This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 17:20:08 -0800
From: "Bob Murdoch" (murdoch1@encode.com)
To: ghost-discuss@aurora.cdb.com
Subject: A GHOST STORY
Hi All.
I thought I had already posted this story to this list before but I had reason to check my past posting and found it was sent to some one else instead. I've been advised to forward it on to you all to be followed by a couple of others. I hope you like it. We bought this house in 1986 and have been living here since then. It's been an interesting place to live.
This old house of ours was built in about 1886 or 1890 by a man named Andrew C Boyd a lumber jack who worked for the Young Timber Track Company. He kept the house until he died in about 1953. In about 1940 - 1945 a gang of bank robbers who robbed banks all over Ontario were captured and sentenced to die for killing a police officer. The gang leader was named Alonso Boyd, the nephew of Andrew and the gang was called the Boyd gang.
Apparently they would hide out here from time to time and some say buried things in the back yard. I'm afraid to ask what they buried, maybe treasure, maybe bodies. I don't know but when we were building the house we had to dig a septic bed in the back yard. While we were digging we found bones, human bones, the bones of two children.The police said they were older than fifty years so they didn't care about them but somebody cared because some times at night we can hear childrens voices as they play. I can never make out what they are saying but I know they are voices because I can hear the pitch rise and fall and the sounds of laughter coming from what we call the haunted room. When ever I got up to go and see, the sounds would stop.
The lady who lived here before us also heard the children, although she thought she heard the sounds coming from outside.
The haunted bedroom was my daughters bedroom and she always loved sleeping there because she always had nice dreams in vivid colour. We never really paid too much attention to this room untill she moved out. After she moved out we couldn't keep the door closed. If I closed and latched the door it would be open again in the morning or the following morning for sure. My wife chose not to believe it could be the voices that opened the door. Maybe she was afraid to admit it or maybe she thought if she did admit it, the ghosts would come for her. I don't know but we talked about it one night just before she was going out. We almost argued about it, our voices got higher and higher, I was saying that there was definately some thing in that room and she was saying no there isn't, there's nothing there and I don't want to hear anymore about it and she left. She came back home late that night about 2 in the morning. She walked up the stairs to come to bed and as she walked past the haunted room, as though the occupant of the room was trying to convince her there was more to it than she was willing to believe, the latch moved - she looked-- then saw the latch lift and the door open. She stopped , reached for the door and heard an ominous shuffle of feet on the other side of the door. She shut the door and ran into the bedroom to me.. We were the only ones home at the time.
Bye for now
Bob
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 17:28:40 -0800
From: "Bob Murdoch" (murdoch1@encode.com)
To: ghost-discuss@aurora.cdb.com
Subject: A GHOST STORY II
Hi all
This is another story sort of ties in with the first. Sorry the stories are not going to come chronologically. I'm simply sending as I have these written at the moment. There are many others if anyone would like to read them. The person I was corresponding with about this thread suggested the children wanted to play and this experience rather supported that thought on her part. This is cut and paste from another letter.
As to the question of the ghostly children being playful I think they proved this on my son's sixteenth birthday, five years ago.
For his birthday we went to a restaurant that is very loud and boisterous. We had balloons and cake and a wonderful time. We took the balloons home and turned them loose. They were filled with helium and floated up to the ceiling. The one aluminium balloon stayed up, while the other ones dropped down after loosing some helium. The next night the aluminium balloon was still flying high up to the ceiling in the living room. By the time everyone was ready for bed the balloon had drifted over to the stair case and drifted up stairs. It was resting against the ceiling right above the stair case when I went up to bed. I pushed the long colourful ribbons that trailed down from the balloon, out of my way as I went by them.
My wife was in the upstairs wash room and I went into our bed room across from where the balloon was resting. While I was standing there the balloon drifted across the hall to our bedroom. It dipped down to get under the door header, then continued past me so close my breath would have moved it , had I breathed on it. It stopped at little church window that looks out on the front lawn. While I was standing there my wife came out of the bath room and entered the bed room. The balloon drifted back across the room under the door header, down the hall, past the bath room to my son's room. It went under the door header, across his room and stopped at a small window that looks out on to the back yard.
I said to my wife " Did you see that?" She said " It's just the wind." It could have been because the windows were opened, but I said I don't think so there's something about the way it moves. While we were standing there watching it and discussing the way it moved, it came back out of the bedroom under the door header, back down the hall past the bathroom heading right at us. My wife said "It's just the wind." The balloon moved diagonally across the hall in front of us. I said " It's not the wind, look at the ribbons." the balloon continued past us under the haunted rooms door header and stopped at a small window looking out to the side yard. I went on to explain what we both saw.
If it was the wind blowing the balloon along, the balloon would go first and the ribbons would follow, instead the ribbons were going first, pulling the balloon along by an unseen hand. This haunted room is where we hear the children's voices sometimes.
The next day the balloon came down stairs, I found it floating in the living room while I was working around. As the day progressed I caught the balloon at one point out in the front porch almost out the back door. I moved it back into the living room. When my son came home from school he burst into the house and demanded why I had turned his balloon loose. He said he say it floating up into the sky as he got off the school bus.
I explained that I found it drifting in the living room , I caught it in the porch before it went out the door and put it back into the living room. I didn't know it made it out the door.
My son pointed out quite rightly that for the balloon to go from the living room out the back door it would have to travel under the header from the living room into the kitchen then under the header from the kitchen into the porch, then under the header from the porch out the back door. He also very astutely pointed out that a gentle but persistent breeze was coming in the back door. I assured him, that I had nothing to do with it going out the door.
Bye for now
Bob
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 11:35:55 -0800
From: "Bob Murdoch" (murdoch1@encode.com)
To: ghost-discuss@aurora.cdb.com
Subject: Ghost Story III
Hi All
This is a cut and past from a letter I sent to some one a week or so ago, it fills in some gaps in the others I think.
When we first bought this place I was drawn to it like a magnet. For some reason I was meant to buy this old place. When I first saw it I was compelled to get it.
I would buy houses for people at the time and hold the mortgage on it. When I investigated this house a realestate agent friend of mine checked it out and found out the owner didn't want to sell. I dropped the project and went about my business.
Three years later because of my mortgage interests a young man I knew asked me if I would back him on a house, I said I would if it was right. The house he discribed was this very same house. I told him that I would not back him on the house because I wanted the house myself but I would give him a week to arrange another way of buying it before I moved on it.
He called me back about two days later and said he wasn't interested in it because it had no water, no electricity, no insulaton and only wood heat. Plus it was a complete wreck and he and his wife just had a baby.
I moved on the place and bought it, without seeing it inside. There was a couple of very belligerent tenants living in it at the time so I just bought it on the basis that the vendor get them out of there. He did, so I did.
The place was a mess alright. I have pictures if your interested. From the first minute I walked into the place it was familiar to me. With the exception of an upstairs window I felt very comfortable in it. When ever I came near the window I got the feeling that I was standing in someone else space.
During the rebuilding I experienced my first encounter. I laid down for a small power nap in the mid afternoon. When I woke up there was an old woman standing at the end of my little day bed. She was a large boned woman with her hair done up in a bun on the back and top of her head. She wore a common full lenght dress with a full lenght apron, frills on the shoulders nothing fancy very practical. She had her fists planted firmly on her hips. She was studying the large barn beams I had just put up as if she was trying to make up her mind if she approved. She was enveloped in a purple haze that moved like smoke would move but it stayed around her.
She looked me in the eye, seemed to approve, then drifted away up the stairs.
From that day to this day we have experienced some interesting occurances. The people who lived here before apparently heard childrens voices as we have heard but never saw anything. There seems to be more activity at times when my personal energy levels are high, when my son is around, or when children or young people are around.
Have you noticed if your friend is more active under certain conditions more so than others?
I don't think I have any more things written up yet but there are lots if your interested.
Bye for now
Bob