Ghost Story Voting!

[Sunflower]

It's time to vote for your favorite ghost story. There are 9 stories to chose from. The numbers correspond with the entries. Please vote for one story. Voting will end on September 10th. The story with the most votes wins a mystery prize we'll reveal at the Estes Park Rally dinner, September 15th. Enjoy!

[JACKWALDROP]

Ghosts!
A professor at Texas University was giving a lecture of the
supernatural. To get a feel for his audience, he asks, "How many people here believe in ghosts?"

About 90 students raise their hands.

"Well, that's a good start. Out of those of you who believe in ghosts,
do any of you think you have seen a ghost?"

About 40 students raise their hands.

"That's really good. I'm really glad you take this seriously. Has anyone
here ever talked to a ghost?"

About 15 students raise their hand.

"Has anyone here ever touched a ghost?"

3 students raise their hands.

"That's fantastic. Now let me ask you one question further...have
any of you ever made love to a ghost?"

Way in the back, Billy Bob raises his hand. The professor takes off
his glasses, and says "Son, in all the years I've been giving this
lecture, no one has ever claimed to have made love to a ghost.
You've got to come up here and tell us about your experience."

The big redneck student replied with a nod and a grin, and began to
make his way up to the podium. When he reached the front of the
room, the professor asks, "So, Billy Bob, tell us what it's like to have
sex with a ghost?"

Billy Bob replied, "Shiiiit! From way back there I thought you said
'Goats'."

[Sunflower]

In 1969 I was living in a house on Brookhurst in Fullerton, CA. Next door was a lady and her daughter. The woman worked as a PBX operator for Wesson Foods and was a very good landscape painter. She also volunteered at the Parapsychology Institute and often worked with law enforcement on cases.

One day, while her daughter was at school, she invited me to come over and have a look at her latest painting. When arriving at the house she asked if I would like a cup of tea, I said yes, we entered the kitchen and she put a tea kettle on the stove to heat. We then went into her studio.

Once the kettle started whistling, we returned to the kitchen. On the floor were all of her dishes, pot and pans. They had not been there just 5 minutes prior and I was truly startled. She just shook her head and asked if I would help her to return the items to the cabinets. I just had to ask..."what happened?" She said "its my mother, since she passed a few years ago she often comes back to rearrange my kitchen. She never did approve of the way I stored things."

[Sunflower]

When we moved to Camarillo back in the early 70’s there was a family of seven that lived next to my folks place. Their oldest son, Joe jr. (17 or 18) died at home within a month or two before we moved into the neighborhood. Then in the late 80’s, the father of the family died at home. His name was Joe.
Shortly after his death, the wife sold the home and the property turn into a rental property for several years. I don’t think anybody stayed in that house for more then 6 months at a time.
Finally, the owner sold the property to a retired couple and within weeks, the new owners came over and ask my folks if there was ever a Joe that lived in that house as they keep hearing somebody calling for Joe. We told them yes, there were two Joe and explain the story to them.
To make a long story short, they didn’t stay any longer then two – maybe three years and then sold the house to a single father by the name of Joe… who one day told my folks he keeps hearing somebody calling his name.
Joe sold the house after three or so years.

[Sunflower]

theres a bar in nocal (vant find the name of it right now) thta is haunted people claim to have seen the ghost it a women in blue think she got in a wreck after leaving the bar in the 30s or 40s and been around ever since they say Ive been there but she didnt talk or show up when I was there.

[Sunflower]

OK here is my ghost story and I swear that everything in this tale is absolutely correct. It will be up to you to decide whether to join the gang in Estes Park or not!


I was born at a very early age in Rochester, New York. This was because I wanted to be near my mother! My grandfather, a doctor, assisted in my delivery. My mother was a very good looking woman and my father was a typical pilot from the second world war with straight teeth and a crooked smile. I was born late at night, actually early in the morning of October 7th, 1948. Upon arriving in this world, as with most new borns, I was struggling to take my first breath. Suddenly, a fight broke out between the delivering doctor and my grandfather. After seeing my face, both doctors were said to be as gray as ghosts! In short order, clam was restored and both doctors agreed to slap my mother and leave me hanging by my feet!
NOw this situation gets even more eerie when you learn that I was born in the PARK Ave hospital. Later in life, I moved to Colorado and was almost irrationally drawn to Estes Park and the Stanley Hotel. Clearly the work PARK was playing a huge influence in my life. Over my years as a Colorado resident, I vacationed in Estes Park with no less than six ladies. (one at a time, of course and not one of them was wearing a red hat) TO this day, I have no idea if ANY of these women are still alive or dead, and the Park ave hospital has closed and is now an apartment building and is said to be haunted especially near the delivery room.
oooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Stay at the Stanley if you dare!

[Sunflower]

The following experience happened to me while I was in college back approximately 1966.............true story


A group of friends decided to get involved with a seance at a friend's apartment. One of the fellas had some experience in calling up ghosts, so we gathered around a coffee table, sat on the floor and put our hands on top. I checked for wires and other things that might make it a "fake experience", but found nothing. The leader called up some ghosts he knew and we could ask questions that could be answered with a "yes" or "no." We were able to call for one of my friend's cousin who was killed in the Vietnam war and got some answers to questions. The ghosts would answer by lifting and dropping the table, once, for yes and twice for no. One time, the leader called up a ghost that we called MRS. XYZ and found out that she hated females. There were about 3 females at this seance, including myself and when MRS. XYZ found out, she started chasing us around the room by making the coffee table bounce towards one of the females. We were really scared and jumped up onto the sofa and the table started bouncing towards the sofa and got 2 legs of the table on the sofa. When she was called off, we looked down on the floor and there was a line of cockroaches that started in the kitchen and ended in front of the sofa. It was truely a CREEPY experience, but the guys thought it was hilarious. We held a few more seances, but after a while I quit .

[Sunflower]

This is a long story, so grab a favorite drink and enjoy, because it wasn't just one thing that happened, but a bunch of things that make this so scary. This happened to me in 1981, I had moved to Muskogee, Ok with another family who were very close friends of mine. My friend was a medium and we were quite often envolved with doing seances and physic things, so at first things didn't click as to what was happening. So now on to my story. In order to recover from the expense of the move we decided to rent one large house for both families. There were 3 adults and 4 children. These events happened all within a period two weeks. About 3 or 4 days after we moved in I had gotten up and went down stairs to get a cup of coffee and wake up. When I went back to my room to get dressed all of my clothes that I had set out were gone (now at this time in my life I was very set in the ways I did things and I HAD put my clothes on the chair ready for me to get dressed). After searching closet and all of the dresser drawers I found them in the bottom drawer of my dresser under everthing else. Since this was in the middle of Winter, this drawer only had shorts, bathing suits etc. in it, NOT sweater and warm pants or unmentionables. Well the kids were always playing pranks so of course they were blamed for doing this (which they swore it wasn't them). This was just the start of things to come! and there is more that I will leave out because it would take to long to tell. The bathroom had a hugh clawfoot tub in it that had been enclosed around the bottom part with wood (we were going to remove the wood so the beauty of the tub could be seen). Went up to take a bath and found the wood removed from around the tub and all the stuff to be unpacked dumped in the tub (about three boxfull). Again NO ONE did it. After this we needed a break so we sent the kids to their room so we could discuss what was happening because at this point it was a little freaky because in order to get the wood removed it was going to take a crow bar and we had just found it laying neatly on the floor. About that time we heard a blood curdling scream from up stairs. We ran upstairs to the kids room to find them crying and pointing to their dresser mjrror where there was written I'M HERE. (this was written [n lipstick) Again we thought the kids might be playing a prank. My friend and I decided that we needed to get some questions answered and decided to have a seance that night and find out who and what was doing this and why. That night we all gathered in the livingroom my friend went into trance, at first we weren't aware that her daughter (who was 13 years old) had also gone into a trance. When the question was asked who was the spirit in this house, the daughter spoke up in a loud voice I"M HERE. We were told that she had been drown in the bath tub(now we know why no one could stand to stay in this room any longer than was absolutely necessary) and that she was to young to be dead. She was only 13 and she was going to stay in this body!!MY friend was bringing herself out of her trance as fast as she could because her daughter was in grave danger of being lost. It was a long hour of talking and praying to get this spirit to release the daughter and leave her body. She was told to go into the light and she would be okay, but before she left us she materialized so that we could see her, she was radiant and thanked us for our help and went on her way.
Now I know that there are many non believers of this, but I was there and saw all of this transpire and let me tell you this made a believer out of me. This is my ghost tale----beleive it or not. It really happened!!!!!!

[Sunflower]

A true story.

My wife Shirley wrote this story as told by my mother-in-law. This did happen on the eastern plaines of Colorado. The family moved to Colorado in a covered wagon and homesteaded near Rush, Colorado in the very early 1900's. Well here is the story.

This is a true story about the day they buried Asel Johnson. It was the fall of 1921 on the eastern plains of Colorado. Asel had come to Colorado in 1903 and homesteaded at Rush with his wife, Sarah and son, Oneas and family. The families had built homes about _ of a mile apart. One night Asel’s wife walked by moonlight to get her son because her beloved Asel was sick and she knew he was going to die. When they got back to the house Asel was sitting in the rocking chair with just the moonlight lighting the room. He sat and rocked; his eyes stared straight ahead, as the family gathered around him. They came to say goodbye to the father and grandfather they loved so much. Soon he took his last breath.

The next day he was prepared for viewing and the coffin was placed in the living room of the home. Asel was in his suit with his long white beard spread over his chest. As friends and neighbors came to call, the family worked to prepared food for everyone. The food was being prepared at the son’s home and the ladies had run out of bread. His daughter-in –law Viola told two of her girls to run to Grandma’s house to get more bread. The girls were reluctant to go since Grandpa’s coffin was there but in those days you didn’t say no to your mama. The girls ran to the house and finally built the courage to go inside as they went in the kitchen they saw Grandma’s sewing machine as the cover slowly raised up and then gradually sit back down. No one was in the house except Asel in the coffin. The girls ran back to their house screaming all the way. No one can remember if they brought any bread with them, probably not.

The funeral was held on the fourth day. Asel was taken to Crescent Cemetery in the back of a pick up truck. After the burial the family gathered at Sarah’s home had supper. Afterward they remained at the table visiting and remembering Asel. The sun sit and Mary got her coal oil lamp and lit it. Then the strangest thing happened, the sugar bowl in the center of the table started dancing. The lid raised and the bowl rocked back and forth and gently turned. No one could speak; they were transfixed on that sight. Soon it sits back down. The family knew that Asel’s spirit had not left the house.

I am a great granddaughter of Asel and I have the sugar bowl that has been the subject of many family discussions through the years. It will be passed down for generations along with the story of the sugar bowl dancing the night that buried Asel.

[Sunflower]

I am sure most everyone has had dreams about people you have known, but have passed away. I know I have them from time to time. One dream in particular was after my grandfather had died.

I suppose I should start back in 1976 when my grandmother died. They had been married for 57 years, and she was his only true love. He was pretty depressed, but with his German constitution and probally his own stubborness, he lived another 14 years.

Grandpa Hagen had decide pretty much he was done living, during those last 2 - 3 years. His diet was terrble and consisted mostly of chocolate chip cookie and Wild Turkey.

I remember meeting my uncle over at grandpa's house, and between the two of us and my older brother, we got him up to clean his room and him off.

My mother was very distraught over the whole thing, and I can remember her talking to Dad, and wondering what more she could do for her father. Grandpa died not long after that episode, and I can still remeber his stubborn resolve not to do anything but wait for death to come knocking at his door.

About 2 - 3 weeks after he passed away, I had this dream. We were at a party, and was looking across the room and saw my grandfather. We was waving at me and walking towards me. We met midway, and he was all smiles, and wondering how I was doing. I said "Grandpa,..? your dead, what are you doing here?" He said, "I am just visiting with friends, but wanted to tell you something. Please pass this on to your mother. Tell her I am doing very good and she can stop worrying about me now. I am happy."

The next morning when I woke up, the first thing I did was call my mother, and tell her, about the dream. There was silence on the other end of the phone for a half minute or so, and then she spoke softly, through tears and said she had been so worried about grandpa for quite awhile now, and my after hearing my message, she felt as if a huge burden had lifted off of her shoulders.

I never dreamed about him again, until after my father died.

[Sunflower]

I don't believe in ghosts...but you should see the photographs that I, and my friends, have taken!!

I am president of two historical preservation groups, and one specializes in the "search and rescue" of lost or abandoned cemeteries. We document our finds with cameras, at least one digital and one with film. We end up with some pretty strange things in our images.

We also work to preserve archeaological sites. We had brought to our attention a number of stone cairns in Hall County ((cairns are essentially stone piles, with the stones most often carefully piled, sometimes shaped in circles or even shaped like beehives. Archeaologists cannot fully explain these formations, as studies have shown them to be of mixed uses - sometimes burials, and sometimes historical era field clearing activities.))

Anyway, myself and another member of our group made a trip to Little Mulberry Park near Dacula, GA. (Note: that is indeed Dacula, NOT Dracula!! ) We were doing research on stone cairns, and had read of such cairns being preserved in this park. We wanted to compare these cairns to the ones found in Hall County.

We were at this time working on a major project, and had legal advice provided for our project. Amongst the good tips the lawyer provided was the advice to take "forensic photographs." That is, to use cameras with film and negatives, not digital devices that could open the door to accusations of image tampering.

So, off we go into the woods, each of us with a different brand of disposable camera in hand. We each took photographs of various stone cairns and left. I had my camera developed in-store at a place in Buford while I waited for the pictures. My friend took his camera to a shop in Gainesville.

My friend took his prints back to show his wife before he had a chance to look at them himself. When she opened the prints, she looked through them and asked, "Why did someone paint the bottoms of these tree trunks red?" He told her there were no red trees in the woods. That nearly began an argument between them, and he was greatly surprised when he saw the prints: there were indeed trees painted red in the photographs!

You can probably guess where this one is headed:

I took my pictures home, opened them, and wondered why there were red tree trunks in my photographs!

And, yes, some of the images we took overlapped, and the trees were red in BOTH our images.

I promise, with God as my witness, there were NO painted trees, of any color, in that forest. We asked a photographer if he could explain why this happened. He tried explaining it, but the more information that we gave him --- different cameras, of different name brands, different photo takers, different developers, dual painted images--- he said he did not know how that happened.

The photos creeped me out, big time, and I threw mine away.

That area of the state was land once roamed by Creek (Mvskoke) indians (Native Americans.) In the early 1800s, there was a Creek uprising most commonly referred to as the "Red Sticks War." Red was, by the way, a color denoting war to most all Native Americans tribes. I am not making any guesses since the whole affair gives me the creeps, but my friend just feels certain there is some connection. Who knows??!! I just know that I will be stuck over here in GA with the ghosts of indians and whomever else, while you folks will be having a swell time in the Rockies! Sob, sob, sniffle.

[jwthomp]

Back on the radar...

[jwthomp]

bump...

[jwthomp]

bump

[yellow bear]

.....BUMP !!....

Come'on folks.... let's get some goose bumps, and do some voting !!!

[Sunflower]

There's just a few more days to vote for your favorite story! Voting ends Sept. 10th.

[Sunflower]

Last chance to vote for your favorite story! Voting ends tomorrow night (Sept. 10).

[Sunflower]

Congratulations to HarborRide for having the winning ghost story, "The Red Sticks!"

We'll reveal HarborRide's mystery prize at the dinner Saturday night and send the prize on its way. (HarborRide, I'll PM you to get mailing details.)

A big thank you to everyone who submitted their stories! There were many great ones to choose from! Get ready for more fun this weekend in Estes Park!

See you all very soon!

[jwthomp]

Sorry for the late reveal of the Ghost Story Prize - here it is:

• A ColoradoSSR.com bag
• A patch from the '07 rally
• A copy of The Shining on DVD
• A commemorative room key from Overlook Hotel room 217

I'll be shipping this to HarborRide tomorrow. Congratulations on winning, and thanks to everyone who submitted a story and voted!

[HarborRide]

Oh, the bag looks even better than I expected! And the key ring and skeleton key will have good company - I collect both key rings and skeleton keys!! What a great surprise! Thank you all so very much!

[HarborRide]

As I explained in my ghost story, I destroyed the photographs containing the red trees. They gave me the creeps! But I did keep the images of the stone cairns, the ones without red sticks in them, and I will share with you.

In this image, I am standing behind one of the larger cairns. There are hundreds of cairns in the woods of this park.

[HarborRide]

And here is a photograph of the most common type of cairn. We find these smaller cairns all over North Georgia.

[Sunflower]

Thanks for sharing pics of the cairns - those are really interesting to see! That's cool that you collect keychains and skeleton keys - Enjoy!

[HarborRide]

My prize arrived mid-week.

Thank you again.

But, I had totally forgotten just how creepy that movie is!!! It's just creepy, and the creepiness builds and builds as the movie moves along. And it is still creepy, even though I remember how it ends! Ack!