A Well-read Ghost

It is a pity stories like the one that follows can rarely be corroborated. Things like this always seem to happen in ways that could not be anticipated and properly documented. Nevertheless, the events in this story occurred exactly as they are described.

A Haunted House

The layout of the haunted house I called home for some years was such that in order to walk from the master bedroom to the kitchen one must pass a wide opening onto the dining room on the right. The dining room, in turn, opened to the living room with a clear line of sight from the hallway where I stood straight through to the living room.

Bedtime had a routine in this house. My customary circuit started at the kitchen for a pre-bed drink of water, a check to see all doors were locked and usually ended with a bathroom stop. In route to the kitchen, something caught my attention from within the dark living room which lay beyond the dining area.

During my pass-thru I experienced an impression that registered on my inner sight. It was so strong it made me stop in mid-stride. Staring into the darkness, I “saw” someone. There was surprise in me but not fear. The stranger was sitting cross legged on my sofa, evidently reading a newspaper! My sense was this apparition was living in the house with us, as if by right. He wore long creased pants, a long sleeve shirt, and black horn-rimmed glasses. The colors of his clothing were difficult to know for sure as he was sitting in near total darkness.

The ghost raised his head from his reading matter and looked directly at me, expressionless. What could I do? I decided to face him squarely and politely acknowledge his existence.

“I know you are sitting there. I see you, sir,” I said in an audible voice. No response. It was rather obvious that this character once lived here and considered this to be HIS home! With this in mind, it seemed only reasonable to me that he should be aware of certain ground rules for cohabiting with us. Having had some success in the past with evicting spirits that misbehaved, I felt confident to speak to our friend lurking in the darkness in an assertive manner.

Once again, using a stern voice, I said aloud “You are welcome to stay in our home provided you respect our space and behave yourself.” As an afterthought I added, “Also, you must not appear to my girlfriend or do anything that might scare us or visitors.”

Having “laid down the law,” as it were, my tone softened.

“Provided you behave yourself, you are most welcome to share this place with us. I bless you and wish you well.”

Having said these words, my bedtime routine resumed. The next stop was the kitchen for a drink. Standing at the sink with water running I stared straight ahead and smiled. A wave of healthy skepticism washed over me just then, as it often does. What if my ghost was no more than the product of an overactive imagination? After all, there was zero objective evidence that there was anyone in the darkness looking at me through horn-rimmed glasses. The skeptic inside me began to question whether this man even existed.

The First Test

That’s when an idea came to me. Why not make this ghost work for his room and board? I devised a simple test.

“I know you are here, sir,” I continued to speak to the apparition but from the kitchen. “You are welcome to live here with us but are you real or are you my imagination playing tricks on me? Please humor me by giving a sign that you’re not just in my head.”

A moment passed. Then, suddenly, the living room lights snapped on!! Of course, there was no one in the living room. No one living, that is. A feeling of exhilaration gripped my body like a giant’s fist! For a few moments I didn’t breathe. Returning to the, now brightly lit, living room I smiled and directed my words to where the ghost had been sitting.

“Yes, I know you’re there. Thank you, sir, for confirming that you’re real!”

The last stop in my nightly rounds was the bathroom stop. Sitting there on the porcelain throne, the realization that there was another entity, the ghost of a former resident, “living” with us was fascinating to say the least. An overpowering temptation arose in me to push my new relationship with this man a bit farther.

The Second Test

From my perch atop the toilet I once again began to speak to the spirit who had taken up residence in my home, or maybe just never left?

“Thank you for showing me you are real and able to interact with my realm. This is so exciting! May I ask you for one more demonstration of your presence here? I’ll make you a deal, sir: If you do this for me I promise to retell this story for the rest of my life in this world. Would you please humor me in this way and remove all possible doubt of your existence?”

Was I really having a “conversation” with a ghost? As unlikely as that sounds, even after all these years, an explanation for the living room lights turning on by themselves has eluded me. Those lights had never done that before or since.

The reasons for my intense interest in confirming the existence of this spirit went beyond mere curiosity. In my work as a psychic and occasional medium, I’ve had numerous experiences with incorporeal spirits. Sometimes the client I’m “reading” for can corroborate the information I get and sometimes they can’t. In any case, I wanted a rock-solid interaction with a ghost that was beyond even my ability to debunk it. This was really about me confirming that my psychic impression wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

Yes, it was pushing my luck to ask a spirit to meet a second test, but what was there to lose? Still sitting on the bathroom throne, an urgent knock broke my reverie. My girlfriend needed me to come out right NOW! A knowing smile crossed my face.

“What’s wrong?” I inquired.

“You have to come out now. PLEASE!”

The color of fear in her voice came through the door wraith-like and chill. How could this emergency be anything other than the answer of my ghostly border?

Ninety seconds later I sat on our bed waiting for her to explain.

“There are voices coming from inside the dresser!”

“What!?” I grunted. It’s the thing people say when they need a moment to process what just happened.

What followed was a series of questions wherein I asked her if the voice she heard could have come from people walking past the house or maybe next-door neighbors.

She repeated herself in a jittery babble, reaffirming that the voices came from inside the room, specifically from our large bedroom dresser.

“Okay, well stop talking for a sec so I can listen.”

My ears began to sift through the silence... the seconds ticked by in slow motion. But then, there it was! The unmistakable sound of a man’s voice! It wasn’t a creepy voice like in horror movies, but I was able to confirm two critical facts:

1. It was the baritone voice of a man.

2. It was in the room with us.

As they say in TV commercials; “But wait, there’s more!” We both stared at the dresser in silent shock when next we heard a woman’s voice join the first! This was all just too much. Despite my experience with ghosts in the past, fear flowed through my veins like ice water.

We were both riveted to the floor. Still, something had to be done. Dragging my two leaden feet, I crossed the short distance to the dresser and inclined my ear to determine where precisely the voices were coming from. Oddly enough, the tone and pace of the speech sounded like an ordinary conversation between a man and a woman, except for the fact that it emanated from a large piece of furniture beside our bed! I began searching the drawers.

In the center row of drawers, we had a “junk” drawer. This was a catch all for everything that didn’t have a spot to live in. It was a miscellany of small items accumulated and forgotten. Putting my ear within 12 inches of this now open drawer, a mystery in a box, the conversation resumed, and I knew THIS was the source!

The creepy chatter continued, so calling on courage I didn't feel, my hand rummaged into and through the junk until it reached a larger object hidden from view at the back. Fishing it out through the clutter I found myself holding a bright yellow battery-powered radio. the switch had been turned to the “on” position!

Here’s the thing that makes this event notable, aside from the challenge I had just made to this incorporeal entity; we hardly ever used this drawer and when asked about the last time my girlfriend had opened it she said about two weeks. It had been even longer for me. This piece of furniture was one of those huge 9 drawer monstrosities popular back in the 70’s. There’s no way we could have jostled it enough to make the radio turn on by accident. In fact, that radio had NEVER acted up before or since that day.

Logic suggested that the switch had not been on before or the batteries would have died long ago and, obviously, we would had heard programming until they did. Since neither of us had even opened the drawer in recent memory or remembered the radio was back there, we did not turn the thing on either. Any kind of freak electrical explanations for what happened would have also had to coincide with the the light also turning on by itself. I don’t buy that this was coincidence.

Turning the switch to the “off” position ended this odd little episode once and for all. My girlfriend was at a total loss to explain how such a thing could have happened. I elected to tell her of my experience with the ghost and my strong suspicion that this was all part of his answer. In hindsight, telling her the whole story wasn’t my smartest move. She was NOT amused! She shut the whole thing down by making it HD clear that this was now officially a taboo subject about which she didn’t want to hear another word- ever!

A Promise to Keep

Even though it has been many years since I moved out of the house where these and other equally strange events transpired, I continue to keep my promise to this well-read and, might I add, very cooperative ghost. Over the years this true story has been told many times to many people, and that number has just grown by one because now it has been told to YOU!

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Note: The preceding story is presented to you in unedited form. It will be edited and published in a new book of 100% true stories of the paranormal. We are looking for a 2018 release so keep you "3rd eye" on the watch for it! - Q