Though she now chases ghosts for fun, Patty Antol never believed in the paranormal before she moved to a 1950s ranch in the Pittsburgh area in 1992. Even after an antique grandfather's clock that hadn't worked in more than 20 years suddenly started tick-tocking in her house -- and then stopping dead at precisely 1 a.m. -- ghosts were the last thing on her mind."It didn't seem right, but I couldn't put my finger on anything so I just dismissed it," she recalls.Then things started missing. She'd put down a hammer, turn around and it'd be gone. Makeup and mail disappeared. And what about those unearthly voices and whispers? It was starting to test her sanity."My husband told me I was watching too many spooky movies and to get over myself," says Antol.Which she tried her best to do, until about a year-and-a-half after moving in. While talking to a friend on the phone in her kitchen one sunny afternoon, she heard someone coming up the stairs from the basement. Turning toward the noise, she saw the image of a very tall man walking toward her, his hands clenched in fists at his side. He came so close that Antol could see beads of sweat on his translucent brow and dirt on his white T-shirt. What really frightened her, though, was that when he walked through her, she could feel his anger and torment."It was the most intense feeling I ever felt," she recalls. She pauses, remembering how her husband laughed when she told him about it. "I thought maybe I was losing it."Or was she? A couple of weeks later, her oldest daughter, then 7, was especially grumpy when she got up for school. "Bruce" had kept her up all night, she complained. Antol assumed she must be talking about one of her stuffed animals. But when pressed for more information, her daughter shook her head."No, Mommy," she replied. "It's the guy who comes into my room at night.""What guy?" Antol asked."The guy who watches me and plays games with me.Usually, he just takes the blanket off her bed, she said. But that night, he'd pushed down on her chest "and it hurt."Asked what he looked like, the little girl described a very tall man in a dirty T-shirt and work pants -- the same man Antol had seen."Is he real?" Antol remembers asking. Her daughter responded quite matter-of-factly, "No, Mommy. He's the ghost who lives here."Antol had never spoken to her children about "her" ghost or the other strange things she had experienced. The only explanation was that her house, which was built in the 1800s on the site of an apple orchard, was indeed haunted."I just had this feeling that Bruce was stuck there for whatever reason and meant no harm to us," she says.Over the next several years, more unusual things occasionally happened in the house, but for the most part, the family just went about their lives.. Antol, meanwhile, became so interested in paranormal activity that she founded a group, Ghost Chasers of Southwestern Pennsylvania.But she never told many people about her own ghostly guest."We were a little overprotective," says. Antol, who during this time got divorced, remarried and had a third daughter. "We didn't want to share him."In 2005, the family sold the house and moved to a new house in Canonsburg, Pa.. Antol says there's also been paranormal activity at her new home, though of a happier nature. About six months after moving in, the Antols threw a birthday party for their youngest daughter. After everyone had left, the 3-year-old went to sleep in her parents' bed. Sitting in the living room, Antol watched as her daughter's favorite Mylar balloon started bouncing across the ceiling and into the hallway. Dropping halfway to the floor, it then floated up the staircase. "Then it turned, mid air, and floated into my bedroom to the side of the bed where she was sleeping," recalls Antol, who followed it.She's pretty sure it was her mother, who died before her daughter was born but with whom the child seems to be connected. After talking about seeing an "angel" in her bedroom, the youngster picked a picture of her grandmother as a teenager out of an old photo album."We like to think she's keeping her eye on her kid and grandkids."It's funny,. Antol admits. Tell a stranger that you investigate ghosts and they look at you like you're crazy. But almost always, they follow up with a ghost story of their own."People might not want to talk about it, but a lot of us have experienced things we can't explain," she says. E-mail Gretchen McKay at gmckay(at)post-gazette.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Post new comment