Have you had a paranormal experience?

I’m skeptical about anecdotal claims. Since we’re all children of The Enlightenment, in my generation especially, it’s extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

What is exactly the paranormal claim? Are there any other plausible explanations? Just because you can’t think of any, that doesn’t there are none.

Yes, a few, everything from it changing the stations on the stereo to hearing someone scream at me to wake up when I shouldn’t be sleeping (aka at the wheel)

Funny you should mention that, I was just thinking about it.

The year was 1996. My buddy Brian and I would hang out at his work sometimes, because he worked graveyard shift as security, and we two grown men would play hide and seek on the job. It was fun as hell.

One day, he gives me a call, asks me if I want to hang out with him at a construction site He was working. I figured another night of hide and seek among the 2x4s and plywood. But no. This one was different.

This construction company was building a church on the grounds of some guy's house who had died. The house was still there, and I guess the church people were going to turn it into a parish house. Brian took me on a tour of the house, but pretty quickly, I figured out there was something else going on.

First thing he shows me is a maglite, sitting on the charger, ready to go. He turns it on. Bright as hell. We start walking up the stairs to the second floor, and the light flickers and goes out. No explanation. No possible reason. Just went out. But it was cool, because we could see. He showed me around the second floor, which was pretty empty. The one thing he made sure I saw on the second floor was this closet that opened into a laundry chute. Laundry chute looked like a wind clear from the attic (yes, there was an attic) all the way to the basement. I could see clear through to the basement floor, although it was too dark to make out any details. I couldn't help but notice there were kind of suspicious brown stains on some of the walls.

Then Brian showed me the patio door which had formerly led to the balcony. Balcony was gone, with only the concrete foundation on the ground level remaining. There was another funny brown stain on the concrete. Kind of like a dried substance that had formerly been red.

There was, alas, no tour of the attic. Brian told me that it was old and rotted, and they didn't know how safe it was. When we went back to the main floor The maglite immediately revived. Again, no possible explanation comes to mind for this.

Brian showed me where the closet was on the main floor. I noticed funny brown stains on the inside of the closet.

The basement. There are no words to describe how that basement felt. It was empty and dark, and the air just felt heavier than it had any right to. There was something in there, I'm sure of it. And of course, we got to see where the laundry chute led. Just a hole in the ceiling, and another funny brown stain on the floor.

We went back to the main floor, into what I assume had once been a bedroom, but was being used by the security guards as their HQ. Not a whole lot happened for quite some time, other than the fact that I kept hearing noises coming from the basement, and Brian kept swearing he heard noises from the attic.

There was a round accent table that had been there for some time, by the look of it. It was covered in bugs, lying on their backs with their legs curled, completely motionless. Until 3:00 a.m., on the dot.

I swear to you, on everything I hold dear, those dead bugs started flying around the room. Swarming, even. They weren't even the same species. Some of them were flies, a couple of them were boxelder bugs, and there was at least one mosquito.

I personally smashed that mosquito. Swear to God I did. It landed on the wall, and I slapped it with my hand so hard it hurt. I didn't stop there. I shoved my hand even harder against the wall and twisted my wrist, grinding that mosquito into oblivion. There's no way it could have survived.

But it did. When I pulled my hand away, it flew off as if nothing had happened. God damn thing started flying toward the basement stairs, then flew back at me, and back toward the basement stairs. I'm telling you as sure as I'm sitting here, that damn thing wanted me to go downstairs. I'd have gone, too, if Brian hadn't grabbed me.

I later found out that he kept wanting to go into the attic, couldn't stop thinking about it. Whatever was in that house wanted him in the attic and me in the basement. And Brian and I are 100% sure to this day that it had something to do with that laundry chute.