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?

More!

Oh yes. More please. I have led a spooky free life and so love to hear these stories.

Permanentpanicmode's father's 'phantom hitch-hiker', complete with coat:

www.castleofspirits.com/vanishing.html

I have a story that I have told on here before:

When I was in my late teens (about 20 years ago), my best friend lived in an old farmhouse. All the occupants of the house were young like us and we were all great friends and had some brilliant parties. At the time the following event happened, only one of the upstairs rooms was occupied, by a chap... let's call him James.

My friend's bedroom was on the ground floor and had once been the dining room. It had one of those serving hatches between it and the kitchen and for some reason it never closed completely.

One morning, I was (I thought) alone in the house after my friend had left for work. I was sitting up in bed, thinking about getting up and going to work. My back was to the serving hatch.

All of a sudden, I heard someone stomping around in the kitchen behind me, opening and closing drawers noisily, banging cupboard doors and clashing pots around. I jumped out of my skin and thought angrily, "WTF is James up to in there?". I walked into the hallway towards the kitchen and the noises stopped. There was no way that anyone could have got through the corridor up the stairs in such a short time. Nothing seemed out of place (though, TBH, the house was never pristine, as you can imagine with just teenagers living there).

I ran upstairs and knocked on James' door - no answer.

I got my things and ran out of the house, leaving the front door unlocked behind me.

Anyway, we all stayed great mates over the years and about six or seven years ago, I was telling this story when one of my friends went "No, you're getting it wrong - that's what happened to ME, remember?". It turned out that we'd both experienced exactly the same thing at different times.

Loads of other weird shit happened in that house. My friend had a visitor over from the USA and gave her his room to stay in (the one with the hatch). After the first night, she refused to sleep in there alone and bunked in with one of the other girls. She said she'd seen a figure looming over her bed in the night.

ooh goody - a terrific storm outside and spooky stories to read!

Any more? I love these threads!

More more more

Im sure I read on a thread on MN about a lady saying there was a werewolf somewhere. I might have dreamt it but either way I dont walk the dog in the dark anymore !

miss it wasn't me but I have a werefolf story.

My mum and I were walking the dog late at night. We came to a huge field, it's a public area but my old school backs onto it and they use it for sports.

The school has flood light type things that are always on (I'm presuming for CCTV) and it slightly lights up the field.

The field was a bit foggy/misty.

Our dog was running about doing his thing when he came back and started to stare off into the field. He then started to herd us quite insistenly.

We looked over the field and their was a massive looking dog. Looked like it had similar proportions to a Dane.

It started to trot towards us (at the time we weren't really concerned because there are dogs there are all hours). We presumed it was coming to us because of our dog. I used to work with dogs and nothing about the dog's movements seemed strange. The trot was a bouncy trot. Like a dog coming over to make mischeif rather than to start a fight.

Then it stopped, trotted away from us and stopped again. We were watching it just stand there.

THEN IT STOOD UP.

It was a man!

He stood up and legged it away, parallel to us and the school.

By this point our dog is really trying to get us to go, so we did, and sharpish too. It wasn't until we got home that we looked at each other like

Something a bit woo happened to me after I finished my first ever parents evening after I'd qualified as a teacher. I was working in a school which was based in the building of a 1950s grammar. School in question has 3 floors, all windows facing out, and a tower at the end, which was once music practice rooms but is now used for storage.

As it was my fist proper parents evening, I wanted to make an impression so was one of the last to leave. I walked out with a friend and as I went to unlock my car, I glanced up at my classroom in the middle of the 2nd floor, and saw the outline of two kids in the window. I mentioned it to my friend who suggested it must be students who had been helping out. I couldn't fathom why they might have been up there, friend suggested I let the caretaker and deputy head know. Went back into school, me and the caretaker went up to my room. The door was locked. Just incase we went in to check no kids had managed to get in and were hiding as a prank, but the room was empty.

Went back down and my friend asked which two students it was. I told her there was no-one there and she said "There is, They've just been waving to me!"

My sister lives in a very old cottage in North Wales. It's next to a very ancient church (recorded 1000 years ago) and the area is very remote...just her cottage and two others attached and then a lot of fields, lanes and woodland.

anyway...not long after they'd moved in, my sister and her DH had begun to re-fit the cottage. It hadn't changed since the 60s when a lean-to had been built on the tiny kitchen.

They were planning on enlarging it all and extending so they had the lean-to removed and this left part of the kitchen exposed to the elements...they used tarp to keep the weather out!

One night she decided to go and make tea and as she got up she heard the tarp thing blowing about in the wind....she got to the kitchen put the light on and saw that the tarp had come off..and there was nothing between her kitchen and the great outdoors... and standing outside where the lean-to had been attached, she saw a figure in the darkness standing in "his own rain" as she put it.

It looked like a man, she made out no real details as he was "Like fuzz" sort of like static...greyish but he seemed to be wearing a big coat and she could see rain falling around him but not anywhere else.

She said she wasn't scared because she knew he wasn't real...she felt that he wasn't a ghost as such but a snapshot of the past...not aware of her...not aware of anything...she just thought that due to the renovations, she'd maybe made something from the past come back.

There's a new kitchen there now and they've not seen anything since.

Am gutted my father lied to me so blatantly for so long MamaLazarou - he swore it was true

Thats mad walk

Oooh marking place and I will tell my story too...have told it on here before under other names I think so may possibly sound familiar

When I was a teenager I used to usually be the first one to get home after school as parents both worked ft.

Most days, I used to go in the garden and have a sneaky fag before anyone got home. One day I was smoking my fag and glanced up towards the house to see my mum, stood at a window, hands on hips looking pissed off.

I just thought oh shit mums back early and I've been caught smoking, I'm in trouble. and sheepishly headed back in to accept a bollocking.

Except when I went in no one was actually home and the house was still completely empty

I've since told my parents and they said they are not surprised as they admitted they also saw and felt strange things in that house. And they are both, particularly my mum, the least woo people you could meet

Except the house was still

I'm still enjoying all these stories.

walk was he wearing clothes?

Bloody hell walk that has given the the willies.

Sorry, permanent! Maybe there is a grain of truth in it, you never know. Stranger things have happened!

just lost my entire evening reading these!

Bloody hell walk, that's gonna give me nightmares

We couldn't tell. He was between us and the school so he was lit up from behind

We couldn't tell. He was between us and the school so he was lit up from behind.

I've always been very non-woo until we moved into our current house - it's an old house (built 1835) and had lots of changes/history to it.

The night we moved in I was in the kitchen, unpacking stuff, with my cabk to the room, and I felt someone walk past me from the dining room, across the kitchen, to the lounge. Assuming it was my dh coming through from upstairs, I didn't pay any attention, we were rushing around, had ordered a takeaway - he and the dc had been upstairs. Then his voice called me from upstairs. I freaked out - I said to him, I just felt you walk past me into the lounge - he was 'no, I've been upstairs with the dc the whole time'.

Soon after moving in, I redecorated ds2's bedroom. I was there painting the walls, he was (age 4) playing and watching tv downstairs. I felt and saw out of the corner of my eye, a child (just like him) walk into the room - between the bed (which I had moved into the middle to paint the walls) and the opposite wall to me. I said "oh, don't come in here darling, I don't want you to get paint on you.' Turned around - nobody there. I called "ds2? where are you?" - his voice from downstairs - "I'm down here mummy".

Just about 6mths ago I was having an afternoon nap while all 3 dc were at school, dh was at work but I was knackered. I was awake, and just thinking I must get up, and suddenly the digital clock radio came on blaring static white noise. Was so loud, I jumped out of my skin - it is tuned to R4, and timed to go off at 6.45am. I just lay there for a minute with my heart racing - then pressed the off button. I switched it on again - R4 came on. That was freaky.

It's a very old, creaky house, so you expect odd noises and whatnot -and of course they could have a normal explanation (not least my tired/overactive imagination).but I have felt myself prodded awake at night as well, and felt watched. I also often take off my wedding rings - to dye my hair and other icky things like that - I put them on top of the high bathroom cabinet. In the kitchen, I put them on top of the radio. One time they missing for several days - not in either of the 'places' I put them. I searched around for days - then I found them on top of the bathroom cabinet as normal. I swear they hadn't been there.

It's strange, but I don't feel unsafe in any way. I do feel like we disturbed something when we moved in.

Oh, we also had an amazing rattling kitchen door/doorknob as well. Like someone was trying to open the door from the lounge. Friends sitting with us in the kitchen witnessed that too and were The first time it happened, I went to open the door, fully expecting a cat the other side - nothing there.

I think that was draughts though - weirdly, since we knocked through an internal door from the kitchen through to the garage, it doesn't happen any more.

When I was a young teenager my Dad and Step Mother went though a phase of taking me and my sister camping a lot in the summer. We often went to one particular camp site that had a pub just down the lane, so Dad would take us there for dinner and he would spend a few hours sat outside drinking with Step Mum while us girls played with our dog.

One night after spending our evening at this pub, my Dad was drunk and faffing around getting ready to leave, so me and my Step Mum took the dog (she was off the lead) and decided to meet us back at the site, Dad would take the torch for him and my sister because we would have the dog.

We set off and got half way to the site when we saw something moving towards us in the darkness up ahead, we both called to it thinking the dog had run past us and was coming back to check why we were walking so slowly, but this thing just kept prowling towards us. I realised something wasn't right because the closer it got, the bigger it got. I asked my Step Mum what she thought it was, she told me to run and we legged it back to my Dad, who said that our dog had not followed us like we thought but had stayed with him the whole time! There was nothing there when we walked with my Dad, I remember my Step Mum being so shaken she cried nearly all the way back to the site

Walkwiththelonelyones, I would freak about that one forever. Did you ever go back to that particular field?