The Ghost of Brazil Street: Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Wednesday, December 31st, 1997.
From January 1975 to March 1977 I lived in an apartment on Brazil Street, St. John's, high up on the hill just before it meets LeMarchant Road. The previous tenants were friends of mine who were driven out because the wife couldn't stand the manifestations, which they blamed on a rather sinister painting which had been left behind by some earlier tenant. They found the atmosphere sinister and frightening, and objects constantly fell from shelves and walls for no apparent reason. (Note that the building stands on solid rock, and that there is no moving traffic nearby.)
In spite of the fact that it was extremely difficult to find a vacant apartment in St. John's at the time, particularly a corner one on the top floor of a modern building, nobody else wanted it and I moved in. I rolled up the suspicious painting and stored it away. I hung an original oil painting which belonged to me up on the wall behind one of the two sofa-beds.
The first and most persistent manifestation was that this painting used to fall off its nail on the wall and wake me up by crashing onto the electric radiator below. The nail was firmly placed and pointing upwards, so the painting couldn't have slid off. Most strikingly, the painting always fell down at exactly 3 a.m. every time. There is no possibility that I had unconsciously knocked it down in my sleep because I always woke up in a position which I would not have found myself in if I had been standing up a second or two before.
In the end I had to take the painting down. I also experienced other manifestations such as a hand, apparently a woman's, lightly touching mine as I lay in bed. There was also the sound of a hand bell being rung. The sound was definitely within the kitchen area of the studio apartment, and could not have come from outside or the next apartment. In the same place, a pen once jumped at least eight inches into the air, and I once saw a kind of formless area of darkness, roughly in the shape of a bat, swoop across the room and vanish into a wall. (I know that such an effect can be caused by migraine or other visual disturbances, and is called a "scotoma", but I have never experienced anything like it before or since.)
There was also the sound of a woman's voice repeating over and over again "Get away from me!". In fact a woman was murdered on the floor below, but long after the onset of these occurrences. I have encountered more than one supposed haunting which turned out to have an ordinary explanation (in one case, a defective central heating system which produced sounds extraordinarily like a conversation between two people which was just too faint for the words to be made out!). I have also spent complete nights in reputedly haunted rooms and observed no effects. My two friends have also never encountered anything similar in the past 20 years, so none of us can be labelled suggestible.
This story consists of nothing but anecdotal evidence and is therefore worth nothing scientifically, but I still wonder whether any other building once stood on the site and whether anything happens there now.
William Coaker's Ghostly Breeze: Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Wednesday, October 29th, 1997.
This story concerns an odd phenomenon at Coaker's monument in Port Union South, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The site is the private Coaker graveyard, and to my knowledge only four people "reside" there. As a youth I noticed that on days where not the slightest breeze was blowing, a sudden gusty wind would spring up upon entry through the gates to the graveyard.....my scientific bent wanted me to believe that it had something to do with the fact that the monument is situated at an incline, and so is more open to the elements; however, the phenomenon begins as soon as you start through the gates and make your ascent, and I know of no law of physics that can account for that, since the bottom of the graveyard is at the same level of the road outside, which is also open to the elements. My best friend at the time did not believe me, so in attempt to prove my claim I took her there...again, the sudden gust of wind that would not subside until our exit. Five years later (1995) I took my boyfriend there, who also was a sceptic, and the same thing happened again...My older sister tried, and she too had the same experience, and we began to enter and exit, each time feeling the wind. An interesting note to this story is that, like other men, William Coaker went to his mother often for advice; unlike others, Coaker's mother was long dead! He was a devout spiritualist, and perhaps it is possible that now he is making calls from the other end of the phone, so to speak, trying to communicate with the living as he once believed he could communicate with the dead.
The Ghostly Conductor: Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Friday, October 3rd, 1997.
Okay, this is a story that appeared in the "Clarenville Packet" in October of 1989 if I remember correctly. During the later years of the Bonavista Branch Railway, after roads were built and passenger train traffic had slowed off (the 1960's), trains ran on a fixed regular schedule (Monday, Wednesday, Friday -- during the days). One night in the fall of 1969, a man was travelling along the old Cabot Highway (currently Route 230) between Port Rexton and Port Union (the story didn't cite exactly where, but given the description, I would think it was just past Port Rexton in the Champneys/English Harbour area near the present day community pasture). It was late at night and he looked out over the bogs and saw a train. He travelled on until he got to the next railway crossing, when suddenly his car stalled just after he passed over the tracks. All of a sudden, this man wearing a conductor's uniform and carrying a lantern came up to the car and asked for a ride because his train had broken down. The driver agreed, and asked the man where he was from, to which Port Union was the reply. But when the driver arrived at Port Union, the passenger was no longer in the car!
The Phantom Car Accident, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Wednesday, July 29th, 1998.
In Aug of 1992 my boyfriend (now husband) and I were driving east on the Holyrood Access Road - to the TCH , returning to Topsail, NF from a cabin party out of town. It was dark with a little mist but still clear enough to see the road. My husband was driving and I was sitting in the front passenger side of the car. We were about one-half way down this road, close to the Park located off the road when I spotted a man coming out from the woods on the drivers side of the car. He was about 25 to 35 years of age, with black hair (short but messy) and was wearing black jeans (a no-name variety) and a red-ish- and black hunters type jacket. He crossed the road directly in front of the car and I did not react in any way. I knew we were going to hit him but I did not scream or in any way alert my husband of the danger. I just felt like I couldn't move or make any sound at all. As if the man was telling me it was OK and to watch his every move. When he got to my side of the car he looked up and quickly flew under the car. He movements were slow up to the point he vanished into a streak of fuzzy light under the right tire side of the car. I felt as if I was frozen in place and I remember being very scared to turn around and look behind. The next thing I know I screamed out to my husband that we had hit a man and to stop. He said that we did not hit anything and he did not stop the car. I believe at the time he didn't stop because I was so freaked out and he truely believed that we did not hit anyone or anything. When we arrived home I was still shaken and the car showed no signs of damage at all. My husband did not see anything. Nor was there any reports of an accident on the road that night.
I have always wondered if there were any others who have had a similar experience on this road, or if anyone was ever killed by a car on that area in the past. For some reason I believe that perhaps a man was killed there and the only one who saw it happen was the passenger of the car. It has left a lasting impact on my life as I never believed in the afterlife before this happened to me. To be quite honest, I never had any spiritual beliefs at all. It certainly changed my life!!!
The Ghost Child of Branch, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Friday, June 26th, 1998.
This is a strange story...but it's true and I'll swear my life on it any day. It happened in the small community called Branch, in Newfoundland. I was in my grandparents home and it was getting late so I decided to go to bed. After awhile I started to fall asleep, but I suddenly felt a chill in the room and I opened my eyes...and there it was a shadow of what appeared to be a small child (I left the light on in the room by a mistake )It wasn't on the wall or anything though, it had shape to it and it was about a foot from the wall. It just stood there, and I seen the head look around every now and then, but to say I was scared beyond belief. I backed into the corner of the room and just stared at it for about 5 minutes...I was to afraid to say anything...after awhile though the shadow just vanished...easy to say that I never got any sleep that night or the next few after. This story is true, and I will always stand by it...Though many people look at you quite strange when you speak of things like this.
The Shadow Woman of Patrick Street, St. John's: Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Monday, March 9th 1998.
It was summer, 1969. I was walking up Patrick Street, on my way home from a friend's house. It was just getting dark. The stucco house on the corner of Patrick & Power St. was vacant and a "For Sale" sign stood out front. As I passed, "something" made me turn around and look up at the second-floor window. There was a shadow of a woman in the window; it looked like the kind of shadow you get when a person is standing in front of a lamp. The woman was brushing her hair. I stood transfixed, watching for a few moments; then I realized there was no light in the room and there was no one living in the house; I was watching a ghost. I walked past that house many times after, but I never saw her again. People have told me since then that they heard that house is haunted by the ghost of a woman who was killed in the house.
"Jacquie" from St. John's writes: "I lived at 100 Patrick St. right next door! And let me tell you I have seen a couple of things that made my head turn. There was a figure that I had seen a half a dozen times the whole time I lived next door. The first time I saw it I thought it was our buddy who lived there, (really cool guy...he had the coolest dogs) I waved and there was no response...The drape just fell. Then I saw there was nobody home. I was in grade two when we moved in. This scared me a little, but I still waved at the window every time I walk by. I guess as a kid I thought it would keep whatever it was happy, and if I made it happy it wouldn't hurt me. Also there was a women murdered in the stucco house. My Dad, who I trust more than anyone in the world, told me the story of her murder even before I told him what I had seen. The poor woman did die a brutal death. I hope my smile and wave did give her unrest some peace."
Ghosts on the Track, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Sat, 27 Mar 1999.
Here's something that happened to me when I was 16 years old and at the time, residing in Manuels, Conception Bay.. It was a fall evening when I was at my Grandmothers house, which is near the now abandoned NF Railway that passes directly behind it.. I guess it was about 9pm when I decided that it was time to walk home. I had three choices, I could walk home in the ‘track' to my home - the shortest route, but darkest - or walk out the driveway to the main road and up to the railway crossing and in Eason's road - The longest way - or the way I had went that night which was out the back garden and ‘out the track' to the crossing, then in the road to my house..
I left ‘Oldmommy's' house and crossed the garden to the track.. Nothing particular was going through my head at the time, as I began to walk the 150 feet or so on the railway ballast - crushed stone - to the crossing.. Having walked only about 30-40 feet along the rails, I heard what I thought to be another set of foot steps behind me.. I just shrugged it of to being my own feet ‘flicking' the crushed stones about.. Then, I realized that the steps were a distance behind me and must belong to another source other than myself.. I was nervous but brave enough to turn around and look, needless to say what I saw scared the hell out of me.
I could still hear the steps come toward myself but no one was producing them, until I looked down towards the ground about 15 feet behind me and seen the crushed stone being disturbed with the impressions of someone's foot steps coming towards me. I ran the remaining 60-70 feet and the sounds of the foot steps had ceased, though, my prayers to heaven above hadn't.
I told my Mother about the incident, which she believed, having witnessed strange things herself.. The next day she mentioned it to her mother, My Grandmother whom I had visited the previous night.. They spoke for awhile then when the phone conversation was over, Mom told me that when she mentioned my ‘sighting' to my Grandmother, my Grandmother told her that it wasn't the first time someone ‘seen' something in the same area, apparently, a woman known as "Mrs Malloy" was killed on the train track many years ago when she was a young girl..
Other sightings were witnessed by others, including another previous one by myself that I never realized till that revelation. These sightings are: an image of a woman who walked down a small path to the area that was seen several years earlier.. A dark shadow blocking entrance to the same path, and a friendly little dog that followed you along the track, only to disappear just as you rounded the turn up Eason's road.. This is my own personal experience, my mother has several of her own.
The Ghost and the Toast, St. John's - added Sunday March 7th, 1999.
My story happened here in St. John's in March 1969. My grandfather has recently passed away leaving to mourn my grandmother along with her daughter, son in law and two year old grandson all of whom lived in the same house. One morning, about 6:00am my grandmother woke up and could smell toast. Checking to see if her grandson was still sleeping she discovered that he was not in his bed.The house was quite and no one else was up. When she went downstairs, she found her grandson eating toast at the kitchen table. Surprised,she asked him how he managed to reach the toaster which was up high on a shelf ,much too high for a two year old to reach, and how he had made it and put it back in its place. He replied "nana, don't you know that granddad got it for me!" At first she thought he was joking, but then soon realized there was no way he could have done that without the help of an adult. As there was no one else up at that time to do it (of course she also asked her daughter and son in law), she knew her husband's spirit must have still been with them watching out for his little grandson.
The Crying Babies of Queen's Road, Newfoundland, Canada - added March 7, 1999
I grew up in 92 A Queen's Road. My mom, dad, sister and I lived on the top floor, my grandmother on the second (the house had three levels and three apartments). Well, my grandmother was up in years and often complained of the babies crying upstairs. She also used to constantly scare us by telling us that she watched a woman go up the stairs to our apartment and would make my sister and I go up on our own to find this 'woman'. Well, this, at first, was terrifying for us....why would we want to go up there alone to confront a stranger who had broken into our home (my mom and dad both worked and thus we were often in the care of Nan). As you can imagine, by the time we had made this trip upstairs several dozen times, we began to think Nan was just driving to drive us mad, scare us, or else she herself was going insane. We took to humouring her to her face and laughing at her behind her back. However, this didn't deter Nan any. She went on and on about the crying babies and the strange woman.
When I was in Halifax about two years ago going to school, my dad sent me a parcel. In it was a book named 'Where Angels Fear to Tread'. anyhow, he had a particular story marked (and these stories were supposed to all be true NF tales of murder). Well, there in the book was a story about our old apartment at 92 A Queen's Road. Apparently a woman who lived there had murdered her two babies and then put them in a cardboard box and brought them to the dump (and then burned them if I remember correctly). These would be the same babies Nan constantly heard crying and drove us mad trying to find.
Tales from Newfoundland, NF, Canada - Submitted Fri, 23 Jul 1999.
I work at 275 Duckworth St. It is the former Evening Telegram building. I have heard that a man hung himself from the third or fourth floor banister and that the building is haunted. I've been there 12 years and until recently never believed much about the haunting. I had to work late and it was around midnight. I was working on a computer in one particular office on the first floor. I could hear a thumping noise. I checked around and could find nothing but the noise persisted for 20 minutes or more. I thought it was the computer knocking against the desk but no it wasn't. Maybe it was the sound of this poor man's feet against the walls as he took his last breath. Or was it his spirit trying to warn me of danger? Who knows.
I also have spent many years in the summers at a place called Mahers. A family there were wonderful story tellers. We had always heard stories of a ghost train. We were in an old house one time during a thunder storm and we heard the story again. We were convinced that we could hear it and feel it pass by. Were we just gullible kids, was it the storm or could it have been...
I do know one story of a man who died up there and the only way to get in or out of the community at the time was by train. When he died, his neighbours fashioned a rough coffin to send him home in. But they had a hard time keeping him in it. He kept sitting bolt upright at least twice. Why, was it strictly rigour mortis or there some unfinished business that he wanted to tell us from beyond the grave? Just some things to ponder.
The Ghost of Cove Road, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Mon, 5 Jul 1999.
My family is originally from St. John's NFLD. I have visited times in my life and am planning another visit in july/august of 1999. My grandmother's original house is the one that we used to stay in. It is very old and still has no indoor plumbing. This house is located on Cove Road. There have been many accounts by many of my family members who have stayed in the house, unfortunately many have passed away leaving only verbal "tales." I however can clearly remember chains in the attic rattling last time I was there, at the young age of ten! Strange noises and creaking stairs are also another usual occurrence. Being twenty years old now and an avid fan of the paranormal, I am anxious to get back to the house next summer to report on anything else I may experience. I will keep you updated.
Victoria Street Spectre, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Tue, 27 Apr 1999 .
A spectre, female, going down the stairway from the third to the first floor of the house. It is visible when outside on the deck and facing the house. It pauses on the landing between the third and second floor as it is about to go down the stairway, turns toward the harbour and then turns again as it goes down the stairs. It is like a fog cloud in appearance. It has never been seen when I am inside the house. When it is seen there are no different lights lit outside, no planes in the air, no fog in the air, nothing out-of-the-normal. No audible sounds are associated with it.
No one else has seen it but me. After viewing it if I return into the house and go up the stairs there is a noticible cold spot on the landing where the spectre has made the turn to face the harbour. It appears to be descending stairs that are of a different level than those presently in the old house. There are no poltergeist happenings associated with it. I do not know the reason. No one else has seen it because others have been present at some of the times it has appeared.
Kelligrews Soiree, Newfoundland, Canada - Submitted Sat, 4 Sep 1999
When I was visiting NF Canada I was passing through Kelligrews. My wife and I had to stop for gas so we stopped at the Ultramar in that town. While the person was filling up the tank, my four year old child mentioned the creepy looking house across the street. I was curious so we drove over to have a look at the place. When we drove by the door I noticed that it was open and so I figured somebody was there. I went up to the door and had a peek inside. it was very dark. I wanted to see what the porch was like, so I lit up my lighter and looked around I noticed a small candle in the corner of the porch so I went and got it lit it and had a look around. the first room after the porch was the kitchen and then the hall. I walked into the hall and the first thing I saw was a picture of the children that must have lived there long ago.
Then while I was sizing up the picture I heard a noise. It sounded like children playing upstairs. I was half afraid to go up not because of the noise but because the floor didn't look that steady. Then I heard the noise again. I thought that it was just a couple of kids goofing around. I took the chance and walked up the old stairs, I was going up to tell those kids that they shouldn't be playing up there because the floor wasn't safe but when I got up there wasn't a soul to be found. I turned around to go back down the stairs and there in front of me was a little boy he made a face at me and then vanished into thin air right before my eyes.
True Labrador Ghost Story, Labrador, Canada - Submitted Wed, 27 Oct 1999
In 1998, my wife, infant daughter, and I moved to Cartwright, Labrador, so that I might take up employment there. We lived in the old staffhouse on what is known as the "Grenfell Grounds". On different occasions, the house had served as clinic and temporary hospital, and as time passed I began to learn of unusual occurrences that had happened therein the past. My mother in law, who was visiting with us for awhile, would always go down to the basement to smoke. She would sit on a bench almost opposite the furnace room doorway, and she told us that more than once she had a very uneasy feeling which she said caused her to feel very uneasy towards the dark entrance to the furnace room.
The laundry room was also on that level, and after dark, when I had to go down there to get laundry, I could never shake the feeling that I was not alone, particularly when ascending the dimly lit, steep staircase. I always felt that someone was right behind me, and I would constantly look behind me as I went up.
One instance that really stands out from my memories of that house. My wife and I were feeding my daughter one evening. The three of us were alone in the house. As we were feeding her, I began to whistle a song to her, but when I stopped whistling, the whistling continued for a very short time from somewhere else in the house. My wife and I clearly heard this - there was no mistaking it.
The Bradley Place, Bonavista, Newfoundland - Submitted Fri, 01 Oct 1999.
It was during the Summer of 1999... when me and my friend were just walking home, we decided to take a short cut around Ropers Lane, Which is where I live! The place, is called The Bradley House, it's a museum where people go to now, and look at the old things that lie within it! It's over 100 years old, and while I have been growing up here, I heard some pretty scary stuff about the place! Even my own sister saw something there before! She said that when she was about my age, she went there with a friend one night... they were walking on back of the old house, when my sister looked up into the top middle window of the place, and saw two green eyes peering out at her! She said she saw it more than once! Pretty scary huh! Anyway, besides that... when me and my friend were walking past the house, we heard chains behind us! We were so frightened and started to run so fast! There was no one there, cause it was late in the night... and once before while I was there... I saw a white light in the top middle window of the place! There are many stories about The Bradley House, I have been in there a couple of times, and it is really creepy! It scares me to walk by there, I mean... whenever I walk past the place, I get the feeling that someone is watching me or something!
The Priest and the Library (The Goulds)- Submitted Tue, 31 Jul 2001
It has long been reported that the old Father Slatery library in St. Kevin's Elementary School was haunted by the same priest for whom it was dedicated. As a child I was present during two sightings. Both occurred during the night. The first involved some kids taking part in a concert who, fooling around, went up to the library to get a good scare. They got one and came running down the stairs frightened because they had seen the priest. This could have just been kids making up stories, but the library had a reputation long before we got there. The second time I was walking along side the school at night with some friends. The Library has one lonely window on this side and it always gave me a chill to walk by it. On this night I looked up to see the curtain closed. When I looked back, it was opening. not staying long enough to ask questions, I ran home. It could have been a night janitor, but why would he not have turned on the
lights? Interestingly enough, there is a grave yard just behind the school and stories say that it gets closer to the school every year.