A Floating Head And A Cat

My story happened New Year’s Eve weekend, 2006 in Aspen, Colorado.

My father has lived there for over 20 years during the ski season, November to April, as he is an avid skier. I lived in my father’s house for a year and a half in 1990/91 when I was working at an gallery in Aspen, but had no experiences except for being extremely uncomfortable in the downstairs area. Recently that changed.

I am married now and my husband, son and I went to visit my father over the holidays. My brother, his wife and his 3 children were visiting as well and were already there. My father’s home is a two level, 4 bedroom house in Snowmass Village. It was built in the 70’s and he is the second owner. I know nothing about the first owner. There are two bedrooms downstairs with a full bath, a workout room, a laundry room, and a sauna room/ski storage area. The house is built into the side of the mountain, so there are no windows for the downstairs bathroom, workout, laundry and sauna room. The windows for the two bedrooms are not as expansive or bright as the rooms on the floors above so it can appear pretty dim in the rooms down there, especially the second bedroom furtherest from the stairs and closest to the other dark rooms. It is also important to note that since I lived there in the early 90’s, my father acquired an old music organ that he said was a gift from a business associate. It is very, very old and I was told that is was originally from Connecticut, it used to be in a church and it is from the1800’s. It’s not very attractive and I was told that my mother refused to have it in her house so my father put it in his Aspen home as he thought the organ was great. He put the organ in the second, darkest bedroom where it dominates the room.

When my father has guests in the downstairs area, whoever is there first always takes the first and brightest bedroom. Nobody ever wants the second bedroom unless they have no choice. Because my husband, son and I were the last to arrive, my brother’s daughters were in the room first but were moved from the second bedroom to the upstairs bedroom while our nephew and our son took the sofas upstairs. My husband and I were then given the second room with the organ. That night, both my husband and I were very tired from our trip and we went to bed exhausted. I had drunk a lot of water earlier as it’s important when coming into the mountains from sea level or a lower altitude not to drink alcohol but instead drunk a lot of water to stay hydrated and to help acclimate to the high altitude. So with all this water in my belly, I found I had to get up a couple of times in the night and use the bathroom. The lights were off in the bedroom and the door was shut making the room very dark indeed, but still I could see a little bit. It was my second trip to the bathroom, maybe around midnight, and as I went to the bedroom door, I glanced down and saw a cat waiting to get out of the room. My father has no cats, has never had cats as he is allergic to them and as far as I know there has never been a cat in that house, EVER. I could see the cat was striped and looked gray and white and maybe a little brown. It appeared motionless but was gazing at the door the way animals do when they want to get out but are being very patient about it. I thought I was dreaming and kept looking at this cat, rubbing my eyes, looking back down at it but it remained. (Now it is important to the story that I mention that we also had brought our dog and he was asleep in the room with us and as far as I know, he was not awake) Finally, after staring at it for a few moments, I decided the cat really must be there and it really wanted to go out so I was going to let it out, so I opened the door. I watched, fully expecting this cat to come walking out into the hallway, but instead my dog bounded out as if he were chasing this cat, which of course, now wasn’t there any longer.

That could have been the end of the story, but the next morning, my husband, (who doesn’t believe in ghosts or the afterlife) mentioned he wanted to speak to me about something while we were making the bed. He made me promise not to tell anyone while we were visiting because he did not want to get laughed at for something he doesn’t even believe in. He went on to tell me that around two in the morning he had suddenly woke up and found the room filled with mist or smoke. He thought this was strange and then he said he could make out the head of a woman at the foot of the bed, hovering in all this mist. At first he thought this woman was me, so he asked if I was alright. He said he nearly had a heart attack when I groaned softly next to him.(I had no memory of him asking me anything, but I guess I was asleep). Anyway, he was startled to find that I was lying next to him and that it wasn't me at the foot of the bed, so he began to really try to see who it was. He told me it was difficult at first to focus because he didn’t have his contacts in, but as he took a good look, he could see there was no body, just a head. Even though his vision wasn’t as clear as he would have liked, he made an effort to see who was there and said he could make out a woman’s head that was quite skeletal and appeared to have a lot of make-up on, lipstick and eye make-up, he said, VERY made up. The woman’s head seemed to have long hair and some kind of big hat that has a sash that goes over the top and ties underneath the chin. He said the head started floated up over the bed, over my side of the bed rather than his side of the bed, but he said, she seemed to be looking right at him. He said when it got towards the headboard, it suddenly vanished. He said he was so freaked out that he just tried to go back to sleep, trying to forget what he had just seen until he finally did fall back asleep.

The next day, I kept my promise to him about telling the others about the head, but I mentioned seeing the cat to my sister in law and my nieces as a cat isn’t as scary as a floating head. My nieces then confessed that while in that room, they always felt as if they were being watched and our son, who was later in that room after my brother and his family left and before we told him about the head, said he felt as if he was being watched as well.

For the rest of the visit, nothing else happened. After our visit, my sister in law and I had a talk and tried to figure out where these ghosts were coming from and we guessed that maybe they were attached to this old organ. My father doesn’t have much history on it except for what I mentioned earlier in the story. My theory is his business partner gave it to him because it creeped him out and he wanted to get rid of it. My father said it is a very valuable antique and now wants to leave it to me some day since I was asking questions about it. (I didn’t tell my dad about what I had seen, as he does not believe in ghosts and I didn't want to freak him out) I told him thanks but I really couldn’t accept it and I told him he should donate it to a church or something. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I don’t want it!!