Tag Archives: poltergeist

The Ball that Came Back

“When I was growing up with my sister, we had shared a bedroom, and this was in Thousand Oaks, California.

And her bed was on one side of the room and my bedroom was on.

My bed was on the other side of the room. We were. One night, we were both in our beds, and we were tossing a ball back and forth to each other.

Right. You know, she missed when she went to throw the ball to me, she had, like.

Didn’t throw enough power, so went underneath my bed.

So it took about, like, you know, 10 seconds. I went, oh, faster. God, I gotta go under here. When I tried to reach underneath there, the ball went flying right to her.

Which scared her and I to, you know, to pieces. This is so needless to say. So that evening we went to bed, and in the middle of the night, I was woken up by my mom saying, are you okay?

Are you okay? And I didn’t know what was going on. I somehow had my tongue underneath. My tongue was severed.

Yeah, so I don’t know how. There’s no way you can bite. You can’t, like, you know, bite your tongue. That’s impossible. It was clean. Like, just a clean cut, too. Just, you know, the thing that attaches your tongue to the bottom of your jaw.

So that was completely cut. So, like, the. We were. I was raised Mormon growing up. I. I’m no longer Mormon. I actually believe in more spiritual, like, Native American Indian spiritual, that type of belief.

Anyway, she. So. So they. The priest came and took me. They didn’t take me to the hospital. I don’t know why. They. I went to church. The church had stitched it up. They did, like. Like, a cleansing blessing, which I thought was interesting in hindsight. This house. This house had. Was. There’s six siblings in my family. We always consider, like, there was just a weird, creepy thing.

This isn’t like that. This is the. The Terrence. It’s like, always weird creepy things that would happen.

Like my younger brother. We had a babysitter. My mom was actually kind of whatever. She went to babies. And my younger brother was somehow pushed out of the second story window.

And, yeah, he. So somehow he ended up being. He doesn’t remember because he was like, four or five.

He got up to the second story window and was thrown out, and he broke his.

Shattered his pelvis and stuff like that. No, he was younger because he was like three. He couldn’t even crawl yet. So he had to be really young. Anyway, this is the same house where this weird shenanigans would happen.

You know, you’d hear, like, you know, knocking, which we thought it was always the, you’re my brother, or, you know, because there’s six of us. You always thought it was like, oh, is one of the siblings kind of messing with you?

Right, right. Well, you know, after that experience of having that ball and, you know, being thrown, you know, you know, across the way and then having my tongue severed, you know, even more strange things started to happen.

That’s just kind of like where it kind of all started, you know, realizing, well, there’s probably more to this.”

Context

  • The informer has been my next-door neighbor for the last 17 years. She talked to me in a Zoom interview.
  • The story takes place in her childhood home
  • She told me this story because I asked if she had any ghost stories to share with me, now that I study this in college, and collecting field stories is one of our class activities.

Her thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.

Her Thoughts

She believes this was the beginning of realizing that something paranormal was present in that house, with ongoing, unexplained forces at work. She supported that by adding several other incidents that no one could explain that followed that moment. She also said that this was the moment she started to be more aware and feel things. 

My Thoughts

I thought this story is especially compelling because it starts as a game with a playful and innocent object – a ball – in the girls’ bedroom. But then, when the ball is under her bed and not near her sister, it suddenly seems to gain its own energy. She doesn’t throw it back – it “flies” on its own, or by some other force, which shifts the moment from something ordinary into something unsettling.

Later that same night, on that same side of the room, another unexplained event happens, and her tongue gets a clean cut and starts bleeding. The fact that both events are tied to the same space makes it feel less random and more connected, almost like that area of the room holds a kind of presence or energy. It creates a sense of the uncanny, where something familiar – a bedroom, a childhood game – starts to feel unfamiliar and unsafe.

What also stood out to me is that her parents did not take her to a doctor, but instead brought her to the church for treatment and a blessing. I’m not sure exactly why, but it seems like this response reflects their belief system and how they interpreted what happened. Rather than seeing it as a purely medical issue, they may have understood it as something spiritual that required a religious response. That decision adds another layer to the story, because it shows how belief shapes action, especially in moments that are hard to explain.

She also describes this as the moment when she begins to realize that other strange things are happening around her. To me, this feels like a turning point, not just in the story, but in how she understands her environment. It reads almost like a liminal moment, where she moves from childhood innocence into a more aware stage, where everyday spaces no longer feel fully stable or predictable.

What makes the story especially strong is that it combines an unexplained physical event with a lasting injury, which gives it a real sense of stakes. It shows how something small and ordinary (the ball) can become physically disturbing, and how a personal space like a bedroom can take on an uncanny quality, with a lingering sense of “energy” that is hard to explain but clearly felt.

Ghost or Elf On The Shelf?

Age: 21

This story takes place in a childhood home in San Antonio, Texas, on an early Saturday morning in December. PR was elementary school–aged at the time and asleep in his bed. Suddenly, a knock on the door pulled him out of a deep sleep (not enough to fully wake him, though) so he ignored it and drifted back to sleep.

Then he heard it again: another knock, this time accompanied by a low voice telling him to get up, something like, “Hey, PR, wake up.” Assuming it was his dad, who followed a strict morning routine, PR figured that a knock so early on a Saturday must mean something important. So he put on his slippers and bathrobe and headed downstairs.

Confused, he looked for his dad but couldn’t find him anywhere. A family friend from Spain had been staying with them and was already awake due to the time difference. PR asked if he had seen or heard his dad, but the friend replied, “No, he hasn’t been here.”

Still puzzled, PR went back upstairs to check his parents’ bedroom…only to find both of them fast asleep, completely out. Despite the unexplained knock, he returned to his room. Since it was the Christmas season and his family had an Elf on the Shelf that supposedly moved around every night, he blamed it on the elf.

“As a kid, I immediately thought, ‘Oh, it was the Elf on the Shelf. He was playing a prank on me.’ That made perfect sense to me then.”

Years later, however, PR looked back on the experience and had a realization: “Wait…that wasn’t the elf.” It suddenly struck him how strange the whole event really was. It felt almost ghostly. He tried to rationalize it, but pointed out that neither his dad nor the family friend were the type to knock and then rush back to bed. They were both very routine-oriented.

It left him wondering whether it had been something paranormal or simply a half-dreaming state. PR considers himself a rational thinker and believes there must be a logical explanation. He suggests it could have been a groggy hallucination, though he isn’t entirely sure. Regardless, it felt very real, very strange, and has stayed with him ever since.

He also noted that there was no known history of haunting in the house. It was relatively new, built in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and only one other family had lived there before, who they didn’t know. His parents once mentioned that a young daughter had previously occupied his room, but aside from that, nothing else unusual or paranormal ever occurred in the house.

Although PR believes it’s unlikely that his dad or the guest could have knocked, it’s still possible. Another explanation could be that a combination of ordinary noises woke him, and his half-asleep brain filled in the sound of his father’s voice. It may have been a mix of both.

The story reflects common elements found in ghost narratives, particularly the motif of poltergeist activity. A “noisy ghost” associated with domestic spaces. It also involves a child, which is significant, as children are often portrayed as more sensitive or connected to the spirit world. Additionally, the timing is notable: the December holiday season, when routines are disrupted, traditions are heightened, and households feel different than usual. Early Saturday morning, a time typically reserved for uninterrupted rest, adds to the sense of disorientation.

All of these factors could have placed PR in an unusual mental state, where strange occurrences felt more believable, or where his mind was more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as something extraordinary.

A Ghost at SUNY Buffalo

Text

Tell me your ghost story:

Was in pharmacy school, in the early 90s, 1994ish. I had just rented a very small apt, in an old house. I was in the upstairs apartment. My room was really small, had space to walk in, my bed, inches, and then the window and the wall. There was no room between the bed and the window for people. One night early in my time there I was sleeping but then I woke up in the middle of the night. I look toward the window side of my room and there is somebody standing there, so real to me that I sat up and said “Hey!” The person was a very small in stature woman, dressed in black mid 1800s mourning garb with a veil, lacy, everything. She was standing there, regarding me. The feeling was like she understood I was a new tenant and she was taking my measure. After a little she disappeared, maybe a minute or so.

Were you paralyzed in fear?

To me it felt like a realization it wasn’t an intruder was positive, and then I had a few moments of getting that feeling. She wasn’t threatening, wasn’t there to scare me, it just felt like she was seeing who she was sharing her apartment with.

Part B:

At the time I had two cats, Punky and Sophie. I was sitting in my couch studying one afternoon. I had put a bag on a chair, and it had been there for a while. All of a sudden it starts to crinkle, and it could’ve been plastic fatigue or something but I was looking at it, and I said out loud “Please don’t do that, you’re scaring me.” Immediately after, it stopped.

Was there anything else that happened in the apartment?

It sometimes felt like the cats were watching something that wasn’t there.

Your version of the house in the 80s:

That house had bad spirits in it, evil ones for sure. Always had a not good feeling. There were two incidencies I remember. I used to have a big typewriter and I must’ve been home from college in my freshman year, my mom and dad were divorced. My dad stayed in that house. One night, middle of the night, the typewriter gets pushed over and clunks against the wall. The feeling was, “Something did that.” It was just “Woah,” and I was wide awake and then eventually I went back to sleep.

There was another night when my dad was dating Kathy and my brother Jason wasn’t there, so I was home alone, my dad and Kathy had gone to the movies. I went to bed. Sometime in the night I’m in bed and I hear distinct footsteps coming up the stairs. I thought, “Oh they came here.” I get out of bed, flip on the lights, and there’s nobody and nothing. There was a pit in my stomach. I remember feeling such relief at the thought of them being home, I hated that house alone, and that is how sure I was I heard someone home.

There was no fear with the spirit you saw, but one felt malevolent?

I never thought about that, but really it’s because you get a feeling. It’s like when you meet someone and the sense you get as to whether they’re positive or not, and maybe it’s the same with spirits.

Context

This is my mother’s story about a spirit she saw while in pharmacy school. Interestingly enough, she had a similar ghostly experience, that being a figure in old clothes standing over her while she was sleeping, to the one her mom had ten years earlier. While doing this interview I realized they had never discussed that, so they didn’t realize there was a throughline to both of them. My mother’s interpretation of the events we got into during the questions, but suffice to say the experience wasn’t negative for her with the ghost in pharmacy school. Her story about the malevolent spirit in the 80s absolutely was negative, but I only snuck that in as a matter of recordkeeping.

My interpretation

The similarities between this story and her mother’s story of ghostly encounters (especially when they had never discussed it) is fascinating. The collection of this folklore and the theorizing of its origins makes it important, but more than anything, the multiple perspectives of the same event is important as well. I was careful to not ask leading questions to either of them about the experiences they both shared, which made it all the more interesting when they would bring up similar details in stories they hadn’t discussed with one another. I think my mother truly did see something hovering next to her bed that night, and that it is plausibly unexplainable. I think she did hear footsteps clamping up the stairs while home alone and see nothing once she opened that door. The world of spirits and apparitions is not one usually discussed, which makes the collections of these stories have all the more value.

Ghost wake-up call

Content:

LS:  It’s really kind of short, but I mean like, so of course I grew up hearing about this ghost in my grandmother’s house. But what’s weird to me looking back now is like that wasn’t scary as a kid, like, you know, like I’d go visit their house, but I wasn’t like, I’d heard all these stories that I was not scared. And so like, my family like always would talk about those ghosts, but they would just laugh about it. And um, he wasn’t like as active, I guess by the time that I was, you know, there. Um, but I remember them talking about it and I remember my mom kind of like every now and then like just kind of saying to the ghost, like, “okay, get out here.” Like, you know, like talking to him I guess, but um, we stayed there and it was all four of us there, my parents, my sister, and I for like a long weekend or something, something was happening, I guess. I don’t remember. Um, but um, the back bedroom at the end of the hall had a big like king sized bed, I guess in it. And she stored a lot of things or whatever in there. And that’s where my sister and I would sleep when we were visiting. And I remember, one of my grandparents had been given like a walking cane with, um, like a squeaking horn, um, as like a gag gift when one of them turned 40. And so I, you know, I’d always noticed it because it had this big, like red horn on it. Um, and I remember I was asleep and I was just woken up out of the middle of the dead sleep. And it was like, it was like that moment of like what, it just woke me up. Like, you know, because you know, you didn’t like wake up and be like, oh, I have to pee or something. Like, it was just like, why am I awake? And it was because I had heard that horn go off. And so I’m like sitting there and there’s nothing between me and it. And so I was like, there is no way, like I didn’t touch that. Like nobody else in the house is awake. And so I was like, that must have been the ghost, like, you know? Right. And so then I don’t even remember if I mentioned it to them the next day or what, but it was just kind of later, like I, yeah, the ghost, like when, you know, it was like very clear like, oh, that happened. It wasn’t like I was dreaming it. 

Background: LS is the daughter of D in the linked story. This story takes place in the 1990s. 

Context: This story was told to me over a phone call. Analysis: In ghost lore, a ghost that can interact with the physical world like L describes is often known as a poltergeist. However, the connotation of a poltergeist tends to be more malicious than a ghost, particularly in pop culture like the movie Poltergeist. However, they do often haunt a specific person, while this one appeared to attach to any young people in the house.

Plant ghost

Content:

D: Um, I mean, neighbors used to just gather in the front yard and you know, if they were both working in the yard, they, you know, people would gather in the street and just kind of, you know, chat and catch up. So I think my mom saw the neighbor one day, P, and she was like, what in the world happened to your plant? And that’s when she said, oh, every so often I’ll get up and it’ll look like somebody has walked through the middle of my plant and it was a big, huge plant. And when she did some research, she found out that the original front door to her house was where that plant was and they had taken the front door out and moved it to the side and put in a bay window.

Me: Oh, okay. So something was trying to walk through the old door?

D: Yeah. So she felt like it was, you know, they must have been trying to get through where the door used to be. Um, and so she would, you know, pull the plant, you know, nurse it back and get it all where it’s looking good. And she said, and then, you know, a few weeks later the same thing would happen. And so she ended up having to move her plant somewhere else because it would get trampled during the night and you could see footprints and stuff like that through it. 

Background: D grew up in the southeast United States in the 1960s and 70s. Her mother and neighbor had both lived in the area for years. 

Context: This story was told to me over a phone call. 

Analysis: This reminded me of the trope we often see in supernatural stories, where spirits seem to be trapped in the version of a space that existed when they were alive. This is where we get the idea of ghosts walking through walls, or spending time around the place where they died. What was particularly interesting about this story, however, was the effect that the ghost had on the physical realm. I didn’t see that happening in the other supernatural stories I collected.