This is one of my Dad's experiences and he's given permission for me to share them. If you ever go to a country with Chinese traditions and practices, you would not be surprised to see the locals burning incense paper (so called hell paper money). These are burned for a variety of reasons but mostly for the sake of our departed family or for rituals to pay homage to the multitude of Chinese deities. (for more details, please wiki it) Anyway, my dad has always been a Buddhist and believer but in his youthful indiscretion, he once did something stupid. He was walking along the pathway during the 7th lunar month (which for Chinese, means the ghost festival month where the gates of hell are opened and which the living burns incense and other offerings to the spirits) and he chanced upon a pile of ashes from the offerings. Even a child would know to step aside and not purposely disrupt the offerings or ashes as a sign of respect. However, my dad went and kicked the pile of ashes (the ashes had been there for a while and was cold with nothing sharp inside it). With that misdeed done, my dad went home and forgot about it. That night, out of the blue, he felt an intense burning sensation on his right foot and it started swelling. The entire night he couldn't rest as his foot swelled to nearly twice its original size and the burning sensation continued throughout the night. He then became sick for 3 days with consistent fever and the doctor couldn't tell what was wrong with him. To date, he believes that was a little lesson for him by whatever spirit he annoyed. What do you guys think?

Look, I don't care if you believe me or not this is true, okay? Now if anyone wonders about why I don't live with my parents it's because my father and I got into an argument that turned into a fist fight and Ashley and I were told to get out. Oh, and by the way, I don't drink anymore. Now I'm living with a family friend, his name is Johnny, and his wife and 2 year old daughter. He recently bought a house that was abandoned. I don't know much about the place except it was built in the early nineteen hundreds. We've been living here for about a month now and a week after we moved in we started noticing things. One day while I was helping Johnny build a fence Johnny dug up a hand made doll. It looked old, it had a sewn on mouth and what looked like used to be a little black dress. We figured it was nothing and threw it away. That night when I went to bed I set my wallet down on the night stand, went to the bathroom and when I came back it was gone. I figured Ashley was trying to be funny so I found her watching TV with Johnny's wife Amanda. I asked for my wallet back, she said she didn't have it so I asked Amanda if Ashley had left the room since I went to bed. Amanda told me Ashley stayed put the whole time. So I went back to our room to see if I had knocked it off by chance and when I entered the room I saw my wallet on the nightstand. I thought that was weird but ignored it. Now a few days after that Johnny and I noticed his daughter Dorthy had been waking up at 4:36 every night for the past few days so, we got curious and installed a camera in her room. After a while of staring at the monitor we thought we were complete morons but then the door to Dorthy's room opened and this black cloaked figure walked over to Dorthy's crib and started calling her name. When she woke up the figure dashed out the room. We were shocked. Then the next morning we showed everyone the tape they were surprised also. That night as I was getting home from work I saw a little blonde haired girl standing outside my bedroom window. I called her, she looked at me and took off. I chased her to the back of the house. When I rounded the corner she was gone. I looked for a while but couldn't find a trace of her.

There was a period in 1995 where a little girl lived in my house. I was laying in bed one morning relaxing before getting up and I heard a small girl's voice next to me say, "Mommy." It was so sweet sounding though that I wasn't afraid. About a month later, my husband of the time was fishing around in the library looking for a pack of cigarettes he had hidden when he heard a little girl ask him, "What are you doing?" Startled, he looked up thinking it was perhaps me but no one was there. This freaked him out and he promptly ran out of the house. I don't know who this little girl was, why she called me mommy, or where she went shortly after these few incidents. I think sometimes only the ghost knows why or how they are there.

It was a school night and I had had some real rough times at school. I had just finished my dinner and went to have a bath to relax but just could not stop worrying about all my homework. As I went off to bed I felt as though someone was watching me get dressed, but being used to it I just took no notice of it. I jumped into bed and stayed awake worrying. I heard my dad turn off all the lights and go to bed so I knew it was late. As I finally got to sleep, I awoke to someone jumping on top of me as I was on the other side of the house I freaked out thinking if my mom and dad could hear me. I felt as though he was pulling my soul out of me through my stomach. I tried to scream but he had hold of the throat so it felt like he was holding my voicebox in his hand. I tried and tried to fight him off but he just wouldn't move until I tried to scream one more time and he vanished (I knew it was a man because I could feel big strong hands and I could also smell him). I ran into my mom's room and told her what happened and she got two lovely ladies to bless the house. I never stayed in that room again.

Someone must have pulled the emergency chain for the train, I thought, as it stopped so suddenly. The sudden cessation of movement caused us all to fall forward. Shaken, we stood up and put our heads out of the now motionless train's windows. Most passengers crowded outside. It wasn't long before the police arrived on the scene. It appears that someone had been crossing the line, and had been struck by the train. It was just one station before my intended destination: Baharampore. Someone remarked that the body was still lying there. I was about to have a look for myself when someone caught my hand firmly. It was none other than the fellow passenger with whom I had been talking throughout my four-hour journey from Kolkata. "There's nothing to see in that lifeless body. There is only a lot of blood and some mutilated limbs," he said. "It would make you very upset." I carefully hid my curiosity. It was half past four in the evening. My fellow traveler told me that he was also going to Baharampore, so we hired a one-cycle-van, being the only available transport for hire locally. We talked ceaselessly as we traveled along. Sometimes about politics, sometimes about the present education scenario and sometimes about the high casualty rate in the traffic system. However, I couldn't help my mind returning to that unseen body. Who had lost his precious life, I wondered. I was twenty-six years old. There are so many things to see in life. Death was something I just didn't want to think about. It was my first trip to Baharampore. A friend had invited me to spend a weekend at his home. I thought it would make a good escape from the clatter of Kolkata. It would be a change from the monotonous and weekly hustle-bustle of my everyday life. On finally reaching my friend's house, I decided to say nothing about the accident or my ten-minute cycle-van journey. Actually, I'd enjoyed that open cab ride. Other than that mishap on the train, the whole journey had been most pleasant. I didn't want to make my friend unhappy by discussing sad things. Ankush, my long-time friend, was a good person, and his mother was anxious about the dish she was preparing for me. I didn't want to spoil anything that evening. Since I was a city dweller, they were worried that I might find their rural home, which lacked electricity, difficult to get used to, but I really enjoyed sitting on the roof of their home on that starry night, soaking up the atmosphere, drinking coconut milk, eating fresh vegetables and fruits, and listening to his friends, whose native pronunciation of the very Bengali words I used was so very different from mine. They asked me endless questions. About my work, my family and myself, which I was pleased to answer. I tried to respond in as much detail as I was able. They seemed pleased to hear that I am a writer. But, before long, I was rescued by Ankush. Then one of his friends mentioned the accident that had killed an eighteen-year-old girl that very afternoon. Ankush said to me, "Hey, I think you must have been there. Didn't you see anything of it?" I told them everything I knew, and explained the reason for my silence. To my utter surprise, they laughed uproarishly, as though it was a common happening. Ankush said that, indeed, it was not a rare thing thereabouts. They were quite accustomed to accidents on the railway line. I listened to what they were saying to each other without taking any further part in the conversation. Ankush smiled at me, and tauntingly asked me if I was scared. On hearing this, I became angry. I didn't see that they had any right to accuse me of this. Bhuvan, one of the friends, said to me, "Well, could you go to where it happened? Right now. Alone? If you can, we can presume that you are not scared." I agreed. Accordingly, we immediately went to the place where the accident had happened, but deliberately kept a fair distance from the exact spot. They dared me to walk right up to the place where the young girl had been killed. It was barely visible as it was lit only by the light from the stars and a partially concealed moon. Only the signal glowed red. Despite Ankush's protest, I started walking forward. It was really difficult for someone like me, to accept this as fun. Nevertheless, I wanted to demonstrate to them that I was really a brave man, and that I could accept their silly dare. Walking in the dark was difficult as stones were scattered everywhere. I found I was sweating as I walked. But it was a challenge that I simply had to win. Suddenly, before me, I saw a shadowy white object quivering exactly where I was heading. I stopped for a moment. It could be an hallucination, I reasoned. I started walking forward again. But, now, the apparition was quite visible. It was a person draped in white. And that wraithlike person was doing something. Who or what was it? Was it an illusion or ... ? The possibility that it was something paranormal sent a chill was running down my spine. I almost died with shock as someone put a hand on my shoulder. I just stopped breathing and closed my eyes. In that gloomy light I found it was none other than Ankush who had been following me. He also saw what I had been seeing. We drew closer and found what we had seen was an old person swabbing the place with water. There was no body, nothing of the dead girl remained. "Eto rakto! - So much blood!" he was quietly saying to himself over and over. It turned out that he was the stationmaster, whose son had died in the same way in a train accident twenty-five years previously. On one such cold night, such as this was, he was being chased by police officers and, without warning, a train thundered along and ran over him. After that sad incident, the stationmaster became mentally disturbed, and always took it upon himself to erase all evidence of such accidents.