Could It Be Paranormal?

Death Delayed

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off a relationship with his girlfriend.  Out of distress, she committed suicide.  The girl’s brother was so enraged that he shot Ziegland.  Believing he had killed him, he then turned his gun on himself and committed suicide.  However, Ziegland was not dead.  The bullet only grazed his face and lodged in a nearby tree.  In his dreams, Ziegland frequently encountered her brother who swore that he would kill him yet.  Some years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the tree that has stopped the bullet.  Unusually, he decided to blow it up using dynamite. The resulting explosion propelled the bullet from that fallen tree into Ziegland’s head (killing him).  Could it be Paranormal?

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A Haunted Highway from John K.

Before he retired in 2017, my father was a Washington State Patrolman for thirty years.  Early one morning in March 2000, he was patrolling one of the highways that pass through the Cascade Mountains.  It was about three in the morning and it was snowing.  In his headlights, he captured the image of a young girl.  He estimated that she was about ten years old.  She was walking along the side of the narrow highway alone.  Thinking something was wrong.  He hit his emergency lights and turned the car around to check on the child.

She seemed oblivious to his approach.  He called for her to stop but she continued moving until he physically restrained her to check on her condition. When he got next to her, he could see that she had dried blood on her clothing and in her hair.  Also, her clothing was dirty, torn, and she was missing her shoes.  She was shivering from the cold and she felt like ice to his touch.  Using his flashlight, he held her at arm’s length and made a quick physical assessment.  He determined that there was no urgent first aid needed.  As he checked her out, he asked her what she was doing out there.  Where did she come from?  What happen? She didn’t say anything.  However, she pointed back the way she had come.  He thought perhaps she was mute. So, dad knew that something was wrong.  He wrapped her in a blanket and put her in the back of the patrol car.  He drove in the direction that she indicated at emergency speed.

He calls his headquarters to have the medics meet him and pick up the girl.  The girl, still not talking,  just continued to point forward every time he asked her a question.  In less than one minute, he approached a bridge over a steep ravine.  He noticed that the guardrail was damaged and there were skid marks indicating a car had gone over the side.  He asked the girl is this where you came from.  She said nothing but she continued to point forward.  He thought that she must be in shock because she was so calm.  He got out of the patrol car.

 At the bottom of the ravine, he could see a car overturned and damaged, with its lights still on. quickly he called in the situation and asked for help.  He got a rope out the trunk of his car and the first aid kit.  He attached the rope to the anchor point on the back of his bumper and rappelled down to help the people in the car.  The girl was locked in the back of his patrol car for safe keeping.  In the bottom of the ravine, he discovered a couple was trapped in the car.  They were both unconscious and appeared to be badly hurt.  He remained with the car throughout the recovery operation.

When he came back up the couple in the car had been taken by the medics to the hospital.  He notices the back of his car was empty and assumed that the little girl had been taken away also.  He was sitting in his patrol car and writing up his portion of the police report.  He believed that he knew the name of the driver from the auto registration but he needed to confirm all the identities of the people in the accident.    He called the medics, within a few minutes, he was able to confirm the name of the driver and get the name of the passenger too.   He asked for the name of the little girl.  What little girl was the reply?  It turns out there was no little girl with the couple.  Also, the medics hadn’t picked up the girl either.

He knew that no one can get out of the back of a police car unless they are let out.  Still, no one at the site recalls a child being there but him.  His first sergeant asked about the child too because he had reported that she had led him to the wreck in the initial emergency report.  Since they couldn’t find her, he filed a description of her in his report and to this day she is still listed as an unknown child.

Days later the accident report for the driver of the car was published.  The driver and passenger claim that they swerved to avoid a small child in the road who appeared suddenly in their path.  Dad begins to think about that child.  Something was not adding up.  She had not actually led him to the wreck.  He had noticed the wreck while following her directions.  When he asked her if she had been in that accident she continued to point forward.   If she didn’t belong to the couple, then who was she? How did she get out of the back of his squad car unassisted? Why was she injured and barefoot?  Where was she going when he stopped her?  Finally, where was she taking him?

Months later, June 2000, the snow is melting in the Cascade Mountains.  The state patrol gets a phone call about the discovery of a small child’s body.  It was found partially buried in the snow.  It’s in dad’s area, so he responds to the call.   The cold snow preserved the body.  When dad gets there, he sees immediately, it’s the little girl that he had picked up that night.  She is dressed as he remembers.  She is still missing her shoes.  He was overcome with a wave of sadness.  He cried, for her, like she was his child.  The medical examiner estimates that she had been dead since December 1999 and was undisturbed.  In March 2000, she would have been buried under five feet of snow.

Dad realizes that she was found only two miles from the site of the accident where he had locked her in his patrol car.  He wonders, that March morning, was her ghost trying to take him where her body was buried in the snow?  Alternatively, if she was alive in March, why didn’t she seek help at the sight of the accident when everyone was there? The medical examiner held her body for months.  They never discovered her identity or how she had come to be out there.

Our family was the only people at her funeral. It was my dad who paid to bury her.  She was laid to rest in a beautiful long dress with matching shoes.  Dad says from the time he encountered her, she has become a fixture in his dreams.  They are always together on that highway.  She is in the back of his patrol car, in silence, pointing and urging him forward to a destination that they never reach.

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Two Spells to Improve Your Love Life

To find your true love use this magic spell.  Soak one of your socks in rosewater, dry it out, and put it under your bed.  Then, nightly, send out thoughts about your true love for a month.  Then burn a red candle at sunset while thinking more about the object of your affections.  Repeat this for seven nights.

To attract someone you like do this.  Pick a half red and half green apple when the Moon is three days past full. Breathe on the green side and rub it with a red cloth while reciting this verse: “Fire sweet and fire red, warm the heart and turn the head.  “Kiss the red half and give it to the object of your desire.  If they eat it they will fall under your spell.




The Floating Dead

For a summer, I worked as a private security guard in Upstate New York.  The estate is thousands of acres and has its own private lake.  In the center of the lake is a one-mile long island.  Local teens like to sneak on to the property and have parties on the island because it’s remote, has a sandy beach and it’s a really nice spot to hang out.

My boss discovered that a bunch of locals had spent the night on the beach.  The bonfires were clearly visible the previous night.   He said that they had a drunken party and it had gotten out of hand.  Several fights happened. The next morning, he assigned two of us to go clear off the island.  That means we had to remove any lingering people and clean up their mess.

We took the zodiac and were on the island within five minutes.  I drove the boat right onto the beach.   Trash was everywhere.  We cleaned the site.  Then we searched the one-mile island for more trash and lingering people.  Our major concern was ensuring there was no one stranded or in need of medical help.  So we took our first aid kit, some water, protein bars, and a portable transport litter and searched the island.  As we went along, the day was getting hotter.  Around eleven a.m., we were bug bit, sweating, and tired; but, we were done with the searching and ready to leave.

The entire time we were moving through the forest, I felt that we were being watched and we could both hear voices whispering.  I had been on the island many times but I have never been so spooked.  When we got back to the beach, a sudden thunderstorm came on, the sky darkened, and the lake got too choppy to safely cross.  So we put the tarp up and waited out the storm at the beach.  We were still edgy because we could now hear disembodied voices on the beach too.  I had a feeling that they were talking about us, talking among themselves and talking at us also.

On the edge of the beach in the water was a body.  My partner rushed up to the body and pulled it onto the beach.  This was not the body of a local teen.  This man was dressed in old period clothing.  His eyes were opened and his body was waterlogged.  His shirt tore off in my partner's hands when he pulled him on shore.  Whoever this man was, he had been dead a long time (without decaying badly).  There was nothing we could do for him (except bury him).

Now, the lake water was churning.  The strong wind was sweeping up the waves.  I had never seen the water so troubled.  Giant bubbles were being released under the surface.  We could smell the sulfur gas released by the bubbles.  Then my partner notices things floating in the lake.  Those things were being pushed onto the beach by the large waves (created by the giant bubbles).   It was human remains (decomposing bodies).   The waves had deposited three groups of these remains on the beach and we could see more floating on the surface of the lake. The stench was overwhelming.
They were not the bodies of local teens.  These people were dressed in old period clothing.  We didn’t know from what period.

The air had turned cold also.  We could see our breaths turn to steam as we breathed.  My friend was very religious.  He said that hell was giving up the dead and that this was a sign of the end of times.  He fell to his knees and started praying.  I checked a body.  Using a stick I poked at one.  They were decomposing but appeared to only have been in the water for a day or two. I tried to use the cell phone to call our boss and tell him what we were seeing.  There was no signal available.  We always had a signal.  The guy who owned the estate had positioned cell phone antennas around the estate.  We always had a strong signal.  Then the whispering got louder.  We could understand what the voices were saying.  Stay with us.  Stay with us.  Stay with us.

At this point, we panicked.  We pushed the Zodiac into the water, started the engine and took off holding on as best we can.  We hid a large wave with too much speed and went flying out of the boat.  We both landed in the lake.  The Zodiac continued on without us. If we had not been wearing life vests we would have drowned.  For what seemed like hours we floated among the decaying bodies and the windswept waves.  The current in the lake pushed us back onto the island.  We were cold and exhausted when we landed on the island.  We could still hear the voices.

We huddled together to keep warm under a large tree as the day turned to night.  The night got colder but the bugs continued to attack our exposed flesh.  We spend those long hours wet and shivering. The voices continued to taunt us.  They were urging us to harm ourselves or at times each other.  There was movement all around us.  The storm continued until the very early morning.  Then, as it ended, the voices stopped.

Early the next morning, we heard our boss and another coworker calling for us.  We emerged from the woods where we heard them calling.  They put their boat ashore and we climbed aboard.  We described what happened to us but by then the bodies and voices were gone.  The boss thought that we were lying.  He suspected that we had been wave hopping during the storm, lost control of the boat and landed in the water.  That day, I quit that job.  I have never gone back to that island.


Lincoln’s Ghost 

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The first person reported to have actually seen Lincoln's spirit in the White House was First Lady Grace Coolidge, who said she saw the ghost of Lincoln standing at a window in the Yellow Oval Room staring out at the Potomac River.  In the 1940s, Winston Churchill was visiting the White House.  After a long hot bath, in which he enjoyed good Scotch and a Cuban cigar, he walked naked into the adjoining bedroom where he was staying.  There he encountered the ghost of Abraham Lincoln standing by the fireplace warming himself.  Mr. Churchill, never at a loss for words, calmly said “Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” The Ghost of Lincoln just smiled at him and vanished.  During her visit to the White House, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands heard a knock on her bedroom door in the night.  When she answered it, she saw Lincoln’s ghost wearing his top hat.  She fainted.  In the 1960s, President Johnson reportedly spoke to Lincoln’s ghost.  He asked him how did he handle an unpopular war.  Lincoln reportedly replied "don't go to the theater.


More White House Ghosts

The ghost of Willie Lincoln was the son of President Abraham Lincoln.  He died in the White House during the Civil War.  His ghost was seen in the White House by staff members of the Grant administration in the 1870s.

The ghost of President Andrew Jackson has been seen lying in his bed in the Rose Room.  He has a guttural laugh that has been heard in the White House since the 1860s when Mary Todd Lincoln claimed she heard Jackson stomping and swearing.


The ghost of President Thomas Jefferson has been heard playing his violin in the Yellow Oval Room.  Mr. David Burne, who once owned the land on which the White House stands, has been seen and heard in the Yellow Oval Room.  I wonder if he encounters the ghost of President Jefferson there.

The ghost of First Lady Dolly Madison is believed to protect the Rose Garden.  The ghost of First Lady Abigail Adams hangs laundry in the East Room.  The White House Staff can smell wet laundry and the scent of lavender in that room.

The ghost of President John Tyler haunts the Blue Room.  There he has been seen proposing to Julia Gardner, his second wife.

The ghost of President William Henry Harrison haunts the White House attic. He was the first president to die in the White House.

An unknown British Soldier, who died during the War of 1812, still roams the White House grounds holding a torch.

Mary Surratt's daughter Anna Surratt bangs on the doors of the White House, pleading to see President Andrew Johnson. She was there to beg for a pardon for her mother (the Lincoln assassination conspirator).


The Scent of Perfume from member Anna D.

When I was a kid, my parent’s bought an old boarding house. My grandmother lived on the bottom floor.  We lived on the second floor and my parents rented out the third floor. The couple on the third floor was very quiet and kept to themselves.  We would see the man all the time but he told us his wife stayed in the apartment because she had a fear of going outside and a fear of people.  So, I never met her.

My bedroom was on the second floor next to the main stairwell.  When my bedroom door was opened, I could see the stairway from my bed.  I was lying in my bed a few days after the couple upstairs moved in.  I observed a lady walk past my room and take the stairs up to the third floor.  I was surprised but I quickly realized that it must be the wife of the man living upstairs.  I wondered where she was coming from but I didn’t think anything more about it.  After that, about the same time each night, that lady would past my door on her way to the third floor.  She wore a pleasant smelling perfume.  I think it was Chanel No. 5.

Sometimes, I would wake up and she would be standing in my bedroom doorway watching me.  I assume that she had been watching me sleep for a while.  I said hello to her and told her my name but she didn’t respond.  She just backed out of the doorway and walked to the third floor. I thought it was odd but I didn’t make anything of it.  Occasionally, she would also leave flower peddles soaked in her perfume on my pillow.  I would find them in the morning when I woke up and smile.  It seems that she liked me.

Within two years, my grandmother passed away.  We bought an apartment building and moved out of the old house.  The couple upstairs moved out around the same time we did.  My parents sold the house to a friend who made it into a single family home.  A few weeks after the sale of our old house, the friend came to our new apartment building to have a discussion with my parents.  I was in my room but I could hear everything they were saying.  You didn’t disclose that the house was haunted the friend said.  Haunted, it’s not haunted what are you up too, my father asked?  They went back and forward like that for a while then the story came out.

The friend said that you didn’t say anything about the ghost woman who walks from the second floor to the third floor each night up the stairway.  That struck an alarm bell for me; because, it dawned on me that he was talking about the woman who I thought was our upstairs neighbor.  Since their family was in that house alone and she was still there.  It proved that I had mistaken the ghost for the woman living upstairs.  I went into our living room and I told my parents about seeing the ghost pass my bedroom door nightly.  I told them she never did anything scary just walk from the second floor to the third floor.  Since the friend had also seen her, they accepted the story and some compensation was offered to smooth over the dispute.  The new family stayed in that house for years and as far as I know the ghost is still haunting the place.