The age was 13, the place the Mountains Mt. Shasta, California. I went with the YMCA on a camping trip, I am guessing there were approximately 30 kids, boys and girls. Boys camped on one side of a stream and the girls on another, hee hee good luck on that one.

A handful of us girls decided to take off hiking and as I quite fit at the time I loved the idea we hiked quickly in toward a small lake with one of the female counselors. Once there we decided to spend the night by the lake, we spent the day swimming and lazing around, the evening we spent by a cozy fire then later did a bit of skinny dipping.

After a full day we finally settled into our sleeping bags surrounding the fire, somewhere in the night I heard crying. I sat up and noticed the fire had died down and wondered who amongst us was crying then noticed the person crying was leaning against a tree with their head leaning on it, I asked if they were ok and they didn't say anything.

At the time I felt I had intruded therefore left them alone since they didn't answer me, in the morning I asked around who it was and everyone confirmed it was not them so the last person was my good friend I when I finally asked her she firmly stated that she did not get up at all and apparently no one else did either.

Thats when I understood what had happened, the female figure against the tree crying was not alive and for some reason I was the only one that heard her and felt her. This has stuck with me on the sadness of her tears and why she is still there.

Persephone

Here is another story:

Pacific Northwest

The Graveyard of the Pacific is a nickname for a stretch of the coastal region in the Pacific Northwest, from Tillamook Bay on the Oregon Coast northward to the tip of Vancouver Island. The region's seas are frequently subject to heavy and unpredictable weather year round combined with the rugged, largely undeveloped coastline, especially along Vancouver Island and its northwestern tip at Cape Scott, causing sea conditions which endanger many marine vessels. More than 2000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost near the Columbia Bar alone. One book about regional wrecks lists 484 wrecks at the south and west sides of Vancouver Island.

Combinations of fog, wind, storm, current and wave have crashed hundreds of ships in the region by the middle of the twentieth century, including famous wrecks in regional history. Charts of the region show its famous, and dangerous, landmarks:

* Columbia Bar: a giant sandbar at the mouth of the Columbia River

* Cape Flattery

* Reefs and rocks lining the west coast of Vancouver Island

* Strait of Juan de Fuca

Shipwreck charts are studded with sites. Actual physical wreckage is minimal due to the violence of the wrecks and their age, despite the difficulty of access for salvagers.

The term is believed to have originated in the earliest days of the marine fur trade, not only as increasing numbers of traders' ships began to be wrecked, but also because of the ongoing state of incipient warfare that all ships had to be provided for in the region, which was considered one of the most dangerous and deadly regions to trade in the Pacific.

The rate of major wrecks has decreased considerably since the 1920s, but several lives are still lost each year.

MY EXPERIENCE

Now to my experience, we are campers, dirt and all, ok with a tent trailer but still. Living in Seattle for many years brought us to many camping areas alot of them in Canada. We decided to head to Vancouver Island to a town called Tofino, we had many times been to the island but never camped and never that far up. This island is stunning with its rich forests to the sea surrounding it. Once we found the area to camp we naturally set up, I felt a constant unease in this spot and felt the need to express my dislike of it. It was the feel, also felt like there was something with us but I couldn't pin point it exactly. After the set up we sauntered over to the Forest Rangers building and decided to listen to her evening speal about the area, we did not realize the amount of ship wrecks and history surrounding the island but decided we have hit upon a area that we just might come back to because of its beauty and history.

My unease started to become quite extreme, even to the point of wanting to move the campsite. Things started to occur, missing personal items, things out of place, but I noticed it was focusing on my husband. He is a runner so everywhere we travel he gets his running shoes on and off he goes exploring every new place but when he returns of course the sweaty yuk stuff comes off. He hangs them over hooks, knobs anywhere that is away from us and can dry out a bit. This time he put his towel over the Tent Trailers frame where the hitch is, after he cleaned up we went off exploring for hours and enjoyed the beach, the forest even the small town people who have been there forever and were down to earth folks. When we returned the first thing I noticed was the towel it was folded neatly and under the trailer hitch, we tried to recreate how it could of landed there, we thought well maybe it fell but no way could it of falling and folded itself. We mainly considered ourselves delusional at that point, it was still wet because that campsite is just a step away from the Ocean and the sun rarely makes it out. Down deep I felt I knew this was unusual and that something was surrounding us. We chatted for awhile about it and only my husband dismissed it, the rest of us were ready to move. The next morning he was cooking breakfast and sipping coffee out of his glass cup. We sat inside while the food was cooking and talked about the day, this particular day was foggy, still, and quiet not too cold but overcast. While we sat he started to sip his coffee when the cup exploded, we were stunned this cup was thick not one of those thin ones. We sat and looked at each other and then said ok we are outta here, I truly at that point knew he was the target and I had some fear for him so we didn't even pull the Tent Trailer down we simply drove to another close location and he allowed me to walk around the sites till I felt good about one. That did the trick, we had no more incidences and unfortunately or fortunately we never did go back to the island.

Persephone

Always interested in reading.

I was pushed by something invisible once myself. I was standing on a street corner in New Orleans when suddenly I got shoved so hard that I fell into the street. I fell hard enough that it skinned both palms and my knees. Lucky for me there was no traffic in my lane at the time.

I got up swinging for whoever had pushed me, but there was no one on the street in either direction. I have no explanation other than a paranormal one.

I think someone should do an investigation of this theater for sure.

This is why I am interested in the paranormal. Not as dramatic an experience as others but still paranormal /smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

I am somewhat of a doubting Thomas when it comes to ghostly activity and try to apply logic to things. I am more apt to discount something as an overactive imagination then to take it seriously. So what happened to me when I was an over 50 mother and wife was very surprising and impossible for me to explain away.

My husband and I decided to take in a budget movie at one of those old in the original downtown movie theaters that had been a silent movie theater and vaudeville stop in its day. It was quaint theater with art rococo design not very large with an intimate feel. I actually liked this theater and we had been there several times before this evening.

This particular night we went to the early show which traditionally is not well attended and there weren't any other patrons yet. We were the ONLY ones entering the theater and in the theater when I was pushed from behind in the middle of my back with enough force that I had to adjust for it so I wouldn't fall or trip. I turned immediately around to see who had pushed me and there was no one there. I wasn't scared at the time but very annoyed. As it was impossible for there to be a rational explanation for what had happened for the first time in my life a paranormal explanation was the only rational one.

I couldn't have imagined it and I wasn't predisposed to be looking for something paranormal to be happening. I was doing something very normal in my uneventful daily life. I had been walking into the theater looking for a place to sit and talking to my husband. That is why I know it really happened and I can't discount it because it was such a normal life moment-until I was pushed by an invisible person.

Initially, I was concerned about going back there as I took the push personally. It was an aggressive act and bothered me. I would be upset if a living person pushed me. I guess I would expect a haunting to be more along the lines of sounds or mists but not so physical but I could reason those away it was impossible to do that with this experience.

I have gone back to the theater but I won't venture alone anywhere. I have often wanted to ask the owners or those that work there if they have had any experiences. I have since looked up the theater and it isn't listed as a haunted spot. I find that curious because what happened to me has no explanation other than paranormal.

As to why or who I have teased my husband that it was a jealous woman who wanted to be his date. /smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

OK, so one day during my visit, I was riding in the car with one of my sisters, (who chauffeured my husband and me around while we were there.) We happened to drive past a different creepy old house we had lived in years ago, and I was like, "OMG, there's that super-creepy house! Did anything weird ever happen to you while we lived there?" And she said, "a few things, but nothing like that OTHER place." I was like, "which other place?" And she named the house from my above post. Now, she and I have NEVER talked about it before, but she mentioned a bunch of experiences that were exactly the same as some of the ones I'd had myself- it was so crazy!

*As it turns out, we were both really afraid of the basement there, even though we've never been afraid of a basement before or since. We both had a very strong sense of being stared at by some close-by, evil presence whenever we went down there. (Once I went down there looking for my mom, and I went all the way to the back of it and into the pitch black, thinking she was sitting in the dark and smoking because I saw a little orange light like the end of a lit cigarette. I walked right up to within three feet of the light and went, "Mom? Mom? MOM!" but she never answered, and the "cigarette end" never moved. I was suddenly overwhelmed by this horrible feeling, and turned and ran out of there and up the stairs as fast as I could, where I found my mom just coming in the front door from having run next door to the pharmacy.*There was nothing down there that could have caused that little orange light, which I never saw again after that one time.)

*Another thing- we both remembered separate times when her dog would suddenly go crazy, jump up and start whining and barking and frantically scratching at the basement door, (after a few minutes, she'd just stop and go about her business again.)

*Ever since I lived in that house, I've had recurring dreams where I float out of my body and go up to the ceiling, and to this day I have to sleep with a heavy blanket (even when it's hot outside) and a pillow on top of me. The dreams started in my sister's room, where I'd sleep whenever she was going to be away from home overnight. Without my mentioning this, she told me that she started having weird dreams there, where she'd "float out of her body all the way to the ceiling," and that to this day she has to sleep with a pillow on top of her. How bizarre!

*She said that a few times she'd be mostly asleep and think she heard music coming from the living room, and I used to wake up to the sound of phonograph music (and sometimes a bunch of people, like there was a party going on in the living room.) After I'd wake up all the way and sit up, though, it would stop.

I think that's all we talked about, but I also remember a few other experiences of my own: Once I was at home alone (this was in broad daylight), and I suddenly got the strongest feeling I was being watched. I turned my head really fast and just caught sight of long, blonde hair swinging back around the corner, like someone (child height) had been peeking at me. I ran outside and sat on the swing set until my parents got back home, I was so freaked out. Also, (this happened a few times), I'd be passing through and would glance across the living room and into a mirror that hung on the far wall, and would see a little white face peering at me from behind my left shoulder. *This also happened to another sister of mine on a separate occasion. As fast as I could blink, the person would turn and dart out of the frame, and I'd spin around to find (of course) no one and nothing there.

OK, I think that's everything I can think of from that house!

Anyway, really freaky. And I guess doing stuff like that means I was kind of like a paranormal investigator way before it was cool, huh? /wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

P.S. Should I keep posting my stories here, or put them somewhere else?

For me there were two experiences...Both in my present house. The first was approximately 10 years ago, late at night and feeling really bad. I had been with a fever for the past few days and always kept a glass of juice next to me. Just when i was falling asleep i kept staring at the glass and it simply slid out of the table without me touching it...i don`t know if it was a ghost or some sort of involuntary telekinesis but to me it seemed paranormal.

The other was a "Painted Plate" (not sure how to describe it) that began moving on its own for several minutes. There were many witnesses and we managed to record it but since it was many years ago it`s recorded on a VHS and don`t really know where it is right now (Probably won`t believe this right?).

Oh, I believe you. I saw lots of objects move on their own in the house I grew up in. We were so used to it that it didn't even phase us anymore.

I wish I'd recorded all of the things that happened, but people probably wouldn't believe it anyway.