Saturday night we had our parish organist and another friend over for dinner and the topic of haunted buildings came up.

Our organist used to study with the organist of Holy Trinity Church, a large, old parish here in downtown Winnipeg. As the organ scholar, he often ended up practising in the evening. One evening he was practising later than usual and all of a sudden he sensed that someone was standing behind him. He looked around and saw no one. He looked at the time and saw that it was 11PM. He was a bit freaked out so he left. Not long later, he was practising late again and felt the same sensation. Again, no one there.

He mentioned it to someone at the church and was told that the former organist who had been at the church for 60 years and was now deceased was said to haunt the building. The gentleman had been married but had no children and his wife predeceased him. The day after his funeral, the funeral director had shown up at the church with the guy's ashes since there was no next-of-kin. The parish didn't know what to do, so they put the urn into the church vault and there it sat for 4 years. One would think that after 60 years of service, they could have done better than that, so perhaps it's no surprise that he's still hanging around.

Anyway, after hearing this story, the organ scholar started greeting the deceased organist with a "Hi, Ronald. I'm just here to practise for a while. Hope you don't mind." When leaving, he would say good night.

Whenever he remembered to do this, there would be no sensation of being watched, but if he forgot - every time come 11PM, he'd sense the old guy there.

He and others have experienced various other unexplained phenomena in this church, such as deceased parishioners appearing in the church, or having a conversation with the voice of a young girl asking if anyone has seen her parents, etc.

I'm a secret unbelieving believer, (or should that be secret believing unbeliever?) in the paranormal - I'm agnostic about it, but I find such stories absolutely fascinating...

Steven, this stuff is real. There are haunted churches, buildings, streets, certain areas of a countryside, old farmsteads, cemeteries.

Years ago my neighbor told one of the most sensation stories I ever heard on the matter. Him and his wife woke one night to running feet outside their window. It scared them so bad they hunkered down and called the cops. Well the cops sense something was wrong to, so they approached the farm yard very delicately. Finally with all the lights flashing against the farm buildings, my neighbor come out of the house and the cops got out of their cars. But what was strange, his white unbroke horse was standing in the yard shaking. He couldn't get near the animal, and before he was the only one who could handle the horse, but one of the cops walked right up to the horse and they all lead it back to his pen. But at the pen all the gates were still latched and closes. No one was ever able to figures it out. But my neighbor told me the look in that horse's eyes was from another world and flaming red.

I have my own little story but I have to get some things done tonight. I might write it later!!!

Brent