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Beast of Bertha Hill

Beast of Bertha Hill
Bertha Hill, WV / Google Maps

Yes, my name is Ronnie Knight of Maidsville WV. Actually Ronnie Knight is the alias I’m using. But to the point I live near some woods you see. These woods seem ‘friendly’ enough. Despite that there are fallen trees.

Many vines and thorns and don’t get me started on what the place is like during the summer. But something tells me there is more to those woods than I imagined. Why, from a second-hand report someone told me they might have spotted a ‘little person.’ You know those we folk or faeries.

But what’s also strange is the noises. Not just any noises, but the kind that sound like they’re trashing around. Breaking these big branches and making a ruckus. It literally sounds like it’s walking on two feet!?

Which worries me because I have no idea what ‘it’ is. But from credible sources tell me. That this creature is

  • ‘5 feet to ‘7 feet tall.
  • Screams like a woman.
  • May have white fur.

It came out of the woods on July the fourth. When everyone was shooting off fireworks. It was really fun if it hadn’t been spotted twice on the same day. But the second encounter may have to do with the fireworks itself.

That’s the agreed explanation for the second encounter. Because it actually came of the woods to visit us. Even though it was nearing eleven O’ clock. But because it was dark I couldn’t see a thing much less the monster. It was spotted by my two other siblings that saw it.

I’m not making this up. For this monster to live in our neck of the woods on Bertha Hill has no explanation to this day. But we also think it explains a couple of others instances that’s happened. But there are no footprints or hair or anything to say it’s real.

But I’m saying this now it has to exist. I figured out from credible sources. That those woods we live next to. It’s not far from the Monongalia Coal Company. I’m trying to find any connections. Whether it be alien, Bigfoot, or even Government cover ups?

Ghostly Neighbors

Ghostly Neighbors
Dark Room / Stock Photo

About six months ago I was renting an apartment in a remodeled bank building that had been renovated into apartments. The building was built around 1865 as a bank, and then was a book store, and now apartments. The building had two entrances, one that lead into the first floor apartment, which was still being renovated. At the other entrance there were around ten steps that lead up to the second floor apartment, and then another six or seven steps that lead up to the third floor apartment. I was the first renter so I was able to get the top floor, which I thought would be good so I wouldn’t be bothered by a lot of noise. I attended night classes at college so my 16-year-old son was there in the evenings alone. Immediately he began to tell me that he would hear people talking out in the hallway, someone walking up and down the stairs, and strange banging noises. I called my landlord to verify that I was the only one to have keys to the building, and to ask if she would call when showing the other apartments. I thought this would put my son at ease.

After two weeks we had a major water leak which forced me to move down one level to the second floor. Now, I knew I would be the only one in the building since the first floor wasn’t done, and the third floor would need some work. The very first night in the new apartment I heard walking, talking, and banging coming from the upstairs. I went up to check it out since I still had a key. To my surprise there was no one there, I locked it back up and went back downstairs. The next morning when I was leaving, the upstairs apartment door was wide open; even though I knew that I closed and locked it. This was an ongoing event for several weeks. My daughter had some friends over one evening and we were talking when we heard someone walk up the steps go in the upstairs apartment and the door slam shut. We all went upstairs but there was no one there. One of my daughter’s friends started making comments about how he did not believe in ghosts and that he wasn’t afraid, acting tough. Later as they were leaving I heard a loud crash and ran outside and there was the boy lying at the bottom of the stairs, swearing that someone had shoved him down the stairs. He said he was the last one coming down the steps when he clearly felt someone shove him hard on the shoulder and push him. He was not hurt, thankfully.

My sister was visiting from Pittsburgh one weekend and asked me to go upstairs and ask the neighbors to be quiet and stop slamming doors. I informed her that no one lived there; I was the only renter in the building. I finally decided to get a voice activated recorder and place it on the steps at night. I would check all the doors to make sure they were locked, make sure that the upstairs apartment was locked, and then record. I was amazed at the recordings, clear footsteps, the sounds of balls being rolled down the steps, doors slamming, and inaudible whispers. Needless to say, I do not live there anymore, but, I am still troubled by the things that happened there.

Flashing Lights

Flashing Lights
UFO / Stock Photo

Around 8:00 on December 5, 2008, I was sitting at my bedroom window when all of a sudden, flashing lights suddenly appeared on the ground in front of our house. There was no sound at all. It made its way across the yard and I had my husband come look. It climbed up our picnic shelter and on to the roof.

Whatever this was it slowly drifted north and we watched it till it was out of sight. We were so entranced with watching this we forgot all about our video camera. Two other people we know saw this but were afraid to say anything because they thought people wouldn’t believe them. Has anyone else seen this?

Our Friend’s Last Visit

Our Friend’s Last Visit
Casket / Stock Photo

While attending the funeral of a friend, a few of us were standing around before leaving for the cemetery. A woman came up to me and told me to look at something. She pointed up to a ledge on the side of a mountain. On the ledge there was what appeared to be a man standing there, he was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, exactly what our friend was being buried in.

After leaving the cemetery we returned to the place where the funeral was held and the figure was gone. We all believe this was our friend overseeing his funeral.

Nit-Picking Grandma? And A Friend’s Room

Nit-Picking Grandma? And A Friend’s Room
Rocking Chair in Bed Room / Stock Photo

On June 24th, 2009 my grandmother past away in her home. My family and my aunt lived with her. We were all upset and mourned her greatly. About a month after her death, my husband and I were coming home after work. He was my fiancé then, and our home was in the middle of nowhere, so I liked for him to follow me home. After he kissed me goodnight around 1 A.M., I went into my room and got ready for bed. After I closed the door, I set my alarm clock for 8 A.M. and turned on the television. At 2:00 A.M. my alarm clock suddenly went off. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, so I reset my alarm clock for 8 A.M. again. As soon as I got back under my covers, my television turned off. This is when I started to get a little freaked out. I grabbed my remote and turned it back on, but my alarm clock went off again. I got up and completely unplugged it from the wall. I was scared to death. I got in my bed, pulled the covers over my head, and kept telling whoever it was to leave me alone and let me sleep. The next day I told my husband about it, and he just said I was being childish.

A few days after this happened; my husband and I came home from a day with his family, and another occurrence happened. I lived in a double-wide trailer with a porch around it, and we use the door that goes straight into the living room most of the time. I grabbed my house key and unlocked the door. I turned the knob and it turned all the way, but the door would not move. The only way I can describe it is that it felt like a whole body was leaning against the door and would not let me in, but no one but my husband and me were on the property. I kept pushing and pushing, but the door would not budge. Finally, I thought that maybe it was someone after all. I started screaming at my brother to get off the door. It still would not move. Finally, I said, “Grandma, I have heels on and my feet hurt. Can I please get into the house so I can take them off?” After I said this, the door just swung open. We walked in the house and looked around. Absolutely no one was there. Could this have been my grandma nit-picking the way she used to in life?

Also, when I was a teenager, I used to stay with one of my friend’s all the time. I practically lived at her house. She lived in an old house that always gave me the chills when I was there. Once night, we were in her room listening to music when her mom told her to come there for a minute. When she went downstairs, she left her door open a little. Not too long after she left, the door swung open. Not like the wind caught it and it drifting open, but like when a parent is mad because you slammed the door and opens it back up, swung open. I was stunned. When she came back upstairs I told her what had happened and she just shrugged it off. About an hour later he mom hollered at her again. This time she shut the door. A few minutes after she left, the door knob turned and the door opened slightly. Thinking it was my friend and she had brought up drinks or something, I went to open the door for her, but when I opened it no one was there. I was starting to get a little frightened so I closed the door, but when I did something hit the door. It sounded like a whole body was slammed against it. Almost like it was trying to break the door down. I told my friend this when she came back upstairs and she told me that it had become a regular occurrence and it didn’t bother her anymore.

The Nightly Visitor

The Nightly Visitor
Ghostly Figure descending Stairs / Stock Photo

I was born in Huntington, West Virginia and grew up in an old wooden two-story house on Auburn road, located in the Westmoreland district. My family bought that house back in 1928. They had moved there from another house on Auburn road, one that was located less than a mile away from the other one. Even at a young age I thought that seemed odd. I remember that the family was always reluctant to even speak about the other house. They would not even look at the old house when we drove past it. And nobody would ever tell me what happened there or the particulars of what actually prompted the family to relocate. All they would say was that the old house was “haunted,” and that was all I really needed to know.

There were five of us living in our house in the early 1960s. My grandmother was the family matriarch. She shared the house with her three grown children, one of whom was my divorced mother. The other two were my Aunt, who had lost her husband in WWII, and my uncle, who was paralyzed with polio from childhood and had never married or moved away.

We were a very close family, and for the most part, not unlike other families living in the neighborhood. There were unspoken secrets in my family; secrets that they all took to their graves. And now, as the sole survivor of the family linage, I wonder if there was any connection between those secrets and the strange events that I have witnessed in that house over the years. I can’t help but believe that when my family left their old house, whatever they were attempting to get away from, had followed them. And to this day, whatever it was, it is still there.

My earliest recollection of strange experiences in our house begins when I was 13 years old. My Aunt was helping me clean my room, which was situated on the second floor at the top of an enclosed stair well. I had gone downstairs to get a broom and dust pan. Before I could return upstairs my Aunt came down. She appeared shaken and white as a sheet. At the time, she would not say what was wrong, except that she was finished with that room. “It was my room and I should be the one that cleaned it,” she informed me. It was not until many years later that I learned the full truth. She had been bending over to pick up some clutter. And when she looked up she saw a woman in white, with black hair, in the reflection of the mirror.

To be honest, in my entire childhood I never felt comfortable going up and down those stairs. On one occasion, about 11pm one night, I was preparing to go up the stairs. I always kept my eyes down when climbing those steps. It was very dim, because the only light in the stairwell was that coming from the upstairs bathroom. I was on the landing, about to start the climb, when I looked up and saw a thick white mist at the top of the stairs. I took off out of there as fast as I could. My Grandmother said it was a reflection or something that I did not see really anything. Regardless, I never slept in that upstairs room again. In fact, for most of my teenage years I did not sleep much at all. Most of the night I would just lay in bed listening to noises inside the walls.

In the late 60s I married and moved out of the old house, although from time to time we would visit and spend the night there. My two sons spent a great deal of time at that house, especially on weekends visiting with their grandmother. Even my sons had creepy experiences in the house. Although they kept this between themselves in their younger years, it seems that both of them were in agreement that a certain back room in the house was “spooky” and they stayed away from it. In fact, no matter how much the room was changed or rearranged over the years, nobody wanted to go there after dark. My husband even refused to sleep in that bedroom on numerous occasions, opting instead to sleep on a couch in the front room. He said he just did not like the “feel” of the room. That particular room was adjacent to the kitchen. And it seems that when anyone was in the kitchen, they insisted on keeping the connecting door shut. In later years, even as grown men, my sons have seen strange black shadows in the hallway near the bedroom door. My husband has seen them, as well.

In the mid 80s my husband took a job with the Voice of America and was recruited into the U.S. Foreign Service. Over the past 20 plus years we have mostly lived overseas in places like Central America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But we always try to come home for Christmas and spend the holidays at my old home.

On most occasions the sleeping arraignments on these return visits have been less than desirable, depending on who was still living in the house and how things had been rearranged. One year, the double bed that had normally been in the front guest bedroom had been replaced by a smaller single bed that could not accommodate two people. So, I gave my husband the guest room bed and I took the living room sofa.

That big green sofa had been a fixture in the house since my childhood and was very familiar and comfortable. I remember snuggling down under the cover of a warm comforter, ready for a good nights sleep. We had just flown into town and had spent most of that day running around visiting. After 20 hours of traveling on planes, and a full day of visiting the children and their families, I would have thought that sleep would come easy. But it didn’t. I found myself having a very difficult time getting to sleep. And then I heard it. I heard the distinct sound of footsteps descending the staircase on the other side of the wall behind the sofa. My first thought was that my Aunt could not sleep either, and that she was coming back down stairs. So I waited for her to open the door and come into the living room, but no one came in. The very next night I once again heard footsteps descending the staircase. And, once again, no one came into the living room.

On the third night when this happened again, I got up and decided to check it out. I opened the door, expecting to see my Aunt, but no one was there. I walked back and looked up those old familiar stairs. There were no lights on, so I climbed the stairs and found my Aunt sound asleep in her bed. I went back downstairs rather confused, and more than a bit unnerved.

The following night I once again I heard the same heavy footed person descending the steps one by one. I lay there and listened. Then, unlike the previous nights, I heard the creak of the door opening. I was scared, and laid there just waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. There was no sound of the door closing again, or of anyone walking. Just an eerie silence. When I finally summoned up enough courage to take my head out from under the comforter I looked around. There was nobody. Then I got up, and noticed immediately that the door was open.

I quickly shut the door and returned to the safety of my comfortable nest on the old sofa. I covered my head and wished for sleep.

In the nights that followed, every single night, the same pattern of behavior repeated; the heavy footsteps, the creaking door, and then the deafening sound of total silence. And each night I was becoming more and more unnerved by these nightly visits. Now every night I found myself laying awake in the dark, waiting for the now familiar foot falls as my invisible visitor approached and opened the living room door opening. And it was not until this nightly one-act play concluded that I could finally relax and go to sleep. I will never forget the last night of this performance, because on that night, to my horror and astonishment, there was an Act 2.

As on the many previous nights, I lay on the couch waiting for things to begin. Soon I heard the all too familiar sounds of the heavy footsteps descending the wooden stairs. Then, as I listened for the door to creak open, I was suddenly aware that something was different this night. As I huddled under the covers I sensed a strange presence standing over me. Then I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder. My heart was pounding. I’m not sure that I was even breathing, and I was too scared to pull down the covers and look. I laid there terrified for what seemed like an eternity. And then, my fear turned to anger. And, without moving, I summoned up my determination and said, “Go away and leave me alone!” And the weight of the hand suddenly vanished. What or whoever it was was gone. The next thing I remember, it was the next morning.

I told my husband about it, and he said that I should have asked it what it wanted. I told him I really wasn’t interested in what it wanted, but I would consider doing so, it if it came back. I would like to say that was the end of things, but it wasn’t. That night, and every night for the rest of our visit, it came down the stairs again. But it no longer opened the door and no hand reached out. It was keeping its distance.

In later years there were some other strange things that have happened in that old house. Some may write it off as an over-active imagination, but I do not. There were two occasions when I was the only one in the house. I heard my mother call me, then the second time I heard my Aunt calling my name. Both of them were long deceased when this happened, and it happened in the middle of the day.

A few years ago my Aunt passed away. She was the last surviving sibling of my grandmother’s family. In her last days she opened up to me and told me more detailed accounts of her experiences. She told me about three ghosts she had seen upstairs. The lady in white (when I was a kid), a man dressed in 40’s clothing with a black mustache, and a little girl that wore a green plaid skirt that she saw sitting on her bed. But neither of us could link these apparitions with the footsteps in the stairwell. And the footsteps were not always confined to the staircase.

One Christmas, when my three year-old granddaughter was spending the night with me, there was another incident. Every one else in the house was asleep. We were in the bed in the front guest room and my husband was asleep in the living room on the old sofa. We heard the front door open and someone very heavy footed walk through the room. I thought I was the only one that heard it, but then my granddaughter rolled over and said, “Tell Grandpa to quit being so noisy.” Well, I bolted up out of the bed and opened the door. Grandpa was sound asleep. That was the last night my granddaughter ever stayed all night.

I always told myself that, when my family passed away and I inherited that old house, that I would sell it and never look back. But when my Aunt passed away, I found I could just not bring myself to sell the house. I was raised in that house, and my sons practically grew up in. So, with the full agreement of my sons and husband we decided to keep it and embarked on a 10-year plan to completely remodel the house. And since my husband still works overseas, we continue to come back every Christmas while our sons work on the renovations. The sleeping arrangements are still somewhat difficult, because we are now sleeping in an ongoing construction zone, but a sense of peace now rests on the house that has never been there before. Or so we thought.

The first few years into the work there were no other strange occurrences. Naturally, we felt that, with all the remodeling work and tearing out things, that whoever was there had finally left. The creepy back bedroom room wall was removed and combined with another room to make a large dining room. The downstairs floor plan has been completely changed and a new staircase to upstairs has been built in the front living room. And, with the exception of my sons reporting the strong smell of my late Aunts perfume wafting through the air, from time to time, things have been very quiet, until recently.

After the new staircase was built towards the front of the house, the old stairwell was slated to be removed and the space turned into a storage closet. And with the start of that work it seems that the apparitions may have returned. Very recently my 40+ age oldest son told me that he is beginning to sense “something” upstairs. A friend, who has been helping him, recently was startled when he saw a dark shadow move across the old hallway.

So, I guess that whatever was there is still there; it has only been dormant. And it was not until work began to close off the old stairwell that they decided to make their presence known.

To my knowledge, nothing ever happened to anyone who had lived in this house before my family bought it in 1928. It was built in 1922 and was relatively new when my family bought it. The family that sold the house to my family just moved on. There is nothing known about them.

So what is the presence that remains in the house? And why does it seem to be inextricably tied to that old staircase. Perhaps the next time I feel that hand, I will ask.

Horrific Screams!

Horrific Screams!
Tea Creek Campground / traveling219.com

In early spring of 2008 Beau and I decided to buy new camping gear. We were so happy to put winter behind us and looked forward to enjoying Mother Nature once again.

Beau was anxious to camp, yet the nights were still very chilly, and I remained a quite hesitant. But after all of his pleas I finally gave in.

So we set out for Tea Creek Campground for the holiday weekend. Many other eager campers had arrived early and grabbed the good spots, so we made our spot towards the back of the camp, close to the bathrooms, which I liked a lot.

This was our first time to Tea Creek; we fished, hiked and settled in for dinner by the fire. Thankfully our good neighbors donated their extra firewood to our cause as we were not totally ready.

After the sun went down it began to get so cold that we decided to turn in early. We snuggled with one another and with Lucy, our dog. For a while we lay all shivering together. I was just about ready to pack it up and head home when I realized they had fallen sound asleep. How could they? It’s freezing!

Now it was just me who lay wide awake, alone trying to lull myself to sleep with the normal crick-n-crack of the forest. In the distance I could hear other campers but after a few hours they retired and everything became silent.

It must have been sometime after 1:00 am when I heard the horrific screams coming down the road. It was the wildest screaming screech, each followed by a deep lapsing grunt. It also sounded like it was beating its hooves on the ground. It was a deep beating sound, hard one to explain.

I mean to tell you these were sounds straight out of a horror flick! I’ve never heard anything of the sort, ever! And it was heading in our direction. Screaming, screaming, screaming at such a frightening pitch, so loud that I couldn’t believe Lucy didn’t wake up and begin to bark.

The thing grew so close that I thought of unzipping the tent to take a look. But I just laid there with my imagination running amuck. No gun! Scared! When it got down to our site it took a turn into the woods and screamed its way up the hill until it was gone. Needless to say, I did not get to sleep that night, at least not until the sun began to rise.

The following morning I told beau what I had heard and he didn’t know what to think. I thought I might go around and ask our neighbors but many had already packed up and left. I did manage to look for tracks but I’m no tracker.

When I got home I questioned several hunters, researched screaming animals, listened to many bird calls (especially screech owls!) and found absolutely nothing until stumbling across this website. To this day the screaming thing still puzzles me, but at least now I know that I am not alone.

West Virginia…wild and freaky!

Forgotten Souls Of GC&P

Forgotten Souls Of GC&P
Troy Corporation on GC&P Road / Google Maps

I spent a few years working in a home for those with MR/DD. People familiar with Wheeling will know the house. It’s on GC&P Road just past the Troy Corporation on the left side of the road.

The site the house was built on used to house an old farm. At some point in time a plague wiped out much of the farm’s family. The family was buried on the property, just yards from what is now GC&P road. There are several grave markers remaining on the property with a handful of them set in a circle. The circle contains the graves of children. Just slightly up the hill from the circle of graves sits a few that have sunken into the ground leaving rectangular holes in the earth. One grave marker is just 2 feet from where the new home built its shed. The new home does not have a basement and it’s rumored to be because instead of paying to move the graves, they simply moved the headstones and built the house on top of the graves.

If you talk to any of the home’s workers they each will have at least one story to tell. I, in the 2 years I worked in the home, had many experiences.

My first experience happened on my very first midnight shift in the home. I was in the office and heard a soft humming coming from the back hallway. Now let me remind you that none of the homes residents are able to get out of bed or walk by themselves. As I crept to the hallway I saw a lady floating at the end of the hallway. She looked at me, smiled and disappeared into thin air. I learned that she was a regular sight around the house. She was a “good” ghost who seemed to keep watch over the residents.

In time she showed up less and less. Eventually the house seemed to develop a negative energy. In one room we had a resident turn for the worse very suddenly and eventually die. That resident kept telling us to get the “dark man” out of his room and that “the dark man wants his room back”. The next resident we put into that room quickly developed an infection that no doctor could pinpoint. He spent several weeks in the ICU and eventually lost his spot in the home. He did however recover. The resident after him had a stroke.

One evening in another bedroom in the house another worker and I heard a growling coming from the closet. Assuming that the cat had gotten shut in there, we opened the door to let him out. There was no cat in there. Upon opening the door we were greeted with a very large gust of cold air and a low growl. I don’t think I have ever run so fast.

One morning an aide was feeding a resident a snack in his room. I heard a scream and she came running out crying and shaking. Something had yanked her ponytail. She was so upset she had to be sent home.

The few residents in the home that could talk also complained about a “man in a striped shirt” who hid in the closets. One even refused to sleep in her room.

One of the nurses was in the above mentioned bedroom where the ponytail incident took place. She noticed something in the window. She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. In the picture you can see a man looking in the window. It was obviously not a real person as he was transparent. The same man would be seen walking past many of the windows of the house and was even seen peeking in the entry way. The entry way is a set of 2 doors with a small entry room in between them. There is no way it could have been a real person because they are handicapped doors and when they open you can hear them from almost anywhere in the house and when the outside door opens, so does in the inside door.

Little things occurred regularly, such as doors opening and closing, lights turning on and off, random items being moved and found in different locations. Those things happened so often that we actually didn’t even pay attention to them.

It’s unfortunate that it is a medical home because it should really be investigated by a professional. That will never get to happen because of patient confidentiality. I do pray for those souls that have been disturbed and hope that someday soon the lady who wandered the halls returns to protect the residents.

Haunted Motel

Haunted Motel
Washington Motel / Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State

I grew up in Ravenswood, WV. My parents were the proprietors of the local Washington Motel. As a result, I practically grew up there, as did my older sister and brother. There were large living quarters in the main office, which included two bedrooms, a second kitchen, and a bathroom on the second floor. As kids we often slept and played up there. Looking back now, we can all recall many times when doors would suddenly slam or creepy sensations would overcome us. Even mom told of ghostly music that seemed to emanate from the walls at night, but we never thought much about any of it until we all got older and began to experience what I am about to tell you.

In 1988, when my sister got married, the upper portion of the office was completely renovated and turned into a private apartment for her and her new husband. Although they were then able to access it via a private entry out front, it was also still accessible by way of the 14 stairs inside the office. Often when I or my mother and father needed to speak with my sister or brother-in-law, we would simply stand at the foot of those stairs and call for them until they came and opened the door at the top to answer.

By this time in the late 80’s, business had become quite slow at the motel, so we didn’t stay open 24/7 as we had years earlier, when local plant business was booming and the town was thriving. By now it was nothing out of the ordinary for mom and dad to close up early in the evening and retreat to our family home across town.

This is precisely what they had done one evening that same year, when Julie and Tom were enjoying a quiet night in the apartment watching TV. Julie was on the phone when she heard Mom calling for her from the bottom of the stairs, just like always. “Julie! Julie!” she called. “Julz” said Tom. “Get off the phone. Your mom is calling for you.” At this point Julie ended her conversation and headed for the door to see what mom wanted. She opened the door and was shocked to see no one there. All she saw, in fact, was darkness, and upon further investigation it was obvious that the office had been closed for the night. She and Tom were both confused, as each of them had heard my mother’s voice calling out to her as clear as day. Julie immediately picked up the phone and called our house, only to find out we had locked up the office and left several hours earlier.

Strange indeed as were other things that frequently went on inside the newlywed’s nest. For example, when their brand new heating and cooling system failed and the cause was found to be a blue blanket stuffed inside. Who had placed it there, no one knows. And occasionally a doorknob would rattle, a door slam shut, or an object flies off a wall. Many nights, when Tom worked the night shift as a police officer, I would spend the night there with Julie. We were awake most of the night talking and laughing, often hearing the same eerie music mom had spoken of so many times before. It was creepy, but never particularly scary. As time went on they pretty well learned to just live with their mischievous house guest, as did we all. In fact, we all affectionately began referring to it as “George” since it was, after all, the Washington Motel. It didn’t seem to mind, and any time it’s antics got a little out of hand, all we had to do was say, “that’s enough, George” and things would settle down.

Fast forward 8 years to 1996. By this time Tom and Julie had moved out, as had several other renters. I was dating a young man named Garren at the time, and we had just returned from a concert late one night when he had the pleasure of being introduced to our resident ghost. At the time the apartment was vacant, and on this particular night mom and dad had closed up hours prior to our return. Garren went to use the restroom which is located at the foot of the inner staircase. Upon his return he asked me if the apartment had recently been rented again. He was surprised when I said no, and went on to say that he was certain he had heard someone walking around up there while he was in the bathroom. Perhaps, he said, he should go up there and have a look around. I told him not to bother, that it was probably just George. Naturally he asked me “who is George?” When I told him George was our resident spook, he replied with several choice curse words and told me I was crazy.

It was at precisely that moment when George decided to make his presence known. I will never, ever forget the look on poor Garren’s face as we BOTH stood there and listened to the footsteps that slowly descended the stairs. I counted them, fourteen exactly. Garren’s eyes were as wide as saucers, but I thought they would pop out of his head completely when the footsteps continued onto the linoleum floor inside the downstairs kitchen. He immediately ran in there and flipped on the lights, sure he would find an intruder. He didn’t, of course, and from that point on he stopped doubting any of my stories about George or any other weird stories, for that matter.

George’s antics continued on, even after Garren and I got married and moved into the apartment ourselves. There we were, lazing in bed early one Sunday morning, when a familiar voice called up the stairs once again. “Linda! Garren!” mom called. Garren and I both looked at each other in puzzlement, wondering what in the world mom would be doing in the office this early on a Sunday morning, when any other week she would be relaxing at the house with a cup of coffee before going to church. I dragged myself out of bed to go to the door and see what she needed.

Guess what?

There was nothing, nobody, just silence and a closed office. I just snickered and shook my head, knowing that George was once again up to his old tricks.

Tricks continued on for as long as we lived in the apartment. After we moved out, dad rented the apartment several different times, but if anything was going on we never heard anything about it. When dad passed away in 2000, keeping the business became too much of a burden on my mother, and our family business was sold in 2005. These days it operates not as a motel, but as more of an apartment complex. We all drive by it on a regular basis, and it saddens us to see the disrepair into which it has fallen. The apartment remains occupied almost constantly, but we have no contact with the new owners and are not aware of whether or not strange occurrences continue there.

We all, however, have our own memories, and we know what we experienced. George was a very playful and benevolent presence in that apartment, and as long as we respected his presence and his space, he never scared us or posed what we felt to be a threat to anyone. I have always been curious as to the history of the building and the property, but somehow it seemed like a violation of that trust to poke into it too far. As it is, we have all just done with George what we did with every other motel guest, welcomed him and given him a warm place to stay.

Ghostly Face

Ghostly Face
Oak Hill, WV / Wikimedia Commons

My wife and I, along with our two children moved into an apartment located on Main Street, Oak Hill. Shortly after moving into the residence my oldest daughter, who was 3 years old at the time started acting a little out of her ordinary.

One night while I was watching TV, I heard her in her bedroom talking to someone so I decided to see what was going on. When I walked in her room she was sitting on the floor playing with some of her toys, I asked her who she was talking to, she said her friend. This occurred several times over the next couple of months, but happening more often each time. One night my wife and I were in the living-room when suddenly my daughter came running to us saying that there was a mean man in her room. She also said that the mommy was in there also, upon checking her room out I found nothing out of the ordinary.

As these occurrences continued my wife had come to the conclusion that our daughter had seen ghosts, and then she told me that she had been seeing things also. I worked in a correctional facility on night shift when I received a phone call from my wife, upon answering the phone I knew there was something wrong, because she was crying and I could hear the terror in her voice. I asked what had happened, and she said that I needed to come home right away. When I asked why, she said that she had awoke around 2 am to go to the bathroom. She turned to switch the light on, right in front of her face to face was what appeared to be a woman with a terrified look of agony.

I made it home about 3:15 that morning to find my wife setting in the living-room still shaking and crying. We went to bed about 20 minutes later, but without much sleep. We continued to live there for about 2 years, until moving into our new house.

After leaving the apartment my daughter has not mentioned the mean man or the mommy figure as she put it any more.

UFO In Flatwoods

UFO In Flatwoods
UFO / Stock Photo

I was headed up north to visit family when I found myself driving on Rt. 79 N and I was just passing the strip mall when something caught my eye. It was a circular shaped object with 3 bright lights and was hovering over a little knoll at Flatwoods. It didn`t stay long, it roamed off to the north as quickly as I had seen it.

The Dickson Bridge

The Dickson Bridge
UFO / Stock Photo

In July or August of 2006 I was on the phone talking to my best friend Travis… I was wanting my buddy to come over to my house so we could go camping but I had forgot that he had to help his father the next day bail hay at one of his farms, so he asked me if I wanted to come and spend the night at his house. I said yes, so I packed my bags and made sure my mom didn’t care if I took her car since I had totaled my truck a few months earlier. My mom said that she didn’t care but she needed the car in the morning to take my brother to his baseball practice, so she would take me and drop me off. It was foggy outside because it had just rained and since I lived close to Twelvepole Creek the fog was more thick, plus it was summer so the warmth made it more foggy than usual. Me and my mom got in the car and headed down Moore Road which is also called Old U.S. 52. I rolled down the windows because it was a beautiful night and the sky was clear even though it was foggy.

As we headed towards the big curve in the road right before we got to the bridge I noticed a deer on the hillside which caught my attention because our road was always bad for deer jumping out in front of cars so I told mom to watch it when she rounded the curve. As I was watching the deer and mom started around the curve I noticed out of the corner of my eye a very bright light which appeared to be very bright and a dull green in appearance, but was just out of my sight because of the hill in the curve. The light was not in the sky but maybe twenty feet over the bridge and not directly over the bridge but maybe thirty feet to the left of it. As we rounded the corner, there were six lights all together, three each in a triangle. When we rounded the curve, and our headlights pointed towards the object, the lights suddenly shut off, as if someone had hit a light switch. My mom quickly slowed the car down and asked me if I had seen what she had just seen. I said yes and she stopped the car and rolled her window down and we both looked for maybe ten minutes but we couldn’t see anything, so we continued to my friend’s house. When I got to my friends house I told him about what I had seen and my mother told him what she had seen. My mother is a very religious woman, and would never lie, and isn’t superstitious either. I believe in ghosts and believe maybe there are things we can’t explain that happen.

My friend was and is a believer in the paranormal and talked with me for hours about what we had seen, and we spent the night looking on the internet at videos of other people who had videotaped green lights similar to the ones I had seen.

Finally we went to sleep and woke up in the morning to the smell of his mother’s cooking.

We ate breakfast and watched television for a few hours when the phone rang and we saw it was my father. My friend’s mom handed me the phone. My dad told me that if I go anywhere I didn’t need to take the road where the bridge was, because last night the bridge had collapsed around four in the morning.

I hang the phone up not putting that two together until hours later, but eventually it crossed my mind that maybe the lights I had seen the night before and the bridge collapsing had something to do with each other.

To this day they can’t determine how the bridge collapsed. First they thought that maybe the truck had caused the bridge to fall due to an antenna catching on the bridges steel frame, but the bridge was too strong to fall because of that, and the truck was well under the weight limit of the bridge. It is still uncertain why the bridge fell, and I can’t explain what the lights were, because the lights weren’t directly over the bridge but over the water and its impossible that someone had got that high over the bridge or extended their selves from the bridge. I can’t explain it. But to this day, i believe it was maybe a warning to my family, which used the bridge daily.

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