The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (4 page)

I saw a figure myself, once. I was in my study when I heard the screen door bang and looked up to glimpse a man crossing the porch to go to the front door. As I got up from my desk, I expected to hear the front doorbell ring, but it didn't. I went and opened the door and looked out. There was no one there. The porch was empty. There was no one outside or anywhere in the driveway. The screen door invariably squeaked when opened, but I didn't hear it squeak on this occasion.

We lived in the house for almost five years and became accustomed to our ghosts. They were in no way malevolent. We were sorry to say good-bye to them when we eventually sold the house and moved away.

“Nothing beats a haunted moonlit night on All Hallows Eve. . . And on this fatal night, at this witching time, the starless sky laments black and unmoving. The somber hues of an ominous, dark forest are suddenly illuminated under the emerging face of the full moon.” —KIM ELIZABETH

NOT ALL HAUNTS ARE OLD

Brad Steiger's
Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places
is chock full of fantastically frightening true tales of terror. Among them is the story of a woman and her husband who moved into a house in 1992, when the house was just eleven years old. Not long after moving in, the woman began to hear someone walking in her upstairs hallway. Convinced it was her son sneaking out, she would go upstairs to check on him and find him sleeping soundly in bed. At first, she did not speak of the footsteps, not even to her husband and son. Then the footsteps increased in frequency and changed location, including coming into her bedroom. It didn't take her long to learn from her husband that he, too, was hearing many strange noises, particularly when he was home alone during the brightness of day. In the first month of
living there, she told author Steiger that they went through at least one hundred lightbulbs; lights were constantly blowing out all throughout the house.

The woman said the noises had begun just after the family had moved in—when she'd hung an old lead mirror, left behind by the previous owners, in the hallway opposite her son's room. Only when she got rid of the mirror did the noises stop.

ANIMAL APPARITIONS

Not only do animals sense ghosts, but animals also can be ghosts. For example:

• Actor Rudolph Valentino's Great Dane, Kabar, is reported to haunt his former owner's gravesite.
  
• In Port Tabacco, Maryland, there is a bloodstained rock known to locals as Peddler's Rock. It is said to be home to the Blue Dog, who guards his dead master's buried treasure.
  
• In Casper, Wyoming, ranchers have long reported the image of a white steed galloping across the area known as Rattlesnake Range. This horse was known as White Devil when he was alive, due to his reputation for fiercely defending himself and other horses against the mighty lasso.
  

In Reading, Pennsylvania, the ghosts of Mrs. Bissinger and her children still roam an area near the Union Lock Canal where she drowned herself (and her children) in 1875. Visitors to this area often report being overwhelmed by a sad and horrific energy.

A FOND FAREWELL

Dana was the youngest of four kids, living in an old Victorian house in the Minnesota suburbs. Her grandfather, who lived in the same town as she did, was sick in the hospital, but Dana was too young to really know what was going on or that he was dying. One day while her mother was at the hospital, Dana came walking down the grand staircase in her house. To her surprise, she saw her grandfather walking up toward her, looking
healthy and happy. “I wanted to say good-bye, Dana, and I love you very much,” he said and continued up the stairs. Delighted, the child raced into the kitchen to tell her mother that Grandpa was all better and that he'd come over for a visit. But her mother had just returned from the hospital with some bad news—her grandfather had passed away earlier that afternoon.

Have you seen a ghost? It is possible that you have and just didn't know what to look for. If the figure you saw was unusually pale, disappeared after an instant, ignored you when you spoke or called out, appeared in an odd place, or was dressed inappropriately (often of another era), perhaps you have seen a ghost. (Of course, many of these characteristics could describe some of your relatives as well.)

AS TOLD BY CHRIS WARD

It was late October 2004, and as part of a unique archaeological project along the Drakes Bay bluff on the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California,
our five-person team was given accommodation at the restored Drakes Bay Lifesaving Station, otherwise known as the Boat House.

The Boat House, a National Historic Landmark, is an impressive building overlooking the waters of Drakes Bay. As the park official led us on our initial tour of the building, I could not help but notice a creeping feeling that seemed to hang around. These sensations increased when we were brought into the Boat Room. The Boat Room houses a now-decommissioned lifeboat, the first motorized lifeboat north of San Francisco Bay. The lifeboat had been used in countless rescue missions from 1953 to 1965, covering the extent of the Northern California coastline from Drakes Bay north to Humboldt Bay. I had to wonder why such a unique historic relic was shut away in this room. It was resting half on the ground, half off, teetering on an old wooden sawhorse. When I inquired, the park official responded with this story.