Something's Happening Here/What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear

[Dan Gould]

I've batted around the idea of sharing this with the board for a while but now I figure, what the hell - I can handle a little ridicule and if this brings out any other "personal experiences" people want to share - or they want to tell me they don't think I'm crazy, that's cool too. And since the story is pretty nutty, I figure I should use the poll function and find out what everyone thinks. So please read my story, then answer the poll question. Its long, but (I hope) worth it.

This all started in late October. As many of you know, we have two dogs, Coltrane is the smaller black/white dog in my avatar, Gracie is the Weimaraner. Coltrane is the proverbial "big dog in a little dog's body". He is fearless and the most "alpha" dog I've ever known. He doesn't back down from anyone or anything - at least not until we convinced him who was boss back when he was about 9 months old.

So - its about lunch time and I went downstairs to take the dogs out and eat. Gracie did her usual race to the back fence after the squirrels. Coltrane however took about two steps off the back door, stopped dead in his tracks, staring, then his ears went back, his head and butt went down towards the ground, and he slunk to the door. When I opened it, he was off like a shot, ran upstairs and refused to come back down the stairs - I even tried using peanut butter to coax him down the stairs but he wasn't budging.

Strange behavior to say the least. Its been suggested that an animal might have been in the backyard recently and it was the scent that he reacted to. But his makes little sense as Gracie spent most of the morning downstairs watching for the nefarious squirrels. Had any animal - particularly something rare enough to emit a smell that would frighten him, she would have sounded the alarm. On top of that we simply cannot imagine any animal that would make him behave that way. As I said, the most alpha dog we've ever known. Other dogs, possums, snakes - he doesn't back down.

So - eventually Coltrane comes back down the stairs and behaves normally. Now its about 4:30 and time for another out. Coltrane runs off to the back of the yard, so does Gracie. I'm standing by the door, which is open, when Gracie comes up toward me, stops in her tracks, also looking at nothing, and her eyes went wide open in a sort of fearful grimace and she proceeded to start running around the yard in clear distress. She's drooling, her eyes are big and she is totally unaware of her surroundings. She hits the door running, and I think "close the door, keep her inside and get her under control". As I am closing the door, she is heading back out - and even though the door is closing, Gracie is not stopping. I'm convinced that if I had closed the door all the way, she was going through it. As it was, she banged her shoulder on the door, ran to the back, came back to where she had been when it started, and started violently trembling. She went down on her side, in a seizure. It lasted about two minutes and eventually she came out of it, got unsteadily to her feet and a short while later was moving pretty normally.

At this point I am talking to my wife and she has determined in her own mind that something paranormal or supernatural or whatever is going on, and that she will follow her Wicca beliefs (that's witchcraft/paganism to those of you who don't know) to try to secure her family and home.

I got the dogs in to the house and without really thinking about it, I said aloud "If you want to fuck with someone, fuck with me, not my dogs." My wife was unhappy when I told her this but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Immediately thereafter there were two loud knocks that emanated in the living room where I was sitting with the dogs. I cannot explain them.

When my wife got home, she finally told me about some of the things that she hadn't bothered to tell me before. I should say in advance that her and her sister share a history of what I guess would be called "sensitivity" to these things. When they were young teens, they got out a Ouija board - and all hell broke loose in the house. OK, maybe not Poltergeist hell, but really wild shit started happening - and Patty was subsequently told that it would behoove her not to mess around with Ouija boards again. The two of them have long believed that their deceased grandfather has hung around the family. They know this because of the olfactory presence of his preferred cologne. So - a couple of years earlier, Patty was going to stay at our house for several nights in order to reduce her morning commute to her training sessions for a new job. After the first night, Patty decided not to stay and now, Sue informed me that Patty left early because of her extreme discomfort in the house. She felt that she was being watched by a man. Sue also told me of her own experiences, which included a perception of "something" in the house.

All of this is just to give a background understanding, you can take what you will from it. The events with Coltrane and Gracie were my first experiences of any kind. I would describe my own beliefs as a skeptic but one who is open to being shown otherwise. Not a Mulder-like "I want to believe" but "I'm willing to believe, if you can show me a reason why I should." As far as the dogs are concerned, Coltrane's behavior doesn't make a lot of sense. I have a very hard time believing the "rational" explanations I've mentioned already. As for Gracie, it could be simply a seizure, which can be preceded by severe alterations in personality. But she's never had another one since, and in the context of what happened with Coltrane, its also very strange.

OK, enough about the dogs. My wife came home and did her Wicca thing. She enlisted her friend who she regards as a particularly powerful witch. Copious amounts of salt was involved to "seal" and "protect" the house. Particular attention was paid to the back gate. And interestingly enough, the next time the dogs were let out, they went straight to the back gate, paced back and forth, and their hackles went up - it was as if they themselves sensed what had been done the night before. Weird.

OK, so that was how things started. Sue was concerned that my statement "fuck with me, not the dogs" would make myself succeptible to whatever is in the house. In fact, nothing much happened except for some strange events at night. Twice I was awakened to a female voice in the room (and it couldn't be my wife talking in her sleep because my snoring sent her out of our room a couple of years ago). There were some other things, but I have a real hard time paying any attention to something that happens at night, due to my near-deafness and severely limited eyesight. So I don't really regard any of that as significant.

Flash-forward to Christmas. I went home to CT to visit the folks, without Sue. The first night I was there, I was awakened by a loud metallic bang, directly above the bed. I sleep pretty soundly, and with a pillow over my head, so this noise was pretty loud to wake me up. I sat up, looked around, went back to sleep. As I said, things that happen while I'm in bed don't constitute much to me.

But I do think that something was letting me know it was there - because on Christmas night, after dinner, I was standing by the dinner table, talking to Mom while Dad went back and forth between the table and the kitchen. As we were speaking, the center of the waist of my pants were pulled backwards, such that my butt moved about 4 inches backwards. My immediate thought was that my father had just tugged on my pants and I turned immediately to my right to see if he was there. He was four feet past me and he couldn't have done it anyway as he was using two hands to put a serving dish back where it belongs.

(Here is where I tell you that my brother summarizes the story by saying that "a ghost gave you a wedgie" but I have to say that the motion was outward, not upward, so it really wasn't a wedgie. But other than that, yeah, I guess you could say that.)

Edit to add a detail I forgot:

After dinner was over I went to my room to change into some more comfortable clothes, and I announced aloud, "You ain't impressing me." (Which was a lie because I was seriously impressed and not a little freaked out by having my pants tugged by something unseen).

Later that night when it was time for bed, my mother went upstairs and I went to the other wing of the house where the kids bedrooms are. As I closed the bathroom door, immediately outside the door and to the left there was a loud crashing noise, as if the books on the shelves were being violently brought together or thrown on the floor. This noise was really loud and while my mother wondered whether it could have been coming from the outside, I know that what I heard was right outside the bathroom door. Strangely enough, no books were disturbed or had fallen to the floor.

OK, so I get back home, tell my wife what has gone on ... and nothing much happens in the house. We actually discussed a theory that what she and her friend did had protected the house and the family, but when I left the house to go home, I wasn't protected anymore. Who knows? I only know for sure that something unseen pulled me backwards, and that somehow, a very loud noise was created in the hallway when I entered the bathroom.

Now, we've had two more events in the house, both involving things going missing. I had three new CDs sitting on the desk below my monitor. They sat there for a couple of weeks, and then one Saturday morning three weeks ago, I realized - they aren't there anymore. Did I move them? Did I take them downstairs to listen to later? I turn the place upside down looking for them but they are nowhere to be found. I even looked through a shopping bag I had taken out of the closet which had about 75 CDRs, work stuff that had been backed up (and that I had to go through earlier in the week to find an audio file that needed to be fixed). I went through the house twice, including the shopping bag.

So I am thinking to myself "could something have taken them?" just as my wife says "Maybe your little friend took them." In fact, she tells me now that things of hers have disappeared, including wands that she uses for her rituals. They are either in her drawer or in her hand, and two of them have disappeared.

So, again with no forethought, I said "ha ha ha, that was a good one. You got me good - now can I please have my discs back?" I made another pass through the house - the office, the music room, downstairs, every room. Nothing. I sat down at the desk, and as my eyes went down toward that shopping bag, my eyes spotted a printed edge and lo and behold, there were the discs.

I know what you are thinking - its simple and obvious: you absentmindedly put the discs in with the CDRs when you were looking for the disc you needed for work, and its easy to miss the discs when they are in a bag with 75 other discs. There's just one problem - these CDRs weren't in jewel boxes, or slimlines. They are all in CD mailers, just barely bigger than a disc. And I went through every single CD mailer in that bag - four times in total, and I did so by taking out five or six at a time and turning them sideways to see if any discs were in between. I took out every CD mailer in this way, and then put them back in the same way. And I did that twice. The CDs were not in that bag. It is not possible that I took the CDR mailers out of that bag and put them back in, four times, while missing the three CDs I was looking for.

So I called my wife and told her what had happened - and she tells me that in trying to protect the house, she had summoned "Fairies" which are known protectors of animals and also known to be pranksters. According to the head of her "Circle" I did exactly the right thing in asking for the CDs back.

So, just last night I knew exactly what to do when my wallet turned up missing. You see on Monday I had grabbed my wallet and brought it to the office to pay for something online. I didn't need to leave the house again until Tuesday night, so it sat there in the office. I went into the kitchen where I keep my car keys/wallet/watch and I saw the keys but no wallet. Then I remembered, I had left it upstairs in the office (in fact, I left it in the exact same place the CDs had been left before they disappeared - take from that what you will). Went upstairs - no wallet. Asked for it back, and I went back to the kitchen. Turned on the light, and there was the wallet in its regular place. And before you ask, let me say that I looked for the wallet five minutes earlier with the light on. It wasn't in the room. Then, it was.

So - that's the story of the Gould household. Do we have uninvited guests? Am I crazy? Does anyone have their own story to share?

Edited February 25, 2010 by Dan Gould

[Chuck Nessa]

This will take some time to digest. I may or may not respond later. At this point, I wish you all the best.

[clifford_thornton]

Wow. Good luck with it. FWIW, I would say 4 or 1 would be the right answer.

[Chuck Nessa]

not enough choices.

[Dan Gould]

What's the preferred choice that isn't there?

I hope its not my original last option: "What? I'm supposed to read all of that?"

[Chuck Nessa]

all of your options either accept paranormal stuff or suggest you are nuts/misguided.

if you really need help, why a priest? Is this your only option?

you might not really believe or you could be putting us on.

we are expected to believe your interpretations of things. maybe something else is reality.

not dumping on you, just looking for other options.

[Alexander]

Well, I can't explain what's happening. I don't believe in ghosts or the supernatural myself and I've never personally experienced anything to make me think that such things are real. I'm not dismissing or minimizing your experience in any way. Clearly there's some unexplained things happening around you, but I since I don't believe in an immortal soul and I don't believe that dead people contact us, I don't know what to tell you.

To me, the whole problem with ghosts is that the whole thing is so darned silly. If a ghost can move objects, why can't they just pick up a pen and write: "It's me. Uncle Bob. I'm a ghost and you can't see me or hear me, but I can make things move." Why do they always harass people in private? Why has a ghost never floated in the middle of Times Square and made somebody float ten feet off the ground in full view of a huge crowd of people?

In other words, I think there IS a rational explanation for the stuff happening to you. I just don't know what it is.

[Spontooneous]

Somewhere in your area there's probably a society that investigates these things. Might be worth the effort to contact them. (Might not be, but that's always the risk.)

[Big Wheel]

Somewhere in your area there's probably a society that investigates these things. Might be worth the effort to contact them. (Might not be, but that's always the risk.)

We're talking about South Florida here. The society would not have time for day jobs.

[kenny weir]

I think there IS a rational explanation for the stuff happening to you. I just don't know what it is.

And maybe that's a pretty fair defintion in itself of the term "ghost"!

Hence, I see no reason why questions 3 & 4 should be considered mutually exclusive.

Dan, you left out an important detail: Who were the CDs by?

I have only a single long-ago (30 years) experience with the paranormal, and that was fleeting and slight - but, significantly, it was shared with another person. So for me, there was no doubt about it, even if it more a matter of mutual telepathy rather ghostly emanations.

Other than that, I'm open-minded.

Not a Mulder-like "I want to believe" but "I'm willing to believe, if you can show me a reason why I should."

That's about right for me.

Please keep us posted on this interesting situation!

It sounds like you're bemused if a little wary, which seems a lot healthier than jumpy and fearful

Edited February 25, 2010 by kenny weir

[Dan Gould]

all of your options either accept paranormal stuff or suggest you are nuts/misguided.

if you really need help, why a priest? Is this your only option?

you might not really believe or you could be putting us on.

we are expected to believe your interpretations of things. maybe something else is reality.

not dumping on you, just looking for other options.

I am being completely sincere and accurate in the essay I wrote. I do believe something paranormal is going on, and attempted to explain what happened and why I favor the paranormal explanation. Nothing is a put-on.

As to the question of help, I realize now that there are other choices, and it appears I can edit the poll still. So I changed the first choice and added a new one. If you can suggest another change please do.

[kenny weir]

I'd definitely advise against priests or other religious types, Christian or otherwise.

I have recent personal experience.

They will always and only interpret anything in a way that confirms their own belief systems.

Who ya going to call?

Maybe that "Where Dead Voices Gather" fellow could be just the ticket!

[Dan Gould]

To me, the whole problem with ghosts is that the whole thing is so darned silly. If a ghost can move objects, why can't they just pick up a pen and write: "It's me. Uncle Bob. I'm a ghost and you can't see me or hear me, but I can make things move." Why do they always harass people in private? Why has a ghost never floated in the middle of Times Square and made somebody float ten feet off the ground in full view of a huge crowd of people?

In other words, I think there IS a rational explanation for the stuff happening to you. I just don't know what it is.

I think the theory goes like this: First of all, life is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed, it only changes form, right? But existing in a different plane, without a body to act upon things, means that spirits cannot just go around and, as you want to see, write out a note to someone to let them know they are there. The ability to interact or effect things is therefore limited.

Has anyone seen the show Celebrity Ghost Stories? Some pretty interesting stories told there, like Sammy Hagar's story about the day his father died, he appeared at Hagar's apartment four hundred miles away, drunk, loud, belligerent, and Hagar pushed him out the door. Minutes later the call came - his father had died several hundred miles away. Wild story, and he sure sounds convincing when he tells it.

[Dan Gould]

Dan, you left out an important detail: Who were the CDs by?

A Jimmy McGriff CD I've wanted for a long time, with Rusty Bryant, Fathead and Mel Brown, a live set on Stax by Little Milton, and a Bobby Bland/Junior Parker compilation of early Duke sides.

It sounds like you're bemused if a little wary, which seems a lot healthier than jumpy and fearful

Very much so, especially since the whole things-gone-missing thing has started. Actually that reminds me that I skipped something else I said aloud to no one. I need to add that to my story now.

[kenny weir]

Actually that reminds me that I skipped something else I said aloud to no one.

That's cool - every now and then I say "thank you" to an ATM.

And also I sometimes answer the phone by saying "Sunday Herald Sun" - the newspaper I left more than a year ago.

[Rooster_Ties]

This isn't intended to be a dig (it's just the first thing I thought of).

Here's a perfect soundtrack for whatever it is that's goin' on...

I swear, sometimes I think Moon Rappin' is haunted. Nothin' else like it, that's for sure...

[Teasing the Korean]

Dan, I'm sorry if I missed this detail, but how long have you lived in this house? Who lived there before?

The part about you visiting CT threw me for a loop. I always thought these sorts of occurrences were location-based.

[Dan Gould]

Dan, I'm sorry if I missed this detail, but how long have you lived in this house? Who lived there before?

The part about you visiting CT threw me for a loop. I always thought these sorts of occurrences were location-based.

We bought the house exactly six years ago. The prior owner was a Korean couple - given their lack of English skills there isn't much point in asking them about any strange events. They were original buyers in this development in 1984, so I'd guess that nothing really crazy was going on considering how long they lived here. My wife discovered that before the land was purchased for this development, this was a nursery. She never found any indication of, shall we say, any "foul play" happening here.

[Teasing the Korean]

In addition to the possibility of spirits, it is also possible that the occurrences stem from projections of living people.

[Dan Gould]

In addition to the possibility of spirits, it is also possible that the occurrences stem from projections of living people.

Now that's a theory we haven't considered. Does this still constitute a "paranormal" explanation or is it another way of saying that human imagination is at work? What exactly are "projections of living people"?

[Teasing the Korean]

Now that's a theory we haven't considered. Does this still constitute a "paranormal" explanation or is it another way of saying that human imagination is at work? What exactly are "projections of living people"?

I'm not an expert, but there have been cases of this sort of thing - apparent paranormal activity that was being perpetrated by projections of people's psyches, kind of like the ending of "Forbidden Planet" if you've ever watched that: Sorry for the spoilers - but the "monster" was actually the collective id of the planet's inhabitants.

Either way, I think you should have the place checked out. Positive vibes in your direction.

[mikelz777]

Perhaps it stems from a member of the household actively participating in the occult.

[Dave James]

With regard to the dogs, have they been to the vet recently? Any on-going treatments, application of medicine, that sort of thing? Have you discussed their behavior with your vet?

As has been pointed out, history can be of some significance. It's fairly easy to research your home's location. Was there even a cemetery on the grounds, any Native American connections, underground mines, that sort of thing. Any way to find out if anyone has died there or been murdered? This kind of thing is known as a residual haunting. Intelligent hauntings are more interactive. Frankly, the experiences you've had outside your home sound more like the latter, but like TK I find the idea of something paranormal following you from one location to another as more than little odd.

How active is your wife in witchcraft? I don't know much about things on that side of the fence, but it doesn't involve anything like black arts or devil worship does it? Also, her history with the Ouija board is something to be considered. The theory goes that once you open up that door, if it's not closed properly, whatever it was that she and her sister allowed in can continue to have an affinity for her.

I'm not a believer but I'm not agnostic when it come to this kind of thing either. I've never had a personal experience, but I've known others who have. I watch all the paranormal shows on TV so anything I know is just an offshoot of being exposed to this on a pretty regular basis. I think there are religious solutions you might pursue, but it may not be easy to find someone who will sympathize with your circumstances and agree to help you.

The other thing to consider is that as quickly as this started it could also stop. Perhaps not something you want to wait on, but it's something to consider.

Keep us posted on this. It's a very interesting story.

[Dan Gould]

Dave,

My wife definitely does not participate in anything like "black magic" - she is very disturbed at this sort of presumption and has strong beliefs about the proper application of her faith as well as its deep roots in history (and I guess pre-history). But always, always, everything is done for good. The Ouija board thing might be related to their being "sensitive" to these things. I've never asked if they felt presences before the Ouija board experience but if the door really wasn't closed, maybe this is manifesting in that both of them can sense their grandfather's cologne, or have a sense of a presence in the house.

As to the dogs, when it happened we could not afford to get the dogs (especially Gracie) checked out. They weren't on any medications. We did do some internet research on seizures and I've kind of gone back and forth on whether this was simply a seizure or something else. In the absence of Coltrane's behavior, I'd definitely assume it was a seizure. And yet, it seems that seizures tend not to be one-offs but start to happen more frequently. We've had no such things happen again.

And as I mentioned to TK, the research my wife has been able to do found nothing sinister in the history of the house or the land, but its not really exhaustive either.

As to the CT thing - I don't know what to say about this but today I just learned from my Mother that they have had an object disappear, too. One of my father's slippers disappeared a week ago. Looked everywhere for it, under the bed, and its just gone. I told Mom she should ask for their return, and she was wondering whether she should ask or should Dad, since it was his slipper?

One thing about the disappearances - according to the high priestess of her Circle, if objects are returned, they were taken by the Fairies. If not, that indicates that they were taken by something less, shall we say, friendly. Her wands were never returned.

[Jazzmoose]

First thing I thought was "I've read this book"...