Since I'm the noob here I will tell you all what sparked my interest in the paranormal, when I was a "wee" bit younger, in my early teens, we moved into a very large, very old house in small town ND. If anyone here knows who Dick Clark is, his wife lived in this house as a child also. It was also a hotel in its early days. It started out slowly, or we were slow to catch on to what was going on, there was knocking, footsteps, sounds of rummaging through closets or dressers. We finally decided we had a ghost, but in some of these small towns you definately didn't make that public. We talked to the towns oldest resident to find out if anything strange ever happened there and found out that a wealthy banker named Mr. Taylor commited suicide in the house. She also told us that at the time it was very hush hush and that there were rumors he was actually murdered. While living there you would always see shadows or forms out of the corner of your eye, I didn't really realize how odd that was until years later when it dawned on me it never happened again after leaving that house. We were never really scared, we got spooked once in a while, but we usually did that ourselves (2 sisters and 1 brother). He seemed to know that we would get a bit spooked by ourselves so he generally didn't act up unless we were together. The one thing he did that I thought was particulary funny was when one of my aunts were visiting and basically poo pooing the idea that we had a ghost, she was sitting in an old rocker and while she was laughing about the situation she was suddenly rocked back and forth quite aggressively. Of course she turned around to holler at whoever was behind her but there was no one there. She had become an instant believer! The other thing that was quite commen was a terrible odor that was contained in a very small area that you could actually follow around the house, it was also very cold in that spot and drove my cats nutz. Back then there wasn't much info around about spirits and ghosts except for the horror stories. We knew that he meant no harm though. I have since spoken to a psychic that told me that the terrible odor could have been reflecting his unhappiness. Well, to keep this short I will end it here, it was just your basic haunting, lotsa little stories but nothing major. Now I will have to look through the archives to see what all of you have experienced. =)

I had similar things happen in a house I lived in while I attended college -- it made a believer out of me! ;-) The house was built by the contractor who financed the subdivision. He went bankrupt, and his partner committed suicide by hanging himself from a large oak tree in the backyard. The house had an incredible amount of activity, and we had that same oder you described along with a sickeningly sweet smelling woman's perfume. To top it off, the place was rumored to have been built on an Indian burial ground. It was an experience! ;-)

Wow that's a great story. You are fortunate that he wasn't a mean ghost. I wonder if he was really murdered? If it was suicide then of course he was unhappy or he woudn't have killed himself. Perhaps he is feeling very guilty about taking his own life and won't move on because of it. In the house where I lived in as a small child our neighbor committed suicide in his kitchen. My father was the one who found him. I never knew about it until years and years later. But after that in about 6 months the activity in our house really picked up. We had to move eventually because of it.

Thanks for relating your story, SisterSpooker! I'm loving what your ghost did to your aunt in the rocking chair! :lol: Don't we wish for all skeptics to have something like this done to them?

If you have any old pictures taken in/around that house, you should peruse through them to see if he ever showed up on film! ;-)

Kell

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many pictures, and the ones I do have I haven't noticed anything unusual in yet. I have been pestering my parents to try to dig out there pics but it has been a very slow process. They are less organized than I am!

Nice story SisterSpooker. =)

What a considerate spirit - by waiting until you were all together to make his presence known, you had no choice but to believe - had one of you been detached from the group, you might have believed the other was tricking you.

Did you ever notice if Auntie steered clear of that rocker in the future? =O!

My aunt was a changed woman after that day. I saw them at a family reunion a couple years ago and her daughter was telling me how embarressing her mother has become, she (my aunt) even wrote to their local newspaper a little story about our house. Seems she has become a bit obsessed with getting the story out that ghosts do indeed exsist. Unfortunately small town ND still considers you a loony if you admit you believe in them. Thats O.K. though, I considered myself a loony even before my ghost came along. ;-)