Paranormal Experiences

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The following are just a few of the accounts of paranormal phenomena and other strange experiences that have been sent to me by respondents to my website.

Have you had a paranormal experience? Please tell us

See also (mainly fictional) Short Scary Ghost Stories.

Spirit

Mind Powers

Future Predictions

Miscellaneous

Reassurance II
My father recently passed away after a long illness. I have been attending a spiritualist church for several years and made some ten visits in the year or so before his passing without being given a single message. I started attending regularly again upon realising the severity of my father's illness and after his passing, a time when I was much in need of reassurance. In five attendances I received four messages (from four different mediums).

On two occasions I believe the sender was my grandmother who passed a year before. But most remarkably on three consecutive occasions I received reassuring messages from my great grandfather who passed away some twenty years before I was born. He identified himself as being a pipe smoker (something I later verified) and in a WWI army uniform. On each occasion he stated he was with me and giving me support and that I only had to ask for help when I needed it.
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Red Circles of Light
On the day that my grandmother passed away I felt particularly lonely, isolated and depressed. We had been particularly close and she had been like a second mother to me.

That evening, around 10pm, I was staring aimlessly out of the window, wondering where life would take me next. I saw a red circle of light, as might come from a laser-pointer, flitting around on the house opposite. It lasted only a few seconds. A minute or so later I saw the same thing again. I stood

I have no idea where the light came from. It was raining outside and I couldn't see or hear anyone in the street. I know it didn't come from my house. And there is nothing tall behind my house from which it could have come. If it came from any of the neighbouring houses why did the person responsible angle the light at the house directly opposite mine and at no other?

Even if there is a "natural" explanation for the light it would still feel like a sign from my grandmother that I should have seen it at just that moment as I have never seen such a light before or since.

A few weeks after my grandmother's passing I had to make a difficult trip that I felt very apprehensive about. I had a feeling that my grandmother's spirit would accompany me to watch over me as she had done so often in life. On the morning of my departure I noticed that my watch had lost about 3 hours overnight. My watch is usually very reliable. Was this a subtle sign from grandmother? Although the trip was far from pleasant I did survive it and return safely home.
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Messages from Spirit II
I graduated from a master's degree in September 2001 and received several job offers, one of which I was instinctively drawn to. I accepted this offer, rejecting three others, believing it to offer me a good future.

About a week before I was due to start that job I attended my local spiritualist church, where I was given the message that I was "barking up the wrong tree". I had no idea what the medium was talking about as at this time I belived my future was rosy.

The following day I went to view some rental accommodation in the locality of my chosen job, only to be informed that the property had already been taken. I assumed this was the meaning of the medium's message.

The following week I started my chosen job, only to find it wasn't at all for me. I lasted just four days before quitting, each day growing more and more depressed and overwhelmed by feelings of despair. I had indeed been barking up the wrong tree.

Two weeks after that nightmarish week I again attended the spiritualist church, where I was told that I was "unsure", had "lost something" and had gone the "wrong way". I was almost squirming in my seat at the accuracy of the medium's remarks.
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An Old Flame
When I was young, 19, I was very much in love with a young man. Due to a number of circumstances which I myself did not understand until much later in life, I eventually broke up with him. He was devastated, and I never stopped loving him and never forgot him. We both eventually married other people and made the best of our lives..

In 1998 my husband, myself and another couple were attending a small town 4th of July festival. There was a classic car show, and low and behold, there stood my friend with a restored car like the one he drove in 1959. I hadn't seen him for 38 years. I looked at his eyes and a physical shock went through me. I said his name and he winked at me. I went on about my life and had convinced myself that it could not have been him as he looked exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him in 1960. Imagine my shock about a year later when I learned he had died 6 months prior to my seeing him.

Just this spring, in 2002, I was driving my car one day and a feeling came over me that was like a bolt of lightening. I had to pull over and stop, and I could hear his voice as clear as day telling me that it was him I saw in 1988 and that was his sign to me that he still loved me and was waiting for me.

Since that day I have felt more at peace than I have in 40 years. I had not been a true believer in this type of phenomenon, even though I have had some experiences such as knowing what someone was going to say, seeing a room or location before I was actually there, etc., but I find myself wanting to believe very much that this actually happened and is not a figment of my imagination.
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Communicating with Dead Brother
After 2 years ago, my friend's brother died of a drug overdose. But she was rushed to the hospital because they thought SHE'D had an overdose that night. She was at home with her parents on that night and physically she went through what he went through. I can't explain how this occurred at all, as in I don't know WHY it happened. In the ER, they found out she wasn't on anything AT ALL and couldn't figure it out. They kept her for 3 days for observation

She "felt" in her head her brother's death - she knew the second he died.

Now, she communicates with him daily. He appears to her only and talks with her. When she thinks no one is around, she will speak outloud to this "apparition" and he speaks back.

Friends of mine have seen her do this and it's like she's carrying on a normal conversation, with pauses while waiting for answers.

Also, there are sometimes objects move around the room and people have smelled the cologne that the dead guy used to wear when he was alive.
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A friend's goodbye?
This may be something of nothing but anyway last week my wife went out shopping. I was in the toilet and I could have sworn I heard someone call my name. I thought my wife had come back so I called out. I heard a voice but couldn't make out the words so I called out again, from a strong feeling that I was not alone in the flat.

When I came out of the toilet I found that my wife wasn't there. She returned a few moments later and thinking she'd gone back downstairs to collect something I asked if she'd got back while I was in the toilet. She hadn't.

A day or two after this I was doing something on the balcony and on glancing back into the flat had the distinct impression of a light being turned on. It was so strong I went back inside to check, indeed finding a light on, though I probably left it on myself - however the impression of going from dark to light was very real.

Around the same time while walking along the street I thought I heard my name being called, the impression being so strong that I looked around, no one had in fact called me. I might add that I am not usually prone to hearing voices or to flights of imagination.

I'm currently living overseas and a week or so later I called my family, only to be given the sad news that our pet dog had died. I'd had her since she was a puppy and she'd been more of a best friend than a mere pet. Were the voices and feelings of a presence her way of saying goodbye?
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A Message from Spirit
In April 1999 while on a visit home after working overseas for just over a year I attended my local Christian Spiritualist Church on the Kent coast. I'd been to the church around twenty or so times previously and one of the regulars recognised me and we chatted for a while. The service proceeded just as I remembered then near the end of the clairvoyance bit the medium came to me and this is what she said as best I can remember it.

She said spirit were waiting to grab me to use me for their work and told me to make time to study spiritual things but that I also had a material life to lead. She said that things were going well for me at the moment (that's true) and she said her guide mentioned a "good woman". She asked if I was married, in fact I had recently married (2 months before).

The medium also mentioned a baby girl (cos she saw pink ribbons) first of all she said maybe not this year, but then I told her my wife and I were expecting a baby in September. Five months later my wife gave birth to a lovely baby girl. She also said she saw someone folding origami, I was living and working in Japan and my wife is Japanese!!

In all the previous times I'd been to that church I'd had messages on about 40% of my visits but none have been as accurate as that.

She finished by giving me the dates of two significant anniversaries - October and December (about a week before Christmas) but I didn't recognise them - I asked my parents and all they could think of was that my cousin got married last Oct. I also believe my great grandmother died in December. She also mentioned the name Dotty, which I didn't recognise.
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Grandfather's visit
In August 1995 I was out with my friends until midnight. When I was on my way home I felt very nervous of being scolded by my father. When I was in sight of my doorway I saw a man enter my house in the distance. I thought the man was my father.

When I entered the house I was wondering what excuse I should make to him, but when I got inside I found that nobody was in the living room. Just then my mother came downstairs and said "do you know what time it is?, it's twelve o'clock". I apologized and asked if my father had come home, but he hadn't come home yet! Who had I seen? I told my mother about the man going into the house. She said the man I saw was my late grandfather, because it was during the Japanese celebration of OBON.
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Electrickery
When my dad died after a chronic illness in the hospital as the family gathered at our parents house the television suddenly didn t work my sister s new cadillac s electrical system went on the fritz requiring towing and the oven and toaster would not work as well as several light bulbs blowing out at once. That was in 1979. He was very fun-loving & boistrous. My mom died in 1996 and I have been having a deep delayed depression recently. Last night I saw her for about 2 seconds standing in my hallway. No details to her face but she wore a pinafore that she used to wear in the early 50 s while working in the kitchen the times I recall our family being the most cohesive in my normally dysfunctional family. I could also see the outline of her pageboy hairstyle but still no facial features were there except in peripheral vision. There were no words or strong feelings attached to this encounter.
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Reassurance
My Mother died in 1989. She appeared to me in 1991 whilst I was in hospital following a car accident. I was about to go into theatre to have my ankles reset. I had had the premed injection but I am sure she came to me. She sat by me bed and held my hand. She assured me that everything would be alright and that they wouldn't cut me open. I could smell her perfume and to this day I can remeber what she was wearing.
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Icecubes
This may be a bit long... About 6 years ago a very close friend of mine passed away and about 6 weeks later I was feeling very angry about his death. He d been on my mind all day at work. I lived in an apartment and in my apartment was a refrigerator with an icemaker...BUT it broke the week after I moved in. I requested repairs which they attempted but the thing never worked right so I just flipped the switch to the off position and left it that way. My friend who died always loved LOTS of ice in his drinks and he would make fun of me because I never had enough ice for his liking...*I m very lazy about filling the trays*. This particular day I come home irritable and rather depressed and missing him and I was on the phone talking to another friend when I decided I was thirsty. I got up fixed myself a coke with my requisite one or two icecubes and got back on the phone... As I'm talking to her about my deceased friend I was playing with the icecubes--dunking them in the glass--when I suddenly noticed that these were round icecube maker icecubes... I asked her to hold on and I went to open the freezer... **here s the cool part** The icecube bin was FILLED with icecube maker icecubes...We re talking FILLED to the brim I looked--the switch was in the off position. To me this was a sign communication from my deceased friend that he was okay and that I would be okay too... Oh and the icecube maker never worked again in the two more years I lived in that apartment... That one day though my friend Stephen sent me a sign...I m convinced of it.
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Mother's ghost
One night getting ready to go out with my friends I was drying my hair. I could hear what sounded like someone throwing things around in the cellar. I went down to investigate the noises. There was nothing out of place. I went back upstairs to finish drying my hair. I agin heard noises from the cellar. Only this time it sounded as if someone was throwing the jars of home canned goods agaist the cellar wall smashing the jars to pieces. I again went down to the cellar to investigate the noise. Again nothing out of place or broken. There had been other events that have happened before this night but this one sticks clearly in my mind. After finding nothing in the cellar I am now getting scared. I sat on the edge of my bed about to call my mother who was away visiting my grandmother. As I started to reach for the phone there were loud thumping as if someone was slapping the back of my headboard of my bed. I could feel the vibrations through my bed as the thumping slapped along my bed. I quickly grabbed the phone and called my mother. I told her to tell her ghost to leave me alone. That night as my mother lay in bed she could feel someone put an arm around her. She was alone in bed. She could feel the bed move as if someone had layed beside her.
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The Gentle Goodbye
About 8 years ago, I guess, my father passed away... Ill make it short...He died of emphysima... I had gone home to visit him in the hospital, doctors we're saying he was doing better so I had to come back home to work.. Its a 12 hours drive .... so anyway I left for home after about 5 days with him.

home. I had a really bad cold and had gotten home very later so I took the next day off work to rest and try to treat my cold... I got up late around noon... I remember I was in the kitchen, I looked at the clock and it said 3:30pm, I decided to go take a nice hot bath to relax.... I walked in the washroom, sat on the edge of the bathtub, I put my hands of the faucets to run the water.... thats when someting took control of my body.... my hands turned the faucets but its like somedody had taken over my body and was doing it for me,,, and even my eye sight was different... this is very hard to explain, but its like I was't seeing with my eyes, but with somebody elses eyes... Very hard to understand and explain... it didn't last long, only seconds... then I entered the bath and wondered what had just happened...

And the only thing I could make out of it, was that my father had passed away and this was his way of saying goodbye... So I took my bath and stepped out of the washroom and the phone rang,,, it was my sister, telling me Dad had passed away, the first thing I asked was "AT WHAT TIME ?", she said 3:30m!!!! This, I am convinced that it was my Dad, saying bye to me....
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Undying Love
I was previously engaged to someone not too long ago, yet I guess it seems like forever. We've been together since I was in grade school. when I entered my 2nd year of college, he asked me to marry him. He would always tell me that if anything were to happen, he would always be with me...

Last halloween, my fiance was shot in the head by 2 men trying to steal his car. After the funeral, I gave away everything that reminded me of him, except the last picture we ever took together, which I placed on our dresser.

One day I was sitting on the couch watching tv with our dog when he suddenly put his head up and started to sniff around. he jumped off the couch and ran to my room, barking loudly. I ran in there to see what was wrong. I stopped suddenly when I saw a transperant figure standing in front of my dresser caressing the picture. I couldn't see a definite face or any other physical aspects of this figure, but it did have a definite shape. I started to walk back slowly but the figure turned to face me and disappeared.

And one day, while cleaning for some visitors that were coming later on in the day, I was in our room dusting off the picture of us. suddenly, I felt a large breeze past me, and the smell of Polo cologne started to fill up the room. I started to cry because that was what my fiance would always wear. (he never wore anything but polo cologne. and it was odd because I gave away his cologne bottles with the rest of his items.) while I was crying, I could feel someone gently caress my hair and wipe my tears, so I put my head up but I couldn't see anyone.

To this day, there are still times where I will wake up in the middle of the night. I look around and I swear I could see him standing at the foot of the bed looking at me, but when I open my mouth to say something, it disappears again...
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A Ghostly Guide
When I was a college student I have heard a Ghost story from my English teacher. When she stayed in London she visited a catacomb with her friend. There are lot of people and she got separated from her friend in the crowd. When she looked for her friend, she was spoken to by a stranger and then he show her around the catacomb........ She was called to her friend at the way out and her friend asked her "What happened? Why were you talking alone?" She was very surprised and she said " I was talking with him." Her friend said" Who are you talking with? You was talking alone." She looked back at him but he has not been there.
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The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight - trad. Carol

The editor welcomes other true accounts of strange experiences