Little Rock, Arkansas

A couple from Little Rock, Arkansas joined me a few months back. The husband had grown up in Alton, Illinois and once during his childhood had woken from a bad dream and went looking for his mother. The bedrooms were on the second floor in a type of loft with a balcony allowing a view into the living room. The walls on either side of the fireplace were bookshelves. When he stepped out of his room he saw his mother, her back to him, moving along the bookshelves. He called out to her and behind him her bedroom light flipped on. He turned toward it to hear his mother's voice and when he turned back to the bookshelf the figure was gone.


Many years later in Arkansas he and his then wife were driving down a misty country road late at night. It was very hilly and rural; there was a small church ahead of them. As they got closer to the church he saw a couple in the road. They were older, dancing close together, eyes locked completely on one another. The car went straight through them. He turned to his wife, sure that he had imagined the whole thing. "Did you see that?" She did.



His wife had an animal story, and while I certainly have heard them before, I don't hear all that many in general. They had just moved into a new house and her project was to get the back yard in order. She spent a lot of time raking and pulling up weds. When she raked in one area of the yard, she would always feel something brush up against her, like a cat. Only when she turned, there was never anything there. She figured it was her imagination, or some especially soft plant. This went on for sometime. Later she met one of her new neighbors and mentioned that she was fixing up the back yard. Her neighbor replied that she was liable to dig up bones. The previous owner had buried her cat in the backyard. The neighbor described the specific area and sure enough it was the same place.

Manteca, California

The parent child bond can often stay with us long after our bodies have been separated. In June I had a woman on my tour from Manteca, California. Unfortunately, she had to leave early since her little girl was exhausted. But before she left, she told me that when she was young her mother had died. Her father later remarried and they moved to another house; it was a little too awkward for his new wife to live in the house where her mother had died. Shortly after they had moved her father and stepmother were gone for the night and some friends came to keep her company. The family had moved a large ornate mirror from the old house into the new one and mounted it in the hallway. At one point during that night she walked down the hallway past the mirror and one of her friends saw the wispy figure of a woman float behind her.



She had also had the opportunity to speak with the people who lived in her old house. They said that sometimes they saw a woman with a turban going from room to room as if she were looking for something. Her mother had died of cancer and wore a turban in her final days.

Boulder 1960

Just as I finished hearing that dark story about Berlin, another woman on my tour shared an equally unusual story with me. She called it her "pre-ghost" story.


In 1960 when she was 6 years old she lived in Boulder Colorado. Her mother was 6 months pregnant. One night at dusk she looked out the screen door into the back yard. They lived in a neighborhood with and alley behind the house and other houses beyond. As she looked out the door, she saw a baby, about one year old, walking down the alley, limping and dragging its leg along. The baby stopped and turned to her, waved, and continued to limp down the alley. The baby was clear to her, but she could see right through it.


The next day her mother had a miscarriage and the fetus had no ankle on one leg and the other leg was twisted around. It lived for about 30 minutes after it was born.

From Connecticut to Berlin

Tonight I got to speak with a woman visiting from Connecticut. She'd done some traveling in Europe in 2004 and had some strange experiences in Berlin.


She and a companion were staying at a hotel there and plagued with nightmares, so they decided to check out of their hotel and stay at a youth hostel. They booked it online for two nights. When they arrived, she immediately felt uneasy; the building looked like a hospital. Inside wasn't much different, the waiting area, the rooms, not only did it feel like a hospital but no one had bothered to redecorate. The floor they were on was empty except for the two of them, but they were so uncomfortable that they escorted one another to the bathroom. They decided to stay out as late as they could to avoid sleeping there. Eventually when they did get back to the hostile, they got in bed and turned out the light. Immediately they heard beeping sounds, like monitors. The beeping was down the hall, then in the floor above them, then across the hall, on and on. They tried to ignore it and go to sleep. Finally her companion did fall asleep, and she was almost out when she heard a loud beep right beside her head. She jumped out of bed and woke him up. They decided to sleep with the lights on. By 6:30 in the morning they woke and everything was silent. Immediately they checked out. The young lady at the front desk asked them why and they told her flat out, "this place is haunted." The girl shrugged. "What was this place before?" they asked. The girl said it had been a hospital for invalid children, but the woman on my tour felt it must have been older than that, maybe from one or both world wars.


They left that place and for the next six months or so, could not speak of it to one another. Her companion fell ill and went from hospital to hospital, baffling all the doctors. No one could figure out what was wrong with him. After six months, things seemed to clear up. But even tonight, as she shared the story with me, she felt the chill of it.

Games

Just last night I was chatting with my tour participants about some strange experiences they had had with the paranormal. They were three generations, grandparents, dad, and daughter and the young lady was looking at colleges in New Orleans. The grandmother said that when her son was growing up there was a little spirit that played with him and sometimes kept them up at night roaming the hallways.


As it turns out her husband wrote a book about that experience and other paranormal experiences that he has had over his lifetime. So I have never had this opportunity before, but I want to post the link to his book. You can buy it on Amazon, The Elaborate Game by Robert Lawson. I have not read it but I look forward to checking it out.


Here is the link. http://www.amazon.com/The-Elaborate-Game-Robert-Lawson/dp/1452579172/ref=sr_1_94?ie=UTF8&qid=1405741146&sr=8-94&keywords=Robert+Lawson