This story happened before I was born to my father while he was in boot camp. He was having problems with some of the guys who was there with him. He went to bed one night after being up 24 hours for a drill course.

He dreamed of his grandmother who passed away a while back. In his dream his grandmother kept telling him to beware there is danger.

He awoke feeling very cold all of a sudden and remembering his dream he reached for blankets, not truly all the way awake, it took him a little while to realize he was hanging out a window by his feet. Then he said, grandmother was there and helped him to get back in the window.

One summer, while I was staying at my grandparents’ house for the weekend, they were having a pretty good day. They have pretty good health yet some days are better than others. Anyways, I was laying on the couch with nothing to do while my grandpa was outside working in the garden and my grandma was out painting their mailbox. They were both a reasonable good distance away from the house. While I was lying there, I heard something upstairs. They built their own house and they had an upstairs, yet it was never finished. So, it’s kind of like an attic. At first, I thought, “Oh well, it’s just the house. It’s old and makes noises all the time.” Which was quite true.

I heard it again and started listening closer. It sounded like footsteps. I tried to convince myself that it was my imagination, but it wasn’t working. I kept hearing it and with each noise I would listen closer. I had been up there before and they had a few pieces of furniture up there. I knew that there was an old recliner and couch right above where I was lying. I would hear foot steps walking at a steady pace than all of a sudden stop right where the furniture was as if there was someone up there walking around and lounging in the recliner or on the couch. I was so scared! I was afraid to move or even breathe!

Finally, I got up very carefully, scared to make even the slightest noise. I went to the door and ran out across the front yard, across the old one lane road, to where my grandma was. She asked me what I was doing and I tried to act as casual as I could and said, “Nothin’.” I stayed with her for awhile, then I went for a little walk around the house to see if there were any traces of someone or something being in their attic. Nothing, there was no trace of anything.

I gathered up the courage to go back in the house. I went in the front door, crept over to the couch and sat down. Tears started running down my face, I was so scared. What scared me the most was that the next day my mom was going to come pick me up and my grandma and grandpa were going to be home alone. I dried my tears with my shirt and got the courage to up the stairs, but then I couldn’t make myself walk over the creaky floor to the brownish-orange door to the old attic room with the furniture that was above the living room downstairs. I ran down the steps and back to the door.

I went back to my grandma and started trying to have a regular conversation with her and get my mind off the noises I had been hearing. I finally forgot about the noises and was thirsty, so I went back in the house to get something to drink. I was walking through the living room, heading towards the kitchen, when I heard something in there. I stopped. It sounded as if whatever it was ran into the dining room. I thought to myself, “What is going on? What or who is in this house?” I went into the kitchen and got something to drink, but was afraid to look into the dining room. I was afraid that someone was in there and didn’t want to be noticed, so I was going to oblige them. I was going to ignore them, act like I had no clue that they were in there and maybe they wouldn’t kill me, or whatever they might of done if I saw them.

But, my curiosity got the best of me and I looked in there. I saw the old sewing machine, the table, the freezer, and cabinets, but besides that, nothing. I walked on in to get a better look at the whole room. Still Nothing. Was there something in there? Was there someone in the attic? Or was my imagination trying to get the best of me? I don’t know. Maybe it was someone that used to live on the land the house was built on because my grandpa bought about 200 acres of land and there used to be many houses on the property. He gradually bought land from everybody until he had all that he does now. There are two or three little family cemeteries scattered throughout the woods on his land. Was it one of them? Was it a ghost? My grandparents are still living, so that’s some good news that gives me relief that maybe it was just my imagination. Believe what you want!

To be perfectly honest, most of my life, I didn’t believe in ghosts (or other supernatural phenomenon for that matter). I never DENIED their existence but I never acknowledged it either. A vacation in West Virginia, however, changed all of that.

I and a female friend, who was a firm believer in such things, were on vacation in an area where neither of us had been before. Our wanderings had taken us to a historically recreated village in West Virginia and to a house which a brass plaque on the door told us had once been owned by a family named Wager.

My friend asked me to “let go” of my skepticism, close my eyes, and tell her what I “sensed” in the house. Playing along, I made up a story about a nine-year-old girl who died in 1849 with a cough and fever. I told my friend that I “sensed” that the girl’s name was Maria and described how I imagined her to look. We discussed what I “saw” and she told me her impressions. I didn’t think anything about the incident until, about two hours later we were touring an old cemetery high up on a nearby hill. When we reached the top we sat down to rest on a stone bench. It was then that I noticed the grave just across from where we sat. It was the grave of Maria Wager. She had died at the age and in the year I had “made up” a short time earlier. Later investigation also backed up other facts in my description including the fact that she had died of scarlet fever.”

Currently we have three ghosts living with us in our little home. All three have been seen by others. First, there is Charles. He died in the 1700s. He was a mountain man in the little valley where we live. From what he communicated later, he was attracted by my hobby of shooting black powder rifles. Apparently he had gotten sick of something that sounded like influenza and froze to death when he could no longer care for himself in the wilderness. He first came to our attention when we saw our cats watching something that wasn’t there. Scared the heck out of them! He also has a penchant for getting into our cabinets and turning bottles and such upside down.

Next, we came to know Jacob Marney, the only one to communicate his full name. Jacob was a long skinny “Ichabod Crane” kind of guy. He apparently died in the 1960s. He doesn’t say much but he is the most “physical” of our visitors. He came to our attention while Tracy and I were sitting on the living-room having a glass of tea. Tracy was sitting at one end of the couch and I was sitting in an easy-chair nearby. All of a sudden, I saw the cushion at the opposite end of the couch from where Tracy sat depress as if someone were sitting down. I turned to Tracy and she was already staring at the cushion, her mouth hanging open.

“Did YOU see that?” She asked me while I was trying to shut my own fallen jaw. A few minutes later, the cushion uncompressed as if whoever were seated there had gotten up. In a later communication with him I learned his name and that he had once owned a large part of our little valley and had been a farmer.

The funniest incident regarding Jacob was when a friend came to visit a few weeks ago. A friend was staying in our guest room. He was drifting off to sleep the first night he was here when he felt someone sit down on the bed next to him. Thinking it was me, he said out-loud “Go away and let me sleep, I’m tired!” He felt the person get up. As that happened, it dawned on him how strange that I or anyone would be in the bedroom without knocking and besides, he remembered he had locked the door. He opened his eyes. There was no one there and the door was still shut and locked. He says he didn’t get much sleep the rest of the night.

Last of all we met “The Floating Lady” Tracy was the first to see her. She asked me one night if I could “see” (physically that is) anyone in the bedroom with us. I shifted into that mindset and “saw” her. All the other disembodied spirits I had seen before were at ground level, just as they would have been when they were living. Not this one, however, she has always floated several feet above the floor with her head near the ceiling. She has never “spoken” so I am estimating her life time as being in the 1800s. She has always worn a brown dress and a shawl which she kept over her head. A female friend came to visit us sometime back and came out of our bathroom with a somewhat shocked and puzzled look. “I just saw a woman in the mirror and it wasn’t me.” She then described her as appearing to be out of the “old west” and that she was wearing a brown dress and a shawl. Cool, didn’t know they could be seen in mirrors.

This happened to my grandmother about 10 years ago. My grandma lives in the east end of Charleston in one of the many “hollers” that are found in West Virginia. A long time ago, probably in the late 50’s early 60’s, my great grandfather had loaned a cousin of his some money. Allan, the cousin, agreed to pay the money back on a certain date. Well, that day comes around, and there is a huge snow. No one is able to go out on the day because the roads were so bad. My great grandfather and grandparents were sitting at the kitchen table when they heard a knock on the door. When they opened it, they found Allen standing outside, money in hand.

Allen died a few years later. In the early 90’s, there happened to be another freak snow that left the roads covered and everyone stayed home. It just so happened that it was the same day Allen came to pay back my great grandfather all those years ago. My grandma decided to sleep late that day, though she was awakened by a knock on the door. She decided not to get up because she figured it was my dad, who was living next door at the time. Later that afternoon, she called to see what he wanted. She was surprised when he told her that he had not been out of the house all day. When she opened the door, there was a set of foot prints that started at the bottom of the drive way, went across her patio, then up her stairs to her porch, but there were none going back down. When she looked at the road, the snow was still perfect. No tire tracks or foot prints to be found. Was this the ghost of Allen coming back to repay my great grandfather? What would my grandma had found had she opened the door? No one knows.

I was around 11 years old at the time of this sighting. My friend and I were sitting in my room listening to our new Walkmans around 5 or 6 PM. We were sitting next to my window and the curtains were drawn, but the window was open with a screen in it.

I was looking down at the tape I had in my hand and felt my friend tap me on the leg. I turned and looked at her and she had this frightened look on her face as she kept staring out the window. So I turned to the window to see a tall man dressed all in black, with a black hat on, kind of glide past the window. I was staring in horror at him when, right before he got to the edge of the window, he turned to face us. His eyes were completely black. He never said a word or made any show of emotion, and just went past us. We ran to get my father, who went out to look for the stranger, but he couldn’t find anything.

I can’t explain this, but I will swear by my life that this happened. I believe that my father’s house is haunted. A few other occurrences have happened to me, of which I can’t explain.

On a Friday night, my sister and I were going to spend the night with our best friend, Tia. Her house is over 40 years old. Well, we were home alone from 4:00pm to 3:00am. It was just like another normal night when we spent the night with her.

About six months after her house was built, this old lady moved in it. About 3 months after she moved into it, she died. Then another family moved into the house and then moved out, because the old lady was haunting them. The house was empty for at least 10 years. Then Tia’s grandma moved into the house and didn’t have any problems with the ghost. Ten years later Tia’s grandma dies. Tia gets the house. Her family moves in……

Last Friday night when I spent the night with her, we were home alone like I said before, and around midnight we started hearing noises. Strange noises. We thought it was her neighbors trying to scare us, they are jerks. So, we decided to go to her room. We were going to tell ghost stories, and we turned off the light.

We saw two white glowing things beside us. We said, “Who is that?” One of them said, ” I am your grandmother and this is my friend.” We screamed and ran into the living room. The old lady that lived in the house 10 years earlier, was her grandma’s friend. The ghosts or whatever they were, followed us. It was SOOO scary!

We ran outside and stood in the rain until Tia’s parents got home. They didn’t believe us. They said we were imagining things, but I know we weren’t. How can you imagine someone talking to you like that and all three of us hearing it?

A couple days later, Tia’s mom saw the ghosts or whatever they were. They moved out of that house the very next day. I think the ghosts just wanted to be left alone, and wanted the house to themselves. Now, the house is empty. I will not go near it ever again!!

My friend Sarah was spending the night one night. It was getting very late, around three o’ clock. We was sitting down stairs, recording messages on my sound recorder, and watching TV. When Sarah said “oh come over here” and when I did, we saw a light come on upstairs. Then all of a sudden we heard a noise like a chair was thrown across the room.

We got into a fight on who would go and investigate. It turned out to be me. Sarah got behind me with a small metal doll ladder. I got in front with a flashlight and we went up stairs. We saw that nothing was moved and no light was on. Therefore, we decided to go make an ice cream Sunday in the kitchen.

My friend Brian and I were walking our friend Josh home one night when we decided to take him pass the old basketball court. When we walked down the hill toward it we all felt something pulling us toward the basketball court where it has been reported that you can hear a basketball dribbling at night time.

We saw two white figures in the woods that had grown over the old basketball court. We didn’t stay for long because we had to get him home. When we got to his house I asked Brian if we could walk down toward the woods beside Josh’s house, so we started to walk toward the woods, when all of a sudden a transparent figure appeared next to a tree.

It started to move slightly back and forward. Josh spoke up and said “In the name of god what do you want?” The figure started to run toward us. So we took off. The location is in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Harper’s Ferry.

The summer of 1998 was the scariest night of our lives. This happening occurred in late June after a Family Reunion.

We were 9, we stayed at our Aunt’s house in Yukon in McDowell Co. We got back to the house around dark. We went swimming when we got home. Mike kept getting really sick, so we decided to go to bed, that’s when everything broke loose.

Our Aunt Susie went outside to lock her gate, and a black figure chased her in the house, and it become cold and Erie. What Mike and I didn’t know was that her house was used as a morgue when the mines exploded. The basement was used to drain blood and the rest had the dead bodies in it.

That night everything happened, we didn’t know about the dead bodies but our parents did. All night that night we would lay in bed and see white things floating over our heads but we didn’t think anything of it. My mom said she had seen them too but didn’t say anything, because she didn’t want us to be scared.

She was scared, so she got my sister Jessica to take her to the bathroom. Jessica was 11. She didn’t know anything about the dead bodies neither. When they got out of bed, she told mom she has seen white things all night, she got up and said “Oh My Gosh Mommy.. Whats that black thing!?” It was at the bottom of Mike’s bed holding his dad down and trying to smothered Mike.

My mom was saved at the time and she rebuked the demon. It wouldn’t go away, and it grabbed his dad’s legs and made Mike sick. After it finally left, it went in the bathroom and sunk into the bathroom floor and left a crack. We all gathered in the living room and saw a bear outside.

Everyone thinks that it was the spirit of the coal miners. It haunts the street of Yukon, house to house. Since then, we have never went back to Yukon and my aunt moved to Nicholas County far away from the house. The rest of the family that still lives there, still sees it on occasion.

One night, I was walking home from my friend Tiffany’s house. It was late and dark, so I took a shortcut through the graveyard. When I got to this one grave, I saw two men standing there. They were dressed in old army uniforms. I asked them if they were lost and they said no. I asked them what they were doing here in a graveyard dressed like soldiers. They said they were in uniform because they were going to war. I said there was no war. One of them asked me what year it was and I told them 1999. They said it couldn’t be, but I said it was. All of the sudden, they started screaming, so I started to run away. When I looked back at them they were bleeding. I stopped and looked around to see if there was anyone there who could help them, but when I turned backed around, they were gone.

The next day, I went to my grandma’s house and I got out this book that had pictures of local soldiers in the war. When I turned the page, I saw a picture of the two soldiers I’d seen the night before. I read the information under the picture and it said those two soldiers were murdered just before they were supposed to leave for the war. I didn’t believe in ghosts until that point in time and I never go into graveyards alone at night anymore.

One night my uncle wanted me and a friend of mine to go to the store for him. We were on our way back home, coming up the hollow where we lived, when I saw a bright light. I thought that it was a car coming the other way. The light got brighter the closer we got to it. Suddenly, I saw something in the corner of my eye that started across the road in front of the truck. I slammed on the brakes, thinking that it was a kid, but when it got right in front of the truck I saw a man with a big black hat, like Abraham Lincoln’s Stove-Pipe hat and a long black trench coat. He looked about in his forty’s.

My friend was looking away at the time and didn’t see him. He asked me why I hit the brakes and I asked him if he didn’t see that man step in front of the truck. All he said he saw was a glance of something like a shadow. I told him that a man just walked out in front of us and then just disappeared.

A couple days passed and I was sitting on my grandfather’s porch telling him about what had happened. He asked me what the man looked like and I told him. My grandfather told me that there used to be a man who lived there and dressed just like that. The man loved his black trench coat and black hat, and he wore them all the time. My grandfather went on, saying that he was an evil man, that he tied his wife and child in their beds and burned them alive. The neighbors heard them screaming, but were too afraid of the man to go help. Later that day, after he had killed his wife and child, the man took his own life down at the oak tree by the road where I saw him. I’m not the only one who has seen this. My father said that when he was young, he and a friend of his would walk up that road at night and they would see him too. He said the man would chase them back down the road.

Every word of this is true. I was not the kind of person who believed in ghosts, until that night. I know what I saw and it still haunts me to this day!

In October of 2001, I took a job in the haunted house at the old Moundsville prison. Before we started, we were told that there were ghosts and that we would hear weird noises. I thought, “Yeah, right. Whatever.” I ended up working next to North Hall, where they kept all the dangerous inmates. There was a lady working with me whose husband used to be in charge of North Hall. On their breaks, they would come down to where I was stationed and smoke cigarettes and eat their lunches.

Well, one night, after our last group had gone through, we were all out in the hall talking, when the cell doors in North Hall all started banging open and shut by themselves. One of the guys with us ran into the cell area, but found no one there. Later, after getting all of our stuff and going to clock out, we heard it again. So, once again, he went back to check it out and there was still no one there. We were one of the last groups to leave that night and the whole way out to our cars we could hear the cell doors banging open and closed. Needless to say, I now believe in ghosts.