Hay Barn Haunting

I had ruled out the possibility of ghosts when I was younger but when I grew up and the same events have been happening for the past 8 years of my life I became a believer. I have started to realize the presence of ghosts, spirits, or some energy in my life. Some background information is needed to fully understand the haunting in my life.

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania close to Allentown. I lived in a normal size townhouse with my parents and two siblings and our pet dog Abby. My grandparents on my mom's side owned a farm about 15 minute away from our house and we would go there often to visit namie and pop-pop. The farm was a great place for me as a kid growing up I could go outside and find stuff to do all day when I had an imagination.

Many times over the summer we would spend the day out in the barns playing. There were three barns total on the farm. One was home to the 20 some pigs and 1000 + chickens, the other for equipment and the herd of cattle and three horses, and the last which was devoted to hay storage for all the animals. My cousins, siblings, and I spent time shelling cobs of corn for the chickens, hand feeding the cows hay off the barn floor, and giving oats and sugar cubes to the horses. After getting bored of feeding the animals we all would play in the hay barn jumping from the top of the stack into a soft pile of hay below. We also made hay forts or houses out of the hay bales. We would play house and such and the farm dog Holly would always be out there with us. Occasionally our pop-pop would come out and check up on us. We often times got yelled at for making the walls of our forts higher than our heads because he didn't want us getting hurt. He always had us in mind.

Then an unfortunate event happened when I was in the 4th grade. I got taken out of school to learn that my pop-pop had died in a barn fire. He was trying to save some possessions that were in the hay barn while it was burning and the trusses of the pole barn burnt through and collapsed on him not allowing him to escape. This was a huge turning point in my life because now there was a farm that had to be attended to and my grandfather who did it for a living was no longer around.

My dad stepped in and took care of the chores two hours before work every morning and two hours after work adding to his already labor intensive eight hour shift as a maintenance worker at a local area hospital. Slowly changes came about the farm. Taking care of 1000 + chickens and clean that many eggs a day was a huge commitment so they were the first thing to be sold. We kept about 50 chickens to sustain the family's need for eggs. The pigs were soon sold to market and some butchered for meat in the freezer. The horses and cows stayed because they are not as labor intensive. For two years every morning and night my dad feed the animals and took care of the operations of a working farm.

It was getting too hard not living on the farm in case of emergencies with the animals. Too many calls in the middle of the night where the cows got on to the road are not good. So the summer of 5th grade we packed up our town house and moved to the farm. My siblings and I entered a new school at the end of August and fit in well with the new environment. Now living on the farm everyone had chores greater than mowing the lawn and taking the garbage to the curb.

Every morning there were animals for each of us to feed before we went to school. Also in the winter months each of us had to bring in a load of wood for the furnace to heat the house. I started to become accustom to waking up at 5:30 to do chores before school. The farm life was getting to become natural to me.

Being the only boy in the family I had the job with all the heavy lifting which was transporting hay bales from the newly constructed hay barn to the cow barn where the horses also had their stalls. Every day I would load up a wagon with six bales and made four trips to feed all the steers, cows, and horses. Un-stacking hay bales was a chore done twice a day. I became proficient at climbing the stack and throwing bales off the top as not to create a deadly avalanche of 60 pound hay bales. Every time I was done throwing down hay I made sure it was safe to climb down to transport the bales and also that it would be safe the next morning to climb back up there. Several times I would notice that only one bale was out of place off the top of the pile. I thought nothing of it and picked it up and thought of it as one less I had to throw down.

One particular day I feed the animals early in the afternoon because I had an away sporting event in which I would not be home until late. As I opened up the doors to the barn I heard a muffled voice. I looked around and saw nothing. While I continued moving the hay I kept hearing the same sound. I still disregarded it and thought it was just in my head.

A couple weeks had gone by and I continued seeing misplaced bales but had not heard the strange noise. Then on a Friday I had the day off of school I fed the animals later in the morning. After opening the doors to the barn I heard the same noise that I did a couple weeks ago and I felt a strong energy. The hair on my arms and legs stood on end and I was freaked out but continued with my chores.

I had not had any encounters with this energy or whatever it was for the next several years. My chore was still feeding the cows and horses but now we had large round bales. They were easier to make over the summer time, easier to store, and easier to feed. So naturally we bought new equipment to handle these larger bales. Each round bale weighed about a half ton and would feed the herd for the day. So I only had to feed once a day now which was a great time saver not to mention I could use a tractor. Now with the large round bales I also noticed that some were being knocked off the top of the stack. This is very dangerous because 1,000 pounds is falling from about 15 feet. I never witnessed a bale being knocked over but even bales set upright on the ground would be knocked over the next day which was very suspicious. Considering that these bales are not movable by a person it would take a large group effort the put the bale on its side.

On a Saturday morning in mid September I went out to feed and got the same feeling I had several years ago and heard that same noise. This time I knew it was no joke. I turned off the tractor and ran inside for the camera. I took several pictures of the barn. I consistently came up with a bleached out spot in a shot on a digital camera. Once I didn't feel the presence of that energy I took several photos again and nothing was wrong with the photos. To this day I cannot explain what has happened but I think that it is the spirit or energy of my pop-pop, who died in the same place where the new hay barn was constructed.

 

I have attached two photos. One is normal and the other is a shot of the energy of my pop-pop. If anyone has had a similar experience please share it with me. I want to know if there is any way to rid his spirit or energy from the barn because it is potentially dangerous. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.