Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The lights

When I left and moved out of the house in Oildale, I was full of supernatural hocus pocus. I didn't want to see it, hear about it, taste it, or anything else. I was in desperate need of a break from anything that didn't have an explanation.

So just a few days after we had moved into our new apartment, my lovely wife came to me with a very strange event. She had seen lights.

These lights were about the size of flashlight bulbs, probably 15 or 20 of them, just floating, suspended in mid air. They had a bit of a fog or a haze around them and were probably about 4 feet across and tall, almost round in their arrangement. They weren't up against the wall but a couple of feet from it, actually about a 90 degree angle to the wall, almost blocking her path to the living room. They were slowly moving up and down in unison, floating in the hallway.

I told her I didn't care, I couldn't handle it right then. I was sorry, but my brain was fried with these sort of things. A month later I came to her with what I thought was a plausible explanation, at least in my eyes. A month later I was thinking about the lights again, and realized that my explanation made no sense at all. I told her they were head lights from a car in the parking lot. But they weren't superimposed on the wall, they were separate of the wall, they were a group of small lights, not two huge beams of light. They were, uhm, lacking explanation. It only took me about 6 months to finally accept that fact. Luckily she only saw the lights the one time and I never saw them at all, at least not in the hallway.

Friday, April 18, 2008

STRANGE

Actually the title should be more Like SSSttttrannnge!!!

A recent email reminded me of an experience which I think I had pretty much forgotten on purpose.

I was at home in our apartment (actually the location we moved to after the house in Oildale) and it was late at night. I am thinking sometime around midnight, but I am not certain. My wife and children were asleep and I was getting ready for bed. I had just turned of the TV and the apartment was very quiet.

Until, just as I was heading for the bedroom, there was a loud banging on the front door. I turned and faced the door, wondering who that could possibly be. Then the banging came again, this time much louder. Now it was plenty loud the first time. Cops at the front door wanting your attention loud (Not that I have ever experienced such a thing - just from watching movies) The first time it was sort of like someone being pissed and wanting your butt outside so they can kick it loud. None of which made any sense to me at nearly midnight.



The second round of knocks, if I can call it that was a resounding knock. It was as if the door was going to fly into the living room and fly off the hinges type of knock. It boomed and filled the whole living room with its thunder. It was way past being some one being upset type of knock. This round of knocks brought a chill to my spine. I took a couple of steps towards the door then stopped. What the hell am I doing? I ain't answering that door at this hour.

Then came a third pounding. This was so much louder than the other two. This was as if someone was having a huge stereo system with a ton of base and it was ponding towards my door. I knew for certain that the family was going to awake as well as all the neighbors, that and I fully expected the door to literally fall apart. What the hell is that? It went from a chill in my spine to the hair on my neck and arms standing on end. This was not good. I retraced my steps backward and waited, facing the door. Hoping that it had had enough, what ever it was. Hoping the door remained steadfast, because I didn't want to face what was on the other side. I fully expected the wife and kids up at any minute.

A minute went by. Then two. Quiet. A third minute. I turned and headed for bed assured that it had finished. I fell asleep in bed.

When I awoke, the first thing I did was inspect the door, figuring the impacts had left some kind of impression in the poor front door. Everything was fine. I asked my wife when she awoke if she had heard any pounding on the door last night. Nope. The kids hadn't either nor did the neighbors ever say anything about the nights events.

I successfully buried the night away deep until Amy and her email. Thanks Amy. LOL

Thursday, April 17, 2008

more on the house in Oildale

I was asked If I ever did any research on the house that I lived in that had some strange goings on (haunted). I was hoping to not have to explain why I left there, other than the obvious (things that go bump in the night, literally)

I'm wondering weather I need to be politically correct here. I am doubting that the lady I rented from is still alive all these years later and doubt that she has Internet access. I could be wrong ...

Ok, this woman that we rented from was bizzare herself. She lived in the garage. she had this huge pile of clothes (We are talking a good 5 feet tall) in one side of the garage. She ran a tax service from her garage. She had a freezer and I think a copier/ printer that she used for her business. She ran an extension cord from our house to the garage for the power to run these items. One time, I actually interrupted her when she apparently had a client in the garage.

A few weeks after we moved into the house, she built a tall wooden fence across the back yard a few feet from the back door. There was a gate with a lock on it. Actually the fence was built by her sons. Shortly after the fence went up, there was a terrible odor. What they tried to do was to tie into the sewer service and attach a toilet, I called the health department on them. We moved out before I ever heard what happened with that.

She was a huge woman. She wasn't very tall, but very round. She waddled when she walked. She always wore a moomoo dress. When I gave her notice that we were going to move out, she asked me if I was trying to give her a heart attack. She loved my kids and my wife (which I found rather an odd thing to say) and why would I try to take them from her. She knew that she and I didn't see Eye to eye on things (she got very upset when she was first contacted by the health department). She didn't like it that I kept telling her about the weird things that happened in the house. (she never could offer an explanation) She thought I made some of the stuff up.

So when we had the chance to get the hell out of there, we didn't look back. I haven't even driven by the place. It was just to bizzare a location to deal with.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Sometimes

The place your at is so strong spiritually that you can't escape the fact. One place I remember especially vividly was a house where I resided with my two young children and My wife. In most popular terms, it was and probably still is haunted. Things went on in the house that defied explanation.


The first thing that happened was the breaking of our bedroom window. We were in the Living room watching TV about 8 pm during the winter. Suddenly, the bedroom window in the next room broke and we looked at each other as we heard the initial chards of glass hit the wooden floor and shatter and then as more and more chards broke on the floor. It seemed to go on for about 30 seconds, although I am not certain of the time frame. I hurriedly arose from my chair and went to check on the damage. Upon turning on the light in the room, I noticed no broken glass on the floor. What?


My wife was right behind me and she lifted up the curtain to see an absolutely perfectly intact window. She tapped on the glass with her finger. The glass was sound as could be. She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face. I asked her if she heard what I heard, the glass chards breaking on the floor. Yes, she said. I fully expected to see a rock or a brick laying on the floor as well. That is just what I expected from the sound, But there was none. I checked the other window in the room. Perfectly sound. I checked all the other windows in the house. I checked the neighbors windows early the next morning. All intact and just fine thank you.


One night we were sound asleep and heard the back door screen door slam shut. First thing I did was check the hook on the inside of the door. It was latched. There wasn't any reason to have heard what we did. The door, by the sound, was swung open and swung shut hard, as if the wind had caught it. The hinge had an odd little creak to it. We heard that as well, both as it opened and as it had apparently shut.

They had replaced some of the front door area, but it was quite clear that at least once, a shotgun had tried to blast open the front door. There was quite a clear pattern of shot gun pellets showing in the remaining wood that hadn't been replaced.

Then there was the Night I heard clearly my daughter fall out of her bed and land with a soft thud on the old wooden floor, as though her 50 pound body was wrapped still in blankets just as I had left her a few hours earlier. As I laid there wiping the sleep from my eyes, I heard her get up and thud thud thud ever so softly as she headed for the kitchen. I then heard her little feet walk and creak across the vinyl kitchen floor towards somewhere there and then stop. I got up, and headed for the kitchen I turned on the kitchen light to see ...

Nothing, at least no one.

She should have been standing there half asleep wondering aloud about something but she wasn't. I turned around and retraced the path she would have taken from her bed. There she was, still tucked into her bed just as I had left her when I had last seen her. This occurrence happened to me one other time before we finally left this crazy house. The second time was pretty much a repeat of the first, with me fully expecting to find my daughter in the kitchen and she was still asleep in her bed.

The night of the Kittens
My wife and I were both asleep again when we both woke up to our little kittens, probably 6 months old and three in number. Playful, full of energy and healthy, they loved to chase each other and with the bare wood floors throughout the house except for the vinyl covered bathroom and kitchen, they had a blast slipping and sliding and trying to overcome the laws of physics as they played. This night was first for them though, playing at night. They usually slept most of the night anyway. So we sat up in bed and walked to the next room, the living room. The sound stopped, the playing came to an end, the scratching of the little claws and the little sounds and thuds as their little furry bodies crashed into one another and the ensuing tackling and wrestling. We had heard it all. We heard the little growls and funny little mews, especially from our loud mouthed Siamese. I turned on the light by the couch. No kittens could be seen. We both called them, to come out of their hiding places. Nothing. Not so much as a peep. How weird we both though, for they generally were very lovey after their play sessions. So on a hunch I walked into the kids room. There were two of the cats asleep at the foot of one bed and the Siamese was sleep at the foot of our sons bed. Dead to the world. We both climbed into bed trying to figure out what had just happened. 24 years ago this took place and I am still trying to figure it out.