Okay - true story of one of the strangest events I've ever experienced.
Prefaced with the fact that I steadfastly disbelieve in "ghosts" or apparitions of people who have passed on. Parallel quantum waves, maybe, but not ghosts...
After my uncle Dave and his wife Annie got married, they bought a nice house in Glenn-Lyon, Pennsylvania. An Idyllic little home - white picket fence and everything.
After a few weeks, Dave would come to Gran'ma's house literally in tears about the weird things happening at their house. He was a hardcore person who wasn't prone to tears, so, while we laughed about some of his stories, we had to agree that something must be going on there to make such a strong person break down.
After a while, we got very concerned about his mental health. They had contacted several churches, suggesting that an exorcism be performed on their house, only to be laughed at. Coincidentally, the movie "The Exorcist" had just been released around the time of these events, so everybody was like "Yeah sure - we saw that movie too".
So one day, my aunt Helen and I decided to spend the night at their house and report back to Gran'ma and Gran'pa if we see any strange things.
Well, we spent the whole day there and nothing out of the ordinary at all.
After dinner, we kicked back in the living room to watch TV. Annie loved her new kitchen, and we could hear her singing and humming like queen of the castle while she cleaned up the dishes etc.
Dave, on the other hand - he's a strange cat - the kind of guy that keeps a fully-loaded double-barrel 12 gauge shotgun around at all times.
Well, it was the perfect family scene - little toddler crawling on the floor while we watch TV...
Suddenly, with no notice, the little baby's eyes bugged out and he started screaming bloody murder! We all looked at each other and at the kid, as Dave jumped up to grab him and see what the trouble was.
As he went to grab him, the kid suddenly "popped it in reverse" - like a B-Movie effect, the kid crawled backwards REAL FAST in a semi circle and ended up screaming under the coffee-table.
Dave pulled the kid out and comforted him as he slowly calmed down.
This was kind of odd, but it's Dave's kid, and a certain amount of weirdness is to be expected, so my summation was "...weird kid, probably gonna grow up retarded."
So after things calmed down, we resumed watching TV and Annie went back to her kitchen.
After a while, the front door suddenly burst open and I saw someone run inside and quickly dash up the stairs. My first thought was that it was Annie's little brother getting in trouble again and running into the house to avoid a fight or something.
But Dave grabbed his shotgun and ran up the stairs with me right behind him.
As we ran up the stairs, I couldn't see much with his big butt in front of me, but I did see the door of the linen closet slam shut and the doorknob shaking back and forth as if someone on the inside was trying to lock it or something.
BOOM!!
Dave let loose with both barrels, blowing the doorknob clear off. The door slowly opened showing nothing inside except a big hole in the wall.
A shotgun going off indoors is a deafening experience. We were standing there dazed for a few seconds, unable to hear anything except for the ringing in our ears. As the deafness subsided a little, I could vaguely hear Annie screaming like crazy in the kitchen.
I said "Oh sh!t Dave! Some of the shot hit Annie!"
We ran downstairs quickly to find Annie standing in the back of the kitchen screaming in terror. The doors of the cupboards were slamming open and shut all by themselves, and the dishes she had just washed were shuffling onto the ground like a deck of cards, one at a time.
The kitchen was freezing cold - we could see steam from our breaths which I couldn't tell if it was really steam or just us exhaling the smoke from the shotgun blast. I turned around and saw my old aunt Helen pick up the baby and haul ass down the driveway as fast as her chubby little legs would carry her.
At this point the lights in the house started going on/off and curtains blowing - even though the windows were closed. We got the hell outta there quick!
We jumped into Dave's jeep, and he can't get the thing started. The women were in hysterics, my ears were still ringing and the baby was screaming. We could see all the lights in the house turning on/off all by themselves - I couldn't hear much, but there was some mention of the weird sounds, but all I could hear was my ears still ringing.
Dave did something under the jeep's hood, it started up and we hauled outta there. A few times the jeep seemed to sway out of control and Dave said something was pulling the steering wheel. I said "Don't bring these ghosts to gran'ma's house Dave, she's got enough to worry about."
They left all their stuff at that house and never went back.
Later he told me that there was some history to that house. Seems the houses in that neighborhood were built over an old mine disaster. Sometime in the past (the story goes), the mine caved in, killing the miners and taking their homes/families down with them. It was bull-dozed over and new houses built on top of it. I don't know if that's a true story or not, but it's their justification for the strange things that happened there. He says it makes sense because one of the weird things they heard in the house sounded like miners in boots marching to clock-in to work.
It was a really strange experience - like something right out of a horror movie - special effects and all, but it still didn't convince me that there is some fanciful afterlife where dead people walk the planet.
But if that's what life-after-death is like, I'll be sure to come back here and let you know.
