Haunted in My Own House

To be totally forthcoming from the very start let me say that this is a true story. It is not so much a story as it is the re-telling of events. And the best part is that I was not alone but with another person who was side-by-side with me, saw the exact same events, and will corroborate the details precisely as I describe them.

It occurred on a summer’s evening in the early 1970s in the house where I grew up with my family in suburban Philadelphia. The house was a duplex built in the 1920s and located on a tree-lined street in a quiet neighborhood. My close friend, Rich, who was with me at the time, is my same age and we were enjoying a late-night snack in the kitchen. Rich and I had grown up together in the neighborhood but had gone off to different colleges and we were catching up during our summer vacations.

It was about 11 o’clock at night and my parents had already gone off to bed. No others were in the house. A summer storm was beginning to develop, and thunder was rumbling. Rich and I decided to move from the kitchen table, turn off the lights in the room, and stand by the windows over the kitchen sink that looked out on our back yard to observe the storm as lightning was starting to occur.

At this juncture I need to digress for a moment and give a description of the house’s layout so that the reader can picture the precise scene of the location. The first floor of the house consists only of three rooms: a living room, a dinning room, and a kitchen, laid out in a straight sequence one after the other, with each room separated by an arch opening. You can walk in the front door of the house and walk in a straight line through each room directly to the back door of house. At the time of this story’s events, the only light that was on in the first floor was from a single table lamp situated in the living room. The dinning room was totally dark as was the kitchen.

Rich and I watched as the storm began to intensify with rain and bolts of lightning streaking in the sky. It was an exciting and somewhat scary scene as nature put on a dramatic show. Then something totally incredulous occurred. As the two of us were standing there in silence watching the storm unfold, the window in front of us flashed the reflection of a man’s silhouette standing in the archway behind us. And at that simultaneous instant the unmistakable creak of a floorboard was heard by the both of us. Unmistakable because for years whenever someone walked through that archway between dinning room and kitchen that floorboard would creak with that identical sound.

The two of us spun around in unison at the sound without saying a word. I looked at Rich and he looked at me in stunned silence. Excitedly I said, “Tell me what you saw!” Without pause Rich replied, “I saw a man’s reflection in the window.” “And you heard that floorboard creak, right?”, I said. “You bet I did,” Rich replied, continuing, “What the hell was that?” I asked Rich again what he saw. He said he saw reflected in the window in front of us the distinct dark silhouette of a man bordered by the archway, backlit by the illumination from the table lamp a room beyond.

Fright overcame the two of us, but the incident was over. Still we were literally shaking. Together we nervously surveyed the first floor, holding our breath as we opened a coat closet in the living room only to find our aged vacuum cleaner and a jumble of hanging coats and sweaters. We talked for another half hour convincing ourselves that we both saw and heard the exact same thing, trying to understand the incomprehensible. Finally we decided it was time to get to bed. Rich who lived about two blocks away told me the next day that he believed he covered the distance home in about three steps. I knew what he meant.

Afterward I spent some more time thinking about the bizarre experience trying to find any practical or pragmatic explanations. My parents had purchased the house in 1950 so there had been previous owners. I inquired if it was possible that a previous owner or occupant had died inside the property, but there wasn’t enough data available to determine that. I did some research regarding ghostly phenomenon and discovered two pertinent findings. In instances where ghosts were supposedly observed it was not unusual to also find the presence of a highly charged electrical manifestation (such as lightning). And secondly, many ghost-hunters will tell you that you can only truly observe a ghost if it is seen through a reverse image (such as a mirror or a reflection).

In all the years since that astonishing summer night I have never seen anything else that I would call paranormal. But I will carry to my grave the knowledge that my friend and I indeed had a first-hand encounter a with a ghostly spirit.