Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

When I was a child, I was taking an afternoon nap in my parent’s bed. As I’m waking up, I see this very tall shadow man with a top hat step out of their closet. He looked as though he was wearing a suit, but he was somewhat transparent and gray in color. As he walked straight out of the closet towards me, it seemed as though he was walking up steps. He kept close to the wall as he walked and didn’t walk straight towards me, but disappeared as he reached me. I remember feeling frozen and scared at what I was seeing and relieved to see him go.

A little background about my parent’s house. It was built in a town that is the site of an ancient Indian burial ground. So when I read the post about the Native American Tall Man, I couldn’t believe the similarity!

As I’m typing this, I’ve got an episode of Paranormal State playing in the background and I hear “Okay Tall Man are you here, come out!” Creepy!

My sister and I are convinced that my parent’s closet is a “doorway” to the spirit world and this experience was my first siting. A year or two later, my mother, who is a devout Catholic, decided to have our parish priest bless the house. That priest was father Oliver O’Grady. He turned out to be a vicious child predator that would later be charged with the molestation of countless children, many of whom were my classmates. His “blessing” only woke the spiritual activity of the house.

Shortly after, my sister who is sensitive to the spiritual world, began having night terrors that would follow her until she moved out at 18. These terrors would involve a man in a hat that would terrorize her and sexually assault her. It came to the point that she could only fall asleep with my mother.

She told me about her night terrors after she moved out. After she told me, I made a connection between her experiences and a vivid dream I had a few months before. In my dream, my father and I were looking for a man in the house. We were looking for him as though you would be looking for a spider to catch. We were hunting. As we come to the end of the hallway where the bedrooms were, I notice my door is barricaded with wood planks. My sister’s door is wide open. I see this dark man in a hat clinging to the ceiling like a spider. His hat is not a top hat, but more like a Stetson. I tell my father and he moves towards him. That’s where the dream ends, but I woke with a feeling that he was gone. I’m not sure if the two shadow men are the same as they looked and “felt” differently.

The next time I saw him was when I was in college. Coincidentally at this time in my life I kept finding random coins around my room that I KNOW weren’t there beforehand. One night I’m woken up abruptly and see a dark figure looking down at me. He’s wearing the same top hat and I can make out a monocle. I feel startled at being woken up quickly, but as I look at his face, a sense of serenity comes over me. I know I wasn’t dreaming. I could feel my head get heavy and I fall back instantly into a deep sleep.

My gut feeling is that he’s a childhood messenger that presents himself differently depending on the nature of the message. I’m blown away by how many people have experienced him! I also wonder what we all have in common? My feeling is that we may be all connected by past life events – if you’re inclined to believe in past lives.

Sent in by Alice Deville, Copyright 2011