The bumper book of ghouls, ghosts and practical jokes.
1. the rolling mirror of fate.
some of our neighbours had a teenage/early 20's son who purportedly saw dead people, we were sitting in their living room one day and from by the side of the settee where i was sitting a mirror rolled out and round in reducing arcs until it settled on the floor dead in the middle of the the room. it had been leaning against the wall at an angle so chances are even if it had rolled by itself it would have fell over as soon as it rolled out past the settee.

2. the haunted dimmer switch of doom
in our house at the same time as the mirror thing happened our dimmer switch in the living room would go from barely on (low-light) to being physically fully turned around and the light on full in a split second with myself and my mum both sitting the other side of the room and no one else in the house.

3. the phantom door handle rattler.
sitting in my bedroom one night in the house on my own watching tv i heard what sounded like one of our cats bounding up the stairs and then the door handle on the room next to mine being rattled (our cats learnt to jump up and hit the door handle when they wanted to be let in the house). i went out on the landing and all the doors were close so i checked the other bedrooms thinking a cat was locked in somewhere... nope. i head down stairs and all the doors were shut in the hall as well so the cat hadnt gone back down either. i still have no idea what made the noise.

4. the ringing phone of terror.
in the same house we had the phone disconnected for years, when we finally had a new line fitted i was in the house alone that evening and i had about 30 calls at random intervals where the phone would hang up either as i went to answer it or had just picked it up. it would only happen if i was in another room (i waited by the phone for 20 minutes and it didnt ring until i went in another room despite being minutes apart at some point) no one we knew had our number yet and even my mum didnt know it so it wasnt here calling.

5. the jumping table of beelzebub.
sitting in my nans living one one sunday evening with about 8 members of my family all watching telly when out of the corner of my eye i notice some movement at the end of the room (it was a long living/dining room) i turn my head just in time to see the heavy oak dining table drop an inch back on to the floor with a loud thud and then rocking from side to side from the impact. everyone was at least 6 feet away from the table and it was a big heavy table (seating about 6-8 people).

and the fun ones...

6. the country lane of blood.
myself and some mates were driving around bored out of our skulls so we decided to drive down some scary country lanes. we reach one and my mate dares me to get out and wait in the (pitch) dark until they reach the end of the road, turn round and come back (about 5 minutes). i agree on the proviso that i get to hang on to their shoes (so they dont leave me there). i get out of the car and as soon as they are out of sight, i put one of the shoes in the middle of the road and hide in the bushes a bit further along. when they return they slow down at the shoe and as they reach it i jump out of the bushes and shout. cue my mate executing an emergency stop and two very high pitch girl like screams coming from my two male mates. them being shaken up and me laughing my arse off for the rest of the night.

7. the tale of the escaped mental patient.
again driving in a friends car one evening we were bored and thoughts turned to scary stories. knowing my best mate is gullible and easily scared i started telling him a revised version of the axe murderer/mental patient who attacks the boyfriend of a couple after he gets out of the car to investigate a noise and the girlfriend then hears a banging on the roof and it's said murdered with her boyfriends head. well i said it happened in the woods we were in at the time, back when we were little (about 8) and it was a mental patient who escaped the local hospital. i also said it made the national papers but as it was local our parents probably didnt want us to know about it but i'd read about it anyways. my other mate picked up on the wind up and embelished/corroborated the 'facts' until my mate was 100% sure this actually happened. we later park up somewhere (gullible mate in drivers seat, me in back seat directly behind him) and while we're talking i slowly wind down the window put my arm out and bang as hard as i can on the roof above his head. cue him screaming like he was going to die and jumping so much he hit his head on the roof, it scared him so much that when it came to drop everyone off home he refused to drive the last bit of the journey alone and made my friend go with him and then paid for him to get a taxi back to his own house (about £10).
( HatBeard, Fri 21 Apr 2006, 11:54, Reply)