As I said in my FIRST ghosty-post I’m a cynic who starts from skepticism until I experience something that forces me to accept a different conclusion.  Most of the time I search for other explanations before coming to “it’s ghosts!” or “it’s bigfoot!”  Though I start as a skeptic once unexplainable evidence is presented I am willing to accept the supernatural explanation.

If nothing else just so, in the movie of my own personal ghost story, I’m not the guy everyone hates yelling “It was just the wind!” to the characters you’re supposed to like.

Sounds in the Dark

I work in a creepy building.  Most of it is typical office space, but there are eerie places; “the stacks,” entire floors which consist of rows and rows long dark aisles of books or boxes.  Policy is you turn off the lights when you leave a stack area so I’ve gotten into the habit of only turning on the lights I need so I never accidentally forget and leave lights on.  There are rumors that our second floor, where our manuscript documents are kept, is haunted but I never really believed it.  I couldn’t imagine what ghost would want to spend its ethereal eternity amidst old boxes and books.  I attributed the spooky stories to the fact that the second floor looks the creepiest.  Most of our other stack areas have small castle-turret style windows.  The second floor has none, so it’s just the glow of the exit signs and whatever lights you turn on.

Over the years I got used to wandering around in the dark up there, counting steps to switches and navigating in the dark.  There used to be one gate I could get into without a key (had to know the trick!) so I would always use that door no matter which end of the floor I was going to.

One afternoon I needed to retrieve something from the second floor so, as usual I went to two, entered the gate I could break into, and started my way down the main corridor in the dark.  I needed to go ALL the way down to the other end, but I didn’t mind the dark and quiet.

I was maybe a third of the way down the corridor when I heard the distinct sound of a box being pulled from a shelf…then replaced.  I stopped to listen, there are many sounds on that floor, machine room sounds, vents, noises from floors above, but none were as easily identifiable (I’ve pulled hundreds of boxes from these metal shelves, I know that sound…) as this…or as close.  I started walking again and heard it again, box sliding off the metal…then sliding back on.  It was coming from the 1^st range…the range I was going to.  I heard it at least two more times as I got closer.  I flipped the switch on the 1^st range and peered cautiously around the corner.

Nothing there.

I went through the possibilities…  Either another staff member was pulling boxes in the dark, replaced everything, jumped on the ceiling, and skittered away when I arrived…or…it was a ghost.   “Ghost” was actually the most plausible explanation in this case!  And least frightening…

Since then I’ve heard other sounds, including high-heeled shoes trailing along a few feet behind me as I navigated the ranges.  A friend and I also went ghost hunting on the second floor (with my android ghost app once!) and we both heard disembodied shuffling right behind us down a dark corridor we’d just come down. Despite this I never feel unsettled or afraid…more fascinated.

Now I look forward to going to that floor.  You never know what you might find in the strangest places.