Things that go bump in the Island night: Your haunting stories

Although many argue there are no such things as ghosts or spirits, others say their own experiences are all the proof they need.

The burning ghost ship in the Northumberland Strait is one such phenomenon, witnessed by hundreds over the years from Tignish to Cape Breton. Wheelie the haunted toy, discovered in the walls of P.E.I.'s historic Yeo House in Port Hill, moves around the house mysteriously, staff say. And many believe ghosts reside in the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown. 

Here are some stories shared by Prince Edward Islanders of spooky encounters and happenings, after we asked for them via Facebook.

(Please note that usernames are not necessarily the names of commenters. Some comments have been altered to correct spelling and to conform to CBC style.)

Melissa Gray showed off a mirror she believes is haunted. Her mother got it at an auction in Ontario about 25 years ago, and when she hung it up, "weird stuff happened," Gray said.

"When she downsized, she was going to get rid of it, so I said I'd take it and hung it in my hall," Gray commented.

"The next two weeks my kids and I felt someone touch us and call our names and we even saw a small girl and an old man. Also had nightmares really bad, which never happened before. It quieted down a bit and occurrences happened less frequently. Then talking to my mom, she said it might be the mirror, and it struck me that OMG it was the mirror!"

Julie Watts said she had a boxer-mix dog that died. She had him cremated, and keeps his ashes. She thinks perhaps he still visits the house.

"I noticed this ghostly like image on a picture I took watching our other dog sleeping. I didn't see the image when I took the picture; thought it looked like an outline of a boxer so I traced it," she commented on CBC's Facebook page.

Christine McTownsend shared that her family has "definitely experienced a few things since moving into our old home in Winsloe."

The movie Ghost Cat, also known as Mrs. Ashboro's Cat and starring Ellen Page, was filmed on-site.

"Pretty cool creepy spot [at the moment] decorated for Halloween," she said. 

Todd Langdon commented about a yellow house in Caledonia, P.E.I. 

"If a house is haunted, it's certainly that one. Lived there a couple years. Some scary stuff happened there. Would never live there again," Langdon said. 

Kate Bruce said her husband's 141-year-old homestead in Little Pond both looks and is haunted.

"Anytime I'd fall asleep on the main level of the house, there'd always be a 'man' shuffling around the house and opening/closing cabinets in the kitchen, thumping up the stairs, and he'd wake me up," she shared. "There'd never actually be anyone there. My husband swears he hasn't been playing a practical joke on me for years. Finally asked his aunts about it and they all laughed and said it was probably just 'Edward.'"

Edward was the name of her husband's grandfather and great-grandfather, so she said it could be either of them.

"It's a happy family ghost, though, nothing sinister! He just didn't like me falling asleep on the couch, I guess, haha." 

The house at the end of the road

The most detailed and intriguing story of haunting is from Chloe Young. When she was little, she lived with her moms in Murray Harbour. When she was eight, one of her moms died, and it hit Chloe and her other mom hard. They moved to an old white house at the end of a dead-end road, Young said (admitting this sounds cliché). They picked it out because it had a little apple orchard in the yard and it was beside woods that Chloe could play in. 

"I deeply regretted it later," Young said. "I don't remember how soon after we moved into that house that things started happening. In total we lived there for four years and I was never so happy to leave a house in my life."

At first it was little things: Pens would roll off desks, the doorbell battery would die minutes after they replaced it and play a horrible dissonant music, the TV would turn on, things would fall off the walls.

"Eventually I would get this heavy, thick, anxiety-inducing feeling every time I had to go upstairs," where the bedrooms and bathroom were, she said. "It got so bad that my mom had to force me to shower by threatening to take away my toys or ground me. I always had the feeling that someone was up there. And it wasn't a nice feeling.

"I would take the stairs two at a time, singing at the top of my lungs because it felt like the only thing that could break the silence and keep whatever was watching me away."

They also noticed there was a cold spot on one of the steps — anything below or above it was normal room temperature but one step close to the top was always freezing. 

To this day I avoid going near that house. You couldn't pay me enough money.— Chloe Young

"Then the orbs appeared. I saw them always on my way to the shower — one big green, one smaller dark brown — coming out of my playroom," she said. They had a Yorkie and his eyes would follow the movement of the orbs, she said. 

Her friends stopped coming for sleepovers, since they saw or felt the same things, she said. She always slept with her head under the covers. 

"Except for one night — I remember waking up and looking over at my wardrobe in the other corner of my room. And I saw this figure of a woman standing there, with my wardrobe open. She was facing away from me but she had the same hairstyle of my mother. She was wearing this long, ankle-length white gown. And she had her arms out in front of her. I just remember being so, so scared. But I didn't run away or scream or anything, I just slowly pulled the covers back over my head."

'Things past death'

Two years after they moved in, her mother slipped on ice and broke her ankle, Young said.

"It's horrible of me to say this, but I was happy deep down because she couldn't go up the stairs and needed me to stay downstairs to help her," she said. 

One night she went to bed as usual, but felt something different.

"I felt this crazy serene sense of absolute peace wash over me. And as I was laying in bed, I felt someone just gently start stroking my hair. I knew there was nobody there but I felt so calm and so unbelievably comfortable that I just laid there with it until I fell asleep," she said. "I have never felt anything like it since." 

Her mother shared the next morning that she had felt the same peace. And even though it was November and all the windows were shut, the curtains and blankets in her room had fluttered. 

"She couldn't physically hear her, but emotionally she heard [her wife] say goodbye," Young said. She never felt anything strange in the house again, although her mother has since told her she did. 

Now 24, Young lives in Charlottetown and leads a happy, normal life. 

"To this day, I avoid going near that house. You couldn't pay me enough money," she said. She also believes there was something else in the house other than her deceased mother, because "my mom would have never spent those years giving us that feeling of absolute fear.

"I truly believe there are things past death out there that we cannot explain," she said. "I don't think the movies quite get it right. Some people believe me and others don't but I truly think it's something you have to experience for yourself."

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