Anecdotes of Ghosts
by Kimberly Mangan
The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I get the feeling of eyes digging into my back. I am so afraid to turn around because I don’t know what is right behind me. It could be nothing--just my wild imagination getting the better of me. It could be a ghost.
I didn’t used to believe in ghosts, spirits, or the supernatural, but I often did things I could not understand. For instance, I always felt the urge to run past the hallway to my parents’ bedroom. (It is a short hallway, maybe fifteen feet long, painted white with a bright light that floods the entire hallway and my bedroom.) I had easily dismissed everything that happened as the result of imagination. That is, until I turned nineteen. After that, I was sure my house was haunted.
Experts believe there are numerous events that can signal a haunting. I felt cold spots when walking past the hallway, which could signal that a spirit is attempting to use the energy around to manifest itself. Other people might hear noises or people talking when they are alone in the house. What I’ve learned is that there are two main types of ghosts: residual and intelligent. The residual ghost is like a DVD that replays itself. An intelligent haunting is a spirit that interacts with the humans living around it. They may talk to the person, throw household items, and act out in other ways to make their presence known.
I can remember the first event which piqued my desire to research ghosts and the supernatural. My husband, Peter, and I were engaged, and he had been living with my mom and me for a few months. As a good little Catholic girl I didn’t sleep with him (unless my mom wasn’t home). My mom had gone out of town for the week; Peter and I were watching a movie in the bedroom. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, my dog, Kopi, who never barks, jumped off the bed, ran off, and started barking ferociously. Peter and I got out of bed and went to her, but when we arrived, we saw her barking into thin air. There was NOTHING there. Peter began to turn on all the lights in the house. I grabbed the cordless phone and punched in 9-1-1--ready to hit the talk button. He opened the garage door and bent down to look under the car. All he could see were a few oil stains, so he came inside and locked the door. He looked inside the hall closet, but all he saw was my dad’s old camouflage coat hanging lifelessly on the hanger. He dared to open the front door, but no one was out there. Then, he checked the back door. Kopi was on watchdog status, leading the way around the house. When Peter opened my mom’s bedroom door, Kopi was the first to enter. Peter checked in her closet and under her bed. Nothing. He even went into the bathroom and threw open the shower curtain like some badass in a Hollywood movie. No one was in the house. We couldn’t figure out what Kopi saw or heard, but we were pretty shaken up. As a result, we left all the lights on. Someone driving by probably had flashbacks of watching Home Alone--the scene where the boy sets up his train set and places cardboard cutouts of people on the cars to make it look like people are dancing and partying so the burglars don’t know he is home alone.
After awhile, Peter and I went back to the bedroom and turned off the light. We left the bedroom door open for the dogs in case they needed to go outside to relieve themselves. I went back to watching the movie, when suddenly I heard something on the roof. Maybe it was El Chupacabra, the Mexican goatsucker, I thought. He’s climbing on our roof to get to the chimney so he can climb down and steal our souls!
“Peter,” I said, nudging him awake. “I hear something on the roof. Something is on the roof.”
“There is nothing on the roof; you are hearing things,” he grumbled.
“No, there it is again. Did you hear that?”
“Go to bed.”
I listened quietly for signs of an evil goatsucker climbing down my chimney. Or maybe, I think at the time, it is a burglar.
“Peter,” I said, nudging him again. “Peter, hey! I know you’re not asleep.”
“Yes I am.”
“No you’re not, you just talked to me.”
“Well I would be asleep if you’d stop nudging me. There is nothing on the roof. Go to sleep.”
“But I heard it. How do you know it won’t climb down the chimney?”
“It is a gas fireplace. The chimney is sealed off. Go to bed!”
Should I close the doggy door? Maybe it will climb through that?”
“Yeah, go close it.”
“Come with me, I’m scared.”
“No.”
I sure as hell was not going out of the safety of my own bed. So, I tried to fall asleep. When I did, I began to dream that I was a goat in a lonely field and there was something coming after me. Okay, I don’t actually remember what I dreamt, but suddenly I woke up. I rolled over lazily and opened my eyes. Something wasn’t right. There was something standing in the doorway. It filled the doorway, and the light behind it could only peek through the outline of its body. It looked like a giant man in a hooded cloak. I turned around and buried my head into Peter’s back. I pressed up against him and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t dare turn around because I knew that the thing would be right by my bed.
Come on, Kimberly! I thought to myself. You’re being stupid. Your mind is just on overdrive because you thought someone was in the house. I am sure it is just the door.
I rolled over; the comforter was tucked right below my chin in case I needed to throw it over my head to save myself from impending doom. (Everyone knows that a layer of fabric and feathers will save you from a crazy killer with a knife or a scary ghost who just wants to say hello!) I opened my eyes and stared at the doorway, which was wide open with light streaming in. I threw the covers over my head, and my whole body started to shake. I pressed up against Peter’s warm body and closed my eyes. He felt safe; I knew nothing could get me as long as I was with him. The next time I woke up, it was morning.
Most spirits need some type of energy source to make themselves manifest. This is why cameras and flashlights will suddenly run out of batteries, even if they are fresh, brand-new batteries. The thing that manifested itself in my doorway probably got the energy it needed from all of the lights that were turned on in the house.
For a long while I didn’t tell anyone about this experience; I didn’t believe anyone would believe me. And until a few months later, nothing much had happened. There were a few things here and there--like a clicking noise that was heard whenever someone would walk past the hallway to my mom’s room. (This clicking noise would actually respond when someone said hello.) Then one night I woke up and felt like something purely evil was pressing down around me. When I turned on the lights in my bedroom, the feeling went away. It was then that I decided to tell someone.
The next morning I told Peter about the feeling of evil I felt the night before. He got quiet.
“I am serious, Peter. I know what I felt! You have to believe me.”
“I do believe you. Last night I woke up and couldn’t move. While I was lying there I heard chanting in my ear.”
Peter has been known to experience episodes of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs when someone wakes up before their brain can react. Most people cannot move or perform voluntary movements. People have reported feeling like someone is sitting on their chest, feeling like someone is in the room. Some people have reported hearing voices. The cause of these hallucinations is thought to be caused by the brain not coming out of the REM stage of sleep as quickly as the person waking.
After the last episode nothing happened. Peter and I moved to Tucson, and, by the time we moved back, whatever was plaguing the house seemed to have left also. I was still a little weary about walking past the hallway, but I never saw anything more, until the other day.
The other day I was walking into my living room. The light was turned off, but the light from the family room behind me cast just enough light that I could not justify the expense of turning on the light. I stopped to answer a question my mom had asked me. I turned around and saw a shadow moving across the room. I wasn’t moving, and the dogs were both in the bedroom. Besides, this shadow had the form of a human, but was only four feet tall at the most. I stood there staring, and the shadow stopped and turned its “head.” If it had had eyes, it would have been looking right at me. I reached behind me and flipped on the light.
I had just witnessed a shadow person. A shadow person is just another way an entity manifests itself, according to the International Ghost Hunters Society. They are not evil, although there are those out there who choose to believe they are. Most of the time a shadow person is just caught out of the corner of the eye, but they can be seen like I saw them.
The shadow person, if that’s what it is, still hangs around my house. It seems to be “friendly,” so we will learn to coexist with it. I only hope it stays that way.
Notes:
“Shadow People.” 14 Apr. 2007. International Ghost Hunters Society. 14 Apr. 2007
<http://www.ghostweb.com/shadow_people.html>.
“Sleep Paralysis.” 26 Jan. 1999. Stanford University. 14 Apr. 2007
<http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html>.
“TAPS: Paranormal Research & Investigation.” 14 Apr. 2007. The Atlantic Paranormal Society.
14 Apr. 2007. <http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/index.html>.