Halloween

[White Fox]

I've been wondering lately. Since it is almost Halloween. Has anyone here had any real life ghost experiences? I don't mean going through a "Haunted House set up by the local service clubs." What I mean is, has anyone here had any experiences actually seeing ghosts, or out of body experiences or such? Things that you just could not otherwise explain...

 

W

[Worker 11811]

I had a very strange experience at a movie theater in Matthews, North Carolina.

 

I was a field service technician for a large theater chain, responsible for the upkeep and repair of 12 multiplex movie theaters spread out over 6 states. I got called to the theater in Matthews for an emergency repair.

 

Since it was the movie theater business, I often had to work late at night. You can't shut down a theater during the day to work on the equipment. Instead you wait till the theater closes and you work while nobody else is there.

 

I had a key to the building and the codes to the alarm system. This particular theater had a two zone system. The upstairs zone where I worked could be disarmed while the downstairs zone could remain armed.

 

It was about 3:00 A.M. when I finished my repairs. Now it was time to test the machine. I threaded up the movie and started it. The previews began to play and everything seemed to run okay so I walked away and started putting away my tools and finishing my paperwork. The previews were over and the policy snipe began to play.

 

You know the one.... It's that animated song with the dancing cats.

 

I looked out the booth window at the theater to see if the movie was still playing okay and I noticed the shadows of about 3 people walking down the aisle of the theater toward the seats! I ran over to the window and the people looked up and saw me. They headed back up the aisle toward the exit. I spun around and headed for the door leading downstairs.

 

I looked at the alarm control panel... Still armed and no alarms going off!

 

I quickly typed in the passcode and flew down the stiars. From the time I saw the people in the theater to the time I hit the bottom of the stairs, less than 30 seconds had passed.

 

I figured it was the night cleaners or one of the managers but all the cleaners should have finished their work by 3:00 A.M. and there's no reason for a manager to come in that late.

 

I SHOULD have run right into those people, whoever they were, when I got to the lobby but there was nobody there!

 

I searched every theater, all the bathrooms and the entire lobby. All the doors were still locked and there was nobody to be found any where.

 

I went back upstairs, rearmed the system and checked the activity logs. There was nothing to indicate that there had been anybody in the building except me. I was pretty spooked!

 

I finished my reports and put my tools back in the trunk of my car, signed out and left.

 

To this day, nearly 10 years later, I still don't know who or what I saw.

I guarantee there were people there! I saw them and I know they saw me. But I have never been able to figure out if I saw real people or if they were some kind of ghosts.

 

That was the last time I set foot in that theater.

[Guest]

Too many to name them all.

 

I grew up on the coast of Virginia which has way too many spirits floating around, many of whom I 'met' very early in life.

 

So I grew up knowing such entities were quite real.

 

One of my most prominent situations was in Cincinnati. Another place crammed packed with the spookiest of spooks.

 

I had rented an apartment in a building of about 1840's vintage which had been a mansion turned into a girls school turned into an apartment building. I knew a number of the tenants which is how I got to be there.

 

It was the picture perfect haunted house. Four stories with a Mansard roof which is where our apartment was. A grand territorial view of the wooded old suburb of the northern neighborhood near UC. It was at the 'dead end' of the street and quite secluded for an urban situation.

The guy I was to share the apartment with however left after spending the first night there. He said he felt and smelled a ghost following him all night and 'she' hung over him all night while he tried in vain to sleep.

 

I felt and smelled her too but she wasn't too obnoxious. Just a bit of a musty whiff every so often. Otherwise easy to ignore.

 

After he left I had the apartment and the haint all to myself. She wasn't too annoying and aside from some strange anomalies such as all the forks of all the tenants missing one day it was nothing particularly disturbing. They found them several days later strewn about the basement. This apparently happened with some regularity.

 

Everyone in the building knew of the ghost. In fact it was a prerequisite for living there. There was a long and fit for Halloween story to go with her demise even and we spent Halloween reciting it at a building party.

 

I will always associate that time with Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals composition played by Wittmore and Lowe, dual pianists. I had just gotten it and played it frequently. I think the ghost found it calming as she never seemed to raise a ruckus as she did with others. I still have the recording and still play it from time to time with memories of that time and place.

 

OFF

[White Fox]

there is a local ghost story took place near here. A friend of mine has talked to those involved.

 

A Daughter and her Grandson were out in the car one day. Her Grandson said that he wanted to go to see his Grandfather. Daughter told him, that his Grandfather had gone on to a better place, and he would never see his Grandfather again. The kid was firm that he wanted to go, so Daughter decided to take him to the cemetery. They got to the cemetery. Promptly the child pointed the direction to go. Turn right here. Turn left here. There is where he is, right over there. Well, the daughter was breathless as she knew that her son had never been to this place before. She turned around and asked the kid how he knew the way to where his Grandfather was.

 

The Grandchild answered simply... "Well, Grandpa is sitting right beside me in the car showing me where to go!"

 

Once again, a friend of mine has talked to those involved.

 

Could it be? You decide.........

 

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

W

[Worker 11811]

Not a ghost story but the Bears hope you had a happy Halloween and wish you well on All Saints Day!

 

We hope you got lots of treats and no tricks!

 

(Click the pic!)

[White Fox]

An interesting thought for you...

 

I wonder how many people would be able to answer today if you asked them "What does Trick or Treat" mean? I'll bet many if not most think they/you are saying "Trigger Treat!" in fact. Not only kids do not know what it means. Many adults do not either.

 

I've always wondered though. Why is it "Trick or Treat"? I always thought it should have been "Treat or Trick"!

 

W

[Worker 11811]

Heck! I bet 90% of the people don't even know the significance of Halloween, let alone what "Trick or Treat" means.

 

Hint:

In Spain and in many Spanish-speaking South American countries, the traditional name for Halloween is, "La noche antes del Día de Todos los Santos."

[White Fox]

God, I would need four Irish Creams before I could even begin to pronounce that!

 

W

[Worker 11811]

Direct translation: "The night before All Saint's Day."

But many Spanish people just call it "Halloween."

"La noche antes del Día de Todos los Santos" is the traditional name for it.

 

All Saint's Day is the Christian feast of remembrance for family members who have died in the past year. It is the day when Christians pray for the souls of the departed so they may get into Heaven.

 

In olden times it was believed that the boundaries between the Earthly world and the Spiritual world broke down so that people may commune with the souls of their departed relatives.

 

Early Catholic church doctrine specified that the new day begins at sundown so, the evening BEFORE All Saint's Day was considered the BEGINNING of the feast. It was originally called "All Hallows Evening." Over time it was shortened to "Halloween."

 

Scary costumes were worn, originally, to ward off evil spirits who might try to harm us.

 

Trick or Treating was originally done to appease evil spirits who were not scared off by the costumes.

 

A candle burning inside a Jack-O-Lantern was left out on the door step so that the spirits of our loved ones could find their way home for one last visit before they made their final passage into Heaven.

 

The ancient observance of "All Hallows Eve" probably has its roots in Pagan rituals but, in Medieval times, Popes of the Catholic Church often moved Christian holidays around so that they overlapped ancient Pagan ones, thus "coverting" them to Christian observances.

[FrBrGr]

I have been so busy with our Presidential Election (I have been actively involved in one of the candidate's campaigns) that I haven't had much of a chance to do anything but eat, breathe, drink and sleep politics for the last couple of months, let alone visit the Den very often. After next Tuesday, I hope the pressure will be significantly reduced, I'll be celebrating a great victory, and I'll be here more often.

 

This is an interesting topic. "The Duchess" and I share our home with a poltergeist, the spirit of a girl named "Paola." She is a very mischievous, yet lovable and sometimes very funny little snot who I think we'd miss if she ever took leave of us and never came back. After next week, I'll relate some of the things she's pulled on us over the years. I'll see if I can get Foxy Red ("The Duchess'" screen name) to help me with this thread - at least to the extent of reminding me of all of Paola's antics.

 

The latest was just on Thursday. We work out at the "Y" a couple of times a week, and after we came home on Monday, "The Duchess" washed all of my gear, and put what she thought was all of it back in my gym bag. Just before we were ready to leave, I saw my gym socks laying on top of my chest of drawers. I commented to "The Duchess" that I saw that she had laid them there for me to put in my bag. She said that not only did she not put them there, she had straightened the top of my dresser not more than five minutes earlier, and they weren't there then. I looked in my gym bag, and there were no gym socks. Either Paola took them out of the gym bag and put them there to mess with our minds, or "The Duchess" mistakenly put the socks away in my sock drawer after they were laundered, and Paola was just making sure I had all my gear!

[FrBrGr]

A couple more of Paola's antics while I have a few minutes this morning, then off to more campaigning.

 

One of Paola's favorite things to do is move things in our house. Sometimes she moves objects from one place to another without rhyme nor reason, and other times it's as if she is rearranging things because she thinks her design is better.

 

I have several watches. Obviously, I wear only one at a time, so I have a special box I keep in the top drawer of my chest that holds the ones I'm not wearing. If I'm not wearing a watch, it's in the box. It's that simple. One of the watches I hadn't been wearing was a gold watch that has a black face and a diamond set where the number "12" should be. One day, I had a special presentation that I had to make at the University, and so I wore a black suit, white shirt, gold tie and matching handkerchief for the jacket's breast pocket. I thought I'd wear my gold watch with the black face. It wasn't in the box. I didn't really have to look anywhere else; the watch would be in the box. If I'm not wearing a watch, it's in my watch box! But it wasn't there. I searched for it anyway, but to no avail. The next day, "The Duchess" was going to wear one of her favorite necklaces to work, but it turned up missing, too! Now, if anyone else had access to our home, they would have immediately been suspect, but no one else does. We live by ourselves, and when we have company, we usually entertain them in our family room, where we have our entertainment center and bar. That's two floors down from our master bedroom. Our company never goes up stairs to the bedroom area. These two pieces of jewelry just vanished!

 

Several months later, I went into my watch box again to change watches - and my gold watch with the black face had returned! That same morning, as "The Duchess" was getting ready for work, she went into her dresser to get a bra and pair of panties, and guess what was sitting on top of her panties in her dresser drawer? Her necklace!

 

Worker, you're not the only one who has bears living in your house. We have several ourselves, and "The Duchess" has them strategically placed in a room in our house we refer to as the "Victorian Room." It's pretty much her room - decorated in a Victorian motif, and definitely with a feminine touch. There is a small bench in the room, which is just big enough to seat three of the bears. They're usually arranged on the bench in order of their height. The largest bear in back, the next largest sitting in front of that one, and the smallest one in front. Her two favorites - Hobble and Heidi - usually sit on her bed. Heidi at the lower right of the bed, leaning against a (decorator) pillow, looking toward the doorway that leads into the hallway. (Heidi is a curious sort - "nebbie" is more like it - and she likes to watch humans come and go. Hobble has his favorite spot on the left side of the bed, near the headboard, positioned so he can look out of the window. He likes to look outside and watch whatever he watches during the day.

 

I can't begin to tell you how many times we have come in after having been away from our home, to find the bears rearranged! It happens all the time! One time, we came home to find all the bears on the bed, and there was an indentation on the top of the bed, next to the bears, where a small body had been . . .

 

To be continued . . .