My Own Experiences with the Paranormal
I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.
Introduction
The occult, the paranormal, and all things strange and bizarre, are subjects that have fascinated me for a long time. Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I became interested in conspiracies and through that I became acquainted with occult subjects. The more I would read about conspiracies, the more it seemed that they were inextricably linked to the occult in some way – either directly, or because the conspiracy theorist had attributed some occult leaning to an event.
It's the paranormal, though, where my greatest interest lies. I am completely intrigued by tales of weirdness - history is full of people experiencing occurrences that made them think - 'what the hell happened there??'
I've had a few of those moments myself, as have members of my family. Below are some of those 'paranormal' accounts, and whilst I'm not explaining them by saying - 'GHOSTS!' - I can say two things for certain - they happened and, I can't explain them.
Disappearing Keys
I got home from shopping one day and whilst I unpacked, I put my keys on my desk. 5 minutes later they were gone. The kids all lived at home at that time, so of course, the first thing I asked - who took the keys? No-one fessed up.
Apart from the fact that my kids generally don't play 'pranks' like this, they also know that I have mild OCD that manifests mostly when it comes to checking things are switched off and locked up at night (did it lock that time? I should check it one more time - oh, my attention slipped for a microsecond, I need to check again - nope, someone spoke while I was checking, I need to check it again, etc, etc, etc). So even if one of them had decided out of the blue to hide them on me, I have no doubt that by night-time they would have admitted it.
No-one did and so that night I went to bed not being able to double lock the door. Of course I had, by that time, also checked everywhere around the desk and on the floor - nothing.
The next day, I needed a pencil, something I very rarely need because I use pens. The only ones I had were tucked away in a jar, on a shelf behind my computer monitors. I reached around to get it, and as I picked a pencil out, I noticed something shiny in there. Taking out all the pencils, I saw my keys right there at the bottom of the jar.
Disappearing Notepad
I used to have a notepad on my desk right next to my mouse mat. It had a list of things I needed to do regarding the website, so was always there, always open. On the day after one of my sons moved out, I noticed it was missing. Of course, my first thought was that he had accidentally taken it. But no, he said he hadn't.
This notebook never leaves that space it occupies next to my mouse mat. But I looked around anyway. Not on the floor, not on the table, nowhere else on my desk. So then I started looking in more unlikely places, including a set of plastic drawers that was about 6 feet away from my desk, and which was used for keeping those items that you don't really use, but are resistant to throw away because you know that on the day that you do, someone will ask for it. No notepad to be seen.
A few times over the next week (because I needed that list), I checked again. I would open those drawers in particular and stare at the contents, and move things around, wondering where the hell it had gone. Couldn't find the notepad.
Maybe a month later, I was doing some work and got to doing something which made me again really want to see that list. Exasperated, I jokingly said out loud - 'OK, can you just put it back now? Thank you'. Later that day, maybe about a couple of hours later, for whatever reason, I needed something out of the drawer of useless items - opened the middle drawer and there, on top of everything else, was my notepad.
Disappearing Fork
Two of my sons were in the kitchen (very small kitchen, literally 4 steps and you've walked across it), one was preparing his instant noodle pot. Took a fork from the drainer on the sink (other son confirms this as he was stood by the sink), turned around and put it next to his noodles, turned to get something else, and when he turned back, the fork was gone. Hadn't fallen anywhere, nowhere for it to really fall under. Never saw that fork again.
Disappearing Glasses
Another very memorable time was when my son (the same one who had the fork go missing) couldn't find his glasses one morning while he was getting ready for work. After looking under things, we looked all along the sofa together, literally going from one end to the other, looking under cushions, but they were nowhere to be found.
Later that day, wanting to have a nap, I had looked across and seen my cats sprawled out asleep in the middle of the sofa, so I decided against it because I didn't want to disturb them. An hour later, realising they had gone elsewhere, I got up and walked across to the sofa. Without even thinking, I gathered up the two game controllers, the remote control, and a glasses case, which were laying on the middle cushion, and turned to put them on the coffee table. Only when putting them down did the thought hit me - where the hell did all this come from? None of it was there that morning when me and my son had checked.
Disappearing woman
A weird thing that I experienced with a colleague; we worked in a very quiet shop with barely any customers. The shop was within a shopping centre; we were the last shop, right at the back. It being so quiet that day (it closed down a few months later because of lack of business), we were sitting down chatting. A woman came in and we both stood to attention, standing side by side, both looking straight at her as she browsed a rack of towels about half a metre from the door and about 2 metres away from us (nothing in the path of our sight).
Nothing unusual about her, she had dark hair and was wearing sunglasses.
Next thing I know, I hear my colleague say - "where did she go?". I turn to her (meaning my gaze up until that point was still in the direction of the customer) and said "what?" - then I looked back, no customer.
We both expressed confusion - I personally felt like I had just come out of a trance. Not wanting to influence her, I didn't mention this and asked what she felt had happened to her. She said she felt like she had gone into a trance, and when she 'came to', the customer had gone.
Now I know some people will say, oh, you just zoned out. Except I know that feeling, and if it had been that, I wouldn't have been so weirded out by it all. Also, only a couple of seconds had passed in-between her walking in and my colleague asking where she was.
So confused were we, we spent the next few minutes wandering around the shop, even though the chances of her hiding in an aisle somewhere was a tad unlikely. People came in all the time (if rarely), browsed and left, and we didn't always see them leave, so it's not like it was that that was confusing for us.
It was a completely disorienting experience and one that we talked about for the rest of the day: she was there, and then she wasn't.
Noises That Shouldn't Be
Heard the very distinctive noise of the chest of drawers being opened upstairs when no-one was around.
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My daughter once told me that very late at night, she heard three distinct knocks on her bedroom door, about a foot up from the floor, much lower than if an adult had knocked. Also, there was no-one else awake at that time.
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My son heard someone knock on the bathroom door while he was in there late at night. Again, after checking, no-one had gone downstairs at night apart from him.
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I swear I heard my son get up for work one day, heard the footsteps on the stairs, and heard the bathroom door close (downstairs bathroom). I would always make them a coffee when they got up, but realised they had gotten up earlier than usual. Figured they had just woken up a little earlier and decided to get up, so I went to put the kettle on to make a coffee. After a while, I realised that they still hadn't come out of the bathroom. Then I noticed that the door of the bathroom was slightly open, so I knocked and when no answer came, I opened it. Turns out he hadn't actually gotten up at all, and indeed, about 10 minutes later, came downstairs as normal.
Things That Shouldn't Be
My second eldest son used to see shadow people in his bedroom at night, and would also see them in his rented room when he moved out. He said he would be laying in bed and would see them, sometimes quite clearly, crawling towards him. One time, he saw it crawl right up to him, before he turned around in bed, away from it.
If you asked him about it, then and now, he would pass it off as seeing things in the dark.
But then there was also that time he was walking near his uni campus with his friend, when he saw a glowing blue humanoid walk past them.
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I think there are three of us in this house who have felt something pressing down on the mattress while we've been in bed. The last time it happened to me was only a few weeks ago. One of my cats stays in my room at night (because he's a bully and will fight the other cats), and so when I felt the mattress go down behind my shoulder, I thought (hoped) it was him. But when I turned around he was sleeping on my bedside table.
Weird instances with my son
The son who had the fork go missing - when he was a young teen, woke up one morning, and I noticed a red triangle mark on his neck. Very clearly a triangle, no explanation as to how it had happened.
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Same son, when he was very young (4 or 5), I used to put him and his sister in bed together, and then when I went up, I would move him into his own room. One night, I went up, and he wasn't next to his sister. Ok, he'd never done it before, but he could've got up and went into his own room by himself.
Except when I went in to check, his duvet cover was completely tucked in all around him, including his arms. There is little chance a sleepy 5 year old would even bother tucking any part of his duvet in, there is zero chance he could have tucked himself in as snugly as I found him.
Final Thoughts
I've had other weird things happen when I was younger as well, but for a while, in this house, we really did start to joke about there being a ghost here. My youngest son even gave him a name - Frank. And I'm not going to lie, it did use to freak me out, especially when I was in the house on my own.
But the thing is, I've never really believed in 'ghosts' - it's a concept I have always found hard to get my head around. Not because I don't think weird stuff happens, or that it can all be explained by current science, but because the whole idea that you have to hang around on this earth after you've died is just - sad.
My son came up with a theory (I swear blind this was my theory but I'll give credit to him because every time this gets brought up in conversation, he will insist that it's his idea) - the theory is that there are parallel universes and that every so often, we will get glimpses of it; either by seeing or hearing things, or by things being moved. These might be accidental crossovers, or more manipulated instances.
I think it makes more sense. The idea of parallel universes is definitely not that 'out there' - and it would explain not only the ghost sightings and disappearing (and reappearing) of items, but it would also explain those weird, almost absurd, alien being encounters (I'll be writing about them in my next article.)
So we've all got used to being in this house with its strange, but thankfully not too frightening 'paranormal' events. And if anything does happen, I try to remind myself that instead of it being some spirit from the afterlife coming back because they're annoyed at how I'm decorating the spare room - I'm just getting some interference from another universe - kind of like turning the dial on a radio: sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you get something.
THE END
