Family "ghost" stories?

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,938
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
Does anyone else have family "ghost" stories? Maybe not actual ghosts, but real events that are too strange for you to understand?
While I myself have had some unexplained (to me) incidents from about the age of 5 until about 17, what I'll share with you now is something that happened 50 years ago to my great aunts. The two nutty, never married sisters of my grandmother. They were both very odd. But this story made the local news as well as the newspaper:

One day when my aunts arrived home from shopping they met a young boy who was shoveling snow from their driveway. He asked to be paid. Then said that the lady upstairs in the house asked him to clear the driveway and that she would pay him when he was finished. This alarmed my aunts because they lived alone and when they looked up on the second floor they could see an open window. A window that never had been opened by anyone because the wooden frame had been stuck for decades and painted over many times. It was a very old house.
They had a neighbor call the police.
They entered after the police found no one in the house and saw no damage or vandalism. All doors were still locked.
My aunts then entered the house and saw that nothing was stolen or damaged, but everything. Every piece of furniture, items on dressers, every article in the house had been moved to the exact other side. Like a mirror image. Including undisturbed bedding on backward facing beds as well as a very heavy "China cabinet" that had previously taken two large men to place in the living room, moved across the room with no marks on the floor, The dust still intact around where it had sat before still in the shape of the cabinet. The items in the cabinet had all swapped positions as well.

After this, the family never discounted their stories. And other family members had their own stories in the years that followed.
I'm not sure if these aunts had any other "ghost stories" in the years following or if they had a history of poltergeist activity previously.
Too bad I wasn't curious enough to ask back then. But I think I was about 6 years old.

This would have made for a better Halloween thread. Sorry.
 
Last edited:

Yvonne G

Old Timer
TFO Admin
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 23, 2008
Messages
93,389
Location (City and/or State)
Clovis, CA
Having been raised Catholic, and attending Catholic schools clear up to my senior year of high school, ghosts are not in my repertoire. Your tale is interesting, but I wonder if it has been embellished by family members through the multiple tellings over the years. Also, did the snow-shoveller receive his payment? And who do your family think the ghost was?
 

Moozillion

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Messages
10,744
Location (City and/or State)
Louisiana, USA
Does anyone else have family "ghost" stories? Maybe not actual ghosts, but real events that are too strange for you to understand?
While I myself have had some unexplained (to me) incidents from about the age of 5 until about 17, what I'll share with you now is something that happened 40 years ago to my great aunts. The two nutty, never married sisters of my grandmother. They were both very odd. But this story made the local news as well as the newspaper:

One day when my aunts arrived home from shopping they met a young boy who was shoveling snow from their driveway. He asked to be paid. Then said that the lady upstairs in the house asked him to clear the driveway and that she would pay him when he was finished. This alarmed my aunts because they lived alone and when the looked up on the second floor they could see an open window. A window that never had been opened by anyone because the wooden frame had been stuck for decades and painted over many times. It was a very old house.
They had a neighbor call the police.
They entered after the police found no one in the house and saw no damage or vandalism. All doors were still locked.
My aunts then entered the house and saw that nothing was stolen or damaged, but everything. Every piece of furniture, items on dressers, every article in the house had been moved the the exact other side. Like a mirror image. Including undisturbed bedding on backward facing beds as well as a very heavy "China cabinet" that had previously taken two large men to place in the living room, moved across the room with no marks on the floor, The dust still intact around where it had sat before still in the shape of the cabinet. The items in the cabinet had all swapped positions as well.

After this, the family never discounted their stories. And other family members had their own stories in the years that followed.

This would have made for a better Halloween thread. Sorry.
:eek: WOW!!!! That's pretty amazing!!!!

I'm trying to think if we have any family stories of unusual occurrences...
 

Tidgy's Dad

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2015
Messages
48,236
Location (City and/or State)
Fes, Morocco
I don't believe in ghosts.
I was once on a beach in Northern France with three of my friends, all of us about 14 years old.
It was misty but we all saw three warships out at sea.
Up on the cliff was an old world war two gun emplacement, all lit up and the guns swivelled around and flashed as they fired at the ships. There was no sound. The mist rolled in from the sea, or was it smoke? It smelled like smoke and it became very cold.
We ran back to our hotel.
The next day we went up to the gun emplacement.
It was only an empty shell, no guns.
I don't believe in ghosts.
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,938
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
Having been raised Catholic, and attending Catholic schools clear up to my senior year of high school, ghosts are not in my repertoire. Your tale is interesting, but I wonder if it has been embellished by family members through the multiple tellings over the years. Also, did the snow-shoveller receive his payment? And who do your family think the ghost was?
I also went to catholic school. Now THAT was frightening.
The "hauntings" seem to skip generations and not follow blood lines. (why I don't think it's a haunting. Aside from the fact I also don't believe in ghosts)
That story is the only documented story. Though I've never seen the article. It's likely that at least part of it may be different.
It's just one of several very odd happenings that have happened in our family.
 

Gillian M

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2014
Messages
15,417
Location (City and/or State)
Jordan
I don't believe in ghosts.
I was once on a beach in Northern France with three of my friends, all of us about 14 years old.
It was misty but we all saw three warships out at sea.
Up on the cliff was an old world war two gun emplacement, all lit up and the guns swivelled around and flashed as they fired at the ships. There was no sound. The mist rolled in from the sea, or was it smoke? It smelled like smoke and it became very cold.
We ran back to our hotel.
The next day we went up to the gun emplacement.
It was only an empty shell, no guns.
I don't believe in ghosts.
I totally agree with that: don't either.
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,938
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
I'd give ghosts a better chance if they didn't only come out at night. When you can't see what is actually happening.

Like when camping out. During the day you see and hear a tree branch falling. At night that same branch is a mysterious monster because your imagination fills in the blanks.
What I'm interested in are things that don't seem to be easily explained.
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,938
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
I don't believe in ghosts.
I was once on a beach in Northern France with three of my friends, all of us about 14 years old.
It was misty but we all saw three warships out at sea.
Up on the cliff was an old world war two gun emplacement, all lit up and the guns swivelled around and flashed as they fired at the ships. There was no sound. The mist rolled in from the sea, or was it smoke? It smelled like smoke and it became very cold.
We ran back to our hotel.
The next day we went up to the gun emplacement.
It was only an empty shell, no guns.
I don't believe in ghosts.
I get uncomfortable calling all odd behavior "GHOSTS".
There is a LOT of unexplained stuff that happens. That's a fact. And it's human nature to want to rationalize it.
This stuff has always fascinated me.
 

Tidgy's Dad

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2015
Messages
48,236
Location (City and/or State)
Fes, Morocco
I get uncomfortable calling all odd behavior "GHOSTS".
There is a LOT of unexplained stuff that happens. That's a fact. And it's human nature to want to rationalize it.
This stuff has always fascinated me.
We did rationalize it.
Imagination, group hallucination, a re-enactment ...............
Nothing seems to fit.
Indeed.
Nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained.
 

ZEROPILOT

REDFOOT WRANGLER
Moderator
Tortoise Club
5 Year Member
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
28,938
Location (City and/or State)
South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
We did rationalize it.
Imagination, group hallucination, a re-enactment ...............
Nothing seems to fit.
Indeed.
Nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained.
Actually. I think you're correct. Everything CAN be explained. But life is much more fun when there's mystery.
 
Last edited:

Tidgy's Dad

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2015
Messages
48,236
Location (City and/or State)
Fes, Morocco
......So you're not pulling our legs about that story?
It happened?
I'm not sure.
I think it happened, but as 80% of our memories are themselves false, embellished or inaccurate, I'm not positive.
But I don't believe in ghosts.
I also like the unexplained and mysterious occurrences.
Like why on earth wifey married me and why i can only ever find one of a pair of socks .
 

mike taylor

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Messages
13,461
Well I say if you believe in a god of any kind then there must be ghost . If you believe in life after death there must be ghost. If there's a Heaven and Hell is there a middle ground where your lost souls go ? My son was sitting on the couch watching my little dog act funny . He took a picture and in that picture you can see a little boy in the doorway to the kitchen . My wife seen the same little boy and thought it was my youngest son poke his head around the corner . But he was in his room sleeping . I've seen what looks like a woman in her 30s in the doorway of my laundry room. All the lights in the house were on . But it didn't look like a real person just like a reflection In the doorway. It's weird but true . My boy put the picture on Facebook some could see the boy ,some say they don't . Do I believe in ghost ? I don't know how to explain what I seen . But I do know some weird crap is going on in this old house . It was built in 1943 . No telling who lived and died in it before I got it . I completely remodeled it back in 2005 .
 

Bee62

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Messages
11,981
Location (City and/or State)
Germany
Hi, I don`t believe in ghosts too, but maybe there are things we can`t understand because they are not logical. My mother told me such a story: Her mother ( my grandmother ) died 1969 alone in a hospital. The next morning the hospital called my mother and they told her that her mother had died in the night at 2 am. My mother always said that all clocks in the house stand still this morning and the clocks all showed 2 am !
My mother believed that her mother gave her that sign at the end of her life.
Is that frightening or strange ?
 

New Posts

Top