Ghosts

I suppose there are things in this world that we will never fully understand or correctly diagnose.  Cable television boasts several successful ghost hunter shows.  Occasionally I watch these, but never do you actually see anything definitively.  I am a skeptic at best, which is perhaps why I incorporate a lot of conspiracy theories within my Darkness series.  So I have to wonder if a lot of what is shown on television is staged in order to up the ratings.  Maybe?  Maybe not.  But since I am not on their set to see firsthand, I cannot easily accept their findings.

However, there are instances in my own life of things I have seen and cannot fully explain, but at the same time, I cannot simply dismiss them.

My two brothers and sister were staying with us the summer I was seven years old.  Around eight o'clock in the evening I hurried inside to get something from my bedroom.  As I entered my bedroom, this ghostly figure drifted from my closet and crossed the room to sit on the edge of my bed.  It remained there several seconds before disappearing.  I told my brothers and sisters about it.  Of course, they joked about this since I was next to the youngest.  I was concerned and a bit nervous, but I never saw it again.

A more vivid and frightening time for me was when I was about three years old.  We were visiting my grandparents in Middletown, Ohio.  Since I was little, I was sleeping at the foot of the parents' bed.  I awoke and saw people sitting all around the perimeter of the room watching us.  They were seated in wooden chairs.  I remember they looked like elderly people.  They were quiet and peaceful but their eyes watched us.

Startled, I was afraid to breathe.  I wanted to wake my parents up, but I didn't know what might happen if I moved.  The bed moved as my mother shook my father's shoulder and she said, "Do you see them?"

"What?" he asked.

"The people seated around the room."

I remember chill bumps covering my body then as I do now in telling you this account.  My mother could see them, too, and then they simply disappeared.  A few years before my mother passed away, I talked to her about this.  She still remembered it.  When I asked her who she thought they might be, she said that they may have been ancestors or something.  But had they meant to do us harm, they probably could have.

One other account I will share is what happened in 1994.  My wife and I lived in an apartment in Rainsville, Alabama.  At around one a.m. I awoke to the feeling of being watched.  Our room and the apartment was pitch black.  The only light in the room was our alarm clock.  Something walked past the clock, blocking the numbers in passing.  I didn't move, but my wife gasped.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied.

I came up out of the bed and turned on every light in the house.  We searched each room.  No one was there.  At least, no physical person was there.  My wife was nervous and shaking.  An hour passed before we attempted to go back to sleep.

These are things I cannot explain, but the events are true.

Have any of you had similar experiences?  Anyone know why events like this occur?  Please share in the comments if you have.

Best,

Leonard D. Hilley II