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We Ran Over A Ghost!
Around 31 years ago, just after we had got engaged, my fiancé was driving us back from my parents home in Herne Bay, in Kent, in his open-top sports car. The motorway had only just been built, and there were hardly any cars on it in those days.
We crossed over the motorway to a village, and there at dusk - it was 9pm precisely - we ran over a ghost!
I felt a bump on my passenger side, and screamed: "We've run over someone!"
My fianc? had seen a tall figure, in a long riding mac, or trench coat, wearing long boots and a tall hat. I had caught a glimpse of this figure too.
We got out and had a look around, but there was nothing under or behind the car. It was dusk, and the headlights of our car were on, so we could see the area quite clearly. Weird!
When we reached the next phone box we rang my dad, who had at one time been involved with the Spiritualist church in Surrey. He advised us to contact the Psychic Research people when we got home.
What we actually did was to look up, in a book book on ghosts, all the known ghosts in that area.
The village where we'd had our ghostly encounter turned out to be Smarsden, in Kent - and it was listed as the most haunted village in that county!
In fact we found two ghosts described in the book that fitted the description of the ghost we'd "bumped into". As the road had been altered recently to make way for the turn-off road for the motorway, it could have dislodged a ghost, or apparition, of either "The Highwayman", or "The Schoolmaster"! Both descriptions fitted the figure we had seen.
I might add, now 30 years later, that I've since developed the gifts of channelling, or spiritual mediumship - but my husband is still a sceptic.
Jadine Wood
, Stroud, Glos., UK.
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Letty's Grave
The incident I am about to relate happened fifteen years ago. Several years earlier, when I was travelling in India, my father had died suddenly, and, as I could not be contacted for almost a week, I missed his funeral. So, when I eventually came back to live in England, one of the first things I did was to visit his grave. My sister accompanied me to show me where it was located.
After we had laid flowers on his grave, my sister remembered that this was the same graveyard in which our aunt Letty was buried. Letty had been the black sheep of the family and had been, by all accounts, "a bit of a character". She had died when my sister and I were young teenagers, but we had fond if somewhat vague memories of her from our childhood.
We decided we would find her grave and "say hello".
The graveyard was huge, and it had changed a great deal since I had last visited it, so I left it to my sister to locate Letty's grave. However, after searching through the rows of headstones for over twenty minutes, we still hadn't found Letty, and it was getting quite late. We were just about to give up when suddenly a woman's voice called out "Over here - I'm over here!". We both looked up in the direction of the voice, but we could see no-one. "It's someone playing silly beggers," my sister remarked, and walked over to the spot from where the voice had seemed to come. I followed her, feeling a little uneasy. But there was nobody to be seen. In fact the whole graveyard appeared to be deserted now. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and when I looked at my sister I saw that she had gone white. "This is it," she said, pointing down at the gravestone at our feet. With my heart pounding in my chest, I looked at the headstone and read my aunt's name on it...
I can't begin to describe to you how petrified I was - we both were - as we practically ran out of that graveyard, clutching onto each other.
This is a true story. There is no possibility of our having imagined that voice, or what it said, as we both heard the same thing. My sister and I have talked about it many times, and tried to find a less ghostly explanation for what happened on that day, but the only conclusion we can ever come to is that Letty wanted us to find her grave.
Mrs A. Chaney, Bucks, UK.
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Richard's Return
Back in 1994, I was still going out with my ex-boyfriend. I was very close to his family, in particular his dad, Richard, who was like another Dad to me. Richard and I used to sit and chat for hours about anything; we used to cook together and discuss why his son was such a git to me sometimes (ok so it was really all the time - hence him being an ex!). I was also just about to go into my final year at Uni at this point too and Richard was forever nagging me to do well.
During the first half term of my final year, Richard received a letter from Hull Royal Infirmary inviting him in for tests. He had experienced problems with his hands, and kept losing power in them. At various points he could not turn the key in the ignition in the car. As soon as I saw the letter, I had a really bad feeling, but could not tell anyone about it, because i hoped that I had got it wrong.
Richard duly spent a week in hospital having the tests done, in between his best efforts to sneak out to the pub! At the end of that week he was told that he had got the accelerated form of Motor Neurone Disease and that he would have a year to 18 months to live at the most.
We discussed his illness at various times and he asked my opinion about his option of suicide. I told him that I would support any decision that he made and would always love him, no matter what. That, because he was going to die anyway, he had the right to choose how he died. Also that, in the same circumstances, I would probably do the same thing myself.
I then asked him promise if, when he died and got to wherever he was supposed to go, he would come back and let me know that he was OK. He promised me that he would.
The following March, I had been to Paris on a field trip. When I returned, everything seemed OK and Richard and I had a similar discussion about suicide. He did not go into too much detail, just asked my opinion again and I gave the same response that I had before.
On the Wednesday night, as I was going to bed, I felt a prescence in my room. I talked to it and asked if it was Richard and said that I hoped that he was OK and had not died. I told the presence that, if it was Richard, that I loved him very much and would always love him. Also that if he was dead, that I hoped that he was at peace and happy. Then I went to sleep.
The following day, I kept wanting to ring Richard's home and even dialled the number a couple of times, but each time put the phone down before it rang. On the Friday, I went to meet my boyfriend at his place in Leeds. As I arrived, he asked me to sit down and told me that his Dad had disappeared late on Wednesday night. The police had conducted a full search of the area, due to the circumstances, but had been unable to find a trace of him. They suspected that he had gone into the river, in which case his body would not surface for 4-5 weeks and that there was a possibility that it would never surface.
During the following five weeks, we all tried to carry on with life as normal. I had to complete my coursework and dissertation and did so at Richard's house. This was so I could help his wife out as she had just been into hospital to have her gall bladder removed also so I could study for my finals etc in peace. On one occasion, I was working at the PC and took a break to play cards. After a while I felt someone stand behind me and tickle the back of my neck, but there was nobody there. I said 'OK Richard, I will get on with my dissertation', and flicked back on to the Word processor. As soon as I did so, the presence vanished.
At the end of the five weeks, my boyfriend and I cycled along the river bank and stopped at various points to admire the view. I looked at the River and, inside my mind, shouted at the top of my voice 'give him back!'. I couldn't shout out loud, my boyfriend would not have understood.
The next evening, the coroner arrived at the house to tell us that they had found a body, which was later identified as Richard's.
A week later, we all attended the cremation and thanksgiving service. Richard didn't want any of us to be unhappy that he had died. He wanted us to celebrate the fact that he had had a wonderful life. I am still doing that. I think of him with very fond memories, sometimes I am sad, but most of the time I smile when I think of him. He still pops back to visit me every now and then - just to say hi! then he goes away again.
Antonia, Wiltshire, UK.
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Sparky
The following incident happened some years ago, when my children were still young (they're in their late 20's now).
Sunday was the family's day out. Every Sunday morning we'd all bundle into the car - myself, my husband, our three kids and Sparky, our dog - and head out of the city. Since this story is about Sparky, I should tell you a little bit about him. He was an unusually large and hyperactive border collie (the person who gave him to us when he was a puppy insisted he was a thoroughbred, but I have my doubts about that). Sparky was very much a member of the family, and the kids wouldn't go anywhere without him.
Usually we didn't decide where to go until we were on the open road. Sometimes we'd only drive ten or fifteen miles - to the beach if it was a hot day - but other times we'd travel quite long distances, 100 miles or more. We avoided towns and built-up areas to avoid getting stuck in traffic. It was always a bit of a magical mystery tour, and we ended up in all kinds of strange and remote places.
On this particular occasion, we came to a stop in a picturesque village called Gwynedd in Wales. We spent some time exploring the ruins of a castle - or at least the kids did, while myself and my husband explored a nearby graveyard, whose headstones dated back to the 1700's. "Grave-spotting" is a bit ghoulish, I know, but we've both always been fascinated by old graveyards. You can find out all kinds of interesting things about a place by visiting the local cemetery and reading the headstones. Sparky, meanwhile, found a local dog to play with, so everybody was happy.
When it was time to go, we rounded up the kids, and it was then that we noticed that Sparky was missing. We looked everywhere for him, calling out his name and asking local passers-by if they'd seen him, but there was no sign of him. Eventually, as it was beginning to get dark, we decided that we'd have to give up. We were eighty miles from home, and the kids had to be up early for school the following morning. Needless to say, they wanted to stay and keep looking, but there wouldn't have been much chance of finding him anyway once it had become dark. Trying to find a black dog on unlit and unfamiliar country roads would have been an exercise in futility. In the end, we telephoned the local police, who were very sympathetic and helpful and took our home phone number and address and promised to look out for him. We also put a "lost dog" message in the window of what appeared to be the main newsagent in the town. There was nothing more we could do.
The long drive home was a dismal affair, as can be imagined. Holly, our youngest, was in tears for the entire journey. The two boys were silent and grim-faced. They'd wanted to stay on and keep searching for Sparky, and they were resentful of the fact that we'd insisted on leaving. They also felt guilty because they'd neglected to put Sparky's collar and tag on him before we left the house that morning. This was a bone of contention, as I had often reminded them to make sure he was wearing his collar and tag when they took him out, in case he got lost, and they had always insisted that he was too smart to get lost, and that he didn't like wearing a collar. And now he had got lost, and there was no way for anyone who found him to contact his owners. Our only real hope was that the local Welsh police would find him.
The atmosphere of gloom and despondency lasted for the whole of the return journey.
We arrived home around 11pm, and, as we drew up outside our house, the first thing we saw was Sparky, standing on our porch wagging his tail with an air of "where have you been? I've been waiting here for ages!" Needless to say, we were pleased and relieved to see him - especially for the kids' sake - but also stunned and completely baffled. It didn't seem possible that he could be back at the house, when the last time we'd seen him was in a Welsh village eighty miles away!
Possibly there is a rational explanation of how Sparky found his way home (and - just as inexplicable - how he managed to get home before we did!), but if there is, I've never been able to think of it. My husband (I call him "Mr Logical") - who dismisses the possibility of any psychic explanation - is even more baffled. For ages he went around saying "there has to be a logical explanation..." but he was never able to come up with one. Nor has anyone else for that matter. To this day the whole thing is a mystery, and I'm inclined to think, at this stage, that it will always remain one.
Mrs G. Hopkins, Staffs, UK.
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Precognitive Dream
One night, some years ago, I had a vivid and colourful dream
in which I was riding a horse in a deserted but beautiful
place. I just kept looking around enjoying the scenic
beauty as well as the horseride (I had never ridden a horse!).
Suddenly, the scene changed, and now I was riding along a beach. I could tell that it was early in the morning at
around 4 or 4:30am and I could see the waves rushing onto the shore.
All of a sudden my horse behaved as if frightened and I looked out towards the sea. I saw an air plane and I could read the words
"INDIAN AIRLINES" on its side; and as I was looking at it,
suddenly, the plane bursts exactly into two pieces and
crashed into the sea. I woke up abruptly and looked at my bedside clock: it was 4:45am. Wondering, I went back to
sleep.
The following morning's newspaper carried the story of an
accident in which at around 4:30am that morning, an
Indian Airlines plane which had taken off from Bombay
airport broke in two and fell from the sky, killing everybody on board.
I could not react for quite some time.
Shrinivasan Seshadri, Chennai, INDIA
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Ghostly Message on the Keyboard?
In November of 2001 I happened to see a TV show called "Crossing Over," with John Edward. From then I was completely hooked on the programme, and watched it every time it was on.
Shortly afterwards I bought his book "One Last Time," in which he explains that we all have spirit guides and that with some practice are able to tune in to them.
I spent one Saturday evening reading the book, and, on retiring to bed I voiced to my own guides that I would like them to verify their existence in my own life; and I stipulated that it would have to be something I couldn't overlook or pass off as a coincidence.
With that I went to sleep.
The following day I was trying to compose a letter regarding my personal finances. I reached for my pen which was on top of my word processor keyboard. The machine was still switched on and, as I picked up the pen, I touched against one of the number keys. Words started to run across the screen, and my initial response was to panic, as I thought I was deleting the book that I'm writing.
After a couple of lines, the text stopped running across the page and at the end of the text the number 143 appeared. Like a bolt of lightning it hit me, and I picked up John Edward's book and found the passage of text I'd remembered. He'd been doing a reading for someone and had asked what the number 143 meant to them. Nothing came to the lady sitter's mind, but after a few minutes John said it rang a bell for him: it was the number that he and his wife used to say "I love you" in code on private messages and letters. The subsequent text in the book went on to explain how spirits are also able to communicate through electrical equipment...
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up!
Was this a message from my guides saying that they are there and do love me?
Emily Sanchez
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The Ghost in the Rocking Chair
Ever since I moved into my Dad's house (my parent's are divorced) in 1995, I knew there was something odd about it, but since I was eight years of age then, I didn't think much of spirits or psychic experiences. Not that i didn't believe in ghosts; I was just too immature to understand them. But when I turned 13 I began having experiences, odd ones that couldn't be rationally explained. The first happened when I was taking pictures on a digital camera of my bathroom, just to test the camera, since I had just acquired it. After taking about a dozen pictures, I compiled them so that it would appear to be camera footage, or a panorama, on the camera. What came out startled me. After watching this "movie" fotage of my bathroom, the camera stops on the last frame, which was of the closet. What was in the closet was a humanlike form floating in mid-air. It had black holes for eyes and a large gaping mouth. Being 13, I panicked, looked at the closet, saw nothing, and ran out of the bathroom. I refused to go into that bathroom for months after this incident. But this was just my first strange experience. On other occasions I have heard banging sounds on my door at night, and when I answer it, I find my dad and stepmom sound asleep and a cool area by the door. This one time I woke up to see an old woman in a rocking chair by my bed.
One thing has stuck in my mind. When my dad asked the previous owner of the house, an old man, why he wanted to sell it, he looked around nervously before replying: "Oh, I can't find it easy to sleep here anymore... too many..." (with a glance behind his shoulder) ..."memories of my wife...".
Now it's possible that this was the reason he wanted to move, but I'm not so sure. Something in his voice made me think that he was wasn't telling the whole story. My own opinion is that the house is haunted by his wife.
If any readers have any questions, my email address is jsherid2@bellsouth.net
Jeff Sheridan, Plantation, Florida, USA.
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