to start a new spooky thread even though it's the wrong time of year?

[SunkenDream]

Mine is not terribly exciting but it seems only polite to make a contribution

I live a few doors down from the house where I was born, very close to the village church. I grew up listening to the sound of the bells. When I moved back I was pleased to hear their familiar chimes again, until I discovered that the church had long been derelict and the clock stopped years ago.

Still, I continued to hear the bells nearly every night, until the church was finally demolished last year.

there is probably a completely rational explanation for what I was actually hearing but tonight I am living in the land of woo and whimsy

Anymore for anymore?

The coat over the gravestone one is a popular story. I've heard it many times based in different locations.

Where have you read about the Hampton Court story being debunked, MrsCosmophilite?

Not that I'm doubting you - I love a good debunking almost as much as I love a good ghost story!

Actually Sunken, I was mistaken about the HC ghost. There have been a few different sightings. Nothing to corroborate either fact or fiction out there it seems.

Great thread :) Loving the London Underground stuff. I used to travel near enough the whole length of the central line (tube) a couple of times a week on the last train in the 80s, (boyfriend in Louton) and it is a very strange place when you are alone waiting in the stations/alone in the train carriages.

Anyway - my haunted at work story from when i was 17 ...

I worked in a shoe shop in London which had a modern frontage but was quite an old building. Late 1800s. 2 buildings knocked through into one in fact. The whole of ground level was a nice sparkly shop floor and the whole of the upstairs was the old stock room. (No ceiling upstairs, you could look up into the rafters.) 3 meter high wooden racks filled the space, a bit like a library. Full of shoe boxes. Ladders to get the high ones. Racks all running parallel to the walls leaving room to walk between them and all around the edge. The set up meant every single pair of shoes sold meant a run upstairs to the old stock room, and into the grid of shelves. Up and down all the bloody time. The little staff room was on the far side away from the stairs so you had to go right up and across every break time too. Great.

The atmosphere in that stock room was heavy and quiet. You couldn't hear any street noise or the music from downstairs. As i left the stair case and entered the stock area it always felt, to me, as if i was disturbing something very strong, very old, and very very angry. And male. It felt as if i was being watched from a great height all the time. It felt as if, when you reached the top of the stairs something would 'rush' there to watch you. I felt something raging at me silently. It was horrible!

I confided in a colleague who said they felt the same. We both avoided going up alone if we could help it - not always possible. One day, another colleague, who incidentally had good humoredly poo poo'd the idea of it being a bit 'off' up there came rushing on to the shop floor in tears. She said that step by step something had followed her down the staircase and she could feel it right behind her. Big heavy steps. She left at the end of that day. The manager was told the reason and after being quiet for a few moments he said he hated being alone up there too! Big muscly guy. Not the type to be nervous of anything.

My final straw came on the day i had to open up the shop alone because the manager was poorly. I got in and stated doing the float for the till. Front of the shop locked behind me, stairs up to the stockroom locked at the top and bottom (no way i was opening those up until someone else turned up!). When suddenly there came this huge banging on the ceiling! It was hard hard banging like someone literally stamping slowly across the floor above with nailed boots! It rattled the suspended ceiling of the shop floor. I was , and just stood still, following it with my eyes. And the thing was ... the 'steps' went diagonally - physically impossible with the grid of shelving up there. I felt like it was 'meant for me to hear', meant to frighten me. I handed my notice in that day and refused to go up there alone again. WTF was it???

True story :) Long, sorry.

Ive spent the afternoon in my sunny garden reading these ... whats the chances ill be able to sleep in my dark bedroom tonight

The pics for The Russian sleep experiment are horrible!

Just about to read the link about the nurses. Wish me luck :)

This is completely true, I wish it wasn't, as it's not as scary as some of the things on here, but even so.

We live in a new build house and I've had some really odd stuff happen. A few years ago, I was in the kitchen, and I saw a bottle top slide across the work surface, it was as though someone was pushing it.

DD and I were sitting downstairs and a bottle in the recycling box started shaking/vibrating at a very rapid speed, I kicked the box, and told 'it' to stop and it did. Things have flown off shelves and (very heavy) cupboard doors have opened. The stereo and TV have switched themselves on, there were no storms or power surges at the time.

I read on here ages ago, that I should ask 'it' to stop. I did, and things have quietened down. Oddly enough, there's a part of the house where I've felt a deep sense of sadness, I can't quite explain it, it just feels down.

OP, why is it the wrong time of year for this thread?

Not halloween?

Oh I see! I hadn't thought ghosts were seasonal - I understand!

Can someone please explain the Russian sleep thing I'm really curious what it is but too scared to google lol

Right, house my family lived in when I was between 3-5, shower ripped out off the wall, all windows on the ground floor shaking ( daytime, only me, mum and dog in ), my nan stayed over once and woke to find her book, glasses, jewelry and glass of water had been moved off the bedside table and piled up in the middle of the floor. Eldest brother started sleepwalking & I became so Ill that I was repeatedly tested for leukaemia.
When we moved eldest brother ( then 16 ) started to investigate the history of the house and discovered that a man had committed suicide some years before in the front bedroom.

I remember the documentary about the London Underground. I watched it one night late by myself and got really scared. The man who describes going down to the platform to move a passenger when the station is closing for the night is the scariest. He is told by his co worker over the radio who has seen the passenger on the CCTV. He goes to the platform and can't see the passenger. Speaks to his co worker who says 'But she is standing beside you'. I was scared silly.

In our old house i often did not feel alone.
Once stepped back on landing thinking i'd stepped on my dh's foot he wasnt behind me he'd gone down five minutes before but i thought he was still upstairs
another time felt something behind me on stairs and hated feeding daughter in her room always felt 'watched'

Ok this is honestly 100% true and to this day I doubt myself but when I retrace it in my mind I honestly can't see how I imagined it.

At the time me and my (now ex but still friends with) partner were renting a rural property. Very rural, so rural that we were a good 3/4 miles from a village, 20 miles from a town. The house was surrounded by land and the land lord who has since moved to his other farm, kept livestock at on the land which meant we saw them most days while they tended cows/sheep/horses at the property. It was surrounded by bridleways and publish footpaths though these were very seldom used.

I was sitting at home alone while waiting for my partner to get back from work. Being in a rural area and helping with a house refurbishment meant some days he would work very late and other days he would come home very early if other work had postponed what he could do that day.

I was idly flicking through web pages and not really expecting him home. It was a sunny day and about 2pm in the afternoon.

I sat on the bed upstairs in our bedroom, the stairs were open plan to the lounge so I could hair downstairs very clearly. The house had a porch on the front so the front door, a porch used for boots/coats and a door into the lounge.

I heard the front door open. Initial thought was "oh OH is home from work" and I expected him to come up the stairs any second. Then a moment or 2 later after hearing some noises I heard somebody shout "hello??? he-hello?" as if lost and calling in hope of a person being there.

I immediately thought "Hikers", it was so rural people would often get lost from the footpaths and walks and I figured it was somebody looking for directions, as I threw on a slightly more appropriate pair of bottoms (I still had pj's on).

I heard the door to from the porch into the lounge open, it had a barn door latch that was very easy to identify.

As I pulled my jeans on I thought "hmm, perhaps it is somebody who knows Landlord and doesn't realise he has moved" and this was my reasoning for why they would open the door.

I started down the stairs and as I got to the bottom I saw the door open and said "hello??"

Totally silent. I looked around, through the porch and then went outside to see if anybody was around... Not a soul.

I told my other half when he returned home who said I was bonkers/probably imagined it.

2 months later I was out for the day with a friend. When I got back my other half sat on the sofa with no computer/tv on as white as a sheet. He told me both doors has opened and somebody was shouting "hello" but nobody was there.

Ooh, overslept. Did you move??

I'm with a paranormal investigation team and got a few spooky things that have happened. The most freaky one though was when we went to a very old church up in the hills (and I thinking on the way there 'what the heck are we going to a church for?').

was quite light when we got there but just going dark, and there was what looked like a torch light in the church, it was like someone was swinging a torch around, so we knocked on the door to ask whoever was in there if it was ok if we spent some time there, no answer. The girl tried again and explained who we were etc, still no answer. We decided to leave incase we were scaring the heck out of a caretaker of the church, but then heard the door open so turned to speak to them.. no one there.
We went into the church and it was completely empty, there was only one door and that was the one we had come through (church is tiny).

So we set up our equipment, lasers cameras and voice recorders. It was all quiet for a while and it got darker outside, we then started to see something going past the windows, it was like a shadow of someone going around the outside of the church, so we decided to split into two groups and walk in separate ways around the church, we met up again without coming across anything, so we went back inside the church again and it went quiet again for a while. A couple of us went outside (all important fag break) and I happened to look up at the church roof and something was sat hunched over on the roof, but as I only glanced and when I looked fully there was nothing so I don't know if there really was something there or if it was just the light etc making it look like there was something.

A few hours later one of the guys told us to look at the main stained glass window at the alter end of the church and there was what I can only describe as something similar to the way the wax moves about in a Lava Lamp dripping down the window (it was black) at the this point we decided that whatever this was.. it wasn't normal. We have had quite a few experiences with spirits but nothing like that ... I still don't really believe in demon's but this is not how spirits manifest usually, and we packed up pretty fast to get out. We went back to the cars and the medium told us to split up .. guys got in one car and us in the other. I was sat in the front seat of the car and happened to look in the wing-mirror and saw the reflection of a very pretty young girl.. looked out of the window and no one was there, looked back in the mirror and nothing there either. The next minute the guys started that car up and went like bats out of hell down the road, so we followed them, they kept driving until we got into town and we pulled up by the side of the road to see what the matter was. The guys said there was what looked like a old woman on the outside of their car and that freaked them out, we also noticed that the car had been scratched down the metal work and there were also finger prints on the inside of the rear window which they said they had no idea how any of the marks got there.

Sorry its so long .... yep its true... no I havn't been back because frankly its a bit too much for me, but the other guys have been back and have got some pretty good voice recordings from there :)

I did indeed move Saga!

Shamelessly marking. Brilliant, terrifying thread OP

Love the ones about guardian angels.

A few only slightly spooky things from me

1. Some years ago I made up a hallowe'en story for an event housed at a country park. Part of the visitor centre is on the ruins of an old house. I had some info on the names of earlier occupants (long dead) and made up a ridiculous story to scare the visitors with.

After I'd told it, one of the staff said that when he'd been in the building alone one evening closing up, he'd seen someone walk across the room outside his office, in military garb. He was convinced it was the former owner I'd "rubbished" in my story. Fast forward to six months later when we're doing a morning event at the same place. Standing outside the centre I'm talking to the staff member about the hallowe'en thing/ghost sighting. I got a distinct clip around the ear (felt like someone flicking me with thumb and forefinger). Not the person I was talking to, who was some two feet away from me. Nothing fallen out of any trees, and there's no muscle in the cartilage at the top of the ear where I felt it.

1. Coming home from work in the City late one evening. I had my book and was sat in a double seat facing the central doors. The train was an 'all stations' to my destination, where the train terminated.

The stop before mine I noticed a man move towards the central doors and stand there, as if he was going to get off. The train stopped and I glanced up to see that he had not got off. I returned to reading my book. Around five minutes later we got to my stop, and I was rather engrossed in getting off (I have a tendency to trip) and not drop my book. As I stepped onto the platform it dawned on me that I had not passed anyone to get off. There was nobody else on the platform.

I have a slightly spooky - but nice - story from my grandparents. My grandad was in the navy during WW2, stationed all over Europe in submarines. One night my grandma had a very vivid dream that she visited him on his submarine. She was next to his bunk, and he asked what she was doing there, and then the alarm went for action stations (ie there was an enemy attack) and grandad said you'd better go, it's not safe. She said it felt so real. Then many months later she got a letter from my grandad recounting the same experience, that he had a dream she was by his bunk and then action stations was called. The dates were the same. It was weird cos grandma could describe the submarine exactly to grandad (when they reunited) even thought she'd never been there.

Years ago, (I was about 10), my mum was standing brushing her hair in front of the lounge window and I was sitting on the sofa behind her (a good 6 foot away). Out of the blue she turned around and said 'look, pack it in, it's not funny'.

I was at her because I didn't know what she was on about. 30 seconds later she went 'OW!' really loudly and scared the life out of me. She was clutching her hand and said she'd just had a really bad pain in it.

She then turned white as a sheet and asked if i'd just been touching her, tapping her on the shoulder. I said no. She dropped the hair brush and raced upstairs where my youngest sister was sleeping to check her. Then came back down and asked me was I feeling OK? Which I was.

My middle sister (aged 5ish) was next door playing with the neighbours dd of the same age. My mum rushed to the hall in an almost-panic to get her shoes on, saying she had to go and check on her. Just as she opened the door, there was the neighbour holding my dsis, who had her hand wrapped in towels, covered in blood and was passed out cold.

She'd slammed her hand in the door, which had closed the whole way with her hand in it. It almost ripped two of her fingers off, and she'd fainted from the pain. She had to have surgery to close the wound and has a massive scar even now.

When I spoke to my mum afterwards, she said that after she'd felt the taps and then pain in her own hand she was overcome with a horrible feeling that something wasn't right. Like there was someone telling her something was wrong without using actual words.

Goose pimples from reading that Violet.

My mums had moments like that. She had such a horrible feeling and begged my Dad not to drive to work one day, she was on the verge of tears. He didn't listen. She felt sick all day and finally fell asleep in the evening, when she woke and he wasn't back when he was meant to be, she felt eerily calm and began ringing hospitals until she found him (no mobile phones yet). He'd had a head on collision with another car. He lived, but the car was a complete write off. His bruises were impressive from the seat belt apparently.

Mum still can't explain how she knew.

Love the flick round the ear MrsCosmo. To teach you not to rubbish him in made up stories

Fluffyraggies, you should go back to the shop and ask the current staff how they feel about it all? Awfully spooky!

T