In 1987, I was living in a house in Atlanta with four roommates. We lived there for just over a year and during that time, we had several experiences with what we later became convinced was an actual ghostly presence. The house we were renting was well over a hundred years old, having been built sometime just after the American Civil War when Atlanta had been burned and destroyed by Union forces. The house was a beautiful old Victorian home located in an area of Atlanta known as Inman Park. We were all pretty young (in our twenties) and trying to get started in our respective careers, so the prospect of sharing the rent for a wonderful old two story, five bedroom house with a full basement was an attractive one. One week after moving in, we were all asleep in our rooms when we were awakened by screaming from our roommate, whom I'll call Hanna. We all jumped out of bed and went into Hanna's room. She was sitting up, saying that she had woken up to see the dark figure of a man standing next to her bed, looking down at her. She said that when she had screamed, the figure turned and walked out of the room. She was very scared and highly agitated. Myself and the other male roommate (the housemates consisted of two male/female couples and one single female) immediately checked out the inside and outside of the house, but we could find no intruder. (This happened around two or three o'clock in the morning). We finally got Hanna to calm down and everyone went back to bed. The next day, we just chalked up this first incident to nervousness about living in a new home that just happened to be a creaky and somewhat spooky old antique house. (However, Hanna would not hear of that explanation and in the ensuing days, continued to insist that she had seen this dark figure standing by her bed. She refused to stay in the house alone after that). About two weeks after that first incident, we were again all asleep when suddenly there was a very loud crash and the sound of tinkling of glass from the hallway that separated all of the bedrooms and a common bathroom. Once more, we all jumped up and ran out into the hall where we found that a full-length mirror that had been mounted on the bathroom door had shattered into hundreds of pieces all over the floor. Since everyone had been asleep, we could not figure out how this had happened as the mirror frame was still securely fastened to the door and only the glass itself had broken. (Atlanta is not prone to earthquakes and the street was not a busy one, so we ruled out the possibility that a large truck or something had passed by and caused vibrations to occur inside the place). Later, similar "poltergeist" activity would manifest itself in many other ways: there was one instance when I was home alone in the house watching television when, for no good reason that I could later ascertain, three candles that were sitting on the fireplace mantle suddenly fell off onto the floor, almost as if someone had swept them off with a hand. Then there was the phenomenon that we all experienced at one time or another where personal objects and other items would go missing, only to turn up later in a place where the owner would swear that he/she had not left them. (On one occasion, missing car keys were found lying right in the middle of the person's bed after a thorough search had been conducted for them by everyone home at the time). Other strange activity came in the form of knocking and tapping sounds heard coming from either the attic or the basement when it was certain that no one was in either space. The last incident that involved the sighting of an actual "entity" occurred about two months after we had moved in. We were having a small party at our place and a house guest, who none of us had met prior to the party, was taking a personal tour of the place on her own. She suddenly came running up from downstairs saying that she had just seen a man standing in the corner of the basement. She said that when she had called out to him, he simply disappeared! We immediately went down to the basement to check and of course, found nobody there. This was most interesting because there was only one entrance into the basement and a person who might have been trying to play a trick would not have been able to escape past anyone without being seen. (As noted, that house guest who saw the figure in the basement was a brand new acquaintance whom we later determined had no prior knowledge that our place had any sort of "unusual" activity connected to it). After about six months of all this, things seemed to quiet down and no more "ghost" activity was noticed or reported by anyone. We began to convince ourselves that maybe, just maybe, we had all overreacted to some degree and perhaps we were all just being overly-imaginative about the whole thing. Finally, toward the end of our time living in the house, my wife and I were out at a restaurant one evening having a drink and dinner. We struck up a conversation with another couple sitting at a table nearby, two people who were complete strangers to us and whom we happened to meet that night by total chance. When they asked us where we were living in Atlanta, we told them about our place in Inman Park. They said, "Really, we used to live in Inman Park. Which street do you live on?" When we told them, they said, "That is interesting, we used to rent a house on that same street. What is your address?" When we gave our address to them, they said, "Oh my god, we used to rent that exact same house ourselves," immediately followed by the women saying, "Have you seen the ghost yet?" Well, you can imagine that both my wife and I were completely flabbergasted to have received such validation about our "ghost problem" from two complete strangers! We ended up comparing notes with them and they told us about many strange happenings they had witnessed in the house that were quite similar to our own. That experience thoroughly convinced me that there really is something to the whole subject of ghosts and afterward, I no longer dismissed similar stories that I heard from other people quite so easily.

I sometime encounter ghosts in my dreams. Theses dreams always leave me freaked out especially if I'm scared about the experience. Some of my dreams are reoccurring. In some dreams I manage to help a spirit and other times I'm just so freaked out by the energy or the negative presence. I wake up and wonder why do I go there in my dreams, and think to myself upon waking "oh no! not that dream again". I've had a few really scary dreams about ghosts I'll never forget. One was when I was pregnant. I encountered a female ghost who tried to kill me by strangling me, and somehow I knew that she had actually killed herself in real life because she had suffered a loss of an unborn child. Don't ask me how I knew this but I knew she was really upset and jealous of me because I was expecting and I woke up screaming "No!". Because I was trying to get her off of me, she had me down on the ground and I felt like she was on top of me while I woke up. I woke myself up yelling for my life. I was so shakened up that I told my partner about it. In real life I am clairvoyant about spirits and ghosts as well.

When I lived in Penygroes, Carmarthenshire, my sister and I were told the house was haunted. When I was in the kitchen, I could feel sometimes a presence behind me, close enough to be looking over my shoulder. I was sure it was a lady. My sister said she felt the same presence. She woke up one morning and saw a women with dark hair and blue eyes at the end of her bed smiling at her. After my sister and I moved out, I was visiting my mom, she had a late night shift so I was in the house alone watching TV, and I felt the presence a few minutes later. I heard a laugh, I looked in the kitchen and I saw the same woman.

My name is Melaine. I am a 13 years old who has had but one experience with the paranormal so far throughout my life. Here it is: I was 6 years old, and it was a normal November night for me. I was in bed by 8:00 sharp, as every night, but I usually stayed up an hour later... I was looking out my window as I had done at that time to get to sleep. I had always been "scared" of the dark, and I would be sure to cover my whole body up and only leave a small slit open, so I could breathe. But on this night I had been feeling brave and decided to take the covers off my head. Well, as I was looking out my window I had felt a creepy feeling come over me and instinctively threw the covers over my head. After the feeling passed I took the covers back off and my eyes went straight to the window. There, in that window, were two huge, blood red eyes staring at me. I couldn't move, it was as if I was frozen with fear... and then, they were gone. I regained enough of myself to throw the covers on my head and stay up half the night scared to death. Then about 4 years later I was in my kitchen, thinking about what had happened, my babysitter was watching me and I asked her if she had had any unusual experiences and she broke down crying saying that she didn't want the man in the window to come back! I asked her which window and it was the same window where I saw those eyes!

I used to attend L'Heritage high school in Sudbury Ontario, it was a completely normal place. Normal students, normal teachers, normal everything. Until one day, our school closed because we didn't have enough students enrolled in L'Heritage. We ended up closing down. The school basically sat there until elementary school "St Johns" of Garson had to rent out L'Heritage due to some ventilation problems. Me and a few others went into the school to clean it up a bit. We were there all day, until by friends and I had cleaned the whole school. They all left except for me. I stayed to finish up a classroom. Later on I decided to retire for the day. I walked out into the hallway and I heared footsteps behind me. I turned, but no one was there. I began to think that one of my friends had come back to prank me. "Very funny guys" I continued on, then I heard the footsteps again. I began to run until I heard a scream. I stopped, then felt the need to escape like something was pushing me out. I ran out of the school and quickly drove away. I sometimes wonder if any of the St John students have had the same experience that I had.