Next week is Halloween! While costumes and candy are the stars of the show for many, some of us look forward to the spookier side of Halloween. Ghosts, goblins and ghouls are front and center for the next few weeks. So, while we have a chance, we’re sharing stories of all things supernatural, scary, creepy, and just plain weird.
Today, a true tale of some definitely unusual occurrences, the origins of which were never quite solved.
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You had something of an unusual occurrence that took place in your house. Can you tell us what that was?
Well, we were pretty sure that our house was haunted for a period of time.
When did you first have reason to think something strange was going on?
About 10 years ago. We had only been living in the house for about 8 or 9 months and I had just found out I was pregnant. I would be working (from home) and I’d hear footsteps upstairs, or the sound of a door closing or something like that. Once in a while I thought I heard music or a person singing. At first I thought it was coming from the neighbors (it was a twin house), and that I just wasn’t yet use to the noises. But, as the weeks went on, I would hear more strange things that didn’t really seem like they were coming from the neighbors.
What other kinds of things were happening?
I’d come home and put my keys down on the counter and go grab a drink or something and come back and they’d be on the coffee table or something. I told my husband, and my sister and my best friend. They’d say stuff like, oh you probably set them down when you came in and just forgot where you put them. But I never put my keys on the coffee table, ever. And once I noticed this stuff, I made really certain to take a mental note of what I was doing, where I was putting things, etc.
So you said you spoke to your husband and he chalked it up to innocent misplacement of things? Did he come to believe you? Did he ever witness anything for himself?
Well, after a couple of months of this, it was really starting to freak me out. But, I was pregnant, and never had been before, and so I thought okay maybe everyone is right. I figured maybe it was just the pregnancy and the new place and my mind was playing tricks on me. For all I knew, that could’ve been common in pregnancy. I was that clueless. But what happened was that one day about 2 months after we moved in, maybe 3, the neighbor came over one day and I invited her in to talk. She was a stay-at-home-mom with 3 kids. She was giving me some advice about the baby and all of that. So, we were sitting on the couch and I started hearing the footsteps sound again and then the singing. So, I mentioned to her how I was able to hear so clearly when someone was walking around, or even singing in her house. We started listening and she heard the singing too. She told me that no one was home in her house and that no one (that she knew of) ever walked around singing. So, we were both a little freaked out. We just finished talking and I told her I was going to talk to my husband when he got home.
That night I told him all about the visit and he was skeptical still. So, later that night I was in the kitchen and he was working on painting the baby’s room. He called me up and when I got there he was just standing there really still. So I kind of fixed my eyes to where he was looking. I didn’t see anything. I put my arm on his arm and he said, “ssssh”. I remember it so clearly. He stood there for about 30 seconds then grabbed my hand and backed me out of the nursery door. I asked him what the heck was going on and he told me that he had come home and gone right up to start working. He said he put the crib together and the rocking chair and was starting to work on the changing table when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the rocker rocking. So he looked up, fan was off. He felt the air vent, there was nothing blowing out. Checked the window, tightly closed. So he went out to catch his breath and came back in and it was fine. Nothing was moving, nothing unusual. So he kept working thinking maybe somehow a breeze blew in or something. The next morning he got up and got ready for work and I got in the shower. When I got out of the shower, I could hear the singing again. I called my neighbor but she wasn’t home. So, and I’m still not sure why I thought this was a good idea, but I decided to walk towards the singing. I followed it to the baby’s room. I opened the door a crack, and just like my husband had seen, the rocking chair was rocking. I shut the door, ran down the stairs, and called him.
Holy cow! That’s pretty crazy. So, what did he say? Did you ever find out what was going on?
We were totally freaked out. We were both pretty convinced that it was a ghost or some kind of spirit entity. But for some reason, neither of us were scared. We were definitely shocked and freaked out and shaken up, but neither of us was like, we have to get out of here, now! We both just kind of looked at each other like, okay so what do we do now?
And what did you do?
Well, we just kind of kept going with our lives. It was pretty surreal. I was pregnant and working from home. He was working at his job like 50-60 hours a week. Things were still moving around. Someone was still walking the second floor. There was someone definitely rocking the rocker and humming or singing pretty much every day and it just kept going. We didn’t really do anything. We were both remarkably calm in hindsight.
So, how long did that continue?
When I was towards the end of my 9th month, things had started to settle down. The nursery was all done. I’d still hear stuff from time to time but not a lot. Then the day before I went into labor, I was putting the final touches on the room, unpacking all the stuff I got at my shower, and putting it away. I took a bag of newborn outfits that I’d gotten as gifts and laid them out on the dresser so I could hang them up and choose one as the baby’s coming home outfit. I had also opened up a case of newborn diapers to put in the changing table. I think it was my mom that called, and I went downstairs to talk to her and make some tea. When I had come back up to the nursery, I opened the door and was just the most freaked out I have ever been in my life. The diapers that were on the table waiting to be put away were all away inside the holder! And all of the little outfits that I had taken out were hung up!! All except for one which sat laid out on the dresser, it was as if they, or whoever, or whatever, had chosen that as the babies coming home outfit! I flipped! I remember thinking no one in their right mind is ever, ever going to believe me when I tell them what has happened here. I grabbed my keys and my purse and literally ran out the door, as fast as someone who is 40 weeks pregnant can anyway.
Wow! I have chills. So, where did you go? What happened?
I really couldn’t go anywhere. I was due in like 3 days. I was huge. And not really even supposed to be driving. So, I called my husband and could barely even get the words out. He said, “I’m coming home, do not go back in the house.”
So, what did you do?
Well, I went back in the house of course (laughing). I was waiting for him out front when I said, this is silly. I do not know what came over me exactly. To this day I can not explain why a 9 months pregnant woman would run back into what could only be described as a haunted house, by herself. But, I did. I went in, I went up to the baby’s room. I stood in the doorway and I started talking, out loud, to this, ghost or whatever it was. I said, “I’m not sure who you are, or why you’re here, but my name is Alexis and this is my house. I’m going to have a baby any day now. Thank you for helping me get the nursery ready, but I am scared that you might frighten the new baby when she gets home.” I do not know why, but for some reason, I just felt like this presence, this ghost, was there helping me. Maybe she was a mom that passed away or that lost a baby, I don’t know. But I had no fear. I thanked her again and told her I was grateful for what she had done and sorry for whatever had happened to her. And then I left the room and went to make tea. About 5 minutes later as I was pouring my tea, my water broke and my husband walked in the door at the exact same moment.
Incredible story. So what happened?
Well, obviously we went to the hospital and I gave birth to my daughter that night. Actually, it was the next morning at 1:30. We were so wrapped up in her for the next 2 days. The morning I was going home my husband came in and sat down and asked what about the presence or whatever it was. He felt like we couldn’t go back there with the baby. He wanted to check into one of those extended stay hotel places until we figured out what to do. I told him what had happened just prior to him getting home the day I went into labor. And I told him I didn’t want to go to a hotel after we had worked so hard to make a home for our baby. I told him that I didn’t know why, but that I knew that it was safe and okay to go back.
Obviously you went back since you still live there. What happened when you got back? Was it over?
Well, the craziest thing. We brought the baby home and were trying to get settled in. My husband was making some dinner and I was laying in bed feeding the baby. My inlaws and my mom were coming to see the baby and have some dinner with us. I hadn’t gone in the nursery yet. As calm as I was, I was nervous as well. While I was finishing up nursing, I started to hear the humming again. No words, just music. I got a little choked up. Nervous, but not afraid. I put the baby in the bassinett and called down for my husband and then I started walking into the baby’s room. Everything was put away, it looked pretty much like I’d left it. But in the center of the dresser, there was a little statue that I did not recognize. It looked like a basket of flowers but when you got close up you could see that there was a little ceramic baby inside. I picked it up, and saw that it was a music box. By this time my husband was there too. I looked at him, wound up the box and set it down, and we could literally not believe what we heard. It was the same song, I still do not know to this day the name of it, but it was the same song that we had kept hearing the ghost or spirit women singing and humming for months! We just stared at each other for what felt like an hour, but was probably a minute. I wound it up again, same thing. I looked for a title or something, but there wasn’t one. I just kept playing it. And then we turned off the light and walked out. We were contemplating what, if anything, we should do. But my husband was home for a few days so we just played it by ear. Everything was quiet. We never heard anything again. No footsteps, no humming, no music, no weird stuff, ever. It was like she left the music box as a goodbye and a gift of the baby., like her job was done.
That is truly incredible!
It was simultaneously the most frightening and most incredible thing that has ever happened to us. I think about it all of the time. My daughter is 10 years old and I always wonder if she can see her, if she knows how she is doing, if she’s been with us all these years, but just quietly because she didn’t want to scare her after what I had said. So, for anyone who doesn’t believe in something out there beyond this realm, I was the same way, and my husband even more so. Neither of us can ever deny what happened in our house in those days before our baby was born. It’ll be with us forever.
Philly Unified 