Melinda's Ghosties.

Please welcome Melinda Pinon!  Today she is sharing her paranormal experiences with us!  Take it away!

When I was little, my older sister Rebecca would tell a ghost story called the Golden Arm. It’s been some 30 odd years and I honestly could not remember the how the story went (I had to Google it), but I could remember Rebecca wailing “I waaaaaannnt myyyyyyy golden arm”. Oh how that story scared me. I loved it! Being scared that is. But being scared by a ghost story is one thing. Being scared by actual ghosts is quite another.

My first apartment was is a senior living community. I was 21. How does a 21 year old get a place in a senior living community? Well, I had good credit and promised to be quite. So the thing about residing in a senior living community is that it tends to be full of old people. Old people that die…of old age.

Odd things would happen in my apartment, but so infrequently that it didn’t occur to me to think it could be a ghost. From the kitchen I would hear the bag of chips I kept on top of the refrigerator fall to the floor or drawers and cabinets being opened and closed. I would get up to investigate the noise to find nothing out of place. I could put something down in one room and when I went back for it would be gone and I would later find it in another room. I would see pops of light. They were really fast floating flashes of light about the size of a baseball. These pops of light occurred mostly in the hallway leading from the living room to the bedroom. Although these things happened several times, none of it bothered me enough to feel uncomfortable living there.

            I had been living there about a year the first time I saw a figure. My bathroom was situated across the hall from my bedroom. If you looked right when coming out of my bedroom you could see a little bit of my living room where I had an old wingback chair my mom had reupholstered for me. I was walking out of my bedroom towards the bathroom and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone. He was an older gentleman and he sitting in the wingback chair. He was wearing khaki pants and a grey sweater. Both of his hands were resting on the arms of the chair and he appeared to be looking out the window. I stopped dead in my tracks. Did I really just see that? It took me a second to work up the nerve to turn my head and look down the hallway. Of course by that time he was gone. Seeing the man shook me up a little bit, but again not enough to make ne feel uncomfortable in my home.

  That changed about a month later.

I used to have this truly annoying habit of shaking my feet in bed when I was having trouble falling asleep. While it was something that calmed me down, it drove my boyfriend at the time nuts. One night after we had gone to bed I felt the end of the bed vibrating the way it would when I did my feet shaking. I figured that my boyfriend had come around to my way of falling asleep. I was starting to dose off when he asked me to stop. “Stop what?” I asked. “The thing with your feet” he replied. I rolled over to face him and told him I wasn’t doing the thing with my feet and I thought it was him vibrating the bed. I didn’t believe he wasn’t doing it and he didn’t believe I wasn’t doing it. We moved our feet together to prove to each other that we were not the culprits. As soon as our feet touched the end of the bed really started to shake. It felt as if someone had grabbed the footboard and was yanking it as hard as they could. This lasted for maybe 20 seconds. 20 excruciatingly long seconds. My boyfriend and I just laid there staring at each other. We didn’t get much sleep that night.  After the bed incident nothing happened for months. No weird noises, no pops of light, no seeing figures, no bed shaking. Nothing. Then I saw the shadow figure.

I like my bedroom to be very dark for sleeping. There was a very bright street light outside my bedroom window. The curtains I had were essentially black out curtains. Just a tiny bit of light seeped in around the edges, and that light was murky at best. Once you turned the lights out and your eyes adjusted, you could just barely make out the shapes of the furniture. It was the middle of the night and my boyfriend had gotten up to use the bathroom. I’m a light sleeper and woke up when he got out of bed. I had dozed back off when I got the feeling that someone else was in the room. Even though I had not heard him I assumed my boyfriend had come back in. I was lying on my side with my back towards the door. I rolled over on my back and saw him standing at the foot of the bed. Because it was so dark in the room I could not make out his features, but he seemed to be staring at me. The air in the room had changed and now felt very heavy.

My boyfriend was a sleepwalker and this had lead to some interesting incidents in the middle of the night. I thought maybe this was another one of those instances. I asked him if everything was okay. No response. I asked him if he was coming everything was okay. No response. I asked him if he was coming back to bed. No Response. I asked him if he was going to just stand there all night. No response. I told him to stop it and that he was freaking me out. No response. Now I am sure you have heard that it is best not to wake a sleepwalker because they could hurt you or themselves or blah, blah, blah. I thought nuts to that and kicked out at him to get his attention and put an end to this nonsense. Just then my boyfriend opens the bedroom door and walks in from the hallway and asks me who I am talking to. Uhhhhh…what?!?! I gave my notice to vacate a few days later.

This wasn’t this first or the last time I have had a brush with ghosties. Right after we moved from Seattle to Fort Worth last fall we lost my husband’s mom suddenly. After her passing my husband could feel and hear her. I would sometimes catch a whiff of her perfume. To us it was calming to think she was around. Our cat on the other hand did not find it calming. Kitty, who is usually always in the same room as me, was terrified of and would not enter our bedroom for weeks.

I had a baby two months ago and things have been interesting since bringing Mateo home. My mom, who is not a believer in the super natural, came down to help us with the baby. One morning over breakfast she told me we had a ghost. Two nights in a row she felt something walking across the foot of the bed. Initially she thought it was her little dog Rosie, but both times Rosie was snuggled up next to her by the pillows. On more than one occasion both my husband and I have seen figures in the baby’s room. We have also noticed the baby will be engaged by something (or someone) that we can’t see. He will smile, giggle, and kick his legs the way he does when we play with him. No matter what we do nothing will distract him from what he is seeing. Whatever it is, it makes him happy. I don’t get a negative vibe and I get the feeling the figures and what the baby is seeing are my husband’s mom and grandpa. I like to think they are watching over our little guy.

Wow! Thank you for sharing your story with us. I like to think that our family members that have passed never leave us. Thank you so much! Any questions or comments?

Please help me welcome Nicole.  I've known Nicole for a long time and when she said she had a ghost story for me well... she wasn't kidding. I can't believe the paranormal experiences she's had.  I will let her tell you. 

Nicole Osborne Cowan’s Ghostly Encounter’s

I will start with my first time seeing a spirit. I was in college and working at Pet City in the Foothills Fashion mall. I and another guy that worked there were closing the store and the gate was already down. We both had done a sweep of the store to make sure there was no one there. Nate went to count the drawer and I went to vacuum. Right in the middle of it, I looked to my right and hunched over on the floor was a young man with dark hair and I could tell that he was wearing a striped shirt (like the kind they used to wear in the 80's, a polo shirt the ones that had the little alligator sewn on them) and at first it looked like he was picking up something from the ground I turned my head for just a second then jerked it back thus realizing what I had just seen and he was gone...no one but Nate and I were in that store (Nate had blonde hair not the dark hair the ghost had) No one could ever move that fast! Then a couple of months later I was walking towards the back room, talking to a friend of mine, this time early in the morning when I saw a black shadow walk past my friends path. I know he stopped as if he had felt something then went on talking he did not even realize it had just walked across him.

Years later, we had sold our house and I was pregnant with Elli.  We moved into my parent’s house because Matt was getting ready to join the Army.  We were staying in my parent’s basement until we get our first duty station. I was VERY pregnant with Elli at this point (about 7 and 1/2 months or so) and I was trying to get to sleep but just could not. I had just lain down in bed and closed my eyes, not even a second later I felt a weird feeling like someone was staring at me! I opened my eyes and saw a white mist but I could make out the face and it looked like an old man. He startled me and I startled him because there was a look of surprise on his face as well! The look on his face was one of curiosity, almost like he was just curious about me as I was about him! After I had scared him he disappeared...I tried to wake Matt up to tell him what had just happened but no such luck!

The next time, I was still living in my parent’s basement but at this time Elli was born and sleeping in the next room. Matt was gone in Kentucky doing his training so I was by myself and lying on my stomach.  My eyes had not even closed yet when I heard a child giggle...I went to check on Elli and she was sound asleep! I laid back down on my stomach and heard the laughing again it was then I could see a little blonde head bobbing up and down like a small child was running back and fourth around the bed! I went to get up but something started pushing me down further into the bed almost like something was laying on me! I couldn’t move. I tried to struggle but I felt like I was being attacked!  To this day I don't think that was a human spirit! I don’t think that was a child spirit I saw. It was not until I screamed for it to stop that I was not afraid of and it needed to go away! To this day I sleep with holy water near by and a rosary.

Years later, I was at my parents house to visit and this time during the day I was walking up the stairs (and I don't know if it matters but my parents were tearing up the stuff in the basement to rebuild) and for a split second at the top of the stairs, I saw a vision and I was no longer there (if that makes sense) and in front of me was a nasty looking long haired man almost someone that you would see in the pioneer era but his teeth were gross and he was greasy with this ominous type gin across his face laughing and mocking me. Almost like he was trying to show me who he was. I can’t tell you how I know but I know that was the same thing that tormented me that one night years before...then everything returned to normal and he was gone and I have never felt his presence there since! That was the only time that I had something that I had felt threatened by!

Now, this is after we were living here at Carson. We were living in this house for over 6 months with nothing. Elli and I lived at my parent’s house once again while Matt was in Iraq and we still had the house back here in Carson. It was a month before Matt was due back and so Elli and I moved back into this house. It was this time when Elli started talking to someone. I thought she was talking to herself but it started to become weird. When she would do stuff like hand me her stuffed animal and crying ask me to keep it for her because the "girl" wanted to take it from her. I just excused it and one day Elli and I were in the shower, I had a cup sitting at the edge on the tub and as I was bending over to pick it up it went flying across the tub. I looked out to scold the cat but the door was shut and the cat was not in there. I turned to Elli with a confused face when she told me, "Mommy, it was the girl she loves to play tricks." It was at that moment that I knew that Elli had been talking to a "friend".

Not but a couple of nights later, I was reading a book in the front room and Elli was in bed sleeping so the house was quiet. All of a sudden the TV and surround sound turned on as well as the printer.  The printer actually started to print blank papers and the fan turned on! Scared the living crap out of me! I yelled for it to stop and all at once everything that turned on turned off just as fast.  I know it was the "girl".

Elli has never been the greatest of sleepers so she cried for me one night and I went into her room and lay down in her bed with her. I was talking to her when she asked me to hush. I started to listen and I asked what she was doing and she told me there was a boy right outside her window and he wanted in! I started to cry and told her to tell him no!

This one is when Matt was home getting ready to gear up for this last deployment to Afghanistan. Him and Elli were out in the front room watching TV and I was bringing laundry from the laundry room to my room to fold.  I felt like I needed to look to my left into Elli's room. There at the foot of her bed stood a male soldier in the BDU pattern uniform and he was staring right at me almost like he wanted to tell me something. I could feel the sadness and the regret all in his face. For some reason I had to look away I did not want to hear what he had to say and when I looked back he was gone!

Fast forward to this last deployment. I was outside talking to my neighbor who shares the wall with me to the south. And I have no idea how we got on the subject but turns out her little girl had been talking to a "girl" and my neighbor had seen the SAME SOLDIER! Her husband had turned the TV off one day while her daughter was talking to herself. Close by the TV he looked in the reflection of the TV, he too saw the same soldier! While talking to her at this point I had tears rolling down my face because I know he was trying really hard to talk with someone.  I still think he comes around (I can feel him) but for the most part he leaves us alone.  As for the girl, I have not heard anything. Every once in a while something electronic with turn on for no reason and I think she is still here too.

The same neighbor told me she was sitting on her couch in her living room reading when she saw 2 couples wearing old clothing. The men had on uniforms that looked like General Patton and the women were dressed in what looked to be ball gowns for that time period as well, tight corset looking ones. They walked into the wall and out the other wall then they did it again almost like a movie on a loop and they did not seem to know she was there.

Another time, I was at my friend Toni's house, which is newer housing but built over the old hospital sight. It had a massive underground tunnel system for POW prisoners in World War 2. My house is also built over POW campgrounds as well. We were sitting in her front room when I saw a very bright light walk by her window in the form of a human...but I could not describe to you how bright this was and her and I watched it walk across the field and disappear....

                My last story was a week ago.  Elli started to scream in her bedroom and as she came running out she yelled that her stuffed elephant was just floating and she wanted it back. A neighbor across the street has told me that her daughter has woke up in the middle of the night on more than one occasion yelling that a man is staring at her at the bottom of her bed.

                I have a few I have always wondered if some of us are more likely to be the ones they come to but I am curious to what is all going on sometimes! People who live on military posts have many stories I don’t know if it’s because there is a huge abundance of residual strong emotion or what.  I know this post is full of secrets and I promise there is more to this place and more has gone on than the government is willing to share!

    Every time I tried to confide in my sister over the phone and I would start to talk about the things going on here at Fort, my phone would go dead and did that 10 times before we changed the subject then the phone was fine!

Thank you to Nicole for sharing!  I admit, I read this post over and over again.  It truly amazes me what she and her family had to go through.  Please leave a comment or share your thoughts! 

Love, 

Hillary Seidl

Connie's Tales

Welcome Connie Kline!  When I got this email I was astounded by her paranormal experiences.  I want to thank her for participating.  Thank you and take it away!

#1-Back in 1990 a friend and I went up to Breckenridge to do a tour of the town for a promotion through the travel agency that we worked for. When we went to this small church, everyone walked in and I ran into a wall. Literally I could not go into the church, I had people pulling me from the inside, I had people pushing me from behind-There was a wall that no one could see, but they could walk through and I couldn’t.

#2-I took one of my mom’s friends to a cemetery here in Denver, as we were walking around side by side, I disappeared right in front of her. While I was “gone” I was taken to this underworld of sorts and was surrounded by several people who were upset about their conditions in the cemetery. They did not like that no one knew they were there. For what seemed like hours had passed, I was finally back in the real world, my mom’s friend was freaked out, but said I was only gone for about 20 minutes.

#3-When my grandpa passed he would come to my house and play peek a boo or ball with my son who was 3 years old at the time. My son would look around the corner and down the hall, laughing and giggling saying peek a boo. Then they would roll the ball back and forth down the hall to each other.

#4-When my mother in law passed away, I asked the kids to come to the living room so I could break the news to them. My oldest son said “I already know mom” so I asked “what do you know?” He said that Jesus came to him and told him that he took grandma home last night to live with him.

#5-Sitting on my couch one night, looking down the hall a nun came walking down the hall, and went out my front wall in the living room.

#6-Villisca Iowa there is a haunted house where the family was killed by an axe murderer. In 2010 we stayed the night in the house. Doors would open and close on demand, you could play ball with the children of the house. At one time we had a ball going in the living room, then all of a sudden it decided to take off and go around the fireplace, under our chairs, all around, make u-turns. (I have a video of this on FB-my personal page if you want to watch it)

This is amazing stuff!  Any questions or comments?  Thank you Connie!  

Real Ghost Stories!

Welcome Holley Trent!  I feel so passionately about the paranormal that this is the start of a new feature on my blog.  Holley and take it away!  

I’m Convinced They’re Real

I’m fairly certain my house back in North Carolina was haunted.

It wasn’t even an old house.  It was a little ranch-style house built on a half-acre in the suburbs in 1966 or so. Before the house was built the land had been part of a large wooded tract that got cut up when the county moved some roads around. Indian burial ground? Doubt it.

There was a hallway that separated our bedrooms from the living area. It was short, perhaps twelve feet long, and right above it was the attic hatch. For the eight years we lived there, every time I walked through that hallway right beneath the attic I felt like I was walking right through a big ball of anxiety: my heart rate would speed up and I would suddenly feel fearful about nothing in particular. 

Most of the time I could just shake it off. Maybe I’d open the blinds or go outside in the light for a while. However, sometimes I felt like whatever it was would follow me to bed and I would end up tossing and turning all night with my head under the covers.

Then one night when I was going through some heavy personal stuff I had just got into bed and closed my eyes. I’d like to emphasize here that I was NOT asleep yet—I had just closed my eyes. I saw a rather amorphous energy in my mind sort of just behind my eyes, and then my mind suddenly settled on a picture of Candice Bergen. Candice—that was the energy’s name, or at least what I could call her. She stood in the front of this path, I guess, and then she brought my grandmother through.

(I believe this is the point I went all catatonic and started whining incoherently. My husband is nearly deaf and didn’t wake up.)

My grandmother told me she hadn’t been able to visit before then. (It had been a couple of years since she died and, honestly, I was angry at her.) Then she told me that I didn’t need to worry about a certain thing that had been causing me a lot of sadness because they were taking care of it on their end. 

The visitation scared the hell out of me, especially when I started questioning what happened a couple of days after. “If that was real,” I said to Candice who I’d immediately understood was my spirit guide, “you gotta give me some sign.”

Then I got a magazine in the mail a few days later with a column bearing Candice Bergen’s headshot at the very top. Huh. I hadn’t given Candice Bergen any thought whatsoever until that night of the visitation, I swear on it. I certainly hadn’t been watching Murphy Brown reruns.

“Okay, I get it,” I told her.

Then, a few weeks later it happened again. It wasn’t Candice bringing my grandmother through again. It was just a weird disembodied voice I didn’t recognize right in my ear as soon as I laid down for bed. He said “Tell your grandmother I said ‘hello’.”

And then I shut it all down.

I told them they were scaring the shit out of me and to go away until I was ready to deal, and they stopped coming through. (However, I believe that’s when my grandmother started to send me more subtle signs. This large portrait I had of her would always be askew every time I walked past and cardinals started appearing up in droves.)

Okay, but the malevolent energy in my hallway was still there. I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t know its name. I figured perhaps I could ask it to go away the same way I’d asked the folks on the other side from coming through at bedtime.

I told it to leave. Loudly and with conviction.

It seemed to leave but kept coming back. I think it’s still there, to be honest, and I hope the renters in our house aren’t sensitive to it. No one else in the house ever said anything of it, so I may have been the only one affected.

At some point I’d like to do some research to find out if anyone died in that house or nearby. That energy is hovering for a reason, and I’d like to help it move on.

Hello and welcome to paranormal young adult author J.L. Bowen!  She's here today to talk about her new release, Healer!  She's giving away of a copy of her book, please leave a comment and please check out her awesome book trailer here!  This is all a part of of Mystic Month of May Blog Hop!  Here is the schedule!  My heartfelt thanks to Jessica Aspen for hosting me yesterday.  J.L. Bowen take it away!

Mystic May

By J.L. Bowen

I’d like to thank Hillary Seidl for hosting me.  In this blog tour, we are concentrating on the Mystic month of May, which is named for two goddesses - Maia, a Greek Goddess and Bona Dea a Roman Goddess.  Bona Dea appeals to me, because not only is she the ‘Good Goddess’ of charity and fertility of women, but she is also the healer and protector of Rome and her people.  Her other names include Feminea, Laudandae and Sancta.   She is portrayed as a matron Roman with a cornucopia and a snake.  In Rome, her temple is located on a lower slope on Aventine Hill, which is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, and southeast of Circus Maximus.   I have been to Circus Maximus, but do not remember visiting her temple. 

Bona Dea’s followers celebrate her festivals twice a year.  In May, Vestal Virgins hold a ceremony in her Aventine temple, but the second one is in December and by invitation only, since it is hosted by the wife of Rome’s senior annual magistrate.   Although women were not allowed to drink potent wine or to have blood sacrifices, the cult of Bona Dea changes this, and consequently, men are banned from witnessing the rites.  Even in Ancient times, women rebel.    

Like Bona Dea, in my book, Healer, Armond Costa is the healer of the Golden Demons, but unlike her, he does not discover this until he sprouts wings and discovers his abusive aunt and uncle have lied to him.  He’s the lost Golden Demon’s Healer.  His father, King of the Golden Demons, insists he return with him and save his people from being persecuted by their mortal enemies, the Dark Demons.  Now, Armond must choose between the Ellis brothers and seventeen year old Rusty Owens – the only family he’s ever known – or condemn the Golden Demons to die.   

Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Armond’s dilemma is not an easy one.  But then growing up never is.  Ancient Rome is filled with gods, goddesses and worshippers faced with hardships.  People want easy answers, but there never is one. 

Mystic May is a time for celebration with spring time flowers, new buds on trees and lush green grass.  It’s a time of rebirth and no surprise this is when Bona Dea worshippers chose this as one of her festivals.  May is the gateway to summer and something I always look forward to each year.  Summer means going to my cabin in the Rocky Mountains, vacations and sleeping in every day, since I will not be in school.  What does Mystic May mean to you?    I would love to hear from you.  If you answer this blog, I plan to giveaway an electronic version of one lucky winner. 

J.L. Bowen writes young adult paranormal books.  Healer is the first one in the Dare to Heal Series.  She currently lives in beautiful Colorado and lives with her cocker spaniel, Sadie Mae.  

Thank you so much, J.L. Bowen!  It was great to have you!