Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

In January 2008 I took a course through my University where we got the opportunity to go to London and study Theatre. During our trip we were given a weekend off to do whatever we wanted. So a small group of us took a train up to Edinburgh. There was a total of four of us on this journey. Peter, Dante, Susan, and Myself.

When we arrived decided we would take a ghost tour. An idea I was totally for until we were reading the description of the tour we selected and a warning which read “you accompany this tour at your own risk.” But I figured I would be brave and we set off to find the starting point of the tour.

The tour was conducted in three stages, the first part outside a church, the second part in a cemetery, and the final part in “the Black Crypt.” The Church portion was about the history of Scotland and the horrible things people liked to do to each other back in the day. Then we made our way to the Cemetery.

On the walk to Greyfriars Cemetery (which is famous thanks to a Disney movie called “Greyfriars Bobby) the four of us met a young woman whom I will call “Stephanie” since I don’t remember her name. She was American, living in London and had come up to Scotland for the weekend. She told us she had been walking past the tour when it began. She was hungry but decided she would do the tour and eat afterwards. A choice I imagine she regrets making.

When we arrived at the Cemetery our Tour Guide gave us the history of Greyfriars which was very interesting but I won’t bother with now. And he took us back to “the Black Crypt.” He told us the history of the Crypt and at the risk of not having my Scottish history correct I will not recount but needless to say horrible things occurred there.

When we entered the Crypt itself I was so frightened I told Peter the only way I would do in would be if I could link arms with him for safety. We wound up standing towards the back of the Crypt with Susan and Dante behind us to the left and Stephanie behind us to the right. Our Guide began to recount some of the encounters people have experienced in the crypt when I was struck in the back of the head by something. As I turned to see what happened I was suddenly yanked forward.

What had happened was Stephanie had fainted (I guess) and he chin clocked me in the head on her way down. The yanking was my brave friend Peter running from danger with me attached. Our Guide came back to check on Stephanie who swore she was fine and chalked the episode up to the fact that she was hungry so he continued the tour.

After Stephanie’s episode no one wanted to be near her. I actual had to pull Peter back a couple of steps. So Susan decided she would link arms with Stephanie and lean against the wall of the crypt lest it should happen again.

Susan and I were so freaked out by what happened next we didn’t talk about it until a few days later. When we put the story together it went something like this:

While the two were linked arms Stephanie suddenly started to hit Susan while continuing to look ahead to where the Guide was standing. Suddenly she shot away from the wall pelvis first and so fast that when she collided with me standing in front of her I thought I’d been hit by a truck. I actually felt her foot on the calf of my right leg as though she was trying to run over me. I screamed and turned around to see what was going on. Stephanie was staggering around behind me running into people, staring at the ceiling, pale, with lifeless eyes, repeating “I can’t keep my balance; I just can’t keep my balance.” The Guide took one look at her and told us all to get out of the Crypt.

Whenever I tell this story some one always asks “well, how do you know Stephanie wasn’t a plant meant to scare you?” To this I reply…

Well, a couple reasons.

1) When we left the Crypt there was a man standing there. At first I thought he had heard me scream and had come to see what happened. Then I remembered where we were in the cemetery had required us to pass through two locked gates which were then locked behind us. Therefore, this guy had to have a key and had to have been very near when I screamed to be there that fast. I later found out that guy was actually there to jump out at us if we didn’t experience anything in the Crypt.

2) We wound up spending most of our weekend with Stephanie. Which included going with her to find food after the tour which she still claimed was the only reason for her episode. When we asked her about it later that night she said she was just embarrassed. We also ran into our Tour Guide who had come to the same pub that night and he seemed legitimately concerned for Stephanie when he saw her and asked if she was alright. I would imagine after the whole weekend, had it been a set up, at some point she would have mentioned the “truth.”

So, I can’t say with complete certainty I know what happened that night, but it was strange. And it was certainly an interesting way to start our Scotland weekend.

Sent in by Jessy, Copyright 2010 TrueGhostTales.com