The Old Man in Our House

Witness: Robert
Location: Edmonds, Washington
Date of Encounter: 1963-1965

Our family had outgrown our small three bedroom rambler home, considering that there were five of us kids and our parents. My parents found a new split level style home with four bedrooms and a full-sized, partially finished basement. My brother and I shared a large bedroom in the basement. I was the oldest and about age 15, just starting high school. We had been in the house about a year when strange things began happening.

I was always the first one home from school and I would go down to my room to do my homework as my father had put a work desk in an alcove for me. I remember I turned on the overlight light switch and was doing my homework. A few minutes later the light went off. I walked around the corner and it was in the off position. I turned it on and a few moments later, it went off again. I knew I was the only one home, so I told my dad that evening that something was wrong with the light switch and explained what had happened. He examined the switch and said it was working just fine.

One evening a month or so later I decided to take a bath rather than a shower in the main bathroom upstairs. I was sitting in the tub when suddenly “someone” started rapping on the bottom of the tub. I could feel the vibration, so I knew it was not my imagination. This kept up for a few minutes then stopped. It was after this that life got interesting for all of us.

One night my brother and I woke up at the same time around 12:30. We both saw a figure of a tall man standing by the bedroom door which was closed. The figure was dark and no features were visible, just an outline “colored in.” He seemed to float rather than walk toward us, passed at the foot of our beds, and just disappeared through the door into the furnace room in our bedroom.

Years later at a family gathering I found out talking to my brother and three sisters that even more had been going on that I hadn’t been aware of since I had gone into the service right after high school in 1965. One of my sisters came home from school, unlocked the front door, and walked into the house. She saw a tennis ball suddenly fly down the hall toward her and hit the wall just above her.

Another time, two of my sisters were sitting on a bed in their room when items on the top shelf in their closet suddenly starting being tossed out around the room.

My dad asked my brother to stack up boxes in the storage room to neaten it up, which he did. Dad went down a bit later and asked him why he hadn’t done it. He had but they had been neatly unstacked. After several tries, he just gave up.

My brother had gone out with friends one night and they dropped him off at the house. He went out onto the balcony to wave goodbye. The next day, they asked who the old man standing next to him was. Of course, there had been no one there. I was never so glad to leave a house in my life. To this day I wonder if strange things are still happening in that place.