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A haunting in Northern California

December 28, 2016 | Comment icon 7 comments
Image Credit: sxc.hu
This story was submitted to the site by Anomalous_Zombie from Northern California.
I have always been, and still remain a healthy skeptic about anything paranormal. I maintain that 99% of all supposed paranormal occurrences can be contributed to something not so mysterious, and yet what about that remaining 1%?

Even as skeptical as I am, I believe it's foolish to dismiss the existence of unusual things and phenomena simply because they escape your understanding.

With that in mind, the following is my recollection of some strange and "ghostly" events I've experienced..

Toward the end of the 90's when I was around 10, my family moved to rural northern California, into a very old house that was built on the same location where an even older (1800's) hotel had burned to the ground. The very street I lived on was full of history, it even had a for-real 1800's style old west saloon that was in ruins and over-grown with vegetation!

Upon moving into that old house, my family and I quickly began to experience strange things. I remember vividly that we all at one point or another heard noises in the attic. Sounds pretty typical right? But it happened! I distinctly remember hearing footsteps for many nights after we moved in. Footsteps that were so deliberate and loud, you could hear the attic floor creaking and could almost sense the weight of someone above.

Sometimes the footsteps were accompanied by a persistent cough. These noises were so pronounced that I remember my dad getting his gun and going up to investigate, and yet he found no intruder or any signs of animals up there.

Soon enough, it wasn't just noises we were experiencing but other weird events. Things would often go missing from the place where we left them even though we'd just been using the item and were sure it was right where we left it. Family photos and shelves (or items on shelves) would fall off the walls randomly despite being securely mounted.

I remember the washroom door FLYING open all on its own on several occasions as though someone had taken a running shoulder into it, and every time this happened our pets became really spooked and seemed to nervously investigate the area. (We had several dogs and cats over the years there).
Our dogs would sometimes be left alone in a bedroom to nap only to start barking aggressively at an empty corner of the room and would be so disturbed by something that we'd have to coax them to leave that room..

My mom once attempted to "communicate" with a presence after a pull-down drape over a window suddenly went up by itself. At first she thought nothing of it and simply pulled it back down. After it went back up a short time later she pulled it back down again and it soon went up again! After pulling it back into place a third time she said something like "Okay, if you're trying to get my attention make it up again!" As if on cue, the blind was pulled again and went up!

The two most profound things I experienced there though were as follows: Despite all the weird occurrences, I never actually saw an "entity" except for once.. I was in the living room watching TV. My older sister and I were the only people in the house at the time. She was in her room with the door locked, talking to a friend on the phone. From where I was sitting I could turn my head and see into the hallway, and consequently into the bathroom just across from the hall entrance. We always left the bathroom door open when no one was in there. So, the bathroom door was open as usual, the light was off.. I got a strange feeling as I sat there in the living room, and from the corner of my eye I saw a "figure" a dark shape, merely a shadow vaguely as tall as a person. A "shadow person", as they're called.

Thinking it was my sister, I ignored it despite my uneasy feeling. Seconds later I heard the sound of water, and looked into the bathroom to discover that the water facet was running on full-blast all of a sudden. I nervously went into the bathroom and quickly turned the faucet off. I was still hoping it was my sister, (but never once had the bathroom light turned on.) I even went to her room (which was still locked) and when she answered the door she told me I was interrupting her phone call. I asked why she left the water on in the bathroom, and she told me she hadn't even gone in there. To this day that one always gets me racking my brain. ..

Oddly enough, one of the second most eerie experiences I had was also in that bathroom for some reason. I had been using the bathroom and after going to leave, the absolute moment I stepped under the ceiling light, the glass light fixture fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor at my heels.

It wasn't until after we moved out of the house that my mom told me she was told by one of our neighbors that an elderly man who was a heavy smoker had died in the small bedroom in our attic before we moved in.

If anyone else were to tell me this story, I'd probably dismiss it as an over-active imagination, random strange (yet somehow normal) occurrences, or I'd just kinda shrug and go "I'd have to be there to believe it I guess." But in this case I was there, and I believe that old house was, for lack of a better word, "haunted".

What would you be willing to believe if those sorts of experiences were your own?

Comments (7)


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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by BelieveNow 7 years ago
My wife and I lived in a 2 story house that once belonged to a man whose wife cheated on him, then was going to divorce him, and take the house that was handed down to him by his grandfather - so he ended up committing suicide. My wife and I had MANY unexplainable things happen there. What triggered me to reply to your post was after reading about the footsteps and coughing upstairs. It reminded me of a night when I was playing poker on my home computer in the back bedroom on the first floor and distinctly heard my wife walking around in the room directly above me. I had ignored it for quite a... [More]
Comment icon #2 Posted by rashore 7 years ago
Let's keep our tempers and commentary within the site rules folks.
Comment icon #3 Posted by XenoFish 7 years ago
Just a question and you've got to promise not to go ballistic. Do you that that perhaps your wife went upstairs to look for something, then came back down and started watching tv again? I mean it was a 20 minute time span. Another possibility is that you were very focused on your card game and heard her walking in the background and thought that it came from upstairs.
Comment icon #4 Posted by LostSouls7 7 years ago
This is a spooky story! Great for my bed time
Comment icon #5 Posted by Noxasa 7 years ago
Isn't it funny when science comes in to try to observe and document these types of occurrences, the ghosts just go away.  And why do they only come out mostly at night?  Because it scares children?  Seems more like the product of imagination than reality. With that said, science has shown that almost anything is "possible" through the reality of quantum mechanics so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that consciousness extends beyond our physical dimensions.  Does this mean ghosts are possible?  Well, almost anything is possible as the most advanced science has proven.  But scienc... [More]
Comment icon #6 Posted by LevL7DungElf 7 years ago
I am a reasonably scientific person and have been raised in a conservative Christian household as well as attended Christian elementary schools and Christian college as a biology major. This is just to show i didn't grow up as a new age, energy and crystals kind of person. My father was a family practice medical doctor and mom was an registered nurse so its safe to say science and belief in God are no stranger to me or my family.  I now work as a project manager for an ISP deploying enterprise data/voice circuits for companies like Skype, Riot Games, and Vevo to name a few.  Before I did thi... [More]
Comment icon #7 Posted by ChrLzs 7 years ago
Why wasn't that occasion now, with this post?  You are claiming to have documented this with EVP's using proper methodology?  I've got to say that will be a first...  Bear in mind that quite a few of those who post at this forum are either in, or formerly were in, the sciences.  I am just one of many who know what decent methodology looks like, and generally EVP enthusiasts fall far short. So I'd love to see your work - I trust it will be compelling.. For some perhaps...  I'll wait to see your methodology.


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