Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

This is an experience that happened 6 or 7 times, in fact so many that instead of terror I would feel anger when I saw him and eventually I refused to sleep in the basement. Even in college. It started when I was 14. I woke up for some reason and I couldn’t move. I was absolutely paralyzed but I could look around, think, blink, just not move my body. I looked towards my feet and at the foot of my bed was a shadow man, all black, with a black top hat on. I couldn’t see any details because he was completely dark. Like the absence of light since it was 2 a.m. and he was darker than the surrounding room. He just stood there not moving at all. I don’t know how long I stared at him, but I finally was able to move. I bolted up and he was gone.

There were other experiences too, and my brother also saw him. We never spoke of it until one day we were sitting around telling stories about all the weird phenomena that happen in our house and I mentioned the man with the top hat. I asked him to describe what he saw and he described what I saw including the hat. The man would come even when I had my girlfriend over. I would wake up, she was asleep and there he was at the foot of my bed. I could feel him just staring at me. Finally I got angry, bolted up again and gave him the finger and he vanished. I saw the man so much that I refused to sleep in the basement anymore. Even into college when I would come home I would sleep on the couch upstairs. I tried sleeping with a bible once and I got punched in the face when I was in bed that night. I thought it was my brother, but then I realized that I had bolted the door from the inside irrationally thinking that that would keep out the shadow man. The last time I braved sleeping in the basement I had the same experience as before. Woke up paralyzed, there he was. But, I had become accustomed to it and started to experiment a little to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I tried to make sure I could look around, blink, close my eyes for a few seconds, look, he would still be there. I would try and move and finally the last time I forced myself up and he disappeared. All these experiences were accompanied by being paralyzed, and at first an overwhelming feeling of panic and terror.

Myself, my friends and brothers all had weird experiences in the basement besides the shadow man. Light bulbs would unscrew, sounds of footsteps upstairs or walking down the stairs when nobody was home, boxes falling (we never had boxes in the basement) doors opening and closing, a ghost of an old woman and a blur that I would only notice out of the corner of my eye. When I was little I would be terrified of the basement for some reason. My brother and I slept down there for a year or so when I was 5. I would always wake up around 2 or 3 a.m. and go upstairs and sleep on the couch or on the floor in the family room. The first time anything ever happened was when I woke up, walked upstairs and tripped at the top of the stairs. I looked back and there was a hand sticking out of the door jam. Other things that happened were me lying on the couch when I was little, having migrated upstairs from the basement and seeing the curtains blow above me like there was a breeze going through them and the hanging plants spinning in place. From then on until I was 26 when I slept upstairs I always slept with the TV on.

Since we sold the house 5 years ago, I’ve always wanted to knock on the door and see if the current owners had ever seen anything.

Sent in by Shane, Copyright 2011 TrueGhostTales.com