Jim's First Paranormal Experience
I've often been asked how I became interested in the paranormal, and what my first exposure to paranormal activity was. The answer to that question dates back to my early teenage years, although I honestly can't recall how old I was at the time.
To set the scene, it's necessary to go into a bit of history and some detail about the layout of the house that I lived in at the time. Shortly after I was born my parents arranged to buy two houses that my maternal grandparents owned. The houses were side by side, and initially we lived in the smaller of the two and rented out the larger one. At some point the tenants in larger house moved out, and my parents decided to move into it and rent out the smaller one. Fast forward to my teens…
Our house was similar in appearance to many two-story single family homes of that era. In some ways it reminds me of Archie Bunker's house from the sitcom "All in the Family". It had a front porch, and the front door opened directly into the living room, which spanned the entire width of the house. On the left there was a stairway that led upstairs.
The remaining two downstairs rooms were the kitchen and the dining room, which were at the rear of the house. The dining room was on the right, opened directly into the living room, and had a door that led to the kitchen. You could also get to the kitchen from the living room, but to do so you passed through a small alcove. The refrigerator was on the right, and on the left was a door that led to both the basement and the side door. When it was opened it blocked access to the kitchen. If you went through that door, you went down three steps to a landing. Straight ahead was the side door, and to the left was the basement stairway.
My bedroom, which I shared with my brother was upstairs and faced the front of the house. Since it faced a city street it was never completely dark, even at night with the lights off. We slept in bunk beds, and on the opposite wall was a door that led to the attic stairway. This was a full doorway and a set of permanent stairs; not the pull-down stairs that are common today.
The attic was neither heated nor insulated, so it was extremely cold in winter and extremely hot in summer. Probably because of the differences in temperature and humidity between the attic stairs and the rest of the house, the attic door always stuck. It must have been slightly bowed, because it usually took two hands to turn the doorknob. When you turned it hard enough the latch would make a loud metallic click when it broke free of the strike. Then you had to bump the door with your shoulder to get it to open, and when it opened, it made a distinctive thump followed by a vibrating sound. Once the door was free of the casing the knob turned easily, and you could hear the springs in the locking mechanism stretch when you turned it. Closing the door was just as difficult because you had to slam it shut to get it to close far enough for the latch to engage.
One night my brother was staying overnight at a friend's house, and I was lying awake in bed when I became aware of a very faint sound. It took me a minute to realize that it was the sound of the springs in the attic door stretching. That made absolutely no sense because two things were necessary for that to happen. The door had to be open, which it wasn't, and somebody had to physically turn the knob.
I looked at the door, and slowly, ever so slowly, the knob was actually turning! I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The knob kept turning, apparently offering no resistance, and the sound of the stretching springs continued. I was mesmerized as I watched, but the most startling part was yet to come. The loud metallic click that always occurred when the latch broke free never happened, nor did the sound of the door snapping away from its frame, but to my amazement the door was beginning to open! At that point I just reacted. I jumped from bed, ran the few steps to the attic door and slammed it shut! I stepped back, waiting to see what would happen next. I soon found out.
The sound of the slamming door woke my parents, who wanted to know what was going on. When I told them, they obviously didn't believe me. My father was an early riser because he had to be at work before 7:00 AM, so he just went back to sleep. My mother, ever the kind and caring person, took the time to stay and assure me that it must have been just a dream. She surmised that the door had been ajar, that I had probably subconsciously noticed it, dreamed the rest, and then woke up and saw that the door was open.
I was positive that I had been awake the whole time, but her theory did seem to make sense, so I grudgingly accepted it. Still, the next night as I lay in bed I kept watching the attic door until I fell asleep. Nothing happened, and in the morning the attic door was still closed. I couldn't resist testing it again, and it opened the way it always did; with a loud metallic click, a thump when it broke free, and the familiar vibrating sound that followed. I told my brother what had happened, but he seemed to just shrug it off.
A few nights later I was lying in bed and my brother was asleep in the upper bunk. Suddenly I heard the sound of the springs again, and sure enough, the doorknob was turning. I called to my brother, but he must have been dead tired because he didn't respond, even when I pushed up on the bottom of his mattress. Not wanting to risk waking my father again, I jumped out of bed and grabbed the doorknob. It immediately stopped turning, but somehow it had a different feel, and it seemed to turn more freely than it usually did.
About that time my brother became awake enough to realize what was going on around him, and asked me what I was doing. I told him that the knob had been turning again, and that I was holding on to it to keep the door from opening. He suggested that I let go so that we could see what would happen next. Probably because somebody else was there I agreed, and let go. Nothing happened. We stayed awake for a while, but still nothing. He finally told me that he agreed with Mom; I must be having dreams about the attic door. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep. The following morning I tested the door again, and it was as difficult to open as it always was. At that point I was beginning to question my own sanity.
For the next several nights I tried not to think about the door, but as we all know, the harder we try not to think of something, the more we end up thinking about it. I'm not sure how much time passed, but I do remember that it was a weekend. There was no school the following day, and by brother and I were lying in our bunks quietly having a conversation about something or other. Suddenly I thought that I heard the sound of the door springs. I told my brother to be quiet and listen, and I was thrilled when he said that he heard it too.
Together we watched the knob slowly turn. I can't recall the whispered conversation that took place, but perhaps because we're always braver when we're not alone, we agreed to let whatever was going to happen, happen. For what seemed like forever the knob continued to turn, without ever making that loud click that we had become so accustomed to over the years. Then it began to slowly open, and like before, there was no thump and no vibrating sound.
We were totally transfixed; staring silently into the darkness on the other side of the door, waiting to see what was going to come through it. Nothing did - or at least nothing that we could see. The door opened most of the way and then stopped. Still nothing appeared. Suddenly our attention shifted. The door from our room to the hallway was opening by itself! It opened wide enough for a person to pass through and then stopped. My brother and I looked at each other in disbelief, with absolutely no explanation for what we'd just seen, or perhaps more correctly, not seen. We decided to go look in the hallway, and just as we did our mother came out of her bedroom.
We both blurted out something about what had just happened. She didn't know quite what to say because this time there were two of us telling the same story. On top of that, the attic door was still open. At that moment we all heard a sound from downstairs, and we all went down to investigate.
When we reached the lower level we saw that the door to the basement was standing wide open. Usually we locked it before going to bed at night, but even when we forgot to lock it the door had never been left standing open. Since it blocked access to the kitchen when it was open, it wasn't something that you could accidentally overlook.
As we went to the door we looked down to the landing just in time to see the door to the outside finish opening. This door was never left unlocked at night, but even if it had been, there was no way that it could have opened by itself, which all three of us had just witnessed. That made a total of four doors, leading from the attic to the outside, that had opened in succession.
My mother went down to the side door, looked outside to the left and right, closed the door and locked it. We asked her if she saw anything outside, and she said that she didn't. Without another word she went upstairs and went back to bed. My brother and I went back to bed a while later.
I couldn't get the incident out of my mind, and eventually I asked my mother what she thought about it. Mom was a devout Catholic and believed all the Catholic doctrine to the letter, so her answer totally surprised me. She told me that Paul, the man whose family had originally rented the house, was found dead in the attic one day, apparently from a massive heart attack. That was the reason that the rest of the family had moved elsewhere. She said that in all the years that Paul had rented from them, neither of my parents had never seen him use the front door, except to go out to sit on the front porch. Whenever he came and went it was always by the side door.
My mother went on to say that every time that she'd gone up to the attic she'd thought about Paul. Sometimes she had even thought that she felt his presence, but had decided that it was just her imagination. She told me that she now believed that for some reason Paul's spirit had remained in the attic for all those years and that when he decided that it was time to leave, he left the way he always did; by the side door.
My parents lived in that same house for the rest of their lives, which was more than twenty-five years, and in all that time no door ever opened by itself again.
To set the scene, it's necessary to go into a bit of history and some detail about the layout of the house that I lived in at the time. Shortly after I was born my parents arranged to buy two houses that my maternal grandparents owned. The houses were side by side, and initially we lived in the smaller of the two and rented out the larger one. At some point the tenants in larger house moved out, and my parents decided to move into it and rent out the smaller one. Fast forward to my teens…
Our house was similar in appearance to many two-story single family homes of that era. In some ways it reminds me of Archie Bunker's house from the sitcom "All in the Family". It had a front porch, and the front door opened directly into the living room, which spanned the entire width of the house. On the left there was a stairway that led upstairs.
The remaining two downstairs rooms were the kitchen and the dining room, which were at the rear of the house. The dining room was on the right, opened directly into the living room, and had a door that led to the kitchen. You could also get to the kitchen from the living room, but to do so you passed through a small alcove. The refrigerator was on the right, and on the left was a door that led to both the basement and the side door. When it was opened it blocked access to the kitchen. If you went through that door, you went down three steps to a landing. Straight ahead was the side door, and to the left was the basement stairway.
My bedroom, which I shared with my brother was upstairs and faced the front of the house. Since it faced a city street it was never completely dark, even at night with the lights off. We slept in bunk beds, and on the opposite wall was a door that led to the attic stairway. This was a full doorway and a set of permanent stairs; not the pull-down stairs that are common today.
The attic was neither heated nor insulated, so it was extremely cold in winter and extremely hot in summer. Probably because of the differences in temperature and humidity between the attic stairs and the rest of the house, the attic door always stuck. It must have been slightly bowed, because it usually took two hands to turn the doorknob. When you turned it hard enough the latch would make a loud metallic click when it broke free of the strike. Then you had to bump the door with your shoulder to get it to open, and when it opened, it made a distinctive thump followed by a vibrating sound. Once the door was free of the casing the knob turned easily, and you could hear the springs in the locking mechanism stretch when you turned it. Closing the door was just as difficult because you had to slam it shut to get it to close far enough for the latch to engage.
One night my brother was staying overnight at a friend's house, and I was lying awake in bed when I became aware of a very faint sound. It took me a minute to realize that it was the sound of the springs in the attic door stretching. That made absolutely no sense because two things were necessary for that to happen. The door had to be open, which it wasn't, and somebody had to physically turn the knob.
I looked at the door, and slowly, ever so slowly, the knob was actually turning! I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The knob kept turning, apparently offering no resistance, and the sound of the stretching springs continued. I was mesmerized as I watched, but the most startling part was yet to come. The loud metallic click that always occurred when the latch broke free never happened, nor did the sound of the door snapping away from its frame, but to my amazement the door was beginning to open! At that point I just reacted. I jumped from bed, ran the few steps to the attic door and slammed it shut! I stepped back, waiting to see what would happen next. I soon found out.
The sound of the slamming door woke my parents, who wanted to know what was going on. When I told them, they obviously didn't believe me. My father was an early riser because he had to be at work before 7:00 AM, so he just went back to sleep. My mother, ever the kind and caring person, took the time to stay and assure me that it must have been just a dream. She surmised that the door had been ajar, that I had probably subconsciously noticed it, dreamed the rest, and then woke up and saw that the door was open.
I was positive that I had been awake the whole time, but her theory did seem to make sense, so I grudgingly accepted it. Still, the next night as I lay in bed I kept watching the attic door until I fell asleep. Nothing happened, and in the morning the attic door was still closed. I couldn't resist testing it again, and it opened the way it always did; with a loud metallic click, a thump when it broke free, and the familiar vibrating sound that followed. I told my brother what had happened, but he seemed to just shrug it off.
A few nights later I was lying in bed and my brother was asleep in the upper bunk. Suddenly I heard the sound of the springs again, and sure enough, the doorknob was turning. I called to my brother, but he must have been dead tired because he didn't respond, even when I pushed up on the bottom of his mattress. Not wanting to risk waking my father again, I jumped out of bed and grabbed the doorknob. It immediately stopped turning, but somehow it had a different feel, and it seemed to turn more freely than it usually did.
About that time my brother became awake enough to realize what was going on around him, and asked me what I was doing. I told him that the knob had been turning again, and that I was holding on to it to keep the door from opening. He suggested that I let go so that we could see what would happen next. Probably because somebody else was there I agreed, and let go. Nothing happened. We stayed awake for a while, but still nothing. He finally told me that he agreed with Mom; I must be having dreams about the attic door. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep. The following morning I tested the door again, and it was as difficult to open as it always was. At that point I was beginning to question my own sanity.
For the next several nights I tried not to think about the door, but as we all know, the harder we try not to think of something, the more we end up thinking about it. I'm not sure how much time passed, but I do remember that it was a weekend. There was no school the following day, and by brother and I were lying in our bunks quietly having a conversation about something or other. Suddenly I thought that I heard the sound of the door springs. I told my brother to be quiet and listen, and I was thrilled when he said that he heard it too.
Together we watched the knob slowly turn. I can't recall the whispered conversation that took place, but perhaps because we're always braver when we're not alone, we agreed to let whatever was going to happen, happen. For what seemed like forever the knob continued to turn, without ever making that loud click that we had become so accustomed to over the years. Then it began to slowly open, and like before, there was no thump and no vibrating sound.
We were totally transfixed; staring silently into the darkness on the other side of the door, waiting to see what was going to come through it. Nothing did - or at least nothing that we could see. The door opened most of the way and then stopped. Still nothing appeared. Suddenly our attention shifted. The door from our room to the hallway was opening by itself! It opened wide enough for a person to pass through and then stopped. My brother and I looked at each other in disbelief, with absolutely no explanation for what we'd just seen, or perhaps more correctly, not seen. We decided to go look in the hallway, and just as we did our mother came out of her bedroom.
We both blurted out something about what had just happened. She didn't know quite what to say because this time there were two of us telling the same story. On top of that, the attic door was still open. At that moment we all heard a sound from downstairs, and we all went down to investigate.
When we reached the lower level we saw that the door to the basement was standing wide open. Usually we locked it before going to bed at night, but even when we forgot to lock it the door had never been left standing open. Since it blocked access to the kitchen when it was open, it wasn't something that you could accidentally overlook.
As we went to the door we looked down to the landing just in time to see the door to the outside finish opening. This door was never left unlocked at night, but even if it had been, there was no way that it could have opened by itself, which all three of us had just witnessed. That made a total of four doors, leading from the attic to the outside, that had opened in succession.
My mother went down to the side door, looked outside to the left and right, closed the door and locked it. We asked her if she saw anything outside, and she said that she didn't. Without another word she went upstairs and went back to bed. My brother and I went back to bed a while later.
I couldn't get the incident out of my mind, and eventually I asked my mother what she thought about it. Mom was a devout Catholic and believed all the Catholic doctrine to the letter, so her answer totally surprised me. She told me that Paul, the man whose family had originally rented the house, was found dead in the attic one day, apparently from a massive heart attack. That was the reason that the rest of the family had moved elsewhere. She said that in all the years that Paul had rented from them, neither of my parents had never seen him use the front door, except to go out to sit on the front porch. Whenever he came and went it was always by the side door.
My mother went on to say that every time that she'd gone up to the attic she'd thought about Paul. Sometimes she had even thought that she felt his presence, but had decided that it was just her imagination. She told me that she now believed that for some reason Paul's spirit had remained in the attic for all those years and that when he decided that it was time to leave, he left the way he always did; by the side door.
My parents lived in that same house for the rest of their lives, which was more than twenty-five years, and in all that time no door ever opened by itself again.
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