One day before my wife and I were married we were discussing the paranormal and she asked me whether I believed in ghosts. I replied that I wasn't sure but I was keeping an open mind and mentioned that I had always been interested in paranormal phenomena.
She then related a story to me in which she had seen a ghost. She had been driving along a road near Warrnambool (Southwestern Victoria, Australia) with a friend when a figure suddenly appeared in front of the car. There was no time to avoid the person and he seemed to pass straight through the car and their bodies. I don't think she or her friend have dared to travel on that road since.
Another experience that she related to me happened when she was sharing a flat with the same friend. Furniture would move around the room by itself. At first it just seemed like chairs weren't where they left them but one night a chair moved from one side of the room to the other, right in front of them, and then hurled itself against a wall. They moved out shortly afterwards.
I never doubted that she was telling the truth, but didn't think much more about the incidents until much later when I began to have encounters with ghosts myself.
My first unsettling experience happened a few days after our Wedding. We were on our honeymoon and one night I was woken when I felt a presence in the motel room. I couldn't see anybody there but it felt like someone was trying to get inside my mind. I woke up in a cold sweat, sat bolt upright in the bed and shouted " GET OUT!" I immediately felt the presence depart the room but I found it difficult to sleep afterwards.
About three years later, we were living in Canberra (I was serving in the Navy and we moved around a lot. We weren't very happy with the house we were renting but there wasn't much to choose from at the time. The house always seemed dark and cold and there always seemed to be tension in the air. My wife and I had a lot of arguments while we were in the house and my son reported seeing a man in his brother's bedroom one night. At the time I put it down to a nightmare but after we moved out, the new owners happened to be an aboriginal couple and they performed a traditional smoking ceremony to rid the house of spirits. They told us that the house had been haunted.
We moved to another house in the area and while this house had a much more pleasant atmosphere our encounters with ghosts continued. A glass sliding door led from the kitchen/dining area to a wooden deck in the backyard. One day my wife saw a midle-aged gentleman with a walking stick standing outside the backdoor watching her. There was nothing threatening about his demeanor so my wife approached the back door to speak to him but he turned, took a couple of steps and disappeared. Another time, when I was at home alone, I was sitting at the kitchen table when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a silhouette-like figure standing in the passageway, watching me through the kithen doorway. I turned, thinking it may have been my wife returning without me hearing her enter through the front door, and the figure vanished.
My wife and I are currently separated. She moved back to Warrnambool with the children and I visit them regularly as we try to rebuild our marriage. The first time I visited them in Warrnambool, I had another ghostly encounter and have had several since then. I was sleeping on the sofa-bed in the lounge room when I heard someone rifling through the children's toy box as though searching for a favourite toy. I opened my eyes, but there was no one there. I went down to the children's bedrooms to check on them and they were all sound asleep.
On several occasions I have heard noises, like footsteps and toys being played with and have observed lights turning themselves on and off. At first this really freaked me out but we have become accustomed to them now. My wife believes there is possibly one adult ghost and a couple of child ghosts in the house. They seem to be benevolent and they seem to be trying to protect my wife.
The only times they have really frightened me were the first time I visited, when they seemed to object to my presence, and a couple of times when I had done something to upset my wife. The ghosts don't seem to like it if we stay up too late at night. They become a bit restless if we do and it is as though they are impatient for us to go to bed so that they can play with the toys. The worst incident was at Christmas time when the children had received new toys for Christmas. The whole family was in the lounge room when suddenly a large saucepan in the kitchen began banging against the bench. We took the hint and went to bed so that they could play with the toys.
