The farm house I lived in growing up is quite haunted. It started with small things, like objects disappearing from obvious places only to be found in abnormal areas where no one would ever think to put them. For example, I came home from school, dropped my bag on the kitchen table and went to change for work. When I came back to grab my bag, it was missing. I looked in all the obvious places where I might have left it... My bedroom, the living room, etc. As a last ditch, frustrated attempt to find it, I peeked inside my parents room. I was not allowed in my parents room, so I didn't expect to see it there. But there it was, sitting in the middle of their bed.
I also heard noises at night of our kitchen cupboards opening and closing, the garage door opening when I knew it was locked for the night. The doorbell, which almost no one used, would go off whenever I was home alone, with no one at the other side of the door and no footprints in the snow.
My mom was skeptical of my experiences and pretty much never believed me, until one day, I was talking to my sister about what I experienced and my mom asked me if the house was really haunted, who did I think was haunting it. I can't quite explain the feeling that came over me as I answered her, but when I told her who it was, it felt like it wasn't me saying it, even though it was my voice. I told her it was an older, angry man and his 6 year old son. I had no way of knowing if that was true and to this day, I have no idea where that came from.
Later on that week, my mom was visited at work by a lady who claimed she was with some surveying group, looking to map the location of unmarked graves. Someone in our small town of 1200 people had sent this lady to my mom when she was trying to find the owners of our land. She told my mom that there seemed to be two unmarked graves on our land, just beside our house. My mom froze, and asked the lady if she knew whose graves they were. The lady told her they were the graves of a 42 year old man and his 6 year old son who both died of scarlet fever. She believed every story I told her after that.
Fast forward a few years and my husband and I came back to visit my parents and stayed in the downstairs bedroom overnight. As I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, I looked towards the corner of the room and saw a white mist, floating there, almost like a cloud of smoke that wouldn't dissipate. I stared at it for a long time, until it started to move towards me. It stopped right beside me on my side of the bed.
I was so scared. I rolled over I wrapped my arms around my sleeping husband and buried my face in his back hoping it would go away. That's when I started to feel something playing with my pony tail. Slowly pulling on it and flipping the hair. I started to cry and whispered "stop it". And immediately my hair went flat on the bed. I thought it was over, until something started touching my back. It's hard to explain the feeling. In my head, I knew it was a finger, poking me on my right shoulder, all around my tattoo. But it didn't really feel like a solid finger.
I shook my husband and called his name, crying my eyes out. He rolled over and mumbled something and went back to sleep. When I looked, the mist was gone.
In the morning, I was telling my story to my sister. I was wearing a tank top, so you could see my right shoulder and my tattoo. As I told her about the finger, she walked behind me and when she looked at me, she froze. She asked, "where was the finger poking you?" I said on my right shoulder, and she said "oh my god, go look in the mirror". I did and what I found sent chills down my spine. All around my tattoo, right where the "finger" was poking me, were small, circular bruises. I don't sleep in that bedroom anymore when I go home to visit.
Your experience told this way scared me to pieces. The way you explained being overcome with certain knowledge as you communicated to your mom is eerie and very vivid. Has this happened since then? Is it always the same feeling, or different in relation to circumstance? How scary to have confirmation like the graves.
In my own life, I have seen strangers violently trash on people for having tattoos. My parents were raised in a religion that strongly disapproves of desecrating yourself with body art/piercings/make-up, by an ignorant generation to whom tattoos signal lower caste criminal or "worse"- non-white heritage. A sprit who was fascinated/revolted by a tattoo seems likely indeed.