I Think I Might Be Haunted

I've read a number of stories where a person rather than a place is haunted, and I think I may be another case of this. My father, until a few months ago, was employed by the military, so we've lived in a number of different places in my life. We'd typically move every two years, and as far as I can remember, I have only lived in one house in which I didn't encounter anything I could not explain. But to save some time, I'll just highlight some of the more memorable incidents.

When we lived in PA, all the neighbors told us that our house was haunted. My parents laughed it off, but it worried me a bit. We lived in that house for about one year before I experienced anything. It was about 3 AM and I was just heading to bed. I suddenly became extremely tired as I walked to my bed, so I didn't even close my door; I just fell on the bed. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds before I heard the distinct sound of footprints racing down the hall at me. I jolted up; eyes widened, but couldn't see anything. The sound only persisted until the footsteps reached my doorway, then I felt a blast of warm air in my face. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

Around Christmas (in the same house), my family and I were setting up some lawn decorations when they suddenly had to leave to pick my sister up from soccer practice. So I was home alone and I was just watching the lawn from my room for some reason. It was sort of dark, but not too dark to see whatever that thing was. While I was staring down at the yard, something barely caught my eye. It was very transparent and I wasn't sure I saw anything until it stopped, seemed to look back up at me, and headed for my front door. I still thought it was nothing until I heard knocking at the door. I could see the front door from my window if I moved a little, which I did, and nothing was there. Nothing was there, but I could still hear the knocking.

About a year later, we moved to Colorado, which is where I live to this day. We lived on an air force base in a pretty tiny house. Again, nothing really happened in this house for about a year, until one night my brother and I were discussing paranormal encounters. He told me a story about when he was at college, and how the lamp in his room would turn itself on and off when he was alone. Right after he told this story, a light which was rarely turned on (I say this to deny any dying light bulb theories) started to turn itself on and off. This went on for about a minute, and we went to check it out. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We were the only ones in the house and we were both about thirty feet from the light. The light never did anything like that again, and the light was used so rarely that we never had to change the bulb at all. After about fifteen months at that house, the military moved us to a larger house in the same neighborhood. I really liked the house until we got all of our stuff moved in, because that's when stuff started to happen.

In my room, there were two beds, one on each side of a window. I would sleep on the right bed, and the other bed was for my brother who was away at college. I slept on the right bed because the moonlight would shine on it around midnight, which is when I would usually go to bed. It was sort of calming for a while. However, one night, while the moonlight was shining over my body and onto the adjacent wall, I noticed some shadows moving along my body, made by something outside. Now, since this is a mountainous region of Colorado, we have plenty of deer running around, so I assumed it was deer until it happened for about the fifth time. My dad had mentioned that the deer around here started to go to sleep around nine or ten. I'd never looked outside to see what it was (partially out of fear, to be honest), and I regret ever doing so. When I finally got around to looking out there, I saw an unnatural amount of movement within the trees right outside my window. I think I forgot to mention it, but my room was on the first storey. The first time I looked out the window, I was still in bed and I couldn't get a good look at whatever was out there, so I got up for a second look. When I did, I saw a pale white face staring back at me from behind one of the supports for the front porch. It was like a sneering face, and I couldn't see anything but the face. I stared at it for a few minutes just to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, but then the eyes widened and I was so scared that I turned all the lights on, closed the blinds, and sat in the corner of my room. From that night on, the movement in the trees would be accompanied by laughter about once in every four times. I had to start sleeping with the blinds closed.

A few nights later, I had a dream in which I was walking out the back door in the morning, but there was a strange yellow-masked man reading the newspaper at the table by the door. He stared at me and started to laugh calmly. I just walked on until I got to the door and then I woke up. The image of that mask still gives me goospebumps to this day. (I'm not sure if it was OK to add this part about the dream; it just seemed relevant. Sorry if I shouldn't have!)

Around half a year later, my dad retired and we moved to the house that I'm writing this story from. We've only lived here for about four months, and I'm sad to say that I've already had some experiences. My sister has as well. Around midnight every night, I brush my teeth and wash my face before bed. About half the time I do this, I hear quiet footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall towards me. Every time I hear them, I freeze and slowly creep around the corner to see what the noise is. Of course, there's never been anything I could see. One time after hearing these noises, I went a little bit further into my investigation. I got halfway down the stairs before I heard girlish giggling and what sort of sounded like frantic shuffling, like someone was trying to hide from me. My sister wasn't home that night. Additionally, my brother and I often hear what sounds like a girl whispering (inaudibly) right in our ears as we walk up the stairs.

Our grandparents came to visit and stayed at our house for around three weeks. They stayed in my room, so I ended up sleeping on the couch in the basement. My sister's room is also in the basement. One night, around what my sister says was two in the morning, she was walking in the darkness to the bathroom and she says she saw me huddled up under some covers on the couch, and that I seemed to be laughing hysterically. She claims she went to the bathroom and hurried back to her room because "I" was scaring her, since I wouldn't even answer her. The only problem with that is that I was sleeping upstairs in another bed that night.

While I'll admit that it's sort of interesting to have these experiences all the time, it's really unnerving. I'm certain most, if not all of these could be chalked up to something natural, but there's just this feeling you get when you know something's wrong. I'm sure anyone else who has experienced anything of this sort knows what I'm talking about. So I'm not really looking for an explanation. I just think it's a good idea to vent, since my family is generally fed up with my stories after all these years ha-ha but if I could entertain any of you with my story, then that's good too.

If you have any questions or comments, please ask.