the long and winding road!
Ha, I do haves a story to tell! its more weird than spooky.

Myself and an ex mrs mort used to live in a sleepy little idyl called Ripon, up in North Yorks. I'm originally from Manchester myself but the mrs originally hailed from York, not too far from Ripon. Her folks still lived there, and occasionally we'd drive over for a sunday lunch or whatnot.

One weekend we were driving back quite late at night. This is a route we'd done loads of times, and was pretty much the main route from York to Ripon. About half way home, where we pulled off the dual carriageway onto the back lanes we took to our place, we noticed that a transit van had pulled on to the same stretch of road behind us. We noticed this cos the fucker had his lights on hi beam and was right up our arses. he followed us for a good 5-10 minutes, with the mrs getting very anxious and me flashing him angry dagger eyes. Then the lights went off, no turning off the road, just went out, at the same point a car came round the bend and past us, as it went past its headlignts showed us there was no van there at all. Freaking out we had a look what time it was and the clock on the dashboard clicked on to 12.01am, weird!

we got the fuck out of there pretty sharpish.
(mort110, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:56, Reply)

The Door
I was about 14, and as the only child of a single parent, my mum was frequently home later than me.

It was getting on for the end of autumn, the skies turned the colour of a bruise and a slight chill wind swept the land at about the same time I came home, on my own, from school.

I was obviously on edge - maybe we'd had a talk at school about burglars, or I'd recently had a fright walking across the fields which were my short cut home... but I turned the key to the front door of our first-floor flat and pushed open the door.

Suddenly, the bathroom door just across the hallway slammed shut.

I shat myself. The flat door was intact & double-locked. There was no light on in the bathroom, which there always is if anyone is using it, because there is no window. I knew mum was at work and I was alone.

What should I do? Leave the house and call a neighbour, or the police? Naah - I'm a 14-year old panicking kid. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand - a piece of 1.5" x 1" wood about 3 feet long (4cm x 2.5cm x 1m for you youngsters!) and pushed the doorhandle down to open and forwards with it held at full length.

There was a resistance and the door slammed shut again.

"Come out!" I shouted (probably all wobbly and high pitched). I don't know why - perhaps the friendly burglar or evil spirit would kindly open the door and leave. There was no reply.

So I hit the cheap internal door as hard as I could with the wood, and put a hole in it, pretty much all the way through.

As I did this, I caught sight of something familiar: The clothes-drier, which was sat as usual astride the bath, had caught a breeze and slipped over in the bathroom, the angle pushing the door closed.

I had to explain the hole in the door to my mum when she got home. She took it quite well, actually.

So, I remain a sceptic, but do love a good ghost story and always get the creepy spine tingle thing. Nowadays, having spent the best part of 18 years hanging around doing historical shows at some of Britain's "Most Haunted Places", usually with an overnight stay, I have been occasionaly nervous but have never seen anything "supernatural" at all.

I feel robbed!

There was that one time at Warwick Castle... I was admiring the castle from the island, late at night, admittedly after a few beers but nothing OTT. A friend and I were watching the castle, thinking it was a lovely place to have as a backdrop for a campsite, when we spotted a dim green light moving in an upstairs window. It moved from one window to another, as if someone was walking down a corridor with a green torch. When it had traversed almost all of the windows, it disappeared.

A couple of enquiries the next day revealed that (a) the security guard does not do "rounds" and watches everything from an office with several monitors, (b) the rooms on the top floor aren't open during the night, and (c) the corridor that the windows open onto was divided into offices in the 1940s, so there is no continuous length of corridor there for our light to traverse.

Puzzling, but not scary. And that's as close as I've got to a supernatural experience.
( Doctor When May your wife shat and chipper, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:49, 1 reply)

Hangover hallucination
A friend of mine had been out on the sauce one evening and had been fairly liberal with the Bacardi Breezers on a school night - quite literally in her case, for she's a school teacher.

The next morning, she climbs into her car barely registering a pulse and off she drives. Roughly two miles from home in the middle of nowhere, she experienced what can only be described as an hallucination.

Either she drank one Breezer too many the night before, or a creature roughly the size of a Labrador, with a hunched back had just jumped out into the road in front of her, shortly before shuffling into a nearby bush in no particular hurry.

She shook her head, cursed the demon drink and continued on her way. Most of us have had some bizarre visions the next morning, after a night on the sauce, however I cannot think of anyone who's seen a baby kangaroo.

A few weeks afterward however, she picks up the local newspaper and finds this.


(edit) a heck of a lot more appealing than some of the zoological phenomenon I have witnessed after during a night out on the turps in Essex.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:45, 2 replies)

I can't be the only one....
...who wants to go out and buy a ghost pirate costume and scare some meddling kids away from my buried treasure.

I am?

Crap.

GYARRR

_{And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling b3tans.}
(UncleChuckles "Cthulhu fhtagn", Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:43, 1 reply)

A shout in my head...
Several years ago when I was working in a job I hated - a job I hated every single minute of, including the bus journey and the walk to and from the bus stop. A job that made me less aware of surroundings.

Every night I would cross the busy road - ring road busy with plenty of rush hour idiots - if there was no traffic and the red man was on I would be still wary about crossing....but, as soon as the green man came on I'd cross without looking knowing that the cars would all be stopping anyway.

Except one day I was waiting for the green man to come on. When it changed I gave it a couple of seconds and was just about to step into the road when I heard this voice in my head that sounded like my sister just shouting "STOP!!!!".

I stopped....and no sooner had I stopped when a Transit van zoomed past at gone 50mph right in the road I would have stepped out in. I would have been almost certainly killed instantly.

I've spoken to her about this and she doesn't recall anything - no sudden shout in her head, no sudden flash of me dying - nothing. It was definitely her voice though and although I'm still here to tell the story, I'm still freaked out about it.
(lo-fi_shop_assistant, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:33, 2 replies)

The mysterious case of the vanishing credit worthiness
Honestly, you'll shit yourselves reading this...*

I’ve always prided myself on good financial management skills. Barely a day goes by where I don’t check my bank balance. When I found myself single and suddenly existing on a fairly meagre salary, I immediately opened up a second current account where all of my newly acquired direct debits could be paid from, leaving me knowing exactly how much spare cash I had each month for beer and food and beer and comics and beer and DVDs (except it was still videos in those days). This is a principle I still operate today.

Where am I going with this? Patience…

I have never defaulted on a mortgage / rent payment, never missed a council tax payment, nor any utility bills; and generally pay my credit card off each month. ‘Oh ho’, thinks I, ‘this financial acumen what I possess will be of great help in later years and no mistake’. *Grins smugly while all around him financial fuckwits wonder where tomorrow night’s kebab is coming from*

And sure enough, we get to last year. Having sold my house and made a tidy profit on it, I move in with Madame Sweary, and we look at buying her place. After a long period of attempting to get a very small mortgage (using the bulk of my savings as a deposit and retaining some money to do improvements with), we eventually tell the mortgage company to stick their offer sideways, as they would only offer us a sum that was ten grand more than we wanted to borrow, and by the way, there will be an extra one grand arrangement fee for the privilege. Er, no thanks.

So we paid cash, which wiped out most of my savings, and I decided to try and get a loan for home improvements. Not a huge amount, around £10k. Looking around, Tesco seemed to offer the best deal, so I duly applied on line and eagerly awaited the confirmation that they would be only too happy to help, being the responsible little citizen that I was. Their money would be in safe hands…

Except that didn’t happen. No, what happened was that I got a refusal, but they couldn’t tell me why. It might have been something to do with my credit rating, they said, but even if they knew that this was the case, they would be unable to tell me the exact reason because of ‘data protection’ issues. Hmm. Data protection – data that other companies hold about me, FFS. Right, I thought, I’ll apply for my credit score and see what it says. So I did. The only thing on it that I could see would be an issue would be the length of time I was on the electoral roll at my current address. Otherwise every other entry on the report was a glowing recommendation of my candidacy for credit.

It would appear that I am either too safe a pair of hands to lend money to, as I’m highly unlikely to default and therefore hold less of a potential profit margin than your average pissy chav on Income Support; or my length of time at my current address is knocking my score down a bit as I can’t properly demonstrate security in terms of abode. Or perhaps they just didn’t like me. Or possibly some other reason.

Whichever the case, it still remains unexplained to this day. Not exactly supernatural, but still a bloody mystery to me!

Bloody data protection.


*May not actually be the case
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:32, 14 replies)

I don't believe in ghosts.
What's more I think it's arrogant of the human race to think that they somehow inhabit a plane of existence worthy of life after death. We are highly evolved and socially adept animals, and when we die we fuel the ecosystem.

However, this still freaks me out. I'm sure there's a rational hallucinatory explanation, but still gives me a bit of a chill.

Sitting in the living room, I heard someone rustling through the post, then someone of the same stature as my other half walked past the living room door.

"Mick" calls I

No answer. I walk out the door, and watch as the guy carries on walking up the stairs. I shout after him again, to no response. What does happen is my boyfriend appears from behind me, as he had been working in the room next door to me.

I've had hallucinations in the past, but always fleeting glimpses that disappeared when I looked at them. I have never watched someone walk away form me, calm and collected. I had wobbly legs for quite a while after that.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:27, 4 replies)

Strangeness...
I've always had strong hunches about people and situations but was more than prepared to put it down to female intuition or just try to quash what I feel because I didn't like the probably outcome - if I ignore it it'll go away....It doesn't work like that though....Does it?

Anyway, it started with my boyfriend who I've not been seeing very long only about 5-6 months, but he has a very strong energy about him and is a very happy person, so much so that it's infectious. It's lovely.

So a few weeks ago his Grandmother died, I only met her a handful of times before we found out that she was diagnosed with lung cancer on the and given 6 months to live. I got a feeling in my head that she wasn't going to be around that long at all....The last few weekends have been beautiful in the UK. Sunny and and summery and beautiful and on waking up a few days after her diagnosis, I thought of his Grandmother, I was thinking: it's such a beautiful day, it's a shame she's in hospital and not out enjoying the day....I think she's going to go today.

So my boyfriend and I set about our business mowing the lawn and hanging the washing and all the time, I had this clenching sensation in my stomach which I tried to ignore. At around lunchtime, the phone rang. It was my boyfriends stepfather telling him to come to the hospital. I immedietly felt like I was going to throw up, told my boyfriend I didn't want him to go on his own, but he insisted and left me at his house where I waited for him to call back with news. Yup, she passed away at lunch time in her hospital bed....

Later on that evening we had plans to go out which he wanted to keep to, so we went out for dinner. While in the restaurant I experienced a sensation which I can only describe as the same feeling I get when someone is standing behind me, sort of blocking my hearing. I looked slightly to the left, saw a shadow and moved my chair in and turned round to apologise to the person who was trying to get past my chair, only to find myself apologising to thin air. My boyfriend joked that it was his grandmother and nothing more was said about it.

I stayed at his that night and we chatted for a while about his grandmother and grandfather and eventually fell asleep. I was woken very early in the morning by a smell (!!) A very strong, but not artificial smell of flowers. There was no one in the house apart from me and my sleeping boyfriend and he is not one for room scenters. Anyway, as quick as this smell appeared, it went! I will admit to just coming round from sleep but I've never experienced anything like it before in my life.

Now, after his grandmothers death, we have been round to her house a few times and I will say that I get a very uncomfortable vibe from it and often feel quite sick while there, and I fully admit it could be a case of me giving myself the heebie-jeebies!! Yesterday, we had to spend the whole day there waiting for someone to come and do a probate valuation and to sort what we are throwing out, and what is being kept etc. As soon as we walked in I felt nauseous and even more bizzarely I suddenly got a ver sore throat, now this lady was a fairly heavy smoker so the feeling could be explained away as the place reeking of stale fags. But there was this underlying smell of decay, like rotting teeth and bad breath but concentrated, I just couldn't shift it even with all the doors and windows open and the feeling of the place just left me feeling so drained. I feel so so sad whenever I go in there, on edge and extremely lonely.

On a stranger note, when I am doing something on my own, like watching the telly, I often feel like there is someone there with me. Not watching me ot anything weird like that, just a sort of companionable pressence, so much so that I forget I;m on my own and turn round to say to thin air "Did you see that?!" or something along those lines...
(GirlOfTheWorld, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:26, Reply)

Ok, not so much supernatural, but odd...
I get a tingly feeling all over my scalp and it feels like all the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up when... someone picks up and inspects an item that belongs to me.

It's actually quite a pleasant sensation, but fuck knows why it happens. Plus, that's the only scenario in which it happens.

Anyone got any pet theories they'd like to advance?
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:16, 4 replies)

Another Thing
Happened to a mate of mine who works for CID in Manchester. He was involved with a murder investigation and had a hunch that this guy, a bloke with learning difficulties, had been the murderer although it turned up at interview that he had an alibi. Whatever, my mate believed that this bloke (let's call him Colin) knew the killer. His girlfriend at the time also worked for CID, but they'd been having problems. She'd trailed Colin but had ended up being abducted, presumably by the killer. My mate was driving from the scene of the abduction and was very distressed, as you would be if you're girlfriend had just been abducted. He got out of the car to calm down and was hit by a speeding vehicle which he reckons came out of nowhere. He woke up in 1973. Was he mad, in coma or back in time? What ever it was it was like he was on a different planet. Maybe if he could work out the reason, he could find his way home...


Doo, doo, do do do, do, do do
(Monsieur Mangetout confuses dreams and reality just like Dougal on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:14, 4 replies)

A few people have already referenced Ghost Busters in their posts,
and I have to admit to the fact that when I was a little boy, I got one of my first ever pecker-stiffys while watching the scene with the scary lady ghost who unzips Ray's sleeping bag.

So, I'm turned on by the idea of fucking the dead, or Dan Ackroyd. Either way I'm screwed.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:12, 9 replies)

Supernatural? Or idiocy?
My mother-in-law is, well, a dumbass. A huge one, it drives me bloody barmy then back again.

In the 1970s, she worked as a flight attendant for British European Airways. She turned up at Heathrow for her shift and, being the complete fucking idiot she is, got on the wrong plane.

The plane she was meant to be on crashed over Staines, killing all 118 on board.

My husband, equally as vain as his mother is an idiot, missed his train because he spent too long doing his hair. As the theme of this missive is ‘OMG! She didn’t get on the plane THEN EVERYBODY DIED1!!!1’, you guessed the ending.

But for those of you a bit more dim then the rest, his train crashed at Ladbroke Grove. 31 people died.

(My favourite mother-in-law story was how when she first moved away from home, she got herself a pet chicken. She gave chicken to her pet chicken until it got a taste for chicken, ate itself, then died.)
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:11, 4 replies)

Don't ask me to visit you in hospital ...
.
.....just in case.

Ever since my teens, I have had the occasional brush with the slightly spooky.

I appear to have some weird "spider sense" that tells me when someone is not going to be released from hospital, fit and well. It only operates sporadically but is freaky when it does. The first couple of times I had this feeling, I dismissed it. When you're visiting an elderly (80-odd years old) relative who's had a severe stroke, it's no great feat to predict a trip to the undertakers is looming.

The third time was seriously spooky. I was visiting a friend in Simpson's (Edinburgh's then maternity hospital) when I bumped into an old schoolfriend I hadn't seen in years. She invited me to pop up and see her mum in the Gynae (sp?) ward, where she was recovering from a hysterectomy. After coo-ing at the newborn for some time, I left the maternity pavillion and went to the main hospital.

As I approached my friend's mum's bed, I was struck by an odd "tingle" in the neck. When I said hello and sat down, I had the overwhelming feeling that her mum wasn't going to recover. I (hope) I kept that hidden from them both, chatted away for a while and left. I told MrWitch when I got home and he just gave me "that" look. The one that suggests he's just realised he married a weirdo.

Two days later, my mum phoned me. My friend's mum had died suddenly during the night, due to an undiagnosed aneurism in the brain. Oh.

Fast forward a few years, and my father in law is in hospital being treated for a blood clot on the brain. He was doing well after surgery and expected to make a full recovery. It would be a long recovery, but the prognosis was good. I visited a few times with no "tingle" until the last time I saw him. We visited on a Saturday evening and I just had *that* feeling again. He was awake, aware of us being there and able to squeeze our hands on request. The doctors were cautiously optimistic. Yet I had the feeling I'd never see him again.

When we left the hospital I had tears running down my face and MrWitch wanted to know why. When I told him, he just went pale. We went home and tried to tell ourselves that my imagination was getting the better of me. The doctors were hopeful, no more clots had formed and he was responding to treatment.

We got the call at 5am the next morning. When the phone rings at that time, it's never good news. My father in law had developed blood poisoning and was fading fast. By the time we got to the hospital he was gone.

Thankfully, it's not happened since then. I'm still quivering inside every time I go to visit someone in hospital, though. Just in case.

To finish on a lighter note, I also have a "football spider sense". On countless occasions, about two minutes into a game on TV, I make a final score prediction. I'm right nine times out ten. It's sickening. If I got that feeling a bit earlier I could put a bet on!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:08, 5 replies)

Firstly - let's be clear. I don't actually believe in supernatural events
However, I've been presented with some tantalising reasons to doubt my own rational brain.

All of them happened in my friend Steve's house, a few while I was present too. That house, if such a thing exists, is as haunted as it gets. It lies at the bottom of my street.

We would have been about 13 at the time. Steve had been living in this house for about 6 months when we started noticing the weirdness. It started off with his dog, which refused to go anywhere near a particular corner of the room. Nothing particularly unusual about that. The dog soon died of a heart attack (it was quite old, so this wasn't entirely unexpected...) and so a new dog was promptly purchased to keep Steve happy. This one was a border collie puppy. When it arrived at the house it was full of the joys of spring, bouncing around and generally being a very happy dog. It skipped into the front room and then froze on the spot, staring at the same corner of the room that the previous dog had disliked so much. The little mite started shaking and pissed itself right there and then.
This dog developed a very nervous personality and would often be seen 'tracking' with his head, as if watching something that simply wasn't there. At least, we couldn't see anything. After a few months of vet appointments and animal psychologists, the dog had to be returned to the farm where they'd bought it.

Then there was the sleepover incident. One night I slept over at Steve's place after a day playing on the Amiga and eating pizza and crips. After collapsing into my sleeping bag bed, I awoke later to find that Steve was out of his bed. I heard him and his dad talking to each other downstairs, but I couldn't make out what they were saying, so I went down to see what was going on. They were in the front room, in the dark, trying to move the sofa. I turned the light on and asked what was happening, when they both suddenly screamed in terror for the briefest of moments, before staring at me, utterly pale. They'd both been sleepwalking, and had decided to move the sofa, which happened to be in the same corner of the room that the dog hated... the next morning was a bit strange over breakfast. Neither one of them could explain it.

A few weeks later, I was around the house again, playing computer games as usual. There was a loud crash from the spare bedroom, and when we tried to get in, the door was blocked, from the inside. After much shoving, the door opened to reveal that the wardrobe had toppled over, wedging itself between the two walls that formed the doorway. No-one was in the room when it happened. Steve's dad initally assumed we'd done it, but he accepted the explanation we gave him straight away, even though we hardly believed it ourselves.

The final straw was when we were sat downstairs watching videos one rainy weekend. Steve's mum was upstairs, cleaning. The familiar howl of the hoover was just about audible over the explosions of Die Hard. She shouted something downstairs, which neither of us made out properly. He replied "What?!" (as teenagers will do) but she didn't repeat it.

Then his mum walked in the front door, carrying shopping. She'd been out all morning, but we didn't know it. She asked why we looked so spooked by her arrival, so we took her upstairs, where we found the hoover plugged in and switched on. She hadn't even started cleaning that day.

They sold the house and moved out not long after that. Since then, the house has changed hands at least 5 times in fifteen years.
( chart cat has an itch, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:56, 2 replies)

Perverted Ghostly Goings on!
I'm fairly cynical about paranormal bits and bobs and don't particularly consider myself highly strung or suseptible to bullshit however... (Cue ominous "dum dum duuuum" music)
I've lived in a thatched cottage for around a year now. Now having been chatting with my old lady and various guests we've had, a couple of people began stating that occaisionally you could smell the thick aroma of cigar smoke. Being a bit of a health nut i haven't touched a cigar in years or had them anywhere near the thatch (im paranoid of the fucking thing burning down!). Anywho i thought "bollocks" and just carried on with my usual disregard for peoples beliefs... Until i began to smell it myself; the really heavy smell of cigars in different rooms for around five minutes or so, then it would just stop. So I was hopping in the shower one morning and as i closed my eyes i felt a hand running firmly down my back. Obviously i flinched a little as i was the only one in the house: "No one there" i thought, "just my imagination"... But then i felt it again! It's happened a couple of times now when the water has been off, its odd and also slightly worrying because if (and i do stress IF) there is a ghost im struck by the fact that not only do i have to reassess all my beliefs on the paranormal but also that the filthy fucking perv touches me up in the shower... Not to mention probably watching all the deviant stuff i do in my bedroom! ;-)
(SteroidPigOhurugu, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:55, 2 replies)

Too Early...

this company specialise in product design, but they've got a few weird ideas.

Only the other day they asked me to staple loads of animal appendages to the back end of their building...and after I did it, they whined that the ones I had stapled were too rough! - ordering me to smooth them all down using a standard carpentry tool.

oh yes...

It was 'Tails of the Unex-planed'.

*loses will to live*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:55, 3 replies)

For a while I rented a room in King's Cross (in Australia),
A horrible sleazy 'red-light district' kind of place. The place was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a 'fluffer' who'd died there. People said they saw her wandering the halls, keeping her spirits up.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:51, 1 reply)

Losing things
I keep losing things at the moment and I can't explain it.

In the last couple of weeks I've lost my iPod (a present from my parents so I'm really miserable about that), my current notebook (I always have a notebook on me so I've no idea where it went) and a make up brush - yeah, a minor one, but it dropped to the floor and seemed to disappear...I think.

I'm beginning to wonder if I've got a kleptomaniac ghost haunting me.


Send all your positive thoughts to me finding my stuff please. Especially the iPod.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:47, 13 replies)

weeble
I once posted a weeble through a hole in a fence, and when I went round the other side, it had gone.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:46, Reply)

This scared me a lot – I started seeing a girl some years back ...
She was really quite a looker. A lot of my work then involved home visits, which is how we'd met (bit unethical, but hey ho) Anyway, despite my best efforts we just didn't seem to be getting anywhere, i.e. to bed.

One night I called round at hers after arranging a date, thinking "Tonight is all about the love," and sure enough she answered the door in this hellish sexy dress – almost neglige. I went in and began to make myself comfortable, but she started suddenly acting a bit weird – really hot and cold, which was odd cos she was normally a consistently nice, quiet woman.

Eventually she dragged my-very-surprised-self into the bedroom, jumped on me, and we just started making out passionately. But then – and this is where it gets really freaky – I noticed that she was fucking FLOATING about a foot off the bed and growling "Are you the keymaster?" and Rick fucking Moranis burst through the door being chased by a demon dog and a giant fucking Stay Puft Marshmallow Man destroyed the whole fucking city!

*apologises profusely, leaves*
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:44, 2 replies)

UFO's in the USA
I was up at my friends lakeside cabin a couple of years back, it's up in the middle of Maine which is about as remote as you can get on the East coast of this country.

It's miles and miles away from any big city and therefore has very little in the way of light pollution. On clear nights you see way more stars than you ever thought existed.

We were up late shooting the breeze and we could see high flying (transcontinental) planes flying overhead (strobes flickering etc) then we saw something else. A white light that managed to ZIP across the sky way faster than the jet was moving. It looked to be about the same distance away but a bit lower on the horizon so it could have been closer I suppose.

He pointed it out to me and we watched it, but it stopped and went another direction but very quickly.

I flew myself up to Maine in a small plane so I have some passing familiarity with flying things and this wasn't anything I could figure out.

I'm not sure if it was some hush hush military thing or some other light trick but it was spooky. My mate doesn't drink at all, and I hadn't had any that night either.
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:36, 7 replies)

I work at the Institute for the Hearing Impaired.
I see deaf people.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:32, 1 reply)

The phantom doorbell
A friend of mine (let's call him "Bob") bought a house from somebody who was emigrating to New Zealand. For about a month, the doorbell worked, ringing out lovely deep chimes in the hallway. All who visited commented on how nice they were. Then it stopped working.

He surmised that the batteries needed replacing. Only one problem - he couldn't find the chimes. "Oh well," he thought, "I'll just follow the cable from the bell push." Next problem - it's a wireless bell push, so no dice. He searched high and low for the chimes, but came up empty-handed every time.

I know what you're thinking. Everybody who heard the story thought it.

"If I go round there, I bet I could find it."

So we went round and looked, many of us. Nobody could find it.

A couple of weeks later, Bob started some major decorating and ripped the entire downstairs apart, walls and all. Guess what he found? That's right - absolutely nothing.

He then happened to have to speak to the original owner in NZ about the sale, so he asked him about the doorbell. He told Bob that the doorbell had NEVER worked because, he assumed, there were no chimes and the owner before him must have removed them.

This was getting downright weird. We all knew we'd heard them. Bob just shrugged, put a knocker on the door and left it a mystery.

That was over a year ago.

I've just had a call from Bob.

"I've discovered what happened to the doorbell," he said, "because now it's working again".

It seems that his new next door neighbour had put new batteries in her doorbell, because hers didn't work either. Lo and behold, Bob's had started ringing again too. It seems that for some reason, Bob's wireless doorbell push had been causing next door's chimes to go off - the previous neighbours had removed the batteries because it kept ringing when nobody was at the door and it was very loud. So loud, in fact, that Bob had been hearing it in his own hallway through the adjoining wall.

He has now removed the doorbell push.
( finnbar has officially retired, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:30, 3 replies)

Psychic TV
I'm psychic when it comes to EastEnders - I make a prediction that there's someone angry, crying or depressed before turning over to BBC1 when it's on. And I'm always right.

So is that fucking spooky, or what?
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:25, Reply)

Back in the day
when all this was fields, and I was just a tiny and small Herr Doktor my mum had a dose of the flu.

She decided to sleep in the front room so that my dad could get a good nights sleep as he had to be up early to go to work. So as normally happens when you try to sleep when you have the flu, she kept waking up.

At one point she bumbled into the kitchen to make herself a hot toddy to help her get back to sleep. When she opened the kitchen door she dropped the cup and screamed her head off waking the whole house!

When she had calmed down a bit we managed to find out what had caused the upset. She said that she had seen a coffin sitting in the corner of the room where the TV stood, and this had just set he off.

A few days later while talking to the next door neighbours, who had lived there for years, we found out that the owner of the house that we were living in had been a chimney sweep and that one day he had been sweeping his chimney, slipped and fell, dying instantly when he hit the ground. His family had laid him out for viewing in exactly the same place as my mum had seen the coffin.

Nothing else happened in the eight years we lived there.
(Herr Doktor Lemminge Is bored, so cheer me up!, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:23, 1 reply)

Random psychic-ness
A few years ago I was home on a break from uni, sitting outside in the garden with my brother and sister.

I heard the phone ringing from inside the house and heard it stop as my mum answered it.

Completely randomly, I turned to my brother and sister and said "That's Lizzie - she's calling to say that Janet's killed herself".

Despite having no problems that we knew of, it was indeed my mum's god daughter Lizzie, who was ringing to break the news that her mother, my mum's best friend, had committed suicide that morning.
(posage As I turned the corner I felt muscular and compact, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:15, 3 replies)

A sign from God
My wife's uncle and aunt decided to celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. Aww, how sweet, we all thought. So off trooped the whole family to the local church to witness the event.

Now I should mention that it's an open secret that the 'groom' has done his fair share of wild-oat-sowing during his married life. Rumour has it that he has at least one illegitimate child through such illicit liaisons. Naughty boy. But in spite of this, they're still a happy couple and I for one genuinely believe he's devoted to his wife. He is (or at least, was) just a randy sod.

Anyway, the ceremony, which was basically a re-run of their original wedding (same vicar and everything) got to the part about "...if anyone knows of any lawful impediment, may they speak now..." and the lights went out. Just for a second or so, then they came back on.

Cue lots of barely-suppressed chuckles and knowing looks, and a thoroughly red-faced groom.

God has great comic timing.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:13, 1 reply)

You're Gonna DIE.....
After years of lurking, he makes his first post, and this is a fucking sPoOkY one.

About 20 years ago on the long boring summer evenings before we discovered alcohol, myself and a few mates started dabbling in the odd Ouija board. Nothing special, home made out of pieces of paper, A-Z, 0-9, and fours squares saying Yes/No/Bad/Good.

Stick with me here coz this one gets good.

We would kick these off by saying "Spirit of the air, is there anybody there", usually having these sessions at a weekend when my parents or my next door neighbours parents were out.

Anyway, to cut to the chase - these ALWAYS worked, though I was 100% sure that it was one of my mates doing the pushing. We must have done this about 5 times before the shit hit the fan, or in my mind, it finally *REALLY* did work and no one in the circle did any pushing.

We were in the next door neighbours house and we asked the "spirit" a few questions. One of these was my GCSE results. It gave 9 answers moving from B to A. After this, one of my mates asked when I would die which I was NONE too pleased about. The glass moved to 4 letters SAXM or something, we worked out it meant Xmas. It then spelt out the word holiday.

Stick with me.

Holiday, Christmas, myself and my family traditionally NEVER have a holiday as such at Xmas so I was confused. Things started going wrong now, the glass was moving in a fashion that I can only describe as angry. At this stage I pushed as hard as I could on the glass tumbler to stop it moving, still hoping that it was one of my mates pushing it. It kept moving. We we all looking at each other pretty much in disbelief, and we all decided to take our hands off the glass. As we did this the glass lifted about 3 inches from the table as slammed back down. A few things happened next including crying, us chanting spirit get out of this glass and the decision was made to break the glass. We wrapped this in a plastic bag and attempted to smash this around the back of the house. Even full force against a pebbledash wall would not break it. Panic really set in at this stage. There was some rough ground about 200 yards from the house, we ran for that, and threw the glass into that area, and ran back to the house. For the remainder of the night we panicked, prayed (yes prayed!), and *nearly* told our parents.

Anyway, a week later I get my GCSE results. Predicted exactly.

A month later my family received the news from a local newspaper that we had won a holiday in Florida, at (you guessed it), Xmas. The next 5 months I had much discussion with my mates and people at school about this but I decided that I couldn't own up, and I should just get on with it. We were scheduled to fly out on December 21st and return 8th January. Back in those days to get from Belfast to Florida was Belfast, Heathrow, JFK, Orlando.

We're nearly at the "fuck me, no way" part.....

A week before we departed we got the news of an alteration to our holiday plans - we were now departing on 22nd December, coming back 9th January. Nothing really to be concerned about.

I distinctly remember watching the TV the night before we left, the day we were REALLY due to leave. The newsflash came over the telly about the Lockerbie PanAm 103 crash. The flight from LHR to JFK. The original flight we were supposed to be on. Spine chillin eh ?

We got the flight the next day though security was hellish, and the holiday was great. On the 8th January we were watching the TV in Florida, the day before we left. I watched in horror as I saw the news of the British Midland crash at Kegworth, the flight from LHR to BFS, again, the flight that we were booked on.

Could I make a story like this up ?

I'm sure my dear old mum still has the ticket stubs somewhere from 20 years ago.

Apologies for the length. It could have been much longer though, I haven't even told you about the spirit that was left in the house.
(ISignedUpToTalkShit but that was another QOTW, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:12, 8 replies)

Pearoast
I actually have quite a few stories I could post on here, but, being fairly skeptical/cynical myself, I don't want to appear like a complete arse, so I'll just tell this one.

Back in the early 90's my parents moved from London to a rural area. They often asked me to look after their house while for them whilst they were on holiday etc.

It was a fairly big, echoey place, overlooked by thickly wooded hills, that themselves are full of old legends about dark deeds and the like.

Mostly, though, I enjoyed having a place to myself for a couple of weeks to use as a base for all kind of late teens/early 20's misbehavoir.

Anyway, during one week-long house sitting, I bought a friend up with me. He isn't much of a drinker so instead of going to the local pubs and making hushed 'Deliverance' jokes whilst looking at the locals, we stayed in most nights.

One night, in a fit of sobriety, we decided to dim the lights and play cards. It was fairly late and the weather outside was the definition of 'pathetic fallacy', Cold, windy, howly, thundery, lighningy and all the other appropriately spooky things.

This lead to us telling ghost stories as we played Rummy. (Two twenty year old, single chaps staying in playing rummy? Could go some way to explaining the sexual famine I experienced for most of my youth.)

These stories became the inevitable kinda one-upmanship thing, y'know, "Oh, you think that's scary? Well, listen to this one!" Even though we're both quite big, logical chaps, this did have the effect of slightly unnerving both of us.

One of us mentioned how the ace of spades had apparently started of as a tarot card for death or misfortune. We started asking the cards questions.

As in: "Will girlX say yes if I ask her out?"

We would then both take a card from the pack. Ace being high, two being low, the person asking the question wanting the highest, therefore getting a positive awnser.

This went on for some time, concurrent with the 'Ace of Spades is eeeeeevil' conversation.

Eventually, for self amusement, I got my friend to shuffle the deck, put 'em down in front of me, then said:

"If Satan is in the room, it will be the Ace of Spades." I say, picking a random card.

Well, shave my legs, and call me Julie...

It was the Ace of Spades.

Ha ha ha, etc. Being rational types, we said it was a 1 in 52 chance, so we shuffled, and went again.

"If Satan is here, watching us right now, it will be the Ace Of Spades..."

Shitknobs. You guessed it. It was.

I got my friend to shuffle again, watching him closer than you would Gary Glitter in Toys 'R' Us. My chum is a guy who, for a living, prods cables into things whilst eating pasties. If he had developed some kind of David Blaine-esque card sharkery skills it would have suprised me hugely.

Cards shuffled, we went again. His turn.

"If Satan wants my soul, it will be the Ace of Spades."

It wasn't.

Cards shuffled.

I ask the same question...

It was.

Arse.

Cards shuffled, I go again.

Three more times. Each time with a fresh shuffle. Each time the Ace of Spades.

Buttered Feck! I'm doomed!

I mentally kept flashing to that rather scary scene in the first 'Evil Dead' where the woman reads aloud the cards the other girl is holding before turning into one of the demons. This was enough, I broke the mood and turned up the lights, actually more shaken than I would admit.

many years later, 3 weeks ago, in fact. Mrs Spicious and I go to our local pub, we see that their latest product promotion is free packs of cards left in ashtrays for people to play with. A picture of the booze available printed on each card. Nifty, I think, and we start playing a few games of Rummy. (Hey, at least being naked in her company is fun). After a few rounds, I mention the above story...

Sure enough, it happens again. Only twice in a row this time though. Hopefully, the older and flabbier I get, the less appealing I am to the dark one.

Well, there ya go. I know the above can probably all be explained by some kind of psychological 'hot carding' or something, but it is a little troubling at the time. And also makes me wonder if anything good I do is worthwhile if the end result is the same. Oh well, I might go out and punch a child.

Length? Girth? Let's hope you can take it with you, eh?
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:09, 4 replies)

weirdness in Norfolk...
...and no, I'm not tlaking about the seven-fingered local yokels.

Once, when I was a kid, I was out with my Dad whilst on holiday in Norfolk (hey, when you're 9 years old Hemsby is great! Actually, no, it's still shite, but never mind) - doing the usual Arcade and Bag of Chips excursion in the evening. Now, my Dad is a plane nut - he's flown models for years (in fact he was the first person ever to loop a model helicopter and is still invited to some Helicopter Pilots' dinner every year on that basis) and, being an engineer, he's pretty clued up on what is able to fly. In fact, he had something to do with the old Blue Streak rocket way back when.

So, there we were, munching chips and enjoying a warm summer evening, when we spot a set of lights in a triangle in the sky. Nothing unusual, as there are numerous Air Bases in the vicinity. Craning our necks to see if it's an A-10 Warthog, or an f-15, we realise that it's stopped moving. Ok, so it's a Harrier...

Then we realise that it's making no sound at all. It then begins to zig-zag rapidly and violently, like when you shake a torch to torment your cat (you know you've done it...or at least will now). Suddenly a pair of A-10s fly from the coast towards it and this thing just zooms upwards until it's out of sight. No noise, no deviation and no vapour trail we can see in the moonlight.

It moved too fast and too precisely to be a Harrier jump-jet, it didn't leave the characteristic "balls on a chain" vapour trail of the Aurora Project scramjet and it was bigger than an A-10, despite them flying under it. I don't know if it was Aliens out joy-riding, or a new Stealth plane, but I promise that it wasn't anything I've seen the like of - it went from 0 to about 500mph in under a second and climbed out of sight on a clear evening in under three seconds.

It's a UFO in the truest sense - I don't say it was a flying saucer, but I've yet to identify what I saw.
(Chad, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:07, 4 replies)