britain. They'd love to be British but the best they can do is buy a facade. They had practical reasons for murdering Diana, but there was also an occult motive. They are drenched in the occult; it's portable you see.

They're going to play out their little game --- and then they'll burn. That's where the biblical 'Fire and Brimstone' enters the picture. I hope when it's over, the last frikken gene of them will have been scoured from this poor old planet. They are a cancer and they've eaten to the bone. Around these thugs dance all the little men playing with our lives; taking their pay; believing they're an important part of important goings-on. Then they get old, sick and weak and spend their final days in bed-slippers and nappies. And then they go in the ground and rot, thank God. I truly hope there exists a hellish afterlife. I would even contribute to it financially, for the satisfaction involved in knowing it loomed before them as they drew their last stinking, terrified gasps...
 
Thank you, Infinity Symbol. I most certainly had not encountered that one.

You don't commonly run into Anti-Semitism that virulent in Australia, where the Jewish population is much less per capita than in Britain or North America.

Cincinnati, Ohio, where I live, is one of the great centers of Jewish learning. (Reform Judaism was born here!) I live within walking distance of Hebrew Union University.

However, being an Anti-Semite is no guarantee against having psychic experiences. I'm sure they had 'em in the Third Reich just like in the Free World.
 
Old Time Radio,

Its a shame really as some of her tales were excellent but I suspect they were a product of a fevered and possibly schizophrenic imagination. She seemed perfectly reasonable in some posts and then in others she goes off into wild conspiracy theories. I suspect she was someone who had a lot of problems in her life and like her idol (Hitler) probably thought it easier to blame the Jews than to consider the possibility that she was the author of her own misfortune. Incidentally, do you remember the other forum name she posted under?

Anyway, lets get back to the original thread which is about favourite IHTM's. I have to add that I also really love this one which has a follow up in another thread about his son being visited by something called "curly";

Pavlos~ said:
When I was about 7yrs old I was bought a Ventreloquist doll for Xmas by my parents,I was living with my grandparents at the time and as soon as I opened it my grandma said "oooh thats horrible". It was about 2 foot tall with glasses and short cropped ginger hair.
I thought it was great and spent a couple of days walking around with my hand up its back saying " gottle of gear, gread and gutter " and took charlie, as I'd named him, everywhere with me.
My grandad made a little chair and charlie sat at the side of my bed everynight in his new chair.

After a couple of weeks I started playing less and less with charlie until eventually one morning I left him at the side of my bed and got up without him and thats where he stayed for a couple of nights.....

However, one night something woke me and I sat bolt upright in bed. My eyes adjusted to the light and thats when I saw Charlie sat at the end of my bed staring straight at me.
I sat speechless until I finally summoned up the courage to scream and my grandma came into my room. I told her what had happened and she took Charlie into her room and put him in the cupboard.
I was soon back asleep in no time, when I woke in the morning my blood ran cold....Charlie was sat back on his chair.
I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, I told my grandma and she said that she would put in her wardrobe and lock it.
I felt better at this and happilly went off to school.
I came home from school around four, I walked into the living room and froze....Charlie was sat on the sofa and..my grandad was sat in his chair talking to Charlie!
My grandad said hello to me and said that my friend had come to see me...meaning Charlie.
Now my grandad had bad eyes and couldn't read the newspaper without a magnifying glass so for him to mistake a ventriloquist dummy for a small child didn't really worry me.....what worried me was how did Charlie get downstairs and why was my grandad talking to him...
I didn't say a word I just stood in the doorway not believing what I was seeing or hearing, just then my grandma came in from outside.
She walked into the living room and started shouting at my grandad for bringing the dummy from upstairs a mighty row ensued and I was packed off upstairs.
I listened to the argument from upstairs and the gist I got was that my garandad had been watching tv when Charlie walked in and said he'd come to see me, my grandad told him I was at school but he was welcome to wait for me, and it was then that I came in from school.
They didn't know that I had heard the argument and when it went quiet I went back downstairs, this episode was never mentioned again and Charlie was put away somewhere..?

being a 7 year old I soon forgot about Charlie and went about 7ry old stuff, summer came and I went to my parents for the holidays.
I came home after about 6 weeks away and was greated with kisses and hugs from my grandparents. after a few hours of chatting about my holidays I went upstairs and entered my bedroom..I saw Charlie from the corner of my eye sat in his chairs with a big grin....I turned and looked and at him and then it happened....he said "Hello, where have you been ?"

my knees gave way but like a cat that has been startled I jumped out of my room, cleared the landing and several stairs, hit the stairs about 6 runs up and landed in a heap at the bottom.
My grandparents came running out to find me quivering and crying.
I told them what had happened and my grandma got straight on the phone and phoned my uncle, my uncle came and collected Charlie and took him away.
I never heard anything about him again.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Stuneville, I wasn't criticizing in the least. ..
I know :). Don't sweat it.
infinitysymbol said:
Incidentally, do you remember the other forum name she posted under?
Just finehair and again6 (which had been merely "again" until board buggerings-about added a 6 onto the end.)
 
OTR: "You don't commonly run into Anti-Semitism that virulent in Australia"

You are assuming "she" was Australian, George, and the only source for that was "herself". "She" had another persona, I'm sure, as well as the one Stu mentions.

I'll remember it in a bit . . .

There is a type of troll I call the empathy-troll. And which of us isn't vulnerable sometimes? Tales of victimhood reel us in until the point we snap.

All we can do is watch out for their modus operandi. They seek to sow division on a board - any board, not just this one or those concerned with Fortean questions. It may start innocently enough but will lure posters into taking positions for and against wild claims. On film sites, for instance, they claim to have seen private screenings of long-lost movies or to know of prints in private hands . . .

I mention all this because the troll* is back and working this joint again. Spot the thread!

*That troll or one quite like it. Location not now Australia.

I have read many first-person accounts on here just as I have heard them face-to-face where the honesty of the speaker/poster shines out, when they share with us strange things. The signs of this honesty are very hard to fake. 8)

edit: 1:02 am, "They seeks . . . " corrected. Haunted by Popeye or something!
 
JamesWhitehead said:
they claim to have seen private screenings of long-lost movies or to know of prints in private hands . . .

I did attend the San Francisco Premier of The Dark Crystal, and passed by a table where Frank Oz was signing autographs. ;)

Lately I was trying to work up the courage to post the story of something that happened to me, but now I am feeling timid again. I realize you guys are referencing someone's way out behavior and stories, but I completely fear being taken for a crackpot once I share my experience. I also don't want to spend half the story trying to convince people how normal I am, because that makes a boring read. Ah well, I will get around to writing a draft soon and maybe I will have a friend or two read it before I get the guts to post it here.

I also realize that simply mentioning it and then witholding the story is not good either - so please know I do intend to do it sometime in the near future. I just had to share how I was feeling.
 
Lots of my weird experiences are described on here. I don't care whether people believe me or not, or think I'm a crackpot: I don't have to justify myself.

People on here who are quick to judge others' accounts as false and those who dismiss all unusual phenomena are in the wrong place. This board is about Forteanism, which is a philosophy of open-mindedness.

So c'mon inkedmagiclady, spill some beans. ;)
 
Yeah, do tell - you're of good character, well known and established in this neck of the woods, and we'd all be delighted to hear of your experiences :).

Further to what James said, there are those on whom we're keeping a beady eye.
 
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