Taps On The Window & The Green Man

I am very interested in ghost stories and tales of peoples unusual experiences and regularly read the postings on this site. The story I would like to share is my only 'experience' of anything unusual and so I couldn't say that I am totally convinced of paranormal 'goings on'. However, I sincerely hope that the experience I had will be the only one I ever have and that the existence of ghosts and spirits is never proved to me one way or the other.

I would have only been about six years old when this happened (I am in my 30's now) but I still remember it with remarkable clarity.

My parents and I had moved house the year before and I was fully settled into my new bedroom. The only thing I didn't like too much was the fact that the attic hatch was in my room, although I don't recall being especially afraid of it.

I remember this one particular evening, I had gone to bed as usual and my mum had read me a story as usual to help me sleep. For some reason I remember that I kept looking at the attic hatch and feeling uneasy. Being 6 years old though, I wasn't overly scared as my mum was there with me.

I fell asleep and mum would (I assume) have gone back downstairs as usual. The next thing I remember is waking up suddenly (in the early hours of the morning) and staring straight at the attic hatch - which was now ajar. I remember hiding under the covers and eventually going back to sleep. The following morning when I woke up the hatch was closed again - nothing unusual except that my parents had been asleep when I saw the open hatch and had not been back into my room that morning. I remember I did ask about it but was told I must have been dreaming. All was ok for a while and I forgot about the hatch and settled again.

A few weeks later, my mum had finished reading to me and had gone downstairs. I was almost asleep when I heard four taps on the window. A few minutes later I heard another four taps. I was getting a bit spooked so I called for my mum who came back up to see what was wrong. As she walked up the stairs I heard the four taps again on the window. I was getting a bit distressed so mum came into my room and opened the curtains for me to see that there was nothing there. Appeased, I went back to bed and mum sat with me until I was nodding off again (I heard no taps at all whilst she was in the room). When I was just falling asleep mum got up and made her way back downstairs. As I heard the bottom stair creak as she stepped on it - the four taps sounded again on the window. I tried to ignore them but they kept on going. Four taps, then a break of a minute or so and then four more taps. There were no trees or anything that could have been causing the noise and the more I heard the more frightened I became. Well, I was just about to get out of bed and go downstairs to my mum and dad when my eyes were drawn to my wardrobe door.

Floating in front of the door about five feet from the ground was a green face. I can't remember now the exact features of the face but I recall it was the face of a man and it was bright green and semi-transparent and sort of misty. There was no body or anything else, just the face floating there. I started to scream and my mum came up stairs again to calm me down. As soon as she was in the room the face disappeared and the tapping stopped.

This went on for over an hour - the tapping would start when she got to the bottom step, it would stop when she came back - although I only saw the face once. I recall being absolutely terrified and freaking out totally. I don't remember going to sleep that night although I suppose I must have done eventually. The following morning I asked my dad to put a lock on the attic hatch (which he did) and I moved into the spare bedroom.

I didn't have any further problems or experiences after I moved out of the room although from that night on, I never liked being alone in there. A long time after, when I reached 18 or 19 years of age I started to have a recurrent nightmare in which I would be in the house on my own and get the feeling I was not alone. A feeling of terror would wash over me and I would run out of the front door and to the end of the driveway, where I would turn and look back at the house. In the right hand front window (the window of the room where I saw the face) there would always be an indistinguishable black figure stood watching me - I would try to run but not get anywhere and then I would wake up in a panic.

I lived in the house for over twenty years (my parents are still there) and never again slept in that room. I had the nightmare fairly regularly until I moved out five years ago - I haven't had it once since!. Even now I always feel uneasy in the room and try to avoid going in there alone. My parents have never experienced anything in the house and neither did the pet cats we had when I was younger.

To this day I don't know whether I really did experience something paranormal or whether it was just the over- enthusiastic imagination of a six year old. The one thing I do know, is that I remember that night with more clarity than anything else from that time of my life - and I do still feel uneasy when I am in the room now.