Comments (25)

1. My daughter and her husband bought a house that was built in the 1920′s. When they moved in they had a 4 year old daughter. One weekend my daughter and her child came to visit me for the weekend leaving her husband behind. That evening her husband was upstairs in the hallway when he ‘saw’ his daughter sitting on her bed. AS he walked into his bedroom he saw ‘her’ run down the hallway to the attic doorway and disappear. It was then he realized he was alone in the house – his daughter was in a different state. He thought he was losing it so he did not mention it to anyone. Flash forward 6 months – my now pregnant daughter was standing in front of the computer that was in what was to be the new baby’s nursery when her 4 1/2 year old daughter started running tight circles around her. She automatically called out for her to stop it was making her dizzy. Her ‘daughter’ ran away and just disappeared. It was then she realized her husband and daughter were at the store and she was alone in the house. She attributed it to ‘placenta brain’ and did not mention it to anyone. She decided to check into the history of the house and asked some longtime town residents if they could provide info. One of them told her that, sadly, a little girl had drowned in the bathtub in their house in the 1930′s. Creepy! They had been plagued with late night sounds up in the finished attic. And my granddaughter kept telling her mother that a little girl kept waking her up at night asking her to play. My s-i-l went into the bathroom late one night and, with a lighted candle and the lights out had a talk with the ghost telling her he knew it was the little girls house and she was welcome to stay but to please not disturb the children when they were sleeping. After that the sightings and sounds stopped. Absolute true story.

   posted by JaneM on 12-6-2007 at 8:28 am

2. My university was formerly a girls finishing school/orphan school, and in the alumni house, the ghost of the housemother tries to drive out any men that come in the building since the school went co-ed.

   posted by Katie B. on 12-6-2007 at 8:48 am

3. My father graduated from Kenyon the same year as Bill Watterson, and he took us on a family vacation there for his 20 year class reunion. We went on a nighttime ghost tour of the campus, and I was at a perfect age (12) to be completely spooked.

   Thanks for the great article!

   posted by Elizabeth on 12-6-2007 at 9:19 am

4. I was in my bedroom of my parent’s old house one night. The house was big creaky Victorian built around the turn of the century. I was alone and several times I heard my name being called and thought my parents had returned home. Later on I glanced out of my door into the hall and saw a woman in period dress walk by.

   Creeeeeeped me out like nobody’s business. When my parents returned home they asked why all of the lights were on and the TV turned on full blast.

   posted by Dusty on 12-6-2007 at 9:28 am

5. As a Kenyon graduate, ghost stories are an essential element to the Kenyon experience. So much of influence on the student that the Shutt Senior Week Ghost Tour is the best part of senior year. And what better for the ghost stories than the hotbed for some of the best stories: Old Kenyon Burning, which can be seen online. (See website)

   posted by Britt on 12-6-2007 at 10:04 am

6. A house I lived in was a newer ranch-style farmhouse.

   A few months after I moved in, a neighbor kid came to my door and asked me if I knew the house was haunted. He told me that the person who built this house died while taking a bath and was not discovered for a few days.

   The last people to live in this house had left. They started by noticing that the kitchen cabinets were opened when they returned home. Then they moved out after hearing footsteps in the basement, followed by somebody running up the stairs. Their dogs started barking at the door leading to the stairway. But nobody would be there.

   My wife said she thought she felt somebody else in the house. Sometimes, the rocking chair in my son’s room would be slowly rocking as I walked into the room.

   But there was never any negative experiences or even outright ghost sightings, until one day, I was backing the car out the driveway, and my wife shouted – look in the front window! There she is! And I looked and saw her too. And then she faded from view. It could have been a reflection, but we’d never seen it before, and never saw it afterwards.

   posted by Ryan on 12-6-2007 at 10:41 am

7. my house was built in 1900. about two months after we moved in, i heard what sounded like 4 or 5 children singing. i couldn’t identify the words or the tune, but it sounded like a children’s song. my 3 and 6 year old were sound asleep. the singing didn’t last five seconds, and i never heard it again.

   posted by Richel on 12-6-2007 at 12:50 pm

8. I think all colleges have ghosts and ghost stories, check out this article from my alma mater of Ball State in Muncie IN

   posted by Megan on 12-6-2007 at 1:00 pm

9. My mother spent all of her summers with her grandparents in Michigan, and stayed close to them while growing up.

   In my mom’s third year of university (in the 70′s), she was told there was a phone call for her. It was the type of residence that had the one phone in the hallway that everyone shared. She picked up the phone and it turns out it was her grandmother. Knowing it would be a long conversation, my mom sat down on the cold tile floor and proceeded to have a chat with her grandma. Her grandma kept saying, “You know, Kim (my mom’s name), everything is going to work out fine. You will have a great life!” My mom had just gotten out of a bad relationship and thought her grandma was just being over dramatic. They chatted for a while and eventually ended the conversation. The next day her mom (my grandma) called to let mom know that her grandma had passed away yesterday at 9 pm… an hour before my mom got that phone call.

   CRAZY?

   Even cooler was that when my grandpa passed away, my mom fainted at the exact minute! There’s a long story that goes along with that one too, but it may be too much for one post! I love ghost stories!

   posted by Kate on 12-6-2007 at 1:49 pm

10. When I was a teenager I lived in a house built in 1870. One night, shortly after I got in bed and was still fully awake, there was a shadow from a solid object in the light from the hall. I looked between my feet as the silhouette of my 5ft. 2in. mom went past the corner of my bed, into the spare room which was only accessable from my room. From the light coming through the window from the streetlight down the street it looked like mom, with her long brown hair, was wearing her light blue flannel nightgown. There was no sound from the spare room so I talked to mom. She wasn’t there. I went down the hall, she was sound asleep in her bed. I woke her and (sarcastically) said I saw a ghost but I had goosebumps. Years later, I went to see the renovations the owners were doing to the house, they had moved in after we left. I was talking to their little girl and jokingly asked if she ever saw any ghosts. She got a funny look and ran to get her mom. The mom told me what happened to her husband. He was working on the stairs with a power tool when out of the corner of his eye he saw their 5ft. 2in. long brown haired, older daughter walk behind him up the stairs. He stopped the tool and said about how you shouldn’t get near someone with a powertool but she wasn’t there, she was outside, but a solid person stepped over his legs and went into a room then vanished. He got goosebumps.

    One day my cat was moving her head and body around as if someone was petting her.

    Apparently the ghost was a friendly, 5 foot 2 inch, girl with long brown hair.

    I would sometimes hear a baby’s cry as if it was coming from the third floor, which was our storage area, no people around.

    (I tried to make this short)

    posted by Tdave on 12-7-2007 at 4:56 am

11. I usually read my Katherine Tucker Windham books in October, watch all the ghost related things on TV, but for some reason, I decided not to this year.

    posted by Sara on 10-30-2008 at 11:35 am

12. I have heard several stories about Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. I have visited the place and believe you me it is a plausible setting for ghostly happenings. It used to be a grand old hotel but got converted into a school in the late 60′s. The story I heard was that way back when, Henry Flagler had a mistress. She was wildly jealous of Flagler’s wife and when Henry refused to leave her, the mistress hung herself. The site of her hanging is now the fourth floor of a girl’s dormitory. The story goes that any red-headed girl living on that floor endures nightly hauntings and feelings of their hair being yanked etc. None of them have been able to endure the paranormal anger and always end up running screaming for the RA to request a floor change. Poor girls, it’s not their fault Flagler’s wife was a red-head.

    posted by Nickee on 10-30-2008 at 11:49 am

13. When I was in high school we lived in a house where unexplainable things would frequently occur. One night I had just turned out the light to go to sleep when not even a minute or so later, I felt this light pressure on my leg through the blanket. At first I just lay there but it continued to move up my leg and I thought that perhaps the cat had snuck into my room. I glanced down and didn’t see her so I turned on the light and searched the entire room. When I realized it couldn’t have been the cat because the bedroom door had been closed the entire time, I got really creeped out and started sleeping with a nightlight from then on…

    posted by Xuendage on 10-30-2008 at 12:15 pm

14. I lived in Garmisch, Germany for 8 years in an old Nazi Hospital. Ghosts walked the halls regularly. If you lived in one particular section, you could see the ghost of a solder walk up and down the patio, looking desperate to come inside. Once, I was sitting in a friends room, watching TV, when the TV flickered. I looked out the window and there was a set of eyes being shielded by hands looking in the window. Also, my boss lived in what was the morgue. I would stay at her house and dogsit. I would sleep on the pull out couch in the living room, which was the rectory when it was a morgue. I would wake up to my hoop earrings being played with (flicked at). When I would babysit her young children, then youngest would stare off into an area where no activity was taking place, but she was enthralled with that area. I believe she was seeing a ghost. Before my boss lived in that building, it was sectioned off as a dorm for girls. Two girls slept in the room that was the autopsy room. They would wake up to voices telling them to get up. This hospital and morgue are directly linked to the town cemetary by underground tunnels. The bodies would be sent from the hospital to the morgue to the cemetary through these tunnels. I think the ghosts would use these tunnels to travel to and from the building.

    posted by Michelle on 10-30-2008 at 12:16 pm

15. I’ve been an absolute believer in ghosts since I was a little girl, despite the fact that nothing that couldn’t be explained has ever “happened” to me. Things have, however, happened to many friends and family.

    One of the shorter stories involves my mom. Her girlfriend’s father had passed away, and while the family was out making arrangements, my mom was at the house tidying things and packing things away with another spouse. They were in the living room chatting, when all of a sudden the father appeared, walked straight up to my mother and smiled, then vanished. My mom said something to the effect of “Holy crap did you just see him? He’s here! He was just here!” Sounds unbelievable, I know, but mom’s not that crazy.

    Mom also hears her old cat meowing, sees a figure in her house and has “feelings” about stuff. Always fun to get a call at 7am from mom saying “Jennifer are you alright? I had a feeling…”

    posted by Jenny on 10-30-2008 at 12:32 pm

16. The house I grew up in was built in the 1930′s. My mother routinely hears footsteps when she’s home alone-she believes it was the former owner, although I’m fairly sure she died in the hospital.

    When I was 14 though, I had a friend sleep over. Being 14, we had lit a scented candle in my room around 8pm or so, but blew it out a couple of hours later. We went to bed, I think around 1am, and the lights had not been off long before I heard my friend go “Kate….look at the candle….” The candle, which had been out for easily 2 hours, was suddenly burning like it had just been lit. We ran out of the room to my parents, who were in bed, and when they came back with us the flame was very, very low. It was seriously creepy.

    Another time my mom and I were in the living room near one of our lamps, when it slowly went out and then slowly came back on. Not flicker. It was very odd.

    Thankfully, I never saw anything. The candle incident made me terrified to be the only person awake in the house, and I think if I ever saw anything my fiance and I would need to get a hotel room when we go visit.

    posted by Kate on 10-30-2008 at 1:26 pm

17. Oh, and Kate-I had a dream one time that my great aunt, who had recently died, called me on the phone when I was about 10. I remember hearing her voice before waking up. But, unlike your mom, I was asleep.

    @ Jenny-my mom does that to me all the time! Although I’ve done that to her too, so maybe it’s just an odd mother-daughter bond.

    posted by Kate on 10-30-2008 at 1:29 pm

18. It seems like a few places that I lived growing up I had “happenings”. After I moved out on my own I never experienced them again. Turns out my mom went to see some paranormal person and they said that spirits were following her around specifically. I get weird feelings at her new home too and I’ve never lived there.

    When I was about 14 I was doing a school project in living room and I was home alone. All the sudden a paper grocery bag that I had cut apart started spinning in circles. I put my hand on it to stop it and I looked to see if the ceiling fan was on, it wasn’t. I went back to working and it started spinning again, not quickly either. Then all the map pencils I was using I had lined up in a row. They started rolling away, 10 would roll I’d push them back, 5 would roll, the whole pile would roll. I just kept pushing them back. Finally, I got frustrated and I said alound” I’m trying to do my work so I can go to bed, please stop playing with me now. And it was over.

    Lots of weirdness always happened but thats the one that was most interactive.

    posted by Brandi on 10-30-2008 at 1:58 pm

19. I’m a current student at Kenyon College, and while I haven’t yet seen a ghost, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow night…

    (I’m also usually pretty skeptical when it comes to the paranormal, but I’ve had some friends here who’ve experienced some pretty freaky late-night things.)

    posted by Lindsay on 10-30-2008 at 2:18 pm

20. I used to work the night shift at a psych hospital. I had a few weird experiences. I’ve convinced myself that a few things (voice behind me=intercom prank, footsteps=someone echoing from other hallway) were just other staff, but there are a couple that don’t fit that scenario.

    When I first started, I was training on the evening shift, and went to get supper trays w/ my trainer. They weren’t ready, so he went out for a smoke and I decided to hit the ladies’ room nearby. This bathroom had showers as well, with toilets in a room behind them. I heard the showers running, and a couple women chatting back and forth, laughing (I think they were ragging on men, not sure though, I was trying not to listen. Kinda wish I’d listened). I opened the door. All noise stopped. The room was dark, showers not on, nobody there. I flipped the lights on and went into the other room. That one was empty as well. I decided I didn’t really need to go that bad and left ASAP.

    Last Halloween (how cliche is that? though it was actually early morning Nov. 1, near 2 or so), I was mopping the floor next to a dark, locked, empty room. (general patient group space) I glanced up at the window in the door. There was someone sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. Leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, arms folded across chest, head turned to the window in the door, lit mostly from behind by a light in the parking lot. Couldn’t see a face, but from head and body position, it was looking at me. At first I thought it was one of the patients we had at the time. I looked down the hall to my coworkers, thought to myself “how could [patient] have gotten in there?”, glanced back. Nobody. Not even the chair.

    There were 2 schools of thought at the place. Those who thought it was haunted, and those who hadn’t experienced anything.

    posted by steph on 10-30-2008 at 2:25 pm

21. Virginia Tech’s East Eggleston hall is supposedly haunted. Back in the early part of the 20th century supposedly a girl hung herself in her dorm room after seeing she might possibly fail a class (or fail out, I can’t remember exactly). The next evening none of the occupants of East Egg (as it’s called) could sleep in their rooms, due to moaning and screaming occuring through the dorm. Professors were recruited to voluntarily sleep overnight there, and again, could not stay the entire night for other haunting reasons. Today, the Residential and Dining Hall Program headquarters occupy the first floor of East Egg, which is locked every night. The rest of the dorm (2 floors, approximately 50 more rooms) is locked up and unused. Even though VT has been experiencing over-crowding due to larger incoming freshman classes (mostly due to their NCAA football national championship appearance back in 1999-2000 season) East Egg remains closed. They’ve even opened up new dorms since.

    posted by Joel on 10-30-2008 at 3:56 pm

22. My grandfather built his house by himself and raised nine children there. One of the upstairs bedrooms has three beds in it and the other has only one. Quite a lot of our family refuses to stay in the single-bed room. I’ve always thought of it as “Cindy’s room,” an aunt who died at 23 of cancer (when I was a kid). One of my aunts (in law) also refused to sleep in there, and several cousins. We were all creeped out by it. Finally, I asked Grandma if anything strange had ever happened in Cindy’s room, the one with the one bed. She looked puzzled and said, “That was never Cindy’s room at all. I don’t have any idea why people won’t sleep in there.”

    A friend of mine who is really into paranormal stuff, though, says that in cases like that, it could very well be poorly shielded or deteriorated electrical wiring. It’s actually the electromagnetic radiation that people are sensing subtly and they find it unpleasant and off-putting.

    My building here at work is a former Masonic temple (the temple itself is still there on the fifth floor!), and is supposedly hsunted, but I often work until 8:30 or 9:00 at night and have never seen or felt anything.

    posted by Southern Buddhist on 10-30-2008 at 6:10 pm

23. Thanks for sharing those videos. I went to a summer camp held at Kenyon College about 9 years ago. I was staying in Caples. We had a lot of odd things happen that week. Two things I can vividly remember is loud music flowing through the 6th floor halls. I was staying on the 7th floor. The biggest thing happened on the elevator. we were riding up to our floor and the elevator stopped between 6 and 7 and the door opened slightly. There were a couple of other girls in there with me and we weren’t sure what to make of it. Later that day someone told us what had happened there and it gave me goosebumps. Since then, I’ve always kept a look out for anything to do with the ghosts of that college.

    posted by blangelue on 10-30-2008 at 8:13 pm

24. I went to Wheaton College in Massachusetts and there are six or seven ghost stories they tell at orientation, but my favorite is one of the ghosts in the library. She takes out the same book every night and every morning the librarians put it away. She haunts a particular reading room on the third floor, and once I unknowingly sat in her chair. It was so bizarre; I got this creepy crawly feeling and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I just KNEW I had to stand up and find a new seat. So, so weird.

    posted by Adrienne on 10-31-2008 at 9:11 am

25. At my parents home, the hallway door would sometime slam shut when the AC would turn on, but never opened. On day while i was sitting on the couch i heard the doorknob turn and the door open. It opened just enough for me to see and right when i looked at the door it slammed shut and utinsels that were in the drain rack fell to the floor.
    That was pretty creepy…….

    posted by Jennifer on 10-31-2008 at 11:52 am

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