The following account was submitted to us by one of our readers. I’ll keep her name in anonymity and call her Mary.

Mary grew up in the California’s High Desert city of Apple Valley during the late 70s. When her parents acquired a new home in 1977, Mary would learn that other strange forces were already occupying the home.

Like most logical people, Mary knows that what she saw and experienced in that Apple Valley home was something outside the realm of “modern” thought. The belief in ghosts or the paranormal has always been taken lightly since the age of science. Most people prefer to not come forth with their stories due to the fear of ridicule, yet there are some, like Mary who believes that sharing her story will either help some people in need or give others courage to speak about their experiences and get them off their chest.

We here at GhostTheory receive countless emails of people who swear to us that they “are not crazy” and believe that they are experiencing something paranormal. Most Never really contact us again or refuse to let us publish their stories. Here we have Mary’s story. An ordeal of poltergeist activity, manifestations and classic haunting.

The house in Apple Valley is at 10788 Kiavan Road.

It’s been a long time since we lived in that house in Apple Valley and so my memories are maybe not as individualized as they once were. By that I mean I can’t say, “on this date, this happened and then that.” Really tried not to think about it too much because my mom kept dragging me to the minister’s wife for “counseling” and that made me feel worse!

I’ve always been one of those people who get “feelings” and have strong reactions to certain people and places. I have always been able to give more information about both than I logistically should have been able. These kind of “abilities” push people away from you I think because they are afraid you might “read their mind” or something like that. When I was younger, I just accepted it but the older I get, I want to understand the WHY. As I’ve said in other posts, I’m not totally convinced this “ability” is so much a supernatural thing as much as it is for some reason certain brains picks up cues that other people just don’t see or chose to ignore. Someday I’d like to know if I did indeed see/hear/feel things on a supernatural level and if, did I influence or create them or did my marvy mind make it all up for some reason (??)

Anyway, on to the house…. I didn’t like it from the instant we first looked at it. There wasn’t anything that was outright “wrong” with it, it just creeped me out. The house had been empty for some time before we moved in. I’m not sure why but the realtor said it had been a model at one point that evolved into a rental unit. They had to do a bunch of repairs before we moved in but I don’t know what or why they were done. I remember chunks of white stuff on the carpet (long gawd awful orange/yellow long shag… you wouldn’t believe how ugly it was!) and that they didn’t replace that but anyway… moving along here….

We moved in the summer before fourth grade (1977 I think) and I don’t remember what happened first but things moved/disappeared/reappeared, there were dark “clouds” that darted from room to room, a woman in a long black nightgown sort of thing, my bed shook, I saw an arm come over the end of my bed and pinch my big toe (this incident is VERY clear), gosh, what else… my sister had a “man” who lived in her room and talked to her, my name was called often, the door handle rattled, etc and just never felt alone. This is going to sound crazy given the way things are today with kids being whisked from their homes, but I slept outside on the back patio in a sleeping bag most of my 5th grade year because I was too terrified to stay in my bedroom.

This house is empty again as far as I know. The people who bought it from us in 1981 or 82 reportedly abandoned it about six months after they moved in. It was a man who had a daughter about my age and I always wondered if maybe she had strange experiences and that maybe contributed to their quick move out. I think it’s empty this time because of the economy though…. Tried to contact the real estate agent to see if he could maybe pull up any history on the house but I think he thought I was a head case! 😉 Oh well!

I STILL have nightmares about this house sometimes… it’s thirty years later for pete’s sake! We didn’t have a television growing up so I wasn’t really exposed to a lot of scary movies or anything like that but that makes me wonder if maybe my imagination was just running overtime out of boredom or something like that too.

I’d accept that overtime imagination explanation except that nine years ago when I lived with my mom during a divorce, there was something in her basement that kept pinching me, tugging on my clothes (I would think it was my little one but when I would look down/around no one was there and I wasn’t standing by anything that could have caught the edge of my shirt) and pushed me down the stairs as well. I didn’t think about this until later but my kids used to come up to me and say, “what momma?” claiming I had called them when I hadn’t.

There have been other experiences as well – lots of the odd, unusual and coincidental but these are the main two “haunting” type.

Anywhooooo…. it all really leaves me caught in the middle of wanting to believe there could be something “extra” and wanting to find something more concrete. It’s nice to be able to talk about it and speculate on causes/reasons/theory without being hauled off to the looney bin…. wink..

Thanks. Have enjoyed reading and posting tonight and I’ll check back every now and then.

****You are a GREAT writer BTW! Keep it up!!!****