Things that go bump in the night!

You know that feeling when you hear a loud, disembodied human woman scream in your house, that everyone hears but you can’t trace where it came from? What…? No…? Well, we do now!!

Let me set the scene.

It’s Friday evening, sometime between 9 and 10PM. I’m in the living room, my mom is in bed with COVID, my dad is their TV room and Heather and Jack are upstairs in their respective bedrooms, James is in Manchester.

A loud scream, a human woman scream, comes from the hallway.

I mute the TV to see if I can hear anything else, wondering whether my mom was calling for help in a delirious state caused by a high temperature. Nothing. No other sounds at all. I slowly walk towards the TV room and ask my dad if he had heard the scream, and he confirmed that he had. He told me that he thought that it had come from inside the house too. He checked on my mom, she was fine, her temperature was under control and she had not screamed or made any noise at all. She had heard the scream, commenting that it sounded as though it had came from just outside their bedroom door.

I then went upstairs and spoke to Jack who had been in his bedroom with the door open. He had heard the scream and he too thought that it had come from inside the house. Heather was in the bathroom and she was the only one in the house not to hear anything.

The trick to this sort of thing is to try and find the logical explanation. So, let’s try.

The direction of the sound, as heard from the various rooms around the house, appeared to come from the hallway. Any noise from outside is quite obvious, and from my position in the living room I would be able to differentiate between a human woman screaming externally and one screaming internally. To back this up, from Heathers position in the bathroom she would’ve been able to hear the sound if it had originated from outside the house. She didn’t hear a thing.

Another explanation may be that Jess, one of the dogs, made a noise as she lay outside the TV room. It’s possible. It may have happened. But Jess has never made a noise like that before. Ever. And even my dad, as sceptical as any other sceptic on the planet, said that it didn’t sound like any noise that a dog could make. It sounded like a human woman screaming.

We can’t confirm or deny that there is a logical explanation but, without a doubt, four out of five of us heard what we thought was a scream that seemed to come from inside the house. The fifth person in the house did not hear anything, which only seems to confirm that it wasn’t an external noise.

Weird, huh?

Well, this isn’t the first strange thing to have happened in our house. There have been other occurrences that have been difficult to explain too. Not impossible; if you look hard enough then you can find a logical explanation for the most unusual of experiences. Sometimes, though, you just need to hold your hands up and accept that you just don’t know.

I’m not saying that our home is in the same league as the Amityville house. There are no upturned crucifixes or blood seeping from the walls. There has never been a time when the one of the kids have been stuck inside a television set like in the film Poltergeist either. And, to my recollection, we’ve never been invited by an ancient demon to think of something that would then try and kill us. If this did happen, I am scared to think what would appear; the StayPuft Marshmallow Man would be the least of our worries.

So, what experiences have we had?

Our house creaks…a lot. When it’s windy it sounds as though the whole building is moving, and it is windy here often. When people are walking around upstairs it is sometimes so loud, I can’t hear my mom and dad’s television at the other end of the house. It’s that loud. On a few occasions, the sound of footsteps have been heard when there has been nobody upstairs. The first time was just a few weeks after moving in.

With everyone either at work or school, my dad, Mr Sceptic himself, was in the house on his own. He was, most probably, pottering. It’s what you do when you are retired. Whilst he was pottering, or playing on his PlayStation, he heard the sound of footsteps upstairs. It was loud and almost unmistakably the sound of somebody walking around on the first floor.
Without a thought for his own safety, he climbed the staircase to investigate, not knowing what was waiting for him. As it happens, the house was empty except for himself and the two dogs, who never venture onto the upper floor.

Since then, we have all heard footsteps when we knew that there were no physical humans upstairs. Sometimes you can hear movement on the landing when you are upstairs too and when you open the bedroom door, nobody is there. Weird, I know.

There have also been a few occasions in the middle of the night where I have woken up thinking that somebody was in our bedroom. Just a split second where I could feel a presence, and then nothing. I’ve also seen glimpses of…something…in the reflection of the kitchen in the patio doors. A shadow, the shape of a man standing in the kitchen. It’s there momentarily in the reflection, and then disappears. Who knows what it is?! Very possibly a trick of the light…but, maybe not.

One night, after returning home from a trip to Birmingham, I was unloading the car outside the house. It was a dark and still night. As I reached into the car to pick up some things that we had left on the back seat I felt somebody behind me. Close. Leaning over the top of me as I was half inside the car. I thought that when I turned around, I would see Jack standing there, just inches behind me, with a big goofy grin on his face hoping to make me jump. But, Jack wasn’t there at all. Nobody was. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and a shiver ran up and down my spine (exactly like what is happening now as I recall that night). There was somebody standing over me; somebody or some thing.

We have been told that our house was built on land that had once been part of a funeral procession path, but whether this is a fact or not, I’m not sure. And if you believe in the paranormal; ghosts, spirits and such; this may explain why there could be some unusual activity taking place. We have no proof of anything happening; no photographic evidence, videos or confirmation of the existence of a funeral procession path running through our kitchen. All we have are stories and anecdotes, most recently the disembodied scream of a human woman that seemed to emanate from inside our house.

Over the years I’ve had some other spooky experiences that fall into the category of ‘weird, but a logical explanation can be found if you look hard enough’. Experiences that, if you weren’t open to the supernatural world, would be dismissed or ignored. If you haven’t already guessed, I do have an open mind when it comes to ghosts and ghouls.

As a youngster I was reading about the demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren before The Conjuring films brought them back into the public domain, watched films like The Amityville Horror, The Entity and Poltergeist, and enjoyed hearing ghost stories from anybody willing to tell them. Anything spooky or scary; I enjoyed the feeling of the hair standing up on the back of my neck.

This, I’m sure, makes me sound like I’m fully sold on the idea that ghosts exist and every bump in the night or unexplained occurrence is caused by a spirit, demon or poltergeist intent on causing mischief and mayhem. Of course, that’s not completely true. My opinion is that pretty simple.

There have been lots of reports, from many different people, about strange and unusual incidents and occurrences. From apparitions to shadow figures, strange lights and orbs, knocks and bangs, things moving on their own, disembodied voices and full on possessions. Some would say that there will be a logical explanation for everything. But what about those occasions when there isn’t anything obvious? What about those times when something happens and it cannot be attributed to a trick of the light, a gust of wind or atmospheric conditions? In these circumstances you also need to rule out foul play; special effects, tricks and wires.

For the purposes of this post, I will tell you about a few of my experiences, and I’ll give you details of the circumstances and how I have tried to find an explanation. I’m not trying to offer any proof of the paranormal or convince you of the existence of ghosts, poltergeists or an afterlife. I’m not sure myself, although I can confirm that these stories are all true and did happen as I describe them. So, let’s begin…

An old workmate moved into a normal terraced house on a council estate in Birmingham; there was nothing about it that suggested that it would offer anything but a perfect family home for his wife and two children. It was built in the 1960’s, so not particularly old, and was like any other council property in the area. However, strange things started to happen almost from day one. During a lunch break, my friend, Steve, took some other workmates to the house to show them around as they were offering to help him decorate before moving in. One of the lads took a call outside before entering the house and followed the others inside a few minutes later. As he walked along the hallway there were bangs in the walls either side of him as he made his way towards the kitchen. It spooked him enough to turn around immediately leave, refusing to return.

Over the course of the next few weeks and months, the family experienced certain things in the property. Knocking in the walls, the sounds of cupboards opening in the kitchen, electrical appliances turning themselves on and off, a large cooking pan falling off a kitchen counter. Their next door neighbour experienced these things independently and they also heard the sound of a vicious argument late one night from Steve’s house. At the time, Steve and his wife were fast asleep and didn’t hear anything.

One night, Steve climbed the stairs when he heard his young daughter crying in her bedroom. As he reached the top of the staircase, he thought that he saw his wife walk past the doorway of his own bedroom, but when he looked inside…the room was empty. He grabbed both children, and slept downstairs. On another occasion, Steve’s wife was working late one night at the dining table, and she thought that she saw her young son walk past the kitchen doorway. She followed him outside, thinking that he may have been sleep walking. When she entered the hallway there was nobody there, and nowhere for any physical person to have gone.

Although this is all anecdotal, Steve’s wife was straight-laced and serious, and making up stories was not the sort of thing that you would expect from her. I visited them often and, although it didn’t feel any different to any other house, there were definite sounds of banging that would come from the kitchen. Steve would nonchalantly tell me that it was the cupboard doors opening and closing as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

During one visit, the three of us were sat at the dining table, chatting about the things that they had experienced in the house. Steve’s wife confirmed some of the stories that he had told me previously and hearing her speaking about it was even more creepy. It just seemed even more believable. A knocking then came from wall next to us, which I knew immediately was Steve thinking that he was being funny. He put his hands back above the table and laughed as I shook my head at him, full of contempt. Then, three loud knocks came from the wall. The sound was wither from inside the wall, or from the room next door. The empty room next door. Steve and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, anxiety levels increasing. The three knocks were almost in repsonse to what Steve had done moments before.

I told them that I wanted to change the subject, I still had a long walk home, in the dark, passing spooky woods. “Don’t be silly.” Steve’s wife said. “They can’t hurt you.”

At the very moment that she had finished speaking, a loud bang and crash could be heard from somewhere in the house. Without any exaggeration, it sounded as though a wardrobe had been pushed over, or a large box filled with pots and pans had been dropped. Steve jumped up and said that he would check out front, his wife ran to the back doors to check on the patio. Not wanting to be left alone in the house, I followed her out of the back doors. After checking outside and then upstairs there was no evidence of anything falling, breaking or being thrown.

I can’t explain what happened that night, or the sounds that I experienced on various other nights whilst I was there. With the other stories about the strange occurrences it makes for an interesting story at least. Although the incidents didn’t completely stop, they reduced significantly when, I am told, a friend of theirs placed some blessed rosary beads into a drawer in the house. I’m not religious, and I’m not going to make assumptions about what was causing any of the incidents, but I can assure you that my experiences at the house happened as I have told them. I can’t explain them…so I’m happy to put it down in the weird and unexplained column.

Heather and I moved into our first flat shortly before Jack was born; it was a council property in what had once been one of the largest council estates in Europe. Like Steve’s house, our flat was built at some point in the 1960’s amongst many thousands of similar flats and houses in the area. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing spooky at all. Until…

One Sunday afternoon whilst watching television the channel switched inexplicably. I joked that it was the ghost of John Wayne as the TV channel had changed from what we were watching to a cowboy film. We didn’t think took much of it, although, when a two litre bottle of Coke fell over without any help, it did seem quite strange. This happened more than once. We would also lose the television remote control and then find it in an unusual place where it wouldn’t be expected to be.

One evening, after Jack was born, Heather visited my cousin who had just moved into a new house. After dinner I took advantage of being home alone and played a few matches on FIFA. Some time into my second match there was a loud knock on the kitchen window, which was strange as we were on the first floor. I explained that away as it being a leaf blowing from a nearby tree, although I wasn’t completely convinced. A few minutes later the video recorder started to rewind, without me touching the remote control. I couldn’t be sure that the video hadn’t been playing and had reached the end of the tape, where it would automatically start to rewind. I was fairly sure that it hadn’t been playing, but couldn’t be certain.

I turned off the PlayStation and watched some TV, tried to put any thoughts of creepiness out of my head. A little later I went into the kitchen to mix Jacks powdered milk, it was mostly my job. The modern man equivalent of being a hunter-gatherer, I suppose. The box of powdered milk was kept in one corner of the kitchen and we would mix the bottles there. The routine was well practiced. Pour the water into the bottles, add the milk and shake. Slide the box of milk back into the corner and then take the bottles to the fridge and pop them onto the shelf inside. I did this most nights and I was pretty good at it considering that I had never received any formal training.

It was a few minutes later, after watching some more TV, that the spooky stuff occurred. Feeling thirsty, I returned to the kitchen to retrieve a can of Coke from the fridge, and saw that behind the bottles of mixed milk was the box of powdered milk. It could have been that I put it there myself, absentmindedly. I would have noticed it when I put the bottles inside, surely. I can’t say with certainty that it wasn’t me, obviously, but I recall carrying the three bottle to the fridge, after sliding the box across the kitchen work surface into its usual spot.

On another night, when I was up late, I heard the sound of footsteps walk along the hallway. They approached the living room door, and the back again, then seemingly returning and stopping halfway towards the living room. I opened the door expecting to see Heather, but the rest of the house was silent and in darkness. I walked to the bedroom thinking that she had been up and awake, but she was fast asleep with Jack snoring on her chest. Whatever the sound was, it wasn’t her. I quickly scurried back to the living room, turned everything off and went to bed, trying not to think too much about what I had heard.

We moved out of that flat in the summer of 2001; not chased out by ghosts, but by some fairly horrible new neighbours. Our new home was similar, but much quieter and the neighbours were not so keen on drinking vodka at seven o’clock in the morning. We quite liked it and there was no sign of anything unusual happening at all…to be begin with.

One of the first odd things that I remember happening was one evening when I was feeding a bottle to James, obviously just a baby at the time. Mid bottle, James stopped drinking and began looking up at the ceiling in the corner of the room. Not just the sort of thing a baby does because it doesn’t know any better. He was looking at something. Then…he held up a hand and waved. A cute little baby wave. Towards the corner of the room where he had been looking. He then looked away and reached for his bottle again as if whatever he had seen had left the room.

On another occasion we were due to go out for a family dinner and I was in the bathroom washing my hands whilst Heather and the kids, my folks and gran were in the living room waiting for me. The sound of one of the kids running from the living into their bedroom made me turn around. I followed the sound, calling out to say that it was time to go. The bedroom was empty. Heather called out, asking what I was doing. Both of the lads were getting ready to go out and had not left the living room.

We would also experience strange cold spots in the living room from time to time, appearing in random places at random times. In an otherwise warm room there would be a small area where the temperature would be much colder. Above it and below it the air would feel the same temperature as the rest of the room, but in that one sport it would feel significantly cooler. There would also be times when a breeze would blow past, followed immediately after by the smell of a flowery perfume. No windows were open, and there was no source of the perfume that we could pinpoint. It could happen at any time of the day, but mostly of an evening. It didn’t happen often, but often enough to be noticeable. And strange.

The other notable strange incidents that I have witnessed happened at Bodmin Jail. Jack and I had been booked on a ghost hunt and after going through the introduction and plan for the evening we explored the various areas that were open to us. In one of the cell areas I took out my phone to take a photo but before I could take a snap a clear orb travelled up the screen from bottom to top, quickly disappearing out of shot. My phone was steady, lights were on and the movement of the orb didn’t correspond with any other movements around me.

In the early hours of the morning, we also watched a table tipping session; a group were standing around a high table and it was moving quite vigorously. It was rocking from side to side, backwards and forwards, and the people with their hands on the table top were all clearly excited about how they had successfully managed to rouse such a reaction. When they had finished and the crowd had dispersed, we slowly walked over to the table, both of us sceptical and expecting the table to light and flimsy, easy to move with little or no effort. To our surprise the table was solid, heavy and could not be moved with just a casual nudge. To get it rocking as it was would take force, not just a group of nerds with their fingertips touching the surface. For most of the night at Bodmin Jail, not much happened. What did happen wasn’t conclusive proof of the paranormal, ghosts or ghouls.

Like most of what I’ve talked about above, I can’t say for certain exactly what was happening. I’m no expert, not a parapsychologist or Ghostbuster. All I can say is that I have tried to describe what has happened, as best I can, without embellishing or adding anything to the stories. I have tried to look for the logical explanations, alternative theories, but on quite a few of these occasions I’ve not been able to come up with one.

I do believe that that that there are some things that we can’t explain, and probably never will. I’m not saying that ghosts most likely exist, or an afterlife, but there may be some anomalies in nature in human biology that we do not understand. And probably never will.