I am religious. I do not believe in ghosts as in spirits of the dead remaining behind on earth after death.
That said, some downright freakish stuff has happened in the house I live in now. Not recently, but it did go on for about 5 of the 11 years we've lived here.
1. Hearing footsteps on the floor above us, either in the attic when we're at ground level, or on the ground floor when we're in the basement. Also having others witness this and insist someone is in my house upstairs when we assure them there's none.
2. Door bell ringing and no one there. Happened a lot. I mean excessively. Sometimes we are sitting right by the door so there's no way someone could ring it and run, we'd see them.
3. Seeing a black cat out of the corner of my eye. My brother in law also saw this and thought it was just our cat. Said he saw it go up the stairs to the attic. Also said he's seen it before on other visits to our house and always just thought it was ours. We have no cat.
4. Dog waking us up in the night growling and staring at a empty corner in the bedroom sometimes. Also my step daughter's dog who had never been here before did the same thing once when he entered the living room. Suddenly he puts on the brakes hard, barks and growls at the empty landing at the bottom of the attic stairs. Runs forward growling, backs up, runs forward further, jumps back barking and growling, then finally ends up at the landing itself staring into the attic and barking. Was as if something had been at the landing and went back up into the attic when realizing the dog could see it. This was creepy since we were decorating a Christmas tree at the time and had just been in the attic to get it down. Interestingly, the corner the first dog stared at in the bedroom is back to back of where the stair landing is in the living room that the second dog saw whatever it saw there. Opposite sides of the same wall. Two different rooms, two different dogs at separate times. Geographically, nearly the same spot in the house. Something was there for sure.
5. Clock radio was unreliable to wake us so my wife unplugged it but was hesitant to just toss it. In broad daylight, we are laying on the bed and just talking when the radio comes on, lights up and plays music on its own. It is not plugged it, cord is just wrapped around it. We checked the battery but there was none in it. It had no power source. Pressing buttons would not make it stop playing. It finally stopped on its own several minutes later. It had been unplugged for days. She tossed it after this.
6. I leaned a broom upright against the wall in the kitchen, left the room and distinctly heard it fall to the floor. Made the very familiar metal ringing sound of the handle smacking floor tile. I was frustrated as I turned to pick it up but I found it still leaning against the wall. It had not fallen.
7. One day I heard nearly every dish in the kitchen break as a cabinet fell from the wall and hit the floor. I ran in to find nothing disturbed. No cabinet had fallen. There was no mess. All was normal.
8. Wife heard my electric guitar strumming itself in the family room one day. It was unplugged. Anyone who has played one of these knows how quiet they are when not powered. She heard this out in the hallway 20 feet away from the guitar. When I came home she had me strum it progressively louder until she was able to hear it again from the same position. I told her to come see how hard I was hitting it to make it make a sound she could hear from where she was. I was wailing on it at that point. There's no way she heard it from where she was without the same force applied to it then. I believe her when she says she heard it, she was genuinely scared.
9. Finally, we learned that an old woman had lived in this house until near to her death. She loved it so much that she was known to climb to the roof and sweep leaves from a 6/12 pitch rooftop. That's way too steep for a lady of 80 years old, yet the neighbor who has lived next door for 35 years says she did it. She loved the house and took care of it as much as she could. One night after 5 years of these strange occurrences, in desperation my wife addressed the woman out loud, saying she could live here if she chose but not to show herself or let her presence be known. I took a much harsher view of this, being that I do not believe in ghosts having an ability to remain here, however I do believe in angels and devils. I said out loud that whatever was here is clearly not welcome and I expect it to leave or else challenge it to show itself. Since then, nothing else has happened.
10. Several years later, 2010 - 2013, my wife and I cared for an elderly man in our home until he passed last year, WHILE IN OUR HOME. I have not seen any signs that he hung around either, and have even spent the night in the room where he passed at since then as well. While he was here with us, he claimed to have seen that black cat also. Insisted we had one, though we assured him we did not. I even witnessed him petting empty air and talking to it once. Alzheimer's?
11. Of course, we've both lost items, looked the house over from top to bottom, checking all obvious places, only to have them turn up later in some of the exact same places we had thoroughly checked before. Some even in plain sight. I once saw an episode of the Twilight Zone that would explain this, LOL. I have no logical explanation for much of what we witnessed, but I still do not believe in ghosts. I do, however, believe that sometimes we are able to interact with strange going ons, some of which may just be devils causing confusion. It's what they're good at.
I am currently using an ipad, laying in the bed of the same room where the dog witnessed something in the corner and woke us (repeatedly the whole time we had the dog). I won't lose a wink of sleep either. Goodnight!
