Brad Steiger's Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places is chock full of fantastically frightening true tales of terror. Among them is the story of a woman and her husband who moved into a house in 1992, when the house was just eleven years old. Not long after moving in, the woman began to hear someone walking in her upstairs hallway. Convinced it was her son sneaking out, she would go upstairs to check on him and find him sleeping soundly in bed. At first, she did not speak of the footsteps, not even to her husband and son. Then the footsteps increased in frequency and changed location, including coming into her bedroom. It didn't take her long to learn from her husband that he, too, was hearing many strange noises, particularly when he was home alone during the brightness of day. In the first month of living there, she told author Steiger that they went through at least one hundred lightbulbs; lights were constantly blowing out all throughout the house.
The woman said the noises had begun just after the family had moved in—when she'd hung an old lead mirror, left behind by the previous owners, in the hallway opposite her son's room. Only when she got rid of the mirror did the noises stop.
ANIMAL APPARITIONS
Not only do animals sense ghosts, but animals also can be ghosts. For example:
Actor Rudolph Valentino's Great Dane, Kabar, is reported to haunt his former owner's gravesite.
In Port Tabacco, Maryland, there is a bloodstained rock known to locals as Peddler's Rock. It is said to be home to the Blue Dog, who guards his dead master's buried treasure.
In Casper, Wyoming, ranchers have long reported the image of a white steed galloping across the area known as Rattlesnake Range. This horse was known as White Devil when he was alive, due to his reputation for fiercely defending himself and other horses against the mighty lasso.
In Reading, Pennsylvania, the ghosts of Mrs. Bissinger and her children still roam an area near the Union Lock Canal where she drowned herself (and her children) in 1875. Visitors to this area often report being overwhelmed by a sad and horrific energy.
A FOND FAREWELL
Dana was the youngest of four kids, living in an old Victorian house in the Minnesota suburbs. Her grandfather, who lived in the same town as she did, was sick in the hospital, but Dana was too young to really know what was going on or that he was dying. One day while her mother was at the hospital, Dana came walking down the grand staircase in her house. To her surprise, she saw her grandfather walking up toward her, looking healthy and happy. “I wanted to say good-bye, Dana, and I love you very much,” he said and continued up the stairs. Delighted, the child raced into the kitchen to tell her mother that Grandpa was all better and that he'd come over for a visit. But her mother had just returned from the hospital with some bad news—her grandfather had passed away earlier that afternoon.
Have you seen a ghost? It is possible that you have and just didn't know what to look for. If the figure you saw was unusually pale, disappeared after an instant, ignored you when you spoke or called out, appeared in an odd place, or was dressed inappropriately (often of another era), perhaps you have seen a ghost. (Of course, many of these characteristics could describe some of your relatives as well.)
THE HAUNTED BOAT HOUSE
AS TOLD BY CHRIS WARD
It was late October 2004, and as part of a unique archaeological project along the Drakes Bay bluff on the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California, our five-person team was given accommodation at the restored Drakes Bay Lifesaving Station, otherwise known as the Boat House.
The Boat House, a National Historic Landmark, is an impressive building overlooking the waters of Drakes Bay. As the park official led us on our initial tour of the building, I could not help but notice a creeping feeling that seemed to hang around. These sensations increased when we were brought into the Boat Room. The Boat Room houses a now-decommissioned lifeboat, the first motorized lifeboat north of San Francisco Bay. The lifeboat had been used in countless rescue missions from 1953 to 1965, covering the extent of the Northern California coastline from Drakes Bay north to Humboldt Bay. I had to wonder why such a unique historic relic was shut away in this room. It was resting half on the ground, half off, teetering on an old wooden sawhorse. When I inquired, the park official responded with this story.
On a stormy Thanksgiving eve in 1960, the Coast Guard team at Drakes Bay was alerted to a cry for help from a fishing boat that appeared to be in distress north of Fort Bragg. A well-trained and competent crew, they quickly responded. A two-person crew launched the lifeboat into the dark night (no easy task) and headed north to Fort Bragg through blinding rain and turbulent seas. The experienced seamen made their way up the rocky and treacherous coast and successfully towed the fishing boat to shore just outside of Fort Bragg. They then reportedly headed south to Drakes Bay. The crew members never returned to the Boat House.
The following morning a search party headed to the Boat House, only to discover a horrific sight. The lifeboat had run aground not more than 150 yards from its berth at the Boat House. The engine and propeller were still churning. Yet neither member of the crew was in sight. Although the lifeboat had traveled hundreds of miles in the most adverse of conditions and had returned to the very bay from whence it had launched, there was no sign of either seaman. Their bodies were never found. Shortly thereafter, the Boat House was decommissioned and the lifeboat locked away.
For some twenty years, the lifeboat sat in its home, until the National Park Service created the Point Reyes National Seashore, and the historic Boat House and lifeboat therein became part of a lengthy restoration process. The park service restored the lifeboat to its former glory, intending to take it back out into the bay for special occasions. At last the day came for the boat to be launched again into the salty waters. Reporters and park supporters gathered round to view the lifeboat, which was supported on a carriage of two wooden sawhorses. Just at the moment of rechristening, the lifeboat lurched forward and crashed down, smashing one of the sawhorses and damaging the keel of the boat extensively. The boat would not again touch the waters of Drakes Bay, and it remains exactly where it fell, half on and half off the ground.
For four nights in late October, after long days of archaeological work, our five-person crew returned to the Boat House for a night's sleep. Yet these nights were anything but restful. Each member of our crew reported strange happenings and unexplained sounds. Mysterious footsteps creaked down the corridor outside the Captain's Room, when all members of our team were accounted for. Things slammed to the floor in the Boat Room—things that had been fastened tightly to the wall the night before. One of our crew members repeatedly said that there was somebody looking through the shelves in the kitchen, where she saw shadows. This sight was enough to scare her from her luxurious room downstairs to the bunks upstairs where the rest of us lodged.
A lunar eclipse, the shortened days and long nights of late October, a brewing storm, a boat house that rests three-quarters of the way over the murky waters of the bay—even a team of rational scientists could not help but feel that there was something decidedly haunted about the Boat House.
“It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.” —OSCAR WILDE
BIZARRE HAPPENINGS IN PORTLAND
AS TOLD BY ALIX BENEDICT
A friend of mine had purchased a house in Portland, Oregon, and was just completing a rather extensive renovation. One of the men who was working on the house was also staying there, despite the raw conditions. Throughout the period of time he was living there, he had numerous strange experiences. Doors slammed and then creaked open, and he had a constant feeling of being watched. The wires that had been rigged into light sockets and outlets were ripped clean, over and over. Painters reported open cans of paint had been turned upside down without a drop spilled, only for paint to go all over the floor when they attempted to move the can. My friend, the owner, had purchased a set of spi
ral stairs from an auction. The metal stairs had once been in the local jailhouse and were used by prisoners. Later, the man living in the house said that nothing happened until after they had installed the stairs.
When the renovation was nearly complete, I was hired to clean up and put the finishing touches on the place. One evening, I was at the house, working late. The owner was upstairs asleep, and I was in the basement with my headphones on. It was pretty late, at least 10 or 11 P.M. I had repeatedly felt something like a crawling sensation in my hair, but attributed it to spiders or dust, as the house was still in a bit of disarray. But then I felt and saw something that I knew was no spider! I was working in front of a bank of windows, cleaning them and scraping away the paint that had gotten on to the glass. As it was light inside but dark outside, the windows were a bit like a mirror. I felt something like a tug on a piece of my hair, and I looked at my reflection in the window. I actually saw a piece of my hair move up and away from my head, as if someone were standing behind me and pulling at it. I was dumbstruck and actually froze with shock. I stood there for what felt like several minutes, but was probably just a few seconds, and then promptly bolted upstairs and woke up the owner. I have lived in a few haunted places, but watching my hair move of its own accord was decidedly unnerving.
The owner and I did some historical research on the place and discovered that two people had died there in the past. One was a little old lady, who died of natural causes. The other was a local sheriff, who shot and killed himself in the house. We all came to suspect he was our ghost, especially because the stairs from the county jail seemed to trigger the start of all of the spooky and strange activity.
“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.” —MARK TWAIN
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
A seventeenth-century Dutch merchant vessel, The Flying Dutchman, and her phantoms are legendary. The ship ran into trouble around the dangerous Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Accounts of what exactly happened vary: some say Captain Hendrick van der Decken refused to seek shelter in the harbor, others say it was impossible to do so because of the weather. Regardless, The Flying Dutchman sank, but it hardly disappeared. Since the 1800s there have been sightings of a phantom ship that will sometimes pull alongside other ships, but the ghost ship is most often seen from the lighthouse point. Among the witnesses over the years were England's King George V and several famous authors.
THE GHOSTS OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
A LITTLE HAUNTED HOTEL ON THE CORNER
In the historic town of Nevada City, California, high in the Sierra foothills, on the corner of Broad and Pine streets, there is a small hotel with a big history. Owner Katie Bennett, who bought the US Hotel in 2002, has heard strange noises and mysterious sounds regularly.
And so have her patrons. The odd occurrences include knocking noises, steps that sound like someone is right outside your door, and lights that flicker on and off. The most common thing Bennett hears is laughter, accompanied by music and footsteps as if someone is dancing. So it was no surprise to her when a team of paranormal investigators caught the sound of laughter and footsteps on tape. The recordings included a man calling out for someone named Olga, the sound of boots on hardwood floors, and popping and knocking noises. Visit www.norcalghosthunters.com, click on EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) and links, and then scroll down to “US Hotel B&B EVP Link” to hear the evidence for yourself.
A GHOSTLY IMAGE
In January of 2007 The Union, the local paper for Nevada County, California, reported that a ghostly face had appeared in a photograph. The photo had been taken of the historic Skidmore House, one of a dozen or so original homes still standing in North Bloomfield, a mining town that is now part of the Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. Sonny Lopez, the park's maintenance mechanic, had moved to the park in July of 2006. He and his wife wanted window treatments that had an old-time feel, and so one afternoon Lopez took several photographs of Skidmore House and its windows. Later, when he went home to show the photos to his wife, he noticed that the otherwise empty home was perhaps not so empty. In one of the photos was a figure that looked like a woman with long hair, pulling back the curtain and looking back out at him. You can view the photograph yourself in The Union's online archives at www.theunion.com. Do a search for “ghostly photographs” and see what appears.
THE GHOST IN THE FLAME
Originally built as a firehouse, a necessary building in a gold-rush town of shacks and temporary structures, the Fire House No. 2 in Nevada City, California, is now a historical museum. Visitors and employees alike have reported hearing footsteps in an otherwise empty room, as well as feeling sudden temperature changes, cold spots, and a general “thickening” of the atmosphere. Some witnesses claim to have seen the ghost of a Victorian woman, who searches through cabinets, and a female piano player from a nearby whorehouse. A few visitors have even sighted a group of Chinese men standing around a shrine, a testimony to the Chinese population that contributed to Nevada City's early growth.
A PARALYZING NIGHT
AS TOLD BY GIOVANNI GALATI
In the mid-1980s in Hanover, Germany, my family owned a large apartment house where my parents, brothers, I, and other employees of the restaurant my father owned would rent rooms. Many of the residents reported ghostly sightings and encounters. Some employees refused to stay. But I was the skeptic—until one night.
I arrived home late after work, close to one in the morning, and fell fast asleep. A few hours later, probably around four or five, I awoke suddenly, my eyes wide open. At this moment, I heard the key turn in the lock to my front door. Instinctively, I tried to get up to see who it could be. I lived alone and thought I had the only key to the apartment. But I was completely paralyzed. I could not move—not my fingers, my toes, nor even my head—to see who could be there.
As I lay there struggling with the inability to move, I heard footsteps go through the hall and into the kitchen, echoing across the wooden floors. I then heard the handle of my bedroom door begin to turn. I could hear someone or something come in the door and stand next to my bed, looming over me. Yet I could not turn my head to see who or what was there. At this point tears were streaming down my face, not as much from being frightened as from being completely frustrated at my inability to so much as wiggle my fingers. I tried everything I could, using reason to try and send the signals to my brain to move my body. After a bit of time—maybe ten or fifteen minutes, though I can't say for sure—I felt the presence withdraw. I heard footsteps move away from my bed toward the door, the sound of the door handle turn, the door open and close, and then the echo of the footsteps retreat back through the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door of my apartment.
As soon as the front door closed, I was able to move. I jumped up, grabbed the key, and ran out of the bedroom. I could still hear the footsteps descending the inner stairwell, as I lunged toward the apartment door. I heard the outside door of the building slam shut, and I ran down the stairs and out the main door. I couldn't see anyone, so I ran down the path and looked right and left down the street. There was no one in sight. A fresh snow had fallen while I was asleep, and I could see no mark or footprint of where anyone had been on the path or the porch.
THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
Just outside of Paris, France, among the rambling and vast grounds of the Palace of Versailles, stands Le Petit Trianon. Best known for being the residence of Marie Antoinette, Le Petit Trianon was given her name by King Louis XVI in 1774. Yet this mini palace within a palace is also famous for something else: hauntings.
Over the centuries guests and visitors have reported numerous sightings and unusual sounds. Most often workers in eighteenth-century clothing are seen milling about, and some people claim to have seen the ghost of Marie Antoinette herself. On
e of the strangest reports is of seeing phantom woodlands and houses that have not been there for more than two hundred years.
A FITFUL NIGHT IN BARCELONA
AS TOLD BY K. R. P.
After weeks of traveling, I found myself in a small, dark room just off the main La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain. My girlfriend and I were very weary and grateful for the simple and affordable room. While my girlfriend slipped easily into a deep slumber, I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. I became keenly aware of a glowing sensation by and around the shuttered window. Irritated, I tried to ignore it, exhausted as I was. But I was unable to ignore it, and so I looked back toward the window. I clearly saw a man sitting with his back to me, at a desk in front of the window. (There was no actual desk in the room.) He appeared to be leaning forward, writing something down on paper. He took no notice of me whatsoever, and I felt no threat. I simply turned over and, at last, fell asleep.
THE HOLY GRAIL
This infamous object has been sought by scholars, scientists, and the devout for centuries. The Holy Grail is best known as the cup that Jesus used to drink from at the Last Supper, and that Jesus' uncle used to catch drops of Jesus' blood at the crucifixion. In order to escape persecution, the disciples of Jesus took the Grail to Glastonbury, England. There are countless legends surrounded the Grail and its mystical powers. Some believe it is a cauldron of magic, containing secrets of birth and death. Others argue that the Grail is not an object at all, but rather a state of spiritual enlightenment. Many chalices resting in museums around the world claim to be the actual Grail.
The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories Page 2
