Derek Acorah ruined my favourite pub
The Golden Fleece in York used to be my favourite pub. Loads of flavoured wine, "Viva La Radio" by Lolly on the jukebox - fun times. One day, the Most Haunted team decided to film a special there.

It was obviously a success and now they have psychic evenings and such crap all the time.

Last time I went in, you could see a poster with Derek Acorah's smug face on it from just about every angle you look.

I wish a Beetlejuice-style alcoholic ghost could get them all to fuck off.
( monkeon schmonkeon, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:02, 2 replies)

Woo yay for this QOTW!
In case you didn't guess from the subject heading, I'm pretty into the supernatural, and believe in ghosts and stuff. Therefore, I have two stories, creepy to me, probably not so much to anyone else. Oh well, here goes:

1) Last year sometime, I went with two friends to the cinema, deciding we'd see Ghost Rider. We were there about an hour early, so when we finally went up to the screen, we were still completely alone. It was the screen at the end of the empty corridor on the top floor that we had to go in, and it was typically creepy, right down to a spooky hum in the background, there wasn't even a person to take our tickets. Being the brave young souls we were (notice the "were"), we walked into the screen. As we walk in, all three of us see at least one black figure somewhere in the screen. We all ran out the screen screaming, and waited until someone else went into the screen. The creepy part is, when we went back in, there was only us and the people we followed in, no black figures...

2) Don't worry this isn't as long as the last one. Sometimes when I'm sitting at the computer, a silver washing bowl will fall off the tumble dryer behind me. I've often blamed this on the fact that the tumble dryer was on at the time, and the vibrations pushed it off. But it has fallen off when the tumble dryer was off, and I think I even saw someone walk behind me and push it off once, but no one I live with was close enough to have been able to move it and get that far away in time. So, I don't know what to think, hence it being rather unexplained...

Length? Yeah, I don't even know the joke, so I'm just apologizing :)
(ShortPurple is still trying to think of a decent board sig on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:01, 4 replies)

Talk about relevent.
I've been doing the invoicing at work today. I grabbed a load of envelopes to send the invoices out in and I grabbed exactly the correct amount of envelopes that correspond with the sticky labels I just printed.

Completely shit me up, that did.


Edit - I do actually have a relevent story but don't have time to write it up yet.
( girlinthehole, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:59, 6 replies)

Me and my brother were at home
when there was a knock at the door. I went and answered it and there was no-one there. Then the phone rang and there was no-one on the other end. Then the power went out for about 30 seconds. All in the space of about a minute. Then a my brothers girlfriend knocked on the door...and wondered why we were so jittery and confused looking.

Hardly the wildest of stories but it freaked us out.
(MrChimp previously Monsieur, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:54, Reply)

Now I'm not superstitious...
And I certainly don't believe in the supernatural. I'm the kind of person who watches Derek Acorah just to laugh at him being 'possessed'. I guffawed at my mum when she told me she once saw an old lady at the end of her bed one night but...

We used to have 3 cats, two of whom used to sleep on my bed with me. Every evening I'd leave my door ajar enough for a cat to slip through and eventually both cats would come in, jump up on to my bed and settle down for the night.

Unfortunately, during the summer last year we had to put one of them to sleep. I was kind of gutted and I am not ashamed to say that I had a little cry.

Now, a couple of nights passed where the other cat would come in on his own and settle down on my bed. One particular night though, he came in as usual, walked around a bit before settling down to sleep. 10 minutes passed, and I had the shock of my life when I felt another cat jump up on to my bed, walk around purring before settling down.

Now, we have another cat who likes sleeping downstairs in her favourite chair, so I assumed that for whatever reason she must've come up to my room that particular night. I opened my eyes and looked around. Only the one cat on my bed. Ok I thought, the other cat must've changed her mind and jumped off. I switched the light on, no other cat to be seen anywhere. I crept downstairs and saw the cat curled up fast asleep in her favourite chair.

I didn't think much further of it that night and promptly went back to sleep. The same thing happened the night after, and the night after that, and has happened every night since then.

I don't quite fully believe it's my old cat coming in to sleep, maybe it's just me 'wanting' it to be or some other bollocks I don't know, but I've yet to come up with another reason as to why this happens.
(wayneofthedead Dale Winton was my dad, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:51, 3 replies)

Gillian McKeith's Career
That's supernatural. A tale to go with it? She's a cuntbag of a woman, isn't she?

Would anyone be in favour of writing a petition demanding she never be shown on television again? Fuck it, who runs the BBC, the people do s'far as I'm concerned. I'm going to start collecting a petition. In the reply section. No I'm too lazy, but really, someone should stop her.
(sorry., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:49, 8 replies)

Dunno if this counts or not...
I have a cat that I refer to as the Big Black Fluffy Thing (or Hissy Thing if the dog is involved). She's a long-furred black cat with yellow-green eyes, the perfect image of a Halloween cat. She's very sweet and affectionate, and is about everything I could ask for in a kitty.

Lately she's taken to kinda spazzing out in my kitchen. She'll lie in one particular area of the floor, then start batting at something and chasing it around the floor. I had been assuming that it was small moths or something- we get those in my house because they come in through bags of birdseed that we buy- but the other night she started doing it while I was in the kitchen, right next to her. It was hilarious to watch- her eyes got huge and she started swatting at nothing, batting nothing out of the air and pouncing on nothing. Then she jumped up and walked off to the living room as though nothing had happened.

The part about this that's really odd? We also have the old stoned-looking Siamese who's 12 and getting rather creaky. And last night he started doing it too, in the same area of the floor...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:48, 5 replies)

Techno ghosts!
I have reason to belive I am technologically haunted, so to speak. This happened all in one day by the way:

1) I'm watching TV in my room, it turns off for no apparent reason. The remote is 3 ft away from me. Puzzled more than freaked.

2) Later on, I'm sitting at my main computer. My laptop is a few feet away from me, on the dining table. Suddenly MSN disconnects. That sometimes happens, so I ignore it. Then the big one. My laptop turns itself on. From around 4-5 feet away. And it's closed. And unplugged. By now I'm thinking "what the fuck?!.

3) Just to rub salt in the wound, my Freeview box (yeah I'm cheap so what) kept losing most channels. Even though the reception showed up as almost perfect.

There may have been more, I cannot remember as it was more than a week ago.

So there's my story.
(TMAce needs to enter another image challenge sometime, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:39, 4 replies)

stranded
When i was about 14 i went with my step-brother to see LOTR:2 towers. At the time i was living in Fife and the only cinema near us was in Dunfermline.
For those of you that don't know Fife i lived ina small town called Glenrothes which was about half an hours drive away.

Anyway, we got the bus, saw the film and a good time was had by us both. We then phoned my dad to come pick us up but found that he was too stoned to drive, as was my step-mum. We were also told not to get a taxi.

In the end we decided to walk. You may wonder where this is going but on that night 2 strange things happened.

We decided to head through to Lochgelly which was a closer town that John's (my step-brother) gran lived. We set off and got there at about 5am. Our cousin let us in and we sat for about an hour then were thrown out by John's gran.

Aren't family lovely?

Anyway, we decided to head on to Glenrothes and as we were passing a cemetery there was a man jogging. My cousin asked him for a light as he had left his at home and he replied "sorry mate i don't smoke" and continued jogging. We all looked away for a couple of seconds, i think we were talking about alternate means for fire and when we looked back jogging dude was gone. He had just vanished.

The rest of the journey passed without incident and we finally got home at about 9am. The second strange part is this. How the hell did it take us from 11pm to 9am to walk 20 miles? :/
(panda_sam, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:37, 9 replies)

Deja Vu
This happens to me quite alot. Its an odd feeling but more often that I can trace the deja vu back to a dream. Even though most often if it is a dream in which I am doing something fairly usual, there are often links to that vague emotional stain that gets left behind when you remember a dream.
Some of my friends have confessed similar events, anyone else?
(Oben, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:34, 4 replies)

ha!
Derek Acorah?! You should read this: badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/

I've been on many ghost hunts. Never seen a damn thing, just the occasional odd feeling (ooer etc). Have a look at my vigils page:
www.paullee.com/ghosts/vigils.html
(Wrecked Tums, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:33, Reply)

The Ghost House
Many years ago, when I was still married, it was the norm for our little family group (me, the wife, her sister & husband) to go and see New Year's Eve in with style. By standing around the imposing gateposts to a house that has long been demolished and is rumoured to appear every New Year's Eve. (The house was known as Knighton Gorges, near the village of Knighton, on the Isle of Wight if you're interested.) About 20 or so other people were there as it's a bit of a local tradition, although I haven't partaken for a few years.

Anyway, one year (must've been about 1998-ish or so), at about 00:15am, I was standing at the gateposts, eyes adjusted to the dark, when I saw it.

Imagine the corner of a large, imposing house being lit by a single floodlight on the ground, catching one window. Now imagine someone winding up the floodlight, holding it on full brightness for a few seconds, then turning it down again. That was what I saw. And in that very location there is nothing. No structures, and nothing but woodland behind it. Unfortunately none of my family saw it and I was too dumbstruck to say anything until it had gone.

The gateposts can be seen in the picture about half way down this page.
(--merciless-- is delightfully fragrant, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:32, 2 replies)

UFO-h
This happened in about 87-88, but my memory is still crystal. My family and I were sitting and watching a particularly bad ITV sitcom (some things never change) called After Henry. Some of my cousins arrived at the door for a visit and told us to go outside and have a look in the sky.

At this point I should say that I am most definitely a skeptic, of all things spiritual, paranormal and supernatural, so it's with considerable annoyance that I say what I saw was unexplained, rather than unexplainable.

In the sky hovering at about the height microlight's fly (night time, hard to judge accurately), were a set of multicoloured, strobing, in sequence, lights. A number of strips going outward from a central point, with a circle of light's surrounding, red's, green's, yellow's. In short, not wholly unlike a close encounters light setup. We watched for a while and the lights remained in the same spot for the duration, and to be honest, lacking a camera, didn't really have anything else to do, so, we retired inside and continued watch sub-par comedy.

It was definitely unexplained, flying and an object, as to whether it was intelligent life, or a particularly enterprising helicopter crew, I've no idea, but it was fairly impressive.
(ShiftyBastard won the World Cup on World Soccer Champs 2010!, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:32, 1 reply)

Poor little fox
Many years ago, my brother and I were driving back home in Devon after a night out.

On a dark lane we saw a little young fox by the side of the road who was obviously injured. Being soft types we stopped, popped him into the boot of my car and headed home to see if we could help him.

When we got home, it was obvious he was in a bad shape so we decided to take him down to the local vet's house to see if he could help.

The vet was a bit of a grumpy bugger at the best of times so did not take too kindly to us knocking on his door at 2.00am. However he grudginly agreed to come and take a look at the fox, who was again in the boot of my car.

The vet very quickly decided that the best thing to do would be to put the fox down (probably because he wanted to go back to bed) so he got out his syrinige and filled it with his death juice.

This is when the spooky thing happened. After the first injection, the little fox just carried on breathing, so the vet gave it another go and injected some more. Again, the little fox just carried on breathing. By this point, the vet was looking mightily pissed off and so filled up the syringe to the brim and gave it a final go.

A few seconds later, the fox took its final breath and at that exact same moment, the light in the boot of my car went "bink" and went out. We all looked at each other and even the grumpy vet seemed a bit taken aback by this. 30 seconds later, the light just went "bink" and came back on.

I know that internal lighhts in some cars go out after a certain amount of time but this 17 years ago and it was a crappy old Vauxhall Astra and such technical wizardry was way above it.

After that we took the little wee fox up the road and threw him over the hedge into a field. It was getting late after-all.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:28, 2 replies)

Pub spirits
No, not that kind.
Used to run a pub in the sticks. Nice old building. One night, having a quiet lock-in with a few friends we all saw the outer door of the gents toilet open followed by the inner door and they both closed. Just like an invisible punter had gone for a slash. Another night, again sitting quietly the sound of footsteps was heard crossing the (private) room above where no-one should have been. It was so distinct that two burly friends rushed upstairs to apprehend the intruder, only to find nobody there.

I don't really believe in ghosts and old buildings creak a bit sometimes, but I just said if there is someone(thing) there - welcome!

Never experienced anything else after that.
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:26, Reply)

On behalf of a friend....
I was just chatting to a company contact on the phone, telling her about this question. She was incredibly shocked, and went quite quiet for a few seconds, freaking me out a little bit.

She records music in her spare time, mostly covers, but some of her own stuff.

Last night she was recording using a microphone and wavepad, when the doorbell went, she ran to get it and there was no-one there. Just passed it off as being kids or something.

Anyway, as she went back upstairs she noticed that wavepad was still recording, and that there was a small, consistent sound showing up along the recording, so she rewound, increased the volume, and had a listen. The sound seems to have really spooked her, but I can't make hide nor hair of it.

She's uploaded it, and sent me the link.

Can anyone here help?
Warning, still pretty scary
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:21, 9 replies)

Slightly off topic
But reading these strange stories has made me think about things of an abnormal nature that have happened to me.

It's weird but i can't even put my finger on many of the events which lead me mentally note each time that, when i am very tired, i experience true nightmares.

I can currently only draw upon one recollection, which i'm sure is not the best example, but will hopefully convey the feeling of inescapable futility of my own subconscious.
Where i've sat at the computer and been playing a game called Guildwars. Some of you will probably know it. i'm trying very hard to concentrate on a guild Vs guild match, in which i play a healer. It's an important job, you obviously don’t want any of your team to die. My focus is just about holding, and we start to win. Then, my skill bar, from which I select my skills, just stops working. It seems completely unreal as i simply cannot click on the little boxes. This never happens...

I am exhausted. I haven't slept for about 40 hours, and i can make no sense of it. We lost the match which wasn't the part which almost reduced me to tears. I simply couldn't understand it.

Everything seems to be very difficult. Things which could go wrong do go wrong, and even things which couldn't, inexplicably do.

I really hope someone else will understand what i'm talking about. Although, i may not have put it accross very well.
(ShitBitch, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:14, 1 reply)

In the winter of 198-
When I was a young whipper-snapper of the age of twelve or so, my little sister (who was about eight at the time) and I went outside to play.
Living in Canada, when you go outside to play in winter, it means several layers of clothes, and putting carrier bags inside out boots to keep our feet dry. We had SNOW.
This particular winter was a harsh one. We had about a meter of snow on the ground for many months, and living in a rural area, surrounded by farmland, the winds were terrific, and created massive snow drifts. I remember tobogganing from the first storey window of our house. My dad still pulls out pictures taken from inside the ground floor kitchen – snow completely blocked the windows. But I digress.
On this particular day, we awoke to a beautiful, bright day. The storm of last night was over, covering everything with a fresh 30cm of snow. It had drifted to huge heights (huge through the eyes of a twelve year old, anyway), it sparkled brilliantly in the sun, and it looked to be the type perfect for building snowmen and snow forts. (Packy snow we called it, in our more innocent times. “Awesome! It’s Packy!” we would yell.) It wasn’t too cold, only about minus ten degrees Celsius, so we knew we could play outside all day.
We ran and jumped, built forts, knocked them down, threw snowballs and generally had a great time. I knew my childhood would last forever, and nothing could ever go wrong in such a stunning white world.
I decided that a massive drift at the far corner of our property was begging to have a tunnel carved out of it. It was ripe for a series of interconnecting tunnels, and would prove a fantastic way to avoid being hit by snowballs. I climbed to the top, and started digging. I knew that by digging straight down to the ground, I would have an awesome hidden entranceway. I was about two meters from the ground.
I dug and dug, getting deeper and deeper. For some bizarre reason, I decided it would be better instead of digging out from under my feet, to lie down outside the hole, reach in, and scoop snow out, throwing it out behind me. So I got out, and jumped into the hole. Headfirst.
I landed in the soft snow, no worse for the wear, apart form having the blood rush to my head, and cold melted snow dripping down the cuffs of my snowsuit onto my legs. I reached out my arms, gave a mighty heave to get out. Nothing.
I was trapped.
There was no way I could get out of this snowdrift. I was going to be discovered in six months, frozen solid, by my dad, when the snow melted enough for me to be seen. I could already feel the cold grip of death, freezing my bogies in place. Panic set in. I pushed harder and harder. No luck.
I started to cry, and screamed for my sister. She heard my yelling, and came running. She could only see the soles of my feet when she was only nearly on top of me. She started screaming, and I told her to get help. She ran away, yelling for my dad. I waited.
Suddenly, someone was pulling me up by the ankles, ever so gently. I helped by crying harder in relief. I was free!
I boosted myself free the last foot or so, and tumbled out onto the top of the drift. I mumbled a ‘thank you’ through my tears, and looked up to my dad, who surely had rescued me.
No one was there.
The door to the house slammed shut, and out came running my little sister, with my dad in tow. She had got help, and was running towards me. My dad started running, but when he saw I wasn’t stuck, he slowed down.
“What happened?’ he asked, when he got to within speaking distance.
“I fell in, but someone pulled me out,” I said. I was getting a bit freaked out, now, and started looking around. Not a soul except my sister and dad for as far as I could see.
My dad then scolded me for playing dangerously, and told me it would be better to dig a tunnel in the side of the drift, near the top, so I could drop snowballs down on approaching enemies.
I decided playtime was over, and I went inside, took off my boots and carrier bags, and asked mum for a hot chocolate. She said no.
I still have no idea how I got out of that hole, what benevolent being helped me. My little sister said it must have been Jebus.
WOOOooooOOOooo….
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:14, 3 replies)

Ghost caught in a commerical
About 10 seconds in you can see something travelling behind the car:

Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz1W_omigwg
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 13:07, 12 replies)

Unsolv...errrrr...Unexplained Murder
When I was a teenager, I babysat a young and very disturbed boy. I thought he was just a weird kid – they do exist, it's like they come out thinking in hexidecimal – and sated him by constantly playing Ninja Turtles and feeding him Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. We became good buddies, even thought he could only communicate through cryptic sentences and bleeps.

“[Forgotten name] did it. *blip*”
“[Forgotten name] did what?”
“Yeah, he killed her. HE KILLED HER LIKE THIS!! WEEEEEEEUGHARGH!!*swings bat around*”

Yeah, ok, whatever, you freaky kid.

“Yeah, [forgotten name] came in with bats and nun chucks and was all, ‘BAM BAM BAM’ *BLEEEEP*”

Stop watching so much Ninja Turtles, you little mentalist.

“He stuck his pee-pee in her when she was bloody. *BLIP BLEEP*”

Yes, riiiiight, that might be overstepping the boy / babysitter mark. This boy’s going to grow up to be pudding.

Years later, I was watching a television programme about really evil people and the bad crimes they get up to. There was a case where an amputee grandmother was beaten to death then posthumously raped while her grandson slept in bed next to her. Yes, where I am leading is bloody obvious – the weird kid I babysat was the grandson.

What is so unexplained about this (see how I crowbarred that in? I am so awesome and not at all obvious.) was that this murder was unsolved. The perpetrator didn’t leave a single fingerprint or DNA sample and the grandson, they said, must have remained asleep while it happened, as he was unable to supply any information. Years later, after this programme has been broadcast, the police force were still labouring under the impression that he didn’t see a thing.

All that weird shit he said to me? He told me exactly who the murderer was (and that he knew him), he told me what he looked like, he told me exactly what happened. Only I thought he was a bit crazy, so I ignored him and forgot everything. He knows everything, and had I given him the respect he should have gotten, a murderer would be behind bars.

The murder remains unsolved. He’s never once spoken about it, it seems, to anybody but me.

The boy is probably not pudding, but one fucked up adult. I, for one, wish I’d have given him a bit more time, energy and patience.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:59, 4 replies)

I may be about to create some ghosts.
No, I don't mean I'm going to kill someone- what I have in mind is a good deal more devious than this.

Ever heard of infrasound? Probably not, so let me throw in a few links for you: Wikipedia, one interesting article, another interesting article. Go skim through them, at least- they're well worth your attention. Go ahead, I'll wait right here for you.

Done? Okay, good. Now to my plans...

I figure that if I take a large sheet of rubber- say, a chunk cut from a truck inner tube- and stretch it, drum fashion, over the end of a cylinder that I'll have a good beginning for a tremendous sub-woofer. If I mount a nice thick iron washer in the middle of it and make a really powerful electromagnet out of a railroad spike and a lot of windings of insulated wire and mount that behind the washer, it will put out a very high amplitude and low frequency sound. (That is, an extremely loud bass tone.) I can then make a very basic oscillator and tune it to around 17 to 19 Hz and use it to run an amplifier chip, run that through a MOSFET so I can put some real power behind it, and have an infrasound generator that will rattle your bones.

And why do I wish to do this, you ask?

See, my next door neighbor is an utter twat. He has a large Dalmation who he has trained to be rather aggressive. For whatever reason, he is out in his yard at all hours of the day and night- I've heard that damn dog baying at midnight, and five in the morning, and at all hours in between.

Not that long ago my daughter was walking along the other side of my fence on her way to my house when the dog charged her and bit her, drawing blood from her upper thigh. Did the neighbor hurry over and make sure she was okay? Did he apologize to her or to me? Hell no. He told her she needed to watch out for the dog because he was getting aggressive these days, and when I called Animal Control he had the nerve to say that she had been asking for it by wearing her headphones and not paying attention to the dog. (I wonder what his take would be on it if one of his daughters got raped. Grrrrrr...) Since then he and I have not spoken. However, the dog continues to bay at everything at all hours of the day and night.

My plan is to make four of these generators- I already have the cylinders of PVC pipe- and line them along the fence facing toward his house. I will run them all off the same circuit. I will then hook the thing up to a motion detector and set it up on the tree near the fence, pointed toward that yard.

Then when he comes out in the middle of the night with that dog, he'll get Teh Fear and have no idea why. God knows what it will do to the dog, but it should be entertaining to find out.

I'll let you know how well it works...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:52, 19 replies)

Some people say:
If you don't believe in ghosts you will never see a ghost. The reason for this is that you will give any and all unusual sights or activities a perfectly rational explanation. If you believe in ghosts you will simply say that it was a ghost without looking for the perfectly rational explanation.

I don't believe in ghosts so I guess I will never see one.........and therefore can't contribute to this QOTW......er.....
(Pork2311, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:49, 3 replies)

ghosts
now i dont believe in them but....
i used to live in part of an 18th century mansion in which many many unexplained things had happened and been witnessed by others. i awoke with a start one night and looked around the room to see what had woken me (assuming it was one of the cats) when i spied leaning out of the wall sligtly off to my left an indistinct torso (kind of had a sense of an alien head but couldnt make it out) which beckonned me and then slowly melted back into the wall. this was all accompanied with what i can only describe as a sense of evil or malevolence, i was convinced something wanted to do me harm. scared the living shit out of me it did, woke up the (now) wife and said that we would mainly be sleeping somewhere else in the house - namely the old library (that was our lounge) with all the lights on, no more sleep was had. so what the hell was it?

oh dear i sound like a complete wimp

length, well that particular night i have no doubt that mini elvis and his two companions pretty much retreated into my abdomen
(pogo_it, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:49, 1 reply)

In my teens while at my parents
...and then I opened my eyes and found a cup of tea had appeared on my bedside table.


Sorry
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:46, Reply)

The Tartare Sauce Fairy
From time to time I spend a few days with my old man, who's getting on but is generally fit and healthy. Apart, sometimes, from his mind.

I went round one evening and my Dad appeared to be a bit freaked out.

"You'll never believe this... I couldn't find the tartare sauce anywhere on Tuesday, but today there's a new jar in the fridge! There's something really odd going on, blah blah supernatural this, paranormal that, etc."

Here's what actually happened: I made myself fish and chips one evening and used the last of the tartare sauce from the fridge. Two days later I went shopping, bought a new jar, and put it in his fridge. Simple. And I explained this to him, but he wasn't having any of it: a supernatural tartare sauce replacement service is, after all, more logical than me going to the shops.

Daft old bugger.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:44, 2 replies)

Sleep paralysis
I've only ever had this happen to me once and it was the second most frightening thing that i've ever experienced.

Woke up, couldn't move but was fully aware of where i was.

I heard the front door open and could hear something shuffling up the stairs and although i didn't know what it was i was positive that it was pure evil and wanted to do me harm. It then opened my bedroom door and i could tell it was just above my face as i could smell it but fortunately i couldn't open my eyes.

Then nothing, all the fear was gone in the blink of an eye and everything was normal as if it hadn't happened.

The next day i went down and asked my mum and dad if they'd heard anything but of course they hadn't as it was merely the product of my fucked up imagination.

I'm glad i don't remember much from dreams if this was a typical example.
(Harold's hip man!!, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:37, 14 replies)

I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost…

I actually have a theory. It might be shit – and not funny - and just as difficult to prove as ghosts themselves…but here we go.

Although I don’t believe in ghosts, I believe that people have seen things they can’t explain – even images of people and things from the past.

Here’s how I think it might work…

The definition of an ‘echo’ is:

‘ the repetition of a sound resulting from reflection of the sound waves, a reflected television or radio or radar beam, an imitation or repetition.’

Now we know and can measure such echoes concerning sound…but what about light? What if there are certain hitherto unknown atmospheric conditions that can record, reflect and ‘beam back’ light images into a recognisable form? Due to the vast speed difference between light and sound, this could have a adverse affect on the timescale of the ‘echo’?

This could also possibly explain the ‘repetitions’, the 'see-through' appearance of 'ghosts', and due to environmental and structural changes, suggest why the ‘ghosts’ can sometimes appear to ‘walk through walls’; why they do not acknowledge or communicate, and usually appear to be doing relatively mundane activities like just standing there or walking along, like they may have been doing 50 years ago when the ‘echo’ was snapshot?

/discuss

*prepares for flaming*

*goes back to puns and mimsy-related posts*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:30, 14 replies)

This may be fiction
But it's still a pretty creepy story.

www.ghosts.org/stories/tales/evil-kids.html
( Kroney, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:29, 4 replies)

When I was 8...
I attended my cousin's wedding reception in a big old castle in County Durham. It was late, I was probably tired. To get to the toilets you had to leave the ballroom, go down a flight of stone stairs and the toilets were situated on a sort of stone corridor with busts and suits of armour etc. I went to the toilet, came back and as I walked back up the stairs I saw a spectral blue and white figure come out of the wall at me. I found out later that the castle has a reputation for being haunted by "a blue lady". I screamed and it's now one of everyone's overriding memories of the wedding on those rare occasions the family can ever stomach being in a room together (i.e. 70th birthdays, funerals).

Now I've written it down, I realise what I've just written is a big pile of wank that actually looks like it was written by a 9 yr old rather than someone approaching their mid twenties. But I've posted it anyway because backspace is for losers and I'm bored.
(Monsieur Mangetout confuses dreams and reality just like Dougal on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:28, Reply)

Topsy.
Our house is one of those solidly built Edwardian things that estate agents euphemistically call a “Link Villa”. It’s a terraced house in a block of about 10. I describe it thus so you can have some idea of the perfect ordinariness of my hovel. Nothing has ever happened there according to our neighbours who had lived there for about 50 years. Once again ordinary.

The first spooky incident occurred shortly after we moved in. The living room had a large glass door and we often saw shadows pass the door, obviously this was simply the shadows cast by passing cars’ headlights. We classified this as non-spooky. Wrong.

The next (and first of many) occurred when our boy reached the age of crawling around\toddling\playing on his own. We heard peals of delighted laughter and as any parent will tell you, beware the peals of laughter from an unattended child. My wife went into the hallway to check on spawn and he was sitting clapping in delight waiting as his ball rolled back towards him. He knocked it away and back it came again. No slope on the floor, no strong draughts. It just came back. He must have been about two years old as he was capable of speech and understanding questions. “Who are you playing with?” he was asked “Topsy” He replied. And she has been with us ever since. Sometimes helpful, sometimes mischievous (just like any child). But she loves our son and won’t let anything happen to him if she can help it. I’ll post more Topsy stories as I remember them. There are a few.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 12:25, 3 replies)