See the vote results from past months.

Here are the results of the vote for January/February 1999. The topic was:
Your First Ghost Story

Here is how people answered. There were 120 responses total.

The first question was: Have you visited the page before?
60 people said yes
55 people said no

The second question was: Do you remember your first ghost story?
82 people remembered their first ghost story
33 people didn't remember it

The third question asked people how old they were when they heard their first ghost story.
43 people were 5 years of age or younger
34 people were 6 to 8 years old
13 people were 8 to 12 years old
1 person was older than 12
24 people couldn't remember

I found these results interesting. It appears that most people start hearing ghost stories at a very young age! Perhaps that's why there is such a fascination with the topic.

Here are some descriptions of the first stories people remember hearing:

A woman who had commited suicide in what was now my granparents apartment which was right acroos the hall from were I lived at the time.

My dad used to tell me that a man died at our house when they were building it. I was about 5 when he started to tell it. He would tell us that the back roo m is were he haunted. It's not true but it sure scared me when I was younger.

I told it actually. I was 2 yrs old when my Great Great Aunt Cassie died. We had visited her home but she had never been to ours. Weeks after her death I saw her sitting at the top of our staircase. I was at the bottom. I remember it quite clearly and described to my astonished mother exactly what "Aunt Cassi e" was wearing and how she was smiling.

My first ghost story was about a park I live by (Utah) It is supposidly haunted. My parents told me that two lovers were taking a walk through this park one night (which was a relitivly safe thing to do back then. ) and they came to a bridge deep in the heart of the park. as they cross over t he bridge a Witch materialized and ripped they boyfriends face right off of him while the girlfriend looked on in horror. Supposidly the witch used to live t here and her boyfriend had done some terriable things to her so she killed him and now is full of angst towards any men. and it is rumored that if you walk ac ross her bridge after midnight, you just may be her next victim. I guess that' ll explian the strange dissaperances around thease parts. Anyway it scared the snot out of me and I've always stayed away from that place especially at night

My dad used to tell us stories about the old west. The first good one I rememb er was about Tombstone and the ghosts there. I've been addicted ever since! Now I'm a ghost hunter, and I write for The Shadowlands web site!

a story my uncle told all of us at a picknick called jo hnny give me my heart back about a boy who was trusted to go get meat for his mother but gambled away all the money and dug up a heart and gave it to her to cook and then later that nig ht was haunted by the person saying he wanted his heat back

The imfamous man with the hook arm.

IT was the one about the little lady who went to the g rave yard and stole a leg bone to make soup and the owener of the leg bone kep t saying I WANT MY BONE BACK.

My brother was up late watching T.V. Everyone else was asleep upstairs. He felt as though he were being watched so he looked up. In the doorway to the room was a column of light (all the lig hts were off, only the T.V. was on). At first he thought that it was just an ghost image caused by watching the bright T.V. and then looking at the dark space of the door to the hallway, but then the column of light moved out of my brother's line of vision, to the right down the hall. He thought about it for a moment, decided that he was seeing things and went back to watching T.V. A few minutes later, he got the same intense feeling of being watched. He looked up again, and once again saw the column of light in the doorway and once again it drifted off to the right as he watched. Well, now he decided that it was time to go to bed, though unfortunately, the path to bed was through the ha llway. He took a deep breath, switched off the T.V. and made a bolt for it, through the hall to the stairs wh ich are situated directly across from the dorrway, and then ran upstairs, not daring to look down the hall. His room is to the right of the head of the stairs. He went in, quickly closed his door and got into bed. Just as he was beginning to feel okay, he felt this pressure on his chest and he was literally pushed into the bed, and he saw these weird c olors and lights, sort of like you see when you rub your eyes too hard. He said the only thing that he could think of, which was "God, help me." As soon as he said those words out loud, the pressure let up so quickly t hat he popped up out of the bed, as though something that had been sitting on him suddenly stood up, and that wa s it, the end of the story. Though there have been others over the years.

It was about a little boy who went exploring in an aban doned gravel pit, even though his parents told him not to. The gravel pit was called (of course) The Devil's Footprint or something like that. And naturally, it was haunted. Dead miners, maybe. His friends dared him to drop a penny down to the bottom, which he did. Or maybe it was a dollar. Anyway, it was enough for little kids to fight over, because they all dared each other to go down to the bottom and pick it up. Whoever got there first would get to keep the money. So they all rushed down t o the bottom, and one kid picked up the penny and yelled, "It's mine!" Then there was a rock slide and some of the kids got hurt. That night, the kid who got the money (he wasn't hurt in the rock slide, appare ntly) felt horribly guilty. When he found the money in his pocket, he took it out and put it in a drawer. When he finally fell asleep, he had horrible nightmares about the devil coming to get his money. After all, the kid that ha d thrown the money in obviously wanted the devil to have it, since he threw it into the Devil's Footprint, righ t? So the kid was traumatized, and when he woke up in the morning, the money was gone and the kids who were hurt in the rock slide had died. Give me a break. That's all I can remember. I couldn't have been much older t han seven, because I read this shortly after I learned how to read.

about a haunted house my mother was living in when she was a young girl.

what they call the maw-maw, a Phillipino ghost.

ALL THE GIRLSCOUTS SITTING AROUND THE CAMPFIRE TELLING STORIES. ONE STORY GOES LIKE THIS. THERE ONCE WAS A MAN NAMED BLOODY BILL. HE S AID IF HE DIED HE WOULD COME BACK AND HAUNT THE AREA. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS SAY HIS NAME 3 TIMES;BLOODY BILL,BLOODY BILL, BLOODY BILL. AND HE WOULD COME. WELL , AMY WENT TO 'USE THE BATHROOM'AND SHE HAD SAID IT BEFORE SHE LEFT,JUST AS A J OKE! SHE RETURNED WITH HER PANTS STILL DOWN, CRYING AND SCREAMING THAT BLOOD HA D DRIPPED ON HER HEAD. SHE HAD BLOOD TRICKLING DOWN HER FOREHEAD, BUT SHE WASN' T CUT! WE WERE ALL SCARED AS HELL, AND WE DIDN'T TELL ANY MORE STORIES THAT NIG HT!

We lived in a house with a ghost. My father worked an afternoon shift at a local factory. On special nights my mother would allow my brother and I to wait up late for dad to return home from working. Several ti mes I would hear the door open and close. The heavy footsteps which sounded li ke dad's big work shoes would make their way to the center of the room. I woul d run to the door to meet daddy, but too often thoses weren't daddy's footsteps that I had heard. Mother agreed after putting it off for some time, that what I had heard may have been a ghost. As a child I didn't know that most people are afraid of ghosts so I drew no fear myself. In time I got to know the man w ho was living with us. He was still there because he had left things in the ho use which he really wanted back. Unfortunately daddy found the things and move d them. Even after we moved to a new home, the man would visit us from time to time. He was looking for his belongings and would often! ! come to where we were to see if we had them. Many years later, my mother took out a metal box and showed us her coin collection. The man seen it. That's w hat he had been looking for. Once he knew that someone else cherished it, and wasn't going to spend them as typical coins, he stopped visiting us. Actually, he stopped visiting and I'm only assuming that it was because he was now able to rest without worry.

My two older brothers told me about Pennywise (the clow n off of Steven King's movie "IT") I don't remember much about it, only driving through the city in the dead of night and being so scared I wanted to die. May be that sparked my obsession with horror movies, novels, and writing???

Haunted houses in Boston where furniture would move around the room by itself

I over heard my parents talking about a local haunted house. My father was a po lice officer at the time. He and his partner supposedly went into the house. Wh en my dad saw a man standing next to his partner. The man was dressed in old st yle clothes. Everone in this small town has some story to tell about the house It was a place the local teens went to get scared I guess. I never had the ner ve. When I was a teenager, some kids burned it down. That was the end of that I guess.

I was about five when my older brothers used to tell me about the attic ghost. (Naturally, I was too young to know that it might have been false, and also that there WAS a ghost lady in the attic.) The three much older guys claimed that there was a trunk in the attic and every night, you co uld hear footsteps come up the stairs and somehow enter the attic above us. Sh e would get angry when she couldn't open her (?) trunk and start to pound on th e floor and the walls. To this day, when you stay in my parents' house for mor e than a day, you can hear our lady ghost have her tantrum.

Once my grandma told me how after my grandpa died my gr andma would be at her summer trailer when she would feel somone pull on her fee t and she would hear soft talking and she saw things move... ever since then i have LOVED ghost stories!

When I was a small child my family lived in Timonium, M d., which is a suburb of Baltimore. (The name Timonium means "House of Grief.") The town was named for the large estate which had once been there. The main house still stood and it was said that its former mistress still roamed its halls.In life she had best friend had been murdered. She remained in the house, and finally died man y years later a broken and insane woman. It was she who had renamed the plantation "Timonium". No one lived in the old house anymore, but local lore said that Mrs. Buchanan still paced up and down the hallways mourning her friend and her husband. (For those who know the area now, Timonium House stood where the Nationwide Nissan lot is...suburban de velopment at its worst.)

Bloody Mary, who I have seen a lot.

The first one I can remember, is my older sister tellin g me that if I rubbed the skeleton on her charm bracelet, the ghost of our Gran dfather would appear. She rubbed the charm, nothing happened, so before I went off to bed in my own room she told me "If Grandfather wakes you up during the n ight, be sure to tell me all about it". Nedless to say when I went crying to my parents room, she pleaded innocent to having said anything to scare me. Grandf ather never show up.

the vacant house next door

My dad made one up about Chief Tomochichi, who was an I ndian chief in Georgia two hundred years ago or so.

My first ghost story was about the woman with the red r ibbon around her neck. As the story goes, a long time ago there was a little b oy in love with a little girl of the same age who wore a red ribbon around her neck every day. One day he asked her why. She looked at him very strangely an d said, "I'll tell you when we get married." The boy shrugged, but when, as sh e had phrophesied, they got married, he asked her again. She replied, "I'll te ll you on our thirtieth wedding anniversary." He again shrugged off the commen t as gibberish. On their thirtieth wedding anniversary, though, he asked her a nd demanded an answer. "Why do you wear a red ribbon around your neck?" "I'll tell you when I'm on my deathbed." The husband thought this all very cryptic, but nonetheless he did not ask again until, as she had said, she was on her de athbed. "Wife, I asked you when we were children; you said to wait until we we re married. I asked you when we were married; you said t! ! o wait until our thirtieth wedding anniversary. I asked you on our thirtieth w edding anniversary, and you said to wait until you were on your deathbed. I ha ve waited patiently all these years. Now, tell me, why do you wear a red ribbo n around your neck?" His wife smiled, and said, "I promised you all these th ings. Here is your answer." With that, she untied the ribbon from her neck an d her husband watched, horrified, as her head rolled free from her body onto th

There was a trail in the foothills near my grandmother' s house. It was called Witch's Trail and everyone in the town knew about it. It was supposed to be haunted. My cousins told me about i t, but I was so young at the time that I really don't remember the story of why the trail was haunted. But I remember being scared of Witch's Trail.

The old house near the elementary school was abandoned by the owners. They left dinner on the table and wash on the line and just disa ppeared. The locals swore they were murdered and their spirits haunted the plac e.

My grandmother told me this story. She was upstairs cl eaning a bedroom mirror in her house. She heard someone running up the stairs. She stopped what she was doing and and noticed an image in the mirror from be hind her. It was a man of dark complexion, dark beard and moustache just stand ing there very still looking at her through the mirror. She is a very religiou s woman and said, "I'm not afarid of you" ...(thinking this was an evil entity apparently). She then saw the image turn slowly and leave the room. She the n heard someone walking down the stairs and the screen door open and close.

Bloody Mary

The phantom of Berkeley Square.

I remember hearing my mom talk to her sister about the days when they had lived back in Kentucky next to an old cementary. My mom came from a big family,and she was the 7th girl child,with a brother c oming along after her. They were talking about the time that two of the sisters came home scared to death because they had been out walking in the cemetary and had seen a little g irl with a big dog walking ahead of them.They had never seen her or the dog bef ore.All of a sudden,the pair vanished right beore thier eyes. What's really interesting is that as I grew up,I myself as well as my younges t sister have also had many experiences with the paranormal.

The first ghost story I remember hearing was the old fa vorite "Hook-Hand" story, which I'm sure everyone in the U.S. has heard at one time or another.

My first story was of a glowing tombstone dated in the mid-1900's in the older cemetary of the small town I grew up in. At night it glowed a strange greenish color regardless of the presence moonlight or not. T here are no lights near the stone, the nearest being a large electrical tower. However, the lights on this tower are red and blinking. I've visited the cemetary several times and am still unable to explain the glowing.

MY AUNT TOLD OF A RENTAL HOUSE IN WHICH THEY LIVED IN GARFIELD,NJ. IT WAS A VI CTORIAN AND WAS IN LIVE IN CONDITION WHEN THEY MOVED IN. IT WAS FULLY FURNISHE D INCLUDING DISHES AND SILVER WARE. SHE TOLD US HOW THEY WOULD LOCK UP THE HOU SE BEFORE BED TIME AND WAKE UP WITH THE DOORS AND WINDOWS OPEN AND THE FURNITUR E REARRANGED. NO ONE HEARD NOISES DURING THE NIGHT. THEY ONLY STAYED THERE A SHORT TIME BEFORE THEY MOVED.

A young girl got married and always wore a red ribbon a round her neck. Her husband kept asking her why she wore that red ribbon and s he told him someday he shall see. One day when she was lying in her death bed he asked her why she wore the ribbon and she said now you will see and she took the ribbon off and her head fell off!!

There was an automobile graveyard near where I lived, a nd one of my friends told me that a ghost would sometimes appear there as a bri ght ball of light. One night, we were out at the very tail end of dusk, and saw a light in the automobile graveyard. We both charged inside and told my mothe r, who said it wa probably a night watchman ( a night watchman to guard junked cars?).

The first ghost story I heard was at camp. There was a man there who was my favorite counselor, JR, who told the first ghost story I had ever heard. The legend goes as follows: There was a white man and an indian princess who fell in love. The indian's fat her didn;t approve of this love, so the man and the indian decided to elope. Where they met to run off together, they felt a presence in the air. Out of the bushes popped the whole indian army. Last, the chief stood. "you betrayed me daughter. So now you must pay the price" The indians attacked them with spears. They picked at the white man and indian princess, until they were half dead. The warriors tied the half dead couple to a tree, and left the m there to die. The tree grew around the couple. When it rains, the tree bleeds the white man a nd indian princess' blood, and on full moon nights you can hear the screams of two lovers being picked to death with spears.

It was about a man in a blackhood that stood at the end of my Dad's bed when he was younger. He looked like the ghost of the Christmas Future in the movie "A Muppet's Christmas Carol", except he didn't have that a xe- looking thing in his hand. My Dad said that once he ran through him.

I was watching Unsolved Mysteries and it was about a yo ung girl who haunts a graveyard.

My first Ghost story was about a mute girl who got kill ed under unknown circumstances during an earthquake. I can't remember much abo ut it, but my mother told me her body was never found and she wandered between planes of existance looking for someone to tell about her death, but no one cou ld hear her.

about the local ghost haunting my grandpa's house. was a ghost from the early 1900's who died mysteriously and haunted the house until a few years before my dad told me the story

This is the first ghost story that I can remember and i t happened to me. I have had numerous experiences with the ghost since. I don 't know how old I was, but it was probably 1969 or 1970. My family was all sou nd asleep when a loud crash from the kitchen woke us lal up. It sounded like a ll the dishes had fallen out of the cabinet. We all met in the hall and my dad ran down the hall to the kitchen with his gun. We thought it was a burglar. Well, he called us up there and there was not a broken dish anywhere. The door s and windows were locked, everything was neat and in place. My mom said, "Wel l, I guess it was Rudolph". I didn't know what she meant. I asked her about i t later and she said that the man (Rudolph M.) who had lived in the house befor e us had killed himself when he found out he had cancer. My parents had moved and remodeled the house when they bought it. We had numerous experiences in that house and everytime we heard footsteps , music, noises, or anything wierd we would say "Oh, it's just Rudolph."

A dead dog coming back.

My first ghost story was one told to me when i was quit e young by a girl who lived down the street and baby sat me quite often. Behin d my house are woods, and going through the woods are an old set of railroad tr acks. Apparently, very long ago when the tracks were in use a train came throu gh, but somehow on the tracks was an enormous pile of boulders that got there m ysteriously. the train hit them, and the pile was so huge it stopped the train and all the passengers were killed. except for the conductor. he had a orang e lantern with him, so he got out of the train to see what he could do. he die d soon after before anyone found him. exactly 5 years later the same thing hap pened in the exact same spot. only difference was that this conductor had a ye llow light. and 5 more years go by, and the same thing, only this time it was a red light. The tracks have since closed, but it's said that every 5 years if you go up there at the time it happened (around 2AM) you! ! can see a red, yellow, and orange light "floating" towards you. I've actually been up there a couple times hoping to see it, but i haven't yet.

Voices heard in the night.

My uncle had passed away very suddenly due to a massive heart attack. My cousin had gone to stay with my aunt immediately after his de ath to comfort her and assist with the funeral arrangements. On that first nig ht, she was awoken by the sound of someone sobbing. Thinking it was her mother , she got up and followed the sound to the kitchen. She found her mother there , however, she was not sobbing. Her mother had apparently also heard the sobbi ng and gone to comfort my cousin. They both looked at each other in disbelief while the sobbing continued for fifteen minutes. Interestingly, they were not frightened by this experience. They both believe it was my uncle who was distr aught about his death.

A phantom that has haunted our family history beginning in Austria. My father would tell us stories that his father told him about thi s "Baron" Von Dune.

A log cabin in the Virginian mountains.

It was in a book of collected ghost stories. It was about an old man who was te lling a traveler man about his life and love when they were trapped in the old guys house during a winter storm. he told about a young woman who was really a werewolf. She fell in love with a local farmer, the old guy at the time, who li ved in the area her and her father moved to. When the young man asked to marry her her father said no and he turned into a werewolf and killed him. Then she m arried the guy and told him her secret. The next month she turned into one on t he full moon and that went on for years until they had a baby and she accedenti ally killed it while in a werewolf form. The man shot her and buried the two wo men he loved. he then spent his days in his cabin and I forget the rest of the story. All I remember is I didn't sleep for close to a week after reading it. A lso, I became totally obsessed with the super natural.

Bloody Mary. I read in a book that if you said her name 40 times into the mirror in a dark room, that she would appear to you. Then on e of my friends (an obvious liar) said that she tried it and Bloody Mary appear ed to her and she threw knives at her.

A friend told me, when I was five, that her house was haunted. I never really felt quite right when I was there, so I never doubted her. That started my lif e long fascination with ghosts.

In Mexico there is a woman who lived her life as a prosititute. So everytime s he got pregnant she would have the child and drown it in the river. At the tim e of her death god told her that she would not cross the holy gates until she f ound all her children. So she roams the streets at night wailing and crying "M y poor children where are my children" . But whats even scarier is that if sh e finds a door open to a hoouse she will go inside and if she sees a baby will pick it up and when she realizes is not her gets mad and furious and hurts the child. I don't know if its true but many people claim to have seen her in a to wn near Guadalajara.

There is a small secluded cemetary out in the country, and these highschool kids who were my bestfriend's sisters friends had gone the re to make out and (yep you guessed it) they saw ghosts coming out of the grave s. I was around the 4th grade and that story scared me to death.

IT WAS ABOUT THE HEADLESS MOTORCYCLIST.

More of a scarry story than a ghost story. You know th e one about the hook arm guy who kills the boyfriend after the couple makes out in the car and hears the news report of a lunatic on the loose.

My first ghost "story" was not a story at all, but an e xperience that I had, myself, right after my Great Aunt died. I was five years old and I thought that I was dreaming when I saw my Great Aunt standing at the foot of my bed. All that I remember about her is that she was always very swe et, so I wasn't afraid. After that I had many other "ghostly" experiences, but for some reason, this first one did not scare me as much as the others did. M y mother waited until I was old enough (teenager) to handle the stories that sh e and my brother had compiled concerning the house that we lived in, which was where both my Grandfather and Great Grandfather died.

The first ghost story I remember hearing as a child is the one about the devil at Glamis Castle.

Bloody Mary She would supposley kill you if you went to the bathroom by yourself at night i n the dark.

I saw ghosts from the time I was three or four, so I do n't know if I heard any stories about them before I knew what they were for mys elf. Anyhow, when my grandma and great aunt were young women and their husbands were away at war, they took a house together to make the ends meet. Although neither woman had her husband's permission, bot h had jobs to afford enough to survive on. In those days, if a husband didn't want his wife to work, he'd walk into he r boss's office, and demand she be fired. And she would be. Needless to say, with the pride of the men in my family, both wom en lost many jobs! One evening, my great-aunt returned home from her latest job. She went upstair s to tuck in the children, and then returned to tell the babysitter she could go home. After the babysitter had gone, my au nt turned around to hang her coat in the hall closet, and when she turned back, she saw the ghost of my greatgrandmother , her mother, standing in front of her. Her mother lifted an arm towards the stairs and said, "Velma, you must go and c heck the baby", to which my aunt replied, "I just checked the children and they're fine." But Great-grandma wouldn't lea ve until my great aunt went to see the baby. When Velma got upstairs, she found he son Paul lying in his crib, but on closer inspection, she noticed his head had gotten wedged in between the bars of his crib, and he was suffocating. Had a minute more passed, cousin Paul would have died. If it hadn't been for th e insistence of my great-grandma, the story that got passed down through the generations would have been a lot different than th at, and a lot less enlightenning. And it just goes to show, that sometimes, when you need your mama, she'll be th ere for you, no matter how far away she is. There is never a "too far".

I don't know if you can call it "a real ghost story" but when I was about seven a friend of my sister said to me "you know my grandd ad died a couple of years ago but I still talk to him" Me as a stupid seven yea r old didn't knew were he was talking about so I asked him, he answerd "Sometimes at night I see him in my bedroom and we talk for a couple of minutes and then he goes away" As a seven year old I just thought he wanted to scare me WRONG!! he was telling the truth. I know coz me and that friend of my sister we have this way so we c an talk to ghosts and there was this ghosts who said that it was true!! can you beat that??

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

stuff about witches, vampires, i've seen on tv

As long as I have been alive, I have heard ghost stories from family members, f amily friends and my own friends, so I cannot pin point exactly which one was t he first I ever heard.

My Grandmother lived in an apartment that used to be an old factory. She and my Grandfather would often hear someone walking around in the attic and when they would go to check no one would be there. At times things would often dissappear and reappear in a place that was already checked. One day my Grandmother was cleaning the apartment and happenned to pass by her bedroom door.Directy over her bed floating about 4 feet above the floor was a woman in a long flowing gown with a veil over her head. My grandmother who was very afraid at seeing this went after the ghost with a kitchen broom telling it to get out of her house. She said it disappeared and although it never showed itself again it would play pranks on her like making her social security check dissappear for three days and then reappear in full view where it wasn't before. I have a family of whom many members have had experiences with ghosts including myself.

When I was eleven, I went to sleep away camp in mid-Mic higan. The camp came equipped with it's own ghost. The ghost was named Mona, an d she was the woman who had donated the land for the camp. Her childhood home s till stood on the property, as well as the house that she burned to death in af ter her marraige. Mona had lived a tragic life, scarred terribly after being dragged behind a hor se on the property. This left her unable to ever bear children. She had been we althy girl, and her young scoundrel of a husband married her only for her wealt h. He slowly drove Mona mad. He would have friends come by and whisper in the h ouse, then deny hearing the sounds. He would dig up her bulbs and seedlings, an d plant flowers in the carrot bed, and vegtables among the flowers. Mona died tragically, in a fire that consumed her house. All her money though w ent, not to her phillandering young husband, but to an organization to make a c amp for the children she so dearly wanted. Her ghost is still said to haunt the camp till this day. When I was a child, Mona was seen as a sort of protector f or the camp. The director challanged us to spend a night alone in her childhood home. Though, when my friend and I took her up on the challange, she decided t he ramshackle house was too unsafe for a couple of eleven year olds. I next had exposure to this camp when I was sixteen. That year I was a counsell or for my own cabin of eleven year olds. By then, Mona's story had become more sinister...Mona was said to haunt specifically the cabin closest to the lake on the Wed night of camp. Of course -my- cabin would be the closest. Mona never p ut in an appearance of course, but I had the worst time getting the ten scared girls to sleep!

When I was very young, there was an extremely large tre e at the far end of my yard. My older siblings always told me that the Boogie man lived in the very top of the tree. From that spot, he was able to watch me all of the time. He could see in my bedroom window, and watch me when I playe d outside. Needless to say, I stayed away from the tree, and made sure not to play outside alone at night!

Anne Boleyn in the tower of London. I was told about h ow she supposedly walks the halls late at night with her nead in the crook of h er arm.

Gost that haunted the other side of the apartment I liv ed in

I live in Ridgetop TN, just a few miles from adams so m y first story was that of the bell witch

A ghostly carriage that disappeared into a lake in sout h jersey.

The Bell Witch

Actually it was my mother who recounted the story one night ..It was about my two twin sisters who as babies would scream and cry in their cribs..about a man that would come into their room at night it seems abd scare them to death...Mind you I was n't born at the time but I do believe my mom my whole family which consist of my mom and us four girls are able to see things that others can not I know I have been seeing things since I was a little girl Im 29 now and for the longest time thought was going nut's.

The house that I grew up in, a previous tenant had committed suicide.... the g host was supposed to watch out for small children, because the ghost of the wom an was earthbound because was very maternal, but had never had any children.

My first ghost story had to do with the house I grew up in. I grew up in an old farm house in southern Illinois that my great grandpa rents lived in. My mother would tell me stories of her getting up in the middl e of the night to finish a load of laundry or to get something to drink. As sh e approached the kitchen, (that was also my great grandmothers kitchen), she wo uld notice my great grandmother standing at the stove cooking away, with pots a nd pans all over our kitchen counters. She would look up at my mother and smil e. My mother knew my great grandmother before she passed away. In the morning when my mother would come downstairs to start breakfast, of coarse the kitchen was as clean as when she left it the night before. She always said grandma ke pt a clean kitchen.

First of all, I should mention that I really enjoyed yo ur web site and have a true ghost story of my own to share at another time! The first true ghost story I had ever heard, was told to me by my older sister. She used to work part time at some horse stables that were a few blocks away from our house in suburban Seattle.(Belleview) She told me that the owner had said there were ghost horses that would make an appearance every now and then. Apparently there was a fire, and several horses were killed. On certain nights, you could hear the horses winnying(sp?)and smell the smoke, although my sister never witnessed it herself. She and I have always been interested in the paranormal, and she also told me of an experience she had while house sitting for a friend. The house was quite old, and when she was looking out the window she saw the swing hanging from the tree begin to sway, even though there was no breeze. She also woke to hear the name "Elizabeth" whispered urgently several times in her ear. Again, I have had a few experiences myself, but that really isn't what the poll is all about so I will share them at another time!! Thanks! Penny Marble Falls, TX.

Many people couldn't pick one favorite story, but others had definite favorites. Brian Bethel's stories got the most votes and praise. (His stories include ASU Ghost (1, 2, and 3), Apartment Spirit, Muppet Dream, Evil Kids, and Stephenville Story.) Congratulations Brian! :-)

Here are the stories people picked as their favorites, and what they had to say about them. Note that some people picked features instead of stories from the True Story page.

Enjoyed them all! Thought the one about the Guinea Pig was kind of cute! I guess they would want to stick around and squeek a goodbye just like a human would want to say goodbye to loved ones!!

I would have to say Dog girl which scared me to death a nd dog spirit there are so many that I liked

I have to stick with the bell witch stories

Unwanted houseguest

Barking Ghost Dog

Gentle Ghost

Cookie Ghost and Child's ghost to name two.There are so many good ones it is hard to choose. I thought that the one about the ghost that baked cookies was f unny. The childs ghost to me was touching.

Brian Bethel's ASU ghost stories

the ghost cat

The one about the ghost baby.

THE WINCHESTER HOUSE

Maine Farmhouse Maine Woods Scary Voice

Frankiln castel

Lucifer Story. That scared me.

Franklin Castle, Cleveland, OH

Hansell road

Unwanted Houseguest

THE HAUNTED DOOR

Hotel Del Coronado

I liked the Clown Doll and the ASU stories

The haunted Toys 'R Us story

I like the ASU stories the best.

The story about the disembodied, glowing "Red Eyes" cre eped me out the most.

The Bell Witch Story. I read a book about it years ago in my early teens.It was interesting to see it featured here.

I enjoyed the one about the red eyes in Arizona.

family poltergiest

The one about the man's cup of coffee moving on the tab le.

I like the stories by Brian Bethel (ASU Ghost, etc.) H e's a great writer - plus he writes about the Lone Star State.;)

Kale Contact

The Peanutbutter Ghost

Barbados Vault

Grandma's House

Lyric Theatre by Joel Furr

There was a story I read about a person riding a bike p ast a cemetary, and when they went passed they saw a monster type thing come ou t and it tried to grab them. Something about a chicken farmer killing himself? I can't remeber the name, and cant seem to find it. I found it hard to swallow, but it scared the hell out of me anyway. [NOTE: This story is called "Scary Graveyard"]

My all time fav is Brians Black eyed children, but I di dn't see it here, SO I will go with Creepy House. [NOTE: This story is called "Evil Kids" on my site.]

The Evil Baby was pretty rockin!

Dad's story. The story describes many things similar t o things my family experiences since my father's death in 1989. I can relate t o the feelings.

There was one (I can't remember what it was called, so I can't find it) about a boy who saw some really scary monster/alien muppets on his grandparents' television. He thought they were tr ying to lure him inside. I hope someone else remembers reading this--I'm sure it was on this site. [NOTE: This is "Muppet Dream", a story by Brian Bethel.]

Rural Church

Neighborhood Haunts

Haunted Toys R US, Movie Theater

the jolly toy

The Toyz R Us story

I for get the name of the story. It was written quite a few years back. It was in 3 postings. About the man who, in his college day s was fixing up a friends house on the east coast, it ended with a showdown, an d a body being discovered in the basement. It is truly one of the best ghost s tories I have ever read!! So well written. I was absolutely riveted! [NOTE: This story is called "Summer Vacation".] I also like the one by Brian Bethel, Evil kids. That one really scared me! He writes in such a way that you feel like he is telling only you the story!

Dog Girl and Evil Kids

General comments about the page:

I like the Toy's R us.

This is a great web site I love the paranormal and all things related. It is fun that we get to share stories and certian rlations her e.

I really enjoy your site! I wish you had time to updat e the stories more often, but with 2 kids, I know you're REALLY busy! Other than that, keep doing what you're doing, it's great!

update more often

Keep up your good, hard work!

Please change the background of your page it's really hard to read over it and the tiling is pretty bad.

You should have more pics on your site.....IT ROCKS!!

It's a great site.

Great site, but how come your Winchester page doesn't d iscuss the ghosts? Did I miss something? I've seen a couple tv programs on it a nd I know that the psychic Silvia Browne has identified at least two or three g hosts by name in the Winchester house.

I'd really like it if you guys could get me some inform ation on famous English ghosts. Thanks for the cool site!

I love the site. I've just become a believer after 11 y ears of skeptisicm.

This site is really helpful for the research report i'm doing on Paranormal Activity and also for my enjoyment in general. Ghosts and the paranormal have always fascinated me, and this is a good place to learn.

YOU have the best paranormal web page

Keep up the good work.

it's a great page. keep up the good work

i am definetly coming back to the site. you have a HUGE wonderful listing of ghoststories....the largest i've seen so far on the web. thankx for the goosebumps :)

A VERY COOL PAGE. IT IS LATE AT NIGHT SO I HAD BETTER GET OFF BEFORE IT SCARES ME TOOOOOO MUCH.

This site is absolutely wonderful! I'm a believer beca use of what I've been through and it is nice to see that other people are belie vers, too. And, no, we are not crazy! I'd like to see as a poll: which part of the U.S. has the most known ghost sitings. I would say that it is the south east. I'm from GA.

I think your site is SO cool!!

I really like this site and I think it is so good I would not even know what to suggest except for one thing. I know of more than one person who has had the e xperience of being visited by the dead in a dream.I would say that my own perso nal experience with this was bizarre to say the least and yet I don't see much of this topic on the web or anywhere else and it happens to a lot of people. Ca n a ghost give you a message when you are not even awake. My great grandmother visited my aunt in a dream to tell her that she loved her and that she wanted t o say goodbye.My aunt woke up crying saying Grandmas dead Grandmas dead. Her mo ther told her it was only a bad dream and grandma was fine.The very next mornin g at 9am they recieved a telegram that grandma had in fact died in that very ho ur that my aunt woke up screaming So would that not qualify as a ghostly visit from beyond?

I love your sight!

I really enjoyed your site. I will be back to find new ghost stories that have been posted!

Great Site...I love to read the new stories!!! It's nice to know there are so many others out there with wierd experiences to share!!!

I really enjoy this site, I try to visit it several ti mes a month! I'll send in a Kentucky ghost story when I have more time, I'm a s low typer.

Im so glad to have found this page it's really nice to know that there are others who have had similar experiences.