Apologies for the long post but I feel the need to tell people who, hopefully, won't think it's too woo bonkers!
We had a few unbelievable experiences when we lived in the Channel Islands. We rented a property that was originally the servants' quarters of the big house to which it was attached.
In the room we used as our dining room, there was a bricked-up doorway that had obviously been the access from the servants' quarters to the main house. We would often hear a door banging. I assumed it was the resident of the main house banging a door on the other side of the wall but would always comment to my DH that it sounded so clear like it was a door in the room not on the other side. It was only when the next door neighbour went away and the property was empty for weeks but the door banging continued that I began to think all was not as it seemed.
I'm not very attuned to spiritual realms and I never felt anything untoward in the house. I would, however, often wake during the night and the time would always be the same - 02:22. I awoke one night at the usual time and standing next to the bed was a man. He said nothing and it just seemed I became less aware of him being there rather than him disappearing. I'm pretty sure I was awake and didn't dream it (although that is always a possibility).
This has just been a preamble to the really unbelievable events. In June 2011 I gave birth to my first DC. Being clueless, I shipped my mum over from the UK to show me the ropes. All was quiet on the first night. On the morning following the second night my mum came into my bedroom and I could see she was very upset. She said she had been in bed and not long after midnight she had heard what sounded like someone running up the stairs, thundering along the landing and bursting into her room. Except the door hadn't opened. She said she felt like something was lying on top of her, pulling off the duvet and grappling for her throat! I was totally horrified! I actually thought my mother had gone bonkers as it sounded like madness! But things got weirder.
We had an Angel Care monitor for DS and every time my mum entered our bedroom the alarm would sound even when the monitor was switched off. I brushed it off thinking that I hadn't set up the monitor properly.
That night my mum went to bed but kept the bedside lamp on. My husband looked in on her and due to some miscommunication, he turned the light off and my mum was too scared to get out to turn it on. At the same time as the previous incident had happened the night before - 00:29 - my mum's mobile phone started ringing. I heard the phone and went across the hall to my mum's room. She jumped out of bed as I turned on the light. Firstly, the ringtone that sounded was not the ringtone that was set. In fact, I couldn't find the ringtone at all when I searched through the phone's sounds. I checked that no calls, messages, notifications been made to or from the phone, no alarms were set, no calendar reminders that would have set the phone off. Nothing. Secondly , my mum gasped as she looked at the bed she'd just got out of. All the items from the bedside cabinet we're lying on the bed along with some long grey hairs (not belonging to us).
My mum began sleeping with a rosary pinned to the pillow, the lights on and not going to bed til after 00:29. There were no more night incidents. One afternoon my mum went upstairs and came back down looking perplexed. She said she had gone into the bedroom to find her towel sopping wet. She couldn't understand how this had happened as it had been dry an hour before. I went upstairs to retrieve the dripping towel only to find a perfectly dry one!
Things settled down and my mum went back to England. The vibe in the house had definitely changed and their was a very negative feeling. DH asked a priest to come and visit and he also felt a sense of unease in the house. He blessed the house and we had a Eucharist in the lounge.
The lease on the house was coming to an end and we had found another property so left the house when my little one was eight weeks old.
It was months later when my mum came to stay in our new house. She said she was so relieved we had left the other property as she hadn't told me the full story as she was so traumatised and hadn't wanted to frighten me. She told me that she'd been deeply affected by what had happened and had sought help from a Catholic priest to deal with it (my mum is a practising catholic). She claimed that the force that had come charging into the bedroom on the first night was a male force and it had tried to rape her. She had fought it and started praying to God to help her and she managed to escape. I felt physically sick (and still do) at the thought of this. I didn't know what to say. I told DH who said my mum must have made it up but she is a very normal, sane, rational person who would never make up such a horrific story.