Do you believe in ghosts?

In this post, you will either find me very interesting, very delusional, both or neither.

In this post I will relate you some some of my personal experience with GHOSTS!!!!!

Often, when I think of the stories I am about to relate, I do sometimes wonder if I was delusional. I didn't get the impression that I was delusional, but does a delusional person know they are delusional? Usually not.

It does help that the people around me at the time would swear that I was not delusional, and in some cases, they even witnessed some of the things that I was seeing.  So either we were ALL delusional and in denial or something odd was in fact happening.

And no, none of us were drunk or doing drugs at the time (yes quite the boring straight crowd... )

When I lived in a very small town where I was growing up, a few friends and I decided to experiment with the Ouija board.  I was less than 13 at the time, probably 11 or 12 and very impressionable.  This happened in the basement of a friend's house, we were 5-6 people.  During the experiment, we are calling the spirits as one would and eventually the pointer started moving, pointing to yes or no, spelling things.  All of us were naturally convinced that one or more of the others were moving the pointer.  The questions became disbelieving and silly ans the answers were becoming more brusque.  No one believed it.  No one believed we may have been dealing with an actual spirit until a ball of fire materialized out of nothing and shot across the room.  To this day I cannot explain that ball of fire.  It was daytime, I don't recall any electrical in the path and there was no storm.

We dropped the board and the ran out of there.  Took us a while to go back to the basement.

The second ghost I experienced was when I was a teenager.  Lucky for me, my mother also believes our home was haunted.   The first sign was stuff not being where we put it.

I know, we just forgot where we placed it, it wasn't a ghost.  Trust me through the years I have often used that excuse.  It's the most logical conclusion of course.  Why I would put a full glass of water in my underwear drawer or at the very back of the tallest shelf is beyond me, but you are right, it could totally be the reasonable explanation.

All this stuff not being where it's supposed to be or odd breezes where there should not be any air movement was not freaking us out in the least.  In fact, my mother and I were finding it very interesting.  One day however, I had an experience that did completely scare me.  We had a large washroom and on a wall opposite the toilet, close to the door was a long mirror.  Don't worry, it wasn't placed in a way that you could see yourself sitting on the throne, doing your business.  That's a little creepy...  Anyway, I was sitting on said throne, doing my business as one would, probably reading while at it as one often does, when I  caught a glimpse of something in the mirror from the edge of my vision.  I looked up and in the mirror, there was a pale translucent figure of a young man with curly hair.  He looked like he was calling out to me and his hand was reaching out. 

It's a darn good thing I was sitting where I was sitting and already in the process else I would definitely have soiled my pants!

When I walked out of the washroom , I guess I must have looked a little white and or scared because my mom commented that I looked like I had seen a ghost - an expression often used in our parts.

I asked some friends of mine who had been living in my area since birth and her parents even before, they knew most previous owners of our house and they said the description resembled the son of a previous owner who had died suffocated.

The next haunted experience that I recall was when I was a young adult with a young child. I was working in security in Ottawa.  One day (evening really) I was assigned to the Museum of Nature in the Victoria Memorial Museum Building.When I was given the assignment, they told me to report for duty at 8 or 9.  I was to do a night shift and if things went well I might get a permanent assignment to that building as up till then I was an on call employee.

When I showed up for work, a little early as my usual, I noticed the museum was closed.  Usually when the museum is closed, you have to gain entrance through a secondary entrance.  I walked around the building a few times to try and find another entrance with maybe a buzzer or doorbell to let me in.  There was some construction going on in the back of the building making it difficult to locate an entrance.  Not finding anything, I decide to try my luck with the front entrance.  At the very least there should be an alarm to alert them of my presence.  (This was before everybody had a cellphone and besides, a single mom on a security guard income, on call at that, no way I could afford a cellphone.)


Victoria Memorial Museum Building

To my surprise, the door opened when I tried it out! I walked in and went to the Atrium and started calling out.  Moments later, a security guard appears asking how I got in.

I tell him that I came in the front door.  He tells me it's impossible, he locked the front doors himself and has checked them during his patrol, they are locked and the alarm is set.  I assure him that I did come in through the front doors, they are not locked and no alarm sounded.  He explains that the alarm is silent, it sounds at another building across the river from where the authorities can be contacted.

We walk over to the door I used to get in and he checks it.  It's locked.  He calls the other security desk from the other building to ask about the alarm.  They say the alarm only sounded a few seconds ago and not before when I came in.  The thing is, if the door had not been properly latched, the alarm would have sounded at the other building until it was properly latched.  As this did not happen I have to trust that the doors were in fact closed, locked and alarmed.  Considering the Museum's reputation, one of us decided that the resident ghost must have liked me and decided to offer me a welcome.

You can read this article regarding some of the hauntings.

I did wind up being stationed to that building until a labour dispute a few months later.  While I worked there, I had many interesting adventures, most non ghostly, but I did experience a few moments with the resident ghost.  Back then I had long hair that I would tie in a french braid to go to work.  Often when I would patrol the fourth floor, I would feel a light tugging on my braid, playful in nature, almost to say hello, I am here.  This tugging would sometimes be followed by a cold breeze.

The next experience I had with the supernatural was a little later.

 I had moved in a town house in the Ottawa area with two other security guards.  Since we were in a labour dispute many of the guards, not working opposite shifts hung out together and our home became a natural hub outside of the union office.  It is in this house that over the next years I as well as others would come to experience a range of difficult to explain events.

To start I am listing them below.  I will come back and flesh out the details of the stories.  Come back regularly for more.

• 1/2 German Sheppard dog in attack pose standing on me protecting me against nothing, facing the door.
• Growling behind me.
• Stomping in the upstairs hallway.
• Daughter seeing red eyes and growling beside her bed.

The Chair
We had recently moved in and had a few friends over.  The TV was on
and we were drinking sodas and smoking cigarettes. (Yes we smoked inside back then)  It was still winter as we moved in for the first of March.  We were all chatting and having fun when suddenly, one member of the group started staring at one corner of the living room where the rocking chair was.  One by one we started noticing that he was looking at the corner and turned to look at what he was staring at.  It just so happens that the rocking chair was rocking by itself!.  No one was sitting in the chair (as far as we could tell) and there was no reason for the chair to be rocking, but there is was, just rocking away.  One of us eventually asked, "hey guys. you seeing it too?"  to which we all responded a version of "yup" or other.  "it's rocking right?"  Again we all agreed .  The chair did stop rocking and we eventually started joking about it.  We had signed a two year lease and this was looking very promising.

The Ceiling Lamp

On another occasion, we had a different set of people over.  I think it might have been the family of one of the housemates but I have to admit I am not sure,  This was in 1996 after all!.  Again we were all sitting in the living room chatting about this and that, mostly about the new home when someone asked if our dining room ceiling lamp had a habit of doing that.  Confused we looked at the dining room.  There was the ceiling lamp softly swinging back and forth.  We moved to the dining room to investigate.  Our first thought was that maybe a strong wind was coming from a window.  The window and door were both shut tight (it was still winter and that year winter lasted a long time.  In April it was still cold, you can check historical data at the weather office.  We looked in the kitchen, we looked in the basement, no reason for the lamp to be swinging.  During our search for an explanation it had stopped swinging.  We chalked it up (and the chair from earlier) as something wonky to which we would eventually find an explanation.We were not ready quite yet to blame spirits...

The Wall



Ignore the teen getting ready for prom, it was
 a wall like the one on the back with the shelves

 There was this one wall in the living room.  It was the wall connected to the upper and lower stairs.  Perfect wall to hang large posters, clocks or decorative fans.  It was kind of a "hallway wall" as you walked by it to go from the font door to that back door.

It was a perfect wall to use for decoration, BUT nothing would stay on the wall.  Anything we hung on it would fall within 24 hours regardless of the fixture.  We were a stubborn and persistent bunch, we kept trying over and over again, with different things to see if anything would stick for the whole two years we lived there.  Always by the next morning, whatever with had tried to hang would be on the floor.

You tell people stuff like this and usually, they don't believe you so friends of ours would offer to hang up the objects for us, to show us that we "must" have done something wrong.  Always, on the floor by the next morning.  Years later I would move back to the neighbourhood and move into a house with the same layout. (As seen in the picture)  In this second house, there was never any problems hanging anything on the wall.

The Cigar

Once we were settled in, moved the furniture around the living room a few times to determine the optimal placement for each item of furniture (to be changed again a few times over the next year or so) we finally started relaxing in our new home.  Our sectional couch, the kind that seats comfortably 6 people was placed against the far wall with one side creating a separation to make a hallway of sorts leading to the kitchen and dining room.  In the corner where bot 1/2 of the sectional met and incidentally at the junction between the living room and the dining room, we would often smell a very sweet tobacco smell.  There were a few smokers, and quite a few of our guests also smoked but no one actually smoked anything that smelled like that.  At a bar a friend of mine smelled something like it and we found out it smelled like Cheroot Cherry cigars.  Every time the smell would appear we would investigate and try to figure to source of it and we could never figure it out.  Many people have experienced this smell, some individually, others at the same time. To this day my daughter remembers the smell.

Good?

One night, the boyfriend that I had at the time was sleeping over.  He had recently broken up with a long time girlfriend and he was staying between my place and his parents for the time being.

This was definitely not a stellar example of humanity.  Dare I say he was a looser?  Well I didn't realise this right away, I was young, impressionable and had a desire to be loved that I guess I was not very fussy.  I also think that I have a tendency to be rather gullible.

Anyway back to the story at hand.  That night, he was sleeping over.  During the night, as I slept, I turned over, swinging my arm.  Why not?  I was after all rather used to sleeping by myself and having my American king water bed all to myself.  As I turned, my elbow caught him in the eye.  He of course woke up and said ouch or something... I don't know I was sleeping.  He then clearly heard someone say "Good!" so he shakes me to ask why I had said good.

I wake up and I am confused.  I did not say good as I was sleeping.  Sure I could have said it in my sleep, this would not have been the first time I sleeptalk but we determined that it wasn't as when I sleep talk I mumble and this good was quite clear.

Now I figure the resident ghost must have been less gullible than I to the loserness of this guy and rejoiced to the fact that I had hurt him, even if unintentional.

My daughter's imaginary friend.

When we lived in that house, my daughter was between the ages of 4 to 6.  Quite a normal age to develop and imaginary friend.  Well one day my daughter started talking to me about "Casper" We are talking about 1997.  The movie Casper and Wendy with Hilary Duff has recently been released and she also loved the older Casper with Christina Ricci, so naming her imaginary friend "Casper" seemed totally logical to me.  She would tell me all kinds of stories about the adventures and conversations she had with Casper.  Casper would play Sailor Moon and barbies with her.  It looked like she was having more fun with Casper than her real neighbourhood friends but I was not worried.  Having an imaginary friend is a normal phase of growing up.  If it continued too long then I would address it but not before.

One day, I was putting away the clean towels in the upstairs hallway and was listening to her play in that half listening way that mothers often listen when suddenly I heard a deep male voice coming from her room.  That was odd.  Our male house mate was at work and none of the boyfriends or male friends were in the house.  It was just my daughter and I as far as I knew. 

I opened my daughter's door and asked her who she was talking to.  "Casper!" she replied in that cute totally adorable way she often had.  I walk in her room, asking some questions about her playmate, I look in the closet, anywhere a grown person might hide (which was not a whole lot places as she had a mate's bed) and found no one.  Confused I turned to my daughter and start asking her some questions about Casper such as what does he look like.  She told me that Casper was daddylike and wore funny clothes.  I asked funny like a clown?  No she says funny like different.

Did my daughter with her active imagination dream up the description?  Did she actually "see" Casper?  One may never know as she doesn't remember Casper.  She remembers other occurrences from that time but not her play times with Casper.

Scruffy

During the times of what we call the hauntings, we had for a while, a small dog.  He was a terrier mix, looked like a Lahsa Apso all in beige.  This little doggie was a rescue, adopted in the wrong home for many reasons.  I gather the main reason he was abandoned was because he would eat and destroy everything in sight if not tied up.  We tried training him but training only worked while we were supervising.  Today, I would use a large crate rather than tying him up, but we were not familiar with the technique at the time.

My daughter and Scruffy playing

Anyway, Scruffy's problems were as much natural as unnatural.

At night, because of his eating everything in sight behaviour, we used to tie him up at the front door.  This gave him space to walk around a bit, we made the are safe so he could not eat anything and need to go to the vet because of it (he'd get sick from the stuff he ate you see) and if he had an accident, it was the only area in the house other than the washroom that didn't have carpet.

One night, I woke up to the sound of him whining. This was unusual.  This dog had many faults but whining in the middle of the night was not one of them.  Curious I went downstairs to see what was happening.  I found him hanging from the doorknob, all his feet off the ground.  The chain was wrapped around his neck several times and he was choking.

The way the chain was wrapped around his neck, it was unlikely that he did that all by himself.  He may have started it but he could not have finished it.  Had I not woken up, my daughter would have found her dog dead hanging from the doorknob in the morning.

It's wasn't the boyfriend.

 As mentioned earlier, I was living with other people, two of which were a couple.

One evening, this couple was in bed being playful.  What they didn't realize right away is that they were not alone, and it was being playful too.  I never got all the details of what they were doing (nor did I want them) but they did tell me about this one interesting part.

At a certain point, the girl felt a gentle slap on her behind.  Now this was not a loving activity that she enjoyed, so she told her boyfriend to stop it.  He said he was not the one slapping her.  She felt another slap and he again denied slapping her, the third time it happened she noticed that both his hands were not around her but rather an another part of her body.

Indeed it had not been her boyfriend, playfully slapping her butt.

Remind me to tell you about the last house, my son and my housemates' mother.

Thanks for reading!