I had an experience that was rather strange while living in Trinity Alps. During my three years in those rugged mountains, I lived with a friend in an old cabin. She claimed the cabin was about 100 years old. Her family had bought it many years ago as a retreat away from the city life. This cabin had no electricity; we used a generator when necessary. Water came straight from a storage tank that was gravity fed into the house. We lived on about 70 acres of beautiful mountaintop. We even had a bear or two visiting in the summer. Anyway, you get the picture. It was rural. One road in and out; all dirt.

I moved in there with my children in December 1991. On the second night I was there, I woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling of being watched. I was in a new place and the settling down tired me a lot. I figured that I was just a bit nervous about being far away from civilisation. So, I went back to sleep though I felt uneasy. Nevertheless, everything seems fine by sunrise.

The following night I was again awakened by a strong feeling of someone watching me. This time as I looked to my left there was someone there looking right at me! He was about 50 to 60 years old with a rough beard, wrinkles and a funny looking cap. He also had on a uniform of some sort though I couldn't make out what uniform it was. I was shocked at first as I didn't know who he was and what he was doing inside the cabin. I stared at him and wondered what he would do. Then, I suddenly realised he is not human.

He seemed to sense my fear and smiled at me before he slowly vanished in the thin air. I closed my eyes and thought to myself, I must be dreaming. I opened my eyes again and looked around but he was no longer there. I pulled the covers over my head and slept fitfully the rest of the night.

I asked my friend the next day if she had experienced anything weird while living up there. She smiled at me and said, "You've seen him, haven't you?"

She smiled and told me that there was a spirit who lived there too. It had been there ever since she could remember but he was quite harmless except at times he could be quite playful. She went on to tell me that the man who built the cabin had been a civil war soldier and was buried under that magnificent oak tree in the front yard. I recalled the uniform and the cap the man was wearing. He loved the cabin so much he lived there forever.

Indeed, our ghostly housemate was playful. Once in a while, things would go missing and we would turn the house upside down searching for them.

Once, I was giving my children a bath. I had all of their clothes out ready for them on my bed. When they were getting dressed my little girl's shoes were missing. I remember leaving them on the bed minutes earlier and no one could have taken it. We searched every where and we found the shoes at the most unlikely place - at the bottom of the box the children kept their toys. We started laughing and told the spirit to leave our things alone.

He didn't. Soon after that my car keys went missing from the counter in the kitchen. My friend and I searched the house inside out but again to no avail. Desperate, my friend made a simple divining rod and using what she claimed to be magical powers, we found the keys 10 minutes later in a music box. Sometimes, things gone missing would reappear by itself a few days later.

One day, I was out feeding the rabbits on the meadow, a short distance away. While I was there, I swear I heard people talking like on a radio. It was complete with static. I was so scared that I left the rabbit cage open and ran back to the cabin. I told my friend what had happened and she said she experienced something similar before. She spent Christmas alone in the cabin some years back. On Christmas Eve she heard 'Silent Night' in her head and started to sing along. She could only sing until the third verse as she didn't know the rest of the song. Nevertheless, the music played on and she could hear voices that sounded like a radio broadcast. I reckon it might have been radio waves as we were so far up in these mountains.

The whole experience was strange but interesting. No one was hurt and the spirit seemed friendly. I left Trinity in 1993 and haven't been in contact with my friend for a few years so I don't know if she still has these things happening in her cabin or not. I know it isn't a super scary story but it is real and it happened to me.

Go to Ghostly Memoirs 4

Owl's Ghost Stories © 2000 by Will Ong