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Series Of Unexplained Incidents

 

I've been reading accounts on this site for years and I've finally decided to share my story. Before I begin I would like to say that, unlike nearly every other person on this site, I have no 'sensitivity' of any kinds relating to ghosts or other spiritual energies. I do have a keen interest in the paranormal but I possess all the extra sensory perception of a caterpillar! Nor am I a 15 year old girl who has seen Twilight too many times and wants some attention. Everything in this story is, to the best of my knowledge, true.

When I was about 18 I moved into a shared house with a few friends in a small town in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The property belonged to the dad of one of my housemates and he let us have it for a reasonable rent, so it was ideal for us at that time. The first incident occurred before I moved in, when I stayed there one night to avoid driving home. My girlfriend at the time and I were on an airbed in the living room, and had just started to drift off to sleep when I heard her take a sharp breath as if startled by something. I rolled over and asked her what was wrong, and she simply replied 'There's someone in the corner of the room'. I shot out of bed and flicked on the lights, only to find the room empty save for us. She swore blind she saw a tall figure stood in the shadowy corner of the room, but as I saw nothing and dismissed it as a dream.

So despite this first brush with the paranormal I agreed to take the empty room when the previous tenant decided to move out suddenly. When I moved in, there were 4 housemates including me (3 guys and a girl), plus one girlfriend who never went home. The house was a bit of a social hub for all our friends so we were rarely without a few guests as well, and parties were a regular occurrence. The house was laid out so three bedrooms were upstairs and one was downstairs, in what had previously been a parlour. Also downstairs was the living room, kitchen and shower room/toilet. Claire, the only female housemate, was in the bedroom downstairs that opened up into the hallway and stairwell area. She mentioned on several occasions that she had been woken up in the middle of the night to hear whispering outside of her room, long after everyone had gone to bed. Being a fairly brave person she twice threw open the door and asked who was there, only for the noise to cease completely. Again I cannot confirm this happened but I trust her and know she isn't someone prone to making things up.

My first actual sighting came when I was in the living room one afternoon, watching TV. The rest of the house was out so I was relishing a little peace and quiet. The living room was set up in such a way that the TV was against the same wall as the doorway, with the sofas against the opposite wall. This meant that if you sat in a certain position you could see the TV but were facing the doorway and could see through to the stairs. So I was watching TV and happened to glance up towards the doorway, only to see a pair of legs walking up the stairs and out of sight. I jumped up and went to the bottom of the stairs, to see who had come home, but there was no-one there. I went and checked in each person's room, but there was no-one there. Interestingly, two people came to me after we moved out of the house and mentioned to me that they had seen the same thing on different occasions.

Legs aside, the property was fairly old and occasional knocks and creaks could probably be attributed to architecture as opposed to the supernatural. But one incident that we could not explain, and the one that convinced me that the property was haunted, occurred a couple of weeks later. Jack, whose dad owned the property, and I were in the living room one evening, chatting and having a couple of beers. In the early hours of the morning we decided to call it a night and, after checking all the doors were locked, went to our separate rooms to sleep. But after five minutes I heard what sounded like heavy, deliberate footsteps coming up the stairs. The way the house was laid out meant you had to walk past my room, along the length of the wall where I had my bed, to get to Jack's room at the other end. Sure enough, I heard the footsteps walk past my wall and stop outside Jack's room. There was no other noise, and after a few seconds I summoned up the courage to poke my head out the door. There was no-one there. As I was peeking out Jack's door opened and I saw his worried face emerge, then ask me if I had heard the footsteps. We went through the whole house and checked every door and window, all of which were locked. We even called Tom, our other housemate, who was working nights at a nearby supermarket to see if he had come home on his break. He was still at work, and even put his manager on the phone to confirm it. After double checking every door we went back to bed, but I didn't sleep much that night.

I was only at the house for about eight months before Jack's dad told us he was selling the house and we needed to move out. After clearing out the place Jack and I were taking a few pictures of the property to give to the estate agents. As we took some of the front of the house Jack's face went pale, and I asked him what was wrong. He handed me the camera with the last picture, which showed what looked like a figure stood in the window of his old room. The figure was fairly indistinct and, while it did have a face, the image was too unclear to make out the features. Needless to say we packed up and got out as soon as we could!

A few months later and I was in a local pub when I bumped into Jack's dad. We had a beer and I mentioned the various weird things that had happened. He then explained how the property had originally belonged to his aunt and uncle, who he inherited it from when his aunt died. His uncle had died a few years earlier, after falling down the stairs and breaking his hip at the bottom. The bedroom he slept in with his wife was the same one Jack had while we were living there. Again, I have no way of confirming if this is true or just Jack's dad winding me up, but it would certainly explain why many of the incidents occurred in either the hallway, landing or stairs.

Thank you for listening. I would also like to say that while everything in this story is true I have changed the names of those involved, as it's not my place to involve them against their wishes.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, JackalLantern, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Javelina (4 stories) (3749 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
JackalLantern,
I am glad you finally decided to post your experience. The most frightening part for me was your girlfriend seeing the figure in the corner of the room, simply for the proximity of the encounter. Yikes!
I have to agree with you and granny about it being a residual type haunting. However, that doesn't change the fact that it was frightening at the time,. I dare say it would be frightening anytime.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I enjoyed reading it.

Jav 😊
zzsgranny (18 stories) (3329 posts) mod
 
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
JL: Yeah, footsteps are freaky 😆...Been there, done that... I like stories like this because they remind me of my own experiences, which in my opinion, are what most us of do experience...It's the cool stuff, I think 😆...There are some posters here who have had MAJOR experiences, like Miracles, LouSlips, Rook, Aussidaz, Javelina, DARKNESS, etcetera etcetera... Most of mine haven't been as mind blowing LOL, but I think they're awesome just the same... ❤
JackalLantern (1 stories) (14 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
Miracles - Exactly right. Coming at it from a scientific perspective, there is so little in the way of traditional evidence and research that I can't help but view any self confessed 'expert' with a certain amount of suspicion. I just try and read as much about the subject as I can and keep an open mind! 😁
Miracles51031 (39 stories) (4999 posts) mod
 
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
JackalLantern - I like to try and live by the philosophy that the more I think I know about the paranormal, the more I find out I don't know. We can live a dozen lifetimes and still not know everything there is to know about this part of our world.

I still get amazed and am dumbfounded even after all these years when I get two quick little tugs on my robe belt from my little girl ghost 😊
JackalLantern (1 stories) (14 posts)
+1
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
Miracles - Thanks for that. I get so wound up reading some of the nonsense that people post on this site that I made sure that when writing this story I stuck to the facts. So many people claim to have knowledge of the paranormal when in reality they are clueless, and all their claims do is give people who like to mock this sort of thing more ammunition. What happened to me happened, I have no real idea what caused it and no interest in claiming otherwise.
dayala_819 (1 stories) (36 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-14)
I really enjoyed your story. Thank you for sharing! 😁 I wish my experiences were only linked to a house xD
Miracles51031 (39 stories) (4999 posts) mod
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
JackalLantern - I have to admit when I read the part about the footsteps, it brought back memories.

Some of the best stories are like this one, no theatrics. Believe it or don't, this is the way it happened. I believe it and I like it. Thank you for telling us your story.
MissEmoVampire (3 stories) (25 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Your story is very interesting and very believable. I do believe in this story because I have had a similiar encounter. I enjoyed reading your story 😊

MEV x
JackalLantern (1 stories) (14 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Granny

From what we experienced I would say it would be more likely to be residual than an intelligent haunting. Everything we saw and experienced tended more towards something reliving its actions, as opposed to trying to communicate something to us.
zzsgranny (18 stories) (3329 posts) mod
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
JL: Such a pleasure to read stories like this!...I'm wondering if there was any sort of intelligent attempt at communication from these spirits?...If not, then I'd have to say there was a lot of residual energy from the previous owners...

Great story!...Thank you for posting 😊
JackalLantern (1 stories) (14 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Thank you all for the comments thus far. Unfortunately the camera and the pictures belong to Jack, who I have since fallen out of contact with. I emailed him just before I posted the story to see if he still has it and will post it if he gets back to me.
To be honest I initially ignored the legs when I saw them, assuming it was just a trick of the light. It was only when we heard those footsteps and other people mentioned seeing the legs that I started to take it seriously.
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Well-written account and believable, as the experiences you and your roommates had are quite common. Puzzling, not terribly scary. That's what many supernatural experiences are and yet they do scare us.
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Sure Buddy, this is a great experience you have shared with us. Fortunately, you are still there to continue to experience the haunting. Well Boy, I have the chill in my spine when I imagine seeing two pairs of legs going up the stairs only to know that there was nobody. Good paranormal experience. Keep posting further experiences, if any.
ind_83 (55 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
wow, that's a great story. Yes I also want to see that picture too. & the scariest part is I think when you saw a pair of legs going up. Thanks for sharing 😊
mysterPOO (63 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
Nice story.
Could you post the picture?
Im very interested to see it!
It was really scary the part you saw those legs walking up the stairs...
roseinbloom (4 stories) (117 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-03-13)
JackalLantern, If you ask me, I think the prior resident, is still residing in his home. Sorry, you and your mates, had to live trough such creepy happenings. My guess is, that the person who fell down the stairs, isn't aware he passed away. I'm glad you don't have to put up with the haunting, any longer, however, I bet the new owners are experiencing, all the things you mentioned in your story.
Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed reading it. 😊 ❤

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