Several years ago, we rented an old house on the river in Beaufort, SC. The story is that the house had been moved by barge from it’s original location in downtown Beaufort to the river location when it’s owner, a spinster school teacher, was upset with local government about some change in policy. She became so enraged that she decided to “move away” from her neighbors.

So she had her house foundation dismantled, and the entire structure moved by barge across the river onto property she owned on Lady’s Island on the Beaufort River. Now, a hundred years later, a small housing area was built up around this house, and it was surrounded with newer, more contemporary homes that only emphasized it’s antiquity. We were charmed with it’s location right on the water, with a dock for our boat, and the wide porches that wrapped around it were perfect for the outdoor living we enjoy. The only drawback was that it originally had no kitchen, the kitchen had been located in another building set behind the house, which had been torn down by the time we rented there. The owner’s had squeezed a sink, tiny counter, stove and refrigerator into what had originally been a bay window bump out of the house, so I had a tiny kitchen the size of a postage stamp. Standing at the sink, I could reach out and touch both the stove and the refrigerator without moving! We were only renting for 6 months, so we figured we could make do with the tight kitchen because the location was so perfect for us.

After a few peculiar experiences there, our neighbors enlightened us as to the houses’ past history. The first strange occurrence was one day when DH was home alone at the house. I was at work and the children were both at school. DH was in the side yard, and kept hearing this lilting, strange music coming from inside the house. Thinking that our son had left his radio on, he went into the house looking for the radio. Although he could still hear the music, all the radios, stereo’s, etc., inside the house were turned off. Eventually, never locating it’s source, he had to leave to go to work. He told us all about it later that night when everyone was back at home.

A few weeks later, my daughter was playing with a recorder she had, and brought it to us to listen to something odd she’d found on the tape, it was the same, strange lilting tune that my husband had heard earlier! She had no idea how the music got on her recorder, or no clue as to where it came from. The tune was not done with any kind of electronic instrument, it was very old-sounding, obviously made with antiquated instruments. When we later tried to play the tape to our neighbors who told us about the house being haunted, the music was gone, even though we hadn’t erased it.

Then one day my husband was using the toilet on the lower level of the house. As he stood there, he felt someone tap him on the shoulder, as though they wanted his attention. Thinking it was one of our children, he said, “just a minute, and I’ll be done”, and as he turned his head to see who it was - there was no one there. A quick search revealed that there was no one even on that floor of the house - the rest of the family was all up on the third level of the house, no where hear him!

Prior to this, we had never believed in spirits, but after spending time in this house, we do believe it was inhabited by a ghost of some type. Our neighbors told us of several occasions where similar, strange occurrences had happened to other people living in the house before us. We never felt threatened living there, just as though there was “someone else” still there with us. It was a quirky, wonderful old house - with a presence!

Years ago I stayed in a hotel that was said to be haunted, especially the third floor where they didn't put guests. My friend suggested we go there 'for fun' and when we got near the area that was said to be haunted the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my friend said I had the strangest look on my face. All I could think about was that I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible which we did.

More recently, after my DH died, our (at the time) 2 year old Granddaughter told her DM that she saw Grandpa in the kitchen.

I believe because of the many experiences related by reliable people that some who have passed on do reveal themselves but have no idea how that works.

I was very close to my Dad who died on Valentine's Day in 2007. Interesting in itself as it was the birthday of my maternal grandmother and middle sister, as well.

Dad was home with hospice for he last 10 days he lived. We had a hospital bed for him in a guestroom on the first floor. One day, his beloved dog, Charlie jumped up on him in bed to cuddle for a bit. I stood in the doorway, and took a picture of them, which turned out to be the last photo taken of Dad.

On Valentine's Day evening, with a snow blower that wouldn't start, I was 7 miles away at my house shoveling my driveway in a huge snowstorm, as I just felt that I should be there with Dad. I came in to change my clothes around 6 PM, and Mum called and told me he had died, while I was out frantically shoveling to get over to their house.

Once I had uploaded that last photo of him and Charlie from my camera to my PC, I went through all the photos and deleted them from the memory card as usual. I came to that one, and hit delete. First the first time ever, and it has never happened since, a message appeared that the photo could not be deleted. I deleted others, and tried to delete that one, but no matter what I tried, it could not be deleted.

I take pics often, upload them and delete them, so there were many subsequent times that I tried to delete that one again, but it wouldn't go. Every pic before and after - no problem.

We had his funeral a few days after he died. After the guests had left the building for the reception, I went in and stood by Dad's casket alone for a while, and asked him to please come back and visit me some time.

He died in Feb, but the small cemetery that my family has a lot in didn't open til late April from the winter. It was then that we had a small graveside service and buried him. After that service, days later, I was home again deleting recent photos from my camera. This time as I paged thru deleting, the one of Dad and Charlie was deleted normally along with the others, without ever showing any evidence of a problem earlier.

Also, the day before the funeral, I had mowed the lawn all over, and it being spring, it was beautifully green. The day following the funeral, I had a friend visit, and we were touring the yard looking at the gardens. As we approached the 'River Garden', right at the edge of my property above the river, I saw something in the grass and said, 'What's that?' It appeared as thought the grass has been burnt, yet it had been perfectly green two days before. I got Goose bumps as we got closer, and asked my friend what she saw. "It's a letter 'S'!' Yes it was a perfectly formed S; and my friend only knew me by my married name, which started with V. My maiden name began with 'S'... Had my sweet Dad visited me again?

A couple years after we moved into the house we now live in, just before Christmas, both of my sons, who were maybe 4 and 7 at the time, separately told me that they had seen a blonde lady in a pink sweater standing by our Christmas tree. Never happend again, and we never came up with an explanation.

After my beloved dog died when I was about 14, I swore I heard the dog following me down the street (her ID tags made a jingling sound) for several days on my way to school.

Interesting stories...any more you'd like to share?

I don't think of this as paranormal, but more spiritual.

My dear mother took care of my SIL and nursed her through her horribly hard and painful death from lung cancer. She was only 39 when she died. My SIL was a real diamond in the rough, but was as tough as nails.

A few years later, Mom was also dying of lung cancer, but in a far better way as it had spread to her brain. She didn't seem to suffer pain, but severe, severe fatigue. So hard to know what to do. I was driving home late at night after work, maybe 9 or 10 pm, and I'm debating if I should put Mom on hospice care or not...did she need it yet? Could she still rally? I wanted to give her every chance...I hoped so much that she would improve. I wanted desperately to do the right thing, but what is the right thing? As I'm driving home, alone in the car, and debating with myself, someone poked me in the arm...a sharp poke. I was like, what the h'll was that??? So I kept driving. About 30 seconds later, I was poked again. Then I knew. Not an iota of doubt. It was my SIL telling me to stop being an idiot and get her on hospice care right away. When I got home, I immediately called the nursing home and they took care of it.

If anyone was going to go through whatever it takes to deliver a message from the other side, it would be my SIL. Tough as nails she was.

Oh yes, many times. And I imagine this post is going to be long......

After my mom passed away I moved into my dad's house to keep him company (long before I married). Due to my mom's illness they had separate bedrooms. One night I was asleep in my mom's bed and something woke me up. My mom was standing at the end of the bed wearing what she had always called her white Mexican wedding dress. She smiled at me and told me that "everything would be alright", and then she was gone. We had given that dress to one of her good friends several weeks before who had always loved it.

Many years later I had returned to work after a 3-month medical leave of absence. A couple hours after starting work I was standing by my office door and all of a sudden my legs went out from under me and I fell on the floor. I couldn't get up, my whole body was weak and like jello. I had such a horrible sense of emptiness. About 20 minutes later one my assistants paged me and told me that my step-mom had called and said that my dad had just passed away. She told me later that she lost it when she called and couldn't talk so just told my assistant about my dad. I felt so badly for that girl having to deliver the news to me. To this day I know exactly when my dad passed away because I felt him passing.

That was over 21 years ago. I always knew that my dad was near me, always. I could often smell his pipe tobacco, which was a special blend and very distinctive. Sometimes when I needed it, sometimes for no reason, and I felt that other times were 'just because'. When my husband's dad passed away my DH told me that he could smell my dad's pipe tobacco for several days after (but I didn't) . When we moved to this home, in another state, nine months ago, I kept thinking that my dad wouldn't know where I was. Sure 'nuff, about a month after our move there was his distinctive pipe tobacco smell, altho it was only that one time.

I grieved horribly for my dad until one night. I had a dream that he was driving his motorhome, my step-mom was in the passenger seat and I was kneeling between them. We were going down a tree lined street and could see police cars on a parallel street with lights and sirens, hundreds of them. We knew they were looking for us. My dad said he couldn't figure out why they would be after us. I told my dad that it was because no one was driving the RV. He said, "what do you mean? I'm driving!". I told him no, that he was dead and to the police it looked like there were two women in a speeding motorhome with no one driving it. We all busted out laughing and kept laughing. I woke up laughing, with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard (it woke my husband up too), and that was when I knew he was telling me he was OK.

Now to the more paranormal part.....my husband and I lived in a home for 18 years. We were always seeing something dark out of the corner of our eyes but when we looked it moved away. When one evening I mentioned it to my husband he gave me a funny look and said that he's been seeing the same thing too. It was a male figure all in black, with a black coat, sometimes with a hat, sometimes not, that alway stood at the end of our hallway waiting for us to notice, then he would turn and walk down the hall. Even one of our neighbors saw it once. One of our dogs, a German Shepherd, would talk to it, at least that's what we like to think. When she started 'talking' we knew he was around but just couldn't see him. She often would wake us up in the middle of the night with her talking and tail thunking against something. It was like she would be listening, then answer, then talk more. Our other dog would cock her head and wag her tail while staring at something but didn't 'talk'. It really was kinda neat. We lost our 'talking' dog right before we moved from that house and my husband swore he could feel her head under his hand when he was watching TV for a long time after.

I only had one freaky experience while living in that house. I was taking a shower one night and the bathroom light got really dim and it got really cold, even tho I was taking a hot shower. It was if someone had stood up on the toilet next to the shower, between the wall light and the shower, and was looking over the shower curtain bar, at least that's the feeling I got. Only lasted a few seconds then it was gone. Never happened again.

When we had to move (due to my husband's job transfer) to another city we often wondered if we should have told the new owners that the house had a friendly ghost living there. :)

We lived at our last home for almost 10 years and only had one experience a couple years after moving in. I was sitting in my home office facing the hallway door and saw a medium sized white dog trotting down the hallway. Our other dog was also a large GS and lab mix with no white in her coat. We didn't have a white dog and I knew I hadn't left an outside door open. Two days later we lost our remaining dog unexpectantly. About six months later we got another GS mix dog and to the day we moved, last year, I was always afraid that I would see that white dog again.

This is fun to see what experiences others have had.

Jenna

The Saint Claire Hotel. In San Jose, Ca. I did not believe in the para normal, whatsoever. I'm a Science person. My eggs are in that basket. We rented a room for Auntie Billi's birthday party. Uneventful, really.

We went to bed but I was awakened suddenly. I was being crowded in my bed by children. One baby and a child, to be exact. Being an old hotel, we were in a double bed and it felt very crowded. I awoke to a baby and child next to me and a lady hovering over Robert. There was a man, dressed in old time (1920s garb) clothes. The room was FULL of spirits.

They scared the ability to even speak right out of me. When I finally was able to tell them to leave, they did instantly. It was real. I read about the spirits the next day. That hotel is haunted and was on TV.

I left a review accordingly.

I had a dream at age 12 that my grandfather was riding away from me down the road on a blue bicycle. He turned and waved at me, smiling, but he kept riding down the road, away from his house. I couldn't catch up to him on foot, so I decided to walk into my grandmother's house.

I was surprised to find a lot of people I knew standing in the living room. As I approached closer, I realized they were sad. My grandmother was crying. In the center of the circle of people, I could see something, but I wasn't sure what it was. I walked into the group to see, and there was my grandfather, deceased, in his casket.

I pleaded with everyone to listen to me; that he wasn't dead; that I had just seen him riding a bike (that looked like my Grandmother's bike) down the road. But it was as if no one could hear me.

Within a week or two, my grandfather passed away suddenly, of a heart attack, while mowing the lawn. At the moment of hearing the news, I remembered the dream.

At 12 years old in the 1980s, I had no idea that years ago, it wasn't uncommon to have funeral visitations in the home.

I have always felt comforted by the dream, as though my grandfather was saying goodbye in a beautiful way.

I'm grateful that I attracted spirits who just wanted to be loved. Robert knows my denial. He listened to my gobbled speech during my experience. He believed me because I'm such a skeptic. I thought people who experienced these kinds of things were making them up.

I attracted nice people but I was terrified by the experience. I won't stay there again.

Golddust, I know that hotel. Altho it's been a while, I've been there several times for meetings, but have never spent the night, altho many who were from out-of-state did. My boss and I always opted to drive home, about 1.5 hrs. away, three plus hours during commute time.

Didn't experience any ghosties (as my husband calls them) but have always had the #1 best hotel catered lunches and snacks served during our meetings, ever. We were always treated like kings and queens and can't say that happened at a lot of other business out-of-town meetings that we had.

I just showed my husband what you had written about your experience there and he said that we should have spent the night the one time that he had driven down to pick me up so that we could have dinner on the way home. Knowing him, if that had happened to him he would have been sitting on the edge of the bed trying to talk to your visitors. :)

Jenna

A year after my Mom passed, I was awakened on my birthday to see my Mom dancing around my room. She was singing me a ditty that I had never heard before. She was all dressed up and her hair was dyed red, just like when I was a kid.
She let me know she was okay, and I knew this was her final goodbye. It was a very special birthday!