Conference hydra::dejavu

    Re .0 (Mark):
    
    All the manifestations seem like pranks.  Did this presence ever
    seem menacing to either you or your wife?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    This note definitely deserves its own topic, but some recent notes
    which have discussed personal haunting experiences have been notes
    771 and its replies, and 776 and its replies.  You might be interested
    in reading them.
    
    					Topher

    
    I ONCE LIVED IN AN APARTMENT WITH A GHOST. IT SEEMS THAT THE FORMER
    TENENT HAD HUNG HIMSELF IN THE BASEMENT AND WAS'NT FOUND FOR A FEW
    DAYS. I'M NOT SURE HOW LONG AFTER WE MOVED IN. I GUESS I WAS THIRTEEN
    WHEN I FIRST SAW HIM. I WAS SITTING IN THE LIVINGROOM WATCHING T.V.
    WHEN I SAW SOMEONE WALK FROM THE KITCHEN INTO ON OF THE BEDROOMS.
    I KNEW I WAS HOME ALONE AND NOT BEING SMART ENOUGH TO BE SCARED
    I WENT INTO THE BEDROOM AND FOUND NOTHING. MY SISTER ALSO SAW HIM
    ONE NIGHT. SHE WAS SLEEPING AND AWOKE TO FIND A MAN AT THE FOOT
    OF HER BED. SHE WAS SMART ENOUGH TO BE SCARED AND STARTED SCREAMING
    ABOUT THERE BEING A MAN IN HER ROOM. MY FATHER AND I DASHED INTO
    HER ROOM TO FIND NOTHING BUT, BUT SHE WAS SCARED STIFF SO I KNOW
    IT WAS THE GHOST. HE ALSO LIKED TO HIDE THINGS FROM US, AND BRING
    THEM BACK A DAY OR TWO LATER. I DO'NT BELIEVE MY MOTHER OR FATHER
    EVER SAW HIM ALTHOUGH MY MOTHER CLAIMS TO HAVE FELT A PRESENCE ON
    MORE THAN ONE OCCASION.  HE ALSO JUST STOPPED COMING AROUND AFTER
    A WHILE, AND THE LAST FIVE YEARS OR SO WE LIVED THERE WE NEVER SAW
    HIM OR HAD ANYTHING DISAPPEAR AGAIN. TWO QUESTIO0NS ABOUT THIS:
     1. AFTER TALKING TO OTHERS WHO HHAVE SEEN A GHOST IT SEEMS THAT
    MOST WHO SEE THEM ARE CHILDREN. WHY IS THIS SO?
     2. WHY DID THIS GHOST JUST DISAPPEAR? WAS HE JUST CHECKING UP ON
    WHOEVER MOVED INTO HIS HOUSE?
                                                       WALT
    
    
    
    
    
    

    re .1
    
    The pocket book incident could be termed menacing I guess but we
    were there to put out the fire thank god. All in all, the spirit
    seemed benevolent. I could almost sense that it enjoyed having us
    living there, taking care of it's last remaining relative and fixing
    the place up. Granted, we were scared on more than one occasion
    but after awhile we simply accepted the presence. It hepled us a
    great deal to be in contact with Norman Gauthier. He helped us to
    understand the spirit and calm our fears...very intersting fellow.
    I did a bit of research on the house and feel the spirit was either
    our landlady's father, Louis or her brother Louis jr. 

    While living in an apartment about 5 years ago I use to see an image
    of a very large man.  I did not feel frighten by him.  I just remember
    sitting in my bedroom during homework and I looked up and saw the
    image of this man. Actually it was the outline of his body.  I only
    saw him once or twice.  
    
    Also, my son told me about a woman that had come to the apartment
    while I was sleeping and I guess she was dress in real old type
    clothles. 18th century perhaps. I didn't see her and she spoke to
    Mike. She said she was looking for my roommate.  She never came
    back.
    
    Denise

    re.3 
    
    Having consulted with a man who has spent his life researching 
    hauntings, let me take a stab at your questions: 
    
    Sightings by children: Children do not have any preconceived 
    notions about our definition, however narrow, of reality. They 
    are more open and can perceive what adults sometimes cannot. 
    Where I may see a blob of white light, a child may conceptualize
    an image. Unfortunately, sightings by children are often dimissed
    by the "monster in my room" theory. 
    
    Comings and goings: I posed this question to Norman Gauthier when
    things quieted down around our place. He asked if anyone had asked
    the spirit to leave to which I answered no. Later I found out that
    a guest who was living with us at the time had gone from room to
    room dispelling what she believed were devil spirits. She was a
    bible student and didn't believe in ghosts. Apparently she simply
    walked about the house saying "Spirits be gone" I was actually a
    bit irritated by this because I was having fun with Louis. One 
    night, I went up in the attic (with a few brews mind you) and had
    a one on none with Louis telling him if he wanted to hang around
    it was fine with me. Well other than getting stinky drunk, nothing
    happened. Then a couple of weeks later, our guest left for some
    pigrimage out west and we had a couple over for dinner. We were
    discussing Louis at the table when the top sprang off a bottle of
    Coke. Our freinds jumped a mile, I said welcome back Louis and 
    things started picking up the next day. 
    

    It would be interesting to know where the apartments or houses are
    that seem to be hunted.  The address or at least the city and state.
    I for one would be willing to stay in a place just to see for my
    self. 
    

    re.7
    
    This particular home is located in Marlboro Ma. at 117 Broad St.
    It's vacant right now as we've moved and the owner is in a rest
    home. It will go on the market soon if you're intersted.

    The current issue of Old House Journal -- a magazine devoted to
    restoring and renovating old houses -- has an article which is a
    collection of stories sent in by their readers of encounters with
    ghosts which they have had while renovating or simply living in
    old houses.  There are some brief comments at the beginning by
    Karlis Osis, the leading scientific ghost investigator in the USA.
    
    I have seen Old House Journal on some of the larger newstands, so
    you *can* get copies -- though you'll have to look.  This is the
    15th anniversary issue.
    
    By the way, don't miss the "Remuddling of the Month" any time you
    see a copy of this magazine (any issue).  It's on the last page.
    Every month it shows some horrendous example, submitted by a reader,
    of bad taste in remodeling of some old building.  You won't believe
    what some people will do.
    
    					Topher

    RE: 7
    
    My haunting apartment is located in Lancaster, MA. which has alot
    of historical background I understand.
    
    Denise

    Tell us please..Denise! As a fellow Hauntee, I'd be more than interested!

    
         I live in Springfield (MA) and I'd say the apartment I've been
    living in for the last 5 years seems haunted. It's in a old building
    that was built around 1910 but renovated 12 years ago into several
    nice apartments. Nothing seemed too unusual for at least the first
    several months there. But after a while, a pattern started where
    things would keep breaking for no apparent reason: lightbulbs were
    burning out at what seemed a very high rate, my refrigerator had
    to be replaced, the appliance bulbs kept burning out in my oven,
    my stereo components had to be repaired over and over again, the
    glass from pictures in my living room mysteriously fell out of them,
    the cabletelevision converter boxes & switches & coax cables gradually
    all(!) had to be replaced over a short period of time, the television
    itself one day rotated one its own station adjust knobs completely
    out of tune as I was fiddling with something in the coax cables,
    constantly the channels will change by themselves when watching
    cable television. There are many more little things like this that
    constantly go on but this seems to be the pattern. 
    
         I have reccurring nightmares in which some kind of entity is
    approaching me as I sit in the living room. These are always terrifying
    but I'm actually used to them now. Late one night, while half asleep,
    I briefly thought I saw the image of a man standing by the fireplace,
    but I believe this may have been one of those late night illusions.
    
         There are other things that sort of lead me to believe I'm
    not alone in there however. My ex-girlfriend and her 2 very young
    kids used to live with me and on 2 occasions the baby (a year old)
    with a wide-eyed look on his face would point to the area next to
    the fireplace (where I thought I saw that image!) as though he could
    see something that was definitely there. 
    
         It didn't take too long at all for me to get sick of paying
    all of this money for repairs, so the first thing I did was to try
    to look at things logically. I had an electrician come and check
    all of the outlets to see if maybe there were voltage spikes or
    the rms voltage were too high or if there were anything unusual,
    and of course nothing was found. No other logical possible causes
    have come to mind. I have discovered, however, that by *yelling*
    at whatever piece of equipment is misbehaving, or just scolding
    the *unseen visitor* that most of the time things will return to
    normal. It's astonishing how well that works. 
    
         The most recent major thing to occur was that on 2 occasions,
    the girl next door, very late at night, would become terrified at
    hearing the sounds of footsteps running through her apartment when
    no one else was supposedly there. Quite dramatically on one of those
    occasions, it was 4 o'clock in the morning and she had called the
    police who came charging through my apartment all the way through
    to the back porch to her place to try to catch "the intruder".
    
         So all in all, I live in a somewhat strange building, and the
    whole idea of having unseen inhabitants is not too comforting. I
    don't think that I would ever try to get rid of them though because
    I feel that if they are really human spirits, they must be in some
    sort of earth-bound limbo, afraid to pass to the greater beyond--that's
    what I believe most hauntings are all about. So compassion is probably
    called for, at least to some extent. When things start to happen
    late at night sometimes and I get "a little scared" I just ask in
    a firm voice for "him" to "STOP IT!"
    
    

    
    THE APARTMENT I LIVED IN IS IN NORWWOD, MA.
    THE BUILDING COULD'NT HAVE BEEN MORE THAN TWENTY-TWENTY FIVE YEARS
    OLD. I STILL BELIEVE THAT THE GHOST I SAW WAS THE MAN WHO HUNG HIMSELF
    IN THE BASEMENT.
    
    
    
    

    
    re:.12
    
    That's interesting that you've had so many electrical problems.
    Screwing around with power sources seems the trademark of many 
    a haunting. I think they *love* to play with cable boxes. With 
    both tv incidents mentioned in the base note, although the televison
    was set at a normal station, albeit loud, the display read "-14"
    Also, on several occasions, the channels would switch as you noted.
    One time, and this is probably the strangest event with the box,
    I had finished watching the news and rose from the couch to turn
    off the set and halfway over there, the ghost did it for me. 

    Hope you said "thanks"!
    	
    	:-)

    re: 11
    
    Mark,
    
    I not sure if you are looking for a history of the apartment or
    town that I live in but I know a little about the town which could
    suggest why I saw that image in my bedroom.  Apparently, the town
    was settled in 1635 and had many settlement houses.  Before that
    it was an Indian settlement with a King Philips who was the chief.There
    is an Indian cemetary in the center of town that is real nice to
    work thru.  I also understand that John Prescott lived here and was bury
    in the same cemetary.  
    
    My roommate tells me that there were quite alot of witch burnings
    here as well.  I also guess there are many more haunted apartments
    in town mostly because the town is so old and that many of the old
    homes have been converted to apartments.  
    
    I plan to do so more research on this at the town hall and if you
    are interested I'll let you know what I find.
    
    Denise

    I'll throw in my two cents.
    
    I have a friend who lives in Harrison Township, Michigan, by the
    shores of Lake St. Clair.  His house was built sometime in the 30s.
    Well, according to him, the original owners of the house were a
    man, his wife and their son Albert.  The man died and his wife and
    Albert continued to live in the house.  Albert was drafted to go
    fight in WWII, and supposedly he vowed to his mother before he left
    that he *would* return to the house after the war.  Unfortunately
    Albert was killed at Iwo Jima.
    
    I don't know what if anything happened between then and the early
    80s , when the preceding owner of the house before my friend bought
    the house, but there's a wall on one side of the house that was
    built over a window that used to be there.  Supposedly when the
    preceding owner before my friend owned the house, there was a guy
    who spent the night there and slept on the couch which was up against
    the wall where there used to be a window. My friend was told that
    they found this guy the next morning dead of a heart attack looking toward
    the part of the wall where the window was plastered over with a
    terrified expression on his face.
    
    The house was scheduled to be demolished when my buddy Glen bought
    it and fixed it up, and Glen swears that Albert is still there
    protecting the house, or looking for his mother, he's not sure which.
    When Glen was fixing up the house, he built new walls and covered
    up the old lightswitches.  He swears that he sometimes hears the
    lightswitches being flicked on and off behind the new wall, and
    he can't get a lightbulb to last in the house more than a month,
    they all burn out within a couple of weeks (he's an electrician
    and he wired the house himself, so I don't think it's an electrical
    problem).
    
    Last New Years Eve, Glen was sleeping in his bed in the bedroom
    and there was someone else over sleeping on the couch in the front
    room.  Glen says he felt a pressure on his shoulder in the middle
    of the night, and felt the presence of something in the room when
    he woke up.  He smelled gas, and went to check the furnace, and
    discovered a gas leak in the furnace that would have filled up the
    house with gas if it had gone on overnight.  Glen thinks that Albert
    is grateful to him for saving the house from destruction, likes
    him, and Glen is happy to have Albert there keeping an eye on him.
    Glen thinks the guy that died on the couch must have seen Albert
    coming in through the window that night and it gave him a heart
    attack.
    
    Glen had a psychic come into the house who told him that she felt
    a presence there, and that if Glen ever saw Albert manifest himself,
    to tell him "The so and so's don't live here anymore", and that's
    it.  I advised Glen to tell Albert to go toward the white light,
    that he didn't belong here anymore.  Any comments on which advice
    would be better to give Albert?
    
    Doug 

    .16
    
    Denise... that's exactly what I was wondering, wheather you'd looked
    into the historical aspect. Wasn't there an indian raid out there
    where alot of folks were killed? 
    
                             -mark

.17 (Doug)

From my personal experience (note 776.20), we tried all the "traditional"
one-liners from "knock it off!" to "please go bother somebody else for a
while". The end result was nothing more than a lessening of the amount of
incidents. It seems like the spirits just wait around until you're in a
better mood to appreciate their brand of humor.  ;-)

Sorry it's not much help but it's the best I can do.

Ted 

    .17 Doug....
    
    Do we chase them off or simply close our minds to it? Do they 
    become apparent by their own power or do we just open our 
    minds out of fear or curiousity? Weird stuff eh? 
    
                          -Mark 

    When I was in college in Dayton, Ohio in the 60's, an "off-campus"
    house next door to ours was supposedly haunted and the entity (s)
    spent a lot of time disturbing the college girls who lived there.  
    
    Toilets flushing, window shades going up, bed sheets pulling back,
    tables hopping, newspapers found in disarray - strewn all over when
    they were left folded neatly, etc. etc.  A lot of this was actually
     witnessed, not after the fact.The boyfriends of the girlstook to 
    sleeping (yes, that was the real reason) over at the house
    to keep the girls' anxities down.  It became so annoying and frightening
    that a psychic was finally called in and during a seance of sorts
    - with all the housemates holding hand, sitting around a large table,
    the spirit was contacted.  The psychic described an old man with
    a child who had died under tragic circumatances in the house who
    were still there and simply asked that they depart.  The unusual
    happenings ended from that time.
    
    During the seance, the psychic also stated that "Ruth" was also
    there and relayed some messages to one of the boys.  Ruth is seems
    was this boys grandmother who had been a bit of a psychic during
    her lifetime and had even, as the story goes, appeared outside her
    kitchen window after her death on the night that all her children
    were reunited after WWII.  Their mother had told them she would
    be so happy to be with them when they all returned from the war, but
    had died shortly before this time.
    
    Researching into the records at the Montgomery Country court house
    uncovered the fact of some unusual deaths in the house, and also
    that the house had changed hands so many time.  The occupants also
    learned that the preceeding tenant had had a nervous breakdown and
    left the house to be admittted to a mental institution.
    
    Just a little story.
    
    - Mary B                   
    

    All of these stories are very interesting, but it seems they
    (most of them anyway) describe old houses, and ghosts of another
    century.  Are there any more modern ghosts.  Why is it that
    ghosts seem to come from another era or century.  If ghosts
    could exist from past times, why are there so little present
    time ghosts?  

    .22  ....It must take years of practice for ghosts to perfect their
     little pranks! ;)

    Mark,
    
    I think you are correct that there were conflicts between the Indians
    occupants and early settlers.  I also understand that there are
    settlement house where the townspeople would go as safe houses after
    their homes were burned.  These houses still stand and I'm sure
    have many stories.
    
    Denise

    
    
         Just a brief aside, my impression is that there are many more
    ghost stories than we ever wind up hearing about, simply because
    people who live in old buildings where odd little things constantly
    happen tend to pass them off as meaningless. I rememeber when I
    first moved to Boston from California (to go to school) the dorm
    I lived in was formerly just a very large old house. Odd little
    things would happen there all the time. For instance, every night
    around midnite the in the bathroom nearest to my room the water
    faucet would turn itself full blast to the point where someone would
    always have to go in and shut it off just because of the noise of
    the water running. Finally we would just shut the door beforehand
    and not bother to constantly go in and turn the water off. Also
    windows would fly open. Ths thing is that nobody ever thought any-
    thing about these weird happenings. 
         Just 4 weeks ago I visited a Table Tennis club in Waltham,
    and the first thing I noticed was that for some reason the lights
    kept turning themselves off. The owner would methodically just keep
    turning them back on over and over again as if the whole thing were
    perfectly normal. I'm sure that in the 35 years he's been associated
    with the place it never has occured to him that he may have *unseen
    visitors*--who knows, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. 
         Anyway I think it possible that the whole theory of hauntings
    is far more common than not.
    
    
    
    Roy

    re.25 
    Roy .... My sentiments exactly! Before my experience in the base
    note I thought ghost stories were something kids made up at camp
    sites. Once I started relating my experiences I was amazed at the
    fact that just about everyone had their own story to tell. I think
    your right that we tend to dismiss most things and they have to
    happen repeatedly before we take note. If you read my note carefully,
    you'll see that I've demonstrated this with my reactions in
    Parenthesis.  I turned full circle as things continued to happen.
    

    
    My family lived, for twenty years, in an old house in Concord, MA.
    It as built in 1692 and had quite a history.  It was an Inn during
    the Civil War, was owned by a Captain, I belive, from the Civil
    War, and then a family lived there and passed it down for many years.
    When we bought the house very little restoration had been done.
    The ceilings had settled so much that a 5'10" person would hit their
    head in the doorways.  My parents restored the house which took
    10 years.  We uncovered five fireplaces, one in the kitchen had
    2 beehive ovens (probably from the Inn days), we found a totally
    enclosed room (secret room), many old newspapers, etc.  Anyway,
    I was never a real believer in the unseen forces (although I have
    a very different view today), but my sister insisted that the house
    was haunted.  She told of seeing a cloud of green "smoke" that 
    floated about 2 feet off the floor near the front door.  She saw
    this on more than one occasion.  
    
    One night my sister, mother, and I were preparing dinner in the
    kitchen.  No one else was home, we were sure of that.  Suddenly
    we heard heavy footsteps above our heads walking from left to right,
    taking about 8 steps.  They were definitly footsteps.   All three
    of us ran and locked ourselves in the bathroom (alot of good that
    would do!).  Shortly after our father and brother came home and
    we asked them hysterically, to check upstairs.  They didnt't find
    anything.  That incident convinced me and I've had an interest in
    the unseen ever since.
    
    Suz
    

    When I lived in Calif I had an apartment in which I lived in for
    year and a half with not one ghost related incident.  Until one
    night and then it was sheer misery for the next six months. 
    
    It started when I was reading a bed time story to my son who was
    four years old at the time.  From his bedroom,with the door open,you
    could see the couch in the living room and as I was reading he kept
    glancing wide eyed sometimes staring in the direction of the couch.
    After awhile I asked him to pay attention and then he told  me that
    there was a man in the living room sitting on the couch.
    I of course flatly denied anything of the sort which only served
    to confuse the child who continued to insist that some one was there.
    Well from then on this child insisted a man was coming into the
    house by way of his bedroom window.  And of course I kept denying
    that there was anything anywhere.  After a while this self assured
    child who had never slept with a light insisted on having every
    light on in the house and wouldn't enter his bedroom unless the
    the curtains and shades were drawn.  If I forced the situation he
    would become extremely upset so I complied with his requests but
    felt very sure I had a child who was going bananas.  One night after
    he was asleep, by now he wouldn't sleep alone in his room, I was
    in the living room watching TV when I felt this incredible almost
    tangible presence in the room. I felt it lingering beside me.  The room was
    filled with my fear.....I just wanted to get my son and flee anywhere
    away from that apartment but it was late at night and the skeptic
    in me denied the possiblity of an entity in the house.  Talk about
    denial....
    I guess it was after my sister in law had come to visit and her
    son...same age...also saw this person that I thought maybe there
    was a possiblity that we were b eing visited.  My sister, shortly
    after, insisted that I see a mutual friend who was a medium and
    get her advice.  Well when we saw her I felt silly relating to her
    my son's experiences but I was no sooner into the tale with "I think
    my son is halucinating" when she began to tell me everthing including
    the window bit....my sister hadn't mentioned anything to her so
    I know she didn't know.  She said it was a lonley entity that had
    zeroed in on my son and that he was seeing him and that my son had
    picked up on my fears and inability to see what he was seeing.
    The spirit according to her meant no harm but if I wanted it to
    be gone I would have to tell it to leave. She said I should go to
    the window say a prayer and request that it leave us alone.
    
    I must say....I chuckled to my self..sure sure.  I can see myself
    standing at the window speaking to thin air.  
    
    That very night, my son insisted that "he" had come in through the
    window and was in the bedroom with us.  This time I didn't deny
    the presence to him but told him to ignore him and that child fell
    asleep curled up in a ball under the covers with every light in the house on
    in the middle of a hot Calif August month.   My heart broke to see
    him so terrorized and I got up went to the window and earnestly
    requested that this spirit leave us.  It was a request that came
    from deep down.....sincere and contrite.  I couln't bear it anylonger
    having my son going through this nightmare.
    
    The next night I slept at my mothers and then I went on Vacation.
    When we returned it was to an empty house.....the spirit was gone.
    I knew by the look on that child's face as I took him from room
    to room....there was nothing.....anywhere in that house.
    
    A year later my son is now able to sleep without the light on but
    the curtains still remain closed (for the next three years) and
    we were again reading bedtime stories when he looked
    up and said, "There he is again Mom" and this time I didn't wait.
    I looked in the direction he pointed and told this spirit to leave then
    and there and then turned to my son and told him to ignore him that
    he would go away.  And he did.
    
    It is a different story when hauntings affect children as opposed
    to adults.  For some reason my son is very sensitive to such things
    and like all children must be protected adequately to prevent any
    major damage to the child's psyche.  
    
    What an awful time that was.....as for me I am difinitely not a
    skeptic anylonger.  Back then I knew so little of such afairs.
    Today I know I would handle it differently.  I guess ignorance makes
    all the difference in the world.
    
    Addie                           
    
    

    re: .28
    
    Or as they say Ignorance is the only Sin.
    
    Perwesh

    .28 ......did you ever ask your son what this man looked like? 
     As I was reading your account, I was envisioning a man in his 
     50's with gray thinning hair, a trim build, wearing a white 
     shirt, vest, suspenders and sporting a pocket watch. His face,
     tanned but a bit on the wrinkled side, bushy eyebrows and a 
     knowing smile planted on his face. And as he sat on the couch,
     his arms were crossed as were his legs. 
    
                               Am I close? 

    RE: .30
    
    > Am I close? <
    
    No.
    
    John M.

    re: .31 
    
    Are you Addie's son? 
    
    Mark A.

    RE: .31 (Mark A.)
    
    > Are you Addie's son? <
    
    No, just someone whose imagination is as good as yours.
    
    John M.

    
    > No, just someone whose imagination is as good as yours.< 
     
      Not imagination, I'm psychic. Let's hear from Addie. 
    
      Mark A. 

    See 824.17 as background to this note...
    
    I ran into my friend Glen at the bar last night, and he related
    this to me...
    
    Glen has an old "buddy" named Terry, who needed a place to crash
    last weekend, and Glen let him stay at his house from Friday night
    to Sunday night.  The whole time Terry was there, the lights in
    the house would dim to about 1/3 power, every half hour or so, and
    then come back up.  Sunday night, Glen was sitting with this other
    guy Wayne at the kitchen table.  Now, Glen just put in a kitchen
    fan last week.  Part of the fan's apparatus, is a circular piece
    of aluminum that rests on a hinge, and closes over the fan "pipe"
    when there's no current of air, and when the fan's on and there's
    a current of air, it forces the circle sideways and opens up the
    "pipe" for a current of air.  Anyway, Glen and Wayne are sitting
    at the kitchen table, and all of sudden the inside of the fan "pipe"
    started rattling and making all kinds of noise, as if the circular
    piece of aluminum was being shaken and made to hit the side of the
    pipe.   5 minutes later, Terry comes out of the back of the house,
    packed and ready to leave, which he proceeded to do.  Later that
    night, Glen discovers his .38 revolver missing.  Glen is sure that,
    
    a. Albert was flickering the lights trying to warn Glen that Terry
       was bad news (the flickering stopped as soon as Terry left)
    
    b. Albert shook the kitchen fan while Terry was stealing the gun.
       Terry is kind of unstable, and not someone you'd want to have
       a gun.
    
    Gee, it must be nice to have a ghost looking out for you.  Too bad
    he couldn't have hidden the gun from Terry.
                                                                  
    Doug
    

    RE: .35
    
    What makes him think *Albert* didn't hide the gun?
    
    
    John M.

    You know, that didn't occur to me.  
    
    I think it's just natural to suspect Terry, knowing the guy's
    character, and the fact that he also ran the phone bill up $50 while
    he was there.  And it does kind of make sense that Terry would have
    emerged from the back of the house right after the rattling in the
    fan stopped and then left immediately...if the rattling in the fan
    was indeed an attempt by Albert to warn Glen that something was
    wrong.
    
    BTW, when Glen was away for a few minutes last night, I asked Wayne
    (who was also up there) what had gone down Sunday night, and he
    repeated the same story Glen told me without missing a beat, so
    that does lend a degree of credibiltity to the story.
    
    Perhaps we'll never know...but I'm sure the police would like to since
    Glen did make a report.
    
    DW        

                                     
    The other morning I remember waking up to scratching and running
    noises above me.  I assumed it was a squirrel or some mice in the
    attic and didn't think too much of it.  I got up and went to the
    kitchen to have breakfast.
    
    About 20 minutes later, I start to walk back to the bedroom again,
    and heard this blowing noise.  I have left my blowdryer plugged
    in for almost 2 months now without a problem, however I discovered
    that the blowdryer was running with the switch still off.  Hm. I
    don't think this constitutes a paranormal experience though because
    now the dryer is stuck in permanent 'on' mode and I have to unplug
    it now to get it to stop regardless of where the switch is set.
    Then I read the instructions and saw the fine print 'unplug while
    not in use'.  Message understood.
    
    I wonder if it might have been a warning, because if it had gone
    on after I left, chances are the heat would have been enough to
    catch something on fire.                    
    
    For what it's worth.
    
    Cindy

    RE: .38 (Cindy)
    
    The "unplug when not in use" on your blow dryer is there to prevent
    electrical shock if you accidentally knock it into the bath tub or
    sink.
    
    John M.

    
    Re.-1 
    
    John,
    
    Thanks - will give it another look.
    
    Cindy

re: .38 (Cindy)

    So what do the squirrls/mice have to do with this story.  Maybe
    *they* turned on the dryer then fixed the switch so it wouldn't
    turn off ;-).
                                     
    Terry

                   
    Re. 41 (Terry)
                              
    RE: lions, tigers and bears, oh my!  ...and mice/squirrels too...
    
    Um, er, ah.....I don't really know.  It just seemed like a very
    strange morning all round and that just was one more thing that
    happened which I couldn't quite account for.
                                                              
    Somebody suggested offline that the hairdryer was missing the mousse
    (groan!).  (;^)
    
    Cindy

    I've enjoyed reading all these stories, and decided to share a few
    of my own.
    
    When living in my mother's house during my teen-aged years, we had
    many strange events that never had an explanation.  It all began
    the day we moved and we were sitting at the kitchen table for dinner.
    SUddenly, the overhead light burst and water came splashing in.
     Well, the explanation for that one was water leaking along wires
    form the upstairs bathroom sink, but being a 13 year old with a
    sensitive imagination, I was freaked out none the less and the stage
    was set for many years of unexplanable happenings.
     
    It seemed that both my mother and I were the only ones sensitive
    to another presence in the house.  On many occasions we both would
    have the "feeling" of someone else in the room.  We also heard bells,
    like a tiny tea bell.  This didn't happen consistantly, and ususally
    seemed to be heard at night.  One night I heard it and began to
    follow the sound downstairs to the kitchen, but as soon as I put
    my hand on the bannister, it stopped.  We later found out there
    was an elderly woman who once lived in the house and was very ill.
    She had her sick room set up in the dining room downstairs and used
    to ring the bell for assistance.   
                                               
    ANother incident happened to my mother.  She was in the kitchen
    doing things when on the wooden cellar stairs she heard the sounds
    which she only could describe as a little girl tip tapping up and
    down the stairs in her patent leather shoes!!!  
    
    On another occasion a woman with Woolworth's smelling perfume visited
    my mother in the kitchen.  Although she never saw anything, the
    presence was overwhelming.
    
    OF course, my stepfather thought we were both loony tunes, until
    late one evening when he heard my brother come in.  As usual my
    brother would clomp up the stairs in his size 13 sneakers and shut
    the door to his bedroom.  But, when my stepfather got up to use
    the bathroom moments later he discovered my brother wasn't home!
    I think he believed us after that incident.  
    
    It's hard to say who this "person" can be, since all events could
    have been a man, a woman, or a child.  The nice thing about it is
    that there never was a feeling of being scared.  It's interesting
    to think that these happenings occured when the house was in the
    midst of major renovations. There has been no activity within the
    last few years, and they have completed most major renovations.
    Could this be a connection?
    
    One scary event did occur to me recently.  I was visiting my mother
    one day and decided to get something out of the attic.  WHen I walked
    upstairs I increasingly became anxious, for no apparent reason.
    When I finally go to the top of the stair and opened the door to
    the unfinished section, I became sooo anxious that I feared passing
    out from my tripled blood pressure!  I immediately had to turn around
    and get out of there because I was so overcome with this feeling
    that I almost felt out of control.  I went downstairs and told my
    mother how freaked out I was upstairs and being the brave one, she
    made me go immediately back with her.  Upon our return, everything
    was fine!  
    
    What do you think?
    

    
    As mentioned in my base note, I've recently moved away from my 
    pet ghost but like an abandoned dog, he/she seems to have followed
    us to our new (actually very old) place. 
    Could this actually happen or is it just our luck to have moved
    into yet another haunted place? Appreciate any comments on this
    .... 
                    mark 

    Mark,
    
    My neighbor has a pet ghost that has followed her from her mom's
    home to where she is living now with her husband.  Another situation
    is my aunt was living in Dorchester and there was a woman who she
    and my uncle saw many times and they nickname her Miss Mary because
    the woman how lived there before them and apparently died they was
    name Mary. (of course) Any way they have moved to Kingston and my
    aunt tells me that Miss Mary moved with them.  I guess if a spirit
    is comfortable with you and likes you they will want to stay with
    you and perhaps protect or whatever.
    
    Denise
    

    
    Denise....Thanks for sharing that....at least I know I'm not alone
    anyway. I've been thinking I'm sensitive to the dead or losing 
    it entirely. 
    I spent a few months fixing this old place up (did you see animal
    house?) and occasionally woud hear my voice called while all alone.
    Cold spots, strange smells, whacky electrical etc. The interesting
    thing is that none of what's happening in this house is similar
    to the old abode. I keep waiting for the spirit (or my imagination)
    to perform some of the old schtik so I can rest assured that I'm
    dealing with what I know is harmless. 

    
    
    	RE: Cindy (Mice)
    
    	maybe you found it odd because the scratching, etc. was
    	what woke you up??
    	
    	Just an idea...
    
    	/Kim
    

    
    Kim,
    
    Yes, you're right - the scratching did wake me up.
    
    Nothing unusual has happened since then though.  I'm glad - I like
    to sleep late in the mornings.  (;^)  zzzzzzzzzzz
    
    Cindy

    Hi!
    
    I also experienced something strange in my apartment (Sunnyvale
    Calif.) But I entered it in note #855.0 and don't know how to "move"
    it here......please take a look & tell me what you all think.  My
    husband suggested moving also, but I'm not so sure now (ref Mark
    & Denise)
    
    Lisa

    Hey Hey Mrs. T...I think the moderator can move it if you like but
    you seem to be getting alot of input at 855. I started this note
    so I often peek back to see if anything's been added. Your more
    advanced noters are prompted by the tube to look at new replies
    to old notes. 
    
    I did reply to 855 and based *that* response strictly on the tone
    of your message and not what I would do. If however, I misconstrued,
    and you're feeling a bit courageous, I would agree with those who
    suggested meeting the entity head on. The thing I learned with my
    experience is that the spirit CANNOT harm you so there's really
    nothing to fear. 
    Evil?  Only if that's what you want to believe. Of course this is
    a personal opinion but I believe spirits act in malicious ways only
    if we allow it. 

    
    Does anyone have the phone number for Norm Gauthier??
    
    My sister-in-law would like to get in contact with him concerning
    things which have happened in her house lately.
    
    
    Thanks,
    
    Jim LaTouche

Five years ago I lived in an apartment in Fitchburg (2 Family house) on 
5th Mass Turnpike.  I lived there with 3 other people and we sometimes would
have some strange things happen.  Therefore when anything out of the 
ordinary would happend we would blame "Harvey".  Whether these things could
be explained or not I don't know.

We heard a story about the house that a mother had shot her son many, many 
times.  I asked if he was murdered, supposidly he didn't die from this, but
I never researched it.  I guess the mother was supposed to be a looney.

Anyway, the house had been in really bad shape, but our landlord bought and
restored it.  It was a very old house, with pilars in the front.

I went up to the attic once when we first moved in.  There was a cot up there
and an area that looked like a little bedroom.  I got the creepies and wouldn't
go back up there ever.  But, sometimes when we got home the attic light would
be on.  So, one of my roommates would shut it off and later it would 
supposidly go on by itself again.  I don't know if one of my roommates wanted
to expand on the ghost stories and was just doing this to trick us I don't 
know.  So, I would just think to myself that they were the ones responsible.

One morning I was up before anyone and was getting ready for work.  I had
taken a shower and was fixing my hair.  All of a sudden the water in the 
tub burst on.  It freaked me out and I went running screaming into the 
bedroom.  One of my roommates said maybe it was just an airbubble in the 
pipes.  Well, it happened a couple of times after that, but only to me.

I hated staying in the house alone.  I would avoid the livingroom like the
plague.  I felt like someone was in there with me.  So, if I was alone in
the house I would alway get on the phone and call someone.  Well, one day 
I was talking to my sister.  The phone cord was plugged into the other room
and I carried the base of the phone and receiver into the bedroom with me and 
closed the door.  I preceded to lay on the bed and make a phone call.  While
talking, it was like someone was pulling at the cord from the other room and
the base of the phone smashed on the floor.  Talk about scaring the pants off
of you!  Nobody else was home but me.  I kept all the lights and and didn't
get to sleep until someone else came home.  That's the only real incident
that I can't explain.

Two of my other roommates had a strange experience.  In the apartment off of the
kitchen was a door to a shared basement.  Therefore, we had a chain lock on the
inside so nobody could get into the apartment from cellar.  We always made 
sure that door was closed securely.  Well, they had just come home from work
and the cellar door slammed open, against the chain and then slammed closed
again.  Bizarre.

I'd love to know if the people living there now have anything strange 
happening. 

    I was born and raised in Fitchburg as was my mother before me.
    
    The 5th Mass Turnpike area has long been considered by some people
    to be an area of intense evil energy.  ...please, no offense intended to
    anyone who might live there...  
    
    I don't even like driving through the place.. and I can't drive through 
    it without feeling the intensity of it.  
    I don't know the history of it but ... there is something there, thats 
    for sure.
    
    Mary

    
    Where in Fitchburg is the 5th Mass. Turnpike?
    
    Virginia
    

.54 Virginia

5th Mass turnpike was an east to west 'highway' before Route 2. It runs
parallel to, and very near, rte 2 from Oak Hill road, across Franklin
Road and across rte 31 to Westminster.

It was a popular parking and drinking spot in the ole days. ;')

Jay

I spoke with someone yesterday who feels that Fitchburg in general is about as
bad as Lowell ;-)

    Batesville, Arkansas, ain't no garden spot either.
    
    But evil emanations?  
    
    Joel
    
    

.56 

>bad as Lowell ;-)

In the sense that it is a river town it shares much of the problems
Lowell has as a result of its recent history. As I visualize what it was
like beyond 200 years ago, I see it as a beautiful place. 

Today, it has a lot going against it. Being a river town, it has more
than its share of crumbling bridges. Its industries have come and gone,
each doing its best to kill the river. Its first industry decimated the
granite hill overlooking the river; today it is great piles of rock
rubble and broken glass. Its second and third industries dumped waste
directly into the river (there are still leather and paper mills on the
river, but they don't get away with what they used to).

It is the second hilliest city in the US, second to San Fransisco (or so
I've been told, don't quote me on it ;') It has an ancient water and sewer
system, and several filled-up land-fills with no real good alternatives.

Economically and environmentally violated as it is, it is still not an
evil place. And although it was rated poorly in some national survey
(down the bottom with Lowell) it still has the Rollstone Boulder ;')

Jay

Well, friends have said that even when all of Lowell has a power outage, the
town still "glows".

But some residents of Lowell feel there is something "evil" resident under 
Lowell, and feel that a lot of the Lovecraft stories were thinly disguised
fiction about the reality of the Merrimack river area, and parts of Mass.  
People call the Merrimack the Misquetonic (sp?), in Lowell.  Comparisons have
been made to the Lovecraft maps and that part of Mass.  The number of 
correlations is supposedly high.

    Sorry to be ignorant, but what's Lovecraft.  I find this facinating as
    I live in Lowell.
    
    
    Thanx,
    ron

    H.P. Lovecraft was one of the most influential writers -- perhaps *the*
    most influential writer -- of fantasy/horror.  He lived (and is buried)
    in Providence, R.I.  Most of his writing was based on a particular
    fictional background which has come to be called The Cthulu Mythos,
    which you can find more on in other notes in this conference.  Most of
    his stories took place in New England, and those that didn't generally
    involved New Englanders.  Some involved the fictional/fictionalized
    Miskatonic (sp?) University, whose library's rare books room contained
    the evil book The Necronomicon, which would drive anyone who read it
    mad.

    Many authors have since written stories that either are based on the
    Cthulu Mythos or which at least make reference to it.  It has also been
    influential in movies and even TV Comedy (there was a short piece on
    Night Gallery, about a "skeptical" professor (Rob Reiner) at Miskatonic
    who showed his contempt for superstition by reading from the
    Necronomicon in front of a class filled with students such as "Mr.
    Lovecraft" and "Mr. Bloch", and was transformed into a horrible
    deformed monster.  Also a classic Saturday Night Live bit, about a
    New England island, called Toad Island, where the inhabitants had
    throats which swelled up like a bull-frog's, and most of whom could
    only say stock phrases like "Can't get thar from here" and "Pepridge
    Farm", was pure Lovecraftian).  More important than the specific themes
    Lovecraft contributed was the style: Lovecraft was the first to truly
    exploit the fact that what is unseen/left-unsaid is scarier by far than
    what is actually said.  Also important was his prodigious
    correspondence which encouraged many new fantasy writers and helped
    create a sense of community.

    Personally, although I would have to see the evidence, I think that
    Lowell is an unlikely inspiration for most of Lovecraft -- what isn't
    explicitly or obviously Providence is rather more rural and *certainly*
    more coastal than Lowell was or is.  To the extent M.U. is not
    completely fictional, I would say Brown is the inspiration -- I believe
    he lived a few blocks from campus.

				    Topher

    Re .61 (Topher):
    
    >......................... Some involved the fictional/fictionalized
    >Miskatonic (sp?) University, whose library's rare books room contained
    >the evil book The Necronomicon, which would drive anyone who read it
    >mad.                      
    
    Stephen King called Lovecraft "The Providence Spook."  However, _The
    Necronomicon_ wouldn't necessarily drive anyone mad (I mean, Dr.
    Armitage used its passages with great effect in "The Dunwich Horror,"
    and he was hardly bonkers.  However, it did attract some pretty weird
    folk (perhaps the problem was that it was supposedly written by "the
    mad Arab," Abdul Alharazed, who the story goes, eventually met an
    untidy end, being devoured alive in broad daylight by Something that decided
    to remain invisible during its snack time.  So "mad author" was
    made to relate to "mad users," perhaps).
    
    >Many authors have since written stories that either are based on the
    >Cthulu Mythos or which at least make reference to it.
    
    In fact, Lovecraft encouraged his fellow writers to employ, and even
    expand upon the Cthulhu Mythos.  His close pen-pal friends, Robert E.
    Howard (of Conan fame) and Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch (who
    became famous for writing the story for the movie _Psycho_, much
    later), and a few others added to the mythos.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re: (Topher and Stephen)
    
    Excellent summaries.
    
    I say: great little stories, well worth reading!
    
    Joel
    

    
    Well... they could have been written about Fitchburg :-)... We have
    our share of horror stories.

I don't know much about Lovecraft, but I know plenty about the towns 
buried under Quabbin Reservoir.  The Massachusetts Metropolitan
District Commission (MDC) started buying the land in the 1920s.  The
area was completely evacuated by the end of the 1930's, and the
reservoir was full around 1945.  The towns of Enfield, Prescott, Dana
and Greenwich were evacuated and buried. (Many villages, too, there
used to be a Greenwich Village in Mass.!)  I collect old maps and have
maps of these towns and villages.

From memory: - about 5,000 people were moved from the valley, 
             - 20 miles of state roads relocated and hundreds of other
                 roads buried.
             - 18 miles of railroad tracks and 8 stations buried
             - 7500 bodies reinterred, moved to a cemetery in Ware.
             - countless homes, shops, schools, public buildings, etc
               were moved or demolished.

Very sad for people who grew up there.  Imagine knowing that you can never
return to your childhood haunts because they are now hidden under 60 feet of
water.
             
Lots of history, Native American and 'European'.  Pictures I've seen of
the towns in the valley show it as a beautiful rural area.  Rich soil,
long stretches of flat land interrupted by low hills.  

Can you tell us something about 'Colour Out of Space' ?
- Vin

    Regarding haunted dwellings....
    
    My girlfriend grew up in a century old house in a small town here in
    Texas.  During her Jr. High and High School days the family members
    were often visited by a ghost cat.  It would jump on the bed at night
    and walk around, finally settling down to scratch itself, shaking the
    whole bed.  This was an especially unusual  happening, in that the
    family didn't keep a cat during this time! 
    
    My girlfriend and her mother and brother are all fairly sensitive to
    psychic happenings.   
    
    The cat visitations ended when they moved out of that house.  I guess
    the kitty was bonded to the house itself, not to the inhabitants. 
    
    - Russ. 
                                 

    Re: .68
    
    Cats are known to be site bonded usually in life (at least outdoor
    cats), so why not in death.
    
    Beth

	What if there'd have been an elephant there previously?
	Then you'd feel the bed shaking!	%^)

    We lived in an apartment in Colorado Springs when we first moved here.
    
    My son took photography in High School, and while taking lots of
    things, the strangest was a picture of an old chair that was left in
    the apartment.  Our furniture had not arrived, and we only had the
    chair, it was in bad shape, but we would all sit in it at times.  Well,
    one photo shows the chair, with a skinny leg in the chair, nothing else
    there, just the bony leg.  He developed and printed the photo, and 
    we found out an old lady who was skinny had lived there just prior and
    she died there in the apartment.  
    
    I wish I could still find the photo....
    
    Dave