Ghosts, Demons, Angels,Entities,PARaNORMAL EXPERIeNCES

[AshtonsMom]

EDIT: this is a merge of AshtonsMom's and Seamonsters threads, for you to discuss the paranormal and your paranormal experinces



....whatever you want to call them. Do you believe any of them exist? I know I for one do, call me a nutcase, but I have HAD my runins...:eek:

[Raving Sultan]

If they exist they are made, not born.

[ihmurria]

yes, I do believe they exist
how much interaction they have with the rest of us these days is debatable though... I'd say it's on the decline/we close our eyes to it.

[Wond'ringAloud]

I'm such a sceptic, but I have to say I'm swayed to be more of a believer these days...just from things that happened.

[seamonster66]

I've experienced things that can't be explained away. I'm inclined to believe it anyway, and we all can sense certain atmospheres in certain places

[seamonster66]

I'm just going to start this now, I have plenty to add later. Should be a sticky perhapshttp://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Samhain]

I think all those words are some of many that describe similar or the same energies
S

[Samhain]

why is the a and e smaller, I can't believe you made a mistake with this, so theres go to be a reason!
are you just being stylish? :D
S

[seamonster66]

Please, formal stories only and direct questioning

stories should be numberedhttp://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/pissedoff.gif

[LuckyStripe]

I thought I saw my gramma on a bench beside me after she died. Does that count?

Also, the day she died- she was in the hospital for a while. She was only 65. Heart problems, it was a snow day from school so I was home and in my room and right around 11:11 am (which turned out being the weirdest number of my life)- I felt a sharp pain in my heart and kinda fell over in my bed and just "KNEW". The phone rang two minutes later and my mom answered and then came up to tell me, yeah, that was it.

[warmhandedcanadian]

why is the a and e smaller, I can't believe you made a mistake with this, so theres go to be a reason!
are you just being stylish? :D
S
There is that bit o'English type questioning!!!!

I have lots to add .... in fact there was another thread.

[hippychickmommy]

I tend to believe more in the spirit or energy than the actual entity. But yes, I believe.

[daisymae]

I believe in ghosts. I just love the unexplained...very intriguing.

[AshtonsMom]

I'm such a sceptic, but I have to say I'm swayed to be more of a believer these days...just from things that happened.Would you care to share one of your experiences? :D

[AshtonsMom]

I think all those words are some of many that describe similar or the same energies
S I have to agree with you there, Sam; It's just people call them different things lol. Anyhow, I was hoping that if anyone has had any experience, they would share it...I'll be happy to share a few of mine as long as you all promise not to call me schizo...hell, I don't care if you do really; I just don't want to step on peoples toes, so to speak. :D

[Lying in a field]

Well, my mother told me that just after i was born, i was actually a baby. Then i became a child. Freaky huh?

[nimh]

after my sister in law died, i felt her presence very strongly for a long time. in fact weird things started happening around me before i had even heard that she has passed on.

[daisymae]

So I went to a wake last night, for my cousin's grandmother, Millie...she was 83 and died of lung cancer.

My other cousin's grandmother had died 5 years ago, Helen.

When my cousins were all in visiting Millie last week, she was smiling...her daughter asks, "Why are you smiling, Mom?"

Millie says, "I'm smiling at Helen. She's right there, can't you see her?" :eek:
Her daughter asks, "Well, what does she want?"

"She wants me to go with her, but I'm not ready yet."

So Helen came to meet her. Isn't that nice? :)

[Samhain]

Stories like this tends to leave one with a certainity that one is being looked after by a higher force!
S

[fritz]

Ok, at my good friends services they played Satchmo's What A Wonderful World. A real tearjerker..
On three seperate occasions while leaving the cemetery that song has come on the radio.. Mom, & I have witnessed this together..
What are the odds?
He was an older gentleman, & our best friend. He died of prostate cancer at 56.
He was always worried about me getting myself into trouble.
I got married by the ocean. It was pouring cats and dogs all morning. Mom was pumping rum into my system, as I had cold feet like no other person ever.
We waited for the rain to become a bit less harsh, then, as we would not be able to hold the minister up any longer stepped into it to say our vows..
Just then there was a break in the clouds..The sun filtered through, & What a Wonderful World came on the radio at the bar, out of state, by the ocean, that we had chosen for our nuptials.
Too bad the marriage didn't last more than five years, but I wonder if my friend was just happy to see me out of trouble for awhile? http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Samhain]

Ok, at my good friends services they played Satchmo's What A Wonderful World. A real tearjerker..
On three seperate occasions while leaving the cemetery that song has come on the radio.. Mom, & I have witnessed this together..
What are the odds?
He was an older gentleman, & our best friend. He died of prostate cancer at 56.
He was always worried about me getting myself into trouble.
I got married by the ocean. It was pouring cats and dogs all morning. Mom was pumping rum into my system, as I had cold feet like no other person ever.
We waited for the rain to become a bit less harsh, then, as we would not be able to hold the minister up any longer stepped into it to say our vows..
Just then there was a break in the clouds..The sun filtered through, & What a Wonderful World came on the radio at the bar, out of state, by the ocean, that we had chosen for our nuptials.
Too bad the marriage didn't last more than five years, but I wonder if my friend was just happy to see me out of trouble for awhile? http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/wink.gif
thats amazing, where you also with your husband when this happened, meaning the marriage that lasted 5 years?
S

[fritz]

He wasn't at the cemetery, or the services, no.

[FireflyInTheDark]

Sweet thread idea! I've posted this story so many times in other places, lol:
My mom says that I used to have full conversations with the ghosts in my old house when I was asleep. She would be in the other room and she would hear my voice and another voice, but when she opened the door, which she incidentally had left open and shouldn't have been shut in the first place, I was always asleep. THAT was in the blue room. The room next door to that is much worse: the pink room (named for the pink bed that used to be in there- the room itself is actually yellow with white trim and a brown carpet).
I slept in the pink room when I got the pink bed. I don't know when it started, but I began waking up in the middle of the night and seeing figures walking around my room in black cloaks that covered their faces. They seemed to be having lengthy discussions about ME, looking at me now and then with their red slitted eyes. Needless to say, they scared the *beep* right out of me. I remember waking up one night to something totally different. There was no one in the room with me, but my bed was wet. Okay, it sounds like I was a bedwetter, but before you jump to conclusions, consider the fact the the ENTIRE bed was soaked through, not just a little spot- the WHOLE mattress, INCLUDING under my pillow, and there was no smell whatsoever (so says my mom- I can smell very little aside from food and some strong chemicals). Weirded out yet? It gets worse...
My parents were getting sick of me waking them up every night for a year or something like that (I have no concept of time, lol. Ask my mom.), so one night my mom suggested that I leave on my nightlight and they would stay away.
They most certainly did not, and the proceeding story is my account of the night from hell that ensued. It was the last night I ever remember spending in that room, and now you, my dear readers will all know why. I remember it very clearly: I woke up as usual in the middle of the night and saw the things walking around my room. I don't recall ever hearing them make any noise (footsteps, breathing, clothing rustling, etc...). They just moved silently around, communicating somehow without ever uttering a word. I always got the idea that they were talking about me though, the way they would look at me and then look at each other. I don't remember then having hands or arms either. Their cloaks covered them completely. Their eyes were crimson slits with no pupils that I could see. I assume that they glowed with their own light since I could always see them, no matter what angle they stood at. Then something unexpected happened. Instead of maintaining the distance they usually kept, one of the decided to come over and look at me up close. I remembered what my mother told me about how the light would keep them away and panicked internally when this promised security system failed. The thing stopped at my bedside and proceeded to lean slowly down to look into my face. Its shoulder happened to catch the light on my bedstand, but instead of the light shining on it like it should have, the parts that the light touched disappeared entirely. That's the lst thing I remember. I seriously must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember was standing beside my parents' bed asking my mother if I could sleep with them. My experience in there wasn't much better: I quickly fell asleep, believing myslef to be safe and exhausted from being kept up so many nights. I immediately had a nightmare that the black figure that had gotten in my face before (somehow I knew it was him) followed me into my parents' room, dragged me off the bed (because I slept on the outside, my mom in the middle, my dad on the other side), and tried to throw me in a sack. It was so vivid. I remember the way the bedsheet wrinkled under my fingers as I clung to them for dear life. I remember the thing pulling on me; its grip was so tight and it was so strong, and I felt so hopeless because I was just a little girl and couldn't possibly keep fighting and expect to win. It tried to make me look at it. I remember that distinctly. It wanted me to see its face. I don't know why. I never got the vibe that they wanted to hurt me, even in the nightmare. They seemed more curious than anything, but they just filled me with so much fear that I didn't care. I just couldn't help thinking that they were just EVIL. I woke up and at first I didn't even realize I had been dreaming. I freaked out and woke up my mom and I guess I even woke up my dad, which is no small feat considering he sleeps like the dead (no pun intended). I told her something along the lines of "they're coming to get me. It tried to pull me off the bed." She tried to calm me down and tell me it was a dream. That's when I remember my dad saying, "Wait a minute, they TOUCHED you?" That's when I realized it had been a dream, but even now, I still wonder if it was my imagination taking the events that had already occurred and building upon them, or if they were really trying to contact me through my dreams. We all tried to get back to sleep, and I remember that I did finally drop off, but I woke up after what seemed like I had just closed my eyes. It was then that I saw yet ANOTHER ghost. This one was a little easier to handle as it disappeared very quickly, and being the bizarre kid that I am, I went back to sleep (somehow) and reported it to my parents in the morning. I just didn't feel the intense fear that I did with the black figures. It was a man. I knew that right away. That was something else I never got from the black figures- a feeling that they were male, female, or even human. This ghost had curly hair- almost an afro (no joke). He walked by the window and I saw his silhouette and that was it. If I remember correctly, I think he had a mustache, kind of big lips and a big nose. He came from the direction of the closet (which faced the bed) and walked forward, past the window (where I could see at least his profile) and continued on toward my dad's side of the bed. I closed my eyes and he was gone. The end...
OR SO I THOUGHT!
Recently, I was surfing a website called The Shadowlands- a ghost website with pics, audio, video, etc. Well, I came to a section of pictures called "Shadowghosts." One picture in particular caught my eye and it's not hard to see why:
http://ghoststudy.com/monthly/nov01/creature.html
^That will give you an IDEA of what I had to deal with night after night after night! HOWEVER, it isn't exactly the same... For instance, It lacks the red eyes. Also, the things I saw had no faces that I could see (They were obviously under the cloaks, with only holes in the face for their eyes to see through). Everything else though (the black shadowy body completely covered from head to toe, the way the thing is standing- kind of bent or slouched, no arms, legs, feet visable) is right on target. Let me tell you, buddy, when I saw this pic for the first time I nearly peed myself...
I haven't seen anything since that night, but I've heard plenty. That house is still very haunted. We keep the door to the pink room closed at all times, and sometimes when I have friends over who know my story, we open the door, turn on the light and walk around in there for *beep* and giggles. It's ALWAYS cold in there, no matter what. Even now, in the 90 degree weather we've had lately, when you open the door, a cool breeze shoots out and chills you hand as it grips the doorknob. My best friend has been in there with me. She says it feels evil in there.
I recently brought a psychic into that house (my dad still lives there and I visit once in a while) who told us that there isn't anything inherently evil residing there. The ghosts that are fixed there are three children, two girls and a boy, and a soldier in his 40's. She told me the children are the ones responsible for messing with us most of the time. The soldier is responsible for the footsteps and creaky floorboards we hear at night. He patrols the house and watches over it. Kind of a cool feeling.
The back bedroom where I had my worst experiences is home to a small portal to the other side that attracts mostly sad energy. The psychic said that the ones I saw when I was younger have probably come, gone, and been replaced with others, but the portal is too small for anything really evil or at least powerful enough to hurt anyone to come through. The worst they could do is make you feel bad... or if you were depressed enough, they could motivate you to kill yourself.
So, yeah, that's my story. Still with me? Good for you, heh. I'm sometimes long-winded when it comes to stuff like this. My boyfriend is scared *beep* of anything ghost-related and he can't understand how I can be so cool and relaxed with it. I try to tell him that it's because I grew up with stuff like this happening around me all the time (which, in the end, turned out to be harmless, so I've learned not to judge my paranormal experiences too hastily).

[Samhain]

thankyou FireflyInTheDark, I read your account, yes all of it! and its amazing, what age where you when these things stopped happening, was it when you moved out?
S

[daisymae]

I wonder if kids are more sensitive to the supernatural...because they don't have a firm sense of "reality" yet...

Whe I was around 8 or 9, I woke up in the night to see a man in my room yelling at me...he was very angry, saying things like "who the hell do you think you are?!"
I wasn't awake very long, only a minute or two, but no one else in the house must have heard him because my parents' room was next door and my mother is a VERY light sleeper...

[FireflyInTheDark]

thankyou FireflyInTheDark, I read your account, yes all of it! and its amazing, what age where you when these things stopped happening, was it when you moved out?
S
When I moved out of the room, I stopped seeing the shadow ghosts. I've seen precious few apparitions since then (one sighting I had just this year, but it was on the campus of my college- it was very exciting), but I've definitely heard things and had things moved on me all my life.

I'm moving soon, to a VERY old house, so there should be some wicked activity there. It should be sweet. I'm inviting my poltergeist Larry to move with us, much to my boyfriend's dismay. :D

[FireflyInTheDark]

I wonder if kids are more sensitive to the supernatural...because they don't have a firm sense of "reality" yet...

Whe I was around 8 or 9, I woke up in the night to see a man in my room yelling at me...he was very angry, saying things like "who the hell do you think you are?!"
I wasn't awake very long, only a minute or two, but no one else in the house must have heard him because my parents' room was next door and my mother is a VERY light sleeper...
I know I was much more sensitive when I was little to all manner of things. My mum and I used to be so connected we could read each other's minds. Once we even shared a dream... But yeah, I definitely had many more paranormal experiences when I was smaller...

[Anima_Mercury]

So what's your opinion about "angels"? Do you believe in them? How do you think they look like? Are they like those chubby little children? Do imagine them with wings?

You know, many ancient cultures and religions believe in them. And we're talking about since the dawn of mankind in Sumeria, Mesopotamia. There are many tablets (stones) written in cuneiform which inform us of winged beings that inhabitated our Earth.

Most religions believe they come to Earth to protect us and to guide us... they are thought to carry "messages" since they deliver news from God, performing God's (or Goddess) will.

There are many authors like Rene Guenon, supported by Hinduism, that these angels "incarnate" and live among us. There is also Enoch's Book (supporting this theory as well) in which he explains their origin, the "two kinds" of angels, the fallen ones and their descendants, the Universal Flood, God's promess, the balance of their actions interferring mankind, and finally God's power and victory over the fallen ones resulting a new and bright beginning (counsciousness) for Human Beings.

There are many other apocryphal texts (non cannonical) that support this idea such as the War Scroll and the final battle... which by the way, it reminds me of Saint Michael Archangel who happens to be the "chief" of all the angels.


I consider Rene Guenon's ideas plus all the texts found in 1945-47.


♥ Love ♥

V

[mynameiskc]

i have so many that it's become something i'm skeptical of.

[Samhain]

i have so many that it's become something i'm skeptical of.
Oh well do share!!
S

[erzebet1961]

I come from a a family that attracts spirits...everyone in daddys family as had brushses with ghosts. I have lived in several homes where spirits made themselves known..they were just playing and getting attention...and where Im living now , toys will turn on..though the batteries are dead and the switch will be in the off posistion..things will be moved..or come up missing...the animals will watch something walk through the room and wag their tails at it. And someone likes to stand in the room and warch us sleep.

[hippychickmommy]

President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, were the first occupants of the White House. During Adams' presidency (1797-1801), the capital moved from Philadelphia to Washington, a struggling hamlet built mostly in a swamp.

Pennsylvania Avenue was unpaved, and frequent rains turned it into a quagmire. Although the White House itself was only half finished, Mrs. Adams cheerfully tolerated the noise and confusion of workmen coming and going. She was as fond of pomp and ceremony as Martha Washington had been, and, in spite of the inconveniences, held memorable receptions and dinner parties. Indeed, her invitations were highly coveted.

But one immediate problem presented itself-where to hang the family wash.

The White House was inadequately heated, and a number of rooms were cold and damp. Mrs. Adams finally decided that the East Room was the warmest and driest place in her august home, and that's where the clothesline was strung.

And that first lady has never forgotten.

The ghost of Abigail Adams is seen hurrying toward the East Room, with arms out stretched at if carrying a load of laundry. She can be recognized by the cap and lace shawl she favored in life.

Although Abigail Adams is the "oldest" ghost ever to have been encountered at the White House, she is by no means the only former occupant to occasionally wander its halls and great rooms. The home of the American chief executive has been the site of so much intense life it seems only appropriate that from within its walls come stories and legends of presidents and first ladies who linger...after life.

http://www.history.com/minisites/halloween/images/halloween_skeleton.gif

*information courtesy of the History Channel, http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=707&display_order=6&mini_id=1076

[hippychickmommy]

Dorothea Paine "Dolley" Madison was one of the most popular first ladies to have presided in the White House.

She was born in 1768 and became the wife and the young widow of John Todd, a Quaker lawyer of Philadelphia. 1794, at the age of twenty-six, she married James Madison, who became, in 1809, fourth president of the United States.

Dolley's wit and charm and her ability to remember faces endeared her to everyone. But she never liked to be crossed, as the legend of her ghost bears out.

When the second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson occupied the White House, she ordered gardeners to dig up the familiar Rose Garden. They never turned a spade. Dolley Madison had planned and built the garden! Her ghost arrived in all her nineteenth century to upbraid the workmen for what they were about to do. The men fled. Not a flower was disturbed and Dolley's garden continues to bloom today as it has for nearly two centuries.


*information courtesy of The History Channel, http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=708&display_order=6&sub_display_order=8&mini_id=1076

[hippychickmommy]

The Rose Room is believed to be one of the most haunted spots in the White House.

It contains Andrew Jackson's bed, and if we are to believe testimony of those who have felt his presence, "Old Hickory" himself still dwells in his former bed chamber. And well he might.

In 1824 Jackson ran for president against John Quincy Adams and two other candidates, garnering the most popular and electoral votes, but not a clear majority; the election was decided by the House of Representatives, which chose Adams. In 1828 Jackson finally won the presidency, but he never forgot nor forgave his enemies. Bitterly resentful over his earlier defeat, he removed two thousand former office-holders, replacing them with his own appointments.

Twenty years after Jackson's death, Mary Todd Lincoln, a devout believer in the spirit world, told friends that she'd heard him stomping through the White House corridors and swearing. Still settling old scores?


*information courtesy of The History Channel, http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=709&display_order=6&sub_display_order=9&mini_id=1076

[hippychickmommy]

Through the years White House staff members have reported feeling uncomfortable in the Rose Room.

Lillian Rogers Parks, a seamstress, had a particularly frightening experience. In her 1961 book, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, Mrs. Parks wrote: "I remember that when I was working at the bed in the Rose Room, getting the spread fixed for Queen Elizabeth, I had an experience that sent me flying out of there so fast I almost forgot my crutches. The spread was a little to long, and I was hemming it as it lay on the bed. I had finished one side, and was ready to start the other, when suddenly I felt that someone was looking at me, and my scalp tightened.

"I could feel something coldish behind me, and I didn't have the courage to look. It's hard to explain. I went out of that room, and I didn't finish that spread until three years later."

Mrs. Parks also recalled a strange story told to her by Cesar Carrera, valet to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Carrera said he heard someone calling his name one day in the Yellow Oval Room. The voice seemed to come from a distance, saying, "I'm Mr. Burns." At first, Carrera thought someone was playing a joke on him, but he learned later that a man named David Burns had given the government the land on which the White House was built.

A similar story surfaced during the Truman White House years when a guard heard a soft voice calling, "I'm Mr. Burns." Thinking that Secretary of State James Byrnes was calling down from upstairs, the guard went searching for him. He found out later that Secretary Byrnes hadn't been in the White House that day.


*information courtesy of The History Channel, http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=710&display_order=6&sub_display_order=10&mini_id=1076

[hippychickmommy]

On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate forces to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Although the last Rebel troops would not surrender until May, the Civil War was effectively over. The Union had held. But, a weary President Abraham Lincoln would not live to see the triumphant march of the Army of the Potomac through the streets of Washington. Just five days later, on April 14, 1865, he was shot by a Southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth, in Ford's Theater. He died the next day.

Psychics believe that President Lincoln has never left the White House, that his spirit remains to complete the business of his abbreviated second term and to be available in times of crisis. For seventy years, presidents, first ladies, guests, and members of the White House staff have claimed to have either seen Lincoln or felt his presence.

The melancholy bearing of Lincoln himself, and several instances of eerie prescience on his part, only add to the legends of the Great Emancipator's ghost.

The lanky president had paid fanatical attention to even the most minute details concerning the Civil War and felt personally responsible for its outcome. His background was Southern, leading some critics to accuse him of traitorous acts. Mary Todd Lincoln had brothers who fought for the Southern cause.

By the time of his 1864 reelection, deep lines etched his face and heavy black circles underlined his eyes. During his five years as commander in chief, he had slept little and taken no vacations. There may have been more to his sadness than even he would admit. Lincoln dreamed of his own death.

Ward Hill Lamon, a close friend of the president's, wrote down what Lincoln told him on an evening in early 1865: "About ten days ago I retired very late...," the president told Lamon. "I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.

"There, the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room. No living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed alone...I was puzzled and alarmed.

"Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face covered, others weeping pitifully.

"'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin.'"

It was not the first time Lincoln "saw" his own death. Soon after his election in 1860,he'd seen a double image of his face reflected in a mirror in his Springfield, Illinois, home. One was his "real" face, the other a pale imitation. Lincoln's superstitious wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, did not se the mirror images, but was deeply troubled by her husband's account of the incident. She prophesied that the sharper image indicated that he would serve out his first term. The faint, ghostlike image was a sign, she said, that he would be renominated for a second term, but would not live to complete it.

President Lincoln's morose acceptance of his own mortality was never more apparent than on the morning of his tragic visit to Ford's Theater. He summoned the Cabinet to the Council Chamber. The president's face was grave.

"Gentleman," he began "before long you will have important news."

The Cabinet members pressed him to reveal what information he had, but Lincoln demurred.

"I...I have no news, but you will hear tomorrow." He hesitated, his chin cupped in his bony hands. "I have had a dream, the same dream that I have had three times before. I am in a boat, alone on an ocean. I have no oars, no rudder. I am in helpless. Adrift." The president seemed to be speaking as out of reverie.

He scanned the questioning faces before him, then stood up and shambled out of the room. It was possibly the strangest Cabinet meeting ever called by a president of the United States.

That night President Lincoln was shot in the back of the head with a single bullet fired from a derringer as he watched Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater. He died at 7:22 the next morning, April 15, 1865.

A train bore Lincoln's body home to Springfield. That solemn procession has given rise to another president legend surrounding Lincoln. Each year, on the anniversary of that journey, so the story goes, two ghost trains slowly travel the rails between Washington and Illinois. Aboard the first train a military band plays a funeral dirge. Before the smoke of the locomotive clears, a second steam engine follows silently behind, pulling a coach bearing a coffin containing the body of President Lincoln. The ghost trains never reach Springfield.

The shock felt by the nation upon the death of its sixteenth president took years to wear off. Children, too young to have understood the implications of the tumultuous years of the Civil War, saw their parents' bereavement and wanted to learn more about the man from Illinois. Newspapers responded to this need by reprinting numerous stories about Abraham Lincoln's early years. Most were true. Others contained more fable than fact.

It is true that tragedy had stalked Lincoln long before his first presidential term. His beloved mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died when her son was nine. When Lincoln's first love, Ann Rutledge, died of typhoid fever, he lapsed into a melancholy that may have led to his emotional breakdown a few years later.

In 1842, at the age of thirty-three, Lincoln married Mary Todd, but the union was not a particularly happy one. Mary had a mercurial temperament and a strong belief in the supernatural. It was her influence that led to her husband's interest in spiritualism, though he always regarded it with some skepticism.

The Lincolns had three sons, but only Robert Todd lived to adulthood. Edward died at age four and young Willie succumbed to a fever during his father's first term as president. Lincoln was shattered by Willie's death and often visited the crypt where the child was buried. He would sit for hours, weeping copiously. At Mrs. Lincoln's urging, seances were held at the White House with the hope of communicating with their dead sons. The results of these seances were not entirely satisfying, and it's believed that Lincoln attended only two of them.

During the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, however, a member of the household staff claimed to have seen Willie and to have conversed with his spirit. In the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency (1963-69), Lynda Johnson Robb occupied the room where Willie had died, and later, where the autopsy on Abraham Lincoln had been performed. This was also the room in which President Truman's mother died. Mrs. Robb wrote to the authors of this book that, although she'd never seen a ghost in the White House, "I did live in a room where lots of sad things took place!"

Liz Carpenter, press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson, told author John Alexander that Mrs. Johnson believed she'd felt Lincoln's presence one spring evening while watching a television program about his death. She noticed a plaque she'd never seen before hanging over the fireplace. It mentioned Lincoln's importance in that room in some way. Mrs Johnson admitted feeling a strange coldness and a decided sense of unease.

This disquieting apprehension has been felt by others. Grace Coolidge, wife of Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president, was the first person to report having actually seen the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. She said he stood at a window of the Oval Office, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out over the Potomac, perhaps still seeing the bloody battlefields beyond.

The ghost of Lincoln was seen frequently during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, when the country went through a devastating depression then a world war.

When Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was a guest at the White House during that period she was awakened one night by a knock on her bedroom door. Thinking it might be an important message, she got up and opened the door. The top-hatted figure of President Lincoln stood in the hallway. The queen fainted. When she came to she was lying on the floor. The apparition had vanished.

Eleanor Roosevelt used Lincoln's bedroom as her study. Although she denied seeing the former president's ghost, she admitted to feeling his presence whenever she worked late at night. She thought he was standing behind her, peering over her shoulder.

On one occasion, Mrs. Roosevelt's secretary, Mary Eben, encountered Lincoln's ghost sitting on the bed in the northwest bedroom. He was pulling on his boots, as if in a hurry to go somewhere. The startled young woman screamed and ran from the second floor. Other staffers of that era said they'd seen Lincoln lying quietly on his bed of an afternoon.

Seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks detailed in her autobiography a mystifying experience that she had one summer day in that same northwest room. It had just been freshly painted and she was putting it back in order. The White House was almost empty because the Roosevelts had gone to Hyde Park, taking most of the maids with them. As Mrs. Parks worked, she kept hearing someone coming to the door, but she never saw anyone. In fact, the second floor was deserted.

After an hour of listening to the tromping, Mrs. Parks went searching for the source. On the third floor she found a houseman. She asked him why he kept pacing the second floor. He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I haven't been on that floor. I just came on duty. That was Abe you heard."

During Harry S. Truman's administration, his daughter, Margaret, slept in that area of the White House and often heard rappings on her bedroom door late at night. Whenever she checked, no one was there. She complained to her father and he said the "noises" must be due to dangerous settling of the floors. He ordered the White House completely rebuilt. It was a propitious decision. The chief architect, Major Gen. E. Edgerton, told President Truman that the building had been in danger of imminent collapse! Had the ghost of Lincoln tried to warn the Trumans that the president's home was ready to fall down?

Thirty years after the rebuilding of the White House, the Lincoln Bedroom was till regarded as a spooky place. Susan Ford, daughter of President Gerald Ford, said publicly that she believes in ghosts and ruing her stay in the White House she had no intention of ever sleeping in that room.

Stories of a ghostly President Lincoln wandering the corridors and rooms of the White House persist, but are not officially acknowledged. The gangly prairie lawyer with the black stovepipe hat and the long, sad face was the kind of man around whom legends naturally collect. If one were to believe in ghosts, one would have to believe that the benevolent spirit of Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, still watches over the nation he fought so gallantly to preserve.

"The Other Tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" is an excerpt from Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott. It appears here courtesy of Tor Books.


*information courtesy of The History Channel, http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=711&display_order=6&sub_display_order=11&mini_id=1076

[themnax]

well i have some kind of a ghost of a critter friend that curls up on top of the covers when i go to bed at night sometimes.

there was also that one time i had a long and interesting conversation someone, and i was fully awaike, in a place that well, when i went back to look them up again the place wasn't there. i don't mean it was portable or torn down eather. it was a solid brick wall that didn't look like it had ever had a door in it, but it had had, and i was in the room beyond it having that conversation with them the day before!

oh yah, and a couple of other little things. the major real towns that weren't there that night driving accross the middle of nevada, and the picture that came back with some kind of optical effect right where someone's grave was that i didn't know was there when i took the picture.

=^^=
.../\...

[Samhain]

http://www.mysterymag.com/whatsnew/

http://www.haunted-britain.com/Haunted_South_England.htm

[mynameiskc]

there's an excellent tour of haunted places in santa fe, nm. me and the bitches did it back in '97, and it was such fun. mind you, i don't know a lot about haunted places. i tend to find them well enough on my own.