Speaking of strange faces appearing in windows...

When I was very small, I was always coming in contact with strange spirits and entities (I always called them ghosts, although I am not convinced in my later years that they were necessarily manifestations of those passed on...). The most memorable of these encounters occured when I was four:

My two sisters, my brother, and I were the lucky kids on the block who had their very own trampoline in their very own backyard. This treasured possession frequently made our house a popular destination for the local younger set, especially on sunny afternoons after school. My parents were pretty cool about letting anyone we liked come over and "jump"; they didn't even have to be home. The only requirement was that each child had to have a note from their mom or dad saying that it was okay for them to use the trampoline and that they knew that their child was at our house.

What does this have to do with a.f.g-s, you say? Well, one afternoon after preschool I was playing in the sandbox at the side of our house. This sandbox was edged on one side by our house, two sides by the yard, and one side by the white wooden fence that separated the front and back yards. As I played, I became aware of someone approaching the gate. I looked up, expecting one of the neighborhood kids come to play, and found myself staring up at a shadowy figure the size of a man. This figure had no face; rather, it had contours and shadows. From where I sat, it did appear to have arms and legs like a person, but to be honest, I was more entrance with the (lack of) face. I stared at the figure and (I guess) it stared at me.

"If you want to jump on the trampoline, you need a note from your mom," I said. There was no response. "Do you have a note from your mom?"

I asked the figure this question several times, to no avail. Not wanting to be distracted from my oh so important sandplay for much longer by someone who did not want to follow the rules about using the trampoline, I began to turn back to my shovel and bucket.

"Let me in," the figure said (I say "said", but I couldn't tell you to this day if it actually spoke, or if I just heard the words in my head. Heck, I was four. I heard words and I assumed that they came from someone's mouth...).

This drew my attention back to the figure, but my problem with it remained. "Do you have a note from your mom? I can't let you in without a note from your mom..."

"Let me in."

This hopelessly exciting dialogue continued for several minutes until my childlike impatience took over and I told the figure to go home and get a note or just go away. At that moment, I realized that the figure was bending over the gate, its arms rising up and reaching out to me.

"Let....Me....In...." it said with much more vigor. At this moment, something in my head told me that I was not to allow this "man" to touch me. I scooted back in the sand, glaring at the face of the figure.

"Go back!" I screamed. "Go back!"

When my sister came bursting out of the kitchen door to see who I was screaming at, she found me staring intently at the gate. When she asked me what was going on, I told her that there has been a stranger at the gate, that he wanted in, but I knew he was black (honest, I said 'black', not 'bad' or 'weird' or some other more normal description for a four year old to use). Kel looked all over the front yard and around the house and said she didn't see anyone. I think she just thought I was trying to get attention.

I never saw the stranger at the gate again, although as a teenager I had someone in a smoky old coffee shop tell me that they knew I had been visited by entities from "beyond" and that one of their impression had something to do with sand. Since I had never told this story to anyone but my sister at the time, this startled me, but convinced me all the more that this woman knew what she was talking about.

It's been a long post, but I wanted to add a few more tidbits to some of the current threads...

First, for more great stories about critters like the Jersey Devil, check out a book called "Stranger Than Science". I read it when I was young (although I believe the book was written for adults), and was simply intrigued at its collection of true but unexplainable stories from around the world. My personal favorite was about an "invisible vampire" whose existance was demonstrated by biting a person repeatedly while they were locked in a jail cell while the guards watched the wounds simply appear on the victims body... creepy!

Second, there is a marvelous tour company in New Orleans called Magic Tours that does very inexpensive, absolutely marvelous ghost, haunting, vampire, and voodoo tours. The owner's name is Richard, and he is entertaining beyond description. I highly recommend these tours; you can find out about them at any hotel in the Big Easy.

Thanks for putting up with the long post! I hope you enjoyed it. Happy haunting!

Kimis

P.S. Will someone please set up a list killfile for that Sundeep guy? He never has anything positive to say! We've got better things to read than his flames!