Heh. We didn’t have kids at the time, so unless the cats were more talented than they let on (and somehow became heavy enough in the night to sound like a person walking up the stairs), we was haunted.
Incidently, there was a big Victorian house on the corner of the street my boss lived on (in supposedly haunted house) that had been converted to a museum that was supposed to be haunted and my girlfriend at the time had lots of stories about the house she grew up in. Her whole family verified the tales.
Springfield, Missouri is just rift with haunted houses and the Battlefield Memorial park is also reputed to be haunted. I know there were a couple of places that made my hair stand on end just walking through them.
I don’t believe in ghosts: I do believe there are plenty of real spiritual thingies, but that 99.999% of them are either angelic or demonic. So if you come across one that looks like your auntie, it’s a demon trying to… well, wind you up, I suppose, or give you false ideas about the afterlife. The other 0.001% are unemployed special effects.
All that said, and I am absolutely 100% solid on my belief in this and therefore in my authority over such thingies as a Christian… it takes me roughly 30 seconds alone in a dark place, with or without additional creepy stories from friends, to send me running for my life! The reason? I guess too many horror movies.
But recently I’ve been working at night in a nursing home, and of course my colleagues are happy to assure me that it was built on an old children’s morgue, and that people keep seeing little boys around the place. Strangely enough, right after hearing that story, I went to answer an old man’s buzzer and he’d had a bad dream. Aside from the caterpillars he claimed to be covered in, he also went on about a “killer child”… that gave me the willies!
I don’t doubt his capacity to be in on the gag, by the way.
Re: the house in Poltergeist built on an ancient Indian burial ground. I heard someone on the radio ask if it’s alright to build an ancient Indian burial ground on top of an ancient Indian burial ground. Still trying to figure that one out: in broad daylight, with plenty of people around!
pps: houses full of toddlers are automatically scarier than anything else.
I read the SNOPES link and I’m confused as to whether or not they agree or disagree that the story is fact. It appears that they consider it an Urban Legend.
I disagree with SNOPES, having twice seen a documentary on the Learning and Discovery channels, consisting of a reliable investigative report and not a group making films for sensationalism. On at least one, they were looking into the Worlds Most Haunted Places, and turned up little in the way of any action or anything which could not be faked.
Until they came to the RR crossing. They interviewed people it had happened to, saw photographs people had taken after doing the powder deal and decided to test it out for themselves. They used 2 cameras. One recorded their vehicle moving across the tracks slowly, one was inside, showing the reporters action and after they stopped, they recorded several children’s hand prints on the talcum powdered back of their car.
Anything can be faked for TV, but due to the reliability of both stations in reporting factual things and to the context of the programs, it is my opinion that nothing was staged. Unlike the current programs where they have a group of 4 or 5 people all wired up for sound and scene, who scream at every noise as they wander haunted places and gain no definite proof of anything.
Having been a skeptic for years, I consider the hand program factual.
I do believe in angels and demons and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were other weird things that can bump in the night or whenever they wanted. That said, would I do it? YES!!! Especially for money.
Send me to the haunted house, send me to the abandoned insane asylum, “Yes, I’ll sit in that old electric chair”
I’ll piss myself scared doing it, and I’d come out the next day with white hair, but that’d be something to tell not just your grandkids, but anyone else who’d listen.
I’ll verify that the gravity hill outside San Antonio is a real effect, as I was in a heavy Caprice that really did move away from the tracks on a road that appears to my pretty-good eye to be absolutely flat. Lots of things other than a ghost could do so, though.
Me, I’d like to spend the night in an accepted-to-be-haunted place. My old apartment in Tacoma was supposedly haunted; the previous tenant saw little lights and figures and stayed there two nights before subletting to a friend. I never saw a thing.
Two of my siblings are, well, what the Irish call “fey”. They see auras and phantasms and all the rest. Me? Dumb as a post. Blind as a bat. Totally immune to the spiritual world.
But I never see anything. I spook pretty easily, but I’d be very interested to see the “genuine article”. Just curious, really, to see if I can open my mind enough to see the Other Side.
TruePisces, dubs, I’m a big, stong man. I’m also rather skeptical (which seems to keep these things at bay pretty effectively), and if all else fails, fully qualified to cast a protective Circle. So, how YOU doin?
I’m not going to say that I don’t believe, since statements like that always seem to come back to (you should pardon the expression) haunt me. However, I wouldn’t hesitate to spend the night (preferably in the company mentioned above ) in an allegedly haunted house. Provided I was paid enough money to make it worth the trouble, of course.
If you somehow convinced me that it was genuinely haunted, I might do it for free. I don’t spook easily.
Oh yeah! I would absolutely do it. I’d prefer to have someone else there with me (more fun) but I’d do it alone. Hell, if a ghost actually shows up not only would I do it for free, I’d probably pay to spend another night!
To the people who wouldn’t do it for any amount of money…Why not? Seriously, do you really think you’d be in danger? I mean, even if you DO believe in this stuff, has anybody ever died or been seriously injured from being alone in a “haunted house”? Most of the stories I’ve read here are about footsteps and moving furniture and stuff. Creepy and scary maybe but it wouldn’t keep me away. Now if someone has actually been physically picked up and tossed off the roof of a haunted house or something, then I’d have second thoughts.
No.
The comfort of my own bed in my apartment with Air/heat is too much of an incentive not to. I would for money or some sort of fame or such. Personally I dont believe in ghosts or hobgoblins or any such thing, so I wouldnt be scared of anything but say a human factor involved. Any Hobo’s living there? Say a hungry canabalistic hobo? With a tech-9? Shivers
Couple friends of mine ventured into an old Insane assylum that swore up and down was haunted. They came back gibbering about a “presence” that they sensed and caused them to flee in utter terror. One guy grabbed some ivory piano keys off one of the pianos(sp?) which caused them to freak out later. You see, they thought some demons from hell could gain access to thier home through thier wards (yes, these people were wierd). They preformed a ritual of some sorts complete with creepy music (99 luftballons by Nina…creepy) and a pentagram with candles and crystals.
Needless to say, I sat upstairs and watched TV. Freaks if you ask me…but to each their own.
Oh, BTW, First post, long time lurker. Just registered today (insert smiley face. Dont know how to make one yet)
) in an allegedly haunted house. Provided I was paid enough money to make it worth the trouble, of course.