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This story is so strange it sounds phony, but it's not. As a matter of fact, while typing it I got creeped out all over again, even though the events took place over 15 years ago.
When I was about 12 years old, my parents bought me a piano. It was used, but in very good shape. I could already play by ear (on a little Magnus Chord Organ), but was interested in taking lessons, so I was very excited about finally getting my very own piano. We kept it downstairs in a finished basement. There is a staircase that goes from the upper level to the basement. There is no door at the end of the stairs, so my family would often listen to me play and comment my progress, or tell me to shut the hell up. The house itself was new. We were the first and only owners.
One night I woke up sometime after midnight. At first I didn't know what woke me up, but then I noticed it. Very softly, coming from the basement was the sound of the piano playing. Not playing a song, just notes near the top of the keyboard. I could hear this very clearly. I went out of my room into the dark hallway. I could hear it even more clearly now. I was absolutely terrified. I didn't want to wake anyone in the middle of the night, yet I was too scared to sleep. I closed the door of my room and turned on the lights. I sat that way for over an hour listening to the piano playing by itself.
The next morning I went to mention this to my brother who had a room directly next to mine. Before I could get out the story he told me that he had hear it playing, and described the very high notes exactly the way I heard them. We agreed that if one of us were to hear it again, that we would knock on the wall and wake the other in order to listen together. Sure enough, it happened again, and my brother and I sat together listening to this thing night after night. As time went on the music changed. It always stayed at the top of the piano, but a tune emerged (For those who play piano: G down to C; G down to C; then G, F, E, D, C and again G, F, E, D, C. It would play this over and over again, then go into random high notes)
At first our parents didn't believe us, but then my mother finally heard it. She told us one morning that it was playing a song when she heard it. My father never heard it, nor did my sister. This went on for well over a year, not nightly, but very often. I even conducted several experiments. I was curious to know if the keys themselves were being pressed down, or if I was just hearing music coming from the piano itself.
I sprinkled powder on the keys, and even balanced match-sticks to see if they would be disturbed. Funny thing was, that it wouldn't play when I did these things. Likewise, when I put a tape recorder on the steps with an extension cord running to my room, trying to record the music, it wouldn't play. But as soon as I took these things away, it would start up again.
Over time the piano quieted down, and by the time I was 15 or 16 had stopped altogether. The last thing that happened was when my mother passed by it on her way to the laundry room (the lights in that room have behaved oddly; the light switch would be off after you left the room after having just turned it on). She passed the piano, and one note sounded very loudly at the bottom of the keyboard (a low note).
The piano is still there, but has remained quiet these past 15 years.
- BARRY P. JHZZ33A@prodigy.com