I recently moved back to the empty homestead after 20
years of living in another town an hour and a half away. Our mother had moved
into a senior’s facility and visiting the house after she was no longer there, it
felt noticeably empty and different, like there was no life left in it. It was
the very first time no one lived in the house for 152 years.
But like a truly haunted house, it’s never really
empty.
There were times over the last few years when I would
ask her if there had been any ghostly activity happening, as is the norm. (For
example, one day when she was sitting on her lawn chair, a man materialized out
of thin air on the front lawn, and walked toward her and had a seat on the
doorstep. He smiled at her and in the next few seconds disappeared). She often
had something weird to report, and I wanted to know about it.
She had also reported to me several times that when
lying in bed reading at night or trying to drift off to sleep, she would hear
“movement” out in the dining room. Of course I asked her a million questions
about this event, starting with the obvious to see if an intruder had gained
entry, although all doors and entrances were locked. She said it sounded like
someone in the dining room moving about. This was not an isolated event. She
heard it many times over the years on many nights. On occasion, she would pass
through the dining room on her way to the bathroom, but nothing visible was
causing the noise. In the daylight, nothing appeared to be moved or out of
place. Yet, for hours, what sounded like the movement of at least one
individual could clearly be heard in the dining room.
Now that I live here, I am often in the living room at
night which is adjacent to the dining room. A French door connects the two
rooms. I also have heard the “movement” in the dining room on many nights. It
is exactly as she described: it sounds just like someone moving around the room;
perhaps like soft walking and the effects of footsteps on old floorboards, and
sounds like things in the room being moved slightly. I have opened the door and
gone into the dining room during this activity. Nothing can be seen with the
naked eye and the noise tends to stop upon entering. I have stared through the French door glass
panes prior to opening it but cannot see anything happening. It is not my cat.
He is always camped out on my couch that time of night. My mother no longer had
a cat for the last few years she lived here.
Prior to moving in, my son and I were in the kitchen
one day after lunch, during a ‘cleaning weekend’. I had my back to him, washing
dishes. A fluorescent light is right above the counter, which I was facing. He
was sitting at the table with the overhead kitchen light on above him.
We just happened to be talking about the house and some
of the unusual activity from previous years when I said to him that after I am
living there, I wondered if certain “ghosts” would be around haunting the
place. I no longer had the words out of my mouth, when the fluorescent light in
front of me started flickering on and off at an alarming rate. I stared at it,
trying to figure out what was happening, when my son said, “Do you see THAT”?,
to which I said, “Yes, I see it. It’s right in front of me.” He said, “No! The
overhead light is flickering on and off like crazy!” I turned around to see it
blinking on and off, at the exact same time the fluorescent light was doing the
same thing. It looked like something out of a horror movie. The flickering of both
lights was occurring at a rate faster than you could ever flip the switch on
and off. We laughed, not altogether surprised such a thing would occur in this
house. I said, “Okay, okay, ghosts. We get it.”
It has just been short of a month since the move-in. Other
than the “noises” in the dining room, not much can be attributed to ghostly
activity. They have been pretty quiet.
Until one day last week.
I will preface this by saying inexplicable noises have
been one of their favorite ways of making their presence known over the years.
And over many years. There is a long list of relatives and
friends who have heard their shenanigans going back to times before I was even
born. They have also appeared a few times (okay, a lot of times) but noises
seem to be their preferred method of ‘communication’.
A few examples:
My mom vividly remembers, and often has told us, the
story of being a young child (so circa 1930’s) when suddenly one night, music
could be heard in the upstairs of the house. She was terrified for two reasons:
1) Her parents were scared and bewildered by this,
thereby freaking her out even more.
2) It was the
early 30’s. There was no piece of equipment in the house that could play music.
She ventured part way up the staircase on the heels of
her father, stopping halfway up when the music stopped as suddenly as it
started.
I vividly remember, and have previously written about
on this blog, about being ten years old and hearing loud continuous bangs on my
bedroom wall at night, coming from the spare bedroom on the other side.
Envision, if you will, someone pounding on a wall with their fist to try to get
your attention. Loudly. Repeatedly. Forcefully. The spare bedroom had no one in
it. Guess who didn’t sleep in her room on those nights and ran down the stairs
reporting the unexplained terrifying racket to her parents?
But I digress and bring you the more recent events…..
I tiptoed to the
French door to have a peek. I really actually wanted it be a ghost. I can
handle those. I know what to do with those. (turns out the answer is “nothing”…..just
let them live here.) I did NOT want it to be some crazed animal because what in
the world am I going to do in THAT situation? But the thought of it being an
animal seemed quite absurd. How would an animal get inside my house and
furthermore, come running down the stairs? Pretty much impossible. I looked out
through the glass door panes as much as I dared, praying I wouldn’t see
wildlife looking back at me. I didn’t.
I didn’t see anything. But it felt creepy. Most of the time I do not feel creeped out here. I
grew up here and it’s home. Sure, there were some scary times as a kid (and
later as an adult) but once you realize something besides your human family
lives in your house, you just kind of accept it and go about your daily
business. But that day with the noise on the stairs, it felt a bit different.
To my surprise, many orbs were present. The photo
quality is not the greatest (thanks, lame phone camera) and hardly worth
posting, but the orbs were definitely there (albeit streaky and kind of faint).
I turned on the video on my phone and as I recorded, I could see hundreds of
orbs floating and streaking around. Most times, what people refer to or think
of as orbs of the paranormal variety, are dust or particles of something in the
air, even insects or light interference. Most times. But not all.
In the dining
room area where I recorded, the only possible thing the orbs could be (besides
a paranormal thing) are dust. However, the room had been completely cleaned and
spotless—not super recently so as to stir up dust particles, but certainly
quite clean enough that miniscule dust fragments would not be present in the
air at the rate that was visible in the video. It literally looked like it was
snowing in the dining room.
To test the dust theory, I took more pics in the
adjacent rooms and also again in the dining room the next day and cannot
replicate the orbs even a little bit.
This is not to say definitively that the orbs were
paranormal in nature. But it is quite likely,
given the noise on the staircase earlier (indicating “something” was
around), and my inability to capture orbs on video or in pictures in adjacent
rooms and the same room the next day, thereby eliminating the theory that it
was dust.
Skeptics will offer their two cents worth on the “noise
on the staircase” encounter, with the following:
-It was the wind.
(This is Nova Scotia. Sure, we’ve had some hurricanes and tropical storms over
the years but not once…not ONCE, has the wind ever sounded like several people
racing down the staircase.)
-It was one of those squirrels you said were
in the front part of your house. (There were 2 small squirrels. In one part
of the roof, they made a little scratching sound before they were captured. At
no time, in the history of any vermin in this 150+ year old house, has any of
them ever sounded like that. That’s like comparing a tiny bird chirping to the
roar of an angry fully grown group of lions.)
-You imagined it.
(Uhhh no. You know, my cat is really smart but he is not SO smart that he could
“ imagine” a huge noise at the exact time I would “imagine” one. This is super
ridiculous.)
Or my own personal favorite:
- It was the house
“settling”. (Houses “settling” is a thing. Newly built houses are generally
done settling in a year or two, depending how well or where they are built.
There are lots of factors to contribute to house settling. But since the house
was built in 1871, there aren’t going to be many noises coming from the
architecture of its construction today,
unless something drastic should shift underneath of it, which to date, has not
happened. Oh yeah, plus..it wouldn’t occur on the staircase. Duh.)
I don’t blame people for trying to come up with
explanations and solutions. It’s normal human behaviour. In fact, I love
nothing more than to discuss hauntings and consider what else could be the
cause of things that are seen and heard. But going back for many generations,
there have been too many encounters experienced by many, many people to things
that have gone on in this house, resulting in some of them swearing they’d
never sleep here again and turning other hard skeptics into full-blown
believers. Besides, once you see the
ghosts for yourself (myself and many others actually have), then you know it’s
real.
I am not here to change your mind if you don’t believe
in the paranormal. I am totally okay with anyone who thinks it’s horse crap. (I
think The Kardashians are horse crap, yet they still continue to exist). The
main reason I write this blog is to keep a concise record of what has
transpired. I also think people have a right to know these things do actually
happen. It’s not that scary. You just
have to get used to it.
It is also part of our family history and the history
of the house. I’ve lived in a non-haunted house the last 20 years and I gotta
tell you, it is far less interesting. Far.
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