“From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”
— Scottish prayer
Halloween is a most Celtic celebration. Ancient pagan Celts marked Samhain (pronounced sow-un) as the divide between the light of summer and the darkness of winter. In their belief, the veil between the material and the spirit world was thinnest at Samhain, and one might encounter… things… out there in the dark night. Samhain was, for all intents and purposes, the Celtic New Year’s celebration, as well as a harvest festival. Many of our Halloween traditions can be traced to the rituals and folk practices of Samhain.
This Tuesday evening’s drivetime will be occupied with a podcast that explores the ghosts, spirits and paranormal phenomenon that subtly, but powerfully, pervade Outlander.
The podcast explores the spiritual and theological issues that pervade the books and TV show. The podcast website includes this epigraph, which resonates…
“If ever you find yourself in the midst of paradox, you can be sure you stand on the edge of truth.”
What spiritual holdings I have lean towards low-grade animism, but everybody needs holidays and Samhain is a big one for us…although if tonight’s turn in the weather is any indication, we should just go ahead and celebrate Yule instead!
I’ll be spending at least some of this Samhain in the deer woods, and you can bet there will be a little vodka on the altar/hearth/ofrenda out back before and after I go out, no matter what the outcome.
I used to work in a military hospital, it was a old one built in 1968, had a key to the PT gym it was kind of a clubhouse for me- would go in there after work and exercise, goof off drink coffee, read book etc it was super. A good hide out.
One weekend my wife wanted to go shopping- I wanted to go to the gym, so of course we go shopping- by the time we got back it was about 2200- “aw hell I have been a lazy bastard this week its late but I will go to the gym”- dropped wife off at home headed to the gym, had my work out clothes wooden sword etc quiet dead as hell in the hospital ahhh great I soak that up Ba Gwa circle walk nice springy, slotted, wooden floor- lost track of time.
Like all military hospitals that place had a bad rep. for haunts, I knew all the house keeper girls and knew they did not like to be in there at night and that there were some areas in that place- that they would never go alone.
Well hell I looked at the clock about 5 min to midnight got cold and hazy in there in there I started thinking “Its midnight- your in a hospital and there is a dead guy in the closet.”
We had a real skeleton from long ago since the place was built in a special metal cab.. in a closet. That was weird too. Pieces missing knee caps etc etc, but that’s another story
I don’t like this gather up my stuff mu jian in my bag lock up and head out creepy its creepy- midnight.
As I walk out towards the elevators- they start to vibrate, bang together- I have to walk towards them and take a right to get out. Closer I get the louder they get- “That’s weird I should call the building custodian” then there is a tapping on the inside of elevator closer to me. Louder- “oh hell no, I am outta here!”
Went out to my car someone had put cones across the driveway. WTH? kicked them out- took off.
That Monday, I told the girls. “Damn, now I know why you don’t want to be in here at night- I did not see any thing but this is what happened to me- lemme tell ya, gave me the creeps”
“Oh you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Two ghost kids- play on the elevators at night, lucky you did not see them”
Dunno if falls more under ghosts or ghouls, but I’ll throw it out there.
Probably the closest dealing I’ve ever had was a single incidence of sleep paralysis. Which was fun, because evident a lot of people don’t know what it is until it comes out left field one night and BAM.
This would have probably been mid-2000s, at which point I was still in flight school and bivouacking in an Airstream. As a general rule, living in an Airstream is more fun on paper than in practice because 1) everything’s tiny 2) there’s no storage 3) repairs are twice as complicated and three times as expensive as fixing a standard house and 4) because using a travel trailer for a primary residence usually means you get loud and/or drunk neighbors, close proximity to highways and other thoroughfares, and traffic at all hours. The regular police helicopter overflights and the Friday-night announcements from the middle school ballfields adjacent were an added bonus.
Suffice it to say you either get good at sleeping through thunderstorms, train derailments, domestic disturbances, and the occasional exchange of gunfire (I exaggerate…sort of). But overall I’m pretty adaptable. Or maybe I’m half-sloth.
Either way, once I’d been settled amongst the local gentry a couple of months I got to the point where only two things would reliably wake me up before the alarm. One was somebody beating on the front door…probably because the whole trailer shook, and earthquakes are pretty rare in that part of the country. The other was a loss of power. Word of advice – trailers suck without electricity. Take my word for it.
But on with the story.
This was fall or winter. Relative to the rest of the U.S., the latter half of the year in Texas ran pretty mild. Most of the time it got cool. A couple of weeks of the season we’d get south of freezing. Rarely did we get snow. At any rate, I woke up around five or six one morning, well ahead of the usual alarm bells. Apparently the half me that’s not a sloth is a polar bear and I very seldom ran heat in the winter. Outside this particular instance I’ve never had trouble sleeping with the heater off. Except I woke up cold.
No big deal. I go to pull the blanket over and get back to sleep, only weirdos and postal workers and agents of the devil being up and about in the single-digit hours of the morning. It is known.
Only I can’t move. Nothing on the left, nothing on the right. Can’t wiggle my toes. Can’t turn my head. I can open my eyes…that’s about it.
And that’s when it got weird. Because in addition to the usual clutter of my tiny armor-plated home, there was a dude standing next to the bed. Dunno who he was. Didn’t say much or move or…really do anything except stand there and stare at me. He was dressed a century or so late for a funeral – white shirt, black coat, black hat – had that somber, severe look about him as you see in old photographs of somebody who’s buried his family, lost his savings, and watched his farm blow away. There was not one damn thing alive about him except the face.
And what a face. For one, his skin was silver. For another, he glowed. I don’t mean glowed like neon – I mean like the moon at night. A kind of cold fire, if that makes any sense. Sort of generated light and pulled it all back in at the same time. The eyes had the same quality but different shade. Picture brass rings with bottomless centers and you’d be in the ballpark.
The whole time he did nothing. Didn’t move. Didn’t talk. Just stood there.
And stared.
Worth mentioning for anybody who’s never bunked in a travel trailer is the miniature scale of the living quarters. This particular model had two berths at the tail end, both slightly smaller than the racks you’ll find in a college dorm. Between the two ran a narrow walkway maybe two feet wide. Suffice it say that your aluminum condo gains mobility at the steep cost of elbow room. Meaning anybody standing in the aisle is pretty well within your personal bubble.
I’m not sure how long he stuck around. I’d close my eyes and wait, and when I’d check again he’d be there. That went on an hour or so maybe before he wasn’t, and once he’d gone I drifted off.
One thing I couldn’t quite get my brain around – first thing I checked once I regained positive motor control – was the front door. I locked it every night and checked before I’d head aft and crash; one never knows what lurks in a trailer park in the ungodly hours of the morning, and even with the haze still fresh in mind I wondered that it should be unlocked.
That’s a seriously weird tale. The sleep paralysis aspect alone is creepy enough. The apparition… even explained as a manifestation of the subconscious, it’s hair-raising.
I woke up once to see a demon creature on my chest holding me down. Now, I believe it was just a hallucination, but it scared me enough that I threw a punch at it. Fortunately, I did not connect with anything so I assume it really wasn’t there.
Great ghost tales! I’ve had a coupla-three experiences along that line–2 of them involved that unnatural(?) tempurature drop. One of my tales involves camping out on a lakeshore in my tipi back during my reservation incarceration days. It was Fall break, and I had broken from the Rez to live free in the tipi away from the dormitory for a week or so. It was also a full moon the night of the “incident”. I had some college buddies camping with me, but they slept through the whole thing. And no dogs with us–the WORST drawback of being sent away to college for me…..Anyway, in the middle of the night I JERKED awake, and despite being in a cozy sleeping bag with wool army blankets on top, and still plenty of warmth from the embers of the fire in the tipi, I was FREEZING! The fire only put out the slightest glow, so the bright full moon, riding high, was shining strongly on the mostly white lodge cover, against which was, very distinctly, the shadow of a human silhouette. We were camped on an open beach, with no trees between the tipi and the moon in that position, so there was no mistaking what I was looking at. No tree branch shadows or the like. I jumped up, grabbed my tomahawke, and peeped out the door flap–NOTHING! And the silhouette was also gone! No sounds of anyone running off either. And NO WAY could anyone LIVING have completely disappeared so quickly down that beach! I got out and poked all around, even with the hair rising on my neck, but I saw no trace. Should have been tracks in the sand where the silhouette was–nothing. Never did figure THAT one out. But the next day, exploring the forested ridge just back of the tipi(going up from the beach), I found an old mound in the woods that looked amazingly like a human grave. Never found out if it was one……
…..And hows about a sorta HAPPY ghost story? One of those things that does make you ponder life after death, and the mystery of it all…..I had been VERY CLOSE to my paternal grandmother(my “Nana”)–although I was very close to ALL my grandparents–but she took care of me and my brother a lot while both my human parents worked to support us. My third parent, a Dalmation, just mauled anything he thought might be a threat to us(but that’s another long series of tales). My Nana’s FAVE-O-RITE movie EVER was “Dr Shivago”–she always watched it when it came on TV, and cried and cried while doing so–but she dearly loved it! This was in the days long before DVD’s, or even VHS tapes, or no doubt she would have had her own copy! Anyway, I once SCORED HUGE with her when I found a music box with the theme song “Lara’s Theme” from “Dr. Shivago”–and gave it to her as a Xmas present; she LOVED that music box! It was by her bed when she died, many years later. My parents saved it for me–I still have it! One day, some years after my Nana’s passing, I was sitting in my house, thinking very strongly of her, and feeling sad, missing her so, even after all those years. Suddenly, that music box, covered with dust and untouched for eons, started playing on my bookshelf! I had not played it or wound it up in forever, but just at that moment, while I was thinking about and missing my beloved Nana, it started to play! Hard to label such as that just a”coincidence”! It didn’t frighten me or creep me out at all, but gave me the warmest, best of feelings, like my grandmother was still around in some form, still looking out for me!
The best Commander we ever had at that Hospital circa 2003 had haunt experience too in that place, at least one- he was a full Col. later went on to be a B.G.
He would talk to anybody and listen- a rare thing for the upper ranks imo.
As they often do he pulled into the parking lot late at night to go up to his office and sign some paper work- as he pulled in he looked up sort of surprised.
Up on the 4th floor command section someone looking out into the parking lot from a window back lit.
He goes up there takes the haunted elevator- walks down the hall to his office, nobody there lights are all off. Its cold summer time.
He gets creeped out, decides its past time to leave, heads back down to his car- takes the stairs this time.
Then it hits him.
The shadow figure in the window was a female and looked like it had a nurses cap on.
Matthew says
Every Halloween I read a lot of horror stories until I get sick of it. It really puts one in the mood for the holiday.
In other news, the dog hurt in the raid on Al-Bagdaghi is named after a certain Cimmerian.
https://sofrep.com/129456/the-hero-dog-that-got-hurt-in-the-weekend-isis-raid-is-named-conan-and-hes-a-good-boy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sofrep+%28SOFREP%29
RLT says
What spiritual holdings I have lean towards low-grade animism, but everybody needs holidays and Samhain is a big one for us…although if tonight’s turn in the weather is any indication, we should just go ahead and celebrate Yule instead!
I’ll be spending at least some of this Samhain in the deer woods, and you can bet there will be a little vodka on the altar/hearth/ofrenda out back before and after I go out, no matter what the outcome.
JimC says
Outstanding!
Ugly Hombre says
Wat? No ghost stories?? Alright….
I used to work in a military hospital, it was a old one built in 1968, had a key to the PT gym it was kind of a clubhouse for me- would go in there after work and exercise, goof off drink coffee, read book etc it was super. A good hide out.
One weekend my wife wanted to go shopping- I wanted to go to the gym, so of course we go shopping- by the time we got back it was about 2200- “aw hell I have been a lazy bastard this week its late but I will go to the gym”- dropped wife off at home headed to the gym, had my work out clothes wooden sword etc quiet dead as hell in the hospital ahhh great I soak that up Ba Gwa circle walk nice springy, slotted, wooden floor- lost track of time.
Like all military hospitals that place had a bad rep. for haunts, I knew all the house keeper girls and knew they did not like to be in there at night and that there were some areas in that place- that they would never go alone.
Well hell I looked at the clock about 5 min to midnight got cold and hazy in there in there I started thinking “Its midnight- your in a hospital and there is a dead guy in the closet.”
We had a real skeleton from long ago since the place was built in a special metal cab.. in a closet. That was weird too. Pieces missing knee caps etc etc, but that’s another story
I don’t like this gather up my stuff mu jian in my bag lock up and head out creepy its creepy- midnight.
As I walk out towards the elevators- they start to vibrate, bang together- I have to walk towards them and take a right to get out. Closer I get the louder they get- “That’s weird I should call the building custodian” then there is a tapping on the inside of elevator closer to me. Louder- “oh hell no, I am outta here!”
Went out to my car someone had put cones across the driveway. WTH? kicked them out- took off.
That Monday, I told the girls. “Damn, now I know why you don’t want to be in here at night- I did not see any thing but this is what happened to me- lemme tell ya, gave me the creeps”
“Oh you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Two ghost kids- play on the elevators at night, lucky you did not see them”
JimC says
That’s plenty creepy.
J.F. Bell says
Dunno if falls more under ghosts or ghouls, but I’ll throw it out there.
Probably the closest dealing I’ve ever had was a single incidence of sleep paralysis. Which was fun, because evident a lot of people don’t know what it is until it comes out left field one night and BAM.
This would have probably been mid-2000s, at which point I was still in flight school and bivouacking in an Airstream. As a general rule, living in an Airstream is more fun on paper than in practice because 1) everything’s tiny 2) there’s no storage 3) repairs are twice as complicated and three times as expensive as fixing a standard house and 4) because using a travel trailer for a primary residence usually means you get loud and/or drunk neighbors, close proximity to highways and other thoroughfares, and traffic at all hours. The regular police helicopter overflights and the Friday-night announcements from the middle school ballfields adjacent were an added bonus.
Suffice it to say you either get good at sleeping through thunderstorms, train derailments, domestic disturbances, and the occasional exchange of gunfire (I exaggerate…sort of). But overall I’m pretty adaptable. Or maybe I’m half-sloth.
Either way, once I’d been settled amongst the local gentry a couple of months I got to the point where only two things would reliably wake me up before the alarm. One was somebody beating on the front door…probably because the whole trailer shook, and earthquakes are pretty rare in that part of the country. The other was a loss of power. Word of advice – trailers suck without electricity. Take my word for it.
But on with the story.
This was fall or winter. Relative to the rest of the U.S., the latter half of the year in Texas ran pretty mild. Most of the time it got cool. A couple of weeks of the season we’d get south of freezing. Rarely did we get snow. At any rate, I woke up around five or six one morning, well ahead of the usual alarm bells. Apparently the half me that’s not a sloth is a polar bear and I very seldom ran heat in the winter. Outside this particular instance I’ve never had trouble sleeping with the heater off. Except I woke up cold.
No big deal. I go to pull the blanket over and get back to sleep, only weirdos and postal workers and agents of the devil being up and about in the single-digit hours of the morning. It is known.
Only I can’t move. Nothing on the left, nothing on the right. Can’t wiggle my toes. Can’t turn my head. I can open my eyes…that’s about it.
And that’s when it got weird. Because in addition to the usual clutter of my tiny armor-plated home, there was a dude standing next to the bed. Dunno who he was. Didn’t say much or move or…really do anything except stand there and stare at me. He was dressed a century or so late for a funeral – white shirt, black coat, black hat – had that somber, severe look about him as you see in old photographs of somebody who’s buried his family, lost his savings, and watched his farm blow away. There was not one damn thing alive about him except the face.
And what a face. For one, his skin was silver. For another, he glowed. I don’t mean glowed like neon – I mean like the moon at night. A kind of cold fire, if that makes any sense. Sort of generated light and pulled it all back in at the same time. The eyes had the same quality but different shade. Picture brass rings with bottomless centers and you’d be in the ballpark.
The whole time he did nothing. Didn’t move. Didn’t talk. Just stood there.
And stared.
Worth mentioning for anybody who’s never bunked in a travel trailer is the miniature scale of the living quarters. This particular model had two berths at the tail end, both slightly smaller than the racks you’ll find in a college dorm. Between the two ran a narrow walkway maybe two feet wide. Suffice it say that your aluminum condo gains mobility at the steep cost of elbow room. Meaning anybody standing in the aisle is pretty well within your personal bubble.
I’m not sure how long he stuck around. I’d close my eyes and wait, and when I’d check again he’d be there. That went on an hour or so maybe before he wasn’t, and once he’d gone I drifted off.
One thing I couldn’t quite get my brain around – first thing I checked once I regained positive motor control – was the front door. I locked it every night and checked before I’d head aft and crash; one never knows what lurks in a trailer park in the ungodly hours of the morning, and even with the haze still fresh in mind I wondered that it should be unlocked.
…strange coincidence, I suppose.
JimC says
That’s a seriously weird tale. The sleep paralysis aspect alone is creepy enough. The apparition… even explained as a manifestation of the subconscious, it’s hair-raising.
Matthew says
I woke up once to see a demon creature on my chest holding me down. Now, I believe it was just a hallucination, but it scared me enough that I threw a punch at it. Fortunately, I did not connect with anything so I assume it really wasn’t there.
J.F. Bell says
Evidently the inside of my head is a strange place. Who’d have thought?
.lane batot says
Great ghost tales! I’ve had a coupla-three experiences along that line–2 of them involved that unnatural(?) tempurature drop. One of my tales involves camping out on a lakeshore in my tipi back during my reservation incarceration days. It was Fall break, and I had broken from the Rez to live free in the tipi away from the dormitory for a week or so. It was also a full moon the night of the “incident”. I had some college buddies camping with me, but they slept through the whole thing. And no dogs with us–the WORST drawback of being sent away to college for me…..Anyway, in the middle of the night I JERKED awake, and despite being in a cozy sleeping bag with wool army blankets on top, and still plenty of warmth from the embers of the fire in the tipi, I was FREEZING! The fire only put out the slightest glow, so the bright full moon, riding high, was shining strongly on the mostly white lodge cover, against which was, very distinctly, the shadow of a human silhouette. We were camped on an open beach, with no trees between the tipi and the moon in that position, so there was no mistaking what I was looking at. No tree branch shadows or the like. I jumped up, grabbed my tomahawke, and peeped out the door flap–NOTHING! And the silhouette was also gone! No sounds of anyone running off either. And NO WAY could anyone LIVING have completely disappeared so quickly down that beach! I got out and poked all around, even with the hair rising on my neck, but I saw no trace. Should have been tracks in the sand where the silhouette was–nothing. Never did figure THAT one out. But the next day, exploring the forested ridge just back of the tipi(going up from the beach), I found an old mound in the woods that looked amazingly like a human grave. Never found out if it was one……
.lane batot says
…..And hows about a sorta HAPPY ghost story? One of those things that does make you ponder life after death, and the mystery of it all…..I had been VERY CLOSE to my paternal grandmother(my “Nana”)–although I was very close to ALL my grandparents–but she took care of me and my brother a lot while both my human parents worked to support us. My third parent, a Dalmation, just mauled anything he thought might be a threat to us(but that’s another long series of tales). My Nana’s FAVE-O-RITE movie EVER was “Dr Shivago”–she always watched it when it came on TV, and cried and cried while doing so–but she dearly loved it! This was in the days long before DVD’s, or even VHS tapes, or no doubt she would have had her own copy! Anyway, I once SCORED HUGE with her when I found a music box with the theme song “Lara’s Theme” from “Dr. Shivago”–and gave it to her as a Xmas present; she LOVED that music box! It was by her bed when she died, many years later. My parents saved it for me–I still have it! One day, some years after my Nana’s passing, I was sitting in my house, thinking very strongly of her, and feeling sad, missing her so, even after all those years. Suddenly, that music box, covered with dust and untouched for eons, started playing on my bookshelf! I had not played it or wound it up in forever, but just at that moment, while I was thinking about and missing my beloved Nana, it started to play! Hard to label such as that just a”coincidence”! It didn’t frighten me or creep me out at all, but gave me the warmest, best of feelings, like my grandmother was still around in some form, still looking out for me!
Ugly Hombre says
The best Commander we ever had at that Hospital circa 2003 had haunt experience too in that place, at least one- he was a full Col. later went on to be a B.G.
He would talk to anybody and listen- a rare thing for the upper ranks imo.
As they often do he pulled into the parking lot late at night to go up to his office and sign some paper work- as he pulled in he looked up sort of surprised.
Up on the 4th floor command section someone looking out into the parking lot from a window back lit.
He goes up there takes the haunted elevator- walks down the hall to his office, nobody there lights are all off. Its cold summer time.
He gets creeped out, decides its past time to leave, heads back down to his car- takes the stairs this time.
Then it hits him.
The shadow figure in the window was a female and looked like it had a nurses cap on.
That went out in the late 80’s.