74 replies to this topic

[whispers_of_fire]

Hi, everyone, since we have a lot of new members
with Halloween here ;D, I thought it'd be cool to do something that'd put everyone on more or less the same footing, no matter how long you've been investigating or if you've never been on an actual hunt, so what started it all for you? Did you live in a haunted house growing up? Were you born with/develop a sharper sense of their presence or to see/hear them? Did you have an encounter and run out to buy camera/camcorder and learn as you go? Did someone turn you onto it?

For myself, I was born kind of latently sensitive, so I saw shadows and generally knew when they were nearby/where they were. But my first actual thing was when I was 8 and a bicyclist was hit by a car, my Mum being a Mum, I missed the actual discorporation, but when I managed to look past her, I saw the spirit looking down at the body*LOL*I've been
hooked ever since

So, what hooked you??

[OwlGoddess]

well, as you know, it was the calico woman... i think i must have been between two and four years old, and after we moved into our "new" fixer upper 1908 house and installed an old cast iron tub, i started seeing a female apparition outside my room.

after that, i knew about my sensitivity, and was guided in my journey by my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  like my career in art, my love of ghosts and the paranormal was, well, inevitible!

OwlGoddess

[softy-girl]

When my twin and I were younger we used to say that we saw shadows in corners and going down halls, and my grandmother's house was haunted. I never really started researching or anything until the death of my great-great grandmother. We were really really close and when her spirit comforted me one night I became hooked.

[hawkerdriver]

In the fourth grade when I found a book in the library about ghosts and it confirmed what I was always told wasn't true but I knew in my gut it was.  I was always able to sense my surrounding.  For me, it was like having imaginary fingers that I would send out ahead of me to check out the situation before I got there.

[KarenSue1973]

I have always been interested in ghost and stories of haunted houses.  I got to choose an off-topic for a research paper this last summer and I decided to do it on ghost hunting because my boyfriend is an avid ghost hunter.  After the first time I was hooked.

[inaspin2]

I've been fascinated by haunted places since I was very young having nosed through all my dad's books that he used to store on the top shelf. He would take me, my brother and sister to this spooky place near where we used to live, which was an old derelict walled arch in the middle of nowhere. He'd turn the headlights to the car off and freak us all out. The area was supposedly haunted but I now think my dad just said that to make us all scared!  :o

[Wind of Light]

my friends saw five ghosts in a barn once, they were replaying their death I guess (im not sure), and ever since ive been hooked on the paranormal...

[Christine1964]

Hi For me I have always loved Haunted Houses and Scary  Movies. since i have gotten older I have become vey sensitive I have been told that it runs in my family.When my father died i became very curious about Life after death.I wish my father sould come and visit me. Well that is what started it for me.  

[wayne2241]

In the house where I grew up, it was our family's belief that it was haunted. It began with my mother, who believed and passed the belief on to us. We all experienced many odd, unaccountable things there, that continue to this day, shadows, disembodied voices, photographic anomolies, peculiar scents and the sensation of being touched (last year I was grabbed there and had bruising from it). My family still lives in that house in West Virginia, on the land we've lived on for over 200 years.

I am emotionally sensitive, meaning I can feel emotions of spirits nearby, a good talent if they're mad for whatever reason. Ghosts are my passion.

[lmackey]

I was sensitive as a child, but being frightened of it I learned to "ignore" my feelings and deal with it, fought with it for over 20 years.  I came back after getting my job at the funeral parlor and so many ghosts in and out of there it was hard to fight it anymore, so instead I learned to accept it and actually grow with it instead of against it.  I won't go as far as to say they are a passion in my life today, just an everyday part of my life, kind of like brushing my teeth (I do it with out much thought, it's something I HAVE to do).  I do however take an extra interest in the spirits who don't try to contact me, which is why I do ghost hunts.  I figure they are here for a reason and it doesn't make any sense to me why some come to me and others will not or do not.

 I guess it is a quest for knowledge more than anything.  I feel I was given a special ability and I need to see how far it can go.

[Witchygirl]

I grew up in a house that was haunted and I have always been fascinated with the paranormal and what was really out there and I wanted to learn more. When someone showed me a ghost group and went on my first 'hunt' I was instantly hooked, and I am still doing what I have always been drawn to!

[whispers_of_fire]

[move][glow=blue,2,300]Hello to the New Villagers and Welcome[/glow][/move]

*LOL*In addition to the experience I listed, I was raised on Horror flicks, Godzilla, the Mummy, 13 Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill, maybe that made me more open to the possibility

Wayne, if I may ask, do you see anything or just sense the emotions?

[Crone]

As a child, my grandmother would tell me stories of her experiences with visitations, haunted houses, etc.  I think that because she told these stories as matter-of-fact, instead of to scare me, I've always been a believer.  

After my dad died in '75, my mom, my sister, and I all experienced reminders that my dad was still with us.  Now things occur in my own home since the passing of my husband.

When a friend started a paranormal research group in my area, I couldn't wait to join! It's given me a way to validate all those odd moments and feelings.  

One drawback too all of this.  I love scary movies, but have a hard time finding those that really make my hair stand on end.  I'm still waiting for one to top The Exorcist!

[ZinnianWolf]

for me it was things that I could pick up when I was younger. As I got older I tried in vain to rationalize some of them, but by the end of my search I still had no scientific reason for what was happening.  The other thing that got me involved was, one day I decided to leave a recorder in my kitchen for the heck of it, because my neighbor's brother use to come over and he would sleep downstairs and tell me the next morning that something was bothering him while he was down there in the dark.  I got some unexplained noises on the recorder and quickly explained them away as bst I could to the wood in the cabinet settle or expanding, but the loud static noise and voices I could explain. So later on down the road I decide to sit downstairs after watching a special on ghost hunting and ask some questions.  First came the scratching  that scared me so bad, the only thing I could do was stand in the corner petrified.  When I played the tape back there were people talking on the tape.  Every since then, I have been on the hunt with my assistant (who is my brave little son) by my side.  Phew that was a mouth full!

Blessed Be~

[RequiemEternum]

I really can't pinpoint an exact moment of when I first took interest in ghosts. I had a few childhood experiences that could be a result of it all. I was a believer at a young age, but my interest recessed from a childhood span until I was probably about 15 when I first started discovering my own spirituality. My first "paranormal" experience came when I was 5 years old. I was at my grandfather's wake, and of course as a child I didn't realize what was going on. My grandfather was a great person though and always adored me. I remember talking to him at the wake, as any child who did not understand death would, but he actually answered me and talked back to me. Of course no one believed me, but I know it wasn't just a child's imagination. Another experience I had was at an aunt's house when I was 7. I don't even remember excatly where she lived since I have very little contact with that side of my family and my aunt died a few years ago. But I remember a young woman with black hair and dark eyes touching my shoulder. She was pretty, and she had a pale glow to her. I wasn't scared, but I didnt realize that she wasn't a person, but a ghost until I asked my aunt about it the next day. The most clear (and frightening) experience I had was at a hospital in the area. My mother was a nurse there at the time, and I was basically left to sit in the waiting room until she was done at work. I wandered off on my own, and somehow ended up in the hospital morgue. I didnt see any bodies, just body bags on tables that weren't put away yet, but I heard a lot of voices and screaming in pain there. I was scared and started crying, and it was probably about 5 minutes before one of the hospital employees saw me and took me back to the waiting room. These incidents may be what really got me started with ghost hunting and research.