I grew up in a small suburban town, in a fairly new housing development. When my father first purchased this house, it had only one prior owner and the house was only about ten years old.

It was a happy little neighborhood where children played and all the neighbors were very friendly. Never did I know there was such a presence hidden deep within this whole entire neighborhood.

My first experience that I recall happened when I was about 4 years old. My house, a one story ranch style house, was never scary to me as a child until one night.
All of the bedrooms of the 3 bedroom house were all right next to each other. The house was made mostly of hardwood floors.

One night, I was wide awake in the middle of the night and for some reason could not fall asleep. All of a sudden, I heard heavy boot-like footsteps walking across the kitchen floor, walk into the living room, through the dining room and start to walk down the hallway toward the bedrooms. I could hear my parents snoring across the hall so I knew it was not one of my parents. At this time, I became very scared and thought someone was in the house. I tried to hide under the blankets but could still hear the footsteps. My room was the very first bedroom down the hall. I could still hear the footsteps walking, and when it came to right around my doorway, it had stopped. I was shaking and sweating and I was a very scared 4 year old at the time. I still felt like it was still there, whatever it was. For some reason, I still don't know why, I began to slowly lift the blankets off of my face and began to sit up in my bed. As I did so, I will never forget the image that I saw. This has stayed with me for almost 30 years and I remember it like it was yesterday.

In the doorway to my room stood a ghost. It was a man, that I could tell. He was all white and transparent, like I could put my hand right through him. I could still make out what he was wearing. He had on an old farmer like outfit, with high boots and suspenders holding up his pants. He had a cowboy hat on. He reminded me of Charles Ingles from Little House on the Prairie. He had glasses. He had one hand on the frame of the door and the other finger was pointing at me. It also looked like through his glasses, his eyes were closed. I stared at him for a moment and began to scream, but when I did, nothing came out. Then I screamed again, and my mom came running out of her room, flicked on the hall light, and it was gone.

My family tried to tell me for years it was just my imagination, but I knew what I saw and how real it was.

For the next few years I had other experiences I believe was the same man. I could hear his breathing real loud in my room in the middle of the night. My radio that I listened to all night would mysteriously change channels to a station that would be talking about God. All these experiences all seemed to revolve around me.

I also believe I saw him one more time in the middle of the night when I was about 10 years old.
I woke up suddenly and saw a white mass wrapped around the pole to my canopy bed and it vanished before my eyes. Then, when I was about 12 years old, the truth about the neighborhood and what I probably saw that night all started to come out.
My father admitted that one night, before my parents got married, and he had just bought the house and lived there alone, he was watching tv in his room when all of a sudden he heard something open one of the doors to the house. Then, to him, sounded like boots walking across the house going from room to room. My father, thinking it was a burglar, got up and hid behind his bedroom door with a vase in his hands, ready to smash it over the intruders head. The footsteps walked down the hallway and when it came to what ended up being my bedroom, they stopped. My dad then searched the entire house, including the basement, and found nothing. Not even a sign of entry through the door.

As I got a little older, more stories started to emerge from this neighborhood.

Our neighbor, whose children were already grown and moved out, had also seen "The Farmer". One day, while his wife was working, and he was the only one in the house downstairs in the basement working, he heard footsteps walking down the hall. Thinking his wife was home, he ran up the stairs to greet her and found nothing. He walked down the hallway and into his room where the same farmer ghost was sitting on his bed. Come to find out, all of the houses were built on old farm territory and the main farm house, still there at the end of the street (my good friend grew up there and had her own experiences in the farm house) was home to a local farmer.
The farmer, one day while out plowing the fields, died a tragic death when the plow ran right over him, thus by all of us to see the ghost, we dubbed him "The Farmer." Some of the neighbors had actually seen his ghost at night walking up and down the street and even in their own back yards.

My father no longer lives in that house or even in the same neighborhood, but I wonder if the new residents see him now.

This is a very true story and I became very interested in the paranormal and supernatural because of this happening to me. I hope you enjoyed my story.

Submitted From: Heather, New York, USA

Contact me here: heather.smiles@yahoo.com