It’s that spooky time of the year again! Props to anyone that started singing the Spooky Scary Skeleton song. Its October, and that means Halloween is close at hand. With Halloween comes costumes, parties, and lots of candy. There's also creepy tales of ghosts, goblins, witches, vampires, and any other mythical beasts that don’t exist. But then again, who says they don’t exist. Sure, vampires and werewolves seem a bit too farfetched, and witches tend to be as common as snow in the desert, but what about ghosts? Chances are you’ve met someone who’s had a creepy encounter on the spectral side. Maybe you’ve had an encounter yourself. I know I’ve experienced it multiple times, all encounters vastly different from each other. I’ve even had family members that have gotten visits from paranormal beings. So, in the spirit of October and Halloween, here is a collection of stories from myself, my friends, and my family involving paranormal visitors. Full disclosure, for the privacy of everyone here, names of the people here will be presented as the first letter of their first name, and the location where these events took place will remain private. With that said, let us move to the stories.
Talking Lillie Frog: This first one is an encounter of my own. For those who don’t know what a Talking Lillie Frog is, it’s a toy meant for little kids to help them learn to count and other things. It basically a battery powered frog toy in a purple outfit covered in different things, and you would press her heart, finger, or toes to make her say different things. If you are interested for a picture, there will be a link below this story. So, it was right after we moved from our old home, with just me, my sister, and my mom, to our new one, with me, my sister, my mom, and my now stepfather. My sister, R, and I had all the stuff from our room packed into big garbage bags for the move, and everything was unpacked after a while (excluding the things we didn’t want to unpack, like baby toys and miscellaneous stuff). If you hadn’t already guessed, The Talking Lillie Frog toy was in one of the bags in our room that wasn’t going to be opened. I don’t remember what time of the year or what day it was on, but I remembered that school was the next day (maybe a third of the way through the year). It was late, possibly around midnight or one in the morning, and everyone is asleep except for my mom and dad (the step father). I had just woken up because I swore I was hearing something talk. I didn’t know what, but I tried to go back to sleep because I figured it would stop. After about 10 minutes, the talking still hadn’t stopped, and I was extremely creeped out. I don’t remember what happened right after that, but it led to R waking, mom coming into the room, and both of us ripping open one of the garbage bags to get at what was inside, because whatever the noise was, it was coming from the bag. We rip open the bag and finally pull out what was making the noise. It was one of our Talking Lillie toys, possibly mine since the bag had my name on it. Mom wasn’t concerned but I was creeped out because I remembered that it had been making noise for 10 minutes straight, which wasn’t right. Mom and R figured that something in the bag moved and was holding down one of the buttons, I didn’t believe it because that’s not how Lillie worked. You had to press the button every time to make her talk again. So, mom said to open her up and just turn the battery box off (yes, battery box. Shout out to all the 90’s kids who remember those in our toys). I was holding the Lillie Frog in my hand, it was still making noise, and I ripped open the Velcro on her back to get at the battery box. I am not joking when I say that, when I opened her back, I felt chills go all over my body. The switch located on the battery box was already turned off. After promptly throwing the Lillie toy back into the bag and jumping into my bed screaming “Get it out get it out get it out!” the bag along with Lillie was taking by mom up to the attic where it has stayed for seven years, and it will continue to stay there.
Missing Earring and Shower Door: This encounter(s) are not my own, but have been experienced by a family member of mine, Aunt N. These encounters are much more long term hauntings then the sporadic, out of nowhere haunting of the Talking Lillie Frog toy. And since these encounters are somewhat short to put into words and happened to the same person, they are put into one section here. First, let’s do the short one of the shower door. This has happened on numerous occasions, when the kids are off to school, and Aunt N’s husband is off to work, she’ll be sitting on the couch or doing whatever when she’ll hear the shower door from the upstairs bathroom start opening and slamming shut. One would say it was just the wind, but this glass door, opening so suddenly then slamming shut just as quickly, does not seem to be caused by the wind because, it only happens when Aunt N is the only one home. The next is the story of the missing earring. Everyone’s been in a situation where they’ve lost something and they look all over for it, but it’s nowhere to be found, only to find it a day or two later in a place you may have missed or skimmed over quickly. This is a similar situation, but the object in question did not appear a few days later, or in a place that was skimmed over quickly. It was a nice night and Aunt N and the family wanted to go out to a nice dinner (don’t quote me on the dinner I can’t exactly remember the occasion). So, they all got ready and were just waiting for their daughter to finish so they could go. However, she was having a little problem. There was a pair of earrings she wanted to wear that night, but one of the earrings was missing, and she had no idea where it was. The whole family searched the house top to bottom in search of the one missing earing, but they came up fruitless. It was nowhere to be found. A week or so later, while walking past her dresser, she sees something that wasn’t there before. When she looked, the earring they had looked all over for was right on top of the desk in plain view with nothing else around it. It was weird enough because she never puts her earrings on the dresser and that it was in plain view where anyone could see it. But the creepy thing is, she had checked that spot numerous times that day it went missing and in the following week, and it wasn’t there earlier.
SpongeBob: Everyone has watched Spongebob once in their life. Maybe you still do, maybe you even have some Spongebob merchandise. Well my best friend B has one, and it is no ordinary SpongeBob toy. This is probably the worst case of a paranormal toy possession I’ve heard, and it is definitely creepy. This toy will be sitting on B’s bed, just laughing. She’d walk into her room and it’ll be on her bed laughing. No matter what she would do, it would always return to her bed and laugh. She threw it in the trash, returned to her room, and the SpongeBob will be laughing. Another time, she threw it in the pool and watched it sink to the bottom. When she went back to her room, you guessed it, it was on her bed, soaking wet, and laughing. That is not even the creepiest part of the paranormal activity. They SpongeBob toy, was a stuffed toy that wasn’t supposed to make noise. And it was always laughing.
Family Visit: We’ve all had a family member that we’ve lost. It is always devastating when someone we love passes on to what we hope is a more peaceful afterlife with no pain or suffering. However, sometimes our loved ones stay even after their passing. This section is about an experience from my step grandma, Mimi C, and my mother. Let’s start with my mother. It was a late night at my step father's house (this was before we moved into a home together and they had just started dating). So, it was a late night. Mom was fast asleep. Sometime during the night, she woke up to the sound of a little kid saying, “Mommy.” When she looked up, she saw what looked like a little girl and an older woman standing in the doorway of the bedroom. As soon as they were there, they were gone. She can only assume that they were the apportions of dad’s sister and grandmother who had passed years before. She had trouble falling back asleep after that. Now on to Mimi C, this one being much shorter then Mom’s. It was the Thanksgiving after poppy, my grandfather, had passed in his sleep. It had been at least four months since his passing and things were still a little… tense. Mimi C and dad’s sister, J had spent the night with us (this was after we moved). Late during the night, Mimi C woke up for no particular reason. When she woke up, she saw a figure sitting by the fireplace. The figure was poppy. He was just sitting there, staring at her. Then, he was gone. That was the last time she saw poppy since his passing.
Strange Visitor: This section is dedicated to my mom once again and her old co-worker’s cousin. Let’s start with mom once again. Everyone has had that sensation that someone is watching them, or they think they see someone out of the corner of their eye, and when they look, no one is there. Maybe you’ve even seen someone watching, but when the lights go on, they are gone. This has happened to my mom. There have been multiple occasions where she’d be working, she’d see someone standing at the front door of the work shop, but when she’d look to greet the person, the doorway would be empty. Now the co-worker’s cousin has experienced much worse. When he was a kid, during the night he would scream that a dark man was standing in the corner of the room. When his parents would turn on the lights, the dark man would be gone. This was a case of an evil spirit, because one night, the father woke up to a feeling of someone choking him. When the family finally moved out of the apartment where this had all taken place, the landlord lady was laying salt in the doorway. When they asked what she was doing, she said she was keeping the spirits inside.
So, this Halloween, be careful, because you may not be alone.
