Author: Caretaker

Can we speak to our departed relatives?

Asked by prakash

We purchased a house in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The house, according to history and maps, was built on the grounds where one of the English concentration camps was located in the Anglo Boer War. I don’t know whether that is the cause of all of this (my story), but the whole neighborhood seems a bit haunted. Lots of stories going around. How accurate they are, I do not know. Here is my account of what happened in our house. Oh, and I should mention that we purchased the house from a woman whose husband was murdered, but not in that house. (He could also be responsible)

Everything started after my parents broke through one of the walls and built an extra, massive entertainment room. After that, I started noticing strange things in the house. I don’t know whether the construction of the new room had something to do with this or whether I actually was just old enough to realize these things by then. (Age 12, if I remember correctly) My gran could see spirits and was a firm believer in all sorts of signs. Anyway, that is enough backstory information, I think.

We would start seeing a figure walking/moving from the guest living room to the kitchen. You could only see this briefly through the doorway of the entertainment room. Later on we, I can’t remember when and why, decided that the figure was male. We named him “Die man / Die oom”, translated the “The Man”. We would see him do his thing for years. My friends all got used to him and weren’t bothered by him. One night I recall my one friend hearing cups move in the kitchen and called out, “maak vir ons ook koffie asseblief”, which means “please make us some coffee too”. He said this, because he thought it was my mother in the kitchen, hence the clear sound of cups moving. When he heard no confirmation, he went to the kitchen and found it abandoned. I believe this was the turning point and things started escalating.

One night I was up late playing computer games. I think it was Grand theft auto Vice city, anyway.. While playing the game, the sound went all strange and it sounded as though a very deep voice through the speakers said my name. The name was quite clear though, but the sound went back to normal after that. I was freaked out a bit, but wrote it off to a possible glitch in the game and mere coincidence that it sounded like my name. I must admit, it was very “movie-like”, so obviously telling anybody was just out of the question. I’d be accused of making up stories.

On another occasion, I woke up during the night; not sure what time though. It felt like something was pinning me to the bed. I wanted to scream, but could not move, nor get out a sound. After whatever happed had stopped, the cat that was in the bed with me immediately left the room in a great hurry. Knowing my cat and his reactions, this was him being VERY scared. I followed suit and woke my parents to tell them what happened and informed them that I’ll be spending the rest of the night in one of the other bedrooms. I still have the scar on my one arm where I guess the cat scratched me rather deep while running/spinning off the bed.

A while after that; a long while, I guess a year or two; we were sitting in front of my computer in my bedroom. This was now me and my brother. We heard my dad calling me, but I ignored him at first to quickly complete my task on the computer. After a minute or two my brother said I should probably go and hear what my dad wants before I get into trouble. It turned out that my dad was not back from work yet. I don’t know who or what called me, but it called me on my name, exactly in the same voice and tone in which my dad would call me.

The very same thing happened again, I think about a couple of months after the previous encounter. This time I, my brother and two of my friends heard it. I went to my parents’ bedroom where both of them were on the bed, reading the paper. Both looked very puzzled when I said my dad just called me.

I moved out of the house that December, which I personally think was a good thing, since these things occurred on an increasingly frequent basis. Since I don’t know who or what it is and what it wants or its intentions are, this rather scared me a bit.

The only people with whom I was close with that have passed are my grandmother, mentioned earlier in this email and them my grandfather, who passed before the last two occurrences. I do however doubt that they will feel the need to do something like this in the afterlife, but I won’t disregard the fact that it is possible.

I need the input from an outsider. Someone with no knowledge of all the other things in my family to give their opinion on this please.

Asked by JAT

Hello everyone! First of all, forgive any English mistakes I make. I’d like to talk to you about an experience I had many years ago.

One night as I was sleeping I felt, all of a sudden, like someone or something came and sat on my left hand right below the elbow. It felt very light, like it was just touching me. I immediately woke up from my sleep but I didn’t open my eyes. At first I thought it was my cat but in seconds I realized it wasn’t. So I started feeling scared and I couldn’t open my eyes because of the fear. I was feeling like my head was heating. I was having thoughts that it was a ghost or something like that and I kept having my eyes closed because I was so afraid. Then, this “ghost” kind of blowed right between my eyebrows and whispered “shhh…” right into my left ear, in a very tender manner. This made me decide to open my eyes but unfortunately I saw nothing. However, I heard footsteps on the floor like someone was running (you may think it was my cat running, but as I realized later my cat was sleeping at the corner of my bed). I turned on the lights but I saw nothing.

My question is: have you ever heard of any similar experience? What do you think it could be? I want to believe that it was a good spirit or an angel.

Asked by Catherine

When I was a kid in the 1960s there was a knock on the door that sounded like my Great Aunt. My mom and sister heard it too but were busy doing the wash so I was told to let her in. We lived on the second floor; I ran to open the door to let her in and NO ONE was there. She was in her 80s so she didn’t run anywhere but we found her nowhere after searching the house and yard.

Awhile later she ended up in the nursing home and died shortly afterwards. Years later I was told that this was the so called “knock of death”; letting someone know that a family member or friend would soon die. Just about everyone has their own style of knocking on someone’s door, THINK about it.

Anyone ever have this happen or have any thoughts on this?

Asked by Jim