Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

My name is Stephen and from early childhood I seemed to be very sensitive to my surroundings and people in particular. I always sensed things about them good or bad within minutes of meeting them.

When I was in my early 20′s I was in the Army and stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. I had been married just a short time and a friend of the family stopped by to inform us that he was deploying to Germany and wanted to know if we would store his Honda Goldwing motorcycle while he was gone, and asked if I could take it out from time to time just to keep the engine from sitting idle to long. I told him no problem, and about a one week later, I decided to go on my first ride.

I was a little apprehensive because it had been several years since I last rode a motorcycle. So I got on the bike and because we lived on the outskirts of Hinesville, Georgia there wasn’t much traffic. In fact the road when you left the neighborhood I lived in either turned to the right and headed into town and the base or you could take a left turn and head into the country. On this day I took a left and enjoyed the mid spring Georgia weather. I had been riding about 10 minutes when I came up to a old country cemetery.

I usually tend to stay away from cemeteries because they tend to make me uneasy. But for some reason I pulled the motorcycle off the road and got off and headed into the cemetery, it was very strange because I was making a b-line straight for a headstone at the far right corner of the cemetery. I never looked at any of the headstone except the one I kept my eye on since first seeing the cemetery.

It almost felt like a dream as I rounded the headstone and I literally had a mixture of dread and butterflies in my stomach as I looked at the headstone. There was a small portrait sealed on the tombstone and I instantly had a strange sense of deja vu, like I knew this person but couldn’t put my finger on from where.

Then things started getting weirder. Her name was Patricia Annette Landreth. She was approximately 17 when she died but the day she died was August 20, 1969 which is the day I was born. This disturbed me greatly but for some reason I couldn’t leave the grave site. I just sat close to an hour staring at her face and trying to place her. Because of the date of her death and my birth I knew I never met her but I had such a feeling of recognition that I couldn’t shake.

I told my wife about it and she said I should do a little research about this mystery girl and learn more about her. So I did, I went to the caretaker of the cemetery home and spoke to him. He lived in those parts all his life and new the Landreth family and also knew Patricia, he said it was a very sad story she and her boyfriend was killed by a drunk driver while riding on her boyfriends motorcycle, in fact the caretaker stated she only died less than a mile from where the grave yard sat. I was both shocked, and speechless when listening to this story because I somehow knew this familiar face.

Now the freaky part the boyfriend’s name was Shawn Stevens which happens to be my first and middle name, which is Stephen Shawn. After talking briefly to the caretaker I left and went back home thoroughly shaken by the experience. I told my wife about what had transpired and she said maybe you knew her or was her boyfriend in a past life. Now I am not a superstitious person and I definitely don’t believe in re-incarnation but there were way too many similarities to deny that maybe there was a thing called re-incarnation.

The facts are

#1 I was on a motorcycle on the very road she was killed on, and the fact that I left the road to stop at a cemetery which is extremely uncharacteristic of me because I never felt comfortable visiting such places.

#2 I instantly walked directly to her grave without so much as looking at another headstone. The fact that I somehow knew where to go and instantly walked directly to her grave without looking at any other tombstone almost like there was some kind of force leading me towards that tombstone remains a mystery to me even to this day.

#3 Patricia and Sean died on the day I was born I also found odd.

#4 His name was Sean Stevens and my name is Stephen Shawn.

#5 I had such a strong sense of deja vu about this girls face which was as familiar to me as one of my own siblings.

Over the years I just accepted the fact that there are some things you just can’t explain but I will never forget that warm spring day in Georgia where I got to meet a stranger I somehow knew.

Sent in by Stephen B, Copyright 2011 TrueGhostTales.com