The one and only time in my life that I screamed like a girl.
Imagine if you will, Miss Blouse as a 12 year old girl. Let me set the scene as she plays with her two slightly younger sisters and a female friend at her home.

Outside it is a stormy evening, the wind is blowing and it's raining heavily and her parents are settled in the lounge watching the TV. The girls decide to go upstairs to the bedrooms to play. The stairs in the house are L-shaped and at the top is a long corridor with doors at either side leading to the bedrooms and bathroom and there is a window at the end wall of the corridor.

So off they go up the stairs, Miss Blouse first and the other girls following, giggling and planning the evenings fun. As Miss Blouse reaches the top of the stairs there starts a sound that freezes the young girl's blood,.

WooooOOOOOooooOOOOOOooo!

And again

WoooOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOO!

It's a ghost.....has to be....cannot be anything else.

Miss Blouse screams and the other girls quickly follow with their high pitched screeches. Fear is the only thing she recognises as she pushes the other girls down the stairs to get away from whatever is about to appear.

The father rushes out to see what the commotion is about and sees a heap of girls at the bottom of the stairs, and Miss Blouse is the cherry on top of the pile, flailing about and trying to escape the monstrosity that is following her.

After calming down and re-arranging of clothing the father has finally been instructed on the problem of the haunted corridor.

He starts to laugh as they stand there still frightened and now a little confused.

Oh, that noise will be the wind coming through the corridor window. I fitted a new draft excluder the other day and it needs to be re-done as it's come loose.


Hmmmph! Well it bloody sounded like a ghost to me.
( girlinthehole, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 18:40, 3 replies)

Spooky
Apologies as I don't know anyone in this picture - apparently a friend of a friend etc.
The little girl in the picture was upset after apparently saying she didn't want to play with the other girl anymore as she was upsetting her. Thing is, there was no one else in the house.
Have a look closely towards the bottom of the picture, inbetween the adults' legs (so to speak)...


( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 18:36, 20 replies)

Netta's Clock
I think this is quite sweet rather than creepy. It's definitely a bit odd.

Until I was four and we moved house, we used to live next door to a lovely old lady called Netta who was recently widowed and her only son had died young in the 60s.
My parents became very fond of her and used to go round to help out often, and continued to do so at least once a week until she finally passed away in a nursing home in 2001 at the age of 96.
In her will, she left my dad a carriage clock he had expressed admiration for on many occasions. Now this clock kept perfect time, but in the 23 years he had known Netta the clock had never once chimed. Netta had expressed bemusement but wasn't overly concerned.
My dad, orderly soul he is, had it down at jewellers, repairers and various friends who were handy with this sort of thing. Noone could find any reason why this clock didn't chime.
A few days after Netta's funeral my dad brough the clock hime and sat it on a window shelf at the bottome of the stairs. It promptly chimed. My dad looked at the time. 10 past 3. He looked at his watch. 10 past 3.
This has continued since. It will chime often the day myself or my brother will come home for a visit, or if some event is approaching.
It once chimed once a minute for ten minutes when my dad was home. The chime stopped as my mum, supported by her friend, arrived home ashen-faced, nursing a broken wrist.
It's a family tradition, being polite to say, "Hi Netta" to the clock whenever it chimes.

Make of it what you will. I have no idea what causes it, but it's one of life's little eccentricities that improve it slightly.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 18:34, Reply)

When I was but a small child
Mummy Maladicta had a brief stint in the local WI, along with her slightly dappy and very morbid friend Anita (who I refer to as Death, after the Simpsons episode where Grampa mistakes everything for the Grim Reaper). They used to go along once a week or so and talk about village life (we lived in the outskirts of a large, chavtastic town so I have no idea what they were doing there), bake cakes, arrange flowers and do whatever it is WI ladies do that isn't posing for naked calendars.

Anyway, with me being about 10 or so, I would usually be in bed by the time they came home - usually sharing lifts. On this one occasion Anita was the one with the car, and she made to drop my mum off at our house on the other side of town. Just as she was about to get out of the car they both looked up at a weird light in the sky.

A disc with big, lit windows and lights around its base was hovering serenely above the house. It stayed there for about half an hour, with mum and Death staring at it intently, not daring to move or get out of the car before, just as it had arrived, it zipped off faster than their eyes could follow it.

Had mum been on her own, I would doubt her word, but as there were two of them in the car, I'm more inclined than usual to believe that they really did see a UFO. They didn't lose any time, or anything like that, but my mum still talks about what she saw and can still draw the craft if asked to...
( Maladicta, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 18:00, Reply)

The Mickey Mouse man
I used to work with a girl called Abbie, the same girl from my QOTW answer about getting sacked (the last story in my profile). She was 21, slim, pretty but a bit of a space cadet, the lights were on but nobody was home sort of thing. I think this could be explained by a childhood experience that she told me about.

When Abbie was a child, she was playing in the fields near her house with some friends. They found a dead man with a noose around his neck hanging from a tree. This would be traumatic enough for an adult but I can’t imagine how awful it was for Abbie as a little girl. She told me that she remembered every detail about him, the bulging staring eyes, the protruding tongue clamped between his teeth…but what stuck in her mind most of all was the fact that he had kicked off his shoes whilst choking to death and he was wearing Mickey Mouse socks. For years she had nightmares about the Mickey Mouse Man.

But I hear you ask, "Why is this a Tale of the Unexplained?” well let me tell you. Abbie attended the coroners meeting where it was concluded that he had committed suicide, but Abbie could never understand how a man who had his arms bound behind his back could hang himself.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:50, 7 replies)

Major disappearance at work....
One day last summer, someone at work was asked to send some information from one office to another. Since it's quicker to download this sort of thing to a CD and send it rather than take a day and hand it in personally, they decided to make a couple of CDs and pop them in the post.

Next thing, the CDs have gone missing, and no-one can find them...

Apologies for length, it's my first time and I'm nervous, it will be bigger next time! Honest!
(The Funky Monkey played with his banana on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:50, 1 reply)

Instant karma?
A friend's mother averred to friend - Mr Chris, for it is he - that lightbulbs burst when people are angry.

He replied, with some emphasis, 'I've never heard such nonsense in all my life mum'. Or something like that.

(Pop).

Friend's mother smirked. A lot.
(Jack of Diamonds, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:43, Reply)

may be a pearoast, but take heed anyway
United Airlines Flight 175. The second plane hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center. I took that flight the year before.

So?
So, One-Two-Go Flight OG 269, Phuket to Bangkok. Crashed Sept 2007. I took that flight the year before.

Then:
British Airways flight BA038 from Beijing, crash landed on Heathrow runway January 2008. I took that flight in September 2007.

Oh, and then:
Private jet crashed into a housing estate at Farnborough. I worked in Farnborough for a couple of months at one point. I was in lodgings on that estate.

I think it can be said that should you wish to be safe from planey harm then travel before or with me. I'm flying Easyjet to Belfast next Thursday night, so you might want to avoid giving Stelios any money for a while.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:41, 10 replies)

Holy jumping china cabinets, Batman!
there's an Irish superstition that things fall of walls when someone dies - pictures plummet to the ground and shatter on the floor, clocks crash to the floor and stop, that kind of thing. Then again, there's Irish superstitions for just about everything. A bird getting into the house is also a sign, as sure as red and white flowers together in a vase signify Something Bad, in the same way that a dropped knife means a potato famine (oh wait - that might be the sign of an unexpected visitor). But I digress...

Anyway, the day of my grandmother's death, my dad says the china cabinet jumped off the wall (italics are my emphasis, denoting over-exaggerated shock).

I think he had a screw loose. Literally.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:33, 10 replies)

Crop circles
This could have gone in last week's QOTW as well, really. We snuck out late one night, tools in hand and made a crop circle.

It was rubbish, and nobody noticed, so no great stories in the paper or anything.

Rather disappointing really.
( bluemeat has been best of all the animals since, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:21, Reply)

Just trying to get home
Many moons ago when I was just a twinkle in my daddys eye my my mum (who was preggers with my big sis at the time) was driving home from a friends house near Lisburn in sunny Norn Irn. It was getting late and my mum admits that she was knackered and couldnt wait to get home. As she was driving along the windscreen wipers of her ickle Mini started going mental which was odd but could have been, she thought, due to some sort of electrical fault with the car. However, as she looked across the road she saw a man hitching a lift which she though was odd for it was a small country road. As she was pregnant and alone she decided probably better not to stop so carries on past where he was standing. She swears that at this pint she sensed that there was someone in the passenger seat of the car. She was terrified and couldn't look but she did say it seemed like he was wearing a white hat. After about 2 minutes she said she sensed the presence dissapear however was understandably freaked and drove home in a bit of a state. My Dad remembers my mum running into the house and dragging him outside to check the car as she was convinced that there had been someone in there with her. Now my dad is a very steady man but still finds this all a bit freaky. He found nothing. My Mum said that she though about it for quite a while after and has decided that this was a biker who died on the road a few weeks before this happened....and he was just trying to get home. Still gives me the heebies!!
(Happycow - 2% pure beef, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:13, 1 reply)

My Biggest Dissapointment
Is always being late for the QOTW.
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:51, 3 replies)

Exterminate!
*Whooooooorp! Whoooooooorp!*

A blue telephone box materializes, bearing the legend "Police". The door opens slightly and out steps a friendly, slightly eccentric chap (who bears an uncanny resemblance to a well known Newcastle based B3tan) in a red waistcoat and long flappy coat, followed by his lovely assistant, originally from the planet Swearo, who stubs her foot unseen on the door and yells "Ouch! I've just cunted my toe in the fuck!"

Who are these mysterious, yet comfortingly familiar strangers? Do they have any relevance to this story?

Of course they do, they're here to pad out a repost from one of my first ever QOTW efforts.

Read on...

A few years back I got chatting to a friend of a friend at a wedding, who told me the most harrowing tale.

He'd been an enthusiastic user of psychedelic drugs in his younger years, but one fateful night out proved to be his final dalliance with LSD.

The long and short (if only!) of this introduction was that he ended up dragged along to a nightclub after imbibing acid and was seriously not enjoying himself. In the throes of a bad trip he cuts his losses and wisely, he decided to ditch the club and head home as quickly as possible.

However, the closer to home he got, the worse the trip and he eventually fell into a complete psychedelic meltdown.

He witnessed some terrifying visions, the worst of which was when he was chased into an alleyway by a horde of marauding Daleks. Faced with a brick wall dead end, he drops to his knees and pleads for his life, but still the evil Daleks kept coming for him.

He arrived at his flat, soaked in sweat before bolting the front door and closing the curtains. So shaken up was he that he didn't leave his flat until the following Monday morning when he left for work, still traumatised.

Funny thing was, that the Dalek episode seemed so real... Must have been bad acid.

Our hero's confusion is resolved when he picks up the local newspaper on his way to the office.

Upon reading the headline it all became clearer.... The shortcut past the back of the town hall... Being trapped in an alleyway by Daleks...

Turned out he'd had the misfortune to be running past the back of the town hall, just as the exhibits from the weekend's Dr Who convention were being unloaded from the back of a van.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:47, 6 replies)

The landlord and his dog
I once knew a chap called Jim. Jim was a landlord who ran a small village pub with his wife Betty. They were a wonderful couple, always happy to see the locals and welcoming of strangers. The beer was always fresh, the crisps always in date and the beer mats were always clean. They were the perfect people to run a village pub. Betty unfortunately developed cancer some years ago and after a short battle with it, she sadly died.

Jim was devastated and spent the next few weeks inconsolable. He was barely able to function and the pub which he’d previously run like a military operation began to go to ruin. The concerned locals clubbed together to help him out and raised a few hundred pounds, which for the size of the village was quite remarkable. With the money, we purchased a black Labrador puppy.

When we presented the dog to Jim, he was visibly moved. He'd always kept dogs before marrying Betty, but she was allergic to their hair so he wasn't able to have one for nearly thirty years. He quickly grew much attached to Lucy, as he named her, taking her out to the nearby woods for walks at every opportunity. We'd often see him and the dog down by the stream, sitting contentedly, just enjoying each other’s company.

Having Lucy around changed Jim's outlook on life again. The bar returned to its usual state and the locals were all relieved to see him polishing the brasses, changing the drip trays and measuring the optics with his previous aplomb. For the next four years, each night, when the bell rang for last orders, everyone knew he'd be in good company with Lucy watching over him.

Then the accident happened. Jim was returning from his evening stroll with Lucy by his side after closing time one night, as always. He'd noticed a car coming fast along the narrow country lane, but Lucy was fascinated by a squirrel she'd spotted. Jim shouted to Lucy but she didn't hear him, or didn't care. She ran into the road and the car rounded the bend, crushing the dog and killing her instantly.

The locals once again faced a dilemma. Jim was so upset they felt they could perhaps get Lucy’s body stuffed, but the damage from the accident was so severe that the only part of her body that wasn't completely mangled was the tail. Being country folk, we didn't see anything weird or macabre about getting just the tail preserved, so we asked a taxidermist to attach Lucy's tail to a wooden plinth. This grisly trophy was then presented to Jim, who seemed rather touched by the gesture, even if it was a bit strange by some standards...

The first week was fine. Jim returned to his routine of keeping the bar in pristine condition and we all appreciated the return to form. However, after a few weeks, he seemed a little pre-occupied. He kept looking up to the tail, mounted on its stand above the door. The regular customers all noticed that Jim spent as much time staring at the tail as he did serving drinks. It was about that time when he beckoned me over to whisper in my ear "chart cat, that tail... it's bloody haunted!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Here was my lifelong friend, a venerable tower of sensibility, muttering ghostly allusions to me over the bar? It didn't make any sense at all. I laughed at first, but his expression told me he was, quite literally, deadly serious. I asked him what he meant, and he replied "Every night since that thing was hung on my wall, right after the stroke of 11 O’clock, I hear a dreadful howling noise. It's Lucy, for sure. The whining gets louder and louder, until I take the tail down from the wall, then it stops”

I wanted to hear it for myself. I trusted Jim like everyone else in the village, but this was too much to digest. We sat together after the bell for last orders rang and the customers filtered out one by one and we waited.... and waited... then sure enough, a terrible, distant wailing noise began to permeate the pub. The glasses rattled on the shelves as the sound of a dog pining grew louder and louder. I composed myself, unable to reconcile what had just happened. Jim quietly turned to me and said "I think I know what the problem is".

Lucy was buried in the woods near to the road where she died. Jim took down the tail from the wall and asked me to walk with him to the spot where she lay. We walked together, me carrying a torch and Jim carrying Lucy's tail, still mounted on the wooden presentation stand. It would have looked quite ridiculous to anyone noticing us, but it was late and we were in the middle of a sleepy village. We made our way through the thick bracken and spiky hawthorn bushes to a small clearing.

Lucy's grave was still visible, although leaves and branches had since fallen over the disturbed earth. Jim asked me to hold the tail while he started digging. Then I realised what he was going to do. He dug down, deeper and deeper until finally we heard a *thunk* as he hit the wooden box inside which she had been buried.

He lifted the casket out of the ground and brushed away the dirt. The inscription etched into the wood read "my beloved Lucy, faithful companion, dearly missed - Jim". As he kneeled there, looking mournfully at his departed friend, we heard the chilling sound of Lucy's howls penetrate the calm night air once again.

"She wants her tail" he said. I nodded, still unable to believe that we were standing in the woods, listening to the yowls of a dead dog. "I can't do it" he said. I nodded again, trying to empathise with Jim, but I quickly came to the inevitable conclusion staring at both of us. “Look Jim, if that is Lucy howling then it's never going to stop, until you put that tail in the box with the rest of her". He looked at me and gave a look of resignation. "I just can't do it though". I stood there for a moment, considering the emotions he must have been feeling, but the howling was almost deafening at this point. I urged him to put Lucy’s tail in her casket, but with tears in his eyes he croaked “I want to, but I really can’t do this”

"Why not?" I asked, perplexed by his stubborn refusal...



...."because it's illegal to re-tail spirits after 11pm" he replied.

This tale is quite a bit longer than Lucy's. Apologies for length :-D
( chart cat has an itch, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:46, 18 replies)

magical pen tale.
When I was 4, I had a badass pen. It had a mickey mouse head on the top, and it wrote in red AND blue. When we were moving house, I lost my fabulous pen somewhere between houses and never saw it again for about 10 years. Then, one day while we were looking for crap to throw away in the attic, there was the mickey mouse pen- on a shelf, plain as day.
So either the pen FOLLOWED me over the course of 10 years, possibly hitching rides with small dogs, or my parents found it and put it there.

Needless to say, haven't got a clue where it is now.
(Spivvers wishes his hands had hands, and hooks., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:42, Reply)

Stalker Boy und ze Austrian Ghost (partial pearoast with italic spookiness)
After my parents were somehow talked into taking Stalker Boy on our summer weekend trip to Paris between AS and A-levels, during which time he called me a "fucking stupid woman" constantly when my parents were out of earshot and boasting constantly about how independent he was, how he was going to get a job in France the following summer and use it as an opportunity to get work experience (and bumsex with Frenchmen) and would never need to rely on his parents again. Of course, he was sweetness and light when my parents were around, though: "Ooh, Mummy and Daddy Maladicta, tell me all about Wales, I want to learn Welsh..." and generally behaved like the irritating prick he was and I am sure still is, I was invited to join him and his family (minus his dad, so his mum and younger brother) for a week in the Austrian lake district, about half an hour from Salzburg. This delighted Stalker Boy as he is obsessed with The Sound of Music. A week followed of him wanting to go to the Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg as often as possible to re-enact scenes from the film and have his photo taken anywhere Julie Andrews might have been.

It would have been pleasant enough if he wasn't there; the sad thing is that the rest of his family are absolutely lovely and have no idea that they've spawned the devil and the devil wears "evil pants". As well as the endless "do re mi"-ing, we went to the mountains and the lake was beautiful, the reservoir for Salzburg, at that (this did not stop Stalker Boy pissing in it, so apologies for anyone living in Salzburg in the summer of 2003, you have inadvertently engaged in watersports with Stalker Boy). It even snowed when we went to the Eagle's Nest for the day.

I digress. Stalker Boy has three obsessions: The Sound of Music, the Titanic, and ghosts (he also believes listening to rock music means you go to hell). Being exceptionally fond of telling ghost stories and relating the plot of his favourite horror films (the opening of Ghost Ship, as described by Stalker Boy, nearly made me vomit off the balcony in Spain a year later), it comes as no surprise to learn that he feels he "attracts" ghosts. He also had a "repressed memory" of being on the Titanic in a former life which was only recalled when the film was released in 1997.

Anyway. On the penultimate morning of our trip, before the early morning flight home, Stalker Boy comes down to his usual breakfast of as many rolls coated in Nutella and cheese (not together, not even he is that disgusting, and this is a boy who will happily remove chewing gum from his mouth and stick it to his forehead while he's talking to you and who used to chew his school tie) as was possible for him to eat. Except he is white as a sheet and looking tired. I think even I felt slightly sorry for him, in spite of his having commandeered my TV the previous night to investigate the joys of Austrian porn (ladies for once).

[I will mimic the spoken style of Stalker Boy as far as is humanly possible, and you should imagine that he's holding his hands in front of him, with his fingers clutching those on the other hand, a gesture he often adopts. It will also make him easier to identify and cunt in the fuck if you ever meet him.]

"Oooooh, dear, you won't believe what happened last night!"
"What was it?"
"Well. Is what happened is, I gave up trying to watch the porn about 12.00 last night, because my channel is fuzzed out, and turned out the lights to get into bed. About ten minutes later I rolled over and saw there was a big white dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. I rolled over again and didn't think any more of it until then I realised I didn't bring a dressing gown with me and the hotel doesn't supply them. And there's no coathook on the back of the door. IT MUST HAVE BEEN A GHOST!!"

By this point Stalker Boy is grinning delightedly at having seen a ghost, and enjoying the attention he's receiving from us. It is then decided by nightfall that, in light of the phantom situation, we should all push our mattresses into the room Stalker Boy's mum and his brother - aged about 13 at the time - are sharing, and sleep in there because of safety in numbers. Remember what I said about his independence? I'll never take that seriously again: the big fat wuss was scared and wanted his mummy after all. A bit like what happened when he went to uni.

We set two alarm clocks, two phone alarms, and settled down to sleep. None of them went off and we barely made it to the pickup point to get to the airport. Whereupon we were stranded for six hours as something fell off the plane.
( Maladicta, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:38, Reply)

Walking up the hill to Mums house.
Like somebody else has said, or will say according to which way you read these, there's a few stories i could tell, but for the time being here's just the one.

Back in the year 2000 I was living in Manchester, renting a house just around the corner from my ex and our kids, having a few problems with her, and not long having "recovered" from bad depression.

My brother rang me to ask me to visit our parents, my mum had been in bed for a couple of days supposedly with a wonky hip that she should have been getting fixed earlier in the year. (Being in love with my dad, who'd had a couple of heart attacks, she refused to leave him while she even got examined properly.)
Since he was half a mile from them, and me twenty miles (and don't drive) I said I'd go the next day.
He insisted I visit, even saying he'd pick me up. I'd just finished work, was knackered but something made me say ok.
I had time to get home and get changed before he arrived, and we picked up chips on the way there.
As soon as I saw my mum I told him to phone for an ambulance. The best way to describe her? My mum was a bbw, think an older version of Dawn French, and her belly as she lay there looked like a deflating water bomb.
The ambulance arrived, they got her in and I went with them. As soon as we got to hospital they whisked her off for tests.
My brother turned up with Dad a while later, it had taken Dad about an hour to get his clothes changed.
Then a surgeon appeared and took me and my brother to one side.
The problem with her hip, that both her usual doctor and a locum had said was her age and weight, was actually a blockage in her bowel that had swelled with everything she ate and was currently football size. They wanted to operate immediatly, but warned that it may not be good as her bowel lining was stretched so thin it could rip at any moment.
Whats the choice?
They operated, but it ripped.
She was immediatly put on high doses of antibiotics to try to prevent the fecal matter causing infections.
She never regained consciousness, and four days later died.

The last time I cried was ringing my ex in the rain in the hospital car park.

I left my job, I moved out of my rented house, and I moved in to look after my dad.
Together with my brother we planned her funeral, and dealt with life going on.

Or at least my brother and I did.

My dad basically gave up.

Five weeks later I call the doctor for him. He's got all the signs of pneumonia, and the ambulance comes for him.

SEVEN FUCKING HOURS WE SAT IN CASUALTY!!!

My dads getting weaker by the moment, we'd been promised by the doctor we were an emergency, and when someone does bother to check us (because I've told him my Dads about to collapse) he says "Why did nobody tell us earlier?" and he's off into a real bed in a ward. It's 11 pm when my brother and I leave him.

At 2 am my brother rings, Dads had another heart attack but they've managed to revive him. He'll pick me up on the way to the hospital.

In the car, for no obviously apparent reason, its 02:30 so not much traffic, my brother cuts through a road that we used to walk up to visit my gran (my mums mum) and my dad is walking up the hill ahead of us. Not the almost skeletal bloke we'd left at the hospital, but the fit rugby playing guy who'd woo'ed and won our mum.
"You might as well slow down, our kid. Dad's gone."
"WTF?"
"I've just seen him walking to West Street."
Now there's no-one there.

Doesn't slow down much, but when we get to the hospital we are too late.
He'd had yet another heart attack, and this time he'd managed to go.

Time moves on, its about 2 yrs later. and I'm camping at a pagan camp with my now wife and the people she's been going to camp with for years.
There's a man showing us Tibetan singing bowls, and then he and his 'group' start to use them, and some subtle drums, to play a really relaxing piece of music.
I just sit back and relax.
I realise I'm watching doors opening and I'm going through them, one after the other, and then suddenly one opens in the top corner of my grans living room and I'm watching her and my parents talking in front of her old fashioned range.
My mother looks up into the corner, links arms with my dad, they both smile really wide relaxed smiles, and as I want to move towards them I'm moving back through all these doors until I'm back on the cushions of the dome and the bowls are finishing chiming.

I suppose I should have felt cheated, that I should have been able to interact with them, but I was just ecstatic at what I saw as the message that wherever they are they are happy together.

(Before anyone suggests that the use of artificial stimulants was involved, if you check previous posts you'll find that they don't work for me so I don't take them.)

Even now, six or so yrs on, if I'm feeling particularly down, the memory of those smiles can restore my mood.
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:36, 1 reply)

Well there was something strange, in my neighbourhood
So who did I call?

THE GHOSTBUSTERS

*i'm so very sorry*
(drain_bamaged, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:27, 1 reply)

Topsy II
This is a fairly recent one.

My son decided he would change his hair colour. Sick of it being a beautiful deep auburny chestnut colour he thought blue black shiny raven wing colour was just what he wanted. He explained this to my sister (a hairdresser) who agreed to purchase the requisite chemicals and perform the miracle on the following Saturday.

The Saturday arrived and everyone gathered waiting to see if he would go through with it. He had his hair washed and my sister proceeded to mix up the gunk. She was just about to start putting the first load on when the kitchen clock flew from the wall and struck her on the arm, knocking the bowl from her grip. She picked the bowl up and continued with the application. Within 30 seconds of the gunk (technical term) going on my son was crouching over the kitchen sink having the mixture removed. He was left with slight chemical burns due to an allergy. We are convinced Topsy had tried to prevent it.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:25, 4 replies)

Night Before A Funeral.....
Was in Sep 2004 that my dad died while I was on holiday drink related and not completely unexpected but still a shock all the same. Finished the holiday early and arranged flights back home etc for the funeral getting home on the Thursday for the funeral on the Friday. As I didn’t have a suit at the time I picked one up before flying back home and got the mother in law to sort the legs as the were two long.

Just after she finished altering the trousers and put them back in the suit carrier she hung them over the door by the hanger. Que a few seconds later the whole lot ended up crashing to the floor and the main light started flickering like mad they thought nothing of it at the time and went through to the kitchen when there they got the strongest waft of alcohol going past them and then disappeared as quickly as it came.

Best thing is as neither the mother or father in law drink they have none in the house it proper spooked them both out as no one else was in the house at the time and the smell was so strong it was as if it was real.
(Scoobiedoo79, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:24, Reply)

I was dating a fellow b3tan
many years ago and generally getting drunk and boisterous at her house where i stayed the night. The lady in question believed that she had a poltegeist (a fact which i snorted at) and maybe it was due to her pubescant daughters living there, but things would randomly fall over or jump out of place.

One night i was lying beside her and woke to find i could not move, i looked up to see only what i could describe as a swirly vortex of colours at the top of the wardrobe, i would not say i was scared but definately upset that i could not move or speak.

*grabs pipe and sits by the fire*

Maybe it was the Kronenberg or maybe other forces were afoot.

*Twilight zone music*
( Trollman, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:17, 3 replies)

I'm very skeptical of anything 'supernatural'
but I do enjoy reading these kinds of stories a lot. There are 2 experiences I've had with 'strangeness'. Neither of them are (I believe) 'supernatural', but they are sort of strange anyway.

First, when I was younger, I used to have dreams about something HUGE coming at me. I have never fully remembered what exactly they were about, but I can still replicate that very specific feeling of fear from those types of dreams. It feels somewhat like vertigo, and strangely enough, the image below somehow brings up that feeling. I'm serious, looking at that picture just hits me with some kind of very uncomfortable feeling. I suppose it could actually be a kind of vertigo.

londoncoder.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/iceberg.jpg

The second experience is a bit ambiguous. We were at a friend's house for a BBQ. Now, he lives in quite an old farmhouse, and we were just relaxing in his living room, with the TV on, waiting for everyone to arrive. Naturally, some photos were taken. Now, on one of the photographs it shows the television screen, showing two old people in traditional dress, in black and white. The thing is.. At the time, we were not really paying attention to the TV program on, but it was some random saturday evening light entertainment. I suppose the obvious answer is that they showed this photograph on TV for some reason. But there is just that tiny little possibility that it was something else. Because on the photograph, there are no visible logos or anything on the TV image, which is odd since I think they always show the station identifiers in the top right of the screen...

I mean, it's quite clear that it was just a photo of two old people in traditional dress being shown on screen... but what if somehow television plus digital camera channeled some previous inhabitants? Someone better at telling stories could've made it sound spooky, I'm sure.


EDIT: Ooh. I've remembered something else. In the last year of primary school, we had a teacher who was very into spiritualism and other vague stuff. But he was the most amazing storyteller. He always had these fantastic stories about his father-in-law's adventures as a Dutch soldier in Indonesia. He was chased by ghosts from a river, he saw big entities watching over his baby-girl. Some teachers read books in front of class, but he would just tell these magical stories. I don't care if those stories really came from his father-in-law, but he definitely made them sound real enough. Fantastic stuff.
(Harry, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:15, 4 replies)

Boring but true
Several years ago on my trip to the USA, I was in New Orleans. While I was there, I went on a ghost-tour. The guide was explaining that in the place we were, unexplained things often happened. He asked us if anything unexplained had happened to any of us since we had been there.

My camera has different settings for tweaking the flash and auto focus. I noticed that my camera's settings had mysteriously reverted to their default state. I decided to tell the rest of the tour my tale of haunted camera shenanigans. This of course could not compete with the tales of spookiness the tour guide was telling us.

And the moral of this story is that tales of the unexplained can be boring too.



PS. When I developed my film, I noticed this spooky apparition that I didn't remember seeing when I took the photo.


( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:15, 1 reply)

I had an old bass guitar teacher
who came into class one foggy morning looking white as a sheet. When asked if he;s feeling ok he replied:

"I was driving along the motorway in the fog when a bunch of Samuri Warriors charged across the road infront of me. Really freaked me out."

Then he informed us "it was probably an acid flashback" so we started to inch back into the classroom.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:13, Reply)

This is the last time I ask for advice from Beyond!



My thanks to thanatos for creating the image that I stole...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:11, 5 replies)

Creme Filling
I've had a few strange experiences, but this was probably one of the most disturbing.

I was driving one day along a rather boring, low speed road in my hometown behind a truck and in front of another when I suddenly had this incredible strange desire to pull into the cemetery where lots of my relatives and family friends had been buried. It was midday, I had a destination in mind, and it certainly was not the cemetery. But nonetheless, i just HAD to go visit my grandmother's grave! No sooner did I pull in but I heard a large crunching noise.... And the two trucks I had been between had slammed into each other, fusing nose to bum. Had I been there, I would've been crushed to death.

Whether I'm just insane and have a morbid fascination with tombstones that I was previously unaware of or my grandmother was looking out for me, I'm not sure! But someone up there either wants me to live or just wants to scare the hell out of me... He's struck me with lightning twice and I"m still here! That's what I get for being a sacreligious twat...
(EvaLynne, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:10, Reply)

Supernatural forces
Or witchcraft are about the only way this government is going to get back into power.

That, or total spaktardery on behalf of the voting public...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:09, 5 replies)

Illiterate voices
Last year i went to guilfest(and that time comes agen!)wen me and a friend discovered the
wonders of legal excstacy (which having taken the not so legal ones dont think are too shabby)
so took lots and lots and lots
the next morning on my paper rounds i hear one of my best mates voices
in my head asking "Is that gospel spelt with an I or a Z?"
cue me standing there for a few minutes tryin to figure out
what the fook just happened




later that day sitting in detention i saw a dog walk behind
a table and disappear...good stuff that legal e
(kristofski6992, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:05, 4 replies)

Haunted Holiday
Bit of a pearoast, but:

My entire family fled - FLED - Amityville Horror-style from a harbourside holiday cottage in Brixham a few years ago.

Perhaps taking the cat stirred things up with the spirit world, but from the first day, there were bumps in the night, the sound of draws opening and closing, furniture moving about and the dread fear of being watched in the bathroom.

Tuesday evening, I came out of the kitchen, to see a wizzened old bloke sitting next to the wife on the sofa.

"Ssssss!" he went, all the time staring at her bosooooms* before disappearing into thin air.

Then - screaming from the kids upstairs: "There's a man in our room!"

A man, dressed as a fisherman in oilskins and sou'wester, who left through the wardrobe.

That night, as we lay in our beds, quaking in fear, the furniture went mental downstairs.

Two weeks' holiday. We were out by the first Wednesday.

Full 12-inch version HERE

* Like normal bosooms, only bigger
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 16:03, 1 reply)

I was a teenage astrologer!
I got my start as a freelance writer doing horoscopes. You know what, the story behind that is too good not to tell.

My first summer in university, I was having trouble getting work. One day I saw a classified ad looking for writers for a new magazine. It gave a website, and when I checked it out, it was an escort service! Didn't scare me off; I needed a job.

The office for this place was pretty sketchy. When I rang the bell, they talked to me through the intercom, and then it turned out their office was the door behind me (I guess it was a trick in case of police raids). I was let in by a giant 7-foot-tall guy who I suspected may have been hiding a baseball bat somewhere under his clothes.

The woman in charge of the place told me "You do know this is an escort service, right?" And I said "Sure, I figured you guys could use a horoscope." She agreed, then the phone rang. "Hello? No, we don't have an office in Calgary. Uh-huh...uh-huh...Okay, we'll have a girl there in 20 minutes."

Hello! So I started working on my first horoscope. My main trick was to gather the birthdays of all my friends and relatives, and then write horoscopes speaking directly to them. For my 25-year-old virgin friend's sign, I said to start respecting the opposite sex more. For my mom's sign, I ended up writing something like "Emeralds will be significant this month," and my mom later told me it was a major hit (although I didn't tell her about the job at first).

Anyway, the article went in, and they produced the first issue. The day it was published, my editor/madame called me up, excited. I said I'd stop by the office to pick up a copy. She told me "Oh, we've got a guy driving around right now. He can drop off a copy at your house." I pictured my mom answering the door to this seven-foot-tall pimp handing her a magazine from an escort service. And yeah, they had my address.

The magazine was flush with escort ads and personals, as well as little odds-and-ends articles such as mine. They were always very professional toward me and payment was always delivered properly.

Anyway, my mom finally found out when my editor called, and she basically told my mom that her son was working for an escort service...as a horoscope writer. My mom was surprisingly cool with that.

We went three issues, and one day I showed up at their office to find the whole place deserted. I never saw them again. And that, I suppose, is the unexplained part of this tale.

Anyway, to show off my talents, here is the B3ta Horoscope.

· Gemini
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."


· Cancer
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Leo
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Virgo
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Libra
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Scorpio
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Sagittarius
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Capricorn
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Aquarius
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Pisces
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Aries
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

· Taurus
People of your sign often have an introspective personality and a zany sense of humour. Your individualism and nonconformity sometimes put you at odds with your peers, but you relish in your eccentricity. This month, the disclosure of a close secret may lead to embarrassment, but no real-life consequences. Counsel from a third party will offer insight. Don't keep yourself from having a good laugh to loosen the tension. Click "I like this!" if this horoscope sounds accurate."

Yes, the secret to writing a good horoscope is to know your audience.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 15:59, 7 replies)