AN ANGRY GHOST IN ONTARIO

     This story is directly related to the story I wrote in the last entry, on August 27.  In that entry was an account of paranormal activity in Ontario told by Tracy.  This next story is told from her sister, Kim's, which coincides with some of the information Tracy has already divulged, plus some tantalizing extra insights.  So again, this is a word for word account by Kim.

     I think for anyone who might read this to really understand the experiences that my sister(Tracy), and I have wrote, it is important to also touch on some of the family history and also of the area.  The majority of occurrences take place in a rural northern Ontario community on a family farm that had been passed down through the generations beginning with my great-grandfather Alfred on my dad's side of the family.  Although it isn't clear how much land Alfred had purchased.  I am told Alfred and his wife Ella Mae chose to raise their children on one small lot that later became my home.

     From all the information and statements that I gathered over the years, I believe that Alfred had divided the land between two of his children, son Jack, and his daughter Grace.  Jack with his wife Jean later lived on the same piece of land as Alfred.  Grace, married to George, built a home on the far western corner, not far from a fairly large creek that ran down the length of property.  Grace and George had three children, the eldest daughter, Edith Jane, son, Alfred George, and youngest, Frederick James.

     On June 15, 1950, the children were playing by the creek, when the youngest boy Freddie had fallen in.  Alfred George, named after his grandfather, is believed to have went to the aid of his brother first and quickly headed into the water, and his sister, Edith followed. Tragedy struck, and after a thorough search, all three bodies were found in the creek that evening by my grandfather, Jack.  Edith was 11 years old, Alfie was 9, and Freddie was just 7.

     Now the stories I have been told about the first house that stood on the farm are chilling o say the least.  I wish at times I knew more about the history of the house, and whether or not it was actually built by my great grandfather or if it had already been there when he required the property. 

     Jack and his wife Jean lived in this along with four of their children before their marriage ended.  From what I understand, Jean moved west and unable to take the children, Jack remained in the house with two daughters - my dad and his younger brother, Jackie.

     Reports of this house from my dad and grandfather Jack, ranged from hearing voices, numerous people running up and down the stairs or having conversations, and it escalated to items being thrown at the kids.  This seemed to happen on a daily bases and it didn't seem to matter what time of day or night.  My dad's oldest sister, Claudette, seemed to take the worst of the damage.  My grandfather told me that once during a heated argument between Jean and Claudette, a hot frying pan sitting on the stove violently threw itself at Claudette and hit her in the back, leaving a terrible burn and a bruise.

     There was also an old barn on the farm that had an old style door latch for a handle.  The youngest child, Sam, was so little at the time, she was unable to work the latch open.  She'd rattle it back and forth to no avail.  She could not force it open.  When Jean left to move to the west, Sam went to live with a friend of the family until Jean was able to send for her.  Even though she was gone from the house and property, The boys, who remained at the old house, could ofter hear the door handle rattle and click as if Sam was on the other side trying to get in.

     The only real memory of the first house that I have is in 1978-79, when I was about 8 or 9 years old.  My father had saved up enough to start building his own home on the farm and I remember going with him and my mother to the farm to pick out a spot for the new house.  Just as we were getting out of the car, my dad told me to stay out of trouble and I was not allowed to go in the old house.  As my dad roamed around, I remember peeking through the old glass windows and seeing all sorts of neat things in the rooms.  I remember thinking that although everything was tarnished with dust and dirt, it was almost inconceivable that it was empty.  I got this notion that people should still be living there.  I recall seeing pictures still hanging on the walls and cups on the table.  Then something shiny on the floor caught my eye, and I knew right away that it was money.  It looked funny to me.  I had never seen this type of currency before.  They were shiny new, and large and so many of them.  I remember wanting them so badly that I figured if I begged my dad long enough, he would let me have them.

    
Calling for my mom first, I hoped that she would go into the house and get me this money.  I pointed through the window at the money on the floor for my mother to see.  She hollered for my dad(Boyd) to come look.  "Boyd, you got to come see this.  There is a pile of silver dollars on the floor!"  I remembered getting so excited.  I was jumping and dancing around my mom, entertaining the belief that we had suddenly become super rich.  My dad peered through the window and to my disappointment, he didn't seem to care one bit.

"Can I have them dad, please dad, can I have them?"  No sooner did that come out of my mouth did I regret it.  The expression on my dad's face changed so quickly.  His good mood suddenly plummeted and anger and hatred took its place.  With his face all twisted, blackened eyes, and his voice deep and low,  said:  "I said no.  No one is allowed in the house."

     My father never got that angry with me.  In fact, that was the first time that he actually scared the hell out of me.  Running back to the car in tears, I heard my mom yell with panic in her voice:  "Boyd!  What the hell is wrong with you!"  Immediately after that, we left and that was the last time I seen the old house still standing.  Or so I thought.  I actually did see the old house once more after that, but it was years after my dad tore it down.  Yes, I'll explain that later.

     A few weeks after the silver dollar incident, my dad and his brother went to the farm to start tearing down the old house.  My dad was persistent, calling hydro several times to make sure it was safe - that the power was turned off before they begun to dismantle it.  My dad then climbed on the roof and started disconnecting wires.  I don't know if he did get a jolt or if he luckily figured it out first, but I remember him coming home mad as hell.  He called hydro and after a lot of swearing and yelling, he asked them if they were trying to kill him.  Although Hydro swears that the pole was dead, and the work order was completed, mysteriously, the power still ran live to the house.

     After the house was only a pile of rubble, the construction of the new house began.  The new house was built directly across from the old, several hundred yards apart.  Some lumber was salvaged from the old house, which was also used in the construction of the new house.  I am not completely convinced that using old building material for the new house could be the only explanation for all that happened, but I am sure it didn't help matters.

     A year later, the house was completed.  My dad's brother, Jackie bought a trailer and moved it to the south side of the property across from ours.  Only the Trans Canada highway divides the two pieces of land.  I only mention this little fact because the experiences in Jackie's home, although mild in comparison to ours, adds further credence to the idea that it could be the property as a whole that is disturbed.  Or...maybe it's a freakishly weird family curse that knows no boundaries.  There were so many experiences that I find it hard to know where to start.  It's impossible to list all the events chronologically.  In fact, this is my third or fourth attempt at even writing this paragraph.  As soon as I recall one experience, another memory even more unbelievable than the first creeps into my mind.

     I think I'll start with the clown.  I hate clowns.  I cannot remember exactly how old we were.  I was maybe 11, Tracy 5 or 6, and my brother Kevin was about 2.  My grandfather Jack bought Kevin this red stuffed musical clown.  The ones with the wind up red ball nose, and would play a tune when it was wound up.  One night I heard Tracy and Kevin screaming from the bedroom - a high pitched blood curdling scream I will never forget.  I must have been sweeping up the floor, as the next thing I remember is being in the bedroom doorway with the whisk broom in my hand.  The kids were sitting in the middle of the bed.  I got this tingling sensation, and numbness all over my body.  I followed the children's gaze to the corner of the room to my left.  Still in the doorway, I then heard the laughing and giggling.  There it was, the clown, on the ceiling, spinning head over heels in circles.  Then it stopped upright and violently shook while continuing its incessant giggling.  Somehow I mustered up a good dose of courage, and in an instant, I was underneath it, and beating the abomination with the broom.  With each strike I kept telling myself that it wasn't hard enough.  I'm not sure how long it took - maybe a few seconds, or a few minutes, but it felt like a lifetime to knock that little red bastard off the ceiling.  I don't remember what happened to the clown in the days to come.

     There were two other incidents that took place involving toys that would take on a life of their own.  There was a yellow toy telephone that would ring and roll its eyes when pulled by a string fastened to the front.  If left out, we were certain to be woken in the middle of the night, hearing it ring up and down the hallway outside our bedroom.  It wasn't until the phone chased my sister down the hallway did my mom finally get rid of it.

     As far as actual spiritual manifestations in the house, there were not too many that I can recall.  At times, strange figures I could see out the corner of my eye, or a glimpse of their reflections in windows or mirrors.  The only spirit I can honestly say I have clearly seen was that of a little blond haired boy.  It wasn't until my dad saw the little boy that we started to call him Alfie.  My father reassured us that Alfie had been around for years and was quite harmless.  Dressed in blue coveralls and tousled dirty blond hair, Alfie seemed to be a little shy, as he was either peeking around corners or running from room to room.  On one occasion, my cousin Dwayne was visiting at our house with the intention of staying the night but he had quickly changed his mind after he followed Alfie down the hall into one of the rooms believing that he was following my brother.  Neither my brother or sister were home at the time and even though I tried to convince Dwayne that everything was fine, he still insisted that he wanted to leave.  Dwayne wasn't our only house guest to report that they had seen Alfie, and over the years, my dad became proficient in calming people's fears and keeping the panicked reactions to a minimum.  I saw Alfie four times on the old farm and at least three times years later after my own move to B.C. 

     Unfortunately Dwayne wasn't the only person who left our home after a paranormal experience, stressed and scared.  One evening while my parents were out, the neighbors had sent their youngest son, Dave, over to sit with me and watch the kids.  The reason for this was because there was a terrible lightning storm coming through and I was really too young to be alone with the kids and without a phone.  Ontario lightning storms can be the most amazing and frightening experiences.  The night was as black as could be, but with the flash of lightning you could see clear across the fields as if it were a mid-summers day.  The sky would light up for fifteen seconds or so, and it would be long enough for your eyes to adjust and clearly see your neighbors home across the highway.  As Dave and I stood watching the light show through the big picture window, the wind picked up and was tossing a wheel barrel down the lane.  At first it looked like a scene right out of the Wizard Of Oz, and I laughed at Dave who had to go outside to case the barrel down before it caused any damage or reached the highway.  Still at the picture window and Dave outside, we both waited for the next flash of lightning to see where the barrel was headed.  Just as the sky lit up, Dave was gone, suddenly running directly across the driveway toward the barrel, which was being held against a tree by the wind.  Just before he reached it, the sky went black for a second or two, and then another flash lit up the sky even brighter than before.  The wheel barrel was still against the tree and right behind the tree stood the first old farmhouse.  It was tall, grey and weathered looking with windows that appeared to be staring right at me and watching like it was alive.  I heard a loud scream and I witnessed Dave stop dead in his tracks, and then he stumbled and fell backwards on his butt as he tried to turn and run back to the house.  Back in the house and white as a ghost, Dave started flashing the outside light on and off which was our safety signal to the neighbors that there was trouble and to come to their aid.  Without saying a word and visibly shaking, he waited for his brother Stan to pull up to the house.  When he did, Dave jumped on his dirt bike and left.  Although we never talked about it later, I can only assume that Dave saw the same image of the old house as I did.

     I wish I could better describe the feelings and emotions that a person could experience just by being on this farm - isolated, depressed, feeling a heavy burden and often guilt.  Many times there were bursts of anger, which led to a lot of violence.  Of course with the alcohol abuse that the family endured for so many years can be blamed for a lot of those incidents, but sometimes I wonder if something else didn't bring it on.  There were many moments when the two least likely people would turn violent and angry toward each other over something so minuscule that you might consider that there were other forces at work.  Once, my dad's brother Jackie, who is the most calm and easy going man in the family, came home one day after work to find out some family were visiting from Cochrane for the weekend and he was less than impressed.  You see, while Jackie was at work, one member of the visiting family, Richard, stopped in to see his family and with Jackie's wife's permission, took the kids for a little ride on Jackie's four wheeler.  When Jackie found out he became uncharacteristically angry and violent, beating the hell out of Richard.  My dad was called over to calm Jackie down, and he was quick to send the family away before further trouble brewed.  This seemed like further evidence to my theory that something more going on than anyone could possibly fathom.

     Both the land and the house had a way of taking things and giving back.  It was normal to have items disappear for long periods of time, only to show up later in the most unusual places and sometimes not even in the house.  Missing items such as books, dishes and once even a toothbrush, turned up in the barn.  There were times items that we had never seen before would just appear amongst our things - cutlery even of all things.  One time a strange butter knife appeared, which almost drove my mother crazy with fear.  The image on the handle was of people crawling up a ladder or rope with flames and the devil beneath them.  For years, my mother had a garden and every fall and spring either my dad or my mom would turn over the soil to have it ready for planting.  One time, my mother uncovered an old rock foundation while working that was the same size as her entire garden.  A year later in the same spot, she dug up an old button up shirt and a pair of denim pants.

     As kids growing up in that environment, we all had made a vow to each other that as soon as my parents no longer needed that house, we were going to burn it the first chance we get.  I have since moved my parents into another house in the same town, and my father insisted to be the one to tear the farm house down.  It took him the last two years to do so, and just this last spring, he applied for a permit to burn what remained.  Two weeks before he was to burn it, it is believed that a vehicle passing by on the highway tossed out a cigarette which started a grass fire on the property.  The fire quickly spread down toward the house and in the end, the old barn, and stretched to the hay fields beyond.  What was left of the old house was the foundation and floor, untouched by the flames and still remain.

     Although we laugh about it now, it does play on the question that because things happened to us while living on the farm, is it the land or some kind of family connection.

Kimberly

    
    

JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES AND COUNT TO TEN

I finally got a Canadian story, an I am very grateful.  It comes from Ontario, and the sender happens to be a relative.  Her name is Tracy, and she has seen enough ghostly sightings to make one cry, piss their pants and babble like monkey.  I won't use her last name because I failed to ask if that was alright.  I must say that I was a little surprised to hear of such a story that directly affected members of my own family.
Although I've never had the opportunity to be close to Tracy, she seems to be an honest woman and not one to exaggerate. Her sister Kim also has a story to tell that I will be documenting on the tail of this one, and is directly tied to this one so make sure you keep reading. 

This entry is one written from Tracy herself.

During my early adolescence, I wrote numerous poems about a house that would claw and bite.  It was a separate entity.  It wasn't until many years later, as I sat across from a city psychiatrist, learning about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that these poems became significant.

Armed with this new found knowledge suggesting I was super-sensitive, dissociated and suffering from PTSD, I began to severely question my experiences with the highly speculative 'paranormal.'  Was everything I had witnessed a massive illusion?

I am 34 years old now and there isn't a section of my life where I don't recall an event that can't be deemed as extraordinary.  Whether the memory is twenty years ago or yesterday, I have learned to trust my instincts and believe in myself.  After all, how likely is it to have only a tiny slice of you be crazy?

My family history is thick with confusion and the stories I've heard paired with my own personal experiences have always held the question:  "Is it the land or the family?"  In this situation, I believe it to be both and I have arguments for each suggestion.  Foremost is the evaluation of our land.

My great-grandfather(on my father's side) travelled to this country from England as a pre-teen.  He eventually purchased land which has since been passed down a few generations.  This land once held native walking trails leading to small lakes, namely 'Grave Lake,' which still holds a native burial ground.  It is said that natives passed on during their travels and often were laid to rest alongside these trails.  There is no guarantee that the farmhouses built here were not resurrected upon grave sites.

The land was eventually sectioned and given to a few of my great-grandfather's children.  Farmhouses were built within miles of each other and although the house my father was raised in was tore down before my time, I have never doubted the paranormal stories I've been told.  The presence living on the land was so extreme and obvious, that it would move objects and often injure those in its path.

As the old house was demolished, my father retained some of the material and built a home directly across the driveway.  I don't recall moving into this house, but this is where my older sister Kim, younger brother, Kevin, and I were raised.  Seemingly, each individual family that built on this land experienced tremendous hardship.  In particular, my great-aunt suffered the loss of all three of her young children as they drowned in a nearby pond.  To this day, many people have witnessed a small child with blond hair and faded blue coveralls roaming the land.  Even I saw him once, as he walked from a bedroom, down a hallway to stand at our wood stove.  It wasn't until years later while looking at a photograph that I shockingly realized that I was staring at the same little boy who was haunting our house, or at least one of the entities.  His name was Alfie, and he was one of my great-aunt's children who had drowned in the pond.

Whatever or whoever was there with us took to purely tormenting everyone all the time.  There was such heaviness over the land that as soon as we stepped off the school bus and hit the driveway, it felt as though a thousand pounds was put on our backs.  The dread, depression and tension were insurmountable.  I often bypassed the house and continued on into the field.  I would sit for hours and watch the masses of cotton-like orbs roll around the house, seeping in and out of the windows.

One evening while Kim was babysitting, Kevin and I were sent to our room to play as she cleaned up our never ending mess.  Sitting on the bed together, we played with a small bag of plastic green army men.  In the corner was a red and white clown doll my grandfather gave to Kevin.  It had black eyes and a bright red, wind-up nose.  Cranking the nose allowed a light, music box-like tune to play.  As Kevin and I battled with our army men, the clown started to sing.  I sat in total fear, squeezing a plastic man so hard that it cut my palm.  Kevin's eyes grew wide, and let out a giant sigh as tears spilled from his eyes.  The clown's legs started twitching, and its arms began to move.  The clown was dancing.  In one raspy breath, Kevin and let out a piercing scream.  As Kim came rushing in, the clown made its way up the wall and rested on the ceiling.  It continued to sing and gyrate even as Kim beat it down with a broom.

Not long after, we had a similar affair with a toy pull-along telephone that I had.  When tugged by a string, the eyes on the phone would dart around and it made a chug, chug, ring, ring, noise.  The telephone ceased to exist after it chased me down the hallway.

Very often, the morning routine consisted of telling each other the noises we had heard during the night.  One of us had the bright idea to set out a tape recorder in hopes of verifying the night time sounds.  I think it was an idea that we all came to regret when the playback revealed whispers and snippets of conversations held by a dozen voices.  The memory of those sounds coming through the speakers still haunt me and causes my skin to crawl.

Not only did our farmhouse and the house before hold unexplained events and feelings, but the land had a way of flexing its muscle.  If there was an accident to be had in the township, regardless of the season, it occurred on the highway, literally at the end of our driveway and was most likely fatal.  I personally had two very, very close calls with transports.

Our house and land also had a way with making things appear and disappear without reason.  Considering the home was built by dad when he was young, my parents were very much aware of what went into the walls.  I recall a day when a knife appeared in the house.  It looked like a regular butter knife, but it had an eerie twist.  On the handle of this golden knife was a carving of men climbing a ladder as flames licked their legs.  It didn't take long for my mother to dispose of that knife, along with and old paper Ouija board we found.

Years later, as us kids had grown and left home, my mother found herself alone one summer night.  She was awakened by a massive presence in the doorway of her room.  She recalls that there was no form and no words were spoken, yet this being engulfed her doorway and she knew he was looking for something.  She said:  "I couldn't see him nor did he say anything, but I could feel him and I knew that he was seeking out something."  He left as quickly as he came, heavy footed down the hallway, and out the door.  Months later, a visiting neighbor shyly confessed that he was seeing things.  "It is weird," he said.  "I heard heavy footsteps and someone stood in my doorway, but I couldn't see him.  I knew he was there because I could feel and smell him.  I think he was looking for something."  Over time, more neighbors who lived on my great-grandfather's original land came forth with the same story.

We are all adults now and question our memories and still live with the odd visit from the supernatural world.  Even 4th generation children are experiencing events that cannot be accepted as coincidence.  Herein lays the suggestion of being attached to the family.

At 18, I walked into my apartment and was smashed in the face with a heavy 'Captain Jack' pipe tobacco scent.  As I entered my kitchen, my recently deceased grandfather(on my mother's side), greeted me.  He put down his pipe, smiled at me and evaporated into the walls.  Soon after, I took a flight to British Columbia to visit my sister, Kim.  As I stood in her kitchen against the sink, I suggested to her that I could feel things in her house.  "They don't like to be talked about," she told me.  We jumped and ran out of the house as a fluorescent light bulb behind me flickered and snapped.  After a few nervous giggles, and she assured me it was okay, we re-entered.  In her bathroom, I admired her wall of clay masks and pointed to one - "that is my favorite mask," I said to her.  As I stepped out of the bathroom, a loud bang and shatter took place behind me.  That one mask that I was taken with, fell off the wall and broke into pieces on the floor.

I spent my time at her home moving from room to room, eventually sleeping on the floor beside her bed.  I was poked, talked to and all around bothered by a force I could not see.  Turns out that I wasn't the only visitor to her home that ended up sleeping on her bedroom floor.

To date I still experience things that I trust to be beyond this world.  Every home I've occupied during this life has been met with visits from external forces.  Individuals within my family have each been faced with things they can't reckon with.  Even those married in, who once didn't believe in that sort of thing have changed their minds.

The older we all become, the more dates become obscured.  Yet one thing remains true to each.  Whether it was the house or the land, spirits do linger.  When shadows rush past our eyes and whispers invade our ears, we are silent enough within to know these are not coincidences, but visits.  Thankfully, our experiences now are far less violent than what they were while living in that farmhouse.  Then again, children are much more susceptible.

A tiny relation of my experiences is a far cry from the whole story of course, but this was my story nonetheless.

Tracy

The Warrior Wanted His Head Rejoined To His Body

     For whatever reason, stories of ghosts or anything involving supernatural phenomena are scarce in Williams Lake, B.C.  This doesn't mean, however, that there aren't any valid stories.  I've heard bits and pieces here and there, but have never had the opportunity to listen in full.  That's where you come in.  I'd like to hear stories from you, the reader, on personal experiences with the supernatural in Williams Lake B.C.  I would also gladly welcome stories from anywhere else for that matter.
     Until then, I will keep passing on stories I've read from a few researchers, especially the great Brad Steiger.  Now lets get to the story.

     Brad Steiger 'Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places

     In 1964, a museum in New Mexico assigned a pair of young archeologists to undertake what had been planned as a very ordinary examination of one of the countless early Pueblo villages that dotted the flat lands of New Mexico.  No extraordinary finds were expected, but investigation at the site was overdue.  The two young archeologists would be working side by side with Navajo diggers hired to aid in the project.

     Work was proceeding as anticipated when a Navajo workman doing rough excavation on a refuse pit at the edge of the village hurriedly approached the team leaders with news of a curious discovery.  His shovel had partly uncovered a piece of bone among the rubble that had been deposited there nearly 1000 years earlier by the inhabitants of the ancient village.  Unwilling to touch the bone for fear it might be human and bear a curse, the digger alerted the archeologists to the find and stood back at a respectful distance as they took up the digging.  What emerged, to the archeologists' surprise, was the skull of a Native American man whose body had apparently been thrown without ceremony into the garbage pits.  It was a strange find considering the reverence with which the New Mexican tribes were know to bury their dead.

     After the two archeologists had searched for hours without finding the rest of the skeletal remains, they returned their attentions to the skull and came up with a gruesome explanation.  Death had probably come to the man from a blow to the back of the skull.  The shape of the head suggested that it was not a Pueblo tribesman, but probably the skull of one of many Apache invaders who had filtered into the area during a wave of migration in about 900 A.D.  A piece of cervical vertebra still clinging to the skull showed marks having been hacked through by some early weapon similar to an axe.

     The aged bones that lay in the refuse heap had belonged to a captive Apache who had been killed and beheaded by the Pueblo, then consigned to the garbage as a further degradation.  No further attempts were immediately made to unearth any remaining skeletal bones after the first search of the nearby area had proved fruitless.  They were of no great archeological importance, and more urgent work in the heart of the old village required all of the hours that the summer dig would still permit.

     But then strange events began occurring at the old Pueblo ruin.  What appeared to be the work of vandals suddenly began causing havoc at the dig site.  When the archeologists and Navajo workmen slept, someone entered the village and smashed unearthed pottery and kicked in carefully excavated trenches.  Events took on an even more macabre turn in the week that followed.  Frightened worker swore that they saw the glowing head of a man appear before them in their bunkhouse at night.  Utter nonsense, the archeologists laughed, until they slept with the workmen one night and saw the faintly phosphorescent glow of what might have been the head of a man.  There was no rational explanation for the sight.

     Panic at the site reached its peak when the workers became certain they were hearing words in a tribal dialect that they did not understand carried on the winds of the inky desert nights.  As a last resort the young archeologists turned to an age-creased shaman at a nearby Navajo reservation to explain what was taking place at the dig and restore progress to the work at the village.  The shaman said that the head of the long dead Apache was seeking his body because he could not enter the spirit world without it.  The ghost would haunt the excavation until head and body were joined together in burial.  Native superstition, the archeologists agreed, but in order to calm the nerves of the jittery workmen, they would see what could be done about finding the rest of the restless Apache's bones.

     Because the Navajo workers reasoned that the vandalism had been a sign to help the diggers, the search for the missing remains centered on the area of the village where the vandalism had occurred.  As digging proceeded in the area over several days, the team could not help noticing that the vandalism had stopped.  Was it a sign the ghost was pleased?  As workmen softly prodded the earth from an old ceremonial circle, a wall of dirt fell away and revealed a set of bones protruding from the soil.  When the bones were laid out, they were found to be of a young male missing his head.  When the skull that had been discovered earlier was brought out for comparison, the severed vertebra were an exact match.  The bones of the doomed Apache brave reposed together once more.

     With the aid of the shaman, the young archeologists gave a reverential burial to the yellowed skeletal remains, and the troubles that had plagued the summer expedition ended at once.  When the final report of the diggings at the site was made to the museum, the scientific background of the young arheologists did not permit inclusion of the strange events that had taken place at the site.  But they were willing to share those experiences with friends, who puzzled as earnestly as they did over the curious happenings that led them to help a long dead Apache find peace in the next world.  Not a scientific achievement, but a very human one of which they were proud.

Salem Witch Hysteria

From Brad Steiger's 'Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places.



     Because of the accusations of a small circle of prepubescent girls, an entire community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony became crazed and allowed themselves to get caught up in the fear that many of their neighbors were secretly serving Satan.

     A strong case might be made from the argument that the famous Salem witchcraft hysteria of 1692 is an example of poltergeist phenomena that got out of hand.  The young girls, who claimed to have been bewitched by invisible spirits under the control of various elderly women in the village, complained of being pinched, having their hair pulled and being stuck with pins.  All these classic symptoms of witch's wickedness we now recognize as familiar manifestations of poltergeists.

     The madness at Salem began innocently enough in the home of the Reverend Samual Parris, when his slave Tituba began telling stories of voodoo and restless spirits to his nine year old daughter Betty and her eleven year old cousin Abigail Williams.  Soon the exciting storytelling sessions in the Parris household were attracting older girls, such as sixteen year old Mary Walcott, and eighteen year old Susanna Sheldon, who wanted Tituba to tell their fortunes and predict their future husbands, as well as tell them ghost stories.  Although Parris and the other preachers fulminated from the pulpits about the dangers of seeking occult knowledge from spirits, the girls of Salem ignored such warnings in favor of a thrilling pastime that could help them through a long, cold winter.

     Perhaps the psychic energies grew stronger when Ann Putnam, a fragile highly strung twelve year old, joined the circle in the company of the Putnams' maid, nineteen year old Mercy Lewis.  Ann had a quick wit, a high intelligence and a lively imagination, and she soon became Tituba's most avid and apt pupil.  Perhaps while a part of Ann's psyche was thrilled with the forbidden knowledge that Tituba was sharing with them, another more conservative religious aspect was racked with guilt for having flirted with devilish enchantment.  Undoubtedly this conflict of conscience and the fear of discovery also affected the other girls.

     As the winter days passed in Salem, little Betty Parris became distracted from her chores, subject to sudden fits of weeping, and was often seen staring blankly at the wall.  Shortly thereafter, Abigail got down on all fours and began barking like a dog or braying like a donkey.  Mary Walcott and Susanna Sheldon fell into convulsions.  Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis also began to suffer seizures.  Something evil had come to Salem.

     When members of the Salem clergy began to ask the girls who ti was that was tormenting them, Tituba was the first to be named by the 'possessed' children.  Nor did anyone doubt the naming of Sarah Good, an unpleasant woman who smoked a foul smelling pipe, and who had been suspected of spreading smallpox through witchcraft.  But when Sarah Osburne was also named by the children, the village was shocked.  Mrs. Osburne was a wealthy woman who lived in one of the most substantial homes in Salem.  Nevertheless, warrants were issued for all three women.

     From such a dramatic beginning, the list of names of the Devil's disciples who were tormenting the girls grew steadily longer.  Two magistrates, John Hathorne and Jonathon Corwin, were sent out from the General Court of Massachusetts Colony to hear testimony that included tales of talking animals, dark shapes, red cats, and a Tall Man, who was undoubtedly the Devil himself.

     When the pious, saintly seventy-one year old Rebecca Nurse was arrested for witchcraft, the townsfolk of Salem began to realize that no one was safe from such accusations.  Although the jury initially acquitted her, the judge ordered the jury to reconsider, and she was found guilty.  She was hanged on Gallows Hill on July 19, 1692.

     Massachusetts governor William Phips became outraged when his own wife was accused of being a witch.  He ordered that there should be no further imprisonments for witchcraft in the state, and he forbade any more executions for the crime of witchcraft in Salem.  Because of the governor's actions, the nearly 150 men and women who were still chained to prison walls were set free, and many who had been convicted of witchcraft were pardoned.

     You have a story, please feel free to respond.