These events occurred back in the winter of 1972 when my
friends and I were in Junior High.
We were invited by a
couple girls we knew to attend a Methodist Church retreat
in Florissant, CO. The Lodge we stayed at was an older two-
story building with a large covered porch nestled several
miles back in the woods on a dirt road.
You walk in the
Lodge’s front door into a modest foyer, with a large living
room (with fireplace) straight ahead and the boys and girls
bunk areas (and restrooms) to the right. To the left was a
set of stairs that go up to a large open dining area and
kitchen on the second floor.
On the day we arrived, there was two feet of snow on the
ground with a steady snowfall still coming down. After
choosing bunks and stashing our sleeping bags and
belongings, several of us headed outside for a long walk
through the woods around the Lodge. We headed back to the
Lodge as the sun went down and night began to fall; the
snow was still coming down.
After an early dinner, about 15 or 20 of us were bored and
came up with the bright idea to have a séance. A séance at
a church retreat you might ask, and rightly so, but
nevertheless we decided to have one. We all went upstairs
to the dining area, pushed some tables together, found a
couple candles, turned out the lights and sat down to
begin. At first we tried summoning innocuous characters
like Abe Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Aunt Jamima. But as
the evening progressed, someone came up with the even
brighter idea of summoning Jack the Ripper. Everyone, with
the exception of myself and one other guy, agreed. We both
tried to sway everyone from doing this without success.
Now I was a voracious reader of paranormal books and
magazines (ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, etc.)
and I had read an occult book recommending burning candles
while conducting a séance to gauge the type of spirits
present. The book said that if the candle flames burned
long, tall and bright, there were good spirits present, but
that if the flame burned dimly, while flickering, that evil
spirits were about. The two candles we had burning on the
tables were burning tall and bright during our attempts to
summon benevolent spirits. As soon as we began to call
upon Jack, both candle flames started flickering wildly and
became very dim. This made me even more nervous, at which
point I again tried to stop everyone from proceeding. I
and the other guy were overruled.
This second floor dining area had windows along two sides
(along the front and left sides of the Lodge), but none of
these were open – it was cold and still snowing steadily
outside. After watching both candles sputtering and
flickering without pause for about 15 minutes, me and the
other guy (I can't remember his name) finally bowed out and
went downstairs to the living room. Before leaving, we
both tried once again to convince the others to stop, but
they all wanted to continue.
We were downstairs for about 15 – 20 minutes before we
heard one of the girls upstairs scream. Running upstairs,
we entered the dining room to find a couple girls crying
and most of the participants looking frightened. We asked
what happened and they made general comments of feeling a
presence that scared them. About five or six of them quit,
but the remaining ten or so decided to continue. Those
wanting no more Jack the Ripper went back downstairs with
me.
We were downstairs playing cards and hanging out for about
30 minutes when we heard several people scream. Running
back upstairs we found the last of the girls crying and
several guys looking like they wanted to. But the other
four guys were acting really weird. They wouldn't respond
to our questions of what happened or our pleas for them to
stop the séance and relax. They were mostly staring at
each other with looks of hatred on their faces. When I got
up right next to one of the guys (my friend Mike), I had to
repeat my questions over and over before he finally looked
at me, and when he did, it put a chill down my spine. He
looked right at me like he didn't recognize me and he had
hate in his eyes, like he wanted to attack me.
Stranger still, three of the four guys pulled out pocket
knifes, opened the blades and set them on the tables.
Several of us argued with them to stop but they refused –
they didn't say anything, just shook their heads. At the
time, I figured they might be acting strangely on purpose,
trying to spook the rest of us. But whatever the reason,
they wouldn't stop the séance. Finally the rest of us
returned downstairs.
At this point, it was getting late, about 11:30 PM, and the
last girls to start screaming were so shook up they retired
for the night, so did a few of the boys. The rest of us
(including the first girls to quit the séance earlier in
the night) were hanging out downstairs. Probably a good 30
minutes went by when we heard several loud crashes and
shouting going on upstairs. Running upstairs again, we
found the room in darkness with both tables knocked over.
Two guys were wrestling on the floor in the middle of the
room, my friend Mike was on top of another guy choking him.
Another guy was whimpering in the corner with a small cut,
through his pants, on his inner thigh that was bleeding a
little. After turning on the lights, we found the fourth
guy hiding behind the counter separating the dining area
from the kitchen area. All four were pretty shook up, but
again they didn't say much or offer any explanation of what
happened. But luckily they all agreed to end the séance.
Since the excitement was finally over, about ten of us
decided to make some hot chocolate. We had wanted some
earlier, but since the die-hards were using the
kitchen/dining area for their séance, we had waited. So we
made some cocoa and were sitting around drinking and
talking when one of the girls lets out a piercing scream.
We all jump and ask, “What’s wrong? What are you screaming
about?” She’s hysterical and says that she saw a man
walking around outside the window, looking in at her.
Well, we're on the second floor, there was no way anyone
could be walking around outside the window. She was so
scared she went downstairs to go to bed.
We all calmed down and finished our cocoa when another girl
screams bloody murder, making us jump again. She says the
same thing. She saw some man walking around outside the
window looking right at her. We didn't know what to make
of that. We cleaned up and returned downstairs to the
living room. By now, all the girls had gone to bed and it
was only myself and three other guys. It was getting real
late, probably about 1:30 AM.
It just so happened that I was left alone for a moment; one
guy went to the bathroom, the other two went into the boys
bunk room to get something. I was standing in the foyer
about five or six feet from the front door. There was a
diamond shaped window in the door and the porch light was
on. Just a foot or two outside the door a middle-aged man
with a narrow face and dark eyes walked slowly by staring
right into my eyes. A frosty chill ran down my spine and I
couldn't move until he walked past the window out of
sight. I ran into the boys bunk room calling for my
friends. Within a minute, the four of us were out on the
porch looking for this man I saw. I was too frightened to
investigate alone.
There was no one there and there were no tracks in the snow
on the porch either. As I mentioned earlier, snow had been
falling all night, and you could see our tracks faintly
where our group had gone out for our walk in the woods
before nightfall. Those old tracks were almost completely
filled in and smoothed over. The covered porch kept most
of the snow out, which was better than three feet deep now,
but even right up next to the Lodge door, the snow was
several inches deep and their were absolutely no fresh
tracks nor any sign of disturbance. We proceeded to walk
halfway down the road to the caretakers house (about a
quarter mile) and didn't see anybody.
The man who walked by the door and looked at me appeared
real and solid, not transparent or ghostlike. He had a full
head of dark hair peppered with gray and thick bushy
sideburns. No beard or mustache. His face was thin with a
aquiline nose and he had dark penetrating eyes. As he
walked by I noticed what appeared to be fur framing his
face. Since the diamond window in the front door was
rather small (about 18 inches high and wide) it was hard to
identify what it was, but it looked like the fur lined hood
of parka pushed back off his head. To this day I get
chills when I remember that face. I had never seen a ghost
before and haven't since, but there was no other
explanation for what I saw other than a ghost. I looked at
his face from a distance of less than ten feet. It wasn't
like I glimpsed a blur of motion from 40 or 50 feet away, I
saw him clearly and distinctly. The porch light
illuminated his face very well.
Thinking back on the encounter, I wished I had questioned
one of the girls who saw the man looking in the second
floor window, and asked them what he looked like. To
verify whether he matched the description of the man I
saw. Needless to say, I don't participate in séances
anymore.
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