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Real Ghost Stories

A College Haunting

 

This story comes courtesy of one of my friends. Enjoy!

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I think the best place for ghost hunting would have to be my college. I have a few friends who have varying levels of the sixth sense and the paranormal activity is sometimes so strong it can be sensed in the day when students, teachers, and cars are passing by. It's pretty cool, if you're into that sort of thing.

The best example of how haunted it is would be the ghost hunt my friends and I did a night before this year's Halloween, October 30th. We started at 10:30pm, a group of four: I, my boyfriend, Jane, and John (names excluded and substituted for privacy). I am, admittedly, not very tuned to the supernatural. I have picked up smells and sounds, but that's about it. My boyfriend is much more active, he can sense heat/cold, and can generate a lot of spiritual energy that attracts a great amount of ghosts, which gets him in a lot of trouble sometimes. Jane is able to obtain residual memories, memories of past events, by getting in contact with the ghosts. In this way she can pick up on emotions, age, names, dates, etc. John was in the same boat as me, an open-minded observer.

Our destination was Holmdene, the reputed most-haunted building on campus. That night we sensed five spirits, six if you count the terrier, which was the first spirit. Next was the boy who drowned in the pond by Holmdene. His name was Michael. We were using the pendulum method with my car keys, which worked the last time we encountered him, but he ran after the first couple of questions. Looking back, this seems rather foreboding of what was to come.

By this time Jane was being pulled towards the side of the building, to one of the windows. She sensed a maid standing by the window, and the woman was scared. Jane said it was as if something bad was going on past the window, in the meeting room, and the maid was scared of the outcome. My boyfriend got a chill and Jane told us that the maid was pushing us back, as if to protect us from what was going on in the room. So we left to walk around to the back of Holmdene.

By the corner Jane found a butler standing stationary, probably smoking a cigarette, she said. My boyfriend also sensed him, slightly cold neutrality. The butler did not care about us, both of them said.

Sometime during this incident, I heard faint music, as if it was coming out of an old-fashioned record player, you know, the one with a horn? It didn't really scare me at the time because a lot of college students play music really loud at night. Just... This was old-fashioned music, from early 1900's, waltzing almost. But I'll save that significance until close to the end.

As we rounded the back my boyfriend sensed hands pressing from behind. Yesterday around 10:30pm he had also sensed the same feeling walking in front of Holmdene, much to my chagrin. So he knew this feeling, which was not cold or hot, but a physical feeling like someone was hanging onto him from behind. Jane suddenly got a name: Samantha. We used the pendulum method again to figure out if that was really her name. According to this method it was, and she was scared. This is why she was hanging onto my boyfriend's coat, and why she had been following him the day before. Then what followed her really freaked us out.

John, surprisingly, was the first person to sense him. He said he smelled something burning, like incense. We stopped and sniffed. I smelled wood burning, like pine trees, and the other two smelled cigar smoke or pipe smoke. Now, analyze these smells, the smell of incense could symbolize a good spirit, the pine trees a neutral/good spirit, but the last smell... What they smelled was tobacco, maybe, that means someone was with us who had possibly been a smoker. But Samantha was scared of it. She hid behind my boyfriend the entire time. We were standing in a circle, my boyfriend next to Jane with John across from her and me to her right. Then we decided to ask Samantha some questions about the spirit that was scaring her.

What we got was that he was bad, and he was the stableman of Bukowski Chapel (which used to be a stable). This guy was HORRIBLE news! He tried to attack John, who was beginning to have pain in his shoulder blades, and he followed us all the way the edge of Holmdene. The cigar smoke turned into burning rubber. And it stank. We left as fast as we could, and Samantha was close behind.

This is only half of what went on that night. Jane later got possessed by Samantha and we were able to ask Sam some questions about her death. It was a dangerous thing that took us by surprise, but luckily Samantha was not a negative ghost, just a sad one, and Jane was able to get a hold of her body within a few minutes. The hunt ended around 1am, and we were all satisfied, some more so than others.

But that brings us to the music I heard. I didn't take note of it then, and I had put it out of my head for good until one of my other friends, a person with a high level of the sixth sense who did not go on the hunt, told me about some of her experiences in Holmdene. She says there was a spirit on the third floor of Holmdene that freaked her out, who was really eerie. My friend got the feeling this woman was crazy, but evil crazy. According to her, this woman always sang a song about burning children and drowning them, stuff that would put someone in the loony bin right away. Something about what my friend said sparked my interest and I inquired about the song, asking her to sing it. She sang a line and I froze in my tracks. It was the same old-fashioned song I had heard during our hunt at Holmdene.

With ghosts, demons, and angels around every corner, and people who do not normally have a sense for the paranormal suddenly finding they are being watched by something... That something is lurking in the shadows... That the shadows move... It is a very active location for spirits and what I think is the most haunted place in Michigan.

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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, somecathchick, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Cheeze18 (1 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-07-26)
This coming fall, I will be attending AQ, and one of the most exciting things about this campus for me is the legends of Holmdene, and even the carriage house. So thank you for posting this story... Hopefully I get to have some fun experiences as well.;)
stephyw2001 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-09-30)
A year old... 3 years old... Whatever. 😳 Sorry I was looking at the last dated comment, hehe.
stephyw2001 (guest)
+2
12 years ago (2011-09-30)
I know this story is a year old. However, I was your (Aquinas College's) pastry chef for the 2008-2010 school years. I have to say, I kept hearing the stories of how this college was haunted. I must admit, Holmdene has absolutely beautiful architecture both inside and out. The woodwork alone is simply not done in new homes as it is done there. In the two years I worked there, I worked from early in the morning, to late at night. For every one of your college functions you had, that were catered by the Aquinas kitchen, we had to stay late for. (Side note, I simply cannot even think about rice krispy treats again. I reluctantly just made puppy chow. You kids are addicts!)

I sadly never saw anything, any signs, any sounds anything that convinced me that any of those stories were true. I hate to say this, because it really is the perfect setting for a ghost story. I know other employees who do work in Holmdene, and they all swear they have seen something, so perhaps the ghosts just didn't appreciate a cook in their building.

I just find it sad that the ghost is said to be the young son. Even though people have claimed to have seen him, I think its a sad exsistance for a child to have.

I can tell those who doubt the overall story, it is not made up, it is quite famous here in Michigan, and like I said, many employees of Aquinas college agree there is a haunting there.

I'm not sure about the possession part though.
TimothyJ (6 posts)
 
14 years ago (2010-04-28)
I think that is so cool, and I'm thinking of writing a book and I was wondering if I could use a little of this in is?
Preeti (100 posts)
 
14 years ago (2009-10-09)
Somecath...you are lucky you are saved... And so are your friends... Your college is a mess so do one thing keep rosemary with you and secondly keep HOLY CROSS in your room... And HOLY WATER too...

God bless you 😨 ❤
somecathchick (1 stories) (1 posts)
 
15 years ago (2008-12-17)
Luca-I didn't write this. My friend sent this to me in an email. If it seems too movie-like, it's probably due to her writing style.

In case anyone else is wondering, this event actually happened.

How do I know? As reluctant as I am to admit it, I'm "Jane" in the story.

Unfortunately, we didn't get many pictures or other evidence during our hunt, mainly because we were a bit preoccupied with communicating with the spirits we encountered. There was a lot of activity on account of it being close to Halloween, more than would normally be expected.

Given what we experienced that night, we were lucky/blessed to be able to leave without any serious harm done to any of us. Sometime in the future I may write down my take on the whole night, but for now I'll leave this story as is.
Luca (1 stories) (83 posts)
+1
15 years ago (2008-12-09)
This sounds like a crossover between Heroes and Ghostbusters. Maybe I should write this down and subject it to copyright.

I'm sorry, Somecath, but this is way too movie-like. Maybe it's the way you wrote the story, the way the events unfolded or just the entire thing combined. I urge you to further explain what happened.
jonesblue (3 stories) (34 posts)
 
15 years ago (2008-12-06)
that would be one very scary experience for me. I have only had mild experiences with the supernatural, that to me and others are not scary. I don't know if I could ever handle what you have been through...
Here is a question. How do you actuall get the ability to sense ghosts? I guess it just comes naturally.
Thanks for sharing!
Enjoyed the story!
Tonith (1136 posts)
 
15 years ago (2008-12-05)
My goodness it must be something to have friends with this much psychic energy. They should all be auditioning for Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures. I don't know what to make of this story. If fiction this person has a flair for it. If true, someone should be documenting and using digital recorders and cameras and video equipment to capture evidence. If one is so psychic as to draw spirits to them be prepared to get some evidence. If not, it's just a personal experience and can't be backed up.
DeviousAngel (11 stories) (1910 posts)
 
15 years ago (2008-12-05)
I'm going to save my comments on this one until I see what some of the others here think. Thank you for sharing your story!

Warmest blessings,

DA

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