Halloween…. The night of the year when the veil between the living and those who have died is the thinnest. For Wiccan and Pagan communities, it is a time of celebration. For those cultures who celebrate Halloween it is more commonly known as a night when kids and kids at heart dress up in costumes and the kids go trick or treating, and the adults have parties. It falls on October 31 because the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, considered the earliest known root of Halloween, occurred on this day. It marked a pivotal time of year when seasons changed, but (more importantly) observers also believed the boundary between this world and the next became especially thin at this time, enabling them to connect with the dead. This belief is shared by some other cultures. It’s a night where it has become tradition to hear or tell ghost stories, watch horror movies, and generally scare ourselves and have fun doing it.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, we haven’t really had Halloween as such a huge thing like it is in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in the USA. But some do celebrate it here. So in honour of the season and the fact that there are two Halloween eves in the world, one in each hemisphere. I am having special episodes of the Walking the Shadowlands podcasts. One today for our Halloween’s eve and one tomorrow for the Northern Hemispheres Halloween eve. Two nights of genuine ghost stories and paranormal experiences.

So get yourself comfortable, turn down the lights, but not too low – you want to be able to see what is lurking in the corners of your room, or out in your corridor, or on your stairs…. Get your nice warm cuppa tea, or coffee, or favourite tipple. And, your rug if it’s cold where you are. Or your…. What!?! Did you just hear a noise then? Did you hear that? Oh must have just been my imagination! Are you ready to walk with me, into this part of the shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Are you brave enough? Then let’s begin!

Halloween 2020 – Southern Hemisphere

This is the second year that Walking the Shadowlands has been able to have Halloween episodes, which are a lot of fun to create and voice. This year though, it’s a little different, because, I’ve had some wonderful guests on I’m going to re-share some of their paranormal experiences that our new listeners – and welcome to you all this wonderful evening, may not have heard before. I’ll start this episode off with an incident that happened to me when I lived in Waxhaw, North Carolina, in the early-mid two-thousand’s with my then husband at that point in time.

My Story

At that time, I was living in a small town called Waxhaw, about 30 minutes out of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was mid morning. It was daylight, broad daylight and I was sitting in our sun room resting, because I had just hurt my back and could barely move. It was bit of a mission for me to get on and off the chair. A bit like being in late pregnancy, it took me a few minutes. I definitely couldn’t just leap up off of my chair like I would have normally.

So I was just sitting there, feeling rather sorry for myself, reading and just resting. When out of the corner of my left eye I see this large blond, vaguely familiar woman, standing on the other side of our decking. I saw her from the waist up. Which was actually impossible (but I didn’t even consider this at the time), because of the height of the decking from the ground. It would have made her about twelve feet tall. I did a double take when I realised she was smiling broadly at me and waving to get my attention.

I smiled, waved back at her and called out to Jay in the next room. I told him there was someone on our property who was wanting our attention. Could he please check? And at the same time I turned to look at him in the other room. When I turned back to look at her she had gone. I assumed that because I had acknowledged her, that she had now gone to the front door of our house. However, as Jay was on the way to the front door to check if she was there the phone rang. It was my Mother-in- Law to say that she had just heard from Rhonda, my then sister-in-law, that Rhonda’s mum was critically ill in hospital. That was when I realized it was her, that I had actually just seen. I didn’t recognize her initially, because she looked younger and far healthier than when I had last seen her.

I said to Jay, no, no, no. She’s not ill. She’s actually passed away, because that’s who I just saw. Then, at that minute, the phone rang again and it was to say that they had just received news that she had passed over. You have to understand that I rarely, perhaps a handful of times in my life, have seen spirit that look absolutely solid, like a living person. And she, was one of them. I realized afterwards, that she had come to tell me she was ok, so I could pass that onto her daughter, Rhonda. Because, she knew I was a medium and would likely be able to see her, to pass the message on. So that was one of my more interesting experiences I have had in broad daylight. And one of the few, where I have not been able to initially tell that they were a spirit and not a living person.

This first experience is from Deb in Michigan, in the United States, and comes from episode fifty of our podcast, called Tyler’s Return. Now this episode was an incredibly, incredibly emotional episode. A bit of a back story, she lost her husband, who she was deeply, deeply in love with. He was killed in a tragic accident, and a few months after his death she started experiencing paranormal stuff in her home, and never put the two and two together. That it was Tyler, letting her know that he was still around her, and that he loved her. These are the first couple of major experiences that she had in her home following his passing, before she made the connection who it was.

Tyler’s return

Deb: The most profound things we saw move…. One particular day I come up from our basement and was walking through my kitchen and I had a very expensive camcorder. Of course back in two-thousand and four, camcorders were pretty expensive. And, I used mine quite a bit and it was sitting on a kitchen counter I had. So, as I’m walking by it I glanced over at it, so my eyeballs are looking right at this camcorder. I saw it lift up off the counter and it literally come flying at me! Well, instead of catching it, which I should have done. It kind of freaked me out and I panicked. So I dodged it and it ended up falling to the ground.

And this is going to sound kind of terrible, so I’ll try and keep it PG, ‘cause, it’s a bathroom story. One day…. And this was during the summer at this point. Tyler passed away in April and now this is June, July, I wanna say, after he…. Or maybe a little bit later in the summer. It was so warm outside, so maybe it was like August, September? And the kids were back at school and I was again home alone, during the day. And, I had a dog that’s a boxer and he was about two years old when this happened. And so, I went into the bathroom to do my business. Ok? If you know what I’m talking about? So, I’m sitting there…. And you know how animals always want to be by their owners when they’re in the bathroom doing their business?

Marianne: Yes, I do.

So there tags along my little dog and he, well, he wasn’t so little. And, he’s sitting right at my feet while I’m in the bathroom doing my business, my morning business. The dog is sitting there. My bathroom door’s wide open, ‘cause, I’m home alone. Like why would you close the door if you’re home alone? So, as I’m sitting there my dog all of a sudden perks up, stands up and all of the hair on his back completely raises. And, he starts growling. And I’m like woah! Wait a minute. I’ve had this dog and raised it from a puppy for two years and I’ve never heard this dog growl. Never! Not ever once in it’s life, have I ever heard this dog growl.

So then, all of a sudden, he started slowly creeping toward the door of the bathroom that was wide open. And, I’m like oh wow. And then all the hairs on my entire body stood on end. And mind you, I’m trapped on the toilet, ‘cause, I haven’t done my paper work yet – if you know what I’m talking about? So, I’m kind of panicking, because, here I am sitting in a vulnerable position and my dog is slowly creeping towards the door growling like I’ve never heard him growl before. So then he pokes his head around the corner and manages to work his way out into the hallway, and he’s facing my master bedroom. He’s facing my master bedroom and the dog just stays there. And, I can see his head moving back and forth as if he’s looking at something. And then…. And I kept my eyes peeled right at the door, because, I felt as if there were something in there. Like I could feel it, all the hairs on my body and everything.

It felt like static electricity all through my body and so the dog is growling at my door. And before I know it, I see this giant, black shadow cross in front of my door way in my bedroom, ok? So the windows in my bedroom were illuminating into the hallway and something crossed in front of them, that was completely like a shadow, in the shape of a human being. And, I almost had a heart attack! I…. ‘Cause, there was somebody in my house! You see a shadow in the shape of a giant man and the dog is looking at it and growling at it, you…. I’ve never done my paperwork on the toilet so fast before in my life!

I was trying to pull up my drawers and running out into the hallway as fast as I possibly could…. And, when I did step into my bedroom, it was cold…. Like it felt really cold in there and there was this static electricity kind of feeling in the air, that I’d never felt in the house before. And, of course, there was nobody there Marianne! There was nobody …. And, it was cold in there, despite it being very hot outside, like and eighty degrees plus day outside and sunshiny during the day. So it creeped me out so badly, that I went and investigated the rest of my entire house, to see if I was for sure there alone. And, yes I was.

And of course, not all paranormal experiences are pleasant. This is Belinda’s story and the beginning experiences of a major haunting episode. That lasted over a period of a number of years where she was tormented, absolutely tormented, and haunted by entities who traumatized her and later her daughter as well. The full episode was called “A Haunting in Australia” There are links to these episodes at www.walkingtheshadowlands.com from this episodes page, or you can just look them up on the website.

A Haunting in Australia

I moved into a unit on the central coast, in New South Wales, in Australia. From the very first night I moved in there it felt very uneasy. I didn’t feel comfortable, like I was constantly watched, and I especially didn’t feel comfortable being in my bedroom. I felt like I needed an easy escape route kind of thing, so I slept on the lounge in the lounge room.

So the very first night, I remember laying on the lounge, and I woke. And there was a tall, long-haired, solid man with a flannelette jacket walked in my entrance door. And closely followed behind him was a shorter man with a bald head. My eyes felt all groggy, and I swore it was just a dream but I think… so I went back to sleep and woke again, and saw the same people, but they were in shadow form now. And I remember looking up and just seeing the short balder guy sitting on my TV in shadow form and he just went “shhhh” (Finger to mouth), like that at me.

Almost every night I was in this house, in this unit, I would have that feeling. I would have that feeling of… so, so if you were to close your eyes and hold your hand an inch or so above your skin and you can feel that there’s an energy force there? I would have that feeling. Like there was someone behind me. I would sleep with the covers over my head, tucked under my feet. I’d have the fan going 24/7 just to have background noise and block out something, and I would just hear – just have that feeling constantly.

I had multiple situations with these same beings all the time. And then it escalated one night where I actually had a very – yeah, a very scary encounter. I woke to tapping on the roof, or … ‘cause, I was on the bottom level of a multi-level apartment. I just assumed it was a couple upstairs having a dispute. I woke to hear (stomping her feet), on the floor, ceiling above my bed. And it went again just (stomping her feet again). It went two or three times and then it stopped. And then, they went again! Then I heard running across the floor above me, and the door above me slamming and people running (Belinda, stomping feet) down the stairs. And then, the loudest bang! Which I thought was on my front door. But it could have been on my bedroom door. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

I freaked! I didn’t know what to do! It was about three or four in the morning. I ended up ringing the police, and they attended, and no one answered the door upstairs. They weren’t sure if someone was in there. There was no sound of movement up there, and I later come to find out, that I think that – that place was actually unoccupied. So, I don’t know if what I – I don’t know if what I encountered was a replay of a domestic situation? But it was very, very frightening.

A few nights later I was laying in bed, again I saw… And the door handle started to slowly creak up and down, just…. It wasn’t a round knob. It was kind of one of those side… kind of like a… I don’t know what you call it? A lengthways handle, and it was slowly creaking. Yeah – up and down, and then it just slammed down and the door swung open. The door frame was empty for a second and then this, the tall shadow being with the long hair was there, and then he just lunged at my bed in a shadow blanket form. I was so petrified – I’m even shaking a bit now just thinking about it. My whole body just shook. It was the middle of winter, and I was sweating and felt like I had a fever. It was, it was terrible.

I remember telling one of my bosses about it and she believed, she believes in the spirit world. She said, “I don’t know who that is, but whoever it is, they do not want you in there. You need to get out right away!” That didn’t help at all! So, yeah within – I gave my notice pretty much straight away, and every morning I would wake up just in tears, like grateful that I made it through the night. It was really… I don’t know who it was… I have a feeling now, that it may have been to do with – there’s a men’s rehab facility next door, a woman’s refuge across the road from the hospital. I think it was to do with someone who had overdosed. And yeah, these two beings they just were nasty and really enjoyed terrifying me.So I got out of that. God, that was when I was twenty-two or so, I’m now almost 37. But, it still gives me chills recalling that.

This experience from Vicki was a particularly scary one, and one that has lasted with her for many, many years. This was from
season 1, from an episode called, ‘Things That Go Bump In the Night’.

Don’s House

I’ve got a tale to tell you from when I was quite a young girl, I was eighteen. One of my friend’s, one my school friends mum, she lived in this house and she rented – oh board and lodgings, I suppose you would call it. Anyway, we had one young fellow there, named Don who – he left, he moved out. And there were six of us living in the house, and he started coming back. We would all hang out in the kitchen, you know and talk and stuff. Anyway, he started coming around a lot, and then he was really hesitant to go back to his home, and we were like – What’s going on? Anyway he… and his physical appearance started to change. I knew him very well. I grew up in a foster home with him. Anyway, so I really noticed a big difference in him.

Anyway, this particular night he came over and it was probably about eleven-thirty and we were saying – look, I’m going to bed, I’m tired – nick off! Go home! And he was like aw I don’t really want to go home. I said why, what’s wrong? And he said aw nothing, aw you’ll think I’m mad. We were going aw no, what’s happening? Anyway, he told us this – like a tale I suppose.

He said that there were things going on in his room, and at first…. From the first night he moved in there, things were – he could hear noises, and he would go out of the room and he would come back and things would have been moved. Anyway, we sort of said – well you know, like what’s the big deal on that? And he said oh no, it’s getting worse now. To the point that he didn’t want to be there. He was frightened. We were like oh cool! Let’s be ghost hunters and we’ll go around to his house.

Anyway in Geelong where we were from, the house is sort of like an old, I dunno – a worker’s cottage, or something – very old. Over a hundred years old. And, it was across the roads from the wool sheds, so they – I dunno, it was like a big sheep industry. And yeah, so they stored all the bales and stuff, but this old… and it was sort of like a terrace house, I don’t know if you know what they are, but you walk in the front door –
bedrooms either side, go down a big long passage and more rooms and then out the back to the left was the kitchen.

Anyway Don’s room was at the front of the house, and we went there. He told us that he could hear a baby cry. Like a little, tiny, newborn baby. And it was so strong, like this… so loud that he thought that there was a baby in the room. So he got to the point where he was actually opening his cupboard and looking, because it was so real. Like he said, it freaked him out.! He couldn’t find anything of course, so he thought oh maybe it’s somebody next door.

Anyway, what really, really spun him out was I think the last straw for him, he was in his room and had very voluptuous hair – It was the early 80’s, and he had his brush… And his brush, constantly brushing his hair. Anyway, he said he put the brush on his bedside table and it went flying off and then his wardrobe door come flying open and his shirts come flying out and he just went stuff that! I’m out! Anyway, he ended up telling us all this, this night, and we were like holey hell! We’re going, we’re going! I wish we didn’t ‘cause, we went there and we were sitting in the lounge… oh sorry, not the lounge, the kitchen area. And it was like as soon as you walk in the door, immediately to your right was a dining room table. Like an old table. And then opposite that was a big… like you know, the old wood stoves? Big, clunky, old stove. Then there’s to the right is the back door. But, it’s one of those big… I always say it’s like a farmer’s door or a.. oh I don’t even know what the word for it is, but, it’s really big, solid, heavy planks. With sort of like a Z shape holding it together and a big brass lock and door handle. Anyway that door was open. We were all sitting around. There was Don, Eddy, Carol, Lyle, and myself, and one of Lyle’s friends. And we were literally sitting there and all talking about this stuff that was going on in Don’s room.

Anyway, it was literally…we were sitting there and it was like somebody had opened a freezer door, it went sooo cold. And our breath, like we were freezing and we were like oh, what’s going on? And then literally it felt like something was going like this, like rubbing their hand across our check and it went around the back of our head, and then it went to the next one and the next one. You could literally see as this, whatever it was, moved around us. You could see the look on people’s face… Like everyone sort of went (makes gulping sound). You know, oh my gawd!

When it got to Carol, she was sitting on Lyle’s lap at the table and it… she said something’s touching me, and Lyle’s like, what are you doing Carol? And she said I don’t know it was… she said it was like somebody standing behind her and pushing down on her shoulders. Pushing her into Lyle. And he was going, get off me! What are you doing? It wasn’t her. It was whatever this thing was. Anyway, it turned around and it grabbed her throat. It…. And she was visibly going (making choaking sounds). Like it grabbed her and we were like oh my god. Anyway, next thing it, the back door slammed. That big bang! And the key came flying out and that was it! We were just like ahhhh (scared sounds). And we were running out of the house. We were high-tailing it down the passage, and we heard this almighty bashing, up in the… up in the ceiling.It was like an attic you know? With you, pull the stairs or ladder down?

Anyway, there was this huge ruckus. Massive banging up there and we were like oh my god. Eddie, who lived in the house with Don… he said, I’m going to go and have a look and we go NO don’t do that. Let’s just go. Anyway, he went up there, and he was up there for about – I don’t even know… thirty seconds? And there was this almighty, blood-curdling scream from him and he comes flying out from this, from the attic – or whatever you call it. And he was…what is the word? Like he had a mental breakdown. Like he was… he was gone. He ended up in a psych ward. He, yeah… whatever it was, was not good.

And then Carol went and looked at the archives to see if anything had happened in that house. Apparently there was a guy – I didn’t see it myself, but apparently there was a guy in the thirties, or forties – I don’t know, I think maybe around depression time? And he killed his wife and newborn baby. He had threw the baby on the ground and dashed its head onto the stones. Like onto the… little, tiny baby. And I think that’s what… I don’t know whether it was the house making him do it, like whatever… Or that was him in the house doing that to us? I dunno, whatever… it was physical, and it moved things around like it was very violent. It was nasty. Ooh I get goose bumps, just thinking about it.

But it was um… poor old Eddie yeah… it was, I dunno what he saw up there, but it didn’t do him any good. And we never, ever went back. Don didn’t even go back to get his clothes or anything. He left, he just didn’t… He come back to the house with us. But yeah, that was probably, the most horrific thing. You don’t wanna ever have an experience… Like I read about all these people who have these nice things that… yeah that wasn’t a very good one.

Like I say, it wasn’t a nice experience. It wasn’t… for a first time, and you sit there and you thing aw like, you know I’ve had other experiences, nothing like that though. They’ve been nice… I suppose. But this one was nasty, and it more seems like I think now… I was thinking the other night I was like… Holey hell, we were really silly, because he could have attached himself to us or… Like, it hurt Eddie – I don’t know what it did to him mentally… or… and it was almost like – and this is where… It was almost like it was being friendly and nice, and then yeah… and then it sort of escalated like that! Like snap your fingers… yeah, oh this is not nice…

Sometimes in hauntings, the entity or spirit will give themselves nick names, or they’ll give themselves a name that they can be
recognised by. In this case this entity referred to themselves as the hulk. From episode 33: The Hulk – A Haunting in Kansas and is
from Lauren.

The hulk – A haunting in Kansas

My daughter’s dad had come down with his dad and they came to stay the night. They were supposed to do something… They had some business to do and they were going to be here for couple of days and they were staying at my house. I remember, I heard all this racket going on in the room with the blue, glowing windows and so I went in there and started recording for a few minutes. I didn’t listen to it right away. I was kind of scared to listen to it but, I finally did listen to it and it was the hulk, the man whispering; “He’s in the red. Get the right man.” And I was thinking, what does that mean? So I went back over the photos I had taken that weekend.

We had taken several photos and their Grandpa was wearing a black t-shirt, and their Dad was wearing a red t-shirt. So I realized then, he was talking about their Dad. And I thought why was he talking about their Dad, and then I remembered. I had kind of told them that night about some of the stuff that was going on and kind of warned them. If you hear some weird noises in the night that’s probably why. And I remember their Dad kind of laughing it off and he was saying; “I’m not afraid of any ghost! He’s not going to scare me.” And this kind of thing, to just kind of taunt him.

So, that night he…. He went to bed. He slept in the girl’s room, and his Dad slept in the other room with the weird, glowing windows. He slept truly fine. But I stayed up late watching TV and I heard something. Like stomping across the floor. I didn’t even really bat an eye, because, I was so used to footsteps at this stage, that it didn’t even…. It barely registered with me. But I remember I, at some point I shut off the TV and went to bed. And then I came back up the stairs to get a bottle of water. And as soon as I opened the door, at the top of the stairs, I saw their Dad standing there in the kitchen. He was just kind of standing there in the dark, kind of peeking around the corner. I said, “What are you doing?” And he was like, “Well, I was expecting you to come around the other corner, over there.” I was like. “Why? What are you talking about?” And he said, “Well, ‘cause, I just heard somebody up here. Somebody was stomping up towards me and I could hear them getting closer and closer. Then I heard somebody going hey!” And I guess he jumped up and was looking around for somebody and there was nobody there. But yeah after…. Pretty much, like after that he never really…. He didn’t make fun of it any more. He knew it wasn’t anything I was exaggerating, or making up things. He never, never said anything else about it.

Not all paranormal experiences are scary. Some have a touch of humour about them. Or maybe, it’s the person who experienced them. This is Don, from season five. The episode entitled ‘I Met a Ghost In Gettysburg’. I really enjoyed my conversation with Don, he has such a wonderful sense of humour. And before his experiences – before he brought this haunted home, that he loved so dearly and restored, he was an absolute sceptic. So his experiences in this home changed his life completely. And then he went on to have some experiences with the paranormal at Gettysburg. Hence the name of the episode, I Met a Ghost in Gettysburg. He wrote a book about his experiences. So this is Don.

I met a ghost in Gettysburg.

Much of the house is original to 1835. A lot of the woodwork, doors, hardware, has never been changed and unfortunately it was in such rough shape that some of the floors would not bear your weight from the water damage. You could stand in the basement, look through the ground, and second floor levels and through the roof and see the sky in one spot. But we thought, well – and I told my wife about it and she was intrigued – we looked at it and we had three different contractors come through and give us estimates, and we thought yeah! There’s enough here that’s solid that we could restore. So we bought it, bit the bullet, and I’m glad we did.

But, early on when we were working on the house outside, a gentleman who had lived here for almost 25 years saw us outside. He pulled in, came almost running over to us, and said “you guys know this house is haunted?”. Well we hadn’t really worked inside with it much, so my wife and I looked at each other – I had to bite my tongue because what I wanted to say, is that that explains the half-empty booze bottles we’re finding hidden in different parts of the house – but he seemed like a nice guy and I didn’t want to be rude. He was an art teacher, a music teacher – a substitute teacher at that time, in schools. I think he was of retirement age. So we listened to him and kind of let him go and didn’t argue with him. Things seemed okay until he told us about being visited by aliens who disappeared into the cornfield, so we really didn’t put much stock at all in what he told us.

It wasn’t until too much later that we started experiencing some of the very things that he experienced. The one that really sticks out, he said he’d often hear footsteps running across upstairs from a bedroom at one end of the house, through the middle, across the hallway into the North bedroom, and the door would slam. Oh, the odd thing was the door at the top of the stairs that we would hear close was actually stuck part way open. Could not be budged – it had swelled from some of the water damage. But yet you would clearly hear the door close, and even the metallic click of the lock set. And when I heard that I thought what in the world? I thought there must be an animal, like a racoon or something in the house. I ran upstairs – nothing. The door was not moved, and it couldn’t be moved, and there weren’t even any footsteps in the dust. We had not done anything upstairs yet. And I was just kind of like, wow, what in the world is going on here?

Well that repeated itself different times and we would often hear. This sounded like very light, barefoot footsteps – perhaps a child or maybe a small woman, is what it sounded like. We would hear heavy steps, I would hear them – like the front door open, and I would hear footsteps go down the main hall, or go up the steps and hear walking around upstairs – but the door did not open, and there was nobody visible. Just these sorts of things. And I was thinking I was losing my mind. Luckily my wife was helping me work here – she experienced them.

A good example is one time when we were working upstairs and the South bedroom – which is actually the newer part of the house from the eighteen-sixties – we heard the front door open, we heard somebody walk across the living room, and into the dining room. Just real as could be, and we thought someone from the family had stopped out to visit. Looked out the window and there were no cars in the drive, so then I hollered down the back stairs – no answer. I went downstairs to look – there was nobody there. But it could not have been a more realistic sound. So these were the sorts of things that really got our heads, you know, just spinning.

But some of the things that really were odd is electronics. We had to get the electricity to the house turned off, it was very old wiring. It had been water damaged and we didn’t want to risk a fire, so we got no power in the house. We used everything either by batteries or had a generator that we would run outside. And, we had radios, battery powered radios, a CD player – because we were doing a lot of work with saws and sawdust, kicking up dust – I had found a CD player radio at a garage sale. Well this thing would shut off or turn on on it’s own, it would change radio stations. And, I thought it was defective. I threw it away and bought a brand new one. And this one would come on, turn on and off by itself, change radio stations by itself. I thought what in the world is going on here?

The most amazing one is my wife Diane and I were working outside – working on bricks, tuck-pointing bricks – and the radio kept going from music we were listening to, to a Bowling League State University men’s basketball game, and it didn’t matter what station we put it on, within 30 seconds it was back on the basketball game. It was kind of insulting because Bowling Green is the arch rival to the University of Toledo, where I attended. Which kind of adds some humour to it. But we gave up trying to change it, I bet we changed it a dozen times and it went back. Finally, when the game was over we put it back on our original station and then had no more problems. It’s like, we were just scratching our heads at this!

Another time I was working, and it was after dark, and I had a saw set up in the living room. I was cutting floorboards to replace the upstairs bedroom floor, and I had the radio going. Everything was plugged into a generator, the radio was actually plugged in, in this case. And every time a loud rock song – this was a classic rock station – every time a loud rock song would come on the radio would turn off. After it happened three times – this is the first time I ever did this – I spoke out loud out of frustration. I said “look, leave the radio alone, I like this music. Don’t turn it off, don’t make me stop what I’m doing to turn it back on. Leave the radio alone”. So I go back to work and, I don’t know, two or three songs later Elton John’s song Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting) came on – the radio didn’t turn off, the generator outside turned off. Left me in the dark, and I just stood there and I laughed. I went outside, the generator was flipped off. It was not – It didn’t run out of gas, and no issue it fired right back up and nothing bothered me for the rest of that night

Not all those who pass over are adults. In this experience from actually last year’s Halloween episode, this is Jasmine from New Zealand. Who talks about her experiences that happened to her when her younger sister passed over, when they were just children. And, it’s kind of tender and touching, and sad at the same time.

Jasmine’s experience

So I’m Jasmine and my experiences with paranormal began when I was quite young. So it happened when my sister passed away. My younger sister passed away in two thousand and one. She had a seizure in the bathtub. Between the time it took for my dad to answer the door and for me to get there, she had already passed. And so, I was sort of the first person on the scene and saw her. I was five years old when that happened.

After that I experienced a lot of unusual things that were happening, that related back to her behaviour when she was alive. We had a sliding door in our bathroom for instance, and we had to shove a wooden wedge in it so she couldn’t get into the bathroom. After she passed away, we took it out for convenience and I would hear her running up and down the hall way, opening and closing the door. That happened, basically every day. I experienced her as if she had actually never left. I heard her laugh, or could feel her there, but I never seen her physically. Sorry, it’s a bit hard to… but yeah, it’s getting easier to talk about which is good. And I think, this feels really important to do.

So yeah, these experiences, they continued basically everyday. And because I was quite young, I didn’t really understand what I was experiencing, and because I never seen a physical form I just always heard or felt things, I couldn’t identify that with being her. So I was quite terrified of what that could have been. Or even the idea of a ghost. You know as a child I always thought that was a scary thing, or a bad thing. And my family, my parents were still very young so probably a bit uncomfortable talking about it and probably quite in shock about some of the things that were happening as well.

Didn’t really speak openly about it with me, and it wasn’t until a close family friend – who I actually call an uncle spoke to me and had heard about… from my parents what I was experiencing and he spoke to me and told me that it… that I didn’t have to be scared, because it was my sister. Knowing that, sort of flicked a switch in my mind, where it went from being really fearful and actually quite scared of what was happening, to actually feeling quite relieved. And actually almost happy, cause in a way she hadn’t gone and um, you know, that was a nice feeling for me, that I could still experience her there.

Even though I didn’t completely understand what was happening, I was still quite happy that it was happening to me because, not all the members in my family experienced it the same way. Although there was one night in particular where we were all… All of us were in the lounge and her room was closed off for about a few months at least, after she passed away. Completely locked up the way it was the day she passed away. And we heard this banging noise. And we all sort of looked at each other like… like, did you hear that? To sort of confirm what we were hearing and it carried on. And the noise was ding… ding… it was like something banging against a metal bar and we actually used to share that bedroom together and it was a metal bunk bed that sort of had a railing on the side. She didn’t cry much as a baby but she would bang her bottle on the side of it when she was ready to get let out of bed or if she wanted the attention she’d bang that until somebody would come into the room.

And so it continued, it continued like… just kept going it… that noise, and my Mum was actually starting to cry ‘cause it, she just didn’t really know how to cope with what was happening, and the close family friend, my uncle, he was actually there. He got, he just got up and he walked into the room and he opened the door and he said; “Ok, come on, you can get out now!” And then closed the door behind him, and after that there was no, there was no more banging noises. So for a family, for us as a family that was quite a big experience. That we’ve never actually talked about ever since, actually.

I continued to have those experiences right up until we left that house actually, and after that I never experienced it to that intensity I felt in that house which was actually the house that she passed away in as well. Of feeling like she was just there, you know? It’s so hard to explain what the feeling was like. But I guess in terms of feeling their wairua, their spirit that you know, you know when somebodies in the room with you or something like that. That was, that same feeling and I guess in life I didn’t have that same connection, but I felt connected to her through my sense of smell, so for me smell has always been one of the biggest things I have always picked up on. As soon as I go into a room that’s one of the first things I notice and it’s attached to everything I remember, and for her it was this very distinct smell of play dough – you know? Homemade play dough. Salty sort of smell to it, and she loved playing with the stuff.

She’d come home from pre-school reeking of it! Her clothes, her bag, her everything that she had, she always had that, really salty smell – and I actually do remember it, when she first passed away. As a child when we first went back to… sort of going back to normal, going back to pre-school and back to school. My brother and my sister were very close and they went to the same preschool and when we used to come home we’d walk into the house and it was still like she was still there, it was still like she’d still come ‘cause, we could smell that smell of the play dough.

Later on in life as I got older, I think as well do, we sort of start to push away a lot of those sort of things we were experiencing and I think as I got older I become less in touch with what I was experiencing, or with that connection with her. I didn’t pick up on things as easily, but those… that smell came back to me several times. Like, I’m twenty-three now, turning twenty-four soon and I’ve since had several times in my life where that smell has come back. Usually before quite an important … um, like when something – a difficult situation’s about to come up usually in the family. Usually when I’ve had to step up and being a teenager you sort of get stuck in your own world and that’s all that matters, and there’s been a couple of times where I didn’t – where I needed to step up for my family and help them and she sort of came along, and that smell, I smelt it again and straight away having her picture in my mind, knowing that, that was her trying to tell me something. Then sure enough! Not even that long later, something quite big happens and then I realize oh right, that’s… that’s her coming back to let me know something. And ever since, I have had similar sort of things but it’s never been as strong as that connection is when I was a child.

And I’ll end this episode with another of my personal, daylight sightings from when I was married to Jay. However; this time, it
happened when we lived in Hamilton, New Zealand.

Cemetery Ghost

There’s a large old cemetery in Hamilton as you come into the city, coming from the south along Cobham Drive. It’s the original cemetery of the city, and I have some family members interred in there. On this beautiful summer morning, Jay, my youngest daughter and I were driving along inside the cemetery – it was about 11am or thereabouts, in the early 2000’s before we went to live in Waxhaw, in North Carolina, in the USA.

I was only driving at around 16km per hour (around 10 miles per hour), probably a little less actually, because we were enjoying the beautiful gravestones as we travelled along the road. And, we weren’t in a hurry to get to where we needed to go, because, we didn’t know where we needed to go. We didn’t know where the graves were.

So, on either side of the road, and in some cases right on the very edge of the road, were these rows and rows of large, above ground headstones. The large monumental types that people used in the early part of last century, and the previous century. Before lower type stones became the norm. Some of these stones were 6 or 7 feet tall. Definitely tall enough for a person to be standing behind them, and we would not spot them – also the rows were placed so that all we could see was the back of the stones as we drove up the road. There was another car that came up behind us as we drove. Which is not unusual, even though this was such an old cemetery.

So we were just chatting away in the car about what we planned to do when we found the family graves, because, as I said we didn’t know precisely where they were placed in the cemetery. When all of a sudden, this very, very slender woman steps out from in front of one of the graves and into the path of our car. She had short hair – styled in the wave bob of the flapper era, she had sensible shoes on, thick tights or stockings – knitted stockings by the looks of it. A tweed skirt (which would have been the fashion from that era), and what we called a twin set top and cardigan on. Around her neck she had a string of pearls. And, she didn’t once look in our direction.

All of this I spotted in the second I slammed the breaks on my car. She had stepped out right in front of it, and despite the fact that we were going so slowly we were all sure that I must have hit her. As she was literally only feet from the front of the car. My heart was in my stomach! Horrified Jay and I both jumped out of the car and run around the front to see if she was ok. I thought for sure she must be laying on the ground wounded, and she was such a frail looking woman. To our shock there was no one there! Not a soul! Nor any sign that anyone had been there – and in any case we would have seen, had she gotten up and walked or even crawled anywhere.

We were standing there in shock, trying to digest this, when the car behind us breaks and the driver comes running over towards us. And starts to ask is that lady ok? Is the lady ok? And as he’s walking towards us, he’s saying it wasn’t your fault. I saw everything, she just stepped out in front of you without looking. When he arrived at the front where we were, he also was as shocked as us to see nothing. We looked amongst the graves for perhaps 5 or 10 minutes. But found no sign that anyone physical person had been there. What we did find however, was a grave next to the road, from where she stepped out, with the image on it of a woman who looked like the lady, we thought I had hit!

And that’s where we’ll end today’s episode of our two episode Halloween special. Be sure and join us tomorrow for an extra
special and a long episode. A collaboration from a group of Paranormal and Murder podcasters. Mates of mine who share
their favourite paranormal experience, or a story they really enjoy, or their favourite murder episode. I’ll end this episode with
these words from a mystery man…

“Happy Halloween. Do try not to die…”

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I’ve used two lots of bumper music today. A Dark Past by Wicked Cinema and Abysmal by Bryant Lowry.

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