Listener Supernatural Experiences Part 2 of 3

If you read the real-life supernatural experiences I shared last week, you would have noticed two things. First, not all experiences are terrifying. Some can be affirming, or so regular as to have become commonplace. Second, they don’t need to be full-on light and sound shows to deeply affect someone.

We’re likely to pay attention to a poltergeist dismantling a room or notice a crisis apparition of a loved one. But we might also overlook the humble, subtle experiences that are part of the fabric of everyday life. They can still be unnerving, but they can also be oddly comforting.

Let’s hear about some more of these experiences in this week’s episode!

I Saw My Own Ghost

Our first experience comes from Ana from Yorkshire, whose experience happened in York in 2022. Interestingly, they note several similar reports from their brother and wife, but for the ‘big’ one they were on their own. Ana says:

“I think I saw my own ghost.

My mum and dad used to live in a flat overlooking a river in York. It was such a beautiful place to live and we were all really happy there. It became a sanctuary for me when things got tough. The flat was about fifteen years old but built on the site of an old hospital so I didn’t think it was that strange that I sometimes sensed a presence in the kitchen. It was usually just a feeling that would come over you when you were in there on your own, like if you turned around you would see someone standing there. My brother and my wife, as well as quite a few friends who came over reported similar things, or the sense that if you looked into the kitchen from the living room you would see something, which was exactly what happened to me when I looked through from the living room and saw, just for a split second, someone stood at the kitchen window looking out over the river. It was so quick as soon as I looked back to check what I’d seen they’d gone. I was a bit unsettled but not really scared. The presence had felt quite sad and a bit unsettling but never violent, which is probably why we never did anything about it.

Fast forward to the autumn of 2022. As a family we had had the worst year imaginable. We were all absolutely at the brink emotionally and to top it off my parents had decided to move from York to Leeds to be nearer me. I felt like I was losing my little oasis of peace and my base in a city I loved so much. One evening I was stood at the kitchen window looking at the river, with all this turmoil sloshing around inside me, when I realized someone was standing in the doorway looking at me. I looked back and just for a second I saw the outline of someone and then they were gone. This is where it gets difficult to put into words. It was a similar feeling to deja vu. I knew I was living the same moment again, but from a different place. It could have just been one of those things, and I wouldn’t argue with anyone who says it was, but I knew I had just seen myself in that same moment from a few years earlier.

After a few months I finally got the courage to talk to my wife and a friend about it. None of us have any answers, but given everything else that was going on and how much emotional pain I was in at the moment, I feel like if ever there was a moment when I would have imprinted on a place that would be it. I think now that all the odd stuff that happened there was me, my energy, somehow already in that place.”

They Protected The House

Next up is Deborah who’s from Pittsburgh, but the experience happened in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA in 1973. Deborah says;

“As a student with a summer job far from home, I was between places to stay, and friends put me up temporarily on the sofa in their late 19th-century house. The whole family went out the first night I was to stay there, and the oldest son stayed behind to show me around the house. After he left for a party, I was watching TV and playing solitaire in the front parlor. I heard an internal door slam [it was starting to storm], and I went around making sure the windows and doors were all shut. This happened at least twice more. Everything was firmly shut.

Then I heard at least 2 pairs of feet walking around upstairs, and men’s voices talking. I sat with my back against the door, holding it closed, until the family came home around 1am. It was explained to me that the house had at least 3 different manifestations, and they considered they had protective spirits. One would be heard coming down the front stairs, stopping at the bottom; there was the walking around-talking set, and sometimes they would smell bayberry candles. She thought they didn’t realize I was supposed to be there and were trying to drive me out. I was told many more stories while I stayed there most of the summer, but personally never heard anything else.”

White Noise from a Ghost?

Our next experience is from Steve, who’s from London, but the experience happened in both France and London in around 1978 and then around 2000. Steve was with his brother for the first experience, and alone for the second. Steve says;

“I don’t whether this counts. I don’t believe in the supernatural as such. Everything that exists is natural. There are things we understand, and things we haven’t explained – sometimes that’s because of insufficient data (mostly) or it’s a phenomena that is currently beyond our understanding. Which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy all manner of spooky goings on and their telling.

So I have a couple.

Here’s one that happened around 1978. I lived in South West France, in the Dordogne for most of my teenage years. Our local town, Ribérac pop. 6,000, had the biggest market for miles around and was a pretty exciting place to visit.

So this particular Friday it was sunny and bright. Pete and I were cutting up from the main market square past L’Hôtel de France, the town’s only half-decent hotel, to get to the post office. It’s rather a narrow road that, whilst two lane, doesn’t really allow for more than one car at a time. On this occasion it was mostly blocked by a delivery lorry. The lorry was facing us so we couldn’t see what they were unloading but they had one of those electric tail-gate lifts that we could hear whirring away.

Pete went to walk up the pavement between the lorry and the sidewall of a shop. For some reason I put my hand on his arm and stopped him. At that very instant some large domestic appliance, a washing machine perhaps, fell from the tailgate right where Pete would have been standing. We both just looked at each other and went the other way round the lorry.

The second one is from around 2000. We live in a modern house in south-east London, built in 1997, on the site of a former hospital which before that was a workhouse. Our house stands where the workhouse morgue would have been – I’ve checked and overlaid old maps. We find weird bits of pottery and old bottles in our garden, but no bones to date.

I had a heavy cold and was snoring a lot so I slept in the spare room at the back of the house that night. I was awoken by a strange noise. It was still dark but I could tell there was someone in the room, standing by the bottom the bed. It was an old woman, I think, and there was the sound of white noise when she opened her mouth. I couldn’t move my limbs, but I found that by shifting my weight from side to side the rocking freed up my arms and then I could move again. When I looked there was no one there, so I went back to sleep. The same thing happened again, old woman, weird noise, paralysis. And then a third time! I was getting bored by now and decided that should it happen again I’d go to sleep on the sofa. The next time I woke up it was morning, and it has never happened to me since, even when I spent two weeks in the room, isolating because I had COVID.

I should note some things here. I wasn’t at any point scared. I already knew what sleep paralysis was, and quite enjoyed the first occasion. I also realised later that when I saw the old woman, my eyes weren’t actually open.”

Creepy Basements are Creepy

The next experience comes from Paul from New York, whose two experiences happened near Syracuse, NY in 2005. Paul was alone for one of them and with fraternity brothers for the other. Paul reports:

“I was living in a Victorian mansion near Syracuse University that had been converted to student apartments. There were two specific encounters I had in this house (my roommate had another but that’s his story to share).

One happened when I was coming home. I unlocked the door but when I turned the knob, the door was still locked! I must have not fully unlocked the door…? So I go to put my key back in the lock, but as I’m doing this – before the key even touches anything – the door creaks open. Very strange….

The other was with my fraternity brothers. I had the bright idea of doing an initiation ritual in the big basement. It was largely empty, which just the washers and driers for laundry… Lots of old rooms down there though: canning shelves, empty coal bins and the like. I got the distinct impression of being unwelcome in the space but I shrugged it off. Creepy basements are creepy after all. We started lighting some candles and doing a practice run when I started smelling gas. That was my excuse to GTFO. As soon as we started packing things up, the smell went away. Someone knows how to get what they want…. “

Don’t Bang Your Head

Our final experience for this episode comes from Paul from New York. I don’t know if it’s the same Paul from New York whose experience also happened just outside Syracuse, NY in October 2021. Paul says:

“My fiancé and I were in Syracuse for a friend’s wedding, staying at a rental on the outskirts of town. The house was a converted Italianate mansion with the bottom floor being one rental unit. Our bed was in the former parlor and it was too small. We were promised a queen bed but it was only a full, which makes a difference when you’re two big guys! (This becomes relevant very soon). So we get to sleep on the bed but I’m woken in the middle of the night by a figure standing next to me letting me know what I was about to fall off the bed. It wasn’t frightening at all, honestly: I felt his concern. And I was right about to fall off. So I scoot over and get my cuddle on with my fiancé. As I’m falling asleep he lets me know his name was Lee. It wasn’t like I heard his voice… More like I could sense what he wanted me to know. In the morning, I realize that the bedside table had some very sharp corners and would have hit me right in the back of the neck should I have fallen…! Maybe Lee didn’t want another ghost for company!!

When I told my fiancé about this he laughed and said Lee certainly has a sense of humor. The ghost named Lee? Ghost Lee? Ghostly?? I rolled my eyes. It was just his name! In retrospect, I should go back and look up some of the records for that house to see if someone named Lee ever lived there. It seemed really important for Lee to tell me his name. (And also have me not die there!)”

Who Turned On The Lights?

All very creepy stuff! Now, I did tell you that I would add some of my own supernatural experiences. Last week, I told you about the experience I had on the ghost hunt I did at Jedburgh Castle and Jail on Saturday with Rob Kirkup from How Haunted podcast. Since then I have listened to the audio recordings that I made on the night, but unfortunately, there is too much background noise from people moving around to be able to tell if the recorder picked up anything supernatural.

But I did want to tell you about a couple of bizarre experiences I’d had at work. I teach at a college, and at the time when this happened, I used to teach nightclasses in the Adobe software, which explains why I was at work at night. On this occasion, I was sitting using the teaching Mac at the front of one of the classrooms to prepare for the nightclass. The studios have motion sensors on the lights so they turn off when there is no one moving in the room. One sensor covers the front of the room, the other covers the back. You have to jump up and do jumping jacks to get the lights to come back on if you’re still for long enough that the lights turn up, so they’re not particularly sensitive.

I sat working at the Mac when the lights at the back of the studio went off. I left them off as I didn’t need them. Then, a few minutes later, for no apparent reason, they came back on again. Now, I hadn’t moved, and the sensor didn’t pick up the front half of the studio where I was anyway. The classroom was on the first floor, so it couldn’t have detected anyone walking past the window. I’d sometimes felt uneasy at the back of that room anyway, but it was certainly weird to have the lights come on, seemingly by themselves.

But that wasn’t the only thing! I was frequently the only person in the building with my students, and every night, between 7 and 7:30 pm, we’d hear someone walking around on the ground floor in high heels above us. None of the tutors wore high heels, all my students were in the computer room with me, and only security would potentially be upstairs. I’ve never found out who or what was making those footsteps.

Did I encounter spirits at work? Who knows, but it was certainly a strange experience!

Have you had any supernatural experiences? Let me know below!