Listener Supernatural Experiences Part 3 of 3

I’ve been sharing real-life supernatural experiences from Fabulous Folklore listeners for the past couple of weeks. It’s been brilliant to see how vulnerable people have been in sharing these, since talking about such things can often earn you a strong amount of scorn. But I really think it’s important to preserve these stories, a) to honour the experience itself, and b) to create a space where people who’ve had them can feel less alone.

It’s also been very fascinating to see how the experiences are rarely outright terrifying, but instead are just unsettling enough to disrupt normality.

So let’s hear about the last lot of these experiences in this week’s episode!

All Soul’s Day

Today marks All Souls Day. In the Catholic church, it’s the day to pray for the departed in Purgatory, and a Requiem Mass might be offered for the dead. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny in France set aside a specific day for this in 998 CE, which gradually spread throughout the rest of the Church.

In Britain, it was on this day in earlier centuries that more wealthy people handed out soul cakes to the poor in their community. Antiquarian John Aubrey even noted that it had become a custom among various households in the Shropshire area by the end of the 17th century to have a dish of soul cakes on a table in the home on All Souls’ Day. Visitors could then take one, while saying “A soule-cake, a soule-sake, Have mercy on all Christen soules for a soule-cake” (Hutton 1996: 374).

This evolved into the rite of souling in the nineteenth century, when groups of the poor, often children, went door to door, and were handed a soul cake. The idea ran that those who received a soul cake would pray for the dead of the house who provided it. In Caenarvonshire, people gave bread and cheese to the poor for the same reason. While praying for the dead had its roots in Catholicism, by the nineteenth century, it was an acceptable way for the poor to ask for money or food from wealthy neighbours.

Surprisingly, All Souls Day was restored as a feast of the dead in 1928 by the Church of England (Hutton 1996: 377).

And this links us nicely to our relationship with the dead, which we track through supernatural experiences.

The Ghost Farmer of Bethany Lane

Our first story comes from Ellie, whose experience happened in Ellicott City, MD, in the early 2000s. Ellie was alone at the time, and tells the story thus:

“It was a dark night. A thin layer of fog had developed, but not so much that the way wasn’t cleared by my headlights. It was just like any other normal drive I would make heading out the road a mile from my childhood home. I had been that way countless times in my life and was not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary. It was not even a ¼ mile (.4 km) to the bridge which crossed over the interstate highway, and the way was straight. There were no other cars that night coming from the other direction. Driving slowly up the hill toward the bridge, in the path of my headlights, I saw a man crossing the road. I remember thinking to myself, “If he doesn’t get out of the way, someone is going to run him over!”

Traveling slowly, no faster than 20-25 mph (31-40Kph), there was plenty of time for me to observe his dress, the profile of his face, and his actions. It was an older man in his late fifties to early 60’s. He was dressed in long trousers and a casual, long sleeved coat, which came down to just below his hips – like a modern day barn jacket. Under his coat he was wearing a plain button up shirt – nothing out of the ordinary. What really peaked my curiosity was that he was wearing a hat that reminded me of the type that my grandfather would wear. It was an everyday Fedora of the kind that any man might wear in the 1950’s. If he had not had the hat on, I might not have remarked much on his outfit. Putting it all together, he looked as if he stepped out of that time period. It gave me pause, however, I still had no inclination to think that there was anything out of the ordinary about him. I was so concerned for his well-being that my only thoughts were for his safety.

The man continued across the road into the next lane and was almost at the chain link metal barrier fence, which had been installed along the sides of the bridge to prevent falls. I was at the point of almost starting to cross the bridge. What I saw next, made me mentally stop for a moment. The man, who had been at the edge of the side of the bridge, had kept walking. As if there was nothing there, he walked right through the fence and out into space, where there was physically no ground. There was no place for me to pull over in time to stop and turn around to verify what I had seen. I think that, even if I had been able to, I wouldn’t have seen him. He would have been far enough away from the bridge that his figure would have been concealed by the darkness and the fog.

No matter how many times I drove past that spot after that night, I unfortunately never saw the man again. I always looked and hoped for another sighting, but it never happened. My sense was that he was an old farmer, going out for an evening walk in his fields. Maybe it was to check the state of the soil, or maybe it was just so he could have some solitude – a bit of time by himself to think.

Having grown up in the area, I had learned that the land under the bridge had to be dug out some time in the mid 1960’s, to make way for the interstate highway. The land, which now had a giant gorge dividing it, would have been the same height as the bridge. The place where the man walked, would have been solid ground.

There is a house located just past the bridge, on the side of the road in the direction from which he was walking. At the time of the sighting, it was still owned by a big farming family in the area. Was he a member of that family? Was he the owner in his day? These are questions I don’t think will ever be answered. In any case, when I saw two members of the family, I told them about the sighting. One of the young men became very quiet, and the color left his face. He gave me a tortured looked of confusion and regret. I left him standing there, not wanting to intrude on his disquietude. The story had clearly touched him. It, however, left me to forever wonder if he knew who the Ghost Farmer of Bethany Lane was not only in life, but also in death.”

The Ghost Who Followed Me Home

My next story comes from the absolutely wonderful Jessica Cale, host of the excellent Dirty Sexy History podcast! So pleased she sent something in. Her experience happened in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2019, and she describes it here:

“I have so many ghost stories, but this one always stuck with me. I used to be a ghost tour guide in North Carolina. One of the stories I told was about a woman who had been murdered in the 1930s at a famous haunted hotel. She had lived there during prohibition, and her spirit continued to make its presence known throughout the hotel. She was very beautiful, and people associated her with the color pink. People would also still find strands of her long red hair in her old room like she was continuing to use it. Some nights when I told her story, pink flower petals would float down on me from the city’s flower pots, even when there wasn’t a breeze.

One night, my tour group heard the distinct sound of a body falling down the stairs and hitting the door, just as she had so many years ago. I was used to her being around, but one night, she followed me home. It started before the tour that night—I had the feeling that someone was following me, but when I turned around, I only saw the shadow of a dress before she disappeared. It stuck with me all night, until I was home after work.

It was three o-clock in the morning when I finally went into the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed. Right before my eyes, a cloud of almost smoke began to materialize beside me. I stared, thinking I was imagining it, but it did it again. I said out loud, “I’m not sure who you are, but you’re scaring me a little bit. Thank you for coming, but can we talk another time? I’d like to go to bed.” It stopped.

I went to bed, and my phone lit up. It was a text from my mother. My mother is a medium, and she lives in Minnesota. She had never been on my tour before. She texted: “Honey! A ghost followed you home tonight. She’s very pretty, a young woman, and her death had something to do with sex. She doesn’t want to talk about it.” It was true — the woman had been killed by her lover, who had pushed her down the stairs when he found out she was pregnant. I got the chills. There was no way my mother could have known that story. It’s not a famous one, and I had never told her about it. The next day, I went down to my car to go out to do my shopping, and I saw it: there was a long red hair on the passenger seat of the car.”

Orlando Wants to Pass on a Message

Our next story comes from Selma, whose experience happened at a cousin’s house in Southern Idaho. At the time Selma was about 13, which was over 50 years ago, and about seven or eight family members were there at the time. Selma says:

“We were all having breakfast. I was finished and about to leave the table when Maudie, my mom’s cousin set more pancakes on the table. For some reason I decided to have one more. With the pancake on my plate I reached for the syrup.

That is when I felt strange and everything that happened next I had no control over. I saw my hand take hold of the cream pitcher. My mind is screaming NO but my hand did it anyway (also everyone stopped talking and watched me). I then poured the cream over my pancake and sat the pitcher down. Then I just looked at my plate.

Whatever had kept people silent broke, and it was almost like a sigh. Then Maudie laughed and said, “Orlando is letting is know he is here. That’s how he liked his pancakes. We’ve been talking about him and that brought him here.” Orlando was my great grandfather.

Just a few years ago I was with my sister when she passed, and I saw my mother come to take her away. My mother has been dead for more that 40 years.”

The Girl in the Field

Our next experience comes from John, whose experience happened in Loughborough in about 2000-2001. John was alone at the time, and says:

“A little over 23 years ago I was living in Loughborough with some students, having recently graduated. We shared a small, cosy bungalow next to a housing estate, and my walks into town took me past a fairly large field bordered by residential buildings, the local hospital, a hall of residence and a narrow path. It was a convenient shortcut back home, so one late, lazy afternoon when I had nothing better to do, I visited a nearby pub on Ashby Road.

I soon grew tired of this and, after just three pints, I decided to head home. I’ve told this story before to friends and they sometimes ask, ‘Had you been drinking?’ The answer is yes, but not enough to account for much of what happened next.

Cutting along the path by the sports field, I took advantage of a high hedge to relieve myself, and after a while I turned around to gaze across the field. As in all classic ghost stories, dusk was falling, but it was a soft, clear evening which some people would call, ‘pleasant’. It was at this point I noticed a woman standing at the other end of the field with her back to me. She was of small build with brunette hair, and wearing blue jeans, but it struck me as strange that she was completely motionless. She had her back to me because she was facing a high wire fence behind the hospital, and I remember there was a scrubby patch of long grass nearby, so I assumed she was out walking her dog. Or, I thought, perhaps she had lost something.

For some reason, I felt the urge to linger for a while, because I thought she might be in some sort of trouble, but I didn’t want to startle her, however, the longer I watched, the more immobile she seemed to be, and by this time the light was fading rapidly, though I could still see her standing competely still, exactly as she was when I first saw her.

I felt my heart rate increasing by the second, because by now I felt, rather than knew, that something was very wrong with this situation. A profound silence seemed to surround me, which I might later attribute to the time of day, but somehow I felt I was supposed to be experiencing this. I was, in some way, being asked to pay attention.

Frankly, I was afraid, so I turned around and dipped behind the hedge back onto the path. When I was about midway along, I looked across the field towards where my mysterious lady had been standing, but she wasn’t there.

There was no way should could have left that field without me seeing, because I took me about four minutes to walk from its edge to the midway point along the path. In fact, there are only three conventional exits: one of them back onto Ashby Road, and the other two towards me. She couldn’t possibly have managed either of them without me seeing her, even if she had decided to run for it.

In the final stages of intense fear, I ran all the way home to tell my housemates what had happened. My friend, ‘C’, shrugged as if this was the sort of thing which happens every day, but much later, ‘C’ died in a freak accident and somehow, I’ve never quite seen the world in the same way since that very strange year.”

Mrs Smith Wants to Play

Our final experience for this episode comes from Simon from Worcester. He sent me a few, and we heard one of them in the first of these three episodes, but I decided to spread them out. While that earlier experience happened in London, this one happened in the US. Simon says:

“My wife and I had moved from Boston, Massachusetts to New Hampshire where we had rented a small bungalow in Cornish. It had belonged to a farming family. The old farm house was across the street, and the patriarch and matriarch had retired to this cottage in the 1960s after they had had it built. They had lived there happily until the end of their days. I forget the name of the folks, but a neighbour of theirs had long had their eye on the property and immediately bought it when it went up for sale, and put it up for rent.

We were the first renters. The place was clean, but shabby, and we had asked if we could paint the place, as it was quite dated, nothing having been done to it since it had been built, it seemed. The next day we got paint and began working on our bedroom. Sarah, my wife was done for the day, and in the shower, as I was I was finishing up. I had my back to the door but felt someone was watching me. As I turned I saw a shadow of a small woman – I had been thinking Sarah was coming from the bathroom, but I could hear the shower was still running. I told, let’s call her Mrs. Smith for the sake of augment, I told Mrs. Smith that we were excited to be living here, that we didn’t mean to be disrespectful, and just wanted to give the place a fresh look. The shadow vanished. Sarah asked me who I had been talking to, but she doesn’t like ghostly things, so I told her I was talking to myself.

The next room to get a fresh lick of paint was our son’s room. He was 18 months old and excited to have his own ‘big boy’ bedroom. One night as my wife and I lay in bed awake, reading late, we heard a loud thump and Samuel, our son, begin to cry. I leapt out of bed and found him on the other side of his bedroom from the crib, crying on the floor. I picked him up and held him, and calmed him down. I did wonder if the ghost of Mrs. Smith had tried to pick Samuel up and had carried him across the room before dropping him

There was one more time when we had an encounter with Mrs. Smith and that was when we were playing chase. The beautiful, large living room had an entrance on either side and a corridor around the back side which entered the kitchen, which you could walk through to the hall, so Sam could run around and around through the living room and kitchen. He loved to do that, and I would sometimes chase him, or suddenly go the other way and surprise him, being magically in front of him, and then I would chase after Sam. One time I hid around the edge of the kitchen in the living room, waiting for him to come through so he would run into my arms when he came around the corner. I listened for his feet and jumped out with my arms open. He squealed and turned and ran back towards the front door, along the corridor. He suddenly stopped, looking up at someone I couldn’t see, screamed, and turned back to run and jump into my arms. I told him not to be frightened, and that it was probably Mrs. Smith who had once lived there.

Two days later we walked over the covered bridge from Cornish, New Hampshire into Windsor, Vermont, heading for the diner for a late breakfast. I was a stay-at-home Dad. Walking down the road a small, elderly lady was walking towards us. She was fairly typical, short, white-haired, wearing a dated wool jacket. Sam had been holding my hand, and seeing this woman wanted to jump up into my arms. I guessed she might have looked like Mrs. Smith, but I am not sure as I never saw a photograph of her, only her shadowy shape.”

Mary King’s Close

All very creepy stuff! Now, I did tell you that I would add some of my own supernatural experiences in these episodes. We’ve covered the experience I had on a ghost hunt at Jedburgh Castle and Jail in October and some weird stuff where I worked. But this time, I thought I’d tell you about the one and only time I think I’ve seen something.

Long-time listeners and readers will know how much I love visiting Edinburgh, and I’ve always been particularly taken with Mary King’s Close. I think I’ve done their tour about three times now. The most recent time I did it I was on my own, as it was part of a research trip for my Underground City books.

My tour group had just made its way along a series of rooms towards Mary King’s Close itself, where they take photos of you in the subterranean street. I was at the very back, and I happened to look back along the rooms where we’d just been. I saw a woman in a cap and long skirt walk past one of the doorways, as if she was just crossing one of the rooms. She was too far away to make out any particular details beyond that. I hadn’t seen any costumed members of staff other than the guides, and ours was a man, directing people down the street for their photo. When I got to him, I asked if there were any tour groups behind ours. He said the one behind us was still on the level above us, why did I ask? I told him I thought I’d seen someone in one of the rooms, and I can’t honestly remember his response, though he didn’t seem massively surprised.

Did I see a former inhabitant, still going about their day in the close? Who knows, but it was certainly a strange experience!

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

Reference

Hutton, Ronald (1996), The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press.