An Unknown Hand
Sam Davies, London, UK
September 2006
A close friend, Alison "Ali" from university used to live in a village near Preston, Lancashire in Northern England. Her parents still live there although she's moved away now I've stayed over at her parent's house a couple of times whilst at university when visiting her and to be honest, it's a perfectly pleasant house: a large early 20th century bungalow with a big reception and dining area as the front and then principally one long corridor off which most of the rooms are located. If you put your mind to it, no doubt you could find it a little unsettling in a supernatural way, given its age, creaking floors and doors and dark main passage (caused by the absence of windows in it) but I never felt anything strange about it whilst staying there.
Of course, it was only after I'd stayed there that Ali told me this story when a group of us were discussing the supernatural and whether or not we believed in it. Interestingly, she still doesn't really believe in the paranormal despite this story, although she does confess she has no idea what another explanation would be.
This is her story.
One night, when she was 17, her parents had gone out during the week as they usually did to the local pub to meet some friends for a couple of drinks. They tended to get back about 11.00pm when the pub started closing. Ali stayed in, just watching television and reading but decided to have an early night and take her book to bed with her at about 10 o'clock. Her bedroom was at the far end of the corridor (i.e. back of the house) and, after locking up the house, she curled up in bed with her book with the ceiling light on. She had only been reading for a couple of minutes when something caused her to look up from her book at her bedroom door which she'd closed behind her. The door was ajar which surprised her slightly as she clearly remembered closing it, but what happened next scared her far more.
A pale, white but very solid hand came through the narrow opening of the door, reached around the side to the wall where the ceiling light switch was, and simply flicked it off, plunging the room into darkness. At this point, Ali was absolutely terrified and lay rooted with fear to her bed. She pulled the covers over her head and basically whimpered underneath them almost hyperventilating with terror. As time passed, her breathing steadied but she remained under the covers until she eventually heard the front door open and her parent's voices in the reception room.
We discussed her story at length and have no possible explanation about whose hand came round the door and why it turned off the light but we did cover these points. - her parents did not come back at any point before they returned home - the corridor, as I know from having been there, is impossible to walk along without making any noise as basically almost every floorboard creaks - she heard no sounds before or after seeing the hand, including footsteps or the door opening - she was not asleep having only been in bed for a few minutes; in any event even assuming she forgot falling asleep it would not explain how the light was switched off when she had left it on. The only possible non-paranormal explanation we were left with was that she'd had an unexplained hallucinatory period during which she went to her bedroom, turned the light off before getting into bed and then imagined everything else subsequently. This seems highly unlikely since (apart from knowing her) she has had no such experiences before or since, was not on medication at the time and had not been drinking.
Although she still doesn't believe in the paranormal or ghosts etc. (and to be honest, I'm very sceptical myself ) neither of us have any other explanation for what happened.
Any suggestions would certainly be welcomed.