I grew up in a small town called Jelico TN, and old mining town. I was born in 1985.
By the time I was born and was moved there the mine was long closed off and the town was long past dying.
Its a small town sitting in the valley between a few mountains about an hour out of Knoxville.

First off I lived on the corner of two streets. A main street that goes down the mountian, its very steep. The road that spliters off of it is the road i lived on.
Across the street from the front porch is my grands parents house which is three stories tall and is built on the side of the mountian as well and looks like stairs. Each level of the house slide off from the other one because its sloped down the mountain.


This is significant because their house was built ontop of an old bomb shelter. The bottom floor which was redesigned to be a little apartment had an damp and dank entrance going into it.
The house was built built to be a casino for the miners, secretly it ran a brothel in the attic and used the bomb shelter to hold people who couldnt pay.

Well years later my great grand parents bought it and redecorated it as a house. My grand parents moved in later.

Anyways across the main street on the other part of the corner was a very very very old grave yard with a very very very old church. which were both abandoned and grown over.

Well on to the hauntings!

1.When i was very very young around 6 at the time I woke up earily and wanted to shoot my bee bee gun my dad got me one christmas. He told me to never shoot toward the graveyard. I never understood why. When i got up it still was light out yet but the moon was full so there was light. I had my little spring loaded beebee gun. I was out there alone way before i was suppose to be. Something in the graveyard caught my eye. I saw something moving in it. At first I thought finally someone was cleaning it up but strange it was just a shadow. I watched it intently as it moved across graveyard I thought it was a really tall black man at first but something was weird as I noticed. The shadow had to be about 9 foot tall. When it moved it was twitchy. It was incredibly skinny. it had long hair going down to its chest, it was very strait looking and matted to its head. all it looked like was a stick figurish it stepped high through the grass and its legs would pass right through graves. The door swung open and my dad came outside and i started rambling about a monster and looked back and it was gone.

2. I was about 8 or so and was sleeping between my parents. I woke up and tossed and turned a little cause i got cold some how. I looked up and saw a very skinny and tall man looming over the bed, he wasnt nessicarily looking down at us but strait ahead over us. He wore a amish looking hat and clothes. He was hunched arching his back leaning forward and letting his arms hang down like a monkey. He has very greesy nasty looking matted hair and I could not see his face for some reason. He was very coporeal and I could no see through him. I screamed loudly as if the sound coming from my mouth his form distorted and was pushed away and disappeared. My parents woke up and asked me whats wrong, I explained it the best i could and they said I was dreaming.

3. My dad hates the house my grand parents lived in. He lived in that house for a few years when he was young and is scared as hell of it. He claims to not believe in ghosts but the house just plain terrifies him. Well I got a taste why. I was sent to stay with my grand parents when I was 16 for the summer. It was late and my grand parents went for night service at the church. I was down stairs in the appartment style area they turned the bottom floor into. Right around the corner from my little apartment was the entrance to the bomb shelter. I HATED the bomb shelter. My grand mother kept all the jarred goods in there. While when you walked in it was one large cellar with little tunnels darting off in winding maze like tunnels. Every time i went in there something bad happened. The light would go out and when I would get out the switch would be flipped down and no one else was around. The door would slam shut behind you. Almost as if someone didnt want you in there. Was horrible.
But that night alone in the house i was playing video games and had the door to the appartment closed. See when you came in the house from the car port at the bottom floor you could go to the right and up the stairs or you could go strait into the bomb shelter. or left where a door was that went into the appartment.

Well the door was front door of someones house fashioned into the wall. It had a window at the top of it with a little curtain. Well a light dangled between the steps the car port area and the apparement area.
My eyes blinked while playing my video games cause the light from behind the curtain dimmed for a minute. I looked up at the door and saw the shadow of a man behind the door through the curtain pass by. He had a old 50ish business hat on. All i could see was a silhouette of the person from behind the curtain. Well about a minute after that one passed another passed... then another all slightly different.... I heard no sound and no one else was in the house but it looked as if near 20 businessmen of sort come out of the bomb shelter and left through the car port. It happened constantly. I finally got the courage up and ran out there to see what it was and there was nothing. Not a single thing. Freaked the hell out of me and still cant get my father to talk about what he saw.

My other question is was the shadow figure in the graveyard the same thing that came into the house? Why was my voice able to disperse him? Did Amish people even live in Tennessee?

After some research into my family line come to find out my family and I that lived in Tennessee were direct descendants from Salem. The family crest said "Justice, Purification, and Faith"

I played alot with my grand mother when I was young and she told me stories about ghosts and things and she would tell me that she had a way to deal with ghosts. She always told me to never go toward bomb shelter with out her. I would see her putting sea salt in a line around the base of the entrance way. I remember it being sea salt because it was the big chunks and i hated the way it tasted.

When she was around I never saw any ghosts or heard and strange things but when I was alone in the house stuff like above would happen.

Oh well... just some of my experiances from being young.

I went back recently for christmas to that house nothing seemed creepy but my grand mother never left the house.

I would appreciate any comments and thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Wow those are great stories Signum! You have an interesting family history with the experiences as well. Have you spoken to anyone else in the town about what happened?

there were many Quakers settled since the late 1700's in Tennessee -
especially in east Tennessee -
my kin too are from same area-
very cool writing of your experiences -
indeed is very deep history of the land

Yes my grand mother still, she tells me about a spirit she calls "Bloody Hands" that lives in the shelter and cant leave there. I just asked about him recently and apparently he killed women and men in the bomb shelter who had debts to pay and he took great pleasure in strangling people untill the bruises on their neck became bloody. Supposively he had massive and strong hands too and with one hand could break your neck. Not sure if its true or not.

Alot of men in the town tell ghost stories about the old church fire and faces seen in the older abandoned buildings that use to be down town.

Ive become really sensitive to this type of stuff. Friends think im empathic because i always seem to know how they feel or hiding something. But in my university when i go to the second story of the old art building the air gets really thick and I just feel like I weigh twice as normal and short of breath.

There is something really strong there. But thats another story I suppose.

Hi Signum,

Interesting stories - although I'm sure most of them have a rational explaination. I don't buy into 'ghosts' being active in graveyards.

The whole area seems steeped in superstition - as mining towns often are. Have you done any research into your grandmothers' stories about 'Bloody Hands'??
I'd be really interested to hear any more stories!

Hammy x x x

I dont believe in the bloody hands thing, i think she just uses it to scare me and detrace me from whats really going on.

But the thing in the grave yard seem to just be passing by he walked from one side of to the other and left it a little bit. He moved very fast and was very twitchy. he nessicarily move fast... but his legs were so long he glided great distances.

Ah-HA!!

The old "behave yourself or Bloody Hands will get you!"

A tried and tested method of scaring kids the world over!!

For me it was 'Ginny Greenteeth'!! "Brush your teeth or Ginny Greenteeth will come and get you!" - LMAO!!!

I don't know if this is of any help, but there are sightings of abnormally tall figures in black reported lurking about graveyards in the UK too. As I always say, I do not believe that any spirit wold haunt the place where it's earthly remains have been interred BUT these reports keep coming in, so there must be something in it. The only difference is that in the reports from the UK, the tall men have bald heads and pointed ears.



Now that is creepy.....

Have a looky at Tom Slemens' sites - I think there may be some similar stories there!

Hammy x x x

hmmmm, thanks for the tips guys.


Thanks for the stories, Signum, it sounds like a fascinating place you come from.

Reg

Wow thats really strange..
The experiences we have when we're young
Lol!
I wonder what sea salt did..

Older Earth religions hold that the Dead loathe salt, which preserves. Some believe that when making meals or food gifts to leave at graves, one adds no salt, for example, in religions or cultures which do this. Sea salt is viewed as a pure form of salt. I'd imagine it is not a far step to think that they won't cross salt either. If you study such things back far enough, they all seem to weave in and out of the same body of ideas and lore and relate in many ways.

New Age trends also have a form of this idea, in that some believe it absorbs negative energies. I know a few folks who sprinkle some in the corners of hotel rooms they rent for a night to avoid problems with energies which might be present from past occupants or incidents.

There are many sayings/superstitions about salt related to the Dead or bad luck, etc.

NS