The Beyond: True Paranormal & Spooky Stories

Our Ghost Named Clifford

by Tina From Maine

My Brother and I lived together for a couple of years to help each other out. We had been living in a camp like house on a lake in Maine, when my Brother came home to tell me he rented a new place that was closer to his work. He wanted me and my boyfriend to go check it out and tell him what we thought of the place.
My boyfriend and I got to the new place which was an old white house, three levels, and a garage with an automatic door opener on it. The apartment we rented was the largest one in the building. We later found out the house was the second oldest still standing house in that area. There was a sign on the house with a date of 1842. So we knew it was very old. We parked the car in the garage and closed the door. We then entered the new apartment.

It was indeed an old building that still used glass fuses in the electrical box. It had two fire places and it was a pretty good size. When I went by the second bedroom, I got a strange feeling. So bad that I didn’t go in the room I just looked inside. I ventured on into the rest of the apartment when I heard my boyfriend talking to someone. He thought it was me standing by the door of that same room I would not go in. I came from the dining room area and asked who was talking to and his face turned pale and he looked back at the room. He said you were just standing right in the door weren’t you? I said no, you seen me come from the dining room. I then began to feel it too like someone was there with us. It was a strong presences and it was like they didn’t want us there. We both agreed it was time to go.

Just as we were leaving, the lights went out in the house. We managed to make it to the car to find out the door wouldn’t open. I was really edgy and told him to open the door manually. He said I can’t and when I went to the back of the car he was pulling up on it with all his might. I said let me see and I began to pull on it and it popped right open. He just looked at me and we both jumped in the car and left.

That was the first encounter at that house. After we moved in we started to notice other things as well. Like the heat was always turned up high, even if no one touched it. One morning I walked to from our room to the bathroom to find all the cupboards were open. So I closed them and proceeded to the bathroom. I was only in there a few minutes and when I walked out they were opened again. So I said it was too early to mess with me and I closed them again and asked him or her politely to leave them alone. Once I felt someone touch me on the back of my neck only to turn around and find no one there. Once when I was doing dishes in the sink, the dishwasher (an old style one what required you to pull the hand and press the start button to make it run) turned on as I was standing there. At this point, I simple told them that me and family were now living there so they would have to learn to deal with it. Scariest time was when a blanket was pulled off the window and we watched foot prints in the rug appearing out of no where walk across the floor and the sound of giggling by a little girl every so often.

Later we found out that the house was owned by the same family for generations. The man that lived there until his death was named Clifford. He always had both fire places going at the same time which made it extremely hot. That explained the heat being turned up all the time for me. He was very set in his ways and loved to play cards. We also found out about a young girl that was mysteriously murdered on the railroad tracks lived there at one point too. We never did find out her name but it did explain the giggling every now and again.

I enjoyed living there and was use to the “others” living there too. We went from being uncomfortable in the beginning to building a good relationship with the spirits when we left. It was a sad parting but I took a souvenir of Clifford’s with me, so I could remember him and the house we called home. Silly but every now and again, I feel like he is around visiting from time to time where I live now.

The Story Of A Ghost Song

by Jeff Knabel

This is the story of a song I wrote about an experience I had with the ghost of a woman actress from the 1800’s.  I was staying at a friends place in Longmont, Colorado last April 2006.  It used to be called ‘The Times Call’ building years ago.

The upstairs where I stayed had been closed off since 1964.  There is a calendar hanging on one of the doors in the apartment looking over Main St.  The page is still on April 1964.  In the late 1800’s they used to print one of the local newspapers, ‘The Times Call’, on the 1st floor.  There was a big explosion from a gunpowder barrel, in the basement next door in the 1870’s, and the building and the adjacent buildings had to be rebuilt as a result of the fire that ripped through walls of half a city block.  ‘The Dickens Opera House’ at the end of the street was spared.  A bystander, who was standing on top of the opera house at the time of the explosion, was blown off to the roof of a building below.  He was spared with an injured leg.  A business across the street had all its windows blown in from the shock wave.  The woman inside was frantic, and ran out of her shop screaming with the blood streaming down from her cuts and bruises.

After the dust settled, and a couple of years went by, the block was rebuilt and ready for action.  ‘The Times Call’ building started printing again, but used the 2nd floor as a boarding house, instead of the owners living there.  They rented out rooms, a hot bath, and a meal for people coming and going on the old locomotives and stage coaches.  One of the patrons happened to be a semi-famous actress, who must have traveled across the country performing in various venues for the general public.  I wish I knew her name.

These days the interior of the upstairs looks like something from an old western movie.  There are old sky lights on the ceiling, the wall paper is slowly peeling off, and the hard wooden floors are warped as if everything is sinking into the middle of the main living room.  In fact the water in the fish tank, against one of the walls, leans toward the center of the room.  Watch out for the staircase that leads down to the street level.  It leans one side higher than the other as well from old age.

Last spring while I was playing guitar and working on some new music, I thought I saw someone out of the corner of my eye.  In fact, I’d been staying there for a few weeks by then, and thought I felt some sort of presence there.  That night when I went to bed, I put on a video.  ‘The People Who Live Under the Stairs’.  I fell asleep and I felt a cold whisper in my ear.  I woke up to find the movie still playing and the face of a woman on the TV. screen.  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  That was about 2 a.m. in the morning.  I tried to go back to sleep, but my mind was on high alert.

A few hours later I made some coffee, and started to play my guitar.  I felt a presence in the room again, but it felt friendly, as if it liked what I was playing.  As I played, I came up with a nice chord progression, some lyrics, and a cool chorus line.  An hour or so later I finished writing my song called ‘U Don’t Know’.  The vibe in the place was electric.

My friend Joe, the present owner of the building, came home around 10 a.m.  I told him about my experience the night before, and the song that I wrote about it.  He told me he knew about a presence in the building, but didn’t want to scare me.  He said he had had some friends over in the past that felt the same sort of energy that I did.  He asked me what the ghost sounded like.  I said ‘A woman in her 30’s mabye’.  He asked me what she looked like.  I described her and his jaw dropped to the floor.

Joe asked me to wait in the room while he went to get something.  He came back ten minutes later with an old photograph he had been keeping in storage with other old artifacts.  These things where still upstairs when he first bought the building a year before.  Remember the upstairs had been locked up for years.  When he showed me the photo, it was a black and white picture of a lady in her late 20’s, dressed in an old western theater outfit.  She was the same lady I had seen the night before.  I was shocked!!!

I stayed there for a few more weeks, and every time I played guitar and sang she would let her presence be known.

It was a friendly presence as it turned out.  So now when I go to visit my friend Joe, at ‘The Times Call’ building, she lets me know she’s still there.