I always felt something unsettling in the 110-year-old house I moved into with my husband & babies in 1991, especially in the basement, which has crumbly field stone walls, low, unfinished ceilings, and is creepy even when sunlight is shining through the small windows. I always felt watched in the basement, felt hostility coming at me. My arm hairs stood on end and I usually rushed up the stairs because it felt as if I were being pushed or pursued. I could only do laundry down there during the day. There were also cold spots in the rooms closest to the basement door. My husband laughed at me, so I didn't mention it to anyone else. We divorced 4 years later, and a year after, my new boyfriend actually brought up to me that he felt something, and also heard the "whooshing" sound that only I had been hearing - around 1 am, about 4-5 times/wk. By then, my kids weren't babies any more, and they also avoided the basement.
After we got married, we had the electric service upgraded; my husband did most of it but hired an electrician to tie everything into the new breaker box in the basement. We were all out of town and had given the electrician a key; he was doing the work after his regular job, in early evening, with a battery-operated floodlight. When we returned from out trip, the work was not done, but the electrician's tools and floodlight were all near the breaker box. The key was left on the table by the front door. When we called, he said something in our basement didn't want him there, and could we leave his tools on the front porch. The 2nd electrician came during the day, and it was fine.
Three years after that, we were having the attic over half of the house demolished and a 2nd half-story added. While this construction was going on, somebody loaned us an Ouija board, which we used after the kids were asleep. Our Dutch exchange student and his friend from France were there as well. My husband and I had the placket, and the students wrote down what was spelled out.
"Stop this, the noise is killing me!" was the first thing it said. Nobody understood what he was talking about at first. We asked questions about gender (male) and place of birth (Belgium). I thought my husband was moving the darn thing. He thought I was. But then, the Dutch student started asking questions in his own language, because in Belgium they speak either Dutch or French. He/it answered. In Dutch. I do not speak Dutch. My husband does not speak Dutch. This was the moment when I knew, really knew, that it wasn't just a creepy basement and maybe my imagination. I had always left room for doubt so I didn't have to feel, you know, like one of those people who believes they have a ghost. I honestly DID have a ghost! It scared me, made me feel sick to my stomach and cold all over.
A few more questions were answered: date of birth, (1816); came to America, (1836); did it like my husband (no); did it like me and the kids (yes). It would respond to the Dutch student but wanted the French kid to leave, hated the French because they had killed his father in 1830. It spelled out a long sentence about the construction being a big problem, then another ("the noise is killing me"). This was all in Dutch. When we asked him when he died, the placket went off the edge of the board, and that was it. He would respond no more. I put the Ouija Board on the porch outside and gave it back to its owners the next day. I will not allow another in my house. Ever. The hair-prickly feelings, cold spots, and 'whooshing' noises all stopped. He has never come back - we think because of the construction.
The house was ghost-free for 13 years. When somebody else "moved in," it was a far more expressive entity (and that's a whole different story), and was upstairs this time. We smudged the house with burning sage, spoke sternly to it, and spread salt trails around the perimeter of each room. When none of that worked, we called in a Catholic Priest. And it worked. He had to come back 6 months later, a completely different entity. It worked again. We have been ghost-free now for 6 years.
Loading comments....
That is an interesting paranormal theory.