Real life encounters.

[tabletipper]

As Tammy knows I have had many real life encounters, and I plan on sharing some of them here with everyone. But I'm hoping others will also submit their real life encounters with the spirit world.

[tabletipper]

In the last 30 + years I have experienced several paranormal encounters many of which have occurred in a 100 yr old hospital here in the midwest. My first encounter as an adult happened to me in early in 1982.

"You Don't Need Your Keys!"

I was at the time working the over night shift in a hospital here in the midwest. I was walking through an area of the facility that housed only Doctors' and Social Workers' offices, and which was unstaffed late at night, and no pts would be in this area either.
Back in those days we had to unlock each exit door and relock it, to secure the facility so that if any of our Patients tried to escape they wouldn't get very far.
I had walked about half way through this area heading towards the upcoming exit door. Out of a force of habit I reached into my jean's pocket to retrieve my work keys to unlock the upcoming exit door.
Suddenly from 2 ft above me I heard a deep gutteral male voice say, "You Don't Need Your Keys!". I stopped dead in my tracks, shocked at what I had just heard. Thinking someone was playing a prank on me, I searched for speakers, and speaker wires, but I found none.
Perplexed I just shrugged my shoulders and giggled to myself, thinking what a bizarre imagination I must have to have heard that out of the blue.
I headed for the next exit door, when I was 15 ft from the exit door, I again reached into my pocket to retrieve my keys to unlock the exit door. Again from 2ft above me I heard the deep gutteral voice, only this time it was real angry as it boomed its' message to me, "YOU DON'T NEED YOUR KEYS!".
Upon hearing the voice I bolted through the exit door, and half way down the adjacent hallway, when I realized, I hadn't used my keys to unlock the door. The voice was right, (I didn't need my keys!). I slowly walked to the exit door, and locked it.
I waited about 2-3 months before I told anyone about this incident for fear that I would be fired for having Schizophrenia.
Since then my story has been told to many different people. My coworkers would ask the Nursing Education Instructor if I had schizophrenia because I admitted to hearing a voice. She said, "No. Just because a person can't explain what has happened to them, doesn't mean it didn't happen." She frequently admonished me for telling that story to so many people. But its' just too damn good of a real life encounter not to share it with others.

[tabletipper]

I have worked the overnight shift for over 30 yrs now, and have experienced several paranormal encounters during that time frame.

"Marva is awake!"

I was working a locked female ward in a psychiatric unit, with a lazy female coworker. Leaving me to deal with all the violent female pts. by myself. I knew my coworker had all her office work done, but because she didn't want to have to deal with the pts. she chose not to come out on the ward or lift a hand to help me deal with the pts.
I had finally gotten all the pts off to bed, with their bedroom doors closed. The ward was quiet, and I sat restfully in my chair with a full peripheral view of the main hallway. After a few minutes I heard a female voice say, "Marva is awake." (Marva was one of our worst pts.), and if she was awake she would rile all the other pts. and I'd have my hands full again, without any coworker support.
I knew I should go check on Marva, but I thought, "No I'm not gonna. Not till my coworker comes out of the office to help out." 10 mins passed and my coworker never came out to help me. I was worried what might happen if I didn't check on Marva, so I got up and went down to her room. I opened her door, and sure enough she was awake. Standing in the middle of her room proclaiming she was on a freight train. I told her she was in fact on the 3rd floor of a psychiatric facility, and I encouraged her to go back to bed; which she did do.
I left her room and closed her door. I walked down to the Nurses' Office and told my female coworker that I had gotten Marva back in bed again. My coworker said, "Oh? Was she awake?"
I said, "Didn't you just tell me she was awake 10 mins. ago?"
She said, "No. I never said anything."
As I sat in my chair and thought about what had just happened, I realized that she wouldn't have known Marva was awake, because all the pts' doors were closed.
So where ever that voice came from, it was correct Marva was awake!

[tabletipper]

"The Vision!"

I was working in another psychiatric facility in the S.W., which was about 90 miles from my sister's house in Omaha, Ne. On my weekends off I would take her older boy out fishing. We were fishing in a state park, and had been out all day, and hadn't caught a single fish that day. I was tired and wanted to call it a day, but my nephew didn't want to quit. He was bound and determined that he would catch a fish.
He was standing at the base of an earthen wall at the end of the lake, fishing horizontally to the bank.
I found a yam/sweet potato shaped rock made of orange clay, I thought I'd pick it up, and lob it out past my nephew so it would splash in the water near him and he would think it was a fish. So I bent down and picked up the rock.
Immediately a vision occurred to me, it was as if my field of vision was replaced with a video of things that would happen, I saw that when I threw the rock it would fall directly on his head!
I didn't want to hurt him so I threw the rock down on the ground. In the vision, the rock flew out in an arch over him, and when it got directly above him it fell straight down on his head!
But in reality if you throw something it flies out in an arch, and lands at the end of that arch, and not half way through the arch.
So I picked up the rock and threw it over his head to land on the other side of him. But when the rock got directly above him (about 10 ft above him), it fell straight down on his head, just like in the vision I had!
When I saw the rock fall down I yelled at him "df*ck! df*ck!" so he wouldn't get hit.
But instead he looked up just as the rock hit him in the top of his head! It dazed him and he stumbled back to the bank, grabbing his head and crying, "Why did that df*ck hit me in the head?"
I said that wasn't a df*ck, I was telling you "to df*ck!" so you wouldn't get hit in the head from the rock I threw!
He scrambled up the embankment, with fire in his eyes! Screaming, "You could have killed me! What would've you done then!?"
With my dry sense of humor I said, "I would've buried you in a shallow grave, and told your parents that you ran away."
He didn't care for my sense of humor. Lf*ckily all he suffered was a large goose egg on his noggen!

[tabletipper]

Obviously not all of my experiences were at work. Years ago I helped Tammy do an investigation in an empty house in a NW Iowa home, that was gutted for remodelling, or to be torn down (depending on the results of our investigation).
Some amazing things happened during our over night vigil in that house.
I remember my partner was Billy Bezoni a KCHE DJ, and Tammy brought a female investigator with her. Billy and I took up residence in a front bed room, and Tammy and her friend were in the living room, at the base of the stairs that lead upstairs. Seating was limited to trashy/filthy furniture, the house was full of junk, and mice turds. No one wanted to sit on the bare floor.
As I remember that night it was around 3am when Billy and I went outside for a short break. When we came back to the front door, Tammy and her friend told us to stay there, and listen. We could hear metallic noises, metal against metal.
What was happening was that coins (small change) was being tossed to the girls, from the thin air. We could hear the coins hitting the metal legs of folding chairs on the other side of where the girls had been laying on a mattress.
If my memory serves me correct, there had been approx. 63 cents in loose change thrown to the girls.
I don't know what the symbolism is, for having money thrown to you, but it certainly peaked our curiousity that night.

[tabletipper]

As is usual for many large hospitals, there are portions of the bldg that are repurposed for other uses during remodelling projects. South 5 was such an area. A former Childrens' ward, was then being used to house the Patient Library for a short while, back in the mid 1980's.
On my coffee breaks I would go to the Pt. Library to read magazines. It was a quiet place as no pts. or other staff would be there, when I took my breaks after midnight.
I would sit in the center of the main hallway, so I could see or hear anyone who might enter either of the end exits. I had been sitting there one night for about 5 mins by myself, when I heard shuffling foot steps coming from about 25 ft from me. I looked up to see a full bodied apparition of an eldely man shuffling across the hallway headed for a locked door to a side room. The weird thing about this ghost was that he was all khaki colored. His flesh, and his clothing were all khaki colored. He took 2-3 more shuffling foot steps towards the locked door, and disappeared into thin air!

[tabletipper]

I had more than one encounter with the Khaki Colored Ghost.
While working on South 4 which was a locked men's ward, one of my duties at night was to roll 100 filterless cigs for the indigent patients on the ward that could not afford to buy their own cigs.
One night as I was nearing the end of this task I felt as if someone was watching me over my left shoulder. Looking down to the floor to my left in my peripheral view, I saw someone standing behind me. I saw a pair of khaki colored shoes, kahki colored socks and khaki slacks. As I raised me head to see who was there my gaze followed up the guy's pants' legs. When I got to his knees there was nothing above them. I glanced quickly down to the floor, and the lower legs were gone too!

[tabletipper]

I have long been prone to tripping when I walk, so out of a force of habit, I'm always looking down at the floor as I walk to look for potential tripping hazards.
One night as I was leaving a bathroom on an adult co-ed ward, I was just stepping out of the bathroom doorway, when I noticed a pair of black shoes stepping towards me. The wearer of the black shoes, was also wearing a Clerigical Gown that looked like it was made of black satin, it had fine embroidery stitching along the hem of the priestly vestment. The thought that immediately came to me was that this clergy person was, more than a priest, more likely a Monsignor.
I looked up to ascertain what they were doing on this ward so late at night. But when my gaze rose to this person's knees they vanished into thin air.
The ghostly image was so life like, that when I first saw it, I actually took a step back to keep from running headlong into it.

[tabletipper]

"The Dutch Boy Flies!"

20 some years ago I worked on South 4 the Children/Adolscent ward with my coworker Buffy Stumpwater LPN. After all our ward work was done...paperwork, and housekeeping duties etc. we had the rest of the over night shift to monitor the ward, and to occupy our time as best we could.
I would sit at a card table with my back against a wall. Behind me on the wall was a plastic plaque of a Dutch Boy with some geese.
Buffy would sit in a chair cattywompus from me on the opposite site of the hallway that we sat in, facing me. Buffy would spend the night reading her paperback romance novels, and I would play solitaire at the table. This way we both had a full view of the ward, and would know if any of the Pts. would get up during the night.
One particular night, I had taken vacation time off, so Buffy was working the ward by herself. She had settled into her nightly routine, and was engrossed in one of her romance novels; when she suddenly heard a rattling noise coming from the wall that would be behind me if I had been there.
She looked up just in time to see the Dutch Boy plaque wiggle its way off the nail that it was hooked on, and to fly off the wall about 6 ft to the right, before landing on the floor rolling to the center of the hall in front of her.
Needless to say this freaked her out!
The following night when I came to work, I found out I had been transferred to another ward to work that night. On her break Buffy came over and told me what had happened to her the night before. I was very intrigued, and told my coworker that I was taking my break to go over and check out that Dutch Boy plaque.
I went back to South 4 with Buffy, and inspected the wall plaque. It had one of those keyhole hangers on it that the nail in the wall slips into the keyhole hanger and slides down the hanger's shaft securing it to the wall. There was no way that plaque would just fall off the wall.
Buffy and I became engrossed in a card game at the card table I would normally sit at, forgetting all about the plaque on the wall. A coworker was passing through our ward to go on their break, and they sat down and joined in on the card game.
We were all engrossed in the card game, when we heard this rattling noise coming from the wall. We looked up just in time to see the wall plaque fly off the wall directly at me. This time I was sitting on the left side of the table, and not with my back to the wall where the plaque was. It flew out about 4 ft., and landed on the floor and rolled under the table ending up at my feet.
We were all in shock and disbelief at what had just happened. I told the girls that it was just the way the Spirits on the ward were letting me know they missed me, when I wasn't there the night before.
I then went into the Nurses' Office and balled up a bunch of masking tape with the sticky side facing out. I smashed that onto the back of the plaque, and put it back on the keyhole hanger, smashing it tightly onto the wall. I then proclaimed to the Spirits on the ward, "There! Let's see you move that now!".
The plaque stayed on the wall for months, untill the housekeepers replaced it with some other artsy crafty decoration. The Dutch Boy plaque was never seen of again, and the new decorations never flew off the wall either.

[tabletipper]

One night I was working South 4 the Children/Adolscent Ward with Buffy Stumpwater LPN. She was in the office doing paperwork, and I was out on the ward monitoring the hallway. All the pts. were in their rooms sound asleep.
One girl pt. had gotten 2 mylar helium filled Happy Birthday balloons that day, and they were in her room hugging the ceiling above her bed.
The ceilings in the bedrooms were approx. 12 ft high, the bed room doorways were about 9 ft high.
As I sat out in the hallway I heard a strange noise coming from this girl's bedroom down the hall. It sounded like "Whoompf...whoompf...whoompf...". I looked up and saw one of the helium balloons float out from under the top of the bedroom door. Then it drifted back up to the ceiling, and traveled across the ceiling approx. 8ft, and then turned and travelled down the length of the hall to that end of the ward. It then fell slowly to the floor, and stayed there.
I thought how strange. The balloon would have to travel across the girl's ceiling, lower 3 ft to get under the top of the door, float back up to the ceiling, travel across the hallway, turn and travel down the hallway to the end of it, then fall to the floor? To accomplish this route. I thought maybe wind currents were dragging the balloon on its course, but for it to drop to the floor and stay there, the barometric pressure would probably have to change for that to happen.
I retrieved the balloon and tossed it back into the girl's room where it drifted back up to the ceiling near the other balloon above her bed. Approx. 8 ft from the doorway. I went back and sat down in my chair half way down the hall, and after a few mins. again I heard, "Whoompf...Whoompf..." as the balloon again made this same trex to eventually end up on the floor at the end of the hallway. (As the balloon bobbed along the ceiling trex it always made that "whoompf" noise as it bounced along the ceiling). I again retrieved the balloon and threw it back in the girl's bedroom to rejoin the other balloon above her bed. Then I went down and sat in my chair. This balloon made the same trip 5 times, it was witnessed by Buffy, as well as our RN.
All the time the other balloon would stay where it was.
I did go down to the girls' room to see if I could feel a breeze coming from the top of her doorway, to account for the balloon's path, but I couldn't feel any. It almost seemed as if a Ghost Child was taking the balloon out of the girl's room each time to sit in the end of the hall on the floor to hold the balloon.
In retrospect I wish I hadn't retrieved the balloon, to see what it would've done once it landed on the floor. Now I'll never know.
To stop the cycle of events, I wedged the balloon behind the girl's bedroom door so it couldn't move. The rest of the night was uneventful.

[tabletipper]

Over the years many wards have been used for other purposes. South 4 was once a locked men's ward on the 2nd floor. In the early 1980's I was working there one night, with one other male CMA. We had about 20 adult male pts on the ward.
The ward was equipped with a locked/fenced in porch where pts could go to relax in fresh air. This particular night there was a light drizzly rain coming down, and I shoooed the remaining pts off the porch for safety at about 11pm, as I didn't want them risking being hit by lightening. All the pts came in, and one by one they all went to bed except one pt.
My coworker, the pt., and myself sat up chatting in the east bay of the ward that the porch is attached to. We all heard a heavy piece of wooden furniture being moved across the concrete floor on the porch.
Both my coworker and the pt. asked if I had left someone out on the porch. I said, "No!". I got up, unlocked the only entrance to the porch, turned on the light, and walked the full length of the porch; there was no one out there.
I came in, locked the porch door, and turned off the light. About 15 mins after being out there we again heard the furniture being moved out on the porch. I'll admit I was a little spooked at that point. I walked over to the porch door, flipped on the light, and peered through the porch door's window to see what was going on out there, and by whom?
Still there was no one out there. But a heavy end table with legs made out of 4"X4" boards had been pushed out into the walk way, that I had just walked the full length of. Where the end table ended up at, would've blocked my path from walking the length of the porch.
This true life ghost story, still kind of creeps me out.

[tabletipper]

Several years ago my sister had my Mom babysit her cat when she was away from her home. It ended up being about 3 months that my Mom had the cat at her house. The cat loved sleeping in a particular recliner in the living room.
On the day that my sister and her husband returned to get the cat (it was near Easter), the cat seemed to be interacting with something none of us could see.
What alerted us to this is that she would look at her favorite recliner with bulged out fearful eyes. She wouldn't dare get up on the chair.; and when I would pick her up to put her in the chair, she violently kicked and thrashed around. She adamantly did not want to be put in that chair. And when I would put her on the seat of the chair she would run like crazy to get away from the chair.
Sometimes though she would run up on the stairs going up stairs to the 2nd floor. She would stop along the span of steps between the 1st landing and the 2nd landing and paw at the wall in a playful manner, as if some one was hanging a piece of string down for her to try and catch. The cat had never done either of these things at any time during her 3 month long visit with my Mom.
Curious to know if the cat was just in one of those crazy cat moods, I brought down my EMF Detector and checked out the chair. I was getting high EMF readings from the chair, but no where else in the house. I even went down into the basement below where the chair was seated up stairs, and got high EMF readings near the ceiling, directly under where the chair was seated upstairs. So something was going on.
The location of the recliner was in the same spot as where my Dad'd favorite recliner was while he was still alive. But his recliner had been long since replaced.
I theorized that either my Dad's Spirit was there, or that my recently passed Aunt's spirit was there, and that the cat was picking up on that.
After my sister and herhuisband, and their cat left the house, I recheck for EMF readings in and around the recliner, and was only getting normal EMF readings then.
So what ever was spooking the cat, had left when they did. I suppose that some spirit energy may have followed my sister to Mom's house from another location, and left again when they did.
I had an Aunt (my Mom's sister) who had passed away just prior to the cat moving in with my Mom.

[tabletipper]

Probably 12 yrs ago I had gotten permission to conduct a Ghost Hunt in an Exotic Dancer's upstairs apartment in LeMars, Ia.. She had only lived in the apartment about 6 months, but had been experiencing a lot of paranormal activity in the apartment. So much so, that she had decided to break her year long Lease, and move out after only 6 months.
The Dancer saw ghostly images moving from room to room in her apartment, she would also find things she had just laid down, missing. Only to find them a short while latter in an odd place where she hadn't left the item.
She said that when she would sleep at night she would be awakened from a loud low roaring noise, like that made by a tornado in her bedroom. But it would only happen when her ceiling fan was on, and it didn't sound like the fan was causing the noise as it came from the floor, and not the ceiling.
I had just boughten my EMF Detectors, and really wasn't very sure that they were working correctly. I had met a woman who proclaimed to have psychic abilities, through the internet. I asked her to come up from Omaha to help me investigate this apartment, as she said she was able to detect spirit energy with just her hands.
I thought that if it were true that she could detect spirit energy with her hands, then my EMF Detectors should trigger that response and show higher readings.
We agreed to meet at the apartment on the last day that the Dancer was moving out of the apartment, about 1pm that day. When we entered the apartment the Psychic started waving her hands around in a circular fashion (kind of a wax on, wax off motion) if you catch my drift.
I immediately thought, "Oh my Gawd! I've got a nut case here."
She immediately sensed energy as we entered the apartment, so I figured I'd see, if I could validate her claims, and sure enough my EMF Detector lit up like crazy! Everywhere in the apartment that she claimed she could feel energy, I would check and I was getting increased readings on my EMF Detector. I tried other spots on my own, and was getting only normal readings.
I did detect high EMF readings in the bedroom closet though. When in the closet I noticed that they had a very heavy duty installed clothing bar to hang clothes on. It actually seemed like over kill, to have a pipe so securely mounted in the small closet the way this one was.
The Dancer also admonished us to not tie up the long pull string on her ceiling fan, because she was quite short and if the pull string was tied up in a loop, she wouldn't be able to reach it, to turn the ceiling fan off. She said that happened frequently enough that it was a real pet peeve of her's when she'd find the cord looped up, and looking like a hangman's noose.
I took several pictures of the apartment during our time spent there, and after getting them developed, I didn't see any type of orbs or any thing out of the ordinary. I took the pics to the Dancer at Teaser's Gentlemen's Club in Sioux City, where she was working, and showed the pics to her. She was rather angry at me for tying her pull string up into a loop as she had seen that done in one of the pictures I took. But I hadn't tied it up in the loop, and upon checking with the Psychic she hadn't done that either.
My theory is that someone had hung themselves in the closet from that heavy duty clothing rack, and that the Spirit was letting the Dancer know what had happened to them by tying the pull string up in the hangman's noose looking loop.
The next day after the investigation when I had gotten up for the day, had showered, and toweled off, and as I walked back to my bed room I passed through a doorway and I immediatley felt as if some type of spirit energy was cling to my back. ( I have a very hairy back, and everyone of my semi-damp hairs stood up straight), as if I was enveloped by this strange spirit energy that only existed in this particular doorway. Once I walked through the doorway, the sensation stopped. If I walked back through the doorway again it reacted to me again. Even after I got dressed and walked through that doorway I could feel that energy clinging to my back. it was quite an unsettling feeling! ( At no other time in the 9 yrs I lived in that house, had I experienced that type of energy anywhere in that house.)
When I checked my email messages that day, I had an email message from the Psychic, and she described to me the exact same sensation of having Spirit energy cling to her back.
Again I theorized that whatever Spirit was in the Dancer's apartment, had followed us home too, if for no other reason to check out who we were, and to let us know what it is like to be hunted!

[tabletipper]

My niece's ex-husband had worked part time in a Bloomington, Mn. bowling alley that was rumored to be haunted. He invited me to assembly a team to investigate the hauntings after the bowling alley closed down for the night.
The activity rumored to be occurring there was that a female was seen wearing a poodle skirt from the 1950's going into the women's restroom, but would never be seen coming out. There was only one way in/or out of that area, and when the staff would go to check and see why the woman wasn't coming out of the bathroom they would find no one there.
Also back in the pin setting area, behind the lanes, people would hear a distinct metal against metal sound when none of the machines were on, and no one other than people themselves were in the area. ( I too had heard the noise, and it sounded like someone knocking a metal pipe against a metal railing leading down into the pin setting walk way. It was a sharp loud noise.) Lane 4 was rumored to have Spirit activity too. As well as paranormal acivity in the office area. These are just some of the types of hauntings taking place there.
I had previously met a girl who had psychic abilitites for identifying the presence of spirit energy. She was from the Twin Cities, and a couple of years before this story starts, I had the fortune to go on a ghost hunt with this girl near Cambridge, Mn. So I contacted her and asked her to help out with the bowling alley investigation. When she came she had brought along a female friend who also had the ability to sense spirit energy.
My team consisted of some of my family members, as we all enjoy the thrill of Ghost Hunting, plus the 2 psychic girls. My family members and I arrived at the bowling alley about an hour before it closed down, and had video taped some activity in the bowling alley. Lane 4 was also active with spirit energy, as evidenced by the blurry movements on camera noted around lane 4. For instance the scoreboard above the lane would blur out of focus in the video when everything else would remain in focus.
When the 2 psychics arrived they admonished us not to tell them anything about what was happening in the bowling alley. So we didn't. They asked to be allowed to survey the bowling alley, to become acquainted with it, and the spirit energy in it.
After they had toured the bowling alley, they settled down on the floor in front of the score board for lane 4, and seemed to be getting spirit energy there too. Our video cameras did in fact have lane 4 in focus, but slowly we noticed that the score board above the girls would become blurry, when everything else was in focus. They sat there for several minutes, experiencing the spirit energy there. Then they got up and walked over to us, to tell us what they had sensed in the bowling alley. As they moved towards us, I continued to film them, and the blurry image from the scoreboard followed them over to where we were. As the team listened intently to the psychics the blurred images would move amongst the members. And when these forms of spirit energy passed in front of someone in focus, that person would become out of focus till the spirit energy left.
The girls too said they were aware of a female spirit wearing a poodle skirt near the rest room area. They said, in that area, there was a type of spirit vortex that allowed spirits to enter from other locations or spiritual plains of existence. They said spirits were attracted to the energy of the bowling alley, and all the excitement that occurs during tournaments there.
They identified the noise in the pin setting area as being made by a former employee that was a bit of a prankster. That this spirit usually hung out in the pin setting area, or near lane 4.
They also said there was a female spirit attached to the office area too.
All of their observations fit, the known activity noted in the bowling alley.
So even if some of you doubt the abilities of psychics, some are legit. The trick is finding the truly gifted psychics, and eliminating the fakes.

[Tammy R]

Thanks for sharing all your stories. I remember the night of the coin toss very well. It was a very interesting in general. And I also remember the time the bat decided to start swooping at us in the apartment. We've had some interesting times together and hopefully I will get to see you again soon.