This is NOT a true story, however, I have been to the MHI grave yard and the descriptions of it are real.
I have always believed in the possibility of the supernatural. I love reading ghost stories and watching horror films to receive prickly little goose bumps up and down my spine. I love it. I love the feeling of terror and not knowing what is going to happen next. It's just me.

It's probably why I convinced my friends to visit the MHI (Mental Health Institute) grave yard one Halloween night. I have been to the grave yard a couple of times before, alone and with friends. It is truly a weird sight to behold. To get there, you have to drive about a mile up a gravel road, park your car in a small ditch, hop over a fence, walk about five minutes through a corn field until you are greeted by a large white cross. The grave yard. You don't see any graves at first, only rusted metal markers. I don't know if they are graves or not, but it's pretty creepy. Farther back are the graves. Graves of the insane and mentally ill.

So, it was Halloween night, the last Halloween of the century, and I drug my friends out to the MHI grave yard. Equipped with flash lights and heavy jackets, it is always cold in Iowa on Halloween, we trudged through the corn field in into the grave yard. Grave yard of the mentally ill. My friends clung to each other as we entered the clearing. The tall white cross loomed out in front of us. "If some thing happens, our best bet is to go under that cross," I teased my friends. We laughed together and spit up to explore. The MHI grave yard has three main grave areas. Each area has about 20 graves. I made my way to the farthest area. The graves there were the oldest. Some were broken, some were sunken far into the ground, all were covered with green moss. I carefully avoided tripping on the sunken graves and tried to make out the lettering in the starless night. I couldn't. But I knew from experience none of the graves here had names, only numbers and dates of death. No one has been buried here for more then 100 years.

I felt the yellowing graves and tried to imagine why the people underneath me were placed in a mental health institute, when I felt a cold breath on my back. I stood still. I heard my friends laughing towards the corn field. Minutes passed and I dismissed the breath as a cold piece of wind. I went back to my thoughts.

There it was again. An icy breath on the back of my neck. This time it wasn't just cold, it also smelt like decay. A rotten stench filled my nose. I didn't stop to think about what had happened this time. I took of running to the cross. Underneath the cross, I stopped for breath. Finally regaining confidence, I looked up for my friends. I saw one. "Bill," I said gratefully, "I'm so glad your here." I walked towards Bill and the smell of decaying flesh hit me again. I tried to take Bill's hand but my arm flew though his hand. It wasn't Bill. The object smiled at me, his teeth black like tar, his hair ruffled in the wind. He was transparent. I saw through him. He asked me, "Is this cross going to protect you?"

I never found out. I ran away from that smelly man, though the corn field, and into my car where I waited for my friends with the radio turned all the way up. When they came back, I told them what happened. They think I'm full of crap.
Read more at http://www.theholidayspot.com/halloween/thecross.htm#iLFLlYcDOlx5o1cc.99 

Don't Turn on the Light

retold by Tushar

She commandeered the room in the basement of her dorm as soon as she realized she would have to pull an all-nighter in order to prepare for tomorrow’s final exam. Her roommate, Jenna, liked to get to bed early, so she packed up everything she thought she would need and went downstairs to study . . . and study . . . and study some more.

It was two o’clock, when she realized that she’d left one of the textbooks upstairs on her bed. With a dramatic sigh, she rose, and climbed the stairs slowly to her third-floor dorm room.
The lights were dim in the long hallway, and the old boards creaked under her weary tread. She reached her room and turned the handle as softly as she could, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside, so that the hall lights wouldn’t wake her roommate.

The room was filled with a strange, metallic smell. She frowned a bit, her arms breaking out into chills. There was a strange feeling of malice in the room, as if a malevolent gaze were fixed upon her.  It was a mind trick; the all-nighter was catching up with her.

 She could hear Jenna breathing on the far side of the room—a heavy sound, almost as if she had been running. Jenna must have picked up a cold during the last tense week before finals.

She crept along the wall until she reached her bed, groping among the covers for the stray history textbook. In the silence, she could hear a steady drip-drip-drip sound. She sighed silently. Facilities would have to come to fix the sink in the bathroom…again.

 Her fingers closed on the textbook. She picked it up softly and withdrew from the room as silently as she could.

Relieved to be out of the room, she hurried back downstairs, collapsed into an overstuffed chair and studied until six o’clock.  She finally decided that enough was enough. If she slipped upstairs now, she could get a couple hours’ sleep before her nine o’clock exam.

The first of the sun’s rays were beaming through the windows as she slowly slid the door open, hoping not to awaken Jenna. Her nose was met by an earthy, metallic smell a second before her eyes registered the scene in her dorm room. Jenna was spread-eagled on top of her bed against the far wall, her throat cut from ear to ear and her nightdress stained with blood. Two drops of blood fell from the saturated blanket with a drip-drip noise that sounded like a leaky faucet.

Scream after scream poured from her mouth, but she couldn’t stop herself any more than she could cease wringing her hands. All along the hallway, doors slammed and footsteps came running down the passage.

Within moments other students had gathered in her doorway, and one of her friends gripped her arm with a shaking hand and pointed a trembling finger toward the wall. Her eyes widened in shock at what she saw. Then she fainted into her friend’s arms.

On the wall above her bed, written in her roommate’s blood, were the words: “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”

Axe Murder Hollow

A Pennsylvania Ghost Story 

retold by Tushar 

     Susan and Ned were driving through a wooded empty section of highway. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, the sky went dark in the torrential downpour.
     “We’d better stop,”  said Susan.
      Ned nodded his head in agreement. He stepped on the brake, and suddenly the car started to slide on the slick pavement. They plunged off the road and slid to a halt at the bottom of an incline.
     Pale and shaking, Ned quickly turned to check if Susan was all right.  When she nodded, Ned relaxed and looked through the rain soaked windows.
     “I’m going to see how bad it is,” he told Susan, and when out into the storm. She saw his blurry figure in the headlight, walking around the front of the car. A moment later, he jumped in beside her, soaking wet.
      “The car’s not badly damaged, but we’re wheel-deep in mud,” he said. “I’m going to have to go for help.”
      Susan swallowed nervously. There would be no quick rescue here. He told her to turn off the headlights and lock the doors until he returned.
     Axe Murder Hollow. Although Ned hadn’t said the name aloud, they both knew what he had been thinking when he told her to lock the car. This was the place where a man had once taken an axe and hacked his wife to death in a jealous rage over an alleged affair. Supposedly, the axe-wielding spirit of the husband continued to haunt this section of the road.
      Outside the car, Susan heard a shriek, a loud thump, and a strange gurgling noise. But she couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
      Frightened, she shrank down into her seat. She sat in silence for a while, and then she noticed another sound.  Bump. Bump. Bump.  It was a soft sound, like something being blown by the wind.
      Suddenly, the car was illuminated by a bright light.  An official sounding voice told her to get out of the car. Ned must have found a police officer.  Susan unlocked the door and stepped out of the car.  As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she saw it.
      Hanging by his feet from the tree next to the car was the dead body of Ned.  His bloody throat had been cut so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. The wind swung his corpse back and forth so that it thumped against the tree. Bump. Bump. Bump.
     Susan screamed and ran toward the voice and the light. As she drew close, she realized the light was not coming from a flashlight. Standing there was the glowing figure of a man with a smile on his face and a large, solid, and definitely real axe in his hands. She backed away from the glowing figure until she bumped into the car. 
      “Playing around when my back was turned,” the ghost whispered, stroking the sharp blade of the axe with his fingers. “You’ve been very naughty.”
      The last thing she saw was the glint of the axe blade in the eerie, incandescent light.

Burnt Church

Retold by Tushar

She was sophisticated, poised, and cultured.  In retrospect, this should have made them suspicious.  A teacher like her should be presiding over a girl’s school in London or New York, not seeking a position in a small town in Georgia.  But at the time, they were too delighted by her application to ask any questions. 

“It will be good for our daughter to learn some culture,” the attorney’s wife told the pastor’s wife. 

“And our boy may find some table manners at last,” the pastor’s wife responded with a smile. School was called into session in the local church shortly after the arrival of the teacher.  And soon, the children were bringing glowing reports home.  “Teacher” was special.  Teacher taught them manners and diction as well as reading, writing and arithmetic.  All the children loved teacher. The parents were delighted by the progress their children were making at school.  Teacher had been a real find.  A God-send, said the preacher’s wife. 

But not everyone in town was so satisfied.  The local ne-er-do well – called Smith – had more sinister stories to tell. 

“That woman ain’t natural,” he told the blacksmith, waving a bottle of whisky for emphasis.    “I seen her out in the woods after dark, dancing around a campfire and chanting in a strange language.”

“Nonsense,” the blacksmith retorted, calmly hammering a headed iron bar on his anvil. 

“They say she’s got an altar in her room and it ain’t an altar to the Almighty,” Smith insisted, leaning forward and blowing his boozy breath into the blacksmith’s face. 

“You’re drunk,” said the blacksmith, lifting the hot iron so it barred the man from coming any closer.  “Go home and sleep it off.”

Smith left the smithy, but he continued to talk wild about the Teacher in the weeks that followed.  During those weeks, a change gradually came over the school children.  The typical high-jinks and pranks that all children played lessened.  Their laughter died away.  And when they did misbehave, it was on a much more ominous scale than before.  Items began to disappear from houses and farms.  Expensive items like jewelry, farm tools, and money.  When children talked back to their parents, there was a hard-edge to their voices, and they did not apologize for their rudeness, even when punished. “And my daughter lied to me the other day,” the attorney’s wife said to the pastor’s wife in distress.  “I saw her punch her younger brother and steal an apple from him, and she denied it to my face.  She practically called me a liar!” 

“The games the children play back in the woods frighten me,” the pastor’s wife confessed.  “They chant in a strange language, and they move in such a strange manner.  Almost like a ritual dance.”

“Could it be something they are learning at school?” asked the attorney’s wife. 

“Surely not!  Teacher is such a sweet, sophisticated lady,” said the pastor’s wife. 

But they exchanged uneasy glances. 

Smith, on the other hand, was sure.  “That teacher is turning the young’uns to the Devil, that’s what she’s doing,” he proclaimed up and down the streets of the town. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the preacher told him when they passed in front of the mercantile. 

“I ain’t ridiculous.  You are blind,” Smith told him.  “That teacher ought to be burned at the stake, like they burned the witches in Salem.”

The pastor, pale with wrath, ordered Smith out of his sight.  But the ne’er-do-well’s words rang in his mind and would not be pushed away.  And the children continued to behave oddly.  Almost like they were possessed.  He would, the preacher decided reluctantly, have to look into it someday soon. 

That day came sooner than he thought.  The very next Monday, his little boy came down with a cold, and his mother kept him home from school. When the pastor returned from his duties for a late lunch, his wife came running up to him as soon as he entered the door.  She was pale with fright. 

“I heard him chanting something over and over again in his bedroom,” she gasped.  “So I crept to the door to listen.  He was saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards!” 

The pastor gasped and clutched his Bible to his chest, as goose bumps erupted over his body.  This was positively satanic.  And there was nowhere the boy could have learned such a thing in this town, unless he learned it…at school. 

At that moment, the attorney’s wife came bursting in the door behind him. 

“Quick pastor, quick,” she cried.  “Smith is running through town with a torch, talking about burning down the school.  The children are still in class!” 

The pastor raced out of the house with the two woman at his heels.  They and the other townsfolk who followed them were met by a huge cloud of smoke coming from the direction of the church, where the school children had their lessons.  The building was already ablaze as frantic parents beat at the flames with wet sacks, or threw buckets of water from the pump into the inferno.  Smith could be heard cackling unrepentantly from the far side of the building, which was full of the screams of the trapped students and their teacher. 

The fire blazed with a supernatural kind of force, and the pastor thought he heard the sound of the Teacher laughing from within the building when it became apparent that no one could be saved. The church burnt for several hours, and when it was finally extinguished, there was nothing left.  Mourning parents tried to find something of their children to bury, and Smith wisely disappeared from town, his mission against the works of Satan completed. The teacher’s burnt body was buried deep in the ground and covered with brick tomb.  The children’s smaller bodies were interred beneath wooden crosses.  Of all the student’s in the school that fall, only the pastor’s small son survived. To this day, voices can be heard in the graveyard of at Burnt Church, chanting unintelligible words, as the school children and the teacher once chanted in the woods outside town.  Sometimes apparitions are seen, and dark walkers who roam the graveyard at night.  And they say that a brick taken from the grave of the evil teacher can set fire to objects on which they are placed.

Raw Head and Bloody Bones

A Missouri Ghost Story

by

Tushar

Way back in the deep woods there lived a scrawny old woman who had a reputation for being the best conjuring woman in the Ozarks. With her bedraggled black-and-gray hair, funny eyes - one yellow and one green - and her crooked nose, Old Betty was not a pretty picture, but she was the best there was at fixing what ailed a man, and that was all that counted.Old Betty's house was full of herbs and roots and bottles filled with conjuring medicine. The walls were lined with strange books brimming with magical spells. Old Betty was the only one living in the Hollow who knew how to read; her granny, who was also a conjurer, had taught her the skill as part of her magical training.Just about the only friend Old Betty had was a tough, mean, ugly old razorback hog that ran wild around her place. It rooted so much in her kitchen garbage that all the leftover spells started affecting it. Some folks swore up and down that the old razorback hog sometimes walked upright like man. One fellow claimed he'd seen the pig sitting in the rocker on Old Betty's porch, chattering away to her while she stewed up some potions in the kitchen, but everyone discounted that story on account of the fellow who told it was a little too fond of moonshine.

"Raw Head" was the name Old Betty gave the razorback, referring maybe to the way the ugly creature looked a bit like some of the dead pigs come butchering time down in Hog-Scald Hollow. The razorback didn't mind the funny name. Raw Head kept following Old Betty around her little cabin and rooting up the kitchen leftovers. He'd even walk to town with her when she came to the local mercantile to sell her home remedies.Well, folks in town got so used to seeing Raw Head and Old Betty around the town that it looked mighty strange one day around hog-driving time when Old Betty came to the mercantile without him."Where's Raw Head?" the owner asked as he accepted her basket full of home-remedy potions. The liquid in the bottles swished in an agitate manner as Old Betty said: "I ain't seen him around today, and I'm mighty worried. You seen him here in town?"

"Nobody's seen him around today. They would've told me if they did," the mercantile owner said. "We'll keep a lookout fer you."That's mighty kind of you. If you see him, tell him to come home straightaway," Old Betty said. The mercantile owner nodded agreement as he handed over her weekly pay.Old Betty fussed to herself all the way home. It wasn't like Raw Head to disappear, especially not the day they went to town. The man at the mercantile always saved the best scraps for the mean old razorback, and Raw Head never missed a visit. When the old conjuring woman got home, she mixed up a potion and poured it onto a flat plate."Where's that old hog got to?" she asked the liquid. It clouded over and then a series of pictures formed. First, Old Betty saw the good-for-nothing hunter that lived on the next ridge sneaking around the forest, rounding up razorback hogs that didn't belong to him. One of the hogs was Raw Head. Then she saw him taking the hogs down to Hog-Scald Hollow, where folks from the next town were slaughtering their razorbacks. Then she saw her hog, Raw Head, slaughtered with the rest of the pigs and hung up for gutting. The final picture in the liquid was the pile of bloody bones that had once been her hog, and his scraped-clean head lying with the other hogsheads in a pile.

Old Betty was infuriated by the death of her only friend. It was murder to her, plain and simple. Everyone in three counties knew that Raw Head was her friend, and that lazy, hog-stealing, good-for-nothing hunter on the ridge was going to pay for slaughtering him.Now Old Betty tried to practice white conjuring most of the time, but she knew the dark secrets too. She pulled out an old, secret book her granny had given her and turned to the very last page. She lit several candles and put them around the plate containing the liquid picture of Raw Head and his bloody bones. Then she began to chant: "Raw Head and Bloody Bones. Raw Head and Bloody Bones."The light from the windows disappeared as if the sun had been snuffed out like a candle. Dark clouds billowed into the clearing where Old Betty's cabin stood, and the howl of dark spirits could be heard in the wind that pummeled the treetops.

"Raw Head and Bloody Bones. Raw Head and Bloody Bones."

Betty continued the chant until a bolt of silver lightning left the plate and streaked out threw the window, heading in the direction of Hog-Scald Hollow.When the silver light struck Raw Head's severed head, which was piled on the hunter's wagon with the other hog heads, it tumbled to the ground and rolled until it was touching the bloody bones that had once inhabited its body. As the hunter's wagon rumbled away toward the ridge where he lived, the enchanted Raw Head called out: "Bloody bones, get up and dance!"Immediately, the bloody bones reassembled themselves into the skeleton of a razorback hog walking upright, as Raw Head had often done when he was alone with Old Betty. The head hopped on top of his skeleton and Raw Head went searching through the woods for weapons to use against the hunter. He borrowed the sharp teeth of a dying panther, the claws of a long-dead bear, and the tail from a rotting raccoon and put them over his skinned head and bloody bones.Then Raw Head headed up the track toward the ridge, looking for the hunter who had slaughtered him. Raw Head slipped passed the thief on the road and slid into the barn where the hunter kept his horse and wagon. Raw Head climbed up into the loft and waited for the hunter to come home.It was dusk when the hunter drove into the barn and unhitched his horse. The horse snorted in fear, sensing the presence of Raw Head in the loft. Wondering what was disturbing his usually-calm horse, the hunter looked around and saw a large pair of eyes staring down at him from the darkness in the loft.

The hunter frowned, thinking it was one of the local kids fooling around in his barn.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big eyes fer?" he snapped, thinking the kids were trying to scare him with some crazy mask.

"To see your grave," Raw Head rumbled very softly. The hunter snorted irritably and put his horse into the stall.

"Very funny. Ha,ha," The hunter said. When he came out of the stall, he saw Raw Head had crept forward a bit further. Now his luminous yellow eyes and his bears claws could clearly be seen.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big claws fer?" he snapped. "You look ridiculous."

"To dig your grave…" Raw Head intoned softly, his voice a deep rumble that raised the hairs on the back of the hunter's neck. He stirred uneasily, not sure how the crazy kid in his loft could have made such a scary sound. If it really was a crazy kid.

Feeling a little spooked, he hurried to the door and let himself out of the barn. Raw Head slipped out of the loft and climbed down the side of the barn behind him. With nary a rustle to reveal his presence, Raw Head raced through the trees and up the path to a large, moonlight rock. He hid in the shadow of the huge stone so that the only things showing were his gleaming yellow eyes, his bear claws, and his raccoon tail.When the hunter came level with the rock on the side of the path, he gave a startled yelp. Staring at Raw Head, he gasped: "You nearly knocked the heart right out of me, you crazy kid! Land o' Goshen, what have you got that crazy tail fer?""To sweep your grave…" Raw Head boomed, his enchanted voice echoing through the woods, getting louder and louder with each echo. The hunter took to his heels and ran for his cabin. He raced passed the old well-house, passed the wood pile, over the rotting fence and into his yard. But Raw Head was faster. When the hunter reached his porch, Raw Head leapt from the shadows and loomed above him. The hunter stared in terror up at Raw Head's gleaming yellow eyes in the ugly razorback hogshead, his bloody bone skeleton with its long bear claws, sweeping raccoon's tail and his gleaming sharp panther teeth.

"Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big teeth fer?" he gasped desperately, stumbling backwards from the terrible figure before him.

"To eat you up, like you wanted to eat me!" Raw Head roared, descending upon the good-for-nothing hunter. The murdering thief gave one long scream in the moonlight. Then there was silence, and the sound of crunching.Nothing more was ever seen or heard of the lazy hunter who lived on the ridge. His horse also disappeared that night. But sometimes folks would see Raw Head roaming through the forest in the company of his friend Old Betty. And once a month, on the night of the full moon, Raw Head would ride the hunter's horse through town, wearing the old man's blue overalls over his bloody bones with a hole cut-out for his raccoon tail. In his bloody, bear-clawed hands, he carried his raw, razorback hogshead, lifting it high against the full moon for everyone to see.

10 Ways of Contacting Ghosts

Some believe in them and some do not but we all do had or have nightmares sometimes showing there is still a glitch or fear even for those who don’t believe. However, we live in a modern era but most people before us haven’t lived in it, they had their myths, traditions and beliefs. The desire to contact spirits and ghosts would have began since time immemorial, when the early human flesh had died, people would have tried to contact their spirits. Séance is the term used for an attempt to communicate with spirits and ghosts. This word is of French descent.

10. Driving in “Neutral Gear”

If you want to find a ghost, come to Texas, slip your pick-up truck neutral and if you’re lucky enough then you will enjoy a healthful shove in the land of dead children and San Antonio Ghost Train.Legend has it as it follows after ghastly event took in 1942. A group of young school children were so they say rattling among their bus on the way to school. But there arose the terror among the poor children when their bus broke down on a railroad crossing and imagine their concern when they saw a train hurtling towards them. It was clear that they’ll be skipping school that day. What passed through their mind when they saw it approaching more nearer would definitely be terrible, as it looked bigger and bigger until finally crashing with them. The end result was a bus loaded of innocent little children, all killed and splattered all over the country side from the crossing of Shane and Villamain Roads at San Antonio, Texas.

And the story goes that those children have haunted the train ever since. That’s true according to the legend. Legend has it that if you leave your car in the neutral, children will push the car away from the track, a little helping hand from ghost train angels keeping watch over the railroad. They say that the spirits protect others from meeting the same fate as they did when traveling across the track.

The place had been experimented for any such phenomenon and 20meters from the track, the car was placed in neutral and the car started rolling forwards, so were the ghost children giving them a friendly shove? Well a local Historian and Ghost train skeptic Docia Williams doesn’t think so, she says she has verified the land for no paranormal activity, it must be the slope. But the tale grew as history and has its own believers who believe they have contacted ghosts while driving in neutral.

9. Visit a Haunted House

Haunted houses are often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Supernatural activity inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in the building’s past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide. In 2005, Gallup polls conducted in three countries—the United States, Canada, and Great Britain—showed that more people believe in haunted houses than any of the other paranormal items tested, with 37% of Americans, 28% of Canadians, and 40% of Britons believing.

Paranormal investigation is now a high tech affair unlike before, but like times ago, you should posses the right kit. Traditionally it involved crystal gazing, mirrors and candles and might some human skulls and Christ cross, but now the kit is different, camcorders, sound recorders and EMF meters. Tooled up with digital thermometers and other gizmos, one could go and with his own 5 senses sense the hypoxia or vibrations. It is this place where you should hastily deploy your sails, spooks could be anywhere, even in the ceiling. Either you use the traditional kit or new one, your faith should be strong and hopefully you might hear or see a ghost.

Some of the phenomena generally associated with haunted houses, including strange visions and sounds, feelings of dread, illness, and the sudden, apparently inexplicable death of all the occupants, may be attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning. In one famous case, carbon monoxide poisoning was clearly identified as the cause of an alleged haunting. Dr. William Wilmer, an ophthalmologist, described the experiences of one of his patients in a 1921. “Mr. and Mrs. H.” moved into a new home, but soon began to complain of headaches and listlessness. They began to hear bells and footsteps during the night,  accompanied by strange physical sensations and mysterious figures. When they began to investigate, they found the previous residents had experienced similar symptoms. Upon examination, their furnace was found to be severely damaged, resulting in incomplete combustion that produces carbon monoxide and forcing most of the fumes into the house rather than up the chimney. After the stove was fixed, the family fully recovered and did not experience any further unusual events.

8. Find and Board Mary Celeste

The Mary Celeste was a brigantine merchant ship notably discovered in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and apparently abandoned, despite the fact that the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and able seamen. She was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and had over six months’ worth of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including valuables. The crew was never seen or heard from again. Their disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.

The fate of her crew has been the subject of much speculation. Theories range from alcoholic fumes, to underwater earthquakes, to waterspouts, to involving  extraterrestrial life, sea monsters, and Bermuda Triangle. But he Mary Celeste was most commonly described as the archetypal ghost ship, since she was discovered derelict without any apparent explanation and her clocks and compass were not functioning which is believed to be a play of ghosts. They say if you want to see ghosts and die with them, then board it.

Over the next 13 years, the vessel changed hands 17 times. By then, the Mary Celeste was in very poor condition. Her last captain and owner, identified as G. C. Parker for sake of an insurance fraud in the Caribbean, attempted to run her over reefs but plan didn’t work and it failed to sink so he burned it. Later he was caught but died under unknowingly which further made people’s superstitions about the ship stronger. The partially burnt hulk of the Mary Celeste was deemed beyond repair and she was left to eventually slip off the shoal and sink. And once it sank, it’s trace could never be found. They say it disappeared under water just like the crew did. Some even claimed to find it but carbon dating proved them wrong. I am sure if you find it, repair it and board it, you’d contact them too.

7. Dream a Succubi or Incubi

A succubus is a female demonic legendary creature who seduces men in their sleep. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death. She often visits monks. Its male counterpart is the incubus. Succubi draw energy from men to sustain themselves. In the past succubi were depicted as frightening and demonic, usually with wings and a tail. Sometimes the wings are that of a bat or a bird. The tail takes various shapes, sometimes that of a snake or an aquatic tail like that of a mermaid.In modern times, a succubus may appear in dreams and is often portrayed as a highly attractive seductress or enchantress.

In beliefs of pre-Islamic Arabia, qarînah is the word used instead  “sleeps with the person and has relations during sleep as is known by the dreams.” They are said to be invisible, but a person with “second sight” can see them, often in the form of a cat, dog, or other household pet. ” Only certain people are possessed and such people cannot marry or the qarina will harm them.

It is believed by some in the field of medicine that the stories relating to encounters with succubi bear similar resemblance to the contemporary phenomenon of people reporting alien abductions, which has been ascribed to the condition known as sleep paralysis. It is therefore suggested that historical accounts of people experiencing encounters with succubi may have been in fact symptoms of sleep paralysis, with the hallucination of the said creatures coming from their contemporary culture.

6. Table Turning

Table Turning or Table Tipping is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits.

When the movement of Modern Spiritualism first reached Europe from America in the winter of 1852–1853, the most popular method of consulting the spirits was for several persons to sit round a table, with their hands resting on it, and wait for the table to move. If the experiment was successful the table would rotate with considerable rapidity, and would occasionally rise in the air, or perform other movements. Whilst by many the movements were ascribed to the agency of spirits, two investigators—Count de Gasparin and Professor Thury of Geneva—conducted a careful series of experiments by which they claimed to have demonstrated that the movements of the table were due to a physical force emanating from the bodies of the sitters, for which they proposed the name ectenic force. Their conclusion rested on the supposed elimination of all known physical causes for the movements; but it is doubtful from the description of the experiments whether the precautions taken were sufficient to exclude unconscious muscular action – called the the ideomotor effect or even deliberate fraud.

5. Scrying

Scrying also called as crystal gazing, is a magic practice that involves seeing things psychically in a medium, usually for purposes of obtaining spiritual visions and less often for purposes of divination or fortune-telling. The most common media used are reflective, translucent, or luminescent substances such as crystals, stones, glass, mirrors, water, fire, or smoke. Scrying has been used in many cultures as a means of divining the past, present, or future. Depending on the culture and practice, the visions that come when one stares into the media are thought to come from ghosts, spirits, the psychic mind, the devil, or the subconscious.

Scrying is actively used by many cultures and belief systems and is not limited to one tradition or ideology. As of 2009, the Ganzfeld experiment, a sensory deprivation experiment inspired by scrying, provides the best known evidence for psi abilities in the laboratory. Scrying is different from Channeling or mediumship in a way that scrying involves gazing into a glassy medium for source but in channeling or mediumship, a person, animal or any object may be taken over by a spirit or ghost to convey his message.

4. Using an Ouija (Planchette writing)

One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 B.C., and it is first recorded in historical documents of the Song Dynasty. The method was known as fuji “planchette writing”. One source notes that, according to a Greek historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540 B.C. his sect would conduct séances at “a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from an unseen world.

An ouija board, also known as spirit board or talking board is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, and other symbols, supposedly used to communicate with spirits. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit’s message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out messages.

Since its invention in the late nineteenth century, the Oujia board has been associated with the threat of demonic possession. Consequently, mainstream Christian denominations have warned against using Ouija boards. Occultists, on the other hand, are divided on the issue, with some saying that it can be a positive transformation; others echo the warnings of many Christians and caution inexperienced users against it.

3. Channeling

Channeling, previously called as mediumship dates back to Victorian times when spooky photographs were reported. It is the term used to describe an act where the practitioner attempts to receive messages from spirits of the dead and other spirits that the practitioner believes exist. Humans were used as medium. Some self-ordained ones are fully conscious and awake while functioning as contacts; others may slip into a partial or full trance or an altered state of consciousness. These self called ‘trance-mediums’ often state that, when they emerge from the trance state, they have no recollection of the messages they conveyed; it is customary for such practitioners to work with an assistant who writes down or otherwise records their words. This is distinct from the concept ofpossession, which is considered to be the complete, non-consensual takeover of a living being by a spirit.

Ectoplasm is said to be the medium through which ghosts can materialize. Physical mediumship may involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, and levitation. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium. The last physical medium to be tested was in 1924. Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables.

2. Via a Sound Recording (Phantom Words)

Download and listen to the Phantom Words

Caution: the recording is violent and may be too intense for some listeners.

The idea of talking to deceased beloveds dates back to Thomas Edison who postulated that it might be possible to record ghostly conversations with his phonographic equipment. But it wasn’t until the introduction of the domestic tape recorder that electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) grabbed the public imagination.

As the Spiritualism religious movement became prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a distinguishing belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums, new technologies of the era including photography were employed by spiritualists in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit world. So popular were such ideas that Thomas Edison was asked to comment on the possibility. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication. As sound recording became widespread, mediums explored using this technology to demonstrate communication with the dead as well.

Now thousands of people across world spend their free time in wandering around haunted locations and installing recorders and video cameras in hopes of spooks and apparition. The evidence could be found at City of Dundee in Scotland, a city packed full of dead people, really a huge part of this city  is formed over a massive ancient graveyard. It’s here wondering among the deceased, many EVP investigators have contacted ghosts via radios.

Electronic Voice Phenomenon or the Phantom Words are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but may or may not be the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Some have claimed these sounds are of paranormal origin, while others give explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language).

1. Staring into the Mirror Prolonged at Midnights

Is it possible to call a ghost by staring into the mirror? Well there is a strong superstitious tradition linked to it. When somebody died in a family, the mirrors were covered black so as to prevent the newly deceased soul from coming back and getting eclipsed before someone who is passing nearby the mirror. Bloody Mary was  known to be a famous ghost or witch said to appear in a mirror by staring it for long and her name called three times or sometimes more. She was bred young and beautiful until she was 18, and focus of beauty was her lovely wavy hair. Every night before going to bed, she would brush her golden locks exactly 100 times and once she was so busy that she didn’t notice a man concealed in her closet. He raped her and cut her all the gold, Mary couldn’t bear it and decided to end it all and hanged herself from her window. A hairy end for Mary but there is more.

People say if you stand before a mirror in the dark and repeat her name thrice, after chanting a hundred times at midnight, spinning around and rubbing one’s eyes with water running, she would appear in the mirror. In some versions of the legend, the summoner must say, “Bloody Mary, I killed your baby, while raping you .” This is similar to another game involving the summoning of the Bell Witch which is often a test of courage and bravery, as it is said that if she is summoned, she would proceed to kill the summoner in an extremely violent way or  will haunt them forever. Other versions tell that the summoner can talk to a deceased person until 11:08a.m and if  the querent doesn’t look directly at Bloody Mary, but at her image; she will then reveal the querent’s future, particularly concerning marriage and children.

Well the story might be made up but it gave scientists a clue to contact another dimension via mirrors. Physics say there might be parallel universes alongside ours. Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and he gave this too via his books Alice in the wonderland. Now science says that there may be a mirror (not a physical one but a barrier of energy) that would be separating a star-gate between our universe and another so even scientifically this Bloody Mary tale is not so crazy.

"Sketches New and Old"

I TOOK a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years, until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.

I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying foot- steps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind.

The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep.

I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart -- I could hear it beat. Presently the bed- clothes began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them! I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blankets slipped deliberately away, till my breast was un- covered. Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. At last I roused my ener- gies and snatched the covers back to their place and held them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a steady strain -- it grew stronger and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of the bed! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room -- the step of an ele- phant, it seemed to me -- it was not like anything human. But it was moving FROM me -- there was relief in that. I heard it approach the door -- pass out without moving bolt or lock -- and wander away among the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it passed -- and then silence reigned once more.

When my excitement had calmed, I said to my- self, "This is a dream -- simply a hideous dream." And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it WAS a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laugh welled in my heart and rip- pled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when -- down went the pipe out of my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant's'! Then I had HAD a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained.

I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long time, peering into the dark- ness, and listening. Then I heard a grating noise overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then the throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the con- cussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at inter- vals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Some- times these noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer -- while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it ad- vanced. I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded -- that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whis- perings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped -- two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had turned to gouts of blood as they fell -- I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air -- floating a moment and then disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, and a solemn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand! All strength went from me ap- parently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment -- it seemed to pass to the door and go out.

When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a dreamy contem- plation of that great footprint in the ashes. By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim. I glanced up and the broad gas flame was slowly wilt- ing away. In the same moment I heard that ele- phantine tread again. I noted its approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and dimmer the light waned. The tread reached my very door and paused -- the light had dwindled to a sickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. The door did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, and presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched it with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the Thing; gradually its cloudy folds took shape -- an arm appeared, then legs, then a body, and last a great sad face looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmy housings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant loomed above me!

All my misery vanished -- for a child might know that no harm could come with that benignant countenance. My cheerful spirits returned at once, and in sympathy with them the gas flamed up brightly again. Never a lonely outcast was so glad to welcome company as I was to greet the friendly giant. I said:

"Why, is it nobody but you? Do you know, I have been scared to death for the last two or three hours? I am most honestly glad to see you. I wish I had a chair -- Here, here, don't try to sit down in that thing!

But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop him, and down he went -- I never saw a chair shivered so in my life.

"Stop, stop, You'll ruin ev--"

Too late again. There was another crash, and another chair was resolved into its original elements.

"Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at all? Do you want to ruin all the furniture on the place? Here, here, you petrified fool--"

But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, and it was a melancholy ruin.

"Now what sort of a way is that to do? First you come lumbering about the place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry me to death, and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in a respectable theater, and not even there if the nudity were of YOUR sex, you repay me by wrecking all the furniture you can find to sit down on. And why will you? You damage yourself as much as you do me. You have broken off the end of your spinal column, and lit- tered up the floor with chips of your hams till the place looks like a marble yard. You ought to be ashamed of yourself -- you are big enough to know better."

"Well, I will not break any more furniture. But what am I to do? I have not had a chance to sit down for a century." And the tears came into his eyes.

"Poor devil," I said, "I should not have been so harsh with you. And you are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here -- nothing else can stand your weight -- and besides, we cannot be sociable with you away up there above me; I want you down where I can perch on this high counting-house stool and gossip with you face to face."

So he sat down on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my red blankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet fashion, and made himself picturesque and comfort- able. Then he crossed his ankles, while I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honey-combed bot- toms of his prodigious feet to the grateful warmth.

"What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the back of your legs, that they are gouged up so?"

"Infernal chillblains -- I caught them clear up to the back of my head, roosting out there under Newell's farm. But I love the place; I love it as one loves his old home. There is no peace for me like the peace I feel when I am there."

We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that he looked tired, and spoke of it. "Tired?" he said. "Well, I should think so. And now I will tell you all about it, since you have treated me so well. I am the spirit of the Petrified Man that lies across the street there in the Museum. I am the ghost of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they have given that poor body burial again. Now what was the most natural thing for me to do, to make men satisfy this wish? Terrify them into it! -- haunt the place where the body lay! So I haunted the museum night after night. I even got other spirits to help me. But it did no good, for nobody ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me to come over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt that if I ever got a hearing I must succeed, for I had the most efficient company that perdition could furnish. Night after night we have shivered around through these mildewed halls, dragging chains, groaning, whispering, tramping up and down stairs, till, to tell you the truth, I am almost worn out. But when I saw a light in your room to-night I roused my energies again and went at it with a deal of the old freshness. But I am tired out -- entirely fagged out. Give me, I beseech you, give me some hope!"

I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed:

"This transcends everything -- everything that ever did occur! Why you poor blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing -- you have been haunting a PLASTER CAST of your- self -- the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany!

[Footnote by Twain: A fact. The original fraud was ingeniously and fraudfully duplicated, and exhibited in New York as the "only genuine" Cardiff Giant (to the unspeakable disgust of the owners of the real colossus) at the very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at a museum in Albany.]

Confound it, don't you know your own remains?"

I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable humiliation, overspread a countenance before.

The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said:

"Honestly, IS that true?"

"As true as I am sitting here."

He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel, then stood irresolute a moment (uncon sciously, from old habit, thrusting his hands where his pantaloons pockets should have been, and medi- tatively dropping his chin on his breast), and finally said:

"Well -- I NEVER felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has sold everybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended by selling its own ghost! My son, if there is any charity left in your heart for a poor friendless phantom like me, don't let this get out. Think how YOU would feel if you had made such an ass of yourself."

I heard his, stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and out into the deserted street, and felt sorry that he was gone, poor fellow -- and sorrier still that he had carried off my red blanket and my bath tub.

END.