Is your workplace haunted?

[Arcade Man D]

Ooh, haunting stories.

Mine probably has, by Kittish's definitions, a "Haunt". You only notice after closing time, when everything but the gutter lights we never turn off has been shut off, and the gate has been shut and locked. The atmosphere is a little creepier with those off, maybe it's just that it's an arcade and you're used to it being loud, bright, and crowded, and now it's quiet, dark, and you're alone, but I've seen things, and felt things a little outside the normal.

For example, a couple of occassions I was stranded there until almost midnight due to a co-worker forgetting to leave me the closing key ((this was before I became ASM)), and I'd already shut everything down for the night, and was merrily playing on my DS, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye what looked like someone moving. I went to check it out, and I was the only living soul in the place. I also got that weird feeling down the back of your spine you get when something is a little off in the atmosphere. But nothing more specific.

And I'm not the only one who's felt it. I've had my coworkers tell me they've noticed it too.

[PaRaGaS]

add commas...

it was had fires in 1931, and then 1933, and then shut down because of WWII, i think they were 3 seperate incidents she was talking about.

Might be. I'm tired
Still, I would like to know why such a venue would close because of a war taking place on another continent. I know the American economy took the war effort with some strain, but I thought that life in the US was completely normal.

[Pagan]

I've never worked there, but you want something really, really old and really, really haunted, try the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. It was built in 1610 and you talk about bloodshed, just from the Pueblo Revolt alone!

I haven't really seen anything about where I'm working now, but get that feeling that you get when someone's standing behind you. It's really hard to notice anything there because there's so much normal activity when I'm there.

Now at Hasting's, I saw things all the time. There was the woman in white that I would see at the Music desk a lot. She also thought it was funny to walk up behind me. And the back hallway, it wasn't so much anything that would go on back there, but people didn't like going back there by themselves. Several years ago, the asst mgr at the grocery store that was next door was killed during a hold-up and I think that she migrated to our hallway. Just a very sad feeling back there.

And then there was "George" at Dillard's. How did I know he was male, you ask? I heard him speak on several occasions, even though I couldn't make out what he was saying. He also liked to flip through the bedsheet packages and knock things off of shelves every now and then.

She's also told me that when she's on the computer in her brother's room she's constantly glancing into the closet because she can see someone sitting there out of the corner of her eye. Her brother hates talking about it but has mentioned that there are plenty of other creepy things that have happened in that room and that someone does basically live in the closet.

This one especially, but a lot of others sound more like a shadow person that a ghost or a haunt. I had a shadow person in my apartment until I put up psychic shields and basically forced it out. There's any number of websites about them and Coast-to-Coast AM takes calls about them a lot.

Might be. I'm tired
Still, I would like to know why such a venue would close because of a war taking place on another continent. I know the American economy took the war effort with some strain, but I thought that life in the US was completely normal.

"Normal"? No, things were most definitely not "normal" (whatever that means) in the US during WWII. No, the war wasn't on our continent, but U-boats did menace the Atlantic Coast of the US (and Canada). Add to this that with men going off to fight in the European and Pacific theaters (Bataan Death March anyone?), someone had to work in the factories making equipment, etc. This fell to women, something that was not the norm before.

Now I'm off to watch "Ghosthunters International" on Sci-Fi!

[Finduilas]

I think my library is haunted. A few times, when my boyfriend and I were wandering around town in the middle of the night, we'd "break in" (go into a section of the library that wasn't alarmed) to get warm.

Well, a few occasions that we were in there, we'd hear voices outside. Every time we heard the voices, we'd hide (so people wouldn't think we had actually broken in) and look surreptitiously outside. No one was ever there.

We haven't gone in there at night anymore.

[princess4life]

Might be. I'm tired
Still, I would like to know why such a venue would close because of a war taking place on another continent. I know the American economy took the war effort with some strain, but I thought that life in the US was completely normal.

I am sorry I did forget to put in comma's in my orginal post, I am tired as well.

I don't know all the details on why the resort was forced to close during WWII but I do know it had to do with the main transportation to the resort at that time was by train and there was a ration on the fuel and other resources at the time.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I am sorry I did forget to put in comma's in my orginal post, I am tired as well.

I don't know all the details on why the resort was forced to close during WWII but I do know it had to do with the main transportation to the resort at that time was by train and there was a ration on the fuel and other resources at the time.

Basically, to expand on your explanation, nobody had the time or the money to have fun during the war, and every scrap of metal and drop of fuel that wasn't absolutely necessary was redirected toward someplace where it could be used instead.

Could have been worse. My city was a major tourist destination back then (and when I say major, I mean on the level of Nice or the Hamptons; everybody who was anybody was partying in Asheville before the Depression hit), and was studded with major-league resort hotels. By the time World War II hit, they'd been hammered by the Depression, so the federal government came in and took them over. Some were used as hospitals, others as prisons, and for a while the exiled government of the Philippines operated out of one.

Incidentally that one, which was also used to house POW's, is one of the most haunted locations in the city. Their most famous ghost is known as the Pink Lady, and is the spirit of a young woman in a flowing pink ball gown thought to have fallen to her death in the atrium some time around 1920. There are several other ghosts, though, including a woman in a lavender gown, a man in a bowler hat, furniture that moves on its own, several other men and women, and "things" in the basement that have chased utility workers out of the tunnels.

Not that anyone particularly cares, but the feds also took over our downtown shopping arcade and used it as the federal building for the next fifty years. And they took over Biltmore House, the biggest house in the country and also extremely haunted (their most interesting ghost is that of a headless cat seen in the gardens), and used it to store the paintings from the National Gallery for safekeeping, in the event that Washington should be attacked. Kind of off-topic to mention that, but I just think it's really cool.

[gunsage]

My current one, no. Ironically, the only sites I can "verify" that were haunted through my working experience were sites I did security. Not all of them, mind you, but there were a couple of surprises here and there. I'll relay what I can remember.

The Church

My second site at my first security company was at an old seminary. Nice place, really, and in a nice neighborhood at that. And that's about all I'll say about the site because I'd really rather not slander the place by mentioning the actual site. In any case, this is one of the reasons why I don't take the elevator ANYWHERE unless I absolutely must (and why I started having nightmares here and there about elevators). And keep in mind, even after I fell down stairs on the site, I still refused to take the elevators.

First off, I worked this site third shift only. They didn't need security during the day because, well, people were there. During the night, it was me, a couple of janitors, and MAYBE a student/teacher or two. The actual site itself consisted of the main building, an annex building, adjacent dorms, and apartments across the street. That sounds like a lot, especially on a site that you're required to do 4 patrols a night, but only in the main building are you required to be extensive in your patrol. Everywhere else you find just a few pathways and hallways.

One of the first things I noticed was the uppermost library in the place was either BOILING or FROSTY. It was never mild-temperature. And no, it had absolutely nothing to do with the outside temperature. Further, anytime I was in there, not only was it deathly silent, the heater/air conditioner was never on. I mean, at least if it was on and the temperature was ridiculous I could've justified it, but no, never. And yes, this was one of the few rooms that my hairs stood on end in.

I don't believe I've ever seen a ghost, but then, I can say I've seen..."stuff." Often I sense things in my peripherals or I see "shadows," but clearly there's nothing there. For a number of months, I had seen "stuff" in my peripherals, but never minded it...until I went in one of the old elevators one night. I just went in it like any other night...pushed the 2F button...and it started SHAKING LIKE A MOFO! I can't even begin to describe it. I mean, yes, it was only from the first to second floor, but as soon as those doors opened, I dove out. The doors SHUT behind me immediately.

Never took an elevator there again. Now, I can honestly say that that's the most that happened there, but needless to say, I kept as many lights on as possible during my shift. Ironically, that's why I was removed from the site. They tried to claim that since I was "afraid of the dark," I cost them a couple of expensive lights here and there, which is total bull, but I digress.

Corporate Center

This one's small...no biggie here. For almost a year, I worked at a nice, large corporate center in a nice area. Had an asshole captain, but that's another story entirely. Now, I never went into the penthouses or rooftops, but I heard stories. That's about all I've got for that portion, sorry. However, one thing I had noticed and it continued happening all the way up until I was removed from the site (for reasons both embarassing and annoying) was that there was an elevator...just one elevator out of the entire center...that immediately opened each time I passed it.

I asked fellow guards if it did that to them and often they responded with something along the lines of "I never noticed, sorry." They confirmed it wasn't some automatic feature either. And I later confirmed this by walking fairly far away from it and it STILL happened. Just weird, reallly. And no, I DID NOT USE ANY OF THE ELEVATORS THERE unless I was escorting someone.

That's about all I've got. I mean, I had some weird stuff happen at one of the last sites I worked, but most of them could be passed off as me being paranoid or animal-related (it was mostly outdoors), so that's hardly mentionable. And yes, "The Church" seems relatively paranoid in retrospect, but my wife, who used to go around "ghost hunting" even admitted to having an "odd feeling" when passing the church at night.