Ghosts in Times of Trouble

Witness: Gillian Ruane
Location: Lancashire, England
Date of Encounter: February 18, 2006

This is an unusual story, but it started late last year. My 19 year old cousin died three years ago. In October 2005 my mother was driving to the local rail station to collect me, and when I got in, she advised she had just had a strange visit…

Mum explained that she was embraced by my cousin and was told that everything was going to be alright. I did wonder at that and queried further what was said and my mother advised that she was told that we would be in an accident and that my 4 year old nephew would be involved too, but that we would be unhurt. Well I thought nothing of it but my mother was convinced that it meant a car crash as she always drives to collect Bradley from his mother each Saturday for the night.

In February this year, a little after 8pm on the 18th, I was upstairs in the bedroom with my dad downloading some pictures on to PC, Brad was in the bath, and my mum was hovering on the landing between the bathroom and bedroom, when there was this almighty explosion. I had no idea what it was but my parents went outside to check what had happened and yelled at me to get Brad out as there had been a gas explosion at my neighbors house. Bear in mind that our house was jointly attached and could have gone up too.

It took ages for the fire brigade to bring the fires under control. Later that night we were told that my neighbor had committed suicide in the house by dousing the house in petrol and severing the gas pipes. We were told that we were very lucky to have got out alive.

A few days after this I remembered what my mum said all those months ago and I said that this was the big bang that we were told we would be involved in. For weeks after that there was a lot of spiritual activity in the house.

I was sat downstairs doing some meditation, when I saw my dog walk out of my kitchen and come and sit right next to me and placed his head on my lap. The dog passed away in July of last year so I was really pleased to see him. Not only did this dog come to visit, but my two border collies who had died 15 years ago also came and sat on my lap. Young Sam sat on my lap, Toby sat with his head on me, and Old Sam sat across my legs keeping me warm.

One night I was on my own watching telly when I saw something walk right out of my neighbor's wall, into our living room, and disappear behind the sofa. That freaked me out completely.

On another night I was going to bed at 3am when I heard a dog barking at something. I first thought it was my neighbor's dogs, but then remembered that they weren't out. I thought about where the barking was coming from and realized that it was coming from our living room, and it was alerting me to something.

The next morning, my neighbor told me that she was coming home at 3am and found two people trying to break in to my dead neighbor's house! How weird was that? Not only that, but my mother told me that she was on her own one night while I was at work and she was in the bath, when she heard our dog, Toby barking his head off downstairs (he died last July) at something and she said it surprised her. I don't think that she had believed me when I first told her about the night I heard him. I also saw his indentation in the living room curtains and knew he was still here. He was gone again after three weeks, but it was great to know that he was around when I needed him.

There is no spiritual activity now, but we know it was all the family members who had died coming back to look after us and I know that they will be there to give us comfort.