Ghostly Stories

As paranormal investigators we often hear of unusual events occurring as people remodel their homes. This is a story of such an event that happened in our home just recently Monday Jan. 17th 2005.

After living here a number of years it was time for a new floor in our kitchen, which we put off doing for one reason or another for several years. My wife Jo and I finally decide the way to go was to install ceramic tile, hoping this would be the last time we would need to cover this floor. So, after settling on the type of tile we wanted it was only a matter of ripping up the old floor and getting started with this project.

It took several weeks to finish, this included installing new wood trim work. I was home alone the one day finishing the final touches and holding a corner strip up on the entrance way wall, when out of the corner of my eye there was a sudden blur and a shattering sound behind me. As I turned I saw a deer antler still in motion spinning part way into the kitchen on the new tile floor several feet beyond that was another broken piece. Stunned I just stared for a few seconds then went to investigate where this had came from. In the room across from the kitchen I have a collection of neat outdoor treasures I collected over the years. These include deer antlers among other things; this particular antler was either on the shelf directly behind the wall or on the shelf above the window.

Either way if it had to fall by the laws of gravity it should have fallen straight down onto the carpet in that room and not travel the 15/16 feet into the kitchen with such force that it shattered on the floor. As any experienced hunter knows deer antlers are not the easiest material to break. Another thing I noticed was that nothing else on the shelves were disturbed, it seemed odd that for whatever reason this antler decided to move it didn't knock anything else over!

A mystery? Yes! For the time being we cannot explain how this happened, our only guess is that someone from the other side wanted my attention or didn't like the new changes.

By Al Brindza

From time to time I plan on writing an article concerning some unexplained events that have happened in our home or about one of my other personal experiences. This article is about a few events that happened in our home when we first purchased it back in 1986.

At one time this property was a working farm in its earlier days, located in Indiana County Pa. My wife and I immediately fell in love with the place for it's the type of house we always dreamt of owning. It is a big 2-story home with plenty of room to raise a family, with lots of ground and several ponds and a stream on the property. We only lived there several weeks when one night we heard this terrific crash downstairs from something falling. My first reaction was that someone was trying to break in. Upon investigating the cause of the noise we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, until Jo pointed to the fireplace in the living room. There was my muzzleloader rifle lying on the mantel, it had fallen approximately 2ft. from its resting place on the board.

We just stared in disbelief! How could this have happened? I know for a fact that this rifle was secure in its resting place upon the board. I designed the mounts myself and for it to come off of there the rifle needs to be lifted straight up approximately an inch and pulled forward towards you. The average person needs to stand on their toes to even attempt to remove it from the wall. The only people tall enough to do this were my wife and myself and we were both upstairs asleep. My sons were in their own rooms upstairs asleep at the time and were too small to reach this even if they would use a chair or something to stand on. Also, this muzzleloader weighs approximately 9 lbs., it didn't make sense, how could it have fallen? Nothing else on the walls or in the room had moved, if we had some sort of earthquake or something of that nature then other things would have been disturbed. I was very puzzled and upset that this had happened and wanted to know why? Another thing that was odd and to my relief was that from the height the rifle had fallen, and as loud as the noise was there wasn't a mark or scratch on either the rifle or mantel!

Another incident involving this area in the living room, was the one day my father-in-law was sitting in his wheelchair near the fireplace when I actually saw from across the room one of those glass candle holders we have on either side above the mantel fall straight out several ft. then fall and hit our coffee table without breaking. He didn't see it but he felt it going past him. Jo was sitting at the dinning room table she heard it fall, but didn't see it happen. Again no reason for this to happen and nothing else was disturbed. It's been 16 years now since we lived here and the list of unexplained things that have happened gets longer as the months go by. Nothing evil or anything of that nature, just harmless pranks to let us know that we are not alone!

By Jon McClintock

I never dreamed that my favorite picture of Russ, his dog Ebony and his garden - the true loves of his life captured in July 2001 - would be on display at his funeral less than 11 months later.

I met Russ, who came to be one of my best friends (and a mentor on how to live in rural Pennsylvania), in late winter, 1977. A snowdrift across the road near our Indiana County farm had the car "baggle-sagged" (as he put it), requiring a good tug from someone with a four-wheel drive pickup. It was the first of countless times our farm neighbor would help me out at a tough moment. I wrote a weekly newspaper column at the time ("Getting Away") based on the adventures of a Philly-area kid acclimating to Exurbia and Russ was a regular character in my stories.

Russ, sometimes primed by our homemade Elderberry wine, provided my best material. He and wife Martha were so generous in every way that it was a rare night at our cabin when Russ wasn't stopping by "for a little bit." That was a continuing joke. His "little bits" could extend to six hours if a NASCAR race was on, or he fell asleep from the 20-hour days he worked, even in retirement.

Cancer and an aneurysm took Russ from us very quickly. Hospice got him home in time to pat Ebony and take a final glance at the garden. He was gone two hours later.

Russ had been intrigued in the paranormal and we even visited his family's cemetery because he was certain his mean-spirited grandfather would be a'helling. As it was daylight and our first and only effort, nothing came of it. But the trip last fall gave Russ a chance to connect with his family, and gave me some insight into his humble beginnings.

As I walked to Russ's casket, I stared at my old friend, touched his hand, and said: "keep in touch."

Fast forward to early September: Russ remembered.

I'm walking around the pond and the smell of freshly-cut grass puts me in mind of my old buddy. I talked to him nearly an hour, tying some loose knots between us, then turned inside with our pugs.

I was suddenly as dizzy as I've ever been; sit or fall-down dizzy. Worried, I stumbled to a couch in the living room. After a few minutes I was less dizzy and had a mild headache. And then I saw the chair Russ used, barely 6-feet away. I reached for my camera and told Russ 'Okay, I'd expect you to be in that chair in front of me, so give it all you got on three....1....2...3 ,

As I looked in the viewfinder, I KNEW that Russ would show. A quick look still knocked my socks off. Where his head would been was a wonderful orb, and I knew I wasn't alone. I shot more photos to insure the first one's validity. I would later try dozens more under less dramatic circumstances - and not a single orb of any size was apparent.

I wasn't disappointed. I know my buddy came back one more time….probably will again…often, if he's anything like he was. I hope so. I still have trouble with the water well and other projects I undertook only because Russ was there showing me. I was given a wonderful gift, in his life…and now, afterwards.

jmc

We have been hearing that nothing is a coincidence, been told to watch things as they happen and connect the dots. As I was describing a possible new and eccentric site to Kelly Weaver and giving her the background of the source, I began to notice that the circumstances leading up to the story told about this possible site, and the women connected to them, were indeed a series of "coincidences".

It really began way back in November, during an election night party. MJ was in attendance and when we began talking ghosts, she said "Oh, I've got some at my house, you'll have to come!" As it turned out, she had worked in media and knew Jon, but hadn't seen him for 10-15 years, and was there as a supporter of the candidate. The ghost hunt idea got put off because she insisted that people she knew and trusted be there and our schedules just never meshed. We never went.

This June MJ began a business and came to our agency for advertising help. Just one week before she called us Jon had run into a "blast from the past". They said hello and that was that. As it turned out, she was a best friend of MJs and came to the business meetings with her. This time when MJ said "come to my house and find my ghosts", we did. Because it was a beautiful evening, I suggested that we start at the old cemetery near her house because she had been describing all the interesting monuments and stones. As we walked into the oldest section, MJ literally tripped over the stone of the man that built her house…she had looked for it previously many times, with no luck!

Last week MJ went to a family reunion for the first time in another part of the state. She went to a bookstore to browse and the conversation in some way turned to the man who built her house and the fact that she was looking for information about him. The owner knew his name- AND is related to him.

This last part has nothing to do with her "ghost", or does it? Just before leaving for the reunion MJ got a new cell phone, The cigarette-lighter charger she had didn't seem to work with new phone on the trip, and her teenage daughter decided to make it work- burning out a fuse in the car and various other things. When she took the car to the repair shop Monday morning to get the damage repaired, the mechanic got in and drove about 25 feet. Suddenly the whole wheel assembly on the one tire snapped off at the axle! Had her daughter not burned up the dash gizmos causing her to go to the repair shop, she would have surely wrecked the car!

P.S. There is "something" in her house

Look for our upcoming story of the investigaton at MJ's house on our Investigation page.