My Haunted Workplace

I was hoping someone would hop on here and share some personal experiences.

Any takers?

This past spring, April or May, I was working at a "variety" type of store that was, for lack of a better word, haunted. Most of the others working there would talk of seeing things, hearing things, etc, and the boss swore that she saw "something" following one of the employees constantly on the surveillance tapes.

One Saturday morning I went in, and it was only she and I there, and she called me into the office to view a tape. The back door to the place opened itself. That camera view was from the outside, so my natural assumption was that someone opened it, but didn't step outside and so weren't on camera. It just swung open and came to a sudden stop, like someone had hold of the handle - but there was no one there.

I asked her to switch to another camera, one that showed the same door from the inside, so we could see who it was. She did, we reviewed the tape, and saw the door swing open - but there was no one on the INSIDE, either. No shadows in the sunlight streaming in, no nothing.

Reviewing the outside view again out of bewilderment, I noticed an ever so faint, vaguely human shaped shadow pass through the door - the "shadow" projected upon the door itself - but no one there to throw a shadow. I can't be sure about that - it might have been some sort of camera artifact, as it was not nearly as dark as the sunshine would have made an actual shadow.

The last person to close the door was a guy that ALWAYS checks it and tests it, to make sure it's locked. We could see him on the tape. So it WAS latched, and it WAS locked, and it should not have just swung open like that. No wind to affect it, either, so I can't say WHAT it was, for sure.

The history of that site is that several years ago, their was a mass "gang" killing out in the alley on the outside of that door. The boss, and most of the folks who worked there,were convinced that it was the ghosts of those dead kids playing around the place. One guy insisted it was "El Diablo". A little over a year before that incident, a guy was killed - shot pretty much into hamburger - at the other end of the block, directly under the floor of my own apartment.

There's another story of a "haunt" possibly connected to that, but it's not work-related, so I won't tell it here.

I don't know exactly what caused it, but I know I DID see that door open on it's own from a locked position.

Mystic Wanderer, @ninurta,

Spooky stories. I had an experience where something was knocking on all of the windows at the first house I lived in on the rez. I spent a long time trying to figure out just what was causing it. I'd think heat from the sun but then a window on the shaded side of the house would get knocked. Some days, it was like a wild goose chase and I had it happen right before me with no one on the other side. Had a distinct sound of knocking.

We ended up moving from that house for other reasons and staying with my youngest's grandparents while we waited for another place to open up (housing shortage out there). One day I walked into the room that we were piled into and saw a deep black shadow "standing" (it didn't have legs but was a kind of very long oval) next to a tall dresser.

I stared at it til it dissipated, trying to figure out just what it was. The room was brightly from a large window opposite the shadow thing. It was independent from the dresser so it wasn't a shadow of it. Definitely wasn't me either based on my position to the light source. Aside from that, it was so black that I couldn't even really rectify it as being a shadow, which is typically more grey and opaque. This thing was NOT opaque.

I ended up mentioning it, very baffled and my in-law's face turned very pale. She said she'd seen the same thing a couple times before moving in. They got in contact with a medicine man and after a crystal gazing ceremony, he said it was an Anasazi chindi that had attached itself to us from the prior home, which was pretty shocking. Neither myself or my ex had said a word about the knocking and other weird stuff there to anyone and neither of us could speak directly to the medicine man, himself, as he spoke only Navajo. Neither of us could.

He also said a few things about how a skinwalker had come visiting in the form of a mountain lion and we did have that happen, too. He also said that the place where we had been living at had been an Anasazi sacred site and well, that was true, too. With just a five minute walk the road, I could get to that site (it was also sacred to the Navajo) and climb it using old Anasazi rock cuts.

I'm pretty much a skeptic but the whole thing was pretty strange. Old man knew a whole lot and well, I still have no clue what that black thing was. I definitely didn't like it.

dirkgently,Oh, I've got more where that one came from, it was just the only workplace-related tale I could think of off the cuff. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that wasn't "haunted" in one way or another, by one thing or another. this is an ancient land. A lot of folks have died on it - and other things probably never were "folks". A lot of those "things", whether former folks or not, still prowl the trackways.

I'm going to have to check out whitealice's "Anasazi" - the Shawnee may have something similar that they called "Azgens"... a people who lived here before us, and who were wiped out by the Shawnee long ago. It's said their spirits still roam the land. That's why the Shawnee never settled "Kentucky" (which didn't exactly correspond with the current state lines in the original designation). They say the ghosts of the Azgens wouldn't allow Shawnee settlement there, and would only allow hunting that land to keep the women and children of the Shawnee from starving.

As I understand it, they were supposed to be "redheaded giants", and oddly enough, somewhat oversized redheaded mummies HAVE been found in caves. There is a burial complex less than 20 miles from where I sit right now (I'm NOT within the modern bounds of Kentucky, but AM within the ancient bounds of it) that was discovered and excavated back in the 50's. Few if any people around here know about it, though, for some reason I cannot fathom. it was never talked about much here. I was gone from this area for probably close to 20 years when I found out about it while I was elsewhere.

I've got my own ghosts - don't know that I've ever been troubled by an Azgen... but don't know that I haven't, either!

These giants were found in Ky?  That's "just over the hill" from me. 
May I ask what part of KY, exactly? 

I've been watching that t.v. show, In Search of Giants, I think it's called.  I really enjoyed the last one. 

Redheads, huh?  Humm...   could be some of my ancestors.  :o

Cool stories !!

I've had one or two experiences but the story that troubled me the most is my oldest brother's story. My family comes from Nova Scotia and my brother used to go back home way more than I did. One night, while visiting, him, cousins and friends had a few drinks and decided to visit the nearest abandoned haunted house, illegally.

Now, one thing about my brother, he never believed in anything, God, ghosts, paranormal experiences were all fantasies to him. I've had talks with him in the past about paranormal stuff and he always chuckled about it. And another thing, he's never been afraid of anything. What.So.Ever. I've seen him beat the crap out of a guy twice his size, I've heard him say that even death didn't scare him as he believed that when we died we ended up in a box and ziltch. End of story.

So, for him to go on a haunted site, with people that believed in that sort of stuff, it was clear that he thought he'd have a chance to scare a girl or two, or even a guy or two...

He never actually told me what had happened. All he told me is that he'd never been scared like that, of anything, in his life and that whatever they encountered that ran after him, inside the house, was catching up to him right up to the point where he ran out the open back door and BAM, the door almost slammed off its hinges behind him.

That was the first time I ever heard my brother say that he'd been scared of something. And as he was still quite shocked by what had happened, I never dared to ask any further.

All I know is this; whatever he encountered wasn't from the living.

Mystic Wanderer,

lol, well, I know that I saw something very strange indeed and that I could not readily explain.  I do think that there may be things in this world that typically go unseen as a result.  I tended towards that thought as there is such a high number of people who have seen similar types of things all across the world.  However, where my nose gets a little twitchy is in declaring that it is a ghost of a deceased person.  Why not things that we haven't thought of like particle beings or distortions?  Nothing that I experienced necessarily screamed out "former human".  However, was there something?  Yeah.

The crystal gazing ceremony was just the first part.  The second part was the cleansing of the home and all of us.  Both sessions entailed the entire extended family.  The family had to provide a bowl to the medicine man that would not be returned and we had to build hot coals.  I got the latter duty and that was kind of strange to be building a roaring fire in the backyard as a beautiful sunny day. Anyways, once the coals were sufficient, they were moved to a garbage can lid and placed on a wooden board in the center of the living room and the ceremony began. 

The medicine man was a singer and he sang as he started making the medicine in the bowl in the center of us seated in a circle around him.  Once complete, the medicine was passed around the room and we basically dabbed it on any areas that felt ill and drank some of it.  It was a kind of greenish dark yellow color mixture with herbs floating atop it.  After it was passed back to the medicine man, we were to stare into the coals as he sang and would take an eagle feather to flick the medicine into the coals.  After several minutes, he wandered through the house with the feather and medicine, singing and flicking all around the house and on the doors of the home.  Interesting thing was that he had us shut all the doors and he spent the longest amount of time at the door where I had seen the black mass thing. 

Then he returned to the circle and sang some more and the house seemed to brighten.  It had seemed dim despite the clear sunny day outside. It had the visual effect of being outside when a cloud passes over the sun and then unveils it.  That was kind of trippy.

Yes, I have seen skinwalkers and no, I was nowhere near Skinwalker Ranch.  I used to discuss them openly on another board but was given substantial reason to cease and the thread there was removed. I think now, though, that the cat is out of the bag so I'll talk.  It is not something I did much of on that other site where we originally ran into each other.  Funny thing is, I've been discussed on that site as a source for info on this and nobody ever knew it was me.  **To be clear, I am the first outsider to collect information and stories on this subject to a great level since Kluckhohn.