From: "Guenevere Feldman, T-BO" (Guenevere.Feldman@tecan.com)
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: My ghost story
Date: Monday, November 05, 2001 4:24 PM
Location: Near Boston, Massachusetts, USA
This story a part of Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
Hi Folks. Let me start off in saying that I'm about to get my degree in science, which has taught me to be very skeptical of things considered to be paranormal. I believe in coincidence, and the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. With that caveat in place, let me begin.
I grew up in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. My house had been built in the fifties, and no one had ever died in it, or experienced severe trauma, etc. Before that, the land had been used for simple farming. This was a pretty ordinary place, perfect for little me to grow up.
As a child I had a very vivid imagination. The basement of the house terrified me, but what small child hasn't been scared of a basement or attic? What was really bizarre, is that even as I grew up, my fear of the basement never abated. I got over my fear of the dark, my closet, my mother's wig (don't ask, it was scary when I was three), spiders, etc. But I never ceased to fear the basement. I felt childish as a teen, but until I moved out of my parents' house, I always had this routine that I followed.
If I was down stairs, I would turn on the light at the bottom of the stairs. Then I would run as fast as I could up the stairs, turn on the lamp at the top, and then flip the switch for the bottom of the stairs off. Then I turned on the hallway light. I would then turn of the light at the top of the stairs, run down the hall, etc. Essentially I played leap frog with the lights. Even at the age of eighteen, I hated being downstairs in the dark. I thought maybe I was insane.
I also have an old cat, Tigger, who used to flip out sometimes in the basement. He'd be sitting calmly, yowl, and then bolt up the stairs. I didn't think much of it.
Small things have happened in my house, but I've always dismissed them as faulty wiring, or my imagination acting up, but a couple small things do stand out.
Once during the early evening, the television in the basement started flipping channels by itself. The remote control had been left on the coffee table (I had thought maybe my cat had sat on the clicker).
The real incident that left me baffled occurred when I was 14 or so. I've always had a difficult time getting to bed at a decent hour, and one night, around 2 am, after my parents had gone to bed, I heard the cabinet doors in the kitchen slamming. Naturally I was terrified, but I chose to investigate. When I flipped the kitchen light switch, nothing seemed amiss. However, it was clear that the kitchen was and had been empty. To double check, I poked my head in my parents' bedroom, which was adjacent to mine. Both my parents were sleeping. I have no brothers or sisters. I knew I had heard the sound of the cabinet doors open and slam, yet had no idea what produced such a noise.
I've had other friends feel uncomfortable in parts of my house, and I still feel ridiculous. If the experience hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't believe it. Sometimes, I still doubt myself...
Guenevere Feldman
Guenevere.Feldman@tecan.com