Halloween’s tomorrow, but I have to write today. I don’t have any really good paranormal stories of my own, so I’ll relate a couple of somebody else’s.

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When Rivkah was a little girl, she often stayed with her godparents, George and Betty. When she misbehaved, George would angrily stamp his feet until she stopped.

George died early on. If memory serves, he had a heart attack and fell through plate glass window.

A few months later, Rivkah was visiting Betty and was misbehaving, and wouldn’t stop misbehaving despite Betty’s repeated admonitions. Finally, Betty said, “If you don’t stop, George will be mad.”

At that moment, they heard feet stamping, louder and louder until Rivkah squealed, “I’m sorry!” The stamping stopped.

Betty could’ve been pulling a prank, someone else might’ve been in the house and stamping their feet, but who knows? Maybe George really was so pissed off he came back from the dead.

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When Rivkah was in high school, she dated a boy named Sonny. On one occasion, they were sitting on a couch in Rivkah’s house and were presumably discussing quantum mechanics, epistemology, the usual. Then George (the guy who’d been dead for years by this point) walked in and had a seat.

George and Rivkah spoke for a few minutes, and then he was gone. According to Rivkah, Sonny turned pale and silent during George’s visit. According to Sonny, Rivkah was nuts and was acting strangely for no reason.

A few years later, in a unguarded moment, Sonny told me he thought he saw a ghost at Rivkah’s house. The ghost was opaque, not transparent, and his version of the story matched Rivkah’s.

Rivkah could’ve been pulling a prank, because Sonny wouldn’t know George from Adam, but who knows? Maybe George just wanted to stop in and say hi that day. Nothing better to do.

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I used to see faces in the wooden bifold doors in my bedroom, but we’re programmed to see faces in strange patterns. I used to experience sleep paralysis and have hypnagogic dreams of shadowy figures holding me to the bed, but it turns out sleep paralysis isn’t that uncommon. I remember worrying that if I slept with my feet pointed towards the door, I’d be dragged out of the room, but everybody had goofy hangups when they were kids.

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The closest thing I have to a paranormal experience was back when I had to share a room with my little brother. One night, maybe about 10 o’clock, our bedroom was almost completely lit up by some lights that had to be just outside the window. It was as if a car with its brights on had pulled right up to our window– but we were on the second story.

The light lasted for a few seconds, and then disappeared by the time we got to the window to see what it was. If there’d been noise, I would’ve thought it was just a low-flying helicopter passing over. But there was no noise. Just a really bright light.

One of our neighbors could’ve been pulling a prank, holding a high-powered flashlight outside our window, but who knows? Maybe a UFO really was flying around my house that night.

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