All the Questions You Always Wanted to Ask But Were Sort of Afraid of the Answers

Over the years, I have been asked many questions about our house and the ongoing paranormal activity, which is fine with me; I could talk about this house all day long. Recently, a childhood friend stopped by, whom I hadn’t seen since we were teenagers. One of the first things she asked me was, “You still have ghosts”? 

For those that don’t know, I will preface this by saying that our house was built in 1871 by my great-great-grandfather (Simeon) and has always been in our family. Many babies have been born here (there were no hospitals back in the day) and many people have died here (from a disease or natural causes). They used to hold funerals in what is now my living room. 

 Family history is important and my mother and I have traced one side of our family tree back to France in the 1600s. In addition to that, I always wanted to know about our ancestors that resided in our house from the day it was built. Since some of that family history involves ghosts and other unexplained phenomenon, my blog was created to keep track of it all. In another hundred years-- two hundred years--three hundred years, my future generations may want to know this stuff really happened.  

I never really thought people would read my blog. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the stats one day and saw a thousand views. It wasn’t long before I had 5,000, then 10,000—now over 50,000, spanning many countries around the globe.  

Without further ado, I give you the questions most asked of me and the answers: 

 Have you actually seen a ghost? 

 Yes. I have seen three on different occasions. One was a little boy, there was a shadow ghost at one point and the other was a middle-aged man. 
 
Do you know who the ghosts are? 

 Possibly. There was a child named Willie who died from measles in the house in the late 1800’s so the boy I saw could possibly be him. The man I saw in the upstairs hallway was unknown to me but after describing him to my mother, she thought he could be a relative that lived here many years ago. 
  

Have other people seen ghosts in your house or just you? 

 When my mother still lived in the house, she had seen several spirits: a very young girl in the pantry; an older lady in the living room; and a man outside in the yard, who walked towards her and sat down on the doorstep near her. She did not recognize any of them. 
My nephew and my aunt also saw my grandmother’s ghost in an upstairs bedroom on separate occasions. 
 
Have they ever done anything threatening or harmful? 

 No, not towards people. However, a shelf full of collectible vases was lifted up from the hardware that attached it to the wall one evening, throwing everything to the floor. About half of the items broke. It was not a case of the hardware just letting go naturally. Someone had to lift it up to detach it from the wall. No one had been in the room when it happened. While it wasn’t harmful, it was deliberate and destructive. 
 
Have you been able to interact with a ghost?  

Only once and it was more of a case of it interacting with me. At a family holiday dinner, “something” touched my leg under the table and proceeded to trace the length of my leg with what I assume was its hand/finger. It felt super weird because while I could feel it happening, when I Iifted the tablecloth to look, I couldn’t see anything to cause that sensation. At the exact same time, my niece who was sitting next to me, yelled out that something under the table was touching her leg. She did not know something was also touching mine. 
 
Are you scared of the things in your house?  

When I was growing up, I was scared most of the time. Bed times were especially fun. NOT.  I knew what ghosts were and that they were around but I didn’t want to see or hear them, which I fully expected to a lot of the time. Today, I am rarely afraid. There were a couple incidents where I was momentarily freaked out but I am used to it now and accepting of the whole situation. 
  
Are there any haunted objects in your house? 

There is a rocking chair that is older than the house itself that has been seen and heard rocking by itself several times. 
 
How often do you experience paranormal things? 

It is totally random. There are times when the ghosts are active maybe a few times a week and then nothing will happen for a long stretch of time. 
 
Other than hearing things and reporting you saw something, do you have any actual proof? 

Strange footprints were left on a floor that was in mid-renovation and a missing pair of shoes returned after being gone for a long time, both of which I have photographed. I also captured what I believe to be two ghost faces in a photo, that are clearly my father and my grandmother in a window. Both these people had been dead many years before the picture was taken. 
 
When did the paranormal activity start? 

When my mother was a young girl in the 1930’s, some of her earliest memories involved unexplained events in this house. If my grandparents or great grandparents or other relatives from the 1800’s-on experienced anything, I have no record of it. 
 
Do you ever consider having a “ghostbuster” come in and get rid of your ghosts?  

No. If this is where the ghosts want to hang out, then so be it. It makes life interesting. 
 
Is there a particular room that is more haunted than others? 

There are several areas that are the most active: the dining room, the pantry, the staircase and one of the bedrooms upstairs. 
 
What has been the scariest thing you ever experienced in your house?

Two things tie for this honor: 1. The time my son’s shoes disappeared and reappeared. 2. The extremely loud noise on the staircase one day. Both sent chills down my spine and I do not scare easy. 
 
Has there been any other strange occurrences on your property besides ghosts? 

There have been two incidents in the sky directly over the house involving ufos. Another time, a very unusual “man” came to the door seeking assistance as he had run out of gas. My mother and I both saw and talked to him and were convinced he was not from Earth. 
 
Why do you have two blogs? It’s confusing me. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events is the first blog. The content is about our haunted house, some other unexplained things that happened to me, and also a couple of posts about local  paranormal places we checked out at one point. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters is my second blog, which I felt was necessary when I discovered just how many unexplained events were experienced by other people around Nova Scotia. I wanted to keep it separate from the main blog (although they link to one another), but report on creepy and mysterious topics in an easy-to-read format. 
 
What’s one thing you want people to know about your house and the ghosts in it? 

That real true hauntings do happen. Many people have seen and heard and experienced ghosts here. It is not the wishful thinking or ramblings of just one person; there have been many witnesses to our paranormal activity.  
We know very little about the afterlife. But when a spirit materializes in front of you, it’s a safe bet that there actually is one. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters

The Phone Phantoms

 

    

Some years ago, I wrote a blog post about a phone call my mother received back in the mid 90’s, in which she clearly heard her mother repeatedly saying hello. This would not be all that unusual except her mother had died in 1981.  

Fast forward a bunch of years and I am now living at the homestead where eerie things still occur, of course. To make up for the poor quality cell service in my area, I still have a good old-fashioned land line. There’s probably only 20 people left in Nova Scotia with a land line  and I am well aware of the fact that Eastlink is ripping me off every month when the bill arrives but hey—I need it and will keep it until I can talk on my cell without having to go outside and stand under a certain maple tree facing east in order to carry on a conversation that doesn’t cut in and out or drop altogether. 

But I digress. 

I was thinking recently that the summer months and early fall had been pretty quiet, paranormally, as not a whole lot had been going in the house. This is totally typical of my ghosts; they might make their presence known 3 days in a row, then not make a peep for 2 months. 

But then I remembered the phone calls. 

The first mysterious phone call incident happened about a month ago. I had been talking to my son, Scott--he on his cell phone, me on my (expensive) land line. We were just having a normal conversation about something when suddenly a man’s voice interjected into the conversation to say, “Well now I have to re-think my whole plan.” 

 The words were slow, like someone speaking at half the speed they normally would. I knew immediately it was not Scott. It was not his voice. It was much deeper, like an older male. Scott doesn’t speak extraordinarily slow, either. And the sentence made zero sense in relation to whatever we had been talking about. 

At that moment I knew three things:  

1. 1. That sentence was not spoken by my son.  

2. 2. Someone (or some ‘thing’) else had joined our conversation.  

3. 3. I had no idea what plan they were referring to or what this meant. 

4. 
   

I asked, “What? Re-think what plan?”  

Scott said, “What? What are you talking about?”  I told him the strange sentence I just heard clear as a bell. He stated he never said anything of the kind. To make it even stranger, he did not hear the man speaking. Only I heard it. And it was definitely on the phone, not a tv or radio or anything else in the background. It was right in my ear, coming from the phone receiver.  

We discussed what had happened. Did phone lines get crossed? Is that even still a thing these days? A quick internet search tells me it is unlikely between a cell phone and a land line, although possible between two cell phones if voice data signals should get re-routed during a glitch, which rarely happens. 

Spirits communicating through various electrical devices have been widely reported and exhaustively investigated in paranormal circles. This includes phones as a method of communication and has happened to many people. Electrical energy makes it easier for a spirit to interact somehow. 

Given that this is not the first time a spirit has made contact around here using the phone, I am leaning towards “ghost” on this one, although I cannot tell you who the ghost was or what his plan is that he has to re-think. Not sure I want to know that one. 

I sort of forgot about the telephone ghost and a week or so went by. One evening I was once again talking to Scott—same deal: he on his cell and me on my landline. 

In the middle of our conversation, I heard a female voice shriek one loud word. It was not a voice I recognized. I have no idea what the word was she was abruptly yelling but it was loud and urgent. I asked Scott if he just heard that, to which he replied, “Heard what?” I described what just happened. He hadn’t heard a thing. 

It’s hard to entertain the thought that phone lines were crossed once again between a cell and a land line, as unlikely as that is to even happen once. And most people don’t yelp wildly when they are talking on the phone. 

So once again, I am left with questions: Who? Why? What did it say?? Why can’t Scott hear it when it’s interjecting in our conversation? 

I know one thing: when my phone rings and the caller ID says “unknown caller”, I pause for a moment before answering because you just never know who (or what) is on the other end of that call. Do I want to answer it? 

Would you want to? 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events

The Noises Continue

 

Back in January 2024, I wrote a blog post about the noises during the last year that have been clearly present in our house. Plenty of things have been heard, mostly by me (except for that one time I had a witness other than my cat—hold on to your Ouija board, I am getting to it).

Couple of things to consider with these noises:

1.  I haven’t actually SEEN anything strange within the past year. I have only heard it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t visual, but maybe I am just not in the same room when something is going on and therefore I am only hearing it.

2.  Maybe these entities are preferring to just make sounds and noises and can’t be bothered to materialize.

3. I am alone often during the day so there is usually no one else here to hear the noises.

4.  It is possible I have become more in tune with the clairaudient side of things. I have no idea why or how.

I can’t say for sure which of these is the explanation or if it is a combination of things, as I have been able to record some noises—not sure you can do that if you are experiencing the sounds through clairaudience through your own personal hearing ability. However, I have been in a room with someone else when noises were clear and present and only I heard it.

5. The source of the noises described in the previous blog posts and this one have been ruled out to be anything sensible and easily explained. Trust me when I say all have been investigated and found to NOT be: rodents, squirrels, chipmunks, the cat, birds, bats, and my all-time favorite from the skeptics: the house is “settling”. It’s an old house, built in 1871. It’s completely settled.

  I know what every single thing listed here sounds like, unfortunately. When you hear pots and pans crashing to the floor in the pantry at ten o’clock at night, trust me when I say that it is not caused by any of the things in this list. To put the proverbial nail in the coffin (see what I did there?) on that as an explanation, when the pantry was investigated, not a thing was out of place. Therefore, my cat and your alleged mouse were not having a wrestling match in the pantry and knocked ten stainless steel and aluminum pots to the floor. This goes for all the other unexplained sounds and rackets. If you read the blog, especially the posts about unknown noises, you can easily see for yourself that animals  is not the answer. Any time an animal was the answer, I did not write about it here because duh, the blog is about ghosts, spirits, and entities and not about animals in houses.

The reason we KNOW there are ghosts in our house is because over the years many different people (myself included)  have seen, felt, smelled, photographed and heard them. Name a form of communication and we have received it from these ghosts. It has been ongoing for generations and so far, is completely harmless.

Some additional auditory incidents have occurred within the last little while:

 

The Music

About 2 months ago, we were having supper in the kitchen. The house was quiet; no appliances like washer, dryer or tv were on. We hadn’t  been at the table long when behind me I suddenly heard music that seemed to be coming from one corner of the kitchen. It sounded kind of far away but still within earshot. I’d like to say it was something good like Aerosmith or Van Halen but no—it was soft orchestra music. I turned my head and concentrated on listening  to be sure I was hearing what I thought I was actually hearing. I was. Shaun was also at the dinner table and when I asked him if he heard it, he said no, pausing to listen closely but could not hear a thing while I continued to hear it. No, I don’t have ringing in my ears. There was definitely music there and after a minute or so, it stopped.

Fast forward a few weeks, same scenario: supper at the table. The music started again, soft and faraway but definitely there. I asked Shaun again if he could hear that. This time he said yes. We listened for a minute and it eventually stopped. Neither of us have any explanation for that.

Side note, and written about elsewhere on the blog: my mother always told me the story of the time she was a little girl in this house and one evening her father suddenly stood up, stating he could  hear music coming from upstairs. He proceeded up the staircase, with her on his heels and then she also heard the music and became terrified. They did not have a radio or anything similar that music could be played on. It was the mid 1930’s. Halfway up the stairs, the music stopped. My mother’s mother had been with them when the unexplained music started but she never heard a thing.

 

Maybe You Need Cough Medicine? Try Mucinex.

It was June 11, 2024. I was home alone working. The house was quiet. I gotta have it quiet when I am working. Winston the cat was nearby power-napping. I had a kitchen window propped open but the main door was locked. I was working away doing some complex math formula thing from my office in the far end of the house when I heard someone cough. Based on the sound level of the cough, I would guesstimate they were likely in the dining room. I paused what I was doing and listened. Winston became alert and popped his head up off the chair because he was aware it was just him and me in the house. There was no more coughing after the initial outburst, but I did get up to look in case someone could have had their head close to my open/screened kitchen window and coughing. No one was there. No sign of anyone outside or inside. It was definitely a man’s cough, as it was deeper than what a woman would normally sound like. Maybe my long-departed father was inhaling one of those unfiltered cigarettes he was so fond of? I guess whoever it was just wanted my attention. Okay, you got it. Now what?

A Familiar Sound

Not long after the coughing incident on another day when I was home alone working, I heard a very interesting sound from the kitchen. Again, the cat was in his usual spot on a chair near me. The house was quiet. Suddenly from the kitchen area, I heard a noise. Shaun had left a few minutes earlier to go to an appointment so I went to check if he had come back for something. I could see through the dining room windows that one of our vehicles was gone, so I knew he hadn’t returned. I went into the kitchen to have a look when it suddenly and clearly dawned on me what the noise was I had heard: It was the unmistakable sound of the woodstove door opening.

I have heard it millions of times over the years; the metal handle turning and the door creaking open. Nothing else sounds like that. My mother used to put wood in that stove continually, even in the summer if she considered it cold out, which was most of the time. She did this right up until she moved to a nursing home in 2022.

Normally, the sound of the woodstove door opening  would not be concerning except on this particular day, the woodstove was not even in the kitchen anymore, plus I was alone in the house. We had moved the stove to a location in the back porch a few weeks earlier because the kitchen floor is undergoing repairs.

The weather was sort of damp, yet humid and muggy on that day, and if my mother had been here, she definitely would have had a fire going in that stove, and said she was cold while the rest of us died from the heat.

I guess she was throwing another log on. “There’s nothing like wood heat”, she often said.

I actually rather enjoy the fact that this incident happened, knowing my mom might possibly still be around at times. I miss her immensely.

I’ve heard nothing unusual since that day but the ghosts come and go so there’s no predicting when the next incident will be.

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters