For many, the holiday is a time when real ghosts make themselves known
IS HALLOWEEN just a delightful holiday for dressing up, parties and candy? Or is it really a time when restless spirits are allowed to roam more freely among the living? Is the veil that separates our world from the world of the dead more transparent at this time of year? People report paranormal phenomena at all times of the year, of course.
But there's something about Halloween night that heightens the senses and, perhaps, connects us more readily to forces unexplained. Consider these seven chilling true stories of Halloween frights.
EVIL IN THE ATTIC
Attics can be scary places... maybe even more so around Halloween time. Take it from Eve, who as a young girl ventured into her attic alone in search of costumes.
"My mum and sister went to my neighbor's house, leaving me alone in the house," says Eve. "It was about 4:30 and already beginning to get dark. I took that opportunity to sneak upstairs into the attic to try on some Halloween stuff. I quickly ran up the steps, knowing that if my mum came back and caught me, I would be in deep trouble. Although all the windows were shut, I felt a cold breeze pass through me, but I thought nothing of it at first because I had had no past experiences of paranormal phenomena."
Eve rummaged through the bag of Halloween costumes and pulled out a witch's hat, which she tried on for size. Almost immediately, some unseen force hit the hat. She dropped the bag and quickly turned around, but found nothing against which she could have knocked the hat.
"As I bent down to pick up the bag, I saw the handle to the bathroom door turn and the door rapidly opened," Eve says. "I walked cautiously into the bathroom, wondering what had caused the door to open in such a way. I had a feeling that there was another presence in the room. I looked out of the window to check if my mother and sister were still outside, and sure enough they were.
Just as I was about to turn away form the window, I saw the reflection of the cupboard door sliding open. I turned around hastily to try and see what was causing these incidents, but I wasn't quick enough to catch whatever it was."
Terrified, Eve threw the bag back into the cardboard box and ran downstairs and out into the front garden, waiting anxiously for her mum to return home. "That night, I had a nightmare about what might have followed if I had stayed up there any longer," Eve says. "Evil, gleaming red eyes stared at me from the bathroom cupboard, locking me in the toilet and causing complete havoc all around the house. Several unexplainable things have happened up there since then, including 'self-breaking' objects."
What was it, beside her own equilibrium, that Eve disturbed in that attic that evening?
THE PHANTOM'S CAR
It was Halloween evening 1995 when Pamela and her brother were heading home on a country road near Greenbelt, Maryland. As it was darkening, Pamela reckons that they were moving at about 25-30 mph on the two-lane road, with her brother at the wheel.
Suddenly appearing behind them, and approaching quickly, was a black vehicle with two large, round and glaringly bright headlights. Almost as quickly, the car was beside them on the left, as if trying to pass. But, Pamela says, it seemed that the old black car was floating rather than riding the pavement. "This old car was in the path of head-on traffic," Pamela recalls. "It seemed like those other cars kept going without interruption. My brother and I looked over inside the car and there were four young teenagers, two young men and two young ladies."
Strangely, they looked to be dressed in farm clothing from the 1930s or 1940s – and they all looked as white as ghosts. The young lady in the front passenger turned her head slowly to Pamela and her brother and smiled, then turned back. The two people in the back seat just stared. Then, inexplicably, the car floated past them... and vanished into thin air.
But that's not the end of this ghost story. "In 1997, my brother and I were on the same road, around the same time, again coming home," Pamela says, "and the same spirits appeared and repeated the same scene! In 1998, my brother was alone driving home on this road and the same ghosts appeared again, repeating the same scenario.
"Maybe these teens were going out on Halloween and got into some terrible accident. They are clearly stuck on this road driving! God rest their souls."
Next page: The Voice in Blood Cemetery
THE VOICE IN BLOOD CEMETERY
At Halloween, many people test their bravery by venturing into dark cemeteries. Sarah and her husband, who had always been fascinated by the unknown, decided to do just that on the Halloween night of 2002. It was an experience, she says, that changed her life.
"We chose Blood Cemetery in Mukwanago, Wisconsin," Sarah tells us. "I think it goes by a different name now, but the Blood family was the first African American family in that town, and they are buried in that cemetery near a statue of a book on a pillar."
Sarah's husband used to live in that town and often heard tales of supernatural events occurring in the cemetery. This got Sarah's juices flowing, so armed with a camera, two flashlights, and an audio recording device, they headed into the tiny cemetery.
"We headed for the Blood monument first," she says.
"After waiting around in vain for the Blood family to show themselves, we did a little walking around. We were about 48 feet away from the Blood monument when something made me turn around and look back at it. I saw what appeared to be a giant blue orb. It was about the size and shape of a human head, and about that far off the ground. I didn't look long enough to make out a face, so I cannot tell you if it was truly a face or not."
That's all it took for Sarah and her husband to run out of the cemetery at a speed they never imagined they could attain. Although the ground was dry, they both stumbled and tripped as they ran. Her husband said he felt as though he was being sucked into the ground, but Sarah swore it felt more like hands grabbing at her ankles and pants.
At the outer edge of the cemetery, they caught their breath and gathered their courage for one more short walk around the gravestones with the audio recorder and camera. "I tried to open myself up a little and I was lured to a random area of the cemetery," says Sarah.
"We stood there for about 10 seconds...
until I felt the sudden urge to run. I said, 'Oh my God! We have to go!' I started running with all my might. My husband followed. I turned and I snapped a picture of the spot we were standing. When we got back to the car, we listened to the audio. This is what we heard: the shuffling of our feet in the leaves and then it stops. 'Grrr…. Get out!'"
"The voice was obviously not human, but not quite animal," Sarah is certain. "It was a demon. The picture showed a whole lot of nothing... except for two little red eyes."
THE HOODED FIGURE
High schoolers and even college students seem to love Halloween as much as little kids do. It's an opportunity to challenge their fears of the unknown and to indulge in scary pranks. Chris will never forget the Halloween of 1981, when he was enrolled at a college in his hometown.
Chris and five or six of his friends decided to check out a small cemetery at the edge of campus. A rusty, worn, chain-link fence encircled the few graves of past college faculty and their relatives. "It wasn't long before I felt... 'something'," Chris remembers. "A few minutes later, I heard the crunch and rhythm of footsteps shuffling through the leaves on the ground. Some of the others heard it, too, and we all looked in the direction of the footsteps, and when we didn't see anyone, we assumed it was another friend trying to scare us."
They all laughed it off, at first, but the sound of the footsteps continued. Every couple of minutes, Chris would look down the length of the fence. He squinted his eyes, trying to find the prankster in the dark, but he couldn't see anyone, even as the crunch of leaves got louder... and closer.
Then, to the left of his vision, coming from the dark edge of the woods, Chris saw it. "Vague in shape, it was definitely cloaked in black head to foot," Chris says. "It seemed to move in spurts of speed, and then, as though time fast-forwarded, it would be ahead of my speed of sight -- closer to me than before until it stopped at the corner post of the fence."
The figure changed shape from a thin, tall form as it turned to its left and faced the students. It was cloaked and hooded, although Chris could make out no arms nor eyes to look at for familiarity. There was no shape of feet, even though the hem of its cloak floated inches above the leaves and grass. Scared, Chris wheeled away from the whole affair, and without saying a word to his friends, ran uphill to the first lighted building he could find.
"I felt someone running beside me," he says. "I was relieved when I saw one of my friends. We stopped running and asked each other what we saw, and we both said the same words, saw the same vision. Since that night, I have seen my friend often. Except for one occasion a couple of years after that Halloween, we have never talked about what we saw that night."
Next page: Ouija Attacks Dogs
OUIJA ATTACK DOGS
Halloween often inspires people to break out their Ouija boards, even if the "talking board" has been sitting gathering dust on a shelf the rest of the year. Bea and her friends Ingrid, Anna, Lara and May decided to experiment with the board one Halloween night some years ago in Bea's large house in Australia.
Bea's parents were away on business, and her brother and sister were visiting an uncle in South Australia, so she and her friends had the house to themselves for a sleepover.
Naturally, sleep was the last thing on their minds. Anna, who was really into séances and the paranormal, suggested playing with the board, which she brought with her.
"I have two Pomeranian dogs, Muffy (tan) and Shadow (black)," says Bea, "and my friend Ingrid has a white Pomeranian called Hayley. Muffy, Shadow and Hayley, along with Anna's dog, Ernie and Lara's two dogs, Archie and Rosie, were all in the backyard and we hadn't heard a peep out of them for about an hour."
Upstairs in Bea's bedroom, the girls arranged themselves in a circle with Anna's Ouija board in the center. They each placed two fingers on the planchette. Anna started by asking the board, "Is anybody there?" The board moved to YES. Then Ingrid asked, "Who?" and the board spelled out: GAIL.
"Who are you?" another girls asked. Again the board spelled out only: GAIL.
"More detail," another requested. But the board only replied: GAIL.
"What's going to happen tonight?" Bea asked. DOGS, the board spelled.
"What are you going to do to our dogs?" YOU'LL SEE, replied the Ouija.
Bea pushed the board aside and the girls just sat there staring at each other. The silence was soon broken by a piercing whimper from the backyard.
The five girls jumped up and raced down the stairs, fearing for their dogs. "We flung the back door open and raced out," says Bea. "We soon discovered Lara's dog Archie whimpering in a corner. We didn't even take a second glance at any of them. We simply picked up our dogs (all of them were small ones) and ran them inside up to my room.
Once we had them upstairs, we fussed around inspecting every inch of them. Lara screamed and we rushed over to see her holding Archie, who had a burn mark on his left side in the shape of a pentagram in a circle (the symbol for witchcraft).
"We spent the whole night with the dogs in our arms and vowed to burn the board the next morning."
SUICIDE GHOST
"This experience is very dear to me, though it grows blurry with time," Satori tells us. "Memories fade like breath upon a mirror... especially ones that were dim to begin with. But this is what I remember, I do not know exactly what I saw, but I do know it changed me."
Satori's experience took place at an all-girl's Catholic college she attended where, it was rumored, there was a particular bathroom that was haunted. The girls frequently talked about the icy air in this room, and of hearing and seeing strange things, and a feeling of being watched. Satori dismissed them as tall tales.
One Halloween, however, Satori and her friend decided to go and "talk" to this spirit. They went into one of the bathroom stalls that had a bathtub, because it was said to be the center of the haunting energy. "My friend got into the tub and started feeling around," Satori says. "I did, too... and I felt the most amazing feeling -- a tingling, like electric current, coming from the walls and the faucets. I was stunned but, oddly enough, not afraid. Elated was more the word.
"We got out of the tub and that's when I saw it: the pale image of a young girl with dark hair and deep, sad eyes. She was wearing some kind of slip. Her wrists were cut and her blood was dripping down the drain. She looked like me! Again, I did not feel fear, only sympathy.
"'I think she put the razor in the soap dish,' I said to my friend. 'I know,' she answered. Suddenly, I felt this presence, this tingling warm feeling inside... like the way your arms prickle before a storm. I said to it, 'Come out. Don't be afraid.' And the feeling got stronger. Then I said, 'It's okay. We understand. You can go back.' And the feeling seemed to move upward in my body until it disappeared. Then there was no more energy."
When the girls stood to leave, however, Satori was stricken with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and loneliness. "I knew she did not want us to leave," Satori says. "I said to her gently, 'I'm so sorry, but we can't help you. You need to go back now.' Then I felt the sadness lift and the room grew lighter. I felt her leave. She never returned and no one spoke of her again. But I will never forget her. She taught me a lesson: compassion heals all wounds, whether alive or dead."
