Ghost at Murat House ca.1790

by: Derrick E Elleby Sr

Ghost in corner

My wife knows I watch all the ghost shows on T.V. So for my birthday this year she took me to St. Augustine, FL and scheduled a couple of the ghost tours. Well the times we were not doing a tour we did our own sight seeing of the city. There are a group of house gathered together in St. Augustine know as some of the oldest houses in America.

One of the houses had an famous resident the Murat House ca.1790. This house was occupied by Prince archilles Murat (Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew.) Well the wife and I were looking in the house just taking pictures of a time that passed. It wasn't until later on when I was looking at the pictures I came across this photo. In the corner it there seems to a vision of a man dressed in colonial clothing.

Home Sweet Funeral Home

by: Mortimer

I live and work in a mortuary in San Antonio, Texas. I have been interested in the funeral business since I was 12 years old. I have always had an "eerie" aura about me. If you would meet me, you would understand why. I was recently given the opportunity to become a resident of the Mortuary I now work for -- and being the weird kinda guy I am, I could not pass a chance such as this.

I moved in on a Thursday afternoon. With my girlfriend's help, I had everything moved in by the time night came. The funeral home was opened that night until 10:00 p.m. I figured I would go ahead and stay the night in my apartment there. My girlfriend always stays with me until about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. That particular night, my bathroom was out of order so I was using the bathroom in the family room. My girlfriend was in the bathroom by the employee lounge on the OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE BUILDING.

On my way back to the apartment, I heard her scream.

I ran to the other side of the building to see what was the matter and she said she heard someone whisper her name. I told her it was OK and we headed back to the apartment. I was spooked, as was she, so we both went to her house to stay the night.

What a welcome to my new home, Right?

I returned the next night with the previous night's occurrence in the back of my mind. I stayed in the apartment, watching TV until about 2:30 (a.m.) when I went outside to smoke a cigar. In order to get outside, you must go through the hallway, then through the garage. My car was parked right outside the door to the garage. I was sitting on the hood of my car enjoying the cigar when I heard a loud "WHOOSH" come from inside the garage. This noise is normal when someone opens the door from the hallway into the garage. Mind you this was after 2:00 in the morning and there was not supposed to be anybody (living) inside the funeral home -- except for me.

I was petrified.

I had no place to go.

My keys were in the apartment and I was stuck.

I finally got up the gumption to open the door to the garage. As I opened it, I noticed that the light was off. I never turn off the light. Even if I'm leaving for the night. The only light filtering into the garage was that from the door to the hallway on the other side of the garage. When I opened the door, that door stayed open for a moment, then shut and I heard footsteps going down the hallway.

I'm kinda a big guy so you can imagine I'm about to have a heart attack here. I reach one arm in the garage and turn on the light. At that point, I ran to the hallway door next to the apartment. I thought maybe someone had broken into the funeral home. I had the alarm off because I was walking around in the building so I had no way of telling if anyone had broken in. I ran to my apartment, shut the door, locked it, ran to the phone and dialed 9-1-1. I told the dispatch what happened and she sent 2 units over within 5 minutes. In the mean time I set the alarm so if someone was in the building they couldn't get out without the alarm going off.

The police arrived and searched the building top to bottom and found no evidence of forced entry or anything missing. I knew then what it was. Now, every night, when I go home to the funeral home, I can walk through the hallway and feel the sinister presence of whatever is there. I just explain to it that this is not it's home, it's my home. And ask it to please leave my girlfriend and I alone.

We don't mean any harm to it. It pretty much leaves us alone now, but we can both feel its presence. I just wish the dead would Rest In Peace!

Shadow on the Wall

by: Withheld

I have told this story to people who were not there to witness the actual event and some look at me as if I am just telling a story to get a good laugh -- but I find nothing funny about it. Everything I am about to relate is true and I guess in some bizarre way I feel that by retelling this story to anyone who is willing to listen it will bring me some comfort.

On July 6, 1990, a high-school friend shot himself in the head with a rifle in a nearby local baseball dugout. The act shocked and saddened everyone, especially his parents, of course, who did not want to believe their only son would take his own life.

The days that followed his death were happening, for me, as if in a dream. Fearing this act would spark some sort of "chain reaction," the school counselors were sent in to help the students grieve and discuss their feelings of loss. Days went by and there seemed to be a cloud of despair and confusion hanging over our entire high school class. If he had lived, my friend would have graduated from high school with the rest of us that same year. When he died, he was two months away from his 18th birthday.

About a week after his suicide, I was visiting my best friend at the time, we'll call her Anne, in her home. We were both still very affected by the death of our friend and we began to talk late into the night about his possible reasons for taking his own life and how crazy and unexpected it was. We had been discussing the whole chain of events and basically trying to make sense of something we could not even imagine, when I suddenly became very uncomfortable talking about our deceased friend.

I was sitting at the time in a desk chair across from Anne who was sitting comfortably on her bed facing me. She was looking directly at me and could see the discomfort on my face. She assumed I was just overreacting and our discussion had gotten to me, so she stood up and moved toward the door of her bedroom and gestured in a sweeping motion with her arm for me to follow her into the kitchen down the hall. There was a single small desk light on behind me when she made this motion with her arm, so that when she moved, her body created a shadow on the wall.

This is going to sound ridiculous, and I am no Physics expert, but when Anne swept her arm up into the air, gesturing me to follow her, her shadow did not follow her arm. Instead, there was a strange kind of delay and I saw her arm move, and about 5-10 seconds later the shadow of an arm moved, mimicking the same gesture she had just made.

I of course, thought my eyes were playing tricks on me and ignored the shadow. And I would have kept it to myself if only Anne had not turned to me and asked, "Did you just see that?" I answered, "Yes!" -- and we fled out of the room and into the kitchen.

Anne's house was large and our frightened voices bounced off the columned walls, but nothing ever occurred after that. My friend Anne and I no longer speak and I am sure that if she knew I was relaying this story to strangers, she would think I was crazy, but I remember the death of our high school friend as if it were yesterday and I can't help wishing that the shadow we saw was indeed a sign from our friend, but I will never be sure. I write this story in his memory and in the hope that he is in a place where his problems have all been taken away.