March 23, 2007

Phelps Mansion Man

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] William Delalley, Stratford, Connecticut, 1972

I was raised in Stratford, Connecticut, home to the legendary Phelps Mansion reputed "haunted house" on Elm Street in that town. Being residents, we constantly heard "stories" about the place. Not believing in this stuff much, the stories were mostly ignored.

One day my high school best friend, Larry and I decided to test our courage and bravery and enter the house. After some deliberation we decided it would be the upcoming Friday night. We invited anyone else interested and daring enough to join us. There were no takers. Instead people said we were crazy and would never do it. Now we were up to the challenge.

Friday arrived and we thought/talked about what was to take place that evening all day long making sure neither Larry or myself would chicken out. Night fell and we were ready. Larry drove and we parked about a half-mile away from the dark partially dilapidated structure. Armed with only one flashlight between us, we made our approach. Even until this moment I did not let on about my latent fear although the closer we got, the harder my heart pounded. We were no closer than ten feet when suddenly, simultaneously we both saw the backlit image of a man in one of the open ground-level windows. In what seemed to be a literal split second we found ourselves back at that car barely being able to speak. Once we regained our composure we asked the proverbial question: Did you see what I saw? We concurred, exchanged accounts, and never went back. To this day we will never know what went on inside that place save the legends found on the Internet under "The Stratford Poltergeist."