Halloween is a perfect time of year to tell ghost stories. Lord knows I have enough weird ghost stories among my free short stories. But I ran a poll on Twitter, and a whopping 90% of the respondents on Twitter wanted me to talk about my own weird experiences, rather than explore a traditional ghost legend.
And I have had plenty of weird experiences.
So here you go. I can’t tell you that there is a world beyond ours. But I also can’t tell you there isn’t one. You can make up your own mind about these experiences. All I ask is you read what follows with an open mind…
Or you can hit ‘play’ and listen to the podcast episode version of this post!
1) When the Living Annoy Ghosts
Sadly I don’t have any physical evidence for this one, so you’ll just have to chalk it up to personal experience.
The first of my weird ghost stories happened on a visit to the Foundling Museum in London. It used to be the Foundling Hospital, where mothers could petition to have their babies accepted. The babies would be given new names and brought up at the hospital. They’d get a rudimentary education, and sent off into the world when they came of age.
It’s a sad place to visit because while these foundlings did find a family of sorts, they never experienced the ‘nuclear family’ that so many prize today.
It’s especially sad to think of the mothers. They essentially entered a lottery, since not all babies could be accepted. The ‘lucky’ mothers whose babies were accepted often left a token with their children to remind them of their families. But such tokens were never passed on, to assure a clean break.
Still, I was walking around the museum, looking at the exhibits and soaking up the atmosphere. It was maybe 10 am on a weekday, so it was pretty quiet, aside from a couple of women with their children. The kids didn’t really seem to appreciate where they were.
I walked up the stairs to the next floor.
But I suddenly got this definite sense there was someone on the landing above.
I couldn’t see anyone–that would have been too cool/terrifying. But if I looked away, then I could almost picture a matron standing glaring down into the front entrance hall. I didn’t hear anything, but I got the sense she was furious that people had willingly brought children into such a place.
As if to say “This is no place for children or entertainment. This is a place of business.”
She didn’t seem to care that I was there, but as an adult, why shouldn’t I be? I continued up the stairs, and the feeling dissipated by the time I reached the Handel exhibition on the top floor.
It was very, very weird. I’ve never forgotten the feeling of knowing a person was there, even though I couldn’t see them.
You know when sometimes you’re aware of someone looking at you without even needing to look up? Yeah, like that.
It actually went on to inspire my free short story, The Foundling.
Now yes, it’s true that this could have been entirely my own imagination running away with me. All I can attest is that I know what I experienced!
2) When Ghosts Listen in on the Living
The second of my weird ghost stories is a far nicer version of the Foundling Museum tale.
We’d gone to Belsay Hall in Northumberland, and they had an event on (I forget why). Part of it involved a guide in 18th-century dress explaining the story of tea. She sat at a small table, surrounded by props, in the glorious Grecian entrance hall.
The tale involved smuggling, tea leaves, and all kinds of skulduggery. Put simply, it was fascinating.
She was a very engaging speaker but I was suddenly aware that we were not alone. My mum and I sat among a few other visitors with the guide on the ground floor. But I got the distinct impression that someone else was standing at the banister above, leaning over the rail to hear better!
I looked up, but there was no one there.
No one I could see, at any rate.
Belsay Hall is a fascinating place to visit if you’re into the supernatural. We went to see Don’t Go Into The Cellar perform two of Dickens’ ghost stories in the fabulous library. Someone (or something) kept tugging on the hem of my coat.
There was no one nearby…
3) When Ghosts get a bit ‘Hands On’
Not all ghosts are so happy to just listen. In the third of my weird ghost stories, I thought I’d go with ‘The Time One Of Them Scratched Me’.
So I was sitting watching a marathon of Lord of the Rings. As you do. For context, I was in the house by myself. It was summer, so I was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt.
Suddenly I looked down and noticed this mess of scratches on my shoulder.
All I can say is they didn’t come from me.
also at some strange angles that would be difficult for me to make, event absent-mindedly. No clue what made them, or why. But they erupted in one go. I felt no pain, but the area was really warm to the touch.
I’ve seen physical marks before. A few years back, I went on a ghost walk around Newcastle upon Tyne. The tour guide made me stand in a corner beside St Nicholas’ Cathedral, turned away from the rest of the group. There was a reason, but I can’t quite remember the story that went with it.
It suddenly went really quiet, like time slowed down, and I was convinced that if I turned round, I’d be alone. Even worse, I’d be in the “wrong” Newcastle. No idea where I got that sense from, but that was the impression in my mind.
Luckily I wasn’t in the “wrong” Newcastle, wherever that is. When I turned back everyone was still there, but my then-boyfriend started complaining of a pain in his stomach. We checked when we got back home and two massive red marks, about the size of hand prints, glowed on his stomach. They were hot to the touch, too.
Really, really weird.
4) When Ghosts Want You to Know They’re There
The last of my weird ghost stories comes from a trip to Colchester in 2011. I needed to register for my PhD at the University of Essex at 10am on a particular Thursday. Getting there from Newcastle on the same day meant setting off at about 5am.
To avoid potential travel disruption or anxiety, I decided to stay over the night before.
I booked a room at a pub that was on the bus route between the train station and the university. According to the website, it used to be an 18th-century coaching inn.
Turns out my room was on the top floor. Judging by the low ceilings, the narrow doors and the smaller windows, the floor once housed the servants’ quarters.
I settled in for the night, but while I was watching TV, I heard a weird noise outside my door. It sounded as though someone was dragging an old-fashioned trunk along floorboards. Their boots made a peculiar knocking noise against the wood.
The noise was directly outside, so I went to the door in case someone needed a hand with their luggage.
The corridor was completely empty in both directions.
Not only that, it was also tiled with that fake marble you get in a lot of B&Bs. Not a wooden floorboard in sight.
I was a little spooked, but I’ve experienced worse.
So I went back into my room. I got ready for bed and was just in the process of settling down to sleep when a knock sounded on the bedside table. It was a short, sharp rap, the sort of sound knuckles make on a wooden door. Furniture makes weird sounds when it’s settling at night, so I ignored it.
Then a knock came from the bedside table on the other side of the bed. Next it came from the desk several feet away. Then the door of the bathroom. Followed by the wardrobe door. Then back to the first bedside table.
I think the knocking made a complete circuit before I sat up in bed and turned the light on. The next knock still came, but the room was empty (besides me, obviously).
I did what any tired Northerner faced with the prospect of an early start the next day would do.
I told it to f- off, I had an early start and didn’t have the patience for any shenanigans.
The knocking stopped.
So I went to sleep and thought no more about it. Whenever I tell the story, people accuse me of making it up, or misunderstanding the sounds (how do you misunderstand a knock?). Some think I dreamed it, but I know I was awake. For one thing, I rarely remember my dreams, and for another, I hadn’t actually gone to sleep yet. All very weird.
So those are my weird ghost stories! Please share any strange experiences you’ve had in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
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That foundling museum sounds so interesting (and heartbreaking). I can’t imagine how painful it must have been to give your baby away, especially since it looks like basically none of the children were ever reunited with their birth mothers.
I loved your short story about your experience with the ghost there, though.
It was a really sad place to visit. I got a little irked that the kids running round just saw it as a place to be noisy, so I could see why a matron might be frustrated too, but I guess the modern children were the lucky ones!
Thank you for sharing these. I have a few of my own experiences. When I was in college I shared a small townhouse with a friend and the TV would regularly turn itself off and on. We joked that it was a ghost playing a trick on us, but really suspected it was simply faulty electronics. Then one morning I came downstairs and the entire first floor was several degrees hotter than the upstairs. The thermostat however hadn’t been changed. Upon inspection, I found that the oven had been turned on at some point during the night. Neither of us had done it. After that our resident ghosts ‘jokes’ weren’t quite as funny.
Now that is really worrying! Sometimes they can border on malicious and it can get upsetting.
Those knocks were chilling. It’s one thing to have it outside of the room, but in? Ouf. Thanks for sharing!
Ooo! I loved these stories! Did anybody at the hotel say if anybody else had reported hearing anything?? Happy Halloween! Lynne
Vey spooky, Icy. The scratches on your shoulder look like an A. It put me in mind of The Scarlet Letter.
I can mention a couple of weird, spooky situations.
The first one, I was travelling from Ontario to Alberta with my hubby. We stopped at a motel for the night. It was late and I was exhausted, so I went right to bed and fell asleep immediately. My husband went for a shower. I woke up when he got into bed beside me. He pulled some of the covers off me to cover himself. I hadn’t quite gone back to sleep when my husband came out of the bathroom and got into bed. He assured me he hadn’t done so earlier and said I must have been dreaming.
We both went to sleep. Something woke me in the night. Moonlight was coming in the window and I could see someone standing at the foot of the bed. My first thought was that it was someone with ill intent and I shook my husband to wake him. He didn’t see anything. I had a hard time getting back to sleep after that.
In the morning when we checked out, my husband told the owner I’d seen a ghost and laughed like it was a joke. The owner said I wasn’t the first to experience something weird in that room.
The second one happened a few years after my husband died. I was visiting my son, who lived with his wife and daughter in a relatively new townhouse. I slept in a 2nd floor bedroom, and my son and his wife were next door.
I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely terrified, with no idea why. I had forgotten to take my meds the night before. They were in the fridge downstairs and I started to go get them, but I could feel a malevolent presence on the stairs. It was so strong, like my life was endangered. I couldn’t force myself to go down those stairs and could barely force myself to go into the hall so I could get to the bathroom, although my bladder was bursting. I turned on the hall light, but it did nothing to allay the terror. I stayed awake the rest of the night.
In the morning, when my daughter-in-law asked how I slept, I told her, “Not very well. I was terrified.” She asked for details and when I gave them, she burst into tears. She had the same experience many times and everyone told her she was imagining it. She thought she was going crazy.
We never found out what was responsible. They moved out of that house shortly after, and the next tenant had the same experience. So there was definitely something going on there.
loved these i myself have had so many encounters with spirits and sometimes we dont think to get photos of it as at the time we are either scared or just not thinking about it at the time thank you for sharing these stories of yours i have had things push me down the stairs when i was akid and things being moved when no one is home and when i lived in a flat years ago top floor i was out and was pulled up by some one who knew me asked me why i left my daughter home alone i asked her wth u mean she was with me and my son also i had 2 kids then aged 6 and 4 told her i hadnt i had been out she swore she had seen a girl in the bedroom window looking out so thats one and also in the same flat my neice was sleeping over in the same room where the pother woman had seen the girl and she had a maiden up with clothes on it and she woke me screaming saying there was a young girl in the maiden with a knife smiling at her she sdesribed the same thing the other one had the next day she left never slept again my youngest brother was living with me at the time till found place for him and girlfriend he left the next day packed up and left would not tell me why till a few months later he said he was sleeping went to get up to go pee when he was pushed back down into the bed by a woman she was pushing him down on his chest his girlfreind was next to him in bed he tried waking her but no luck he was aderment it wasnt dream or sleep paralysis and so on he would not go back to the flat he was scared so much by what happend and he was someone who didnt believe in it all he was so scared of what happend to him and never talks about it my eldsest daughter would always talk to some one she told me it was a youing girl and other stuff i have lived with stuff like this since being vry young every house or flat i lived in always had stuff going on this was just a few i have told you but others say its in your head or make it up and so on so i dont say to much as like you dont have much eveiden=ce but like i said you dont always have a camera handy or phone nowadays and ur mind is not on getting eveednce its on staying safe and getting aways from what ever is doing it to you so THANKS for sharing your stiories the kid one was sad poor things and the mums as well as hard thing to do