Not My Father

After years of seeing strange and frightening things in my yellow house in Quartz Hill, CA, I went to a psychologist to see if perhaps these things were in my head. It had gotten to the point that I occasionally ran screaming from my bedroom without being fully aware of what was going on, and as my bedroom was next to the staircase I was afraid one night I might tumble down the stairs. I had already hurt an ankle and wrist trying to get away from whatever it was lingering in my bedroom. At the time I was a senior in high school, so this took place late '94 or early '95.

I was deep in my therapy at this point, but my psychologist hadn't been able to figure out what was causing me to see scary things. Toward the end he conceded that I did perhaps have the ability to see things that many other people can't see.

One night I was downstairs on the sofa. I got up and walked to the kitchen. In my peripheral vision I saw a man standing in the room next to the living room; he was wearing a bright red t-shirt, blue shorts and glasses. I just thought it was my father, so as I walked into the kitchen I called out, "Daddy?"

From upstairs in his office I hear, "What, sweetie?"

I immediately went to look where I had seen the man and no one was there. I rushed all over the downstairs making sure all the doors and windows were closed and locked- they were. Though it would have been impossible for my father to have been downstairs and then rush upstairs in time to answer me I asked, "Were you just downstairs?"

"No, I've been up here all night."

That man had looked as solid and real as could be. From what I saw of him he looked a lot like my father did maybe ten years before. He just stood there, perfectly straight, without moving.

Even though it was nine o'clock at night I called my therapist. To my surprise he answered. I told him what I had seen. He asked if there was anything unusual going on in the house. We had just gotten the carpets cleaned and all the furniture had been moved around. He said sometimes making changes to a place dredges up things from the unseen world around it.

The next day at school I told my girlfriends, who knew my house was haunted, about what I saw and to my surprise they said, "Oh, yeah- we see that guy all the time. We thought you knew about him!"