Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

I swear everything that has been stated is true and I had no prior knowledge of the area before showing up.

I was 14 years old and a close friend of the family, Uncle Greg, decided to take me with him to a small town called Suffern, New York for their 4th of July Celebration. When I say small I mean small. Population was probably no more than 30 – 40 people there.

Every year Greg and his two friends, Willy and Danny, pool their money together to buy as many fun and crazy fireworks as possible to put on a private show to for their friends and family in Suffern.

I quickly made friends with the local kids: April, Josh, Ashley, and Tom. That night we decided to pitch up a tent and camp outside one of their yard’s. Later in the night we heard a commotion outside and everyone rushed out. A local lady was very drunk and was trying to get into her truck for a drive. The kids and I were very adamant about not letting her drive, but she really wanted to cruise around for a bit. Josh, April, and Tom decided to get into the truck and take her for a drive around town.

Ashley and I were left behind so I tried to do my best to hit on her. Ashley then said she needed to use the restroom so I decided to walk her from the tent to the halfway point in the yard. So there I was, standing in the dark with only a few porch lights lighting up the area, about 20 ft. from the tent and 20 ft. from the house. Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye about 100 yards away from me to my left.

Squinting I thought I saw the image of a man walking towards me. He was too far for me to get a good look at his face or clothing. Thinking he was walking to me in a very eerie and direct manner I tried rubbing my eyes thinking it was a trick of the light. When I opened my eyes he was about 10 yards closer in an instant. Every time I rubbed my eyes he seemed to flash a good distance closer.

All the while this was going on I was thinking that fog was appearing but when i glanced from the walking man to the right I noticed something that caused my whole body to seize up. What I thought was fog was separated into 3 small clouds no less than 15 feet from me. Looking closely at these nearly formless masses they seemed to be slightly boxy but all seemed to have legs. They were standing in line and their legs were moving as if they were marching. The images did seem to be moving forward but far slower than the speed their legs were moving to march.

At this point I was really freaking out, My eyes kept darting from the tent to the lit bathroom window. “Ashley,” I tried to yell out but my throat was so constricted with fear that it came out as hardly a whisper. “Ashley,” I tried again, still to no avail. Then the foggy images started to become brighter and brighter until I hear the sounds of tires over gravel and the foggy images disappeared in the headlights.

As soon as they were gone I sprinted back to the truck with my new friends and hurriedly told my story. The neighbor lady, who was finally starting to sober up, started telling me how Suffern was actually the site of a few revolutionary and civil war battles. She continued to tell me that people say at night you could see hundreds of soldiers laying in wait in the surrounding woods if you look closely.

At this point Ashley had finally returned from the restroom and we all piled back into the truck, being that all the kids wanted a go and driving the truck around town. What happened next was the most outstanding of the paranormal activities that had so far occurred during the night given the circumstances.

While I was sitting in the back of the truck enjoying the ride around town something caught my eye. Over the treetops I could’ve sworn I saw the steeple of a church. As we came closer I noticed that there was a large clearing in the trees and when I looked I saw the church again with someone moving in front of the double doors. I looked away but when I had looked back the church was no longer there. I tried to sound as casual as possible but I yelled over the engine so the people sitting in the front seats of the truck could hear me through the small window. “Was there ever a church over there?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, Josh, who was driving, slammed on the brakes causing me to bump into the truck’s cabin. Rubbing the back of my head I opened my eyes to see everyone, including the drunk neighbor lady, staring at me with faces that screamed disbelief.

“What?” I asked. “Dude, what the hell?” Josh stammered, “I’ve been with you all day know that you never saw the clearing let alone asked about it.” The neighbor lady finally let light to the situation. A few decades prior there was a church there but there was a fire and it had burned to the ground. A preacher was there and had died as well. There were rumors of people seeing the church occasionally and seeing the old preacher waving and beckoning people in, but those incidences haven’t occurred in years.

I don’t think I’m a medium, and I definitely don’t think I’m a psychic. Maybe it was the fact that I had no ties to the area, to this day I don’t know. This was my first ever experience with anything of this nature. I used to be skeptical of these kinds of things but after experiencing this firsthand, I’ve got to believe it.

Sent in by James Sychampanakhone, Copyright 2011

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