Bedford Haunting

Back in 1982, my mother, step-father, sister and myself moved into a house in Bedford Ohio. The house had originally been built by my step-fathers grandfather back in the mid 40's, it was the first house built in that section of the city shortly after world war 2. The house was bordered on one side and the back by woods. As soon as we moved in, we knew there was something else in this house with us.

It may sound strange to say, but the haunting activity at first was actually very typical of other ghost phenomena (footsteps going up and down the basement stairs, doors opening and closing on their own, knocking and pounding in the attic). The most unusual events at that time was that, whatever it was, used to torment my mother by throwing things at her back when she was home alone. It was never anything that would hurt her, it was usually things such as small lightweight objects like plastic Christmas tree ornaments and the like. It served more to rattle her nerves a bit than to do any damage. But even that became the norm and we kind of looked at the occurrences as just a neat little quirk of our house.

It wasn't until the summer of 1987 that things got really scary. It started about March of that year. My sister (about to turn 5) used to get up in the middle of the night and my parents used to hear her talking to someone. Thinking she had some imaginary friend, they asked her who she was talking to and she said it was "Gamma" (her word for grandma). As the months passed, my sister would wake up during the night less and less and the rest of the occurrences seemed to stop all together. Then in early June, the house was peaceful, well inside the house anyway.

My mother worked in an office in warensville hts. (about 10-15 minutes drive from our house) and on her lunch hour she would drive home and lay out in the sun on a raft in our pool for about 20 or so minutes before going back to work. One day as she was laying out and happened to look over toward the woods, she saw a man standing in the tall weeds at the tree line, about maybe 30 or 35 feet from the side of the pool, she said he appeared to be wearing a very expensive 3 piece suit but his hair was all messed up and his eye's were opened very wide and he had this weird grin on his face. She ran into the house and called the police, who came out but found no footprints in the mud or no trampled weeds were he was standing. Needless to say she didn't lay out when no one else was home for a long time after that.

A few weeks after that I was home alone baby sitting my sister when she wanted to go swimming so I was in the pool relaxing and she was splashing around and I happened to look into the woods. Up in this dead tree which was directly behind my house I saw something that to this day I remember clear as day. It was some sort of creature (for lack of a better word) it was squatting on the largest limb, it was white or light gray in color, very thin long arms and legs, it's fingers were long and pointed, it's head was large, its eye's were perfectly round and black and it's mouth was just a slit that went from one side of it's head to the other. I stared at it for a minute or so thinking that I must be seeing a reflection of light or something (it was a sunny afternoon) then as I was moving across the pool to get a different angle on it, it actually turned it's head to follow my movement. I grabbed my sister and jumped out of the pool and ran to the back door, I looked back just before I went through the door and it was gone.

For days after that, strange noises would come from the woods at night, noises I've never heard before or since. I tried to record some of the sounds but I never got anything clear on tape. My step-father had something throw rocks at him one night when he was out back but when he went into the woods the next day, there was no sign of any prints or disturbance (the woods were very overgrown and no one could walk through them with out leaving some sign of being there). This sort of thing went on till October (ironically Halloween).

I was out taking my sister trick or treating, my step-father was working late, my mother was handing out candy on the front porch. At about 8:00, trick or treating was winding down and there wasn't any more kids on our street, my mom was picking up, getting ready to go inside when she looked up and saw this very tall man coming up the walk, he was walking very slowly and was wearing a black ski mask. She jokingly said something like "little old for trick or treating" or something to that affect but the man didn't say a word, he just kept walking toward her. My mom got scared and went behind the screen door and called the family dog over (a pretty large shepherd/lab mix). The man saw the dog and turned around and slowly began to walk back down the front walk, my mom looked down at the dog then looked back and the man was gone.

This ended the outside occurrences, slowly the inside stuff began again (which was a relief for us) and things returned to "normal".

I don't know if what happened inside and what happened outside were connected, only that one started when the other stopped.

I moved out the next year and into an apartment with my then girlfriend, we got evicted (don't ask) in 1993 and moved back into the house (my mother and step-father divorced a couple years earlier, and he and my sister still lived there). He moved to Maryland to get a new job and rented my girlfriend and I the house for the next 2 years. In that time the haunting continued like always (although it seemed to intensify when my girlfriend was home alone). My step-father decided to sell the house, and as we were packing I finally saw the "ghost".

I was watching T.V the night before we moved the last of our stuff out, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a ball of what looked like smoke (kind of like cigarette smoke but not quite) it floated slowly out of the bathroom door, past me (about 2 or 3 feet from my face) turned and disappeared into the darkness of the kitchen. I think it knew I was leaving for good and wanted me to see "it" before I left (at least thats what I think).

I don't know if the new owner has had any experiences since he's moved in (he's not the friendliest of people, kind of a jerk actually) but I can't see any reason why it would go away.