Archive for March, 2009

The story submitted by Chris stirred some long forgotten memories from my childhood.  This is a true story (but not an entry in our scary story contest):

When I was about 12 years old we moved from our mobile home into a brand new house my parents had custom built.

My younger brother and I shared a bedroom for the first couple years.  We had a set of bunk beds.  Our bedroom was right across the hallway from the bathroom.

Not too long after we moved in weird things began happening.  We had a door in our basement that opened into the garage.  This was usually the way everyone came into our house – they'd walk through the garage, and into the basement.

Well there would be many times when you'd hear the door open and close, but no matter how long you waited no one would come upstairs.  A thorough search of the basement would turn up nothing.  It was as if someone came in but never came upstairs.  There was never a second sound of the door opening, as if someone was leaving, there was always only the one.

We also had a pair of birds in the basement who would begin to sing when someone came near, and many times after we'd hear the door the birds would begin to chirp like they saw someone yet no one would ever be there.  There was even a couple times when you could hear muffled voices talking to the birds but you could never make out what they were saying, and when you'd go into the basement no one would be there.

Then, other things started to happen.  I remember my brother telling me that he woke up one night and looked towards the bathroom and he saw someone standing in the bathroom door looking at him.  I told him it must have been a dream, but a couple days later he told me it happened again.  So I told him that the next time he saw it, to wake me up.

Well a few nights later he did and when I looked towards the bathroom I saw him too – a tall figure wearing an overcoat and hat.  He was big – filling almost the entire doorway, yet somehow there wasn't any fear.  It was just as if someone was watching over us, protecting us. And he was staring right at us, not moving and not saying anything.

There were other things too.  I remember when I was a little older, I moved into a basement bedroom and one night I was woken up by this incredibly shrill noise – either howling or screaming and it was coming from the utility room in the basement.  I was terrified!  It only lasted a couple minutes then stopped.  I only heard it the one time and never again.  The weird thing is the utility room was right below my parents bedroom yet they say they never heard anything.

A few years later, after we had moved out my brother asked me if I remembered any of the stuff that went on in that house.  I told him I had forgotten until that very moment, so we discussed it for a while and came to the conclusion that the house was haunted by some evil spirits, yet the figure in the bathroom was our recently deceased grandfather and he was there to watch over us and protect us.

He then went on to tell me that, after I moved out weird things began happening again.  This was after we'd moved a thousand miles away to a new town and new house.

He was in the basement of the "new" house and he was about 17.  He remembers similar things happening yet again.

In the basement of this house, the bathroom was adjoining one bedroom so that you could walk right into the bathroom from the bedroom.  There were also other similarities.  You see, in this new house, we had a basement door that opened into the back yard, and the birds were again in the basement.

He said that on a few occasions he’d look over towards the bathroom and see “grandpa” standing there, again watching over him.

He also told me that he heard a shrill howl or scream coming from the laundry room in this house that lasted for about 2 minutes one night and it scared him pretty badly.

He told me that there were times when he heard the basement door open and close and someone talking to the birds but no one was there again.

And when he moved out, my youngest brother moved downstairs and also had some weird things happen to him.  I remember him telling me about the figure in the bathroom door, and someone talking to the birds when no one was there but all of  a sudden it stopped and never started again.

I'd say that if these were "hauntings" then we experienced them for about 20 years as a family, but not sure why they would have stopped all of a sudden.  And even more confusing is how the "ghosts" or whatever you want to call them followed us such a distance.

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Well Jenn didn't submit this one, necessarily – it came as  a comment but I thought it deserved to be entered.  Remember to vote with your comments!

Here’s a real life story for you. My first job at age 15 was as a banquet server in an old mansion in a county park. The estate was turned over to the county after the dentist who owned the estate murdered his wife and 5 year old son in the house. The county turned the mansion into a banquet center, and the grounds into a beautiful park. Each night after service, one server, bartender, disher and manager had to stay late to clean up and set-up for the next day…you drew straws for the dubious honor. Going into the basement at the end of the night to take laundry down, you would often come across castle-shaped stacks of canned tomatoes on the floor, and walking by (quickly), the air was always cold right there over the stacks. The 5 year old boy was killed in the basement. Going upstairs, to clean the bridal suite (which used to be the master bedroom), you’d tidy up, vacuum, remove any dishes, and turn out the lights. Walking out to the parking lot after work, you’d look up, and every single night, the desk lamp would be on in the master bedroom. It was not on a timer. It still gives me goosebumps to think of all the run-ins with the former residents of the mansion, but I never really felt afraid of their presence, just sad that some part of them was trapped in that space.

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rsullivan25: Want to go home – it’s so nice and sunny out right now!

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Anthony sent us this story.  Be sure to vote in the comments if you like this story the best.

This is a true experience:
 
Several years ago I went for a walk in the month of January, at 1: 30 pm. I was dressed in grey jogging shorts, white T – shirt, and tennis shoes. Here in Houston, Texas, it was a perfect, perfect sky blue day with the temp at 75 degrees. I walked to the nearby Memorial Park in my neighborhood. There is a section of the park, called the Picnic Loop Area. This is where my experience took place. I walked to the picnic area and was walking across the grounds when I came to a large empty, parking lot. I proceeded to walk across the lot, to get to the other side of the grounds, when my paranormal event began. This thing, this dead thing, came out of the woods (the lot was surrounded by woods with trails that lead to the bayou).  When I say a dead thing, I refer to a disembodied voice that called out to me for help. It's exact words are, " Help me!! Help me!! I'm here!! I'm here!

The first time, it called out to me, I didn’t pay it any attention, and kept walking across the lot. The second time, it called out, I stopped walking and turned, in the direction of this voice and stared. There was nothing there. It called out a third time, and started moving towards me, in the woods. Now, it was the middle of winter, and all of the foliage was gone from the trees, bushes, and shrubbery that made up these woods. I could see clearly into these woods at least a hundred feet into them. The voice called out too me again, Help me!!! Help me!!! I’m here!! I’m here!! Well, my first thought was this is a prank by some teenager punks. But their were no teenagers around. I was the only one in the area. A couple of bicyclists were around riding the loop but not paying any attention too me or my paranormal situation. I stood in that parking lot for twenty minutes in a incredible state of disbelief, shock, and dumbfounded. I simply could not believe this was occurring to me but it was happening.

That voice, was so incredible.  It was dead!! It had no sexual gender too it.  I thought for awhile it was a man disguising his voice as that as a woman. But listening over and over to that voice, nobody human spoke like that. This voice, was a haunting, eerie, cry!!! It was slightly sinister, but I think it was so sinister because the originator of that voice was dead!! That voice was a dead voice, nobody human could have possible spoken like that voice was speaking!! All the voice said, was Help me!! Help me!!! I'm here!! I'm here!!  The voice spoke in such a haunting, wailing cry, I will never forget that voice as long as I live!!

There was a trail in the woods, that I went to walk on,  and my gut instinct screamed at me, not to dare walk into those woods. By this time, the voice had moved with in twenty feet of me.  I was standing in the parking lot, and it was in the woods surrounding the parking lot. I knew it had a boundary and  could not leave those woods. So, I felt relatively safe, in the parking lot. So instead of walking into those woods, I spoke too it from the lot.

I said, Where, where are you? And the voice became excited when I responded to it. It said, very loudly too me, I'm here!!! I'm here!!!  I still had no visual on a person whom could be doing this too me. My mind could not accept the fact that this was a paranormal event happening at the time.

Well, I didn't know what to think at this point.  The trail in front of me, divided the woods to the left and the right. This voice was animating from the right of the trail. Then, I got a clue, the dawning realization of trepidation took hold of me. I recalled hearing a similar voice once, somewhere before. Then, I remembered where. On a old I Love Lucy episode, Lucy performed as a ghost at a seance, and performed a ghost voice. The ghost voice she performed was uncannily similar to the voice calling to me from the woods. But my voice was deader than her voice. 

When I finally realized after twenty minutes of this live haunting, that I was facing a ghost, I really became frightened and did not know what too do. There was no one around to call for help too.  I slowly walked up too the boundary of the parking lot that met the woods. Following that voice. Then, as if it read my mind, it moved from the right of the woods to the left, where I was standing at. The voice continued to wail, Help me!!! I'm here!!! This was the only words manifested by the invisible voice.

Then, as I stood next to the boundary that the parking lot met at the base of the woods, the voice said, " I'm over here"!!!   Right in front of my face!!!

I screamed, and bolted from the lot. I called the police on a pay phone and of course, they found nothing.  Later on, I found out, that a woman had hung herself from a tree, in those very woods when a cop walked up on her hanging corpse!!!
 
This is a true story, one that I have shared with friends and coworkers and family. Some laugh and mock me, others shake their heads. But in broad daylight, on a gorgeous, perfect sky blue afternoon, a dead thing approached me in a public parking lot, and wailed for my help!!! You be the judge. Ghost, demon, ghoul, I’m not labeling the truth.

I really could not verbalize too you, the sound of that voice. The more it spoke, the more you wanted to hear it speak. IT WAS A DEAD VOICE.  I have tried to put this haunting experience into words. The interaction between myself and a ghost.  The entity was crafty, powerful, and it knew how to play me. I never returned to the scene of my haunting to this day. But, I will forever remember my ghostly experience standing in the parking lot for twenty minutes hearing cries for help from the dead.

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Google Docs takes another step toward becoming a proper document tool, adding a full-fledged find and replace toolbar, as well as a browser-based SVG drawing tool.

Docs had a kind of low-powered, actually apologetic find and replace tool before that could only do whole-document, every-instance replacements. Now it’s a bit more familiar, with one box for the finding text (or regular expression), one for the replacement, and buttons and shortcuts (Ctrl+F, Ctrl+G for next) that can replace items one-by-one:

That’s just a writing tool, though. The new drawing app, found by hitting “Insert,” then “Drawing” from the top menus, works on text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It’s easy to figure out and doesn’t require any special software (at least on SVG-supporting browsers like Firefox, Chrome, or Opera), but, as Google Operating System points out, you have to “save” the drawing by hitting the “X” in the upper-right, which doesn’t seem like what you want to do.

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