This article comes from The Shadowlands, reprinted and shared with permission.

Uncle Mike

Interview by Dave Juliano

I interviewed the owner of this haunted house located in southern New Jersey about 12 years ago. This is the story she told of some incidents in her house and others with her family. This house is on a quiet street in a small town.

It started in the early sixties , when Joan’s brother Mike started dating a wild girl whom the family called Reds. One night out, Mike and Reds were joy riding around Philadelphia. Both of them were intoxicated. Reds kept telling Mike to drive faster and faster. His speed still did not satisfy she reached her foot over and stepped on the gas pedal, Mike lost control and slammed into a utility pole. Reds was killed in the crash and Mike was seriously injured. He was even unable to attend the funeral. He was ordered to remain at home in bed. When the family returned from the funeral they went up to Mike’s room. As soon as they walked in the door Mike began to describe exactly what Reds was wearing in the coffin, down the rings and other jewelry. The family asked him how he knew all this since he wasn’t there. He told them that Reds had just been there to visit him.

Years later Joan’s son, Bobby, was supposed to ship out to Vietnam on the following morning. His Uncle Mike told him he would stop by in the morning to give him a lucky coin that would bring him good luck and protect him. His Uncle was very persistent about Bobby getting this coin. The next day, The whole family was there to see bobby off at the airport except for his Uncle Mike.. As they waited for him to arrive Bobby bought his 2 young sisters Raggy Ann dolls. His Uncle never showed up and Bobby had to leave without the lucky coin. When Joan arrived home her neighbors told her to put on the TV and watch the news. She turned on the TV and the scene was of her brother Mike laying dead in the street. He had been killed while attempting to rob a bank, he was trying to steal a coin collection.

One night while Bobby was on guard duty near the front lines, He saw a figure approaching him in the distance. He called out for the person to identify themselves. Bobby had never fired his gun at a person before and He was hesitating. The figure was even closer in an instant and he recognized it, it was his dead Uncle Mike. His Uncle told him to turn around and he spun around to be face to face with a North Vietnam soldier with his bayonet raised. He fired instantly killing the enemy soldier. He quickly turned around but his uncle was gone. Joan received many letters form men in Bobby platoon who told of mines not going off, shells veering off in opposite directions, etc. All of these occurred when Bobby’s life was in danger. His uncle had failed to give him the lucky coin, so he was protecting him from beyond.

During the war the sisters had started sleeping in Bobby’s room. This was the same room that Red’s had visited years before. One night they both awoke to find the Raggy Ann dolls sitting up in bed laughing at them.

After the war Bobby went to work as a bus driver. On one late night run he got the feeling of his Uncle’s presence just like in Viet Nam. He heard his Uncle say “turn around”, he did and there was a man with a knife ready to stab him. He overpowered the man and called the police. Bobby still has times when his Uncle Mike appears to aid him.

The day before I conducted this interview Joan’s grandchildren were over and were playing in the room that was once Mike and Bobby’s room. They ran downstairs to Joan and her friend and claimed someone was watching them as they played. The women went upstairs to look. The room was very cold, but they found no intruder. The girls said they were being watched form the closet. Joan showed the girls there was nothing in the closet, she even stood inside to point this out. As she stood in the closet, she looked up and noticed a small hole in the ceiling above the closet door. She inspected the hole and found a box full of old clothes and things. Among them were the Raggy Ann dolls that had come alive years before.

For the skeptics among you, I met Joan through my Mother at our Church. She became a good friend of the family and later became our town’s mayor. I also know Bobby, he was my football coach. Real people, real story. 

See more from The Shadowlands at www.theshadowlands.com.

The picture in the article here isn’t related to post, I just need some eye candy. Got it from Google Images.

This article comes from The Shadowlands, reprinted and shared with permission.

It started when I was three years old. One night I awoke to find a small child-like figure in my bed with me. He was about 2 feet tall and had the features of a small child, but its head was swollen well beyond a normal size. It was wearing a blue gown with the hands not visible at the end of the sleeves. It was moving its mouth and talking in gibberish. The figure was as real as I was, and it was surrounded by a kind of glowing haze. I ran to my parents’ bedroom and woke up my dad, but, of course, he told me to go back to sleep. So I returned to my room and now the figure was standing on my bed. I grabbed a pillow and covered my face and jumped on the bed. It was gone. That started something that would last the next 26 years.

I’ll condense the years up until 1990. Those appearances, while still frightening, never really made me feel threatened. During this period, which included teenage years, I saw the figure with the same frequency. My bedroom is located at the end of a hallway with 2 other bedrooms before mine. At the other end of the hallway is a landing that blocks the view to the steps. From my bed I could look out my door and down the hall to the landing and the top of the steps. I always knew right before the figure would appear, because the hair on the back of my neck would stand up and I would get uncontrollable chills. The figure would then appear either on top of the landing or come around the base of the landing and start down the hall toward my room. It never seemed to pay any attention to the other rooms at all. I would normally panic and either shut my door or run into my parents’ room and sleep on the floor. Imagine finding your 18 year old son curled up on your bedroom floor when you wake up in the morning. My parents and sister didn’t really fully believe that I was seeing this apparition. I also would stay up late, being the night person that I am, and watch TV. In my living room, we have the stairs that lead up to the 2nd floor. It has a wooden railing on it that goes the length of the last 4 steps. I would often see the figure on the steps watching me from the 3rd or 4th step and then disappear. The only real changes during this time period were that the figure was losing its color and becoming more transparent.

Now things will change drastically. A neighbor, with some knowledge of this sort of activity, told me to confront the figure and tell it to leave and never come back. I was to tell it that I was its power source and I was shutting off the power. I did this and enjoyed about a year of no sightings. Around this time, I told the story to my girlfriend of the time. She thought that its description sounded like a baby with water on the brain and still wearing its gown from the hospital. She thought that it was a lost soul trying to contact me to help it with some task, so that it could finally rest in peace. I started to look into the house’s history and my family’s. The house sits on land that was farmland and a dirt road only 150 years ago. The land was owned by one man and he had his farm and homestead around the area of my house (the main house of his estate is one block from my house and is still standing) My house is 40 years old and we are the 2nd family to live in it. The couple before us had no children that we know about. I have a sister 3 years younger than me and no other siblings. I have asked my parents if they had a child that died that I was unaware of, but they didn’t. So after all my checking, I found nothing that could explain the apparition.

After a week of thinking about the interpretation my girlfriend had given, guilt of banishing the figure overcame me. I asked it to come back one night and told it I would help it. The very next night the sightings started again , but with much greater intensity. I can say now, NEVER do what I did, once it’s gone, let it stay gone. The sightings would happen more frequently and sometimes they would terrify me. The figure looked the same but something was very different. I was sure what it was, but now there was another force in addition to the familiar figure. I began to see small black colored creatures which I can only describe as imps. They were solid black, 1-2 feet tall and ran around on all fours. They appeared mostly in the living room and coming from the hall closet.

Now to explain the rest of the house set up that pertains to the story. The man that lived here before us started to dig out a basement, but he never completed it. All that remains is a 3-4 foot crawl space accessible from outside the house. The hall closet was to be the stairs down to the basement. He had started making the stairs going down but he boarded it all up when he stopped digging the basement. The stairs going up to the 2nd floor are directly over the would-be basement step and the hall closet. So there are 2 ways from inside the house to access the crawl space, if you really wanted to, rip up the 3rd or 4th step of the stairs or knock out the back of the closet. I began to make the connection between where the figures appeared and where the access ways were.

The sightings got more intense and sometimes they even drove me from my house. Normally, my dog would sense the small figure and act funny when it was around, but now when the imps appeared my dog would be in a very deep sleep and I could never wake him up. I would either leave the house and stay over at a friends. Sometimes I would be knocking on her door at 2 a.m. terrified. Other times, if I was able to get between them and the steps, I would make a run for it to my room or my parents’ room, because, even these creatures would not venture in the bedrooms. My mother was noticing my moods and I had told her about the new happenings so she told me to get her the next time I saw the figure or imps. The next time I saw the figure upstairs coming down the hall, I ran into her room and woke her up. I led her out into the hall where the figure still was. I pointed to it and it began to back away and go down the steps. I chased it down to the 3rd step where it vanished. While she could not see it, she could tell by my eye movements that I was watching something moving across the hall and steps. I think that’s when my family started to believe a little.

I became used to these new additions because they never did any harm but they did make me feel very uneasy. The figure was becoming even more transparent. Certain lamps in the house would go on and off by themselves often with other witnesses around. I would hear the TV go on in the middle of the night when I knew no one was downstairs. I had theorized that the figure needed help to appear because it was slowly fading away. I assumed the imps were helping him, but the figure was still fading. I was waiting for a new addition to the cast, so the figure could still appear, since I still hadn’t figured out what it wanted me to do.

The sightings stopped again for a few months. I spoke with a parapsychologist , but then decided to leave well enough alone. I didn’t want things getting worse. I decided to go into the crawl space and check out the area under the stairs. I took my dog down there with me and I crawled to the area. There had not been anyone under there for years before this. I found an Old Maid playing card with not a bit of dust on it right under the 3rd step. We have wall to wall carpeting so this did not fall through the joints. I hadn’t seen that deck of cards for over 20 years, but here was one. It had one corner that looked like it had been dipped in acid, but the rest was in good shape. I took it and put in a pocket bible and put it in my car.

The sightings started again, only very small. I would call my girlfriend on the cordless phone and tell her it’s happening again and then walk upstairs while still on the phone with her. The next time was the worst of all. The figure appeared very bright, like it did years ago, but it didn’t look very happy. The imps appeared again but they were more bold this time. Then a 7 foot tall man- shaped black figure appeared. It looked like it was either made of smoke or some liquid. It looked semi-solid and you couldn’t see through it. At the same time, the room was filled with imps and a bearded old mans face took shape on the wall and started mumbling. The face was about 6 foot high and 4 foot wide. The familiar figure looked like it was sorry for doing this to me. I left the house and sat in my car until dawn.

I knew I had to confront this new entity and try to drive it away. I also figured that if it wanted me, it was going to get me either way, so I had nothing to lose. My sanity, life and maybe my soul were on the line and I honestly believed this was the only way to stop it before it branched out. I was the original power source, so I was going to shut off the power. The next night I prayed for protection and the strength to drive this evil away. I had a bible handy as I sat up as usual listening to my CD’s. About 2 a.m., I noticed my dog was in one of those deep, deep sleeps and I began to look around. The figure and the Tall black figure appeared along with the rest of the apparitions. I informed them in the calmest voice I could get at this time, that I was taking away their power and they had no hold on me or power over me. I told them I, my family and house was protected by God and they could not harm us. I walked right past the tall figure and the imps moved out of my way. I walked right up the steps and never looked back.

That was about 2 years ago and I have not seen them since. We placed a bible on the stairs and a cross in the closet to block off their entrances. I still feel there is a presence there that tries to get me to let in it. I still hear bumping and walking around, but the apparitions are gone, banished to the crawl space I assume. They will not get another portal in here so they will remain there. We did have the house blessed years ago, every where except the crawl space. I think that might be the answer to end it all for good.

Footnotes 1998:
I have learned alot since I first put my story to paper. I now realize that many of my reactions to the majority of the encounters were, while natural, not necessary. The house was haunted by an earthbound spirit and when I had asked it to leave, it stopped contacting me, but was still there. It never harmed me and was only trying to get my attention. Because I didn’t understand what was happening, I reacted the way everyone else would, with fear. I did tell it it could come back and the way I did it caught the attention of other earthbound spirits in the area and one non human one. The majority of the experiences after I opened the door back up were with human spirits, some not as friendly as the original one who also came back. While there was one encounter with something I believe was a non human entity, the majority of the other spirits were earthbound human spirits. In regards to the black imps, let me just say that these may have been either type of spirit, I’m still not sure at this point. I have researched them further but I am unable to say with out a doubt that they were evil. I believe the tall black figure was evil though.

See more from The Shadowlands at www.theshadowlands.com.

The picture in the article here isn’t related to post, I just need some eye candy. Got it from Google Images.