Ghost Stories

The following stories are true, from my own experience.

Ghost Story Number One

One summer night, I was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front (west) yard of the farm near Cable. It was a bright, moon-lit night, with little or no breeze. I woke up during the night and saw a 8 to 10 large objects in the south yard. The objects looked like sheets hanging on the clotheslines fixed between the trees and the house, EXCEPT they were luminous (glowing of there own accord, not reflected moonlight) and they were moving in a very slow circle, as though dancing.

I watched them, without moving a muscle for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably 30 seconds. I finally got up the nerve to make a dash into the house through the front door. I immediately went to my bedroom, which was on the second floor overlooking the south yard. Due to the slope of the yard, the second floor window was as high as a third floor. I looked out the window and could see that the glowing objects were still there, moving slowly in a circle. I went to bed with my head under the covers.

I was the first one to get up the next morning. I immediately checked the south yard to see if anything was there. Nothing was on the clothesline and there was no other sign of the night's activity. I asked my mother if she had left anything on the clothes line the night before and she said that she had not.

Ghost Story Number Two

Our family had six kids and two adults, so there was never a moment when the activity/noise level ever reached zero. One time, when I was 14, the rest of the family went camping in Arkansas for a week. I was elected to stay home to feed the farm animals.

About the second evening, I became aware that the noise level had still not dropped to zero. I could hear voices throughout the house, but I could not quite hear what they were saying. I could hear traffic on the stairs, going up and down one step at time. Not knowing any better at the time, this only raised my anxiety level slightly. I just went on eating kipper snacks. This went on for the entire week (noises and kipper snacks).

There are many strange things about that house. During the 17 years that I lived there, we often returned to the house to find that lights were on, which we were sure had been turned off when we left. Since we had a large family and rarely locked the doors, there could have been lots of ways for this to occur. Later, after we sold the house, I understand that the new owner was unable to keep renters for very long and that the police came several times to find out who the intruders were. They never did.

Ghost Story Number Three

One evening, in about 1960, Oog, Denny Frye, and I were playing in the barnyard of the farm near Cable. It was after dark and each of us had a .22 rifle, looking for targets of opportunity. The old barn, which may have once been a church, sat at the opposite end of the barnyard. We decided to go inside the barn, up to the haymow on the second floor, to shoot pigeons, which liked to roost in the peak of the roof.

We climbed up the ladder to the hole in the floor of the haymow on the south end. The haymow was filled with unstacked bales on the south half and a huge pile of very old loose hay on the north half. It was totally dark, except for a large number of tiny holes in the roof (probably the result of prior hunting trips) which allowed the moonlight to shine through the roof. We carefully moved to the north half and climbed the stack of hay, so as to be very near the peak of the roof.

Suddenly, we stopped. About three feet from us, were a pair of cat-like eyes staring at us, about a foot above the floor. The eyes were 12 to 18 inches apart, just staring. We actually discussed this for a moment. We tried to scare it away by yelling...no response. We waived our hands to see if they were just caused by the moonlight through holes in the roof...nope. Finally, I aimed my .22 between the eyes and fired.

One eye winked.

You never saw three boys move so fast, even though the haymow was totally dark and full of loose hay. We did not even touch the ladder on the way down. We finally stopped under the yard light, about 25 yards from the barn. We then aimed our rifles at the barn and pulled the triggers.

Nothing...the bullets were duds. We cycled through the entire box of .22’s. None fired.

We went in the house, said nothing to anyone, and went to bed.

Early the next morning, we went to the barnyard and retrieved the dud bullets. We could see where the firing pin had struck the rims of each of them in the proper location. We loaded our guns with the duds and tested them. They all fired.

We told no one and did not discuss the incident again. About 25 years later, I asked Oog and Denny, separately, if they remembered that night. They each did, and they each remembered the story exactly as I have told it here.