The Couch

Forward: I know that I said I was leaving the community and for most intents and purposes I have done just that, but I have recently had an interesting experience that I believe users of the web site would greatly enjoy.

For those who know me, or have talked to me, they know I have an interest in the paranormal and am a hobbyist ghost hunter. I was drinking with a friend of mine one night when she informed me she was having "problems" at her house, so I offered to help her. This story is a mixture of a haunting and ghost hunting experience and I hope the users enjoy it.

A few weeks ago I was at a local bar with a few friends of mine drinking when my friend Sheela mentioned in an off handed way they had been having a few problems at their house, they thought they might have a ghost problem.

Interested, I asked her to elaborate; she informed me that when Karren was over at the house, the lights upstairs would flicker on and off. If she was staying overnight, the problem would persist most of the evening and on occasion you could hear someone walking around upstairs in the empty guest room. Sheela and her new husband both assumed the ghost simply didn't like Karren.

But recently they had a new surprise. While lying in bed, a figure they had sitting on top of a clock on the wall fell off the clock, about five feet away from the clock. They thought it was awfully weird that a figure that had stayed on the clock for so long would suddenly fall off and at such a great distance. Sheela also complained that their stereo would often just turn up all on it's own for no apparent reason.

The next evening, bright-eyed, bushy tailed and sober, I went over to her house to re-confirm her story from last night and to see if she wanted me to check the house out for her.

The first thing that interested me was the lights. I asked her if the lights flickered while they had been turned on (and thus supplying a source of energy) or if the lights were off and had turned on by themselves. Sheela could not verify if the lights had been left on (which could hint to an electrical problem) or if they had been off.

Going upstairs I checked the lights and as far as I could tell, they were standard lights. The switches to the lights appeared to work just fine and the lights seemed to be in good working order. Not being an electrician I could not investigate the problem with the lights any further.

Next I wanted to see the clock and the figure they had talked about the night before. Downstairs in the master bedroom hung on the wall was a confederate cuckoo clock with a confederate solider standing on the top of it.

I first examined the figure standing on top of the clock. It had a latch on it that kept it fairly secure, it even gave me a hard time just trying to unlatch it and remove the figure; I then placed the now unlatched figure back on top of the clock.

I gave the wall a smack, nothing. I prodded the clock; it was firmly attached to the wall. I then gave the wall under the clock as hard a kick as I possibly could (I was wearing boots). The figure remained on top of the clock.

I could not understand how the figure on the clock could have fallen so far away from the clock. At first I had thought maybe a truck driving by caused vibrations in the house, causing the figure to fall off, but my attempts at causing the figure to fall were futile. I also ruled out horse play as well.

The stereo they had was an old one, I mean from like the mid to late 80's. It still even had a turntable on it. To turn it on, adjust volume and change stations all required manual control, so that ruled out any sort of controller interference. So it was either faulty hardware or something else. During my test of the stereo it ran fine with no problems.

I set up camp at their house for the night, I had brought along a micro recorder and a camera. At around 12:30AM we cut the power to the house and we began the investigation. Anyone familiar with "ghost hunting" should know what the process is, so I won't go into detail.

All the pictures came up clean. While we did catch SOMETHING on the micro recorder, I am still on the fence about what it was. It sounds like intense white noise and I dismissed it, figuring something might have caused some interference.

I ended up staying at their house, sleeping on their couch. I went to bed around 3:30AM. The only other people in the house at the time was Sheela and her husband, they were sleeping in the master bedroom downstairs.

Around 5:45AM I heard a door open from upstairs in the empty guest room and someone walk around as if they were pacing around the room. Then slowly they started to walk from the room, into the hall and down the stairs. It sounded as if for a moment they paused at the base of the stairs.

I'd like to take a moment to explain something. While I am interested in the paranormal, while I do on occasion put myself in these sorts of situations, I don't actually enjoy being part of the paranormal experience. It's kind of a weird Catch-22. So as I laid there on the couch and listened to whatever it was walking around the house, I started to get nervous. I even started to sweat.

After it had paused at the base of the steps it started to walk into the living room and it stopped behind the couch I was laying on. At the time I was laying on my side, face first into the couch cushions and I was kind of frozen on the spot.

Suddenly the entire couch tiled back on its back two legs as if someone was pulling on the couch and then started to shake it violently. This was an amazing feat in itself because not only was the couch large, I was by no means a small man myself.

At this point I couldn't take it anymore and jumped off the couch. I frantically looked around the room. It was dark and quiet and there was no sign of any intruders. I was alone. I packed up my stuff and went home, shaken up from the experience.

The next day I relayed the information to Sheela, she was impressed to say the least. She is now utterly convinced that her house is in fact haunted. We never bothered with another session, because quite frankly we didn't want to work it up.

Sheela is cool with it; she thinks having a haunted house is "cool". One thing is for sure, I don't sleep over there anymore.