205 Connor Ave
Juliet Baker-Johnson, CA, USA
April 2001
This is a very true story, and although not very scary, creepy all the same.
I grew up on a military base in Southern California, we were one of the rare families that were never transferred, so we spent 10 years in the same house.
I remember when we first went to look at the house, my family was so excited. My mother had just had baby number four, and our two bedroom apartment was getting cramped. We peeked through the windows (my father hadn't received the keys yet) trying to take in every detail... my older sister (by not even a year) and I were staking claims to the bedrooms. I remember peeking through the kitchen window and thinking to myself something did not look right. My sister looked at me like I was making no sense when I tried to tell her. It was hard to explain what I saw, after all, I was 5 and descriptive words were few and far between.
It is still difficult to explain what I did see... basically, everything was distorted. I could swear I saw a huge mound in the middle of the hallway floor. After my sister looked at me funny, I just dismissed the incident. Maybe it was just me.
Well, years went by, I was in the 4th grade now... All through the years I had a best friend (we met in the 1st grade) who believed in the supernatural like I did. When she would stay the night, we would feel like we were being watched from my closet. Yeah, all kids think something is watching them from the closet. But I KNEW something was watching me from my closet.
One night, after trying to camp out in the backyard, we became overcome with cold and fear... we ran into the house as fast as we could. Cuddled up in my bed, I glanced over towards my closet. I could see something glowing inside of it. At first, my friend and I couldn't figure out what it was, we strained our eyes trying to figure it out. After watching this thing for a while, we got up to get a closer look. (We were very daring, we were always "pretending" not to be afraid) Out of bed we climbed, slowly walking up to the closet. It glowed right up until we reached the closet. The glowing just stopped. It had been a baby carriage that was glowing. We went back to bed, "pretending" it was no big deal.
When we woke up in the morning, my sister and her friend told us about how they woke up in the middle of the night to something glowing... it had been her rosary, which she had hanging on her bookcase. My friend & I believed because we knew of what we saw.
That was something to talk about. After these incidents, my friend and I became very interested in spirits and hauntings.
So, I invited a few friends over one night. We told ghost stories and played that slumber party game, light as a feather (nope, never worked for us) and had a seance. We tried calling back Elvis, Abe Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe... anyone who we knew was dead.
Well, nothing happened. We were disappointed. We decided to try again, the next morning. This time we wanted to pick someone that no one would think about calling... we figured the other spirits were in the middle of being called back (we were 4th graders, okay).
We set ourselves up in my garage, there were four of us... I recruited a neighbour, thinking the more people the more powerful. We sat in the traditional circle, I leaned forward to light a candle that we placed in the middle... as soon as I lit it, it blew itself out. I leaned in again to light the candle, we started to call our spirit (we chose Judy Garland, after all, she was surely not busy being called back by anyone)... not more than 5 seconds after lighting the candle and starting the calling, the candleholder exploded. Glass flew everywhere and we ran screaming... into the house.
My sister came to see if we were okay, she could see we were very frightened. She went out to the garage to look around, she saw the broken candleholder. I knew she believed us, but she kept trying to rationalize everything. My friends and I decided to do it again. (I'm not sure why) We set ourselves up in the garage again, this time with no candle and the garage door open. We sat in the circle, joined hands and before we uttered a word, the garage door, which pulls up and over the rafters in the garage, slammed shut. Because of the way the garage door opened, it would be impossible for it to shut on it's own. Someone would need to pull it down.
Of course, we got up and ran screaming - again. That was the last seance we had. My Dad forbid them, we were strict Catholics... that should explain the reasonings of my father.
We had other experiences in that house, but these were the most memorable and the ones that were witnessed by others.
I still believe I'm sensitive to spirits, or whatever you want to call them. I'm not saying I'm physic, but I'm sensitive. To living people, too. As I get older, it becomes more tuned. I can feel things around me, I notice things. I'm just comfortable with the things I hear and feel. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I am frightened by my feelings and confused by what I hear.
Thank you for reading my story...