With this being our Halloween issue, members of The Hoot wanted to go beyond the basic candy or costume question and get to some scary truths … our real life paranormal experiences!?! This week, we dive into our spookiest memories of our own paranormal encounters … and if something happens to this article it was the ghosts …
Jenna: I went to a high school in Mass. that just so happened to be near a graveyard, so I would pass it regularly walking to and from school. One night I had just finished hanging out with some friends and was walking home alone in the dark when I looked over at the graveyard and saw three bright lights. They were floating orbs just sort of hovering over the grave sight completely unbothered by the rest of the environment. I went home and looked it up later to see that other people online have also seen orbs at graveyards … it was a little freaky but actually had a kind of calm serene beauty to it, so I’m not actually afraid of ghosts now—so positive experience overall 10/10 would do again lol.
Chloe: In my home state of Arizona, there is a historical “ghost town.” Jerome, AZ was once a major copper mining town; yes, Arizona is a major copper producer. When the mines closed in the 1950s the town was mostly abandoned. Over the last few decades the town has been revitalized and now serves as a tourist attraction which claims to have many ghosts and haunted buildings. One of the “most haunted” sites is the Jerome Grand Hotel. When I was a youngin’, my parents took my three sisters and I to visit Jerome, and, as part of our ghostly adventures, we had dinner at the Jerome Grand Hotel. Over the course of the dinner, I repeatedly felt hands tugging at my legs from under the table cloths. My oldest sister said she could feel cold breath against her neck. My younger sister got it the worst, though. Halfway through dinner, her chair was lifted from the ground and she was thrown across the room. Suddenly, everyone broke out into a synchronized song and dance to “Day-O.”
Okay. Fine. Maybe I lied about the ghost bits, but I did visit Jerome as a kid.
Ethan: Back in my home city of St. Louis, April invites a great deal of cold rain. In high school, I found myself standing in these rains wearing ill-fitting clothes on late nights after theatre rehearsals and, on one such night, my tired eyes beheld a human silhouette standing just outside the lights from the school’s front walk-up, but casting a shadow within. I could make out its shape as intercepting the pouring rain, but not holding an umbrella, merely standing still and looking forward towards the parking lot. I suddenly felt the whisper of a voice both masculine and feminine asking a simple “cold, isn’t it?” I turned again and saw the figure looking towards me. I blinked, and all of a sudden, it was gone. Was this the ghastly spirit of a student forever trapped in the pouring midwestern rain, or a product of my habitual daydreaming? Who knows!? I frankly found the tiring rehearsal hour to be a bit scarier.
Michael: I am extremely lucky to not have any dramatic run-ins with the supernatural at this point. (Knock on wood!) This is very well, as I cannot even stand a spider in my room. The closest that I have come was on a trip to Mt. Vernon, Virginia when I was in elementary school—Mt. Vernon being the home of George Washington and where he is buried. As I was standing outside the main building, I looked up, and for a second I saw the silhouette of a man wearing an 18th century costume and a wig in one of the windows, kneeling, with hands collapsed in prayer. Then the figure was gone. To this day I have no idea whether this was the product of an overactive imagination or a visit from the Founding Father himself.
Desiree: “Desiree is boring and doesn’t have one” – Desiree
Eva: Wow, I feel boring compared to everyone else. I don’t have any true ghost stories, but when I was about 10 years old, I visited Edgar Allan Poe’s grave in Baltimore, MD. I’ve since gone back, as it is in my home state, but this first time was with my grandparents. My grandma got freaked out by this fake raven on top of a descriptive plaque, and maybe that was the spirit of Poe giving her one last scare from beyond the grave.
James: I consider myself lucky to have never had any experiences with anything paranormal, so I don’t really have a good answer to this. I guess this is because unlike some of our other editors, I do not frequently visit old cemeteries or abandoned towns. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll see a ghost, but so far I never have.
Jason: I don’t really have any stories. I come from a religious family and my mom coated all living spaces of mine she had access to in holy water, so I’ve never really had paranormal experiences. My mother works very hard to shield us from evil; I wasn’t even allowed to watch Scooby-Doo.
