Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

First a little history… I am 34 years old and the proud mother of 4 wonderful boys. I now reside in Pennsylvania, as I have for the past 11 years. However, my story, encounter, tale, or what ever you choose to name the experience took place some 27 years ago in the family home that I lived and grew up for the first 22 years of my existence, located in New Jersey. The house that I now speak of is quite old; at least 150 years old (it probably is even older than that). It has been in my family since the early 1950′s and is still owned and lived in by my father. And at the age of 7 is where I will begin my story.

As I said I was around 7 years old at the time. I shared a bedroom at the top of the stairs with my older sister. The room is very small so my sister and I had bunk beds. I slept on the top bunk. We were both asleep on this night. I remember waking from a nightmare (even after all this time, I still remember the nightmare that I was having). But little did I know that the true nightmare for me was not the on in my dreams but the one that I faced when I opened my eyes.

The room was dark but what I saw was not. In the doorway of my bedroom I saw a man. He was tall and thin. He was wearing a suit from what I now know to be the mid to late 1800′s, complete with a top hat and ribbon neck tie. He had brown eyes and a long thin mustache. And although the room was pitch black, I saw him in every detail. He/it seemed to be glowing.

Needless to say I screamed. My mom, who was downstairs at the time, turned on the hall light and came running upstairs. I told her what I had seen, only to be told that I was dreaming it.( which I knew that I wasn’t.) The hall light was left on that night, and probably every night there after until I moved out. I will say this, I never did feel entirely alone in that house even when I was the only one there. I always had the feeling that if I turned my head fast enough I would see something that I really did not want to see. I still feel this way when I go to visit my father. But this is not where this story ends…

About a year ago I was talking with my then 13 year old son. Just talking about this and that and somehow the conversation turned into discussing my fathers (his grandfathers) house. Out of the blue my son starts to tell me that he never liked going upstairs by himself. He felt uncomfortable being up there alone. Now you have to understand that I never ever told him my feelings about that house or about what I had seen. That is why what he told me next gave me goose bumps and a chill as I have never felt before… He continued on by telling me the following…

He was alone up stairs one day on the computer that is in the room at the top of the stairs (the same one that my sister and I shared). He was finished on the computer and decided to go downstairs to get something to drink. He got to the bottom of the stairs and was about ready to open the door (the stairs leading up stairs are enclosed and you need to open a door to go up them) and he looked back up the stairs. What he saw was the shadow of a tall, thin man wearing a top hat. In the same spot where 26 years ago I had seen him!

I never doubted what I saw that night. I have had other experiences since. Some just a feeling, some just a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye, and on one other occasion an apparition. Nor do I doubt what my son told me he saw. But does him seeing the same thing that I saw prove that the house that I grew up in has an unseen resident? For me, him telling me his story is proof enough.

Written by Holly, Copyright 2009 TrueGhostTales.com