ghosts and stories

The Lady in white

by Jessica
(Sharon, Pennsylvania, USA)

When I was ten I experienced a paranormal encounter.

I was going to bed one night and I kept hearing thumping in my room. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP. I thought it was a bad dream, so I went back to sleep.

Then I heard someone whispering my name, "Jessica, Jessica." I was too terrified to open my eyes.

Then there was a cold spot on my bed. I opened my eyes and there was a woman who looked like she was in her 20's wearing a nineteenth century white gown with blood all over it!! She was a scary figure!!!

She reached for my neck and started to choke me!!! I screamed as loud as I could!!! When my dad came in my room, she vanished. When my dad walked out of the room, she came back.

I grabbed my crucifix that was on my wall and pointed it at the lady. She screamed and slowly vanished away. Even to this day I hear the thumping ,and someone calling my name. I will probably never know who the lady in white was.

Thanks for reading!!!

Woman in the Street

by Pamela
(Berwyn, IL, USA)

Well, anyone who knows me knows I don't make stories of ghosts up.


Last week, I was in the car with my ex and our son. We were coming home from Home Depot and we were just making it to the stop light and to the left on the drivers side, when I saw a woman standing there in the street ready to cross to get to the other side. She had reddish blonde hair that was curly and down to the middle of her back. She had on a yellow tank top with some light blue shorts and she was moving the hair form her face. As we came close to her, it looked to me as though we were about to hit her and I was just about to tell my ex to steer the car away from her when he started moving to the next lane. When I looked back to see if she was still there, she was nowhere to be seen. Keep in mind, it was a busy day and yes the streets were covered in cars.

And Then She Was Gone.......

by Alina M
(North Carolina, USA)

In 1781, a girl named Susan Moore lived with her parents in a small village in North Carolina. They had a nice cabin and a good atmosphere.

Susan was a prankster and often pretended like she was in trouble. I guess it would be called "crying wolf." One night Susan was sitting with her parents and they asked her to retrieve something from upstairs. Susan replied, "Yes Papa," and went upstairs. Seconds later she screamed an ear piercing scream. Her parents thought it was just another prank, so they did not rush to her. They only said, "Stop playing around Sue. It's not funny." When she did not answer they ran upstairs. There was no one there. Not a trace of anyone. Not an open window or anything.

Susan just disappeared.

Her parents never stopped looking for her – ever - but she wasn't seen again. She had completely vanished.

This story has been in my family since it happened. Susan was a distant cousin and this story still gives me chills.

-Alina M

1700's Ghost Lady

by Rachel
(Dublin, Ohio, USA)

I was used to seeing ghosts, as I have had many ghostly encounters throughout my life, and so did my mother, grandmother, siblings, and other members in my immediate family on my maternal side. So seeing or communicating with another ghost did not frighten me. When I was a child, ghosts would frighten me, but as I grew up and through the years, I got used to them being around.

Back in early December of 1982, is when my story happened. My husband and I bought a lovely old two-story house about one year prior to the event.

My husband and children and myself moved into this old house that actually sat on land that once had a house that served as refuge for escaped slaves through the Underground Railroad. This house was located deep back in the woods, in the state of Ohio. I could tell right from the beginning that there was a creepy feeling about the whole place; like a sadness. It's hard to explain. But anyway, on that particular night, it was very cold and there was deep snow on the ground. I was feeling very exhausted as I was pregnant with my son, and he was due to be born in about one week. I had a very busy day throughout that day, so I was glad for nighttime to finally come and all of the children were now fast asleep in their bedrooms.

I was feeling uncomfortable, so my husband was asleep in the next bedroom down the long hall so I could have the big double bed to myself to try to rest easier and get some sleep.

My bedroom was on the first floor, close by the bathroom. The children all slept upstairs on the second floor. I had a bassinet waiting for the baby when he was born in my bedroom sitting right next to the wall, close by the doorway at the foot of my bed. A lot of new baby blankets were folded very neatly and were laid on top of the bassinet. Before I retired for the night, I took a warm shower then I walked to the back of my bedroom and looked out the window, into the crisp cold night. A bright full moon was shining and casting shadows from the many trees that surrounded our house. The white snow glistened in the moonlight. I slipped into my long flannel warm nightgown, and crawled underneath my warm blankets, and fell right asleep. After about two hours, I awoke suddenly. I opened my eyes and looked down past the foot of my bed, and there I saw very plainly a young lady just sitting in the center of the bassinet on top of the bunch of folded baby blankets, with her dainty hands folded on her lap. I noticed that she appeared to be "weightless", because although she was sitting on top of the soft blankets, there was no indentation from her body. The blankets still were in straight-folded-order. I mean they did not sink down in the middle and the bassinet stood without wavering. The moonlight was shining in my window and I could see her very clearly by the light of the moon. She was just sitting there looking at me. I looked at her, and I noticed that she appeared to be very solid and life like. She was slim and frail, and her skin color looked very pale white. Her age I believe was young, as she looked no more than 19 or 20. She had a very pretty face that wore no make up, or lipstick, or such. Her eyes were light blue, and her hair hung in long golden ringlets to just past her shoulders. She wore a long, light blue, full skirt dress that hung down to her ankles, with long sleeves and high button neck, with white collar and white cuffs on the sleeves. I could see the black toes of her shoes just barely sticking out from underneath her cotton dress as she sat quietly watching me. She had on her head a light blue bonnet with white lace around the brim, with the white lace neck ribbon untied and just dangling loose on each side. I was thinking by her all dress or appearance she must have been from the 1700's.

After we stared at each other for at least a couple of minutes, I just closed my eyes and drifted right back to sleep. I slept for a few more hours, then I woke up again because I needed to go to the bathroom. When I opened my eyes, I saw she was still sitting there looking at me in the same position and spot. I got out of my bed and proceeded to walk toward the door and right past the girl. She did not vanish or move. She sat deathly still, looking straight ahead toward my bed.

I walked the short distance down the hall to the bathroom. I used the bathroom, and while walking back toward my bedroom, I was thinking that this ghost apparition must be gone by now? But upon entering my bedroom, I found, to my surprise, the ghostly girl was still sitting there in the same place and same position as before. I walked back past her and I sat down on the side of my bed. As I stared at her sweet, soft, pretty face, I decided to try to communicate with her. So I asked her, "What are you doing here in my bedroom?" To my surprise, she replied in a very soft calm sweet voice, "Looking at you." As she spoke these words, her lips never moved, but still I could hear her voice speaking out loud. I asked her, "Why?" She said, "Because I'm lonesome." Then I asked her, "What is your name?" She replied, "Sarah...Sarah Brandon." I asked, "How old are you Sarah Brandon?" She answered, "17...Have you seen my Aunt Isabelle? I can't find her. I can't seem to find anyone that I know. Everyone seems to be gone." I asked, "Who?" Then she paused for a moment, then said, "I'm cold." Then she asked, "Can I sleep with you?" After she asked that last question, I got irritated, then I replied in a stern sharp voice, "Well, no! Can't you see I'm pregnant, and I'm miserable, and my husband had to sleep in the other bedroom? That's why I'm sleeping alone in the first place!" Then there was a pause of silence, as we stared at each other. Then I heard her reply in a sad quiet voice, "Ooooohhhhh." Then she started to slowly fade away (not vanish). She first started fading from her face, like inside-outward, then the rest of her just faded on away and she was gone forever. I never saw her again.

Comments:
This was one of the most interesting ghost experiences I ever had. I never will forget it. I have had many others as well, also quite interesting. I think we can ALL communicate with Ghosts, if we just only relax and TRY. It is our own FEAR that stands in our way.
Take the departure of our own loved ones, for instance. They're NEVER really gone. They exist forever in our MINDS and in our HEARTS and in our LONGING. There is MAGIC in our sense of LONGING. The MAGIC is what KEEPS them ALIVE. If we take away the MAGIC, then we take away the capacity to LOVE.

Rachel

The Lady

by Jeff
(Indianapolis, IN, USA)

I grew up in a small town in Northwest Indiana. Our house was over 100 years old and I've been told that it was built from the timbers of an old barn that had stood on the site, so it was probably a lot older than that.

While I was growing up, there were always strange noises that we couldn't explain. Doors opened by themselves and our babysitters sometimes said our house was haunted because they claimed to hear voices sometimes later at night. My sister and I were used to it and actually thought this stuff happened in everyone's house.

It wasn't until I got older (high school) that I realized things weren't normal in our house. One day after school, I was in my room and out of the corner of my eye I saw The Lady for the first time. She had her hair in a loose bun on top of her head. Her dark dress hung to the floor. Her light long-sleeved shirt "puffed" out at the shoulders in the style of the last century. When I turned towards her she disappeared. I saw her another time while I was lying in bed in the morning, working up the energy to get up and go to school. Again, out of the corner of my eye I saw her leaning in my door to check on me, I guess. At first, I thought she was my mom leaning in to tell me to get up but when I looked over at her she again disappeared. I was alone in the house so it couldn't have been my mom or sister.

The one time that I did get really scared was when I was lying in bed one night and I heard footsteps come down the hall. I thought it was one of my parents coming to say "good night" except when the footsteps entered my room and stopped by my bed there was no one visibly attached to them. It felt like I laid there in terror for an eternity, waiting to feel a hand touch my face. It never happened and I finally worked up the courage to jump out of bed and run into my sister's room. I had gone to wake her up so that I would have a witness and because I needed to have someone else to freak out with me. I know, how macho! I was about to wake her up when the footsteps came up behind me and stopped right next to me by the bed. I swear I wasn't dreaming. I can still remember how reality seemed to fall apart as I thought about something that I couldn't see obviously standing beside me. I turned around and went back to my bed. I figured if it had wanted to do anything to me it would have. As long as it didn't write on my face while I slept I didn't care.

I started getting used to The Lady. When I was alone in the house I would sometimes talk to her. She always listened and never judged or offered unwanted advice. She would help me find lost items when I asked her. I actually got a motherly feeling from her. It was like she was watching over my sister and me when our parents were at work.

Up until this point, I still thought that The Lady was a figment of my teen imagination. That changed when my friends and I rented a cheesy movie called, "The House." It was about a guy that had inherited his grandmother's house after she had passed away. It was a ghost story. As the guy is moving his stuff in, he passes the dining room and there, standing on a chair with a rope around her neck is his grandmother. She tells him to leave the house and she disappears as she jumps off of the chair. She was wearing a long black dress with puffy sleeves and her hair was pulled back in a bun. When my sister saw this she became hysterical. I couldn't understand at first when she kept saying, "It's the lady, it's the lady!" Then it dawned on me that what I'd been seeing and hearing for months was actually real. Without saying a thing to my sister, she had experienced The Lady as well. My sanity was validated. On one side it meant that I wasn't crazy, but on the other it meant that a ghostly woman was probably following us around. I even heard her say my name once.

As time went on, we accepted The Lady as a motherly force in our lives and it became comforting to me that she was there. We never felt alone.

Years later, as adults, my sister and I brought our families to show them the old house that had been our home. It was empty and had been that way for quite a while. We wondered if other families had met The Lady. I looked in the big picture window into the living room that we had spent so many Christmases opening presents and watching cartoons on Saturday mornings. I swear that I could sense her looking back at me through the glass. I smiled, but felt a little sad for leaving her there when she had always been there for us.

I hope that she has moved on and has found peace.

Lady

by Susan
(Massachusetts)

I was on my way up to bed when I heard someone calling me. Not just once or twice, but three times. On the third time I went to the kitchen and there in a corner was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. It was almost like she was trying to tell me something.

Then she left and faded away. It was a very comfortable feeling not a scary one.

I have seen her three times in the same place in the kitchen. Never anywhere else.

The lady in the basement

by jen
(merriam kansas)

Well, my boyfriend and I had rented a home in December 2007. We moved in on the 1st of December, with my then 2 1/2 year old son. The landlords had told us about how an older lady had the house built years ago, and recently (July 2007) was found dead in the basement of a heart attack. We have felt her there since the get go.

The first scary thing that happened was when my boyfriend my son and I were sitting in the living room. All of a sudden my son points down the hallway and says, "She’s sick mommy" and I ask, "Who’s sick?" And he just points down the hallway and says, "She.... she’s sick mommy." My boyfriend and I just look at each other confused.

Then my son had a toy truck that mysteriously went off in the middle of the night. I walked into his room, turned the thing off and went back to bed. Twenty minutes later the things were going off again!! This time I set it outside and later threw it in the trash. Nothing too freaky right?? Well this is the one thing that I can’t forget.

One night my son was staying at my mother’s house. My boyfriend and I were getting ready to go to bed. We turned off all the lights, TV, etc. We climbed into bed and the only light that was then on was our lamp at the side of the bed. I reached over and turned it off. Well, we were cold, so I cuddled up next to him and right as I did that we heard, "click, click" and the lamp turned on. Right before our eyes!!! We were pretty shaken at this and it took a while for us to fall asleep.

Well I did some research and found that the lady’s name was Winifred and people called her Winnie. So one morning my boyfriend had left for work and my son and I were in the bathroom where I was getting ready for the day. I heard footsteps and he heard it too because he said, "Daddy’s home." And I said, "No sweetie daddy is at work." And he says, "Winnies home!" I was so freaked out I couldn’t wait to leave for the day with him! We have never said her name around him so I don’t know how he could know that!
We also have a spare bedroom, and every night before I go to bed I will have to "remake" the bed, because every morning it appears that someone has lain right in the middle of it as the pillows are moved and the blanket appears dented in as if someone has laid very carefully in the middle of the bed.

Pretty freaky stuff, I wonder if Winnie just can’t let her house go...

She Was Leaning Over Her Crib

by Ann S
(Maine)

Around 13 years ago our daughter was just a baby. One afternoon I was sitting in our kitchen making lunch when I suddenly had this strange feeling. It was like something told me I needed to be in my daugter's room that if i didn't... It was a feeling of terror that I could not put into words.

I rushed into the hall and ran to my daughters room. There leaning over my daughters crib was the hazy white shape of an old women watching my daughter sleep. As she reached out I rushed forward and she turned, looked at me and smiled, before walking right through me and out the door. The feeling was like ice, traveling all the way down my body as if my blood had turned to it. I ran to the crib and gathered up my little daughter in my arms. She had slept through the entire thing but the memory remains fresh in my mind.

Ghost at Point Pleasant Beach New Jersey

by Scott
(Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, USA)

I was walking on the beach, as I often do, and I saw a lady in a 30s style gown walking about 500 feet from me. It was strange because she seemed to glide across the beach. As I got closer to the lady, she seemed to be crying. Well I got about 150 feet from her and she looked at me, screamed and then disappeared. Well I got out of there fast.

I asked my friend about it and he said a lady in the 1930s lost her husband at sea and she would walk the beach waiting for him to return. He also told me she is called the weeping widow.

Well, I don't walk the beach anymore. It creeps me out.

The Mean Lady in the Hall

by Dawn
(Ho-Ho-Kus NJ, Bergen)

My name is Dawn. When I was in Arkansas with my husband when I saw what I think is an evil spirit. It was during the day. I was in my brother-in-law’s house by myself. The door to the bedroom was open and I was laying sitting up in the bed staring down the hall when I saw this woman in the hall staring at me, her fists were closed very tight. She had long dark hair that looked like it had not been washed in days and had on a long dress and was staring at me with an evil face. I tried to scream but nothing came out. Then she just disappeared. I was so scared. She looked like a witched from way back then.

But the next day in that same bedroom, I was trying to watch Church on TV and the voice on the TV kept going in and out. I don’t’ know but this house always left me feeling uneasy.

Hitch Hiker Ghost

by Shanti I
(Baguio, Benguet, Philippines)

There was a student who was busy enough to stay at school too late. She stayed in school doing extra curricular activities. She was known throughout the entire campus because of the beauty and intelligence that she possessed. She was from a small town here in Baguio. A city full of real ghost stories and histories of records marked down globally.

Baguio is full of big pine trees that would cover the way, and at night just the moon and the stars would light up the path. The road for the girl to go home would take about 30-45 minutes ride before she could get home.

One busy night where she had no choice but to take a cab going home since there are no jeepneys already. It was not even in her mind that that would be the last ride she would take.

She's gone missing for a night only to find out on the next day she was left tied hanging on a big pine tree just along the the road.

From that time on, hundreds of drivers have encountered a lady waving for them for a ride. They would see the lady riding on their jeep or cab but after a moment the lady would be gone. With just a blink of an eye the lady would be sitting beside the driver.

This story has been respected over the years since many cab drivers and jeepneys end up being dead or in an accident, just because of the lady in white waiting for a ride.

It is said that the young pretty lady is still looking for her murderer and seeking revenge.

The tree she was tied to was cut out. From that time on, there are no reports of the lady in white or her victims.

-While I was typing this stories. i'm getting goosebumps and freaks me out. this

The Chaser

by Urbano M
(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, USA)

My name is Urbano M. As a child I lived on a ranch in Thelma, TX on 40,000 acres known as the Dionicio Martinez land grant. I have heard and personally witnessed some ghost stories. I will start by telling you one I have only talked about with one to 3 people.

In 1978, I was with one of my friends name Joe. We were coming home from a party on Pleasanton Rd. It was about 2 am when we neared an intersection when we noticed a colored lady wearing a white long dress walking just ahead of us. As we passed her my friend asked me to give her a ride so I pulled over. When I reversed the car I could see her clearly with my backup lights, I could see thru my rear view mirror. When I noticed she was floating toward us I sped off as fast as I could go.

My friend didn't see her floating so he was asking me why I didn't pick her up when out of nowhere we heard a banging on his side door. As we looked out his window we could see her floating beside us. I looked at my speed gauge I noticed I was going at a rate of 65 mph and she was still next to us looking at Joe thru the window. Further down the road she disappeared. When we got to my grandparent's house my grandma noticed how scared we were so we told her what had just happened. She told us to ignore the frightful encounter.

A week later I was at the house asleep when I got a phone call from Joe's sister it was 2 am. She told me that Joe had just been killed earlier that evening and they found his body in his car on Pleasanton Rd by the intersection where we had seen the lady.

My grandmother told me later that the lady could have been a warning or a messenger of death. I still get chills when I tell this story. I will keep Joe's last name unknown due to respect to his family. I felt I must tell this story for it has bothered me and still does. I have never gotten over this and I am now 45 years old. And that frightful night lives on.

I have more stories to tell that are just as scary as this one.

Deserted?

There was an old lady that lived across the street from me and always came outside and planted flowers in her garden. I moved in two years ago and she made cookies for us just to welcome us to the neighborhood. She was a nice old lady and I loved her very much.

A couple months later, I didn't see her come out of her house anymore so I knocked on her door but no one answered. I went back home and just thought she was on vacation but I remembered that she had never left her house in the past. The next day I went outside to play and I saw police officers outside her house. I went over and asked what they were doing and they said that they were tearing the house down. I said to them that an old lady lives there, you can't tear the house down. They told me the old lady that lived in the house passed away two years ago. It couldn't be because I just saw her two days ago. They told me that I was just seeing things and told me to leave. From this day forward, I still believe in spirits because I saw one.

Chri

by Chris
(Conway, AR, USA)

I moved into this house about two years ago. It was an old house and it looked it. Shortly after moving in, we started experiencing weird things - cold spots throughout the house, the dogs barking at nothing. Then my son told me that he had saw an old woman with a torn dress walking down the hallway towards his room.

I went and checked it out and didn't see anything. My boyfriend at the time started telling me that at night after I would go to bed he would see an older looking woman walking toward my son's room. He said she looked like she was from the 50s or maybe even the 40s.

I don't know the history of the house. I do know that I do believe that they did see something in the house. I had seen shadows moving around in the house but I never did see any ghost.

I have since moved out of that house. My son sleeps better at night and we don't have cold spots in the house or moving shadows.

The Swing Bridge

by Dylan Seals

This story takes place in the community of Bridge City, Texas. The area is a mostly swampy area along the Sabine River. An old bridge sits near the city limits of Orange, Texas. The bridge is old, nearly 80 years. But still it remains in service. Most in the area know of the woman who was to be put in a mental hospital. She had a child -- a four-month-old baby. She was not willing to give up the child. So she took the child, put it in a basket and tied it to a support on the bridge.

She was hoping she would elude capture and come back for her child when they couldn't find it. Unfortunately a rainstorm came through and the child's basket floated into Sabine Lake. When the woman arrived she was distraught and cried for her lost child. She then jumped off the bridge and was killed just like her child. Some call the bridge, the Crying Bridge because her crying can be heard late at night.

This is where I come in. I like to sometimes wander around with my friends out at the bridge. We'll goof off and fish from it at night. One night my friend and I went to the bridge to fish. It was a dark night and we had to use our own flashlights to see the water. It was around 11:30 at night and we were still trying for a catch when I heard a faint sob. I asked my friend if he heard it as well. He denied hearing it. Again it came. My friend still did not hear it. Then it became louder and more distinct. My friend this time claimed to hear it. We tried to shake it off. But every sound made us jump.

Around 11:45, we decided to head home. Then the sound of a woman crying out came to our ears. We jumped and spun around to see what made the cry. Nothing stood behind us. We tried again to explain it off. But then the cry came again, louder as if to wake the dead. As we turned, the image of a sobbing woman in a dress with a child in her hands was standing there before us. As quickly as she came, she vanished. We sprinted to my home (as it was closest) and burst through my door. We couldn't shake of the feeling that we were followed home. But we eventually calmed down.

Though we were calm the rest of the night, neither of us slept alone for several days after. That same night though, we didn't sleep. We kept the lights on and never left the house.

Ghost Called Samantha

by Sara
(New Orleans, LA)

My story actually takes place at my boyfriend's home. The first thing that I noticed was that the master bedroom and bathroom always seemed so much colder than the rest of the house. I dismissed this to heavier curtains in the room, not as much direct sunlight, etc. There were also things that were moved around or just a strange feeling of not being alone. My very rational mind allowed me to explain all of the incidents away, but after so long, you stop coming up with excuses.

The first thing that happened that really caught my attention was one afternoon we decided to take a nap. I clearly remember taking my shoes off at the back door so I wouldn't track through the house. Well, when we woke up, the shoes were sitting right outside of the bedroom door perfectly lined up. It startled me so much because I knew no one else was in the house but me and him and he was lying beside me still asleep.

Another incident is one night he was working late and I stayed over waiting for him to get off. As I was watching TV I kept touching my face. It felt like I had a spiderweb or a hair on my left cheek. Nothing was there and my left cheek was ice cold to the touch. Was she touching my face? I finally fell asleep watching Will and Grace on Lifetime. An hour or so later I was awaken by the TV blaring and it somehow had been changed to USA and an episode of Jag was on. I finally told my boyfriend about these things that had been happening and he very calmly told me, "Oh, that's just Samantha. She's here all the time."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He says she is always changing the channels, turning on radios, moving things around and twice she has slapped him in the face to wake him up so he wouldn't be late for work. He doesn't mind her being there and never feels threatened by her. Only once has he ever seen anything. He saw in the living room a bright light streak from one side to another. It appeared and disappeared right in front of his eyes. When I asked him how he knows her name was Samantha he just says that what he feels her name is.

Any feedback on this would be great. I'm not frightened by her, but I certainly have unanswered questions.

The Girl in the Trees

by Sean
(Gallia, Ohio)

When I was a teenager I loved to go a particular hangout not far from where our high school was located. It was a fairly popular place for students to congregate after school and games, because it was tucked away from the main road and pretty private. It was actually in a small park that had once been a playground back in the seventies and eighties. I had been out there a lot by myself, especially around dusk and just after nightfall, because like I said, it was a pretty quiet and peaceful place, and I enjoyed that time to myself. There were all kinds of stories about what used to be there, things that had happened there and so on. I always just thought that everyone told us those stories because the parents and the local police alike didn't really like us all getting together out there and causing trouble, plus, only a few people ever said they saw or felt anything out there, I was not one of them. A lot of people did go out to the old park to smoke, etc., sometimes to meet and have a fight or whatever, but for the most part it was just a place for us to hang out without our parents glaring over our shoulders giving us a hard time.


There were actually three tales I that I had consistently heard about the old park. The first one was about an old graveyard that used to be there back before most of the area around it had been developed. That the city had voted back in the thirties or forties to move it when a new highway was scheduled to come through close by, which would raise land prices, taxes, etc. and they were afraid no one would want to develop next to an old cemetery. So the city moved the graves and headstones and that the area was haunted by angry spirits who were disturbed in the rest.

The second story was that that the area used to house an old jail during the Civil War, and that there had been gallows there. They said that captured soldiers and criminals alike were hanged and beheaded there and that (again) there were angry spirits there who had lost their lives on that piece of ground.

The third story revolved around the old playground that used to be there back in the late seventies and early eighties. The story says that the city council put up a playground on the grounds to bring the community together, and because the high school used to be a middle school and a high school combined, which it actually was. Supposedly the town had a major growth spurt during that time period and they dedicated the small park to bring togetherness in the community, holding picnics and town social events there, fairs and festivals and whatnot. During one festival, there was a group of kids playing on the playground. A group of children was supposedly picking on one of the younger girls, chasing her around and being mean to her. The girl was on the merry-go-round when the group grabbed a hold of the bars and started spinning her around faster and faster. The little girl got scared and tried to jump off, except when she did, her dress got caught on one of the metal bars and pulled her underneath. The merry-go-round had so much inertia that it dragged her under and she ended up with a several broken bones, including a broken neck. The kids ran away in horror, but didn't tell any of the adults what had happened.

It wasn't until later on that evening they found her when one of the frightened children told what had happened, because by this time the whole community was looking for her. They found her bloody and bruised body under the merry-go-round, she had died hours before, right when she was pulled under.

Well, I'm a skeptic, and I never bought any of the stories. So, I thought I'd investigate it and see if anything really happened at all. Well, I looked through land records and burial record, and there was never any evidence that anyone had been buried there, no record of a controversial vote to move a cemetery, so I wrote that one off as a bunch of bull.

The second story about there being a jail there seemed unlikely, because we live in an area where not much went on during the Civil War. I couldn't find anything about battles fought near there, or anything about prisons or jails anywhere near our town either. So that one seemed obviously sensationalized.

But the last story seemed like maybe, maybe it was plausible, because the high school had been expanded several years ago and the middle school moved down the street from us when they split. I had seen old pictures of the park when the playground equipment had been there, but had never seen proof of anyone being killed there.

I started looking on the internet for deaths in the town, and murders, killings, so on and so forth. Well, I found nothing as I had expected. I let it go for a while and forgot about it. Until, one night I was out at the park around dusk by myself. I felt really odd all of a sudden, and got the chills. It wasn't a particularly cold night either, it was late summer and the fall chill hadn't really come in yet. I stood to attention when I heard a rustling in the bushes near where I was parked, thinking it was an old stray dog or something, I got in the car. Well, what happened next was pretty weird to say the least. I heard a little girl crying, sobbing really loudly. I freaked out and called out to see who was there and if they needed help. Well, I didn't have a flashlight or anything, but I kind of peered into the coming darkness but couldn't see anything. I yelled out several times, but the crying had stopped and no one answered. I got in the car and shined the headlights in the general area of the noise, what happened next sent my blood cold and freaked me out.

I saw a figure, not really clearly, in a little tattered dress standing next to the tree line. She was covered in dirt and her face looked tear stained. Well, I jumped out of the car to see what was wrong with her, and she was gone. I yelled out into the trees and ran over to see if I could help her, but there was nothing, except a chill in the air. I rushed home and told my mother what had happened, since this was before cell phones were a major deal. We called the police and filed a report. It was on the news the next morning, but no missing person reports had been filed in our county or any of the surrounding counties. I was freaked out to say the least. Everyone thought I made the whole thing up, just to stir commotion and try to scare everyone. Then people started asking me if I thought I had seen a ghost, maybe of the little girl. I was mad that no one believed me, but I was starting to get scared and freaked out even more about what I'd seen.

I started researching the local library files for old newspaper clippings about the town. I spent several days looking through old microfilm about anything that may have happened at the park back then. Sure enough, back in 1982 there was a front page article on "Tragedy Strikes Local Park". I read it and found out that the story about the little girl was true, she really had died out there. It followed the story fairly closely, except the newspaper said they didn't find her body until the next morning, because none of the kids told what had happened until then. The town was in despair and the parents of the little girl moved away with their young son.

After I found this information, I had it all printed out and showed my parents and my friends. Of course I was scared to death then, thinking I had seen a ghost. Rumors started flying, and then ghost sightings at the park became a regular occurrence. The mayor was so disturbed that he even hired a psychic and a ghost hunter to come out and investigate. Supposedly they had both felt a presence and determined that the little girl was haunting the area still. They had many ideas about what to do about the haunting and most seemed ridiculous. Finally, one of the council members suggested that the town erect a small memorial to the young girl, maybe to recognize the loss and show respect at least.

Once they put op the memorial, the stories died down and so did the sightings. To this day I still don't know what happened to me that night, it was possible it was my imagination, considering I had been wondering about the old park anyway, or maybe, just maybe I really had seen a ghost. Either way, I'm glad they put up that memorial, it was respectful, and maybe it put her spirit at ease. I never went back there alone, not especially when it was dark. But that is one night I will never forget, because it sparked a series of events that I feel to this day are still unexplainable.