Belief in supernatural forces or entities is very rare these days. Even so, we still get frightened after a good horror movie or when we are all alone in a strange place in the dark. This shows that even though we deny the existence of anything supernatural our subconscious still have a soft spot where we believe that strange things may happen. This might be because we often hear very strange and horrifying stories from our friends, family or on television. Though there might be little truth in all of that it’s still a treat to hear such stories. Here I am going to share some of the stories I’ve heard from my friends and family. Beware, as most of them would be most probably fake stories (yet fun to hear and ponder upon)! That's why I wrote it under 'Stories & Tales' section.

The Woman who disappeared in thin air

This is something which two of my friends shared with me. I don’t know whether the incident really happened or whether they were joking. But the fact that two of them told me the incident at two different times and in different situations makes me think that they weren’t joking, probably! So the incident is (I’ll try to write it in a story mood, just for fun):

It was late night, around 2 am or so and my friends were going to (or coming from, I can’t recall) from a distant place (don’t want to mention the places!), where they studied for college, in their motorcycle. They were coming in a considerable speed, but not breaking the speed limit. It was really dark and they could see a street light from a distance. And they both agreed upon someone standing near the road besides this street light as if he/she were asking for a lift. As they approached closer to the figure they could tell that it was a woman and she was wearing some white saree or something in which she appeared to them as a conventional Indian cinema ghost. My friends were frightened and didn’t slow their bike; they thought the woman would move back from the road if they didn’t slow down but something weird happened. As they reached in front of this woman, instead of moving backward the woman moved forward and just disappeared into nowhere. My friends stopped the bike and looked around; there was no one to be found. They, being scared, left spot at the earliest.

May be it was some light issues which casted some shadows which looked like a figure to them. But they were frightened for sure.

A man from nowhere….

This is another story narrated to me by one of my friends. It happened in their college hostel.

It was the time of some examination or something and students were given 3 days of study leave. So students who came from far regions didn’t left for home instead stayed in the hostel itself while most of the students left for their homes. There were 6 students in the hostel, all together, belonging to different batches and subjects. This hostel is not a hostel owned or operated by their college but was something outside the college premises where the many of the college students resided. There is a mess in the hostel and these 6 students had their supper and went back to their rooms. Two or three of them went to bed and others either sitting idle or studying. Of these six students two of them used to stay in one room. One among them was in his room busy chatting with his friend over phone. He was sitting in the chair, facing towards the window and talking over phone while someone came behind him and asked him whether he can sleep in this room today. The one who is chatting over phone, thinking that it was his roommate, just said ‘Okay’ without even looking behind. So the other person turned the lights off and went to bed. After the long conversation over the phone, this guy went to bed as well, lying next to the other guy. In the morning when he woke up there was no one next to him. He just went to the other room and saw his roommate sleeping in there. When he enquired to the rest of the students who came into his room and slept besides him they said that none came to his room last night. He was terrified. In fact, they all were terrified that the next night they all stayed in one room!

After hearing this story I said him that it must be someone who came into your hostel from the outside – a mentally ill man or someone like that. He denied this theory since there is no way someone outside could get into their hostel. In that case, it may be his friends just trying to scare him! Anyway, my friend said that it was a chilling experience.

The woman who used to stare….

Now this is something happened a long time ago. It was narrated to me by my grandfather. He said that he heard it from his grandparents or so. So my grandfather’s relative was a farmer and he and his fellow farmers used to live in a small room near to their farm. This room had nothing in it, not even a bed as they slept on floor. This room didn’t even had a door. One day one of the farmers woke up in the middle of the night and was terrified as he saw an old woman staring at him from the door. The woman didn’t enter inside the room but was just staring into the room standing at the doorsteps. Anyway, they ignored here as she was no trouble and every night, this woman kept coming during midnight and stood at the door and stared inside without making an utter. It was said to me that this went for years until the old woman was not seen again by anyone.

A Robbery in the dream

This is something that happened when I was a child. Since there were many robberies at that time my parents decided to fit a considerably high voltage lights outside the house so that they can just turn it on at nights if they hear some noises and the thief will flee for sure since that light is so brought that it’ll expose him to anyone going through the street.

So one night we all went to sleep as usual. At 1 am or so my grandfather woke up and asked my grandmother to turn on the lights. Grandmother asked him whether he heard anything. My grandfather said that he didn’t hear anything but he had a weird dream where a thief was trying to get something from the house by placing a chair near the window outside the home and standing on it. Anyway, my grandmother turned the lights on for a few minutes and then turned it back off and they both went to sleep.

The weird thing was that next morning when my father opened the door and went to the sit out there was a chair missing. He just looked around and found the chair lying near a window of a room (not my grandparent’s room but another room) as if somebody put it there to peek inside. And the same night my grandfather had a dream about it – strange coincidence?

Night time at the Graveyard

Ever spend night time near a graveyard which is located in a kind of deserted place? Well one of my friends did and he shared me the experience!

So my friend was roaming around in time with his friends in a car at night. It was late and they were discussing about ghosts and other things when he said that he’s not at all afraid for such things. So they challenged him to spend 15 minutes near a graveyard which was a little off the town in a kind of inhabited neighborhood. He agreed to do so, even though he was a little terrified, as his ego wouldn’t say ‘No’. So they left him near the entrance and left the place. So he was sitting there, all alone, staring into the graveyard of which he cannot see the end. There were huge trees in there and he says that some bird was making strange sounds. After a moment he was really terrified. He said that there were strange smell and uneasy winds blowing around and he felt the presence of some other people there. Anyway, his friends came back after 15 minutes and they all returned home. He said that he never thought he’ll be that afraid to spend a few minutes near a graveyard.

Now all of this, may be something created by his subconscious. We’re often terrified with the sounds we hear at night after a great horror flick, the sounds we otherwise ignore. So all this strange wind, smell and feeling of presence of others may be the things his subconscious created.

There are many more stories I would like to share. I don’t think many of these ‘ghost’ or supernatural incidents are true as I’ve heard most of them from others and I had only a little or no experience of ghosts. Anyway, this topic has always captured my interest and I used to spend hours reading ghost stories and incidents.

There were also mastermind criminals who used the supernatural theory to terrify their victims so that it’ll pave way for an easy theft. This fear of ghosts is termed as ‘Phasmophobia’. There’s a branch of study which deals with such so called ‘Supernatural things’ called ‘Parapsychology’.

I’ve been reading about these things on the web and there are many amazing things and findings. Anyway, till now, the science cannot agree with such things. As I’ve read somewhere “Today’s belief is tomorrow’s tradition and the science of the day after”. May be someday science will draw out some conclusions for the strange things that many of the people today attribute to supernatural.

I think I’ve put enough effort on this article and I’ll write a Part 2 of this article according to the reception this one receives. I’ve heard a lot more stories of people who behaved strangely after closed ones deaths, haunted houses, a strange man who asked for lift to my friend and lots of other stories. The fact is that I got terrified many moments even while writing these articles because some of these stories really got into me. Not always, it’s the supernatural stories that haunt us but the very behavior of the ordinary people that makes us thing that there’s more than what we know or think. As I’ve said, I got scared sometimes while writing this article as I’ve written this article late night alone in my room. But thee stupidest thing for a person, either believing or not believing in such things, is let the fear take control over him. Once fear controls a person he’ll see and hear this that aren’t there or that aren’t strange. Next thing he’ll do is to attribute everything he experience to the supernatural forces. May be this is what happened to my friend who spend few minutes all alone near a graveyard.

When the belief is mixed with hallucinations more and more stories of ghosts emerges. It’s not just the case of ghosts; we can see number of people claiming to see UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and other such things. Just do a search on YouTube and you’ll see number of ghost sightings video of which some looks real and convincing. But it’ll be foolish to believe in those videos since there were many fake photos of ghosts which gained much popularity in 19th century which are now proven fake without a doubt. Also we have now scientific explanations for various mental illnesses which were once considered to be possessions of evil spirits and daemons. And even now people believe in possessions and exorcisms. 

I’ve written an article about Exorcism on Boddunan a while ago and you can find it in my article list. Please do share your views and experiences of supernatural forces using the comment section provided below.