This is something a tad different. How about experiences that turned out to be non-experiences? Something like:

When I was a kid, about 6-7 years old, my family and I lived in what was the model home for the newest housing track in our area. The town was small then, and primarily agricultural, growing things like strawberries, cucumbers, celery, and citrus groves.

Being a new housing track, right across the road from us was a thin field due for more houses, and beyond that was the main road from the east end of town to the west end, all the way to the beach. It was in this field directly across from us that the area residents buried their dead pets and various animals killed on the road. Sounds kinda like Stevie King, huh? It was, kinda, but no Indian burial ground, and long before the book.

Anyway, there were times at night, while lying in bed I would hear noises. Sounded like someone or something walking around on the other side of the ceiling above my bed. Scared the holy bejabbers out of me. There were times I got in s***loads of trouble for not staying in my room after bedtime. I told my parents my room was too cold because dad always turned the heat down at bedtime to save on electricity. I wanted more blankets. I got to where I would go to bed and cover up from head to toe under a half dozen blankets, nothing but a small space for my face to poke out for air, because I knew the dead animals were right across the street, and somehow they had found their way into the space above my room. And if dead animals were up there, dead people might be, too! I was sure of it! But no way could I tell mom and dad about it, or anyone else for that matter. They’d just laugh.

Now, our house had no attic, just a crawl space for insulation… and the central heat ducting. I don’t remember if I figured it out myself, or maybe dad explained it to me some time later, but all those nights of fright for that little six-year-old was nothing more than the heating ducts cooling off at night.

Pretty anti-climatic, huh?

Anyone else have similar non-experiences? Or was I just an over-imaginative little kid?

I think that is very normal. I don't know how many times jsut as an adult I've spooked myself. But as kids your imagination has a tendency to be more free and less critical. It's easier to think of all sorts of scary things that could be out there. As adults we become a little more logical with our imagination, which in my opinion, is not a good thing. I think it is good for kids to have "overactive" imaginations, if you will, to an extent. It makes for a healthly adulthood. One that might not be so stuffed-shirt and "adultlike".

I think this is a fantastic Idea for a thread Shadeaux,
My eldest son recently came home from school and declared as fact, that if you place a tee spoon in the microwave it will emit a blue light and after 4 seconds you will be shot back in time . It took me a wee while to convince him it wasn't true ....I love kids stories but he had better not try this one ....

I agree with Shadowprincess 100%.

British paranormalists Peter Underwood and Andrew Green have written about several 'ghosts that weren't ghosts'. A couple of these tales are quite amusing. eg Andrew Green being mistaken for a ghost at Borley and how he exposed the 'Tapping Nun'.

Let me first set the scene.

I work in an old building in Durham, which is in the north east of England. The building is reputed to have the ghost of a monk occasionally walk through the lower parts of the building. Indeed one of my colleagues actually thinks he has seen it. The building has six floors of which most of are unoccupied, and as you know empty buildings can sometimes seem very scary.

A week or two ago I had to go down to the store room. Only one flight of stairs but like entering another world, silent, apart from the sounds of footsteps above as customers walked across the main shop floor. I entered the storeroom turning on the light as I did so, made my way to the back of the room to browse the shelves looking for the forms I needed. I had been in the room say half a minute when I had to bend down to look a one of the lower shelves, and as I did one the strip lights went out. I stood up the light came on, I bent down it went off again, I stood up it came back on, not really believing what was happening I bent down again the light went off, now my mind was racing is this the ghost is it something paranormal. I stood up the light came back on, now the moment of truth I decided I will remain standing if the light stays on I'm running for the door, if it goes off I'm just an imaginative old fool. The light went off; I breathed a sigh of relief, and then went back to work.



Footnote I have been in the room a few tmes since and the light has never done it again.

Did you ever figure out what was causing the lights to go on and off, Druss?

I think it was a faulty starter unit. At least thats what I hope it was.




PS. I now consider myself to be an old fool

I've been startled by shirts hanging on my door in the dark about a thousand times. Your imagination does have a way of getting away from you.

The shirts have 'got' me in the past. Staying in an unfamiliar house/hotel has its dangers too: 'What is that desiccated visage shambling towards me? Oh! the mirror.'

I have a local newspaper cutting about a fake ghost that makes amusing reading. I'll see if I can find it.

This one scared the bejeebs out of me.

I was around 19 when this happened. One day, some friends of mine came to my house to tell me they had seen some UFOs the night before. They were very excited and kept claiming that what they had seen was the real thing (whatever that meant). They said that they had been driving on a dirt road through the prairie at night, when they saw a large orange globe appear in the sky. This was followed by a second globe, then a third. They told me that the globes just hovered in the sky for several minutes, then completely vanished (actually, they said that the globes suddenly flew away at an incredible speed).

I knew the area they were speaking of, and decided to go out that night and have a look. I tried to talk to my friends into going out there with me, but they claimed they were afraid of getting abducted. Right then, I began to doubt their story.

I drove out alone to the location in the early evening. When I got there, for some dumb reason, I decided to walk out into the prairie instead of waiting by my car. Sure enough, as soon as the sun had gone down, a bright orange globe appeared and hovered in the north sky. This was then followed by three more.

From the moment I saw the first one I knew what it was; a flare. The military base north of where I had parked was having night training exercises. I watched the flares for a while, then decided to head back to my car.

I had only taken a couple steps when I heard a rattle sound coming from the bush a few feet to my right. I froze instantly. I had forgotten about the rattle snakes in the area. I waited for a few moments, then slowly started to walk to my left away from the bush. I managed to walk a few feet, when I heard another rattle, this time ahead of me and slightly to the left. I was still about a 100 feet from my car, and I had no first aid supplies. And I was about 30 miles from the city.

Again, I waited for a while, then began walking to the right. I continued to do this, stopping when I heard a rattle, then walking away from it, until I reached the safety of my car. I counted 6 rattlers out there. I had walked out there in the day light and somehow had managed not to stumble into one, but that walk back to the car in the dark is something I'll never forget.

The next day my friends asked me if I had gone out to see the lights. I told them that I hadn't, and would probably go out there some other evening. I was pissed at them for having pulled a hoax on me, but I was more embarrassed at almost having gotten myself killed over this.

I learned a good lesson that night: NEXT TIME STAY IN THE CAR!

i have an experience too.this happened when i was on a vacation with my family.we rented an apartment at some highland (it's somewhere south from where i stay,2-3 hrs car ride).we booked a night there and this all happened at that night.i was sleeping with my bro in the same room while my parents in the other.my bro was fast asleep (guess he was really one tired bum that day) but it was the other way round for me as i have a headache,quiite a bad one too.

as i was trying to get to sleep (and mind you my bro was snoring,so it's a double whammy for me) i heard all these wierd thumps and noises from the room above mind.at first i thought it was a bunch of kids,and i really felt irritaited at the beginning like i mean it's 2 in the morning,if you lil kids wanna play,do it tomorrow evening for Heavens's sake!

but then i thought those noises were really wierd.it had a wheeled-chair sound,closing door and some thumping in chronological order,my imagination actually because it was really dark and quiet outside,i mean real quiet!!moreover it there were only mountains around and some mists too,soo it's really spooky!!

i slept very little that night (maybe 20 mins).but the sounds faded at times only to come back at the latter.i waited til my mum got up too at 4 in the morning complaining bout the noise.i was like...u heard it too?

however we went to our rooms and try not to think of it.the next day my dad left the room to check-out of the stay (he woke up the earliest,he was snoring like a pig too the night before).at that time,my mum,bro and i were debating about it.so we decided to tell daddy too.but he laughed and said to us,"i just checked out the room upstairs.well all i saw was an opened door with an old couple inside.so i think they were just having some 'old-young' times together,if you know what i mean!"

my bro nearly puked at that time but it wasn't something real funny coz i was still keeping my headache at that time!! when i think of it,just feel like shooting them dead!!

once my parents and i were driving home from someplace, and saw this really bright light in the sky. we stopped and looked at it, it kept getting closer and closer. then it finally got right above us and bam! we saw the blinkie lights and the wings...it was a plane!

who tells kids whats scary and whats not? really, what triggers their mind to say scary when they see someone wearing a mask?

just wondering

the media is what tells little kids what is scary. When I was little, I used to get up real early to watch cartoons (so early, quite often it was still dark - my family are all morning people) but then I made the mistake of reading a ghost story in a book my sister was reading adn from tehn on i was too scared to go wondering down the long hallway to the other end of the house to get to the tv...

you don't know what to be scared about until you see how scary it is (did that make sense?). movies show how frightening a ghost or man ina mask can be. tv shows. books. etc.

When I was a nipper around 6 or 7 I had a thing about something nasty and evil lurking under my bed, so if I had to get up in the night for the loo, I would stand on my bed and jump as far as I could so the creature could'nt reach my legs and drag me under. Now one night I was woken up by a scratching noise under my bed it sounded like finger nails being scrapped along the floor and skirting, as you can imagine going to the loo that night was not going to be a problem! I didn't want to shout for my Mum as it would alert the evil creature to my presence. I lay there for what seemed like a really long time before taking the decision to make a jump and run for it. I moved as quietly and quickly as possible then did an almighty leap across the room unfortunatly I landed on some Lego and fell akwardly, twisting my ankle. I then started screaming the house down as the creature could now grab me! My Mum now wide awake came rushing in to see what all the noise was about, she was convinced a burgler had broke in and she had armed herself with a tennis racket. (My Dad slept through the whole thing) I was shouting "It's under my bed" Mum thinking that the burgler was under the bed began thrashing wildly under there with the tennis racket. Realising there was no big evil burgler creature we crouched down to see what was there. Hiding in the courner was my hamster looking terrified, he'd escaped the tennis racket but from that night on he lived in the kitchen.
I got a new bed the following weekend..a bunk bed So I could sleep on the top bunk and never have to worry about the nasty things that go scratch in the night.
I did watch Poltiguist a few years later, can you imagine how high I jumped when that Clown grabbed the boy!

once i had a dream that a big Blimp looking UFO dropped out of the clouds and smaller UFOs scrambled from it. It was a very vivid dream and i mistook it for something that actually happened. I was really scared for half of the next day, then i remembered it was just a dream. Now that is anticlimactic.