From: Name and email withheld upon request
To: shadowpeopleorg@comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 3:15:57 PM
Subject: My experience
This happened a few years ago, while I was working on my parents' farm. To give a little backstory, we're located up in the northern part of New York, only a mile off the edge of Lake Ontario. For the uninitiated, this area is replete with history, and has been settled since the late 1700's/early 1800's. My farm has been around since 1820 to 1830. Needless to say, there were a lot of people who lived here, and I'm sure more than one who died here.
The event happened while I was doing chores, and I was walking up from behind the cows, staring aimlessly as I am wont to do when doing repetitive, mindless tasks, when two things happened simultaneously. The first cow at the front of the barn shook her head, so my attention was drawn to her. At the same instant, I saw that just beyond her in the silo room, silhouetted against the open door, was the frame of a man. He ducked down and away as soon as I registered it was a human man, but I was able to get a few impressions: he was tall, wore bulky work clothes, and a flat work hat.
So strong was my impression of there having been a person there, I thought it might have been my Dad. But something was off- maybe it was because of the way it moved, too rapidly, or because I saw it imperfectly, but I had the strong impulse to double check on it. So I dropped the wheelbarrow I was carting, and went to the silo room.
No one.
I peeked around the door that leads to the outside: no one.
Since the ground is kind of treacherous out there, it would take a few seconds for someone to round the silos. I hopped out, and checked for a person. Again, no one.
I was inexplicably unnerved. Kind of miffed, even.
I went back inside, and asked my mother if she'd just seen my father head outside. She said no, and asked why. I didn't answer, not wanting to sound like an idiot, and my father came down from the milkhouse, a completely different part of the barn.
I asked him if he'd just gone through the silo room door. He said no, and asked why. I explained that I had just thought I saw a man duck quick down and away and out the door, as if he'd been trying to hide. But no one had been there.
My father is an imminently practical man, not someone who espouses paranormal stuff, so what he did next was a little strange. He gave a small smile, and called to my mom, "She just saw the barn ghost!"
It was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that.
Apparently, he's been hanging around the barn, though. My sister watched him round the corner in front of the cows, and thinking someone was in the barn, she followed him. She watched him round the corner again to an older section of the barn. Again, she followed, but when she turned, too, no one was there.
I'd like to think that he was just hanging around checking up on his old work place. Our town is built on limestone, and the soil is so thin that you can see the bare bedrock in some places. Maybe he just never left.
Addendum: Editor responded to submitter’s original post asking more details about the ghost at her farm.
From: name withheld upon request
To: shadowpeopleorg@comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, October 2, 2010 12:51:47 AM
Subject: Re: My experience
Hello,
Thank you for taking an interest, I very much appreciate it. It was actually one of the most peaceful, and kind of nice, instances of that sort that have happened here. Others have been intrusive or just plain terrifying, though none of them involve him.
I'm sure my parents have run into him (the barn ghost) before, but they've never actually told me what they've seen. It's always been like that; they know far more about the property and the house and barn than they tell me. He kind of wanders around the barn and pasture, and we'll catch him out of the corner of our eye rounding a corner.
Apparently, the barn ghost is more active around my sister. He taps her on the shoulder if she zones out when she's supposed to be working. Once he said, "Hey," in her ear, which leads me to believe he was once a worker here who still hangs around to make sure things get done right. Oh, and a few times he kept shutting off the hay mow light when she left it on.
Thanks!
