We live among the dead.
Buried beneath our feet or swirling through the air we breathe, the deceased are with us at every moment.
It’s no mystery, then, why so many people believe in spirits and ghosts. The idea that the soul exists beyond death has endured in some form across cultures and eons.
East students and teachers are no strangers to the paranormal either. Be it rooted in faith, science or personal experience, belief in the supernatural to some degree is not uncommon among our student body.
In honor of this most ghostly of seasons, the ECHO has collected five personal accounts of encounters with ghosts, spirits and other paranormal phenomena.
Delaney Titus, social studies teacher
“In my family, my mother’s mother, my grandmother, had seven children. She was this force in our family, this force of nature, and she passed away when I was in college.
“But we had this sort of tradition, this running understanding that as she was older, she would watch us cook, especially for family dinners together every few weeks. She also would sit at the kitchen table for big holidays and sort of direct the cooking in the kitchen, but she herself wasn’t able to physically do it.
“So, before she died, that was the norm: she would sit at the table and direct everyone in what they were doing with the cookbooks spread out in front of her on the table—with a glass of ice water and a cold cup of coffee from the morning.
“After she died, we often cooked things that contained potatoes. You have to boil potatoes before you mash them or make a potato salad or something like that, and when she passed away, we noticed that the potatoes in particular wouldn’t boil.
“The water wouldn’t boil. We would put them on the same burner we always used, with the same amount of water we always had, with a lid or no lid, it did not matter. The water to make potatoes, which take the longest of anything to cook, wouldn’t cook. They would need double, sometimes triple the normal amount of time.
“And this didn’t just happen in the house that she lived in with my grandfather, this would happen in my aunts’ houses all across the country, it would happen for me when I was in college in my apartment, it would happen to my parents in their home.
“We just noticed that they wouldn’t cook, and they were a typical feature in our family meals.
“And so, we had this thing—it started out as a joke but it became a serious thing—that she’s watching, and she’s sitting there, and you haven’t welcomed her. You haven’t made her feel like she’s a part of you cooking this meal that you’re about to eat.
“So, you would have to go in your eating area and pull out a chair. It was sort of like greeting her to let her sit at the table. And then you had to get a glass and put ice water in it, and you had to make a cup of coffee, and you’d put them on the table.
“It was sort of a joke, but it worked—multitudes of times with multitudes of people in my family. Doing this instigated the potatoes to cook.
“It was kind of wild to experience it firsthand, but also really meaningful, because it was a moment where you felt like she was with you. I’m certain that goes against many people’s personal beliefs about where the soul goes after they die, depending on your religious background.
“But for us it felt like, ‘She’s here, she hasn’t left us.’ And, to this day, we still do that. We still do that years later, decades later. It’s just kind of wild.”
William Owzar, senior
“When I was 14 years old, my middle school would go on a lot of field trips to different monuments and different historical locations around North Carolina. And one time, we went to this barn. It was on what I believe was a former slave plantation.
“My old school was so small that we would ride with the teachers in their cars, so it was later in the evening and as we were pulling out we noticed that there were hand prints of, like, tiny children on the window of the car.
“The only people there were all older, and there were these tiny hand prints. And we later found out that was some kind of murder that took place at that barn, that involved children.”
Kevin Chen, junior
“So, I believe that I’ve also seen a supernatural being.
“This happened a long time ago, a really long time ago, back when I was around 12 years old. I was just downstairs, in the house, just watching some TV, when suddenly I heard a very loud thump upstairs.
“At that time, no one was home. No one was at my house; my parents, my sister, they had all gone to some event or something.
“And, I go upstairs to check, right? And when I go upstairs, I see that all the doors have been closed. And I thought, ‘Huh, that’s strange, I left my room open, actually.’ So, I opened it to see if something happened, and there was nothing. So, I left it open and I walked downstairs.
“Then I heard a thump, and then the door closed again.
“I was wondering what happened, and then I opened the door and I stood there and I watched. And then the door just randomly closed.
“That was very strange, because the door was actually angled in a way where it should be opening instead of closing due to how the floor is slanted.
“I looked around and I couldn’t see anything. When I went in the room, the door actually closed and I freaked out for a moment because I thought I was going to get killed.
“Like, I legitimately climbed out the window onto the side of the house and I just stood there because I thought I was gonna die.
“Then after a good solid 40 minutes to one hour, I went back in and I opened the door and it didn’t shut. I was amazed.
“I remember that ever since then, every time I went upstairs I turned on the lights, because at the time that happened all the lights were off. That’s actually the reason I’m afraid of the dark right now.
“So, yeah. That happened.”
Jasmine Parker, senior
“I used to live in a house, a three-story house, and at nighttime there would be things like floor creaking.
“But, for a more specific situation, I was in the kitchen with my mom and there was no AC, there were no windows open and there was no fan. There was a wine bottle on the counter, and while we were talking, the wine bottle moved across the counter.
“That’s like the most ghost-y thing that happened in that house, but the energy in the house was also just ghost-like.
“Before then, I always believed in [the supernatural] as a child, because it was just fun to believe in it. But now, I feel like there’s more comfortability with it.
“Not that I love ghosts, but I kind of am open to understand it more, and not run from it, but try to grasp the fact that it’s here, in a weird way.”
Mitra Samei, junior
“There’s been a few [ghost experiences] throughout my life. Probably the most notable one was the incident with Malcolm, the ghost.
“It started in fourth grade, and basically our [classroom’s] door would open and close. And I know that sounds pretty normal, but it was really weird—it wasn’t just pressure stuff; the door would unlock and lock, and you could see it changing, and the handlebar would open.
“It would open strategically when someone was about to leave—or the door would close when someone was about to leave. And so we thought, ‘there must be a ghost opening and closing the doors, right?’
“So, [my fourth grade class] named him Malcolm. And then, a few weeks later, when school ended, we went back home, and suddenly—I know that there are pressure things that make doors open and close—but suddenly the doors started opening and closing in my house.
“Not even like when I’m closing a door or a window, they would just start opening and closing. And if I was leaving, the door would open when I was leaving, and I would [think], ‘Oh, so it’s, like, opening for me or something?’
“So, yeah, we’d know where Malcolm was in the house based on which doors were opening.
“Well, Malcolm just kind of slowly faded away by the end of the summer. Now, doors open and close, but it’s only ever because of pressure. We never have these kinds of random times that the doors are opening and closing anymore.
“So, I don’t know what’s going on with him. Maybe one of my friends took him home. It’s a mystery, I suppose.”
Photos by Hammond Cole Sherouse/The ECHO
