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THE OLD LADY IN THE ROCKING CHAIR

SPRING VALLEY - NEW YORK

1977

The first time I experienced ghostly phenomenon was in 1977. I was seven years old. I encountered poltergeist activity ay my cousin’s house and I saw an apparition of an old woman in my bedroom. I was living in an apartment complex in Spring Valley, New York. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. I glanced over and saw a figure of an old woman hunched over sitting at the edge of my bed. She looked very real. She had white hair pulled back and her clothing was dark. It looked like she was wearing a shawl and a dress. She never spoke she just looked straight ahead with a vacant stare. It looked like she was sitting in a rocking chair, moving back and forth. This was odd because there was only a regular chair at the foot of the bed.

I looked away in fright, and put my head under the blankets. I then peeked out hoping she was gone, but she was still there. I yelled over to my brother, who was sharing the room at the time, to see if he saw the old woman also. He said “yes” in a shaky voice. We couldn’t believe it. She seemed to appear for a long time. We both put our heads in and out of the covers until she finally disappeared. I started screaming, so my father came to see what was wrong. Of course, by the time he arrived the apparition was gone.

Once again she reappeared briefly after my father had left the room. This time I wasn’t scared. She seemed to be kind and sad. I didn’t sense anything evil. It was almost as if she were watching over us like a guardian. She looked over at us and smiled. Then suddenly she disappeared and we never saw her again.

I think she only wanted to appear to my brother and I because we were children. Usually children and animals are more susceptible to the paranormal than adults. Since children are naïve about ghosts they have an unbiased point of view about the subject. They are more open minded and are more likely to see a ghost than an adult. They react to what they see or feel. If she appeared in front of my father, he would probably dismiss this as his imagination. Therefore, we were likely to believe more in the existence of this old woman than my parents. So it appeared to us instead.

She never appeared again to either one of us. We moved away shortly after the incident.

THE DEVIL

SPRING VALLEY - NEW YORK

1977

After I saw the apparition of the old lady in my bedroom, I saw another frightening figure in my room. I think it occurred about a week later.

I was falling asleep, and I glanced over to my right side. I saw some white mist rising up from the floor. It began to take shape and materialized into a monster. It looked like the devil. The figure was red; it had a black mustache and beard, pointy ears and eyes. On its head were horns and long talons on its fingertips. Its upper body and chest was very muscular and looked like a regular man, however it was just a head and torso floating above my bed. It didn’t have a lower body or legs. Then it started growling and laughing and coming closer to me.

I started screaming and yelling for my parents. When they rushed in the room, the devil figure vanished instantly.

I remember seeing it again a few days later. It appeared to rise from the same spot in the floor. It rose above my bed and started talking to me. I ran out of the room and into the kitchen where my parents were standing. I was hysterical shouting “I saw the devil”, “I saw the devil,” “It was in my room next to my bed.”

I insisted that they check it out. They rushed into the bedroom, but by then the devil figure was gone. They never believed me but I know what I saw was real. I think that apartment was haunted. The evil entity that was there preyed on my darkest fears, which in my case, was the devil. Since I was a child, in my mind, this is what the stereo-typical devil looked like. It probably would have appeared as something different to my brother or parents. It would have taken on the form of what they were most frightened of.

I’m not sure if it was really the devil that I saw or one of his demons. All I know is that it had a profound effect on me and I didn’t remember the incident until many years later. We didn’t live in that apartment very long. My mother passed away, and we moved out shortly after. I never found out the truth to what I saw.

THE DAYLIGHT GHOST

SPARROWBUSH - NEW YORK

1977

I didn’t see a ghost for a long time. Many years passed, and I forgot about what I had seen previously, until one sunny day.

I was now living in Sparrowbush, New York in 1987. I was seventeen years old and in high school. I had a part-time job after school working at a deli. My job was about two miles from my house. Since I didn’t have transportation, I had to walk to work. I would take a short -cut that branched off the main road and went through a cemetery.

Since it was daytime, I wasn’t afraid to walk this way. I had traveled this route numerous times. It wasn’t until nighttime that I felt a little uneasy.

One day when I was on my way to work, I approached a figure about 100 yards away. As I walked closer I saw that it was a woman with long blonde hair and a flowing white gown. She was dressed in Victorian clothing. I could only see her profile. She seemed to be young, in her 20’s or early 30’s. She seemed to be gliding very fast towards a tombstone. She was only looking forward and oblivious to her surroundings. This could have been a residual haunting. This is when a ghost keeps repeating the same actions that occurred at the time of their death. I glanced over to my left, to see if she had a car but there wasn’t one. She probably walked here from the opposite direction I was coming from. I thought she was just visiting a grave so I didn’t think anything of it. When I looked back at her she was gone. She just vanished into thin air. I couldn’t believe it. I only diverted my eyes for a second.

This was amazing, scary, and shocking. I ran to the tombstone that she was walking towards. I thought maybe she cut through the woods to get to the main road. Then I looked behind the gravestone. There was a very steep cliff followed by a wooded area. There was no way she could have climbed down the hill that fast. She would have torn her clothing and possibly suffered injuries.

That’s when I realized she was a ghost. I couldn’t believe I saw an apparition in broad daylight. Could this be a lonely wandering spirit visiting a grave of a loved one? Or did she die tragically there on the road? I never found out.

Of course when I arrived at work, I told my friends what I had seen. They just laughed. I didn’t think they would believe me. Once again, I doubted myself. This incident triggered my memory. This is when I remembered about 10 years earlier that I had seen the ghosts at my cousins and my old apartment.

ANGELIC EYES

MIDDLETOWN - NEW YORK

1987

There was a period of my life when I was very depressed. This was in 1987 when I was in 17 years old. I was sad because I didn’t have a good job, a car, or a serious relationship. I was still living home with my parents. I felt very lonely and wondered when my life would improve.

One day my friend and I decided to drive to Middletown, New York to go shopping. It was about a 45-minute drive to all the shopping plazas. She picked me up and we were off.

Upon arriving, we stopped at an intersection. I was in the passenger seat looking out the window. I glanced over and saw an old woman with long white hair. I could only see the back of her but she looked about 70 years old. She was pulling a cart filled with groceries across the street. She was walking across a dirt walkway that was filled with rocks and she seemed to be struggling. The street she crossed was a very busy intersection. There weren’t any houses visible in that area, only shopping plazas and stores.

I remember feeling sorry for her. I though to myself, this poor old woman doesn’t have a car or anyone to help her with her groceries. At that moment she looked up turned her head and stared directly at me. She had the brightest clear blue eyes that I had ever seen. Then she smiled, as if she was telling me not to worry, everything would be alright. I took this as a sign of better things to come.

All of a sudden my spirits were lifted, I got an overwhelming feeling of happiness and believed my life would soon get better. I thought to myself, if this old lady can get by and still remain happy so can I.

The light turned green and we proceeded on our way. I turned around to glance once more at the old woman but she was nowhere to be found. She just seemed to vanish into thin air. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Where could she have gone to so quickly? There weren’t any houses or walkways in that area. There was only the highway in four directions. There was no place that she could have gone in the matter of seconds that I glanced back. I was astonished.

I asked my friend, “Did you see that old lady?” She replied, “What old lady?” That answered my question. I can’t believe she didn’t notice her. Was she really there?

Had I just seen a ghost? Or was this my guardian angel? She had angelic qualities. Her face was so beautiful and her skin was so smooth like white porcelain. It made her look so young. She seemed very happy and peaceful.

Whether or not she was a ghost or an angel, she definitely left a profound effect on me. I thought about the incident years later. This also peaked my interest in the paranormal. Eventually my life did get better. She made me think differently and have a more positive outlook on life. I just needed a little encouragement from the beyond.

VIRGINIA’S HOUSE

SPARROWBUSH - NEW YORK

1987

A weird incident happened to me when I was 17 years old. I was on a date with my high school boyfriend and I was sitting in the passenger seat of his car. He was taking me home after a movie. He pulled up in front of my house to drop me off. He leaned over to give me a kiss goodnight and his face brushed across my ear, knocking one of my earrings off. We both heard a ping as it fell between the seats. Since it was late and neither of us had a flashlight, he said he would look for the earring in the morning. I agreed and went inside.

The next day, I called him and he said that he couldn’t find the earring anywhere. I had taken the other one off the night before, and left it on my dresser in the bedroom. That one also mysteriously disappeared. I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find the earrings.

About a week later my best friend, Virginia called me. I had told her about the missing earrings because I was so upset. She asked me what the earrings looked like. I described them to her. They were small, gold, heart-shaped earrings. Then she said, “well when I came home today after school, I saw two shiny gold pieces in the center of my room”. “When I picked them up I noticed they were gold heart shaped earrings”. My heart started pounding with excitement. I had been so upset and I thought I would never find them. They were very sentimental to me because my boyfriend gave them to me for my birthday.

Then I thought to myself, how could this be, I remember one earring fell between the seats and the other was lost at my house.

I told her I would come right over to see if they were the same earrings. When I got to her house, she showed them to me, I was amazed. They were definitely the same pair that I had lost a week before. At first, I thought it was a joke that they were both playing on me. My friend kept insisting that it wasn’t and even she felt spooked out.

I called my boyfriend to tell him that the earrings were found. When I told him they were in the middle of Virginia’s bedroom floor, he couldn’t believe it. He then asked me if I was playing a trick on him. I also denied it. He is a very skeptical person and does not believe in the paranormal. He found it hard to comprehend that this could possibly happen. He could not find any rational explanation for how the earrings were lost in his car and then appeared in a bedroom. At first he thought I was joking with him about the whole story. I was not. We never found out how this could have possibly happened or why it did. I was just glad that the earrings were found.

Another strange incident that occurred at Virginia’s house was that she heard knocking at her bedroom door several nights in a row. This happened on a regular basis. There would always be three knocks and when she opened up the door no one was there. Some theories suggest that knocking sounds are a warning sign from a spirit. Three knocks at a door implies that something negative is about to happen such as death. A few years later her mother passed away in her house. This to me was a strange coincidence.

I think that perhaps my friend had a ghost in her house. I was there so often it could have followed me home. It could have taken my earrings and brought them back to her house. Some playful ghosts tend to do this, usually a child ghost looking for attention. Another theory could be that there was a portal into another dimension located in her room. This is an entryway from one world or higher plane into another. This passageway allows a spirit or several to enter into our world.

Another eerie thing that occurred at Virginia’s house was when she purchased a gargoyle doorknocker at an old five & dime store on Jersey Avenue in Port Jervis, New York. The five and dime store used to be a JC Newberry, Woolworth’s, and a JC Penney catalog center many years ago. Since the doorknocker was on consignment there was really no way to find out who owned it previously. Shortly after purchasing it, she hung it at the foot of her bed and started experiencing knocking sounds at night.

We used to joke around and say that the doorknocker was causing the unexplainable knocks coming from her door. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she would hear three knocks at her door, and then the door would fly open. I also heard it a few times when I was sleeping over. We always assumed it was her sister trying to play a trick on us. Then we would just go back to bed. Until one night, we heard the knocks but her sister wasn’t home. That’s when we started thinking that the doorknocker was causing these strange occurrences.

This happened back in the 80’s, and Virginia has moved a few times since then. She had packed this doorknocker away many years ago. Recently, she moved back to Port Jervis, New York and has hung it up on a wall in her new house. After doing this, she started experiencing strange occurrences in her new home. The house is over 100 years old and used to be a physician’s office. She has heard noises in the upstairs bedroom many times.

One night something startling woke her up. She heard the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs, someone enter her bedroom, and then she felt a presence sit down at the edge of her bed. The incident scared her so much, that she decided to move downstairs.

In 2007, I saw the same doorknocker in a catalog. I immediately thought of Virginia. I laughed to myself. We lost contact and I hadn’t spoken to her in about 8 years. I started having dreams about her more and more until about a month ago. Finally, a mutual friend said she was trying to get in touch with me. I couldn’t believe it. We always seemed to have a psychic connection. We started emailing each other and I finally got a chance to speak to her. My dreams were a foreshadowing of us to make contact again. It was like a premonition. She told me about the experience with the doorknocker. I had told her that was a strange coincidence because I just saw the same doorknocker in a catalog.

Could this doorknocker be a haunted object? Or could it be a ghost following her from a previous house? Sometimes the energy of a spirit can go into an object and possess it. When this object is brought into a house some paranormal activity may occur. The second theory I have is that a ghost can attach itself to a person and follow them around, especially if the person is sensitive to the paranormal. They act like a conductor by opening themselves up and allowing ghosts to latch on. The spirit may be drawn to a certain person because they feel that they will see or hear them. Maybe, Virginia has a sixth sense that the spirits picked up on. This could be why she has experienced reoccurring paranormal activity in both houses.

FRED’S HOUSE

PORT JERVIS - NEW YORK

1990

I had a good friend in high school named Fred. When I would go home to visit from college sometimes I would stay at his house. I remember one scary incident that happened in his house. I had just come home from a long 3-½-hr trip and I was exhausted. Normally, when I stayed over his house I would sleep in the living room on the couch. Since it was daylight and there were a few people in the house, he suggested that I sleep in his bedroom. I agreed that was a good idea. Within a few minutes I drifted off to sleep.

As I was starting to dream, I could hear slight whispering near my head. The sound seemed to be coming from behind me, in the corner of the room. Then it sounded like men and women talking very loudly in a conversation. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were mumbling at first, then the voices seemed to be getting louder and louder. The voices eventually escalated in to shouting my name in my ear. It sounded like a bunch of people were standing over me trying to wake me up. I thought my friends were playing a trick on me. I woke up and looked around the room. I didn’t see anything unusual. I tried to fall back to sleep. I dismissed the incident as a dream.

I finally fell back to sleep and the shouting started again. It was so loud that it woke me up again. Then the room was eerily silent. The voices stopped instantaneously when I was awake.

At this point, I was truly terrified and ran out of Fred’s bedroom into the living room. My two friends were sitting on the couch watching television. Fred looked at the expression on my face and said; “did you hear the voices too?” I said; “yes, I think your house is haunted.” He admitted to me that he as well as a mutual friend had also slept in that room and heard the awful voices. He didn’t warn me of this because he wanted to see if I would have the same experience. Fred also said that he has slept in other rooms in the house but has never experienced anything abnormal. The only ghostly phenomenon that has occurred was in his bedroom. No other incidents have occurred since that day. We never did find out if the house was haunted.

Eventually, Fred moved out of that house and returned to his hometown, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I returned to Suny Morrisville College, and forgot about the incident until many years later.

THE OUIJA BOARD

SUNY MORRISVILLE - NEW YORK

1990

I went to college at Suny Morrisville, New York from September 1989 to May 1991. I had a bunch of friends that were interested in the supernatural. We would get together occasionally and hold séances in our dorm room. We would use the Ouija Board. This device is used to contact the spirits of the dead.

The Ouija Board has black letters and a planchette. It has the alphabet and the words YES, NO, and GOODBYE on it. When you begin, you place your fingers on the planchette and then you can ask the board questions. Two or three people can hold a séance. Three people are preferred because one can write down the words and decipher them while the other two keep the board going. If they take their hands off, they may break the connection of energy between the players and the spirits.

You must be very careful when using the Ouija Board. It is rumored to be a doorway into another dimension. If you use the board, it may open a portal which good spirits as well as evil spirits may enter into our world.

Sometimes if you go looking for evil, you might possibly find it. When using the board, be careful not to invite unwanted spirits into this world. A malevolent spirit can attach itself to you, causing trouble for the rest of your life. It is very hard to send this kind of spirit back to where it came from. The doorway to the other dimension is difficult to close. Evil spirits can lie and be deceitful. They can trick you into seeing what you want to believe. You cannot believe everything that the board spells out. Try to find evidence about what you’re being told is the truth.

The evil spirits don’t always come through to communicate. Sometimes they may cause fear or inflict negative spirit activity. This can’t happen just by simply talking to them through the board. However, there is a higher chance that this could happen if you invite the spirits into this world. It’s recommended to say prayers to protect you before using the board. Also you must be open minded and willing to accept whatever comes through. You should treat the spirits with respect and ask if anyone would like to come forth and talk. Don’t expect for the board and the spirits to work every time. It takes alot of energy on both sides to keep the séance going. So if a spirit is having a hard time communicating or points to the word “GOODBYE,” then you should let it go. Then the next step would be for you to place the planchette also on the word “GOODBYE,” and tell it you are now leaving. This closes the board.

When my friends and I were asking questions while using the board, we contacted a spirit of a little boy. He said his name was Leroy. He was eight years old and lived in the 1800’s. He said he died during an operation but he wasn’t sure what kind. This was a little eerie and sad. He seemed sweet and we felt great sorrow for him since he departed from this world at such a young age. We couldn’t believe he was trapped in our dimension for so long.

Suddenly we lost contact and it was hard to find him again. Another spirit came through and took his place. This spirit wasn’t friendly and gave us very limited information on its identity. It kept spelling out the name “MaryAnn”. We continued to ask questions but it never answered any of them. It then gave us a message to “Open the door, MaryAnn”. Then we all heard three knocks at our bedroom door. We looked at each other but no one was willing to open it. We were all too frightened of the outcome. I glanced at my roommate who looked very scared and nervous. We decided not to play with the Ouija Board anymore.

My roommate started crying and told us that before she was born her mother was pregnant. She had a miscarriage and lost her baby. She was going to name it “MaryAnn”. This could have been a coincidence, but we were too startled and too sad to pick up the board again.

I didn’t play with the Ouija Board again until I was twenty eight years old. This time my friend Joann asked the board about marriage and children. I didn’t want to know my future so I didn’t ask it anything. It told her she would marry a man named Joe, and have one son who had blonde hair and blue eyes. About a year later, she did end up married to someone named Joe and had a son with the same characteristics that the board told her. This emphasized my belief that the board is connected to the other side. Luckily everything worked out for her.

I still wasn’t sure if the Ouija Board was good or evil or maybe a little of both. So why take a chance with interfering with the future. I haven’t picked up the board since.

CHANNELING

SUNY MORRISVILLE - NEW YORK

1990

Another incident that happened to me occurred when I was in college. I was trying to develop my sixth sense. I was working in an office under the college work study program. I answered phones, typed memos, filed and made copies of reports and tests. I discovered one day that if I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could file quicker and easier.

I was given a list of names with a stack of paperwork that had to be filed. I would look at the list and once I found the names I would put the paperwork in their corresponding files. This was very time consuming, so I wanted to devise an easier way to do this.

One day when I was filing, I noticed I felt tingling vibrations in my left hand when I ran my fingers along the tops of the files. I also felt a little sensation of heat at my fingertips. The next day I decided to do a little experiment. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the name of the person’s file I was looking for. While I was repeating the name to myself, I ran my left hand over the files. The tingling vibrations would get stronger and the heat more intense in certain spots. I would stop my hand at the place where I felt the most energy. Then I would look down and pull up the file. This file would be the name I was looking for. I was amazed. I tried to do this again. At first I only found the files a few times. Then the more I practiced the better I got. Eventually, I could find the files every time I did this.

I believe this was a way of channeling my abilities or developing my sixth sense. This energy that I felt has gotten stronger over the years. This is the same energy that I feel when I am in a haunted place. I pick up the energy of the ghosts that are present. This is why I started taking photographs of haunted places. I wanted to get some scientific proof that what I was feeling was definitely the presence of a ghost.

The sixth sense is a heightened awareness that is beyond our normal five senses. The five senses are sight; hearing; smell; taste, and touch. Everyone has the sixth sense but some are more sensitive to it then others. This sense is considered an extra-sensory perception. It is often at times very unpredictable. Most people have experienced the sixth sense without realizing it, some examples of the sixth sense are:

1) Some dreams you may have actually come true. Experiencing déjà vu or the feeling that you been through this before.

2) Anytime you had a hunch or feeling that something was going to happen and it did.

3) Times when you have thought of the same thing at the same time as another person.

4) Anytime you felt a presence of someone or something when they are not there.

People who have experienced some of these things are considered to have the sixth sense. These people are also very sensitive to the paranormal. There is a higher chance that they will experience something paranormal in their lifetime. I am one of those people. This is why I believe I have been able to capture so much paranormal activity on film. I think this is how I am channeling my abilities now that I am older.

CORNFIELD

SOUTH CENTERVILLE - NEW YORK

1994

One night my friend and I were driving home from a concert. It was very late probably around 3:00AM. We decided to take a shortcut home. The back road we took was through South Centerville, New York. We were traveling on Route 6, heading towards Port Jervis. On this road, there is a high school and across from it there is a cornfield.

It was very cold and dark that night. It was mid October and the moon and stars weren’t visible. As the car approached the cornfield, I glanced over to the right side and looked out the window. I saw an old man. He was leaning forward into the road almost falling over. He looked very pale, gaunt, and skeletal. He had a very pronounced Adam’s apple and hollow cheekbones. His clothes were baggy and looked like they could slip right off him. He was just standing hunched over staring straight ahead. When our car passed him we both looked over to see where he was going. It was a little creepy.

This man seemed to come out of nowhere. There were no houses or cars around. It’s like he came out of the cornfield. What would an old man be doing standing on the edge of the road in the middle of the night? We’ll we didn’t stay around long enough to find out. When we drove past him, I noticed my friend looked over at him and then sped up to get away faster. I turned around to take a second glance and he seemed to vanish into thin air. The sighting happened within seconds. It scared us both and we didn’t travel that road for many years.

BLESSED BE

SALEM - MASSACHUSETTS

1998– 2006

For many years something always summoned me to go to Salem, Massachusetts. The first few years that I traveled there, I didn’t know the roads very well, so I would always end up getting lost. Strangely, I would end up in a two mile radius of the Old Jail, Howard Street Cemetery and the site of the original Witch Dungeon. It was kind of eerie.

One time, I parked my car on Essex Street in front of a parking meter which was in this vicinity. There was about an hour left on the meter, so I put a few quarters in for two more hours, and it registered 3 hours. My friend Janet and I were gone four hours but when we came back to the car it only registered that we were gone for 1 hour. It was bizarre. It seemed like something was preventing us from leaving. Since we had the extra time, we decided to stay longer.

We had been parked in front of an old book store. We now had time to check it out. As soon as I walked in the store, I was automatically drawn to the back. It was as if something was guiding me to walk to a particular spot near the book shelf. I picked up a black book with gold trim around the edges. This book was through a doorway covered by a curtain. It led to a separate room. I was looking at the books and all of a sudden, I felt like a strong presence was there looking at me, I felt extremely nauseous and like I couldn’t breathe. The room suddenly became cold, and then I had a horrible feeling of dread come over me. I didn’t understand why I felt this way. All I knew was that the feeling was so overwhelming that I had to get out of there. I ran out of the store. Immediately, as soon as I was outside, I felt better. The scary feeling went away and I felt normal again.

Another weird thing that happened to me in Salem was when I bought a Blessed Be bumper sticker from a witchcraft shop. I believe it was in 2001. I put it on my rear bumper and I had a string of bad luck. The first time my car was hit from behind and the sticker was destroyed. Then I went back to the store the following year and purchased another sticker. I put it in my pocket because I was going through a haunted house during Halloween. When I got to the other side, I checked my pocket and the sticker was missing. I didn’t see, feel or hear it drop.

In 2002, I went back to the same store and purchased the sticker for the third time and put it on the rear bumper of a different car. My new car was hit again from the rear and estimated that the car was totaled. The sticker was once again shattered into a million pieces. Finally, I began to suspect the sticker was bringing me bad luck. I’m not sure if there was negative energy surrounding the sticker, the store that it was purchased at, or if someone put a spell on it. All I knew was that this was too much of a coincidence. How could this happen that many times? I decided never to purchase that sticker ever again.

The next year my friend Debbie went to Salem with her daughter for “Haunted Happenings”. This is a month long festival. There are a lot of vendors and activities on the weekends. When they returned home, her daughter gave me a “Blessed Be” bumper sticker. My mouth dropped open. I said “thank you” and took it, but I didn’t tell her my past experiences with it. I kept it for awhile but I never placed it on my car again.

Eventually, I got rid of the sticker with a lot of hesitation. Something made me want to keep it.

In October, the following year, I went with another friend of mine to “Haunted Happenings” in Salem, Massachusetts. Of course, we had another strange experience. We were walking around for a few hours enjoying the festivities. We did a lot of shopping, watched re-enactments of the witch trials, and visited the various witch museums. I was getting tired so we decided to stop at our car and take a little break. I closed my eyes and was dozing off to sleep. Suddenly, I felt the car rock back and forth. It felt like someone was jumping on the back of the bumper rocking the car up and down.

At first, I though it was some kids playing tricks on us. After all it was Halloween and there were all kinds of drunk, rowdy people around. However, when I looked around there was absolutely no one there.

I tried to fall asleep again and the same thing happened. My friend said she could feel the car moving also. This scared us, so we finally got out of the car and started walking around Salem again. I was under the impression that something didn’t want us there. Perhaps, something bad would have happened if we stayed in the car.

The last major incident that happened to me was when I was in Salem, Massachusetts on October 28, 2005.

I went with my friend, Val, to a ghost photography seminar. The woman giving the presentation was telling us that her house was haunted. She said she discovered her house was inhabited by a little boy who likes to play tricks on her. He would steal things from her, and they would be gone for a few days and the suddenly reappear in the oddest places. One of his favorite things to steal was her car keys. She said that sometimes he follows her wherever she goes.

After we left the seminar, we went to get lunch and I handed my car keys to my friend as it was her turn to drive.

That day in Salem was a little strange because it was snowing heavy and there wasn’t any bad weather in the forecast.

Salem is unusual because I have visited there in October and sometimes it would be snowing or it could be 85 degrees and humid. Something strange always happens when I’m there.

After lunch, we went to several shops and activities for the rest of the day. It was a Saturday night, and we were getting tired. We decided to head back to our hotel, which was about 40 minutes away in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. My dog, Kiki was patiently waiting for us. My friend started getting nervous and I asked her what was the matter. She said she couldn’t find the car keys. I thought she was joking.

We decided to find a phone, and call a cab so we could get back to the hotel. The problem was that I wasn’t sure if I had a spare key in the glove compartment. If not, then we would be stranded there until Monday. I lived 5 hours away and I would have to go to a local Toyota dealer and get an extra key made. Since it was Saturday night, the dealership was already closed and it wasn’t open on Sunday. We both had to be back on Monday morning to go to work, which was Halloween day. We found a bagel shop and the owner let us use her personal phone. We told her about our situation and she tried calling her locksmith to see if he could help us. He never called her back. The fire alarm went off in the building while we were waiting. Trucks came and we weren’t sure what to do. Luckily, it was a false alarm. There was a psychic convention going on in the plaza and they were burning too much incense which caused the alarm to go off. Looking back now it was kind of funny.

The owner of the bagel shop told us her husband was a former locksmith. She called him to see if he would come help us. He agreed.

Since the car was parked on a public road we had to report it to the police. We told them the situation and they said we could leave the car there overnight if we chose to.

The woman’s husband picked us up and drove us to my car. He said he could help me get into my car so I could check my glove compartment for a spare key. When he tried to use the Slim Jim on the driver’s side window, the glass shattered into a million pieces. The Slim Jim fell right through and landed on the seat. I was so upset because my car was only five months old.

The man was also very upset, so he called a friend to help tow us to our hotel. Since the window was now completely broken, we didn’t want to leave the open car on the street. It was Halloween weekend, and there were tons of people around. We were afraid the car would get vandalized.

The man’s friend had a hard time moving the car onto the flatbed. He finally got it on and towed my car to the hotel which was about 40 minutes away. I was anxious to get back to the hotel because my dog was in his cage all day. I felt it was safer to have the car with us even though I couldn’t drive it. Plus, if we didn’t have it towed, we would have to get a cab, and go back into Salem the next day. It would have cost a lot of money for a cab both ways.

We called the police to see if anyone handed in car keys but they said no. We ended up staying another night in the hotel since we couldn’t leave anyway. We were stranded there all day on Sunday. To pass the time, we took a walk to Wal-Mart and ate at a restaurant which was nearby. We tried to make the best of it. Monday morning we both had to call our jobs to let them know we were not able to come in. I had to find a Toyota dealer to get a spare key made. Then I had to call my insurance company and see if there was a place in Massachusetts that could fix my window. The dealership said they needed a code to make a spare key. I had this code but it was on my spare car keys in Pennsylvania. I had to call my landlord and see if she could go to my apartment, look for the key, and give me the number over the phone. After we got the code we then had to call a cab to get to the Toyota dealer, get the key made and then go back to the hotel. The cab was coming from a different town, so it was expensive. We discovered that we could have walked to the dealership. It was only about a mile down the road from where we were staying. Of course we didn’t know how close it was until after we got there. Meanwhile, we had to check out of the hotel by 11:00am and it was getting close to that time. I had to leave my dog in the car while we went to the dealership. I was worried because of the busted window. I was afraid he might jump out the window or someone might steal him. My dog Kiki is a pug. I’ve heard horror stories about this sort of thing. I was probably being paranoid but considering all the bad luck we were having, I was just being precautious.

I was on the phone with the insurance company for a few hours when we returned to the hotel. Finally, I was able to find a place that could fix my window that day. I stressed the urgency that it needed to be fixed immediately because I had to get home and I lived five hours away. I told them I had to travel on the highway and it would be extremely difficult without a window. There were also fragments of glass everywhere inside the car. After all the hassle, I was able to get the window fixed and I finally left Salem on Halloween day.

It felt like something was keeping us there and didn’t want us to leave. We never found the car keys.

I have a good friend Steve that lives in Medford, Massachusetts. I went to visit him in August of 2006 to say goodbye because I was moving to New Mexico. He lives about a half hour from Salem. I had to convince my friend Val, to go with me to Salem again. Considering what happened to us the previous year she was reluctant to go. She thought we might have bad luck again like we always do.

Steve wanted us to meet his co-worker Stephanie. She does psychic readings and lives in Salem. We got acquainted the day before at his neighborhood block party. We told her we would meet for lunch the next day. We followed Steve to her apartment. I was shocked to see the location of the apartment. As we approached the road closer to the building, I got chills. I looked over at my friend, and we both realized Stephanie lived on the road that we got stranded on the year before. This was on Hubbard Street . We were both afraid to get out of the car. Eventually, we did and for once nothing bad happened.

Stepahnie said that at one time Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in her apartment building. It was only for a short time. He did some writing in the attic. Her apartment is one of the many stops on the local History tour of Salem. We had a nice day. This was the first time I left Salem without anything bad or spooky happening. Could it be because I was there in August and not October? Or could it be that the spell was finally broken? Salem knew this was the last time I would be there. I was leaving Salem and the east coast for good. I was moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico in search for a new adventure into the unknown. I left closing one portal and entered into a new one.

HAUNTED HOUSE IN DINGMANS FERRY

WILD ACRES

DINGMANS FERRY - PENNSYLVANIA

2000

In 2000 I was living in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania with my boyfriend Moises. We lived in a development called Wild Acres. It was located in a private gated community.

The house was a small A-frame with two small bedrooms, 1 small bathroom and kitchen, a medium sized living room, and a full basement. The house was inexpensive and we were excited to move in.

One of the first strange incidents that occurred was while I was painting my bedroom. My first project was to lay primer down on the walls to get it ready for the teal color paint that I had selected. The room was empty and only had paint, rollers, and brushes in it. The only thing that I placed in my bedroom window was an incense burner. I walked into the other room for just a minute and when I returned I noticed the incense burner had been moved. This was weird because I was the only one in the house. I dismissed it thinking maybe I just moved it without realizing and forgot about it. Then the next day, I felt like someone was staring at me. I glanced over my shoulder but I didn’t see anything. Then later on that evening I discovered that the incense burner was missing. I could not find it anywhere. It mysteriously reappeared several days later back where I had originally placed it. I was a little surprised, but more intrigued than scared.

My boyfriend worked two jobs and he would get home very late and I would already be sleeping when he arrived. I didn’t like to be in the house alone so I would invite my friend to stay over on the weekends.

The house had many problems. In the bathroom, mold was growing on the walls. I would scrap the paint and the mold spots off and then repaint the walls. It would grow back only a few days later. I did this twice, then I finally gave up. It was useless to keep trying to fix this recurring problem. The sinks were always clogged and the basement was very damp and smelled like stale air. I was allergic to mold so I was always sick with a sinus infection. This was not a good environment for me to live in.

One night I heard a fluttering of wings in the wall of my bedroom. It scared me but I was sure there had to be an explanation for it. The next day I discovered there was a small hole in the wall from the outside leading to the wall in my bedroom. I saw a hummingbird squeeze through and fly in. I found the culprit. We also found mice in the house. They left droppings in my shoes and chewed up some of my books in the closet. In the kitchen I found dog food next to my utensils. The mice were taking the dog food and storing it away in the drawers. At first I thought it was funny, but then it became annoying. I could hear them at night rustling around.

I had a separate bedroom from my boyfriend, he worked long hours and I didn’t want him waking me up every night at 2:00am since I had to get up at 6:00am. I also felt a little creepy when I was in his bedroom. I didn’t like to sleep in there. Ever since we moved in I felt like there was a presence in the house. It seemed to be concentrated in the living room and my boyfriend’s bedroom. That’s where I felt the presence the strongest. It didn’t feel like anything evil or threatening. It just felt like I was never alone and somebody else was living there with us.

Another strange thing that kept occurring was when I returned home from work, I would find every single cabinet door in the kitchen wide open. I know that they were all shut when I left in the morning. I asked my boyfriend if he had done this. He insisted that it wasn’t him. I would yell at him and say ” you were probably too tired too remember that you left them open.” This happened several times. One night I was cooking dinner and one of the cabinet doors opened slowly behind me. It scared me a little but I knew nothing bad would happen. After that incident I was convinced that the house was haunted.

I asked my boyfriend about the previous owners. I found out that the woman who lived here before us had a husband who just recently died of a heart attack. That’s why she sold the house. He was a physician. This was their weekend getaway house. Sometimes he would stay the weekend by himself to hunt and fish. He loved the house and the solitude. I believe he was attached to the house. She didn’t tell us whether or not her husband passed away in the house, but I believe that he did.

I have taken pictures of my dog in the living room and several orbs have shown up surrounding him. I think he could also sense a presence there.

I wonder if the doctor enjoyed the house so much and the peace and quiet of the neighborhood that he never wanted to leave. I think it was his presence that I felt when I was in the house.

(Kiki with orbs above him and on the right side) Wild Acres Dingmans Ferry, Pa. 5/2000