Your Stories

Please feel free to send in your stories of the supernatural - something that happened to you, a family member, a friend, an occurrence in the area where you live, etc.

Some Halloween Viewing

Here are some movies that are highly recommended during any season, but especially for Halloween:

The Changeling, 1979.

This is not to be confused with the 2008 film with almost the same title. George C. Scott plays a man who has experienced a double tragedy, and moves across the country to rebuild his life. Unfortunately for him, his magnificent rental house is haunted.

Night of the Living Dead, 1968.

The one that started an entire, wildly popular genre. Seven people take refuge in an isolated Pennsylvania farmhouse when the dead reanimate and eat the living.

The Haunting, 1963.

Based on Shirley Jackson's classic novel The Haunting of Hill House. Four people investigate the supernatural in Hill House, long known to be haunted.

Evil Dead, 1981.

Five college students rent a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and find a reel-to-reel tape in the basement. Playing the tape causes horrific - and gruesome - results.

Psycho, 1960.

A true classic, often imitated and ripped off, never equaled. 12 cabins, 12 vacancies ... and a convenient swamp nearby.

The Birds, 1963.

A coastal community in Northern California is besieged by bird attacks.

The Norliss Tapes, 1973.

An author who has written a book debunking mediums, seances, and the like is asked to investigate strange happenings on a rich widow's estate. He gets far more than he'd bargained for.

Dead of Night, 1945.

A man has a recurring dream of traveling to a stately manor and meeting a group of people. When the dream comes true, he finds himself wondering what is real and what is fantasy.

Dead of Night, 1977.

NOT a remake of the 1945 classic. This is an anthology of three stories, the last of which is horrifying.

The Exorcist, 1973.

A young girl begins to exhibit bizarre behavior. After her mother exhausts all other forms of treatment, she turns to an exorcist.

Salem's Lot, 1979.

A well-known writer comes to the small Maine town where he lived as a child, only to find that the town is being taken over by vampires.

Angel Heart, 1987.

A private detective in 1955 New York City is hired by a mysterious businessman to track down a former client, who vanished after World War II. The detective finds himself in over his head.

La Clairon's Ghost

Eighteenth-century French actress La Clairon (born Claire Leris) came from humble beginnings, which made her rise to fame all the more remarkable. The daughter of unmarried parents, she made her stage debut at the age of thirteen in the year 1736. She worked (and, quite possibly, slept) her way up the career ladder, and at the age of twenty, she landed the title role in Racine's play Phèdre.

That same year, she attracted the admirer she remembered longer, and for a very different reason, than any other. In her memoirs, La Clairon referred to this young man as "M. de S--". Like her, he came from a humble background. Unlike her, he did everything he could to hide it. La Clairon was put off when he confided in her that he was pretending to be a member of the upper class; she also resisted his need to have her all to himself. Furthermore, he was less than stellar company, being depressed much of the time.

As time went on, his obsession with her became the focus of his life. La Clairon then took measures to end the relationship. She stopped meeting him, refused his letters, and spent most of her time working. M. de S-- went into a deep depression, worsened by the fact that his financial situation was precarious; La Clairon sent him money, but continued to refuse his letters.

One night, he sent word begging her to see him. La Clairon would have done so, but she was entertaining friends, who talked her out of it. She had no idea that her former lover was dying. 

He died that night, at eleven o'clock. At that time La Clairon's friends had been entertained by her singing, and as the applause faded, a horrible cry sounded through the room. La Clairon realized immediately that M. de S-- had died, and persuaded some of her guests to stay with her that night.

The cry rang out at fairly regular intervals for some months, and finally faded - only to be replaced by a sound as if a gunshot had been fired. This noise was heard every night at eleven o'clock. 

This sound, after some time, also disappeared, and La Clairon began to hear sounds of hands clapping, and finally, a mysterious melody she could never remember later.

During this time, her career had skyrocketed, and her income far exceeded anything she had every known before. She moved to a better and more fashionable house, deciding to rent the old one. Most of Paris now knew of the hauntings, and quite a few people came to view the old house simply out of curiosity. One visitor was an elderly woman who insisted upon seeing La Clairon, stating that she had been a friend of M. de S--. The actress met with her immediately.

The old woman told La Clairon that she had taken care of M. de S-- during his final illness, and that when the young woman failed to visit her former lover, he swore that he would haunt her for as long as he had been obsessed by her.

Indeed, he did. The affair and its aftermath had lasted for two and a half years, as did the haunting.

Tarot readings

In keeping with the Halloween season, I highly recommend that anyone wanting a tarot reading contact this guy.

Enjoy!

Headless Horror

Shady Lane, in Ashford in the Water, Derbyshire, UK, looks like a good place to avoid. It is said to be haunted by the ghosts of twelve pallbearers, each of them headless. They carry a coffin - an empty one.

The coffin awaits the body of anyone unlucky enough to see the twelve pallbearers.

Ghost Train

Marshall Pass, in Colorado, is the site of a very intriguing ghost tale involving a train - and more.

In the 1880s, Marshall Pass was on a commonly-used railroad line, and it was haunted by a ghost train. One night, engineer Nelson Edwards had an experience that was never to be forgotten.

As the train was ascending, Edwards received a signal that he was to stop. The conductor, when asked, said that he had given no such signal; he went on to say that they should rather increase speed, because another train was following theirs.

Edwards did so, reaching the high point of the track, and beginning to descend. It was then that he saw a freight train behind them. The train grew closer, and Edwards and the conductor both saw the engineer of the other train - and he was laughing at them.


As the terrifying chase continued, Edwards saw a warning light ahead to stop the train. Figuring that the other train would hit his anyway, he applied the brake, and went through a crowd of several railroad workers, not one of whom was a living person. His train stopped safely - but the other train derailed and went off a cliff. As it fell, it vanished.


The following morning, Edwards found this message written in the frost on his window:


“Years ago a frate train was recked as you saw- now that yu saw it, we will never make another run. The enjine was not ounder control and four sexshun men wore killed. If you ever ran on this road again yu wil be killed.”

Edwards didn't, and he wasn't. He left the company (Rio Grande) and found work as an engineer for Union Pacific. Nobody ever saw the ghost train again.

Burton Agnes Hall and the Screaming Skull

Young Anne Griffiths was so fond of her home, Burton Agnes Hall, that she was determined never to leave.







While walking in a park one day, Anne was attacked by a thief. She was brought back to the hall, badly wounded, but still coherent. Knowing that she was dying, Anne made her sisters promise that they would have her head severed from her body after death, and keep the head in her beloved home.




Her sisters, understandably, had her body buried intact - and that's when all hell broke loose. All sorts of strange sounds were heard at the Hall - footsteps, doors slamming, and moaning, until finally, Anne's body was exhumed for the gruesome operation. When the coffin was opened, her head was found to be separated from the body, and lacking all flesh and hair. In short, the head was now a skull, and ready to be installed in Burton Agnes Hall.

One day, a servant wrapped the skull in cloth and tossed it into the back of a wagon. Pictures fell inside the Hall, and the horses pulling the wagon were terrified. The skull was brought inside, and the disturbances stopped. On another occasion, the skull was buried in the garden, and again, Anne vented her fury until her skull was restored to the house - only this time, it was bricked into a wall, so that it could never leave the Hall again.

The ghost of a headless woman has also been seen in Burton Agnes Hall. Anne, perhaps?