The True Tales of the WHOMPING Door and the Littlest Ghost

Happy Halloween. Today, for your haunting pleasure, I offer two real scenarios in the name of spooks, and things that do go bump in the night - sometimes in broad day-light. I'll start with the incident that, if you like, might be shrugged off, if you dare.

It was about a year ago. I would come home, leaving the garage and entering the living room through the garage door. I'd, naturally close the door behind me. After fifteen minutes or so - WHOOMP! The door would sound as if someone on the other side of the door had laid into it at a full run, hitting it with their shoulder. Loud. Really loud! And the point is - there was no one there.

It had begun - every I entered the house from the garage - a ten or fifteen minute delay, then - WHOMP! Every time it happened, I was totally unnerved.

EVIL WHOMPING DOOR...
Though the sound was loud enough to hear at the rear of my house, I found myself wondering if my imagination wasn't making the noise louder than it really was. So, when the door 'performed' during a visit of my friend Barbara one weekend, I felt some relief. I wasn't just imagining it all.

Still, I wanted a simple explanation about the door, that had excluded a ghost theory. There had to be some other sort of explanation for the door slamming that I could dredge up. I thought a bit, then told Barbara that every time I closed that door, it sat unbalanced in the door frame. Then, after about ten to fifteen minutes or so for the door to settle, making that godawaful noise, like Mr. T violently attempting to break into the room. I don't know if Barbara bought into my logical explanation, but I tried my best to believe my own explanation for my temperamental door.

Any Claire denial there? Uh... well, I admit, there were a couple of times my mind, if not my brain, was certain something was smashing itself against the door.

Eventually, after much thought, and several weeks of nervousness and fear of doors, I decided if, perhaps, the door's noise was the result of a ghost, poltergeist or some such, it certainly was not welcome in my house. I wasn't going to be freaked out by some stupid door in my own home.

The WHOOMPS ceased. Stopped cold. One day 'WHOOMP'. The next day the door I closed the door and heard naught but, you'll pardon the expression - dead silence.

When I look back on that event, I wonder, if the noise was caused by the door settling in the door frame, why did it stop so suddenly? For that matter why did it start so suddenly? I did no repairs or anything else to the door, but the noise is gone and good riddance.

But you know - in my garage, there hangs a large black and white portrait of my grouchy, paternal Grandfather. When the door was at it's noisy business, I had sometimes wondered if my Grandfather hadn't been pissed off at me - hanging him in the garage, and not the living room. Or, I sometimes thought, more likely he was miffed as I had stopped my on-line research into his life and ancestors. Had Gramps dropped hints wanting his fair share of attention?

Now here is another ghost story, the Halloween finale; another true story.

A few months ago, something threw me for an uneasy loop. At the home of a friend of mine, a horrible thing happened that resulted in the death of a five year old child. The child died, while snuggled down on my friend's living room couch. Totally avoidable death, totally devastating and I will leave that details of the incident at that.

Following the death of the little girl, who was had been known loving as 'the baby', things began to happen around my friend's home. She told me in email that from time to time, the cabinets in the kitchen, left closed, would be found later, open. There were noises for which no one could find a source. The television became particularly lively - changing channels and clicking on and off by itself. When the 'poltergeist' was very active, my friend and her significant other, would say 'the baby', was looking for attention.

Now when a friend tells me that sort of thing, scientific skeptic in my brain says 'don't believe it'. Contrarily, the area of my brain that totally trusts my friend says, 'I know she isn't lying.'

Jump forward several months. My friend and I visited with another friend, whom for sake of this story I will call Irene.

It was Spring and the three of us lolled around Irene's sitting room. We were ten hours by car from my home, and more than that from my friend. We enjoyed a nice meal and a lovely chat in my friend's living room.

CLICK!

I looked over at the television.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

The television was switching on and off, on and off, on its own accord - no one was touching any remotes. Shoot - Irene's TV was practically antique, there was no remote control. We all stared at the television, then looked uneasily at each other.

I looked wide eyed at my friend, and uneasily, we both smiled. Apparently 'the baby' had come with her to visit Irene's. Bored with the adult conversation, the baby apparently wanted some attention if not diversion.

We told the tale of the child to Irene, who having ghost incidents of her own happen in her house (of the sort that would make Stephan King wet himself) did not doubt who was playing with the TV knobs. Irene did not doubt the tale of the littlest ghost in the least - & for once, neither could I.