New Year's ghost story

chillidoggy

Close to home, this one!

Invited some friends of ours round for NYE yesterday, they live 5 houses down. We live in a cul-de-sac with eleven houses, so we all know each other pretty well, my wife and I have been here for 18 years. Anyway, the neighbours live at No.1, they're the fourth owners, and the house was built in 1925.

Shortly before we moved here, the guy who previously lived at No.1 (who I had met professionally) got cancer. When the realisation set in that he was never going to be able to do his job again, he took his shotgun, went upstairs and blew his brains out in the shower. Now I'd only met the guy briefly, but he was a smashing bloke and everyone else thought so too, so it hit everyone pretty hard, not least his poor wife, who found him. That was about 20 years ago, and the widow moved out maybe 12 years ago, selling the couple in question.

Move on to the present, and last night's soiree...........

Bearing in mind that our neighbours never knew what had happened in the house for some years, until another neighbour let on, the wife told us that when they first moved in, their young son kept on having nightmares. In the mornings, he would explain that there was a strange man in his shower, who was bloodied, with no face.

They subsequently contacted a local spiritual church, and two women turned up. They spent 2 hours wandering around the house, and told our friends there were in fact what they called 3 'presences', one of which was the guy who shot himself, plus an old lady who originally lived across the road, and one other. I think they must have carried out some kind of ceremony, and the manifestations vanished from then on. The women had asked for no money, only a donation for their petrol to get there.

Spooky!

Emp_Fab

Just one of those statistically improbable coincidences that get mysticised because they are improbable.  However, no matter how improbable they are they are far more probable than the existence of ghosts - probably.

boogieman

That reminds me, I watched a couple of the Beeb’s ghost stories over Xmas. The Signalman was rubbish, A view from a Hill was a bit better. I’ve been watching some of the old M R James stories since on YouTube and found The Treasure of Abbott Thomas. I remember that scared the bejesus out of me the first time I saw it.  

axisus

Fascinating story!

Tone71

Stories like this fascinate me, not sure about believing them though but open minded for sure.

menamestom

I'm not scared of ghosts, because I'm a rational adult.

People who would contact a 'local spiritual church' over their child's disturbing dreams and potential psychological issues disturb me slightly.

BigBearKris

It would be spooky if it would be true.

I guess the boy had to overhear the story somehow, or had a nightmare and the rest was added by the parents.

Also - guy had a cancer and blew his head off with a shotgun? In uk? Sounds like one too many horror movies...

Ravenous

chillidoggy said:

They spent 2 hours wandering around the house, and told our friends there were in fact what they called 3 'presences', one of which was the guy who shot himself, plus...

Did they (the friends who lived there) know about the guy at this point?  How do we know it was the chap in question?

My initial thought is if we had a recording of that 2 hour conversation, and some experts to analyse it, there might have been some subconscious cold reading going on.  (Just a suggestion.)

Winny_Pooh

It's not easy to get hold of a shotgun...methinks this is a windup.

Dominic

I am open minded but being logical humans have existed a long time and there are billions more dead than currently alive 
.........why are ghosts always modern or the classic headless huntsman, Victorian figure or similar.......nobody ever reports a Caveman ghost or a pre medieval ghost .........there must be plenty of those too !

Ravenous

Dominic said:

I am open minded but being logical humans have existed a long time and there are billions more dead than currently alive 
.........why are ghosts always modern or the classic headless huntsman, Victorian figure or similar.......nobody ever reports a Caveman ghost or a pre medieval ghost .........there must be plenty of those too !

Not to mention these ghosts break the second law of thermodynamics. When I hear ghost stories, I demand to see the numbers!

thomasross20

That story actually gave me the shivers!