Ghosts - research, evidence, and discussion.
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Encounters Archive:

2006 Encounters:
Bobby Ray's Conference - South of Jonesboro, Arkansas

The Man in the Attic - Circleville, Ohio

The Sad Voice - Taormina, Italy

Ghost Hunting Dorks - Ft. Inn, South Carolina

Shall We Gather at the Fence? - Milton, Florida Ghost picture

Sharing Our Home With Spirits - Seattle Area, Washington

Nighttime Visitor - Amravati, Maharashtra, India

Someone Sat on the Bed - AuGres, Michigan

Handprints on the Wall - Nashville, Tennessee

Yellow Butterflies - Huntington, West Virginia

Building Owner's Last Visit - Long Beach, California

Stage Coach Tavern Shadow - Chepachet, Rhode Island
Ghost video ghost picture


Haunted Campsite - Mowery, Arizona

The Man - Bay City, Michigan

Ghosts of Gympie Library - Gympie, Queensland, Australia

Haunted Sleepover - York, Pennsylvania

Shadows and Cold Spots - Essex, Ontario, Canada

Bald Man at My Brother's Crib - Spooner, Wisconsin

Footsteps From the Red Room - Warwick, Rhode Island

Darting Shadows and My Haunted Home - Berri, South Australia

Spirits Followed Me Home From Carnton - Nashville, Tennessee

Downs Road Ghosts - Bethany, Connecticut

Kay's Goodbye - Sacramento, California

The Woman on the Bed - Melrose, Minnesota

Cemetery Apparition Video and EVP - Bardstown, Kentucky
Ghost video EVP


The Shadow Man - Richfield, Minnesota

The Flowered Lady - Stanford, Kentucky

Ghosts in Times of Trouble - Lancashire, England

A Sign on the Res - Crown Point, New Mexico

Get Out, Abe - Southern Wisconsin

Dead Man's Pass - Gawler, South Australia

Gayle's Thank-You - New York/California

Trying to Ignore the Haunting - Trumbull, Connecticut

The EVP That Follows Me - Oceano, California

Working the Permanent Shift - Tucson, Arizona

Gypsy Wild's Home - Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

Ghosts Like Me - Oregon

The Dangerous Medicine Bag - Keswick, Ontario, Canada

More Spirits on the Land - Milton, Florida Ghost picture

Ghostly Cafe Help - Connecticut

Great Grandpa's Return - Mill Spring, Missouri

The Deadly Car Accident that Haunted My Brother's House - Hamilton, Illinois

A Thud in the Bedroom - Chester, South Carolina

Being Watched in the Sanitarium - Cherokee, Iowa

Grandma's Swinging Chair - Kalamazoo, Michigan

My Shaking Bed - Escanaba, Michigan

The Haunted Department Store - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Orb at Little Round Top - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Ghost picture

Old Woman on Route 10 - near El Paso, Texas

Finding Lost Family - Chicago, Illinois

The Haunting Returns - Middletown/Carlisle, Ohio

Our Haunted House - Waterbury, Connecticut

The Ghost of a Prankster Sailor - London, England

Ghostly Car - Palisade, Nebraska

Golf Course Joker - Ruidoso, New Mexico

Payton's Kiss - Denver, Colorado

The Spinning Ferris Wheel - Albany, New York

Visit From Mom's Patient - Little Rock, Arkansas

The Old Woman in the Hotel - Somewhere in the North Rockies

Grandma's Outline? - Boise, Idaho

Attack at Rolling Hills - Bethany, New York

Pinching Premonition - Auckland, New Zealand

Mammaw and Pappaw's Visit - Toledo, Ohio

Ghostly Gray Cat - Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

Demonic Presence in the Bedroom - Kyger Creek, Ohio

A Sign of the Cross - Long Beach, California Ghost picture

The Ghost of Flying Hawk - Albany, New York

Footsteps at Nashua Fresh Air Camp - Greenfield, New Hampshire

White Streamy Woman - Winterberg, Germany

The Man With the Tall Black Hat - Fall River, Massachusetts

Grandmother's House - Garden Grove, California

Woman in White at the Whaley House - San Diego, California

Spectral Attack While Sleeping - Durban, South Africa

Help Me, Help Me, Help Me - Fayette, Missouri

A Blessing and a Curse - Windsor, Virginia

Calling Mom Back from Rest - Cary, Kentucky

Shadows at Camp Cedar Crest - Orange, Connecticut

The Family Returns from Virginia - Salem, Virginia Ghost picture

The Ghost of Gibbs Bridge - Sylvania, Ohio

The Woman in the Wardrobe - Castleford, West Yorkshire, England

Shot By a Ghost - Chicago, Illinois

Mom's Visit and Presence - California

The Dollhouse Grave - Medina, Tennessee Ghost picture

The Slamming Door - Eugene, Oregon

Voices in the House - Ontario, Canada

Maddie in the Mirror - Fort Scott, Kansas

Something Grabbed My leg - Scott Depot, West Virginia

Grandpa's Flag - Kissimmee, Florida

Strange Happenings at the Jefferson Hotel - Jefferson, Texas

An Evil House - Elmira, New York

The Giggling Girl - South Gate, Kentucky

Sensing a Presence - Las Cruces, New Mexico

More Spirits on the Land - Milton, Florida Ghost picture

The Black Form at the Foot of My Bed - Mobile, Alabama

The Smell of the Devil? - Mission, Texas

The Hopping Couch - Trumbull, Connecticut

Portrait of a Funny Old Man - Hull, England

Little Dancing Girl - Baltimore, Maryland

The Haunted Mansion - Reading, Pennsylvania

Haunted Newport News - Newport News, Virginia

Tormented in Our Apartment - Brooklyn, New York

The White Dove and Heavenly Voice - Toms River, New Jersey

Lights Flashes in the Night - Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

The Ghostly Mom is Still Here - Everett, Washington

A Young Man's Spirit - Hudson, Michigan

Trying to Get Our Attention - England

The Moving Knocks - Rochester, New York

Hearing My Name Three Times - Walnut Creek, California

The Ghostly Skeleton - Coast Range, northern Oregon

Teaspoon and Grandpap - Bentleyville, Pennsylvania

Me and Great Uncle Mike - Los Angeles, California

Spirit Guides Around the Moon - Gretna, Louisiana Ghost picture

A Hand in the Dark - Southeastern Ohio

Spectral Gardener - Mississippi

Angry 1800s Portrait - Monnerville, West Virginia

I Floated Down the Stairs Too - Oxford, England

The Boy Under the Patio - Ridge, Maryland

Claw Marks on the Stairs - St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Voices in the Night - Sydney, NSW, Australia

Graveyard Shift at Hollywood Cemetery - Richmond, Virginia

Dark Shadows in My Burnt Out Apartment - Indianapolis, Indiana

The Man at Birdcage Theatre - Tombstone, Arizona Ghost picture

A House Too Good to Be True - Pueblo, Colorado

Three Strange Knocks - South Boston, Virginia

Great Grandmother's Mirror - Jackson, Mississippi

Our Red Balloon - Maiden Rock, Wisconsin

Grandfather's Image - Delhi, New York

Creature Beyond - Milton, Florida Ghost picture

Childhood Friends - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

The Floating Mass - Las Vegas, Nevada

Voices on New York Street - Long Beach, California

Catwoman's Bridge - Lancaster, South Carolina

Anya's Tom - Connecticut Ghost picture

Strange Events in Our Old House - Princeton, West Virginia

World Trade Center Ghosts and Events from 9/11 - New York, New York

Mom's Torment - White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

The Woman in the Basement Apartment - North Portland, Oregon

The Slave Family - Yazoo City, Mississippi

Strange Happenings at the Cheyenne Canon Inn - Colorado Springs, Colorado

My 3 Year-Old Sees His Grandpa - Boston, Massachusetts



September 6, 2006

The Deadly Car Accident that Haunted My Brother's House

Rate this encounter:
Votes:116 Rating: Rating = 7.37 Ratings Breakdown
James Hellenthal, Hamilton, Illinois, July 2003

My two brothers and I each have a home, located three-in-a-row, right next to one another along U.S. Highway 136, on the east edge of Hamilton, Illinois. Hamilton is a small river town on the mighty Mississippi, located on the Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois border. Hamilton is about 30-miles up river from Hannibal, Missouri, the boyhood home of famous American writer Mark Twain and his legendary stories of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

My brother Bill, and his wife Rhonda, reside in a split-level home, which was built around 30-years ago, and is right next door to my house, located about 100 yards away. The haunting occurred in the Summer of 2003. It was a hot summer that year and in the middle of July, the temperatures climbed into the upper 90’s and even soared above 100 degrees for several days in a row. It was on one of these sweltering hot July days when it all began.

My brother, Bill and his wife, Rhonda, run a small county newspaper in Hamilton. Our homes are located about 1-mile up the highway from their newspaper office. It was around 5:00 p.m. and Rhonda was driving home from work. There were two cars traveling on the highway directly behind her, making a total of 3 cars traveling at close proximity to one another. As Rhonda approached the driveway to their home, she put on her turn signal and slowed down to pull into the drive. Apparently the third car in the sequence did not realize she was slowing down and it slammed into the back of the second vehicle, which was right behind Rhonda’s car. When the third car made impact with the second car, it shoved it into the opposite lane and the second car was then hit again by an oncoming tractor-trailer. The impact of the semi-truck threw the car into Bill and Rhonda’s front yard, less than 25 yards from their front door. Rhonda’s car was luckily not hit, and she pulled into their driveway and immediately went into the house and called 911, then she called Bill, who came home immediately.

When Bill arrived at the accident scene, which was in his front yard, he ran up to the car to see if he could be of assistance to the people inside. All four people in the devastated car were dead. Bill said the frozen looks on their gruesome dead faces were full of horror, with their eyes still bulging wide open. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the other car or the semi that was involved in the accident. A few minutes later, police and emergency vehicles arrived and secured the scene. 

After a few minutes of investigation, the Illinois State Police approached Bill and informed him that the two cars involved in the accident that were behind Rhonda were all members of the same family. It was one family traveling together in two separate cars. The parents and grandparents were traveling in the car that all four were killed. The other car, in which no one was injured, were the children of the family. The state police asked Bill if he would have the children of the family come into his air-conditioned home and wait inside Bill and Rhonda’s home. Thereby the children wouldn’t have to witness the morbid task of excavating the dead bodies of their parents and grandparents out of the mangled car in his front yard. 

Bill readily agreed and he took the three children down into his finished basement. The children, age 18, 12, and 9, were obviously very upset and in a state of shock. They were crying and yelling and moaning. Rhonda tried her best to calm and console them. Bill and Rhonda have a full bath in the basement and all the children were sick, vomiting, and had bad diarrhea. A couple hours later, when it was all over and the accident scene had been cleared, the police came to Bill and Rhonda’s door and got the 3 children. After they had left, Bill and Rhonda cleaned up the basement bathroom, which had vomit all over the walls and diarrhea on the floor and running down the sides of the stool. A day or so later, Bill and Rhonda felt relieved, thinking that the nightmare was over. Little did they realize that it had just begun!

Bill and Rhonda are very down-to-earth people, and neither one of them had ever believed in the supernatural, the paranormal, or ghosts, until a couple days after the accident. As I mentioned earlier, this all happened in the middle of July, and the temperatures were very high. Bill and Rhonda kept their windows shut and their air conditioning was turn on. Two days after the accident, Bill came home to the house in the middle of the afternoon. He and Rhonda are the only two people that live there. He unlocked the house and went upstairs to find one of the upstairs bedroom windows was mysteriously opened. He didn’t think much about it and shut the window, and double-checked the rest of the house to make sure no other windows were open, then went back up to the newspaper office, where Rhonda was working. Bill asked Rhonda why she would open the bedroom window at home with the air conditioning on. Rhonda replied that she had not opened the window and didn’t know what he was talking about. That evening, around 5:00 p.m., when they came home from work, there was another window open. Over the course of the next 2-3 weeks they would find several windows open in their house with no explanation as to why.

During this same period of time, while lying in bed watching television in the night, Bill and Rhonda would see strange shadows move across the ceiling in the bedroom and in the upstairs hallway. Their dog, Eddie, would stand up at the foot of the bed and growl at the shadows that would glide across the ceiling. Never before had Eddie acted like this, but all three of them knew there was some real spooky stuff happening in their home since the accident. During the next 2-3 weeks, doors in the house would slam shut by themselves, windows would open, and shadows would run across their walls and ceilings. Bill and Rhonda now believe the spirit or spirits of the deceased family members followed the children into the home and haunted the home.

Three weeks after the accident, a family member from the family involved in the accident came down from Chicago to tie up some loose ends with the police regarding the accident. On their way out of town, they stopped by Bill and Rhonda’s house to visit with and thank them for watching the children. Immediately after the relative visited Bill and Rhonda’s home, the haunting stopped. Nothing like that has happened to them since. 




2014 Haunted New England Wall Calendar by Jeff Belanger photography by Frank Grace
Check out the 2014 Haunted New England wall calendar by Jeff Belanger and photography by Frank Grace!


Paranormal Conferences and Lectures
Don't miss the following events and lectures:

Jeff Belanger and “The Bridgewater Triangle” at Dedham Community Theatre - April 6, 2014 9:00PM

The Spirits of the Mark Twain House - Hartford, Connecticut - April 12, 2014

Paracon Australia - East Maitland, New South Wales, Australia - May 10-12, 2014