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Strange experience

16 years ago

Several years ago we had a thread going where some of us posted about supernatural or unexplained happenings we had experienced.

It happened again.

I was searching for alumni for our 50th reunion. I was having a difficult time finding one particular classmate but was able to track her to a town in MI.

I dialed a number that I found on People Finders and the phone was answered by a woman who sounded frail and elderly. I asked to speak to "Jane" and was told I had the wrong number. The woman identified herself as "Jane's" mother. She said "Jane" lived a mile down the road and then she gave me Jane's phone number.

I called; Jane answered; we spoke and she agreed to come to the reunion.

This weekend I learned Jane had moved to another state and I asked if her elderly mother had moved with her or if her Mom had remained in MI.

Jane looked at me and said her Mom had died 2½ years ago. I looked confused and I explained I had spoken with someone who claimed to be Jane's mother and had even gotten Jane's unlisted phone number from the woman I spoke with. I asked if she did live 1 mile down the road from her Mom. She said she did.

I know I could not have spoken with Jane's mother and yet there's no explanation for getting an unlisted phone number from a dead woman.

I called the original number and it's no longer in service.

Very, very strange.

Anyone else have a strange experience to share?

Comments (32)

  • 16 years ago

    Okay... I have goosebumps....

  • 16 years ago

    Yowza! Oh my gosh Mona...that is a real tale! Gonna share with DH, he loves a good ghost story.

  • 16 years ago

    dodododo....this has been an episode of 'The Twilight Zone' thank you Mr. Sterling.

    Yes that does give me the chills.

  • 16 years ago

    Mother, if you give anyone my telephone number for a 50th reunion and you're not already in "the beyond" I'll put you there :oP

  • 16 years ago

    Wow, that is weird. I too have goosebumps!

  • 16 years ago

    Wow!

  • 16 years ago

    Serious chicken skin. Jane's mom really wanted her DD to attend the reunion, huh. I've never attended one.

    Igloo, you are too funny, but I would have to say I would repeat the sentiment to my own DM.

  • 16 years ago

    mona, if it wasn't you posting this, I would be scratching my head.
    what other explanation can this event have ?

  • 16 years ago

    I totally believe you and 1) what a great thing to experience, and 2) it would have freaked the heck out of me! lol.

    Are you saying the first number you called when you spoke to Jane's mother is no longer in service when you tried to call back?

    What did Jane say when you told her about it?

    About 10 years ago I saw a ghost in my back yard at night when I was looking through a pair of night vision binoculars. I looked twice to make sure I saw it, then fled to the house! lol.

    I know it was a ghost (it was a man all in white, similar to Abraham Lincoln and he was sitting down), because there used to be an old homestead on our acre in the exact spot where he was sitting.

    That house was already torn down and removed when we bought the acre and we were told by the old man who sold us the acre that they used to have dances here on weekends, which would have been about a 100 years ago.

    I still find old bottles and broken glass when we get heavy rains.

    I've heard other ghost stories from people close to me, things they simply wouldn't make up, so I know they're out there!

  • 16 years ago

    W-O-W! Like my DH says..."you can't make this sh!t up". That is one freaky happening.

  • 16 years ago

    That is too weird! Gives me chills each time I read it.

  • 16 years ago

    Is there a way to find out when that number was disconnected? Could someone else have had that number up until recently, someone who could have known "Jane's" number and been hard of hearing or confused?

  • 16 years ago

    Jane believes I did "speak" with her mother. Their family members have a history of cross-over communications as do mine.

    Here's another:
    A friend of mine's sister had passed away and there were family papers they could not find in her home and it was important they do so. They looked and looked and didn't want to vacate the house before locating the papers. They were sure the papers were there.

    I don't know why, I suggested they look in her bathroom. I asked them to pull out the bottom drawer of her vanity and look on floor under the drawer since there would be no dust shelf under the drawer. The papers were there in an envelope.

    Strange, but true.

  • 16 years ago

    Did you ask Jane if she knows any elderly neighbors? You might have gotten an older woman who wanted to be helpful, despite being either hard of hearing or befuddled.

  • 16 years ago

    Some people are more in tune then others. That said it has never happened to me, but it does happen when you are open enough for things (like that) to come through. It can be a nice gift, if it is used right,and no Igloo I won't, how could I? I won't have a paper with it written on, and I don't rember numbers.Oh!thats right I should still be here for her 50th.

  • 16 years ago

    Fantastic stories!!

    Thanks for sharing -- just love them all!

    Jan at Rosemary Cottage

  • 16 years ago

    Holy cow and ohmygosh! Mona! I've not read or heard a personal story that feels so real, and gives such goose bumps!
    I'm truly amazed.

  • 16 years ago

    Much in our lives defies explanation or science.

  • PRO
    16 years ago

    mona, I think your experience is sweet. Spooky! But sweet. oakley, I would have ran too.
    I had an experience about 5 years ago that believe it or not had to do with decorating...
    I worked in a large furniture store (about 30,000 sq ft) that many of the warehouse team claimed they heard a woman's voice in the early hours of the morning. (Their day started at about 6 am) They also claimed to have seen figures in the warehouse that were unexplained.
    One morning before the store was open, I was working in the front of the store on an extremely contemporary display. Everything in the area was sleek. Stainless steel tables, black tables, leathers with chrome legs, upholstery with clean simple lines. You get the idea....
    This area of the store was pretty large, about a 50' x 30' space. I was working with a young woman I will call "K".
    K and I had been working side by side for about an hour and we were just sliding the last piece into place, a lipstick red microfiber sofa. We stepped to opposite ends of the sofa to place the end tables.
    I was leaning over to place the table and when I straightened there was a large pastel floral pillow on the lipstick red sofa. Ruffles, pink roses and a soft yellow background this pillow was. The sofa it belonged to was halfway across the showroom, not anywhere near the area we were working in.
    I thought to myself, why the heck would K place that pillow here? When did she go and get it?
    So I said "K, why did you add that pillow?" She calmly said "I didn't, I thought you did"
    We both continued to finesse the end table placement for about 30 seconds, then suddenly stiffened and looked at each other.
    Keep in mind, the store was closed and we hadn't left each others sight for almost an hour.
    K and I think whoever or whatever the warehouse team had been hearing and seeing was trying to help us decorate that morning. We have no other explanation.

  • 16 years ago

    Oakie....I don't mean to be a dork, but you saw a ghost in the yard, while safe in your house, and you ran outSIDE to get away? Honey that's twisted :OP

    Mommy :oP I'd probably rather suffer another day with a sick 4 year old than a few hours with those goofballs for a 50th reunion :oP

    As a kid I always thought a 50th would be fun because (as you know as a teen) it's likely most of them would be dead and the few alive would be senile.

    As I get older I don't see that as funny LOL

  • 16 years ago

    I'm a science geek. There must be an explanation. LOL!

  • 16 years ago

    Oops. An LOL slipped out of my computer... Sorry!

  • 16 years ago

    jeesh I sound so dang zen and wise,grasshopper.

  • 16 years ago

    Mona, could you expand on "cross-over communication?" Any examples?

    Igloo, I was outside standing in the dark with the binoculars trying to see animals down at the creek, but instead I saw the ghost and high tailed it INSIDE the house. lol.

    I have never, ever been outside at night in that area again.

    Here's another short story on why I think our acre is haunted. We had a little dog named "Poochie" when the boys were younger, early teens. One night one of my sons heard me in the hallway quietly calling for Poochie over and over again. I slept through the night and never got up to call the dog. My son is still freaked over that. lol

  • 16 years ago

    I know there are others out there who have had unusual experiences that seem out of the norm. Don't be shy; share your tales.

  • 16 years ago

    Ok, here's mine: I've had dreams come true.

    1. I dreamed I was on a freighter out in the middle of the Great Lakes. It was a beautiful moonlit night, and I was enjoying the wonderful view. But a storm blew up, and the waves became bigger & more menacing, eventually crashing over the deck of the freighter, making it impossible to stand. I realized I had to get off the ship, dived into the water & swam to shore. When I looked back out at the freighter, it broke in half and sank. I ran frantically along the shore to find a house & phone to call for help, to no avail.

    The next week, the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald broke in half in a storm on Lake Superior and all the crew was drowned.

    2. I had two dreams that I was at a party or some other gathering, and somebody was paging me for a telephone call. The call was from a company I'd interviewed with saying I'd been hired. I woke up thinking, "Well, I'd better get up because the call's coming this morning, and I got the position." The phone rang an hour later, and I got the job!

    3. This is the worst. I had a horrible dream that my middle son, age 7 at the time, was killed in an auto accident. In the dream, he was riding to a friend's house for a play date in the family's navy blue car. He was killed because the seat belts were broken, and he went through the windshield when the driver ran a red light. This dream was so depressing that I couldn't tell my husband about it when we got up. I couldn't shake off the feeling of black, heavy grief all morning either. Awful.

    That afternoon, I took my son to an activity. When I went to pick him up, he ran to me with his friend Chris, who turned out to be taking the same class. Chris wanted my son to come over & play. Chris's grandmother came up to chat with me, she was a friend & someone I admired. She'd be happy to drive the boys to her home and watch them for the afternoon. So we were chatting and walking to her car in the parking lot. I noticed her car was navy blue, and I started to melt down inside. Then she said, "I should tell you that my back seat belts are broken. Will it bother you if I drive the boys home in my car?" I was hysterical inside, but didn't show it on the outside. The grandmother was very old school manners and propriety, and wouldn't understand crazy talk about macabre dreams. After finally gathering my composure, I blithely said, "How about if I drive the boys then?" So I drove them to Chris's house, shaking the whole way. And was a blithering nervous wreck for several days afterwards.

  • 16 years ago

    awm, interesting about your dreams. How wonderful you had the good sense to listen to your inner self; you saved your son's life. I firmly believe that you did.

  • 16 years ago

    Oh my gosh, that dream about your son was aweful!

    Ok, I don't know if I shared these before...

    1. L.A. in the mid-80's was terrorized by an unknown serial killer. I was having a nightmare where our phone rang and I answered it, a hispanic man was growling 'you're next' and I knew it was the killer. Then our doorbell rang. I woke up, paralyzed. I don't know if the doorbell rang in reality or the dream, but I just know I couldn't move. Later that day the news reported that they had their first break in the case, they determined the killer was hispanic. (Richard Ramierez, The Night Stalker)

    2. I had a dream where I was standing in our garage and the door was open. A commercial jetliner was flying by, then suddenly a smaller plan crashed right into it. The planes exploded and body parts came raining down. This dream shook me up and stayed with me for years. Then about 5 years later there was a midair collision virtually exactly as I'd dreamed...low to the ground, and eyewitnesses reported body parts raining down on them.

    3. This was not a dream, but it started out as a general feeling of unease. We were on vacation in Hawaii and suddenly I was overcome with panic. I've NEVER had a panic attack, ever, and I was terrified. I kept seeing a plane exploding in the sky and I just was overcome with fear & terror. I was crying so hard and couldn't shake the feeling. A part of me was saying this is ridiculous, I'm in Hawaii on a beautiful vacation for crying out loud! There is nothing wrong, but I was nearly hysterical for about half an hour, and then when I calmed down, I still had this feeling of strong unease and I was not able to enjoy our vacation as much as I'd hoped. The next day we were leaving and I was nearly hysterical on the plane, too. I was so grateful when we finally touched down at home, but even when we got home, I still felt uneasy.

    The next morning we were up getting the kids ready for school, I was getting a cup of coffee when DH told me that there was a skyscraper on fire. I came into the room to see the tv, just then a plane flew into the 2nd WTC tower. I nearly dropped my coffee, because this was EXACTLY what I'd seen in my vision while we were in Hawaii.

  • 16 years ago

    Oh pesky... Those are amazing stories, and frightening. When the NYT ran their Portraits of Grief series giving brief obits for the WTC victims, one story stuck in my mind. One victim had been having strange dreams of disaster in Manhattan. He had visions of tall piles of burning rubble.

  • 16 years ago

    I had a very vivid dream of encountering one of my students while driving down an inner city street. She was standing on the porch of a tenement house. We made total eye contact and all I could think of in the dream was that this was the girl's home. (I do not teach in a city by any stretch.)

    About two days later, I received notice that the girl had been withdrawn because she had been attending while living out of district!

  • 16 years ago

    When my father's mother died in 1968 my father ( an only child ] and mother had the task of cleaning out her house one day, while there, they were discussing giving one of her possessions to a certain family member. The telephone began to ring. The phone had been disconnected for several weeks At first they were spooked, but later decided she was agreeing with them. I haven't thought of that story for years until I read this post.

  • 16 years ago

    The day we moved into our first house, we were driving home after cleaning up our apartment, and a ball went flying into the street, my husband jammed on the brakes and sure enough a little boy darted out inches away from our car. We were both shaken up, but I could not get rid of that feeling of doom after. I said, I felt as if someone had died, couldn't stop crying. When we got to our house, there were police cars everywhere. Our next door neighbor came by to tell us our other next door neighbor's 2 year old was climbing his dresser and it toppled onto him and he died. I felt as if I were hit by a brick when he told us. Over the years, the neighbor (mom of little boy) and I became very good friends. She has had MANY signs that he is still around her. She still has his tickle me elmo on a shelf in what used to be his bedroom. She said it spontaneously went off and she could swear it said "I love you mama, hahaha." Her son died 8 years ago, the batteries in the elmo were dead, she even checked them after. Another time we went to a chinese auction, and her raffle ticket had her late son's birthday on it. Not only did she win with that ticket, but she won a Star Wars Lego set, something her other son was pining for.
    Actually we were just discussing this last night. I came across this interview about a woman who lost her husband on 9/11. She interviewed over 200 people who have lost loved ones, and they have all experienced very similar phonomena.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Interview