True Ghost Stories: Jim Harold's Campfire 1

by Jim Harold

  -Daniel, Virginia

  11. The Home of Gathered Spirits

  In my opinion, all of Hawaii is pretty spooky. A lot of people think of Hawaii as just a paradise, but I've always been surprised that the paranormal community hasn't caught on to the fact that an incredible amount of activity happens here, and has historically for a long time. The place where I live on the island of Oahu is a valley called Nuuanu Valley, and it's just full of stuff always going on.

  Of all the stories I have, the one I think is most interesting is what happened to my girlfriend, because she's not particularly into the paranormal. She's not a believer—she's not an unbeliever; she's a physicist, you know? Her world is very cut and dried. She's a scientist. But she's also really sensitive to these things. She picks up on stuff, and she'll tell me about things, and I'll be very surprised, and she'll just think these are anomalous things that happen.

  I'll say, "Wow, that's amazing, how could you not be super-excited about this, or be thinking about it?" But, as I said, she's such a scientist and it doesn't even register that way to her.

  One of my favorite stories is when we lived in this old house deep in the valley, which was in the jungle. A lot of interesting people have lived there. We had this lower part of the house, in the jungle, where you could see through our bedroom into a hallway, into another bedroom past that. One night, I was asleep and she looked down that hallway and she saw a man. A shadow of a man. It wasn't clear; it was an apparition; this dark thing that she could tell was a man by the shadow. It was unnaturally tall, probably 6 or 7 feet tall, and very lean looking. She just automatically had the feeling that it was a man, a male presence, that was sort of passing through the room.

  What she thought was even more strange—and I agreed—was that at the exact moment she was seeing that happen, she heard a voice. It was a female voice, not talking to her, but talking to the apparition. The woman's voice said, "What are you doing here?"

  When my girlfriend told me the story, I asked, "What do you mean?" She's was just candid about it: "I saw this man and he was passing through, and the moment I looked and saw this thing, I heard a woman's voice in my ear speaking to it, saying, 'What are you doing here?'"

  Now, one thing that she tells me, the thing I should tell you about this that makes it even more interesting, has to do with her. She rides the bus to and from work, and on the bus you find interesting characters, obviously. She mentioned to me once that she was talking to a woman who was a little bit crazy, but quite lucid—one of those people you think could have one foot in one world and one in the other. This woman said that this particular place where we were living in the valley is a type of cache for lost spirits, and what happens is that lost spirits get caught up in the valley and get blown out—like a spiritual energy will come and then blow out the same way that leaves will get stuck at the eddy of a stream or something, and then the current will increase and push them out.

  This strange woman said that, at times, when a lot of spirits get caught in that area, then activity goes up. I just thought, Well, doesn't that sort of sound like what happened? This female presence, and maybe this tall male presence, maybe they're just sort of wandering around wondering what the other is doing there.

  This house that we lived in was almost in a complex, in a very old part of the neighborhood—a very nice part, so it was one where you wouldn't normally have strange tenants. But this 80-year-old man who ran the place was a really nice guy who would take in different people. We had about 12 people living in this place—all different kinds. There were three different houses, and three of the women who lived there were practicing witches. They were just casual about it, and they would come in and say, "Oh, we feel a weird energy around the property, so we're just going to smudge and do that sort of thing." I'm not necessarily into that, but it doesn't bother me and I'm open to whatever. But they were matriarchal, these three witches; they took care of the property and of this old man who had allowed them to stay there.

  When he finally passed, he was seen after his death—by everybody. I saw him. They saw him. He was just sort of taking one last stroll through his house. The interesting thing was that it wasn't surprising. It was just expected. And this was after his body had been removed. The ambulance had come to take him away. Later that day, he was seen just sort of standing in various places in the house.

  -Travis, Hawaii

  12. The Late, Great Captain George

  I am in the sound business, and about six years ago I was installing a PA system in a theater in Georgetown, Prince Edward Island. It's a small community about two hours away from where I live, and the building was called King's Play House. This building has quite a history to it. It was kind of like a town hall that had burned down a couple of times. Recently the local ghost-hunter society has begun an investigation because of new information that has shown up about this building, that it was actually built on a graveyard several years ago. So, there's lots more history coming out as it goes along.

  Getting back to my story, I was doing an installation for a sound company, and the first day I showed up at the job site, the person who was letting me in didn't tell me too much history about the building; I just commented on how it had character and stuff like that, and then he wouldn't enter the building as I was getting ready to do the job. He left me with instructions on where to go and what to do. So I worked for a couple of hours and I didn't notice anything odd. Then, I noticed as I was going through a room that it was just very very cold in this room, and the chimney had been cold in the furnace room. And then I went to one area of the room and it was probably a 30-degree temperature drop from one step to the next. It was very, very drastic. I just kind of blew it off; didn't think anything about it. Again, it's an old building with character.

  It seemed that I was always seeing something out of the corner of my eye, whether it was a shadow or just something that wasn't right. The biggest thing that really set me off in this whole installation was when I was doing some work and I put my electric drill onto the charger. I turned around and that drill and charger were gone, and I'm thinking, Didn't I just put this here? Of course, it was during a long day, so I chalked it up to the possibility that I put it in another area of the building. But lo and behold, I turned around about five minutes later and it was back, right in the center of the room where I had originally put it. So that was one of those...issues...that just kind of...where I said, You know, either I'm getting real tired from doing this job, or there's something up here.

  I guess the final thing that set me off was going into rooms and lights coming on and going off. And again, that's not the first time I've had that happen in buildings that are old—the electrical can be a little bit strange. But there was just a little too much interesting to this, so...

  After I finished the job, I learned a bit more about this place. I'd had my wrap-up with the person who had hired me to do it, and he said, "So, did you notice anything different?" I said, "Well, yeah, there were a couple of strange things." I didn't say anything about specific incidents. He said, "Well, the building's haunted." I said, "Yeah, that really does make sense," and I explained everything that had happened. I'd also explained how the gentleman who was letting me into the building wouldn't enter the building. It turned out that this guy was purely petrified of the paranormal and had just had some experiences himself in there, and just didn't want to go in. But as Town Alderman he had keys to the building, and he does carry on some of the business for it. So, he had to be there, but he wouldn't cross the threshold of the building. That kind of summed it up nicely to me.

  One other thing: They had actually put a name to the ghost. They call it Captain George, who was a sea captain in the area, where the community used to be famous for ship-building there on the island, years and years ago. Apparently, he was either captain of a ship that went down, or something happened...anyway, they presume that's who's haunting the building right now. They actually also have a reserved seat in the theater for
him. They will not sell this seat; it's specifically for this gentleman, and people have noticed since they've done that that the appearances have been less and less, but whenever they sell that seat, strange things happen.

  Anything's possible. There's so much in this world that we can't explain, and like I said, there were too many coincidences on that job site for me to chalk it up to being tired, or this or that. There was something going on there, you could feel it. It was just a different feeling.

  -Chris, Canada

  13. Bullmoose Is Back!

  I have had many varied paranormal experiences, but I thought this was a good one because it affects people other than myself.

  I was working at a small indie record company in Pittsburgh called Bogus Records back in the 1980s, and I'm a graphic designer, so I was doing little things like promotional materials and posters on a volunteer basis. Carl, who's the owner of the company, was having a summer party for his employees and talent. He is quite an individual, and he is a crazy collector. And he was kind enough to give a friend and me a tour of his house because we'd never been there before. He had a room full of arcade games, like the old Pac-Man...remember the 1980s games?

  Anyway, he took us through his fantastic Beatles memorabilia, and he even had a rubber alligator in his bathtub. I tell you, this guy was crazy. And he took us to his office, and there was a whole wall full of head shots of all the people he'd worked with and managed, and so on and so forth. After the tour, we went back down and did the party thing.

  That night, I had this dream that I was in a local record store that was near my house. But unlike the real record store, the front area had kind of a lounge area with two couches and a coffee table. I'm standing in the store looking through—in those days—vinyl albums (if we all remember those). This little man comes up to me and he starts kind of yelling at me, very agitated, like, "Where is it??" and "Why isn't it done?" I look at him and say, "I don't know what you're talking about." He kind of huffs to the front of the store and I follow him, and he's kind of standing behind one of those couches and still kind of, you know, reaming my butt out for this...whatever it was.

  In the dream, I just listen very politely and in a few minutes Carl and Phil, who also worked at the studio, they walk into the store. They're kind of standing behind the other couch nearest the door, and we exchange greetings, and the man—the little man that I'd been talking to—asks me something, so I respond to what his query was. Carl and Phil turn to me and ask, "Who are you talking to?" I just look at them as if they're crazy and say, "I'm talking to Bullmoose! Don't you see him?" They kind of look at me and laugh like I'm nuts, and inform me, "Well, you know, Bullmoose is dead."

  Just then I was realizing that, Oh, this is a special dream. I have lucid dreams a lot, and I knew how to amp myself up, and I told myself that I had to really start remembering details on this.

  Phil and Carl ask me what he was saying, in a smart-butt kind of way, and I pretty much say that "Bullmoose is very agitated and he wants you to finish it." And they respond with, "Finish what?" I really wasn't sure either, but Bullmoose keeps saying, "The record! The record! The record!" They look at each other, figuring I'm trying to pull a fast one on them. They ask me, "Okay, which songs weren't finished on that album?" Bullmoose, of course, relays me the information, and in my dream I'm thinking, in my lucid way, I have to remember the names of these songs. I have to. I relay the songs to Carl and Phil, and they look at each other, shocked. They turn white, looking almost confused and freaked out. Then they walk out of the record store.

  And that, pretty much, was the end of that part of the dream. The dream changes to Bullmoose sitting on the corner on a stool, singing me a sweet little lullaby, thanking me for relaying the information.

  Of course, the next morning I woke up and I wrote down everything I could, especially the titles of the songs, because I have a brain like a sieve, and I could only remember one full title and most of the second one. The third one I couldn't remember at all. But it was a really long dream, as you can tell.

  Although I knew this was an important dream, I didn't feel compelled to go calling people up about it. I just try to let the universe take its course, and when the right time presents itself, I know to do something about it.

  A week, maybe two weeks later, I was down at the recording studio, and I was working with Phil on some poster designs. He was in a hurry, and he didn't have a lot of time; he had a meeting he had to make, and in the back of my head, I'm going, Damn it, I knew there was something I wanted to tell him! I just...I couldn't remember at all.

  I followed him up the stairs, and as soon as the sunlight hit me, for some reason it all came back to me. And I turned to him, as Phil started to head down the street, and I just said, "Phil, is there...on Carl's wall of head shots..." and I drew a diagram in the air, "right about in the middle. Is there a head shot of a little black guy with big glasses, kind of a long face, and is his name Bull-something?" I couldn't remember his name. "And, um, is he dead?" Phil just looked at me and stopped and said, "Yeah, why do you ask?" I said, "Because he wants you to know that he wants that record done."

  At that, Phil was like, "What are you talking about?" So, I related my dream, and he was kind of taken aback. Then he asked me if I remembered the titles of the songs that needed to be finished. I said, "I can tell you two of them," and I told him what I remembered the titles being, and I swear that Phil turned white as a sheet right there on the street. I mean, he was...at first you could see that he was shaken, but then he got a little indignant, like "Who told you that?" As if someone had slipped me some, you know...information.

  I said, "Bullmoose told me; I just told you that!" Phil was still kind of skeptical, and he said, "Well, you must have heard it from somebody." I had actually been considering that all along, but there was no connection with any of these people involved. So Phil ended up going off to his appointment very visibly shaken, and I went home. As Phil related it to me later, I guess that night he went over to Carl's house and they were in his kitchen and he told Carl all about my dream and as much of the details as he could remember, and, of course, Carl naturally laughed, scoffed, and pretty much figured that I was BS-ing Phil. I guess Carl was laughing at my tall tale when, just then, dishes fell off the cupboard and crashed to the floor.

  And as Phil said to me, he looked at Carl and then looked at the dishes, and Carl looked at him and looked at the dishes. They looked at each other, they looked at the dishes, and Carl went to the phone and said he figured he'd better do something about this, so he started making arrangements to get this album started.

  Ever since I had that dream, I had felt this connection to Bullmoose. Almost as if he were with me, kind of in me. Not that he was overshadowing me or...and I'm careful, cautious about those kinds of things, but it was like I could...every once in a while, I would just look in a mirror and say, "Hey Bullmoose, what's it like to be a little green-eyed Scotch-German girl? It must be a real trip for you!" And it was just...one of those kinds of things that I just kept feeling he was there, but I never had any proof of it. There's nothing he ever overtly did that made me really feel that he was with me; it was just a feeling.

  Well, months later, I went to a CD release party for a local band called The Spuds, a great Pittsburgh band. I hadn't talked to anybody about the status of Bullmoose's album, whether it was finished, or what had been done. I just let the universe do its thing, and I was outside listening to the band at this party. Suddenly I just started crying and I started feeling a spirit lifting out of my body, like right out of my solar plexus, just this...it's so hard to describe, but it was like a part of me, but like a separation. And the feeling of this entity or this spirit or whatever—this thing was just full of joyousness, happiness, and gratitude. It totally made me giddy, yet I was crying. It was a crazy, powerful feeling. It was just so wonderful, and I really knew it was Bullmoose, like, Dang it, he was inside of me all this time!

  It seemed as though Bullmoose
was thanking me for helping him—right in the middle of this release party. I wasn't yet sure why though. He communicated that he was going to rest, and at last he felt he was free to go. After composing myself, I walked over to Phil, who was standing near me, and I was still really quite overwhelmed, and I asked him, "Did you finish the album?" and he turned to me and said that they'd just put the album to bed. All I could say was, "Bullmoose says 'thank you.'"

  -Sandy, California

  14. Our Family Dog

  Our family dog had gotten quite old, so we had to put her down. After that is when things started happening.

  After she was gone, it was like she really wasn't. During the night you'd hear her moving around—her claws on the floor, scratching on the front door, stuff like that. My other family members would hear things as well; my sister heard it and so did my parents. I didn't feel frightened.

  One day as I was rounding the corner into the kitchen, I almost felt that I'd bumped into her lying around. It was just like before, when she was still alive and you walked past her. You could feel her walking by too, after she passed away.

  As I said, I wasn't frightened or anything; it was a comforting feeling at the time.

  She hasn't been around as much recently, actually. It's been very quiet around here; nothing from her. But there's a feeling that she's still around, keeping an eye on us or protecting us or something. It's like she's just hanging around.

  -Chris, Sweden