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| By Mark Turner Images |
I am not a ghost hunter and do not plan to ever start. Frankly, I think its just kind of overdone and I'm never really sure that the results are genuine. Though I use to make my living in radio and know a thing or two about sound, the idea of trying to record and EVP and then playing the tape back and actually hearing someone speaking to me in a place I lived or worked was
not my idea of fun.
My first ghost story . . .
Some of my other entries will be stories that have been related to me by others, but my first entry into the world of ghost tales was my strongest and most vivid experience. This one took place about 17 years ago or so. I was working the graveyard shift at the local radio station that sat far at the edge of town, all by its self, with no buildings close by, at the edge of a large wooded area. And there I was, totally alone, all night until the dawn. I had a little work to do but really not much except playing the recorded local station ID every half hour during a satellite network talk-show. This was before the days of computer automation. A friend of mine who worked another nighttime job that was equally as mundane as my own - lets call him Jim (not his real name) - had been calling me, telling me that he thought he was being haunted. He believed that a ghost was following him. I was intrigued but really didn't believe it. He would say things like; "There! It's doing it again!" It would be a thump, a knock, the feeling of a hand touching his hair. He was really spooked out. I had never heard him like this. This went on for something like a week.
At the time, Jim had this lady-friend that was hanging around with him, she was a few years younger than Jim and I, and one night he brought her over to the radio station. Lets call her May (not her real name either). Well, Jim starts in on this hearing noises business again. And to be honest, from time to time I would hear things in the radio station, but when you're trapped there alone at night, you do your best to ignore such things. "There! Did you hear that?" he asked excitedly. "Yes," I did. His lady friend, who, if I remember right, had had a difficult, childhood was 18 years old, and she had the most unusual eyes. Large, hypnotic, probing, a bit spooky. Lets just say, I believe the 'haunting' of Jim had something to do with the arrival of this young lady. She was not evil or anything like that, she was just a young person that had been through a lot.
For about half an hour, we all heard strange knockings around the otherwise empty radio station. It was about 2:30 in the morning. We sat in the lobby adjacent to the reception area. Jim, sitting in a chair with his back to the reception area, May sitting next to me on a couch where we could see into the reception room. The lobby was well lit, the reception area was lit only by the dim lights of nearby rooms. The reception area was essentially a dark, black place where the door was held open to us, wide open, an unobstructed view. May and I could see right into the reception room, Jim could not.
I had been watching a show called Sightings at the time and I saw how they had a psychic that would address the supposed spirits. So while each one of us is completely spooked out from hearing strange clicks and knocks, I say in a commanding tone "if there is someone here, then show yourself."
A few silent moments passed and then, God as my witness, from inside the dark reception area, I saw a long blue light - like static-electricity, it just sort of glowed into being. It was high in the air, about where a tall man's face would be, but I did not see a face, I did not see a body, all I saw a long horizontal blue light. As my eyes grew wide in total disbelief, I could see in the corner of my eye, May sitting next to me, looking just as stunned as I was. Jim saw our faces, but before I could even think to say something, the apparition was gone in an instant! May bolted up and flew in the opposite direction, down the hall, down the stairs and out the back door. Poor Jim was looking around, confused and pleading for someone to tell him what had happened. The first thing I said to May when we caught up with her was; "what did you see?" I wanted her version of the story. There was no denying it, she had seen the same thing.
A few days passed and I was back at work, feeling spooked out by strange sounds all around me. I said in a commanding voice "Alright, I don't need it. I'm in control here, now just back off." Then, the power died. Our piece of crap generator did not turn on, nor did the emergency exit lights. I was in total blackness trapped in the maze of halls with God knows what! As I began to walk to the back door, the lights came back, power was restored. I caught my breath and tried to explain it all it away as I worked into the morning light.
As time went on, and May moved away, the strange activity ended. At least I think it did for Jim. I always felt that she unintentionally had something to do with what we saw that night. As if she was kind of conduit, the channel to the other-side.
I have, to the best of my knowledge, never seen anything like it since. I still wish I knew exactly what it was.
- MT
(The above image was created by me from photos in my personal collection)
Other Ghost Stoires on this site . . .
Ghost Girls - TheTrue Story of an Ohio Haunting
The Ghost that Communicates through TV
Spirit Board
Sleeping Where a Man Died
Ghosts of Harper's Ferry, Ghosts of Antietam
Gregor Stewart, who is a self-described “open-minded sceptic”, found a research trip to the Tolbooth Tower in Pittenweem too strange for comfort.
