Is My House Haunted? Part III

Those of you who have read my previous articles are aware that there have been some strange happenings in my house. I attribute my encounters to the paranormal simply because there is no other way that I can explain them. I could be totally wrong, but at least I know that I’m not losing my mind. My husband and my five-year-old daughter have noticed them as well.

We obviously do not point out these occurrences to my daughter but try to offer what seems like a valid explanation for the events so she will not be scared or confused. We have smelled perfume, heard sounds from footsteps to objects moving, music boxes playing on their own and utensils being placed down on dishes. Our bedroom television shuts off by itself every night and I have had the sensation of someone getting off of our bed in the middle of the night as if someone just stood up from the bed and the mattress bounced a little bit as it settled.

I’m a horror movie freak and I’ll admit that sometimes after watching scary movies or ghost shows on TV that my mind will wander and I can occasionally freak myself out in the middle of the night just as anyone else would. I’ve been hooked on the show Ghost Hunters and every time the show is on it seems to provoke even more paranormal activity in our house. I might not watch it tonight just for that reason. I don’t know if I can actually bare to miss an episode of Ghost Hunters Academy but after what happened in my house last night, the last thing I need is to add to my paranoia.

My daughter was watching TV in her bedroom and resting with wet cloths on her head and belly to cool off from the heat wave we’ve been having. I was in the living room with my husband watching TV. I mentioned before that my living room and dining room are connected. My daughter’s room is off of the dining room and I can see the reflection of her room on the dining room window. All of the lights were off except for the one in her room and the light was shining into the dining room so we had a fairly decent view of her room in the reflection. I happened to be glancing in that direction when I saw a shadow cross her bedroom door as if she was closing and opening the door slowly two times.

The shadow looked like a fuzzy outline of the door moving and it certainly didn’t look like a person. I didn’t hear the door, so I was just about to call her or go to her room to see what she was up to when she called me first. She said “Mommy! Mommy! I’m scared. I want to come see you”. I hopped off of the couch and went to her room where I noticed she was laying in the same place on the bed with her cool cloths and hadn’t moved. I asked her what was wrong and told her she needed to rest because it was late. She said, “I don’t want to sleep in here. I’m scared.” I told her that there is nothing to be scared of and said that I was right near her in the next room. She said, “I saw a statue”, and I noticed that the chandelier crystals were moving back and forth as if someone had just touched the light. I explained that she might have seen the shadow of the crystals moving and that it must have just been the wind.

There was absolutely no air last night because it was about 90 degrees and humid. I had the fan blowing into her room but it was on the floor just outside of her door and there is no way that it would make the crystals move. She wasn’t standing on her bed and touching the chandelier, first of all because she knows it’s not safe, and second of all, because her facecloths were still on her the way that I placed them for her and she was laying in the same place on her bed propped up with pillows and watching TV. I would have noticed her standing on her bed in the reflection and I didn’t. I was wondering what the “statue” could be, if anything other than her imagination. She claimed to have seen the “statue” at the same time that I saw the shadow.

It was already way past her bedtime and even though she didn’t have school the next day, she needed to get to sleep. The rest of the house was way too hot and we had an air conditioner on this side of the house, so I decided I would just sleep in her bed. I told my husband what she said and that she was scared so I was going to sleep with her. He was already falling asleep on the couch so he decided to head off to bed too. I was lying in bed with my daughter and looking out into the dining room. I watched my husband turn the dining room light on at a dim setting for a night light for Lili and go back to the living room to shut off the TV. The minute he shut off the TV, the dining room light went out. He came to turn the light back on and the TV turned back on. He just glanced over at me and we looked at each other as if to say, “This is getting worse”.

I mentioned before that my grandparents passed away peacefully in my house at different times and I always attributed what seems like paranormal activity to be them watching over us. I don’t know if I really want to know what is happening at home. If there are valid explanations for all of the bizarre circumstances that have happened, I would like to know what they are at this point. I don’t think I want to find out for sure that there is a spirit or ghost in my house unless I know for sure it’s my grandparents. The one thing I really do not understand is why they would keep making themselves noticeable after they know that my daughter is catching on and is getting scared.

I have a plan. I don’t know how great it is, but we have a friend who is studying to become a film director and he owns a top-notch video camera. He lives about 30 miles away so he will spend the night on our couch on occasion if he comes to hang out with my husband on a weekend night. I’m thinking we might invite him over for dinner this weekend and try to coax him into bringing the camera so I can set it to record over night. I’ll probably set it up in my daughter’s room looking out into the dining room and wake up in the middle of the night to set it up in our bedroom at the area where I thought I felt someone get up from the bed in the middle of the night which is right next to the TV that shuts off by itself. Like I said, I’m not sure I really want to know what this is because I’m sure there’s very little I can do about a ghost in our house. At the same time, my curiosity and paranoia are getting the best of me.

I’ve also been wondering if watching horror movies and shows like Ghost Hunters could be welcoming ghosts or spirits into our home. The advice I’ve found online suggests that this idea is silly. I suppose I could just notice these things more when I am more suggestible and in tune to the whole thing. I know the paranormal couldn’t have been further from our minds last night as we were watching something totally unrelated and interesting on TV. I suppose time will tell and maybe the camcorder will unfold more than what we expect. I’ll keep you posted.