Rate this encounter: Richard Davis, Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, 1993

I can remember my first experience with a spirit, and it frightened me to the point where I was almost petrified to get out of bed. Okay, let me back up…

I was quite a few years younger, probably eight or nine, when the usual bedtime routines would begin. My younger brother (age four at the time) was making his common nightly advance for the light switch on the wall. He'd always switch it on right before bed, because he was afraid of the dark -- to a point where he would scream like the uncanny themselves. The light switch was at the top of the stairs, in our room, and to scan down the stairs without the lights on, you were almost never able to see the bottom. I believe there was at least eighteen stairs, and at the very bottom, another light switch. Above the switches were the light fixtures themselves, just two tiny fixtures lighting the long staircase, which would leak beams of light right into the bedroom and keep it well lit.

The night continued like any other. Our parents tucked us into our beds, gave us each a kiss on the forehead, told us they loved us, and we'd sleep content knowing they were there. No more than an hour or two passed and the light bulbs went out. One after the other. I thought nothing of it until my brother began to toss and turn in his bed as if he were very ill. He sat up in his bed and buried his head into his hands, looked up, and cried for our parents to fix it. Some time ticked by. It turned out the light bulbs blew, which I also thought nothing of until I realized the next morning that we just put new bulbs in that afternoon. After the small bothersome fiasco I finally managed to get back to sleep. Many hours later, I regained consciousness, keeping my eyes closed hoping to get back to sleep. No lights on, which meant nothing would burn my eyes, and I thought I'd be back out in seconds until I was disturbed by a long, chilling wind that swept up from the flooring. Immediately I realized I had the chills and opened my eyes seeing nothing more than a long, flowing white fabric float over my entire body. Almost too afraid to move, I slowed jerked my head to look at the staircase, seeing how it was almost perfectly adjacent to the foot of my bed. I saw a woman. She seemed so peaceful, content, without a care. Standing at the top of the stairs, she reached for the handrail and dropped her right foot down one step. At this time I realized there was something amiss with her beautiful fluttering chestnut brown hair. I was curious as to how her hair was flowing as if in the wind when she caught me glancing at her. She seemed so started and afraid to see me, as if she did something terribly wrong. She began to become transparent as her head hung lower in shame and came back up in a gasp -- as if she meant to say something or became even more frightened, and then she was gone. The breeze that filled my room as this event transpired died down, and my alarm clock read 3:00 AM.