The question I get asked the most (besides, “Is that your real hair color?”) is, “Seen any ghosts lately?” Sure, I get the usual, “How are you?” “What have you been up to?” And ..”Where is it you work again?” But the most often asked question is- if I have seen any ghosts recently. In my entire life, I have actually only seen three ghosts in our haunted house (plus two ghosts captured in a photo taken by me). One was in broad day light, another was a cliched middle-of-the-night encounter, and there was also a weird black shadow ghost, which I will recap below. Considering the number of years I have lived here, I, too, am surprised the number is not higher.
I have heard a lot of unexplained, crazy, ridiculous things starting when I was little kid, and still do to this day, but actual sightings are few and far between unfortunately.
But I am not alone in this.
I’ve tried to determine the number of people (not to be confused with the number of incidents) who have either definitely seen or heard a ghost in our house or saw some anomaly happening at a specific moment that could only be attributed to spirit interaction. The magic number is 14. This includes family, friends and visitors. There could be more that I am not aware of.
Fifteen may not seem like a lot but it’s not like this place is a Halloween fun house with non-stop paranormal activity. It happens when it happens. You can’t make it happen. You can’t wish it into existence. The ancient Ouija board that we kept in a cupboard with the Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit games cannot conjure up the dead. Well, most of the time it can’t.
Regardless, I wanted to reiterate that I am not the only one to have seen and heard things. And while hearing ghosts in various areas of your house can be startling, seeing them is on a whole different level entirely.
My mother, who had lived in the house longer than any other family member is the one who saw the most. We don’t know if she saw the most because she just could, or because she spent the longest amount of time in the house.
She also often heard unexplained things, saw doors slam shut, saw doors fly open, saw things disappear and reappear in odd places, saw strange lights (attributed to the phantom car—look that one up on the blog if you haven’t already), smelled unusual things, and received a phone call from her dead mother, just to name a few. We discussed it a lot over the years, examining the topic from all viewpoints of why doesn’t everyone see or hear ghosts and can one person be more susceptible to it than others. We theorized a lot on this topic but of course, could not definitely say one way or the other. Our discussions usually ended with one or both of us saying, “Well, we’ll all find out someday.”
By the time we find out the real answer to this, we’re already in the afterlife.
The following is a compilation of actual real ghost SIGHTINGS in our house, in case you have wondered how many times one has appeared.
The compiled list of ghosts were determined to be REAL ghosts and not something else that could be more easily explained. The witnesses were 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible. Incidentally, people who have been in the house and were NOT 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible never reported seeing anything unusual pertaining to the paranormal realm.
Ghosts Seen By My Mother
The Doorstep Ghost: One summer day a few years back, she was sitting on the doorstep in her lawn chair. She insists she was wide awake and had not dozed off. Suddenly a man appeared on the lawn a few feet from the doorstep. He just simply materialized out of thin air. He came walking towards where she was sitting and sat down on the doorstep very close to her. She did not recognize him. She noticed he was wearing a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt and a ball cap and was smoking a cigarette. He did not say anything to her but he looked up at her and smiled and shortly after disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
The Soldier Ghost: She had also seen a man dressed in an old soldier's uniform appear in the living room. His uniform was dark blue with a bit of red on it and he also wore gloves. He looked straight at her and smiled before fading away.
These are two great examples of an “intelligent haunting’, in which a ghost/spirit will directly interact with a person; in these cases, looking at and smiling at my mother, as if to greet her or acknowledge her presence. It is pretty rare as most ghosts stick to being residual, which is more of a playback of a ghost appearing and not paying any attention to you.
The Ghost Girl in the Pantry: Another time, while sitting at her kitchen table, she happened to look up towards the pantry, which is just off the kitchen. There stood a little girl with blond hair in a little dress. The child paid no attention to my mother and after a moment faded away.
The Ghost Lady in the Living Room: One night while watching tv in the living room, a woman in an old-fashioned house dress suddenly materialized near the tv. My mother reported that this lady just stared off towards the wall, again not interacting with her in any way. Like the others, she quickly disappeared.
As previously mentioned, the girl in the pantry and the ghost lady are classified as residual hauntings. They appear as if you are seeing them in a playback of a time gone by. They may not even see you looking at them and are possibly showing up as if it is imprinted in time. Neither of them spoke or made a sound.
The Shadow Ghost: Once again in the pantry, my mother watched a large black shadowy mass standing there for a few minutes. It made no sound and disappeared after a short time. These are known as ‘shadow people’ or ‘shadow ghosts’, for obvious reasons. They generally do not have faces and limbs and do not resemble humans very much. They are reportedly common.
Ghosts Seen By My Son
Scott’s Great-Grandmother: When Scott was around the age of 15, he spent the weekend at the house with his grandmother (my mother). He was in an upstairs bedroom using a computer one night when he heard pacing back and forth just outside his door in the hallway. Knowing no living person was walking around in the hallway, he realized what it could be, given the history of the house. He attempted to ignore it but the pacing on the old creaky floor continued. He looked towards the partially opened bedroom door and saw his great-grandmother (Lizzie) standing there staring at him hatefully. She died in 1981. This sighting happened approximately 2010. He described her appearance as a dark figure with a lit-up outline. He had seen enough pictures of her over the years to know who was standing before him. Naturally freaked out, he once again looked back at his computer screen. When he looked back at the door again, she was gone. Shortly after, he went downstairs to inform his grandmother that her mother was upstairs a few moments ago.
Sidenote: the hallway pacing has also been heard on two other occasions; once by Scott’s girlfriend/now-wife, and once also by me. It’s creepy as heck and tends to go on for several minutes.
Scott’s Great-Grandmother Returns: A few years later, Scott was living at the house to help his grandmother out and also because he worked in a nearby town. One particular night, he had worked a night shift and arrived home just as dawn was beginning to break. He pulled his car in and parked it facing towards the house as he usually did. He glanced towards the house and could clearly see a woman in the kitchen standing near the fridge and then she moved towards the pantry. Assuming his grandmother was up, although it would be odd at that hour for her to do so, he unlocked the door and entered the kitchen. No one was there. He checked on his grandmother who was sound asleep in her bed. As the ghost he had seen looked like an older lady, we assume it was likely his great-grandmother (my grandmother, Lizzie) showing up yet again.
Ghost Seen By My Aunt
Lizzie Strikes Again: For many years, I had an aunt and uncle who spent their summers with us. They always slept in the spare bedroom. Incidentally, this was the bedroom with the most paranormal activity in it. Such activity included the bed continually messed up after making it and re-making it, bangs on the wall that adjoined to another bedroom, the locked door becoming unlocked, etc.
My mom always warned my aunt and uncle about this but they didn’t seem to mind sleeping there. They never experienced anything out of the usual until one night, sometime during the ‘80s. My aunt got up one morning and told my mother she woke up in the middle of the night and much to her surprise my grandmother (Lizzie), who died in 1981, was standing by the bed with her arms outstretched towards her. She appeared solid, like a living person and did not speak. She faded away after a few minutes. My uncle slept through the whole thing.
Ghosts Seen By My Nephew
Lizzie, Part 4: One of my nephews was visiting one weekend when he was about 5 years old. I do not think he was aware of anything paranormal in the house as we did not talk about such things around children in the family so as not to scare them. Only my nephew, his father and my mother were in the house. He came down from upstairs and asked my mother (his grandmother) who the old lady was upstairs in the spare bedroom, sitting on the bed petting the cat. My mother showed him a picture of her mother (Lizzie) and my nephew stated that was the lady he just saw upstairs.
Another Bedroom Ghost: On another occasion when my nephew visited, he was sleeping in another upstairs bedroom. He was about 5 or 6 years old. He remembers he woke up and there was an old lady standing next to the bed. He blinked and then she was gone.
Sidenote: My grandmother was born in our house in 1891 and spent most of her life in it. She was very adamant about never leaving it, confirmed by the fact that sometimes she is still seen on the premises.
Ghost Seen By My Brother
Ghost Girl in the Bedroom: My brother reported this to my mother at the time it happened. He was a teenager hanging out in his bedroom and saw a girl with long brown hair. She did not interact with him and disappeared into thin air. Of my three brothers, to my knowledge only this one has actually seen a ghost in our house, although the other two have had other paranormal experiences here.
Ghosts Seen By Me
Another Shadow Ghost: When I was about 17, I was in our living room and happened to look out into the hallway. It was early evening and still daylight so everything was well lit and visible inside the house. In the hall at the bottom of the stairs, I saw a large shadowy shapeless black figure. I can’t say what it was made up of, but it looked more opaque than a smokey substance but not solid like a person. It did not have the shape of a typical human. It made no noise and did not interact. It was there only briefly and disappeared after a few seconds.
Above, in the section of what my mother had seen, she also reported a Shadow Ghost many years after I saw this one.
Dude in the Upstairs Hallway: Quite a few years ago, I was wallpapering the largest bedroom upstairs. In addition to my work items constantly disappearing and reappearing during that endeavor, I also had the pleasure of a ghost watching me work. On one particular day, I was about to clean up for the day. The door to the hallway was open and I was in the bedroom admiring my work (hey, it looked damn good!) when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was a man standing in the hallway looking into the bedroom.
Normally this would not be a big deal as I was married at the time. However, my husband was away and only my mother and I were in the house and she was downstairs at that moment. I was completely taken aback and I think I even gasped. The man appeared solid and alive. He was standing staring intently at me with his arms crossed. He had dark hair, probably middle aged and wore a white shirt and dark pants. He made no sound. I looked at him for a few moments and then he was gone. Did he like the wallpaper? I have no idea.
The Ghost of Willie: We lived here in the year 2000 for a few years and the re-wallpapered bedroom I just mentioned was my bedroom. My son, Scott, slept just across the hall in a smaller room. He was 5 at the time. Scott’s dad was away for work. This particular night, I had been asleep for awhile when the action of my bedroom door opening awoke me. Thinking it was Scott, I turned my lamp on and asked what he was doing up. In the somewhat dim light, I could see it was not Scott.
The child in question giggled, turned and ran back out into the hall. Still trying to convince myself it MUST be Scott because no other children lived there, I quickly got up to follow him as the top of the stairs was only steps away and he could go tumbling down in the dark.
Once I was in the hall, no one else was visible. No children. No giggling. Nothing. I stepped into Scott’s room where he was still fast asleep. And yes, I checked that he was actually asleep and not trying to pull a prank.
I am pretty sure this was Willie. Willie was an ancestor who died from measles in our house at the age of 5 in approximately 1873, just a few years after the house was built by his father, Simeon Joudrey, my great-great-grandfather.
So those are our 14 real, actual ghost sightings. My grandmother (Lizzie) dominates the scene as you can see but there were lots of others, most who remain unknown to us.
When I get to 15, 16, 17 and so on, you’ll be the first to know.
