Wow. You people sure are one spooky bunch! I asked for your own personal accounts of ghostly encounters for this week's column and you responded in great numbers! Let's get right to the tales ... and you might want to turn on all the lights and grab a blanket to hide under during the scary parts.

My son lived in Kamola Hall, a large dorm on the Central Washington University Campus, in Ellensburg, Wash.

I was surprised that he was given a large front room, complete with balcony and its very own BATHROOM, if you've ever lived in a dorm, you know they don't have that little feature very often!

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After a few weeks, he and his roommate (an Eagle Scout, and just about as boring a person as you could ever hope to meet) began to notice the sound of someone moving stuff across the floor directly above their room, sort of a "Drag, drag, scrape, THUMP" sound.

They got tired of getting their sleep disturbed, but didn't want to anger a possible upperclassman, so they asked the building manager who lived above them. "No one" he replied, adding that the fourth floor had been sealed off since the 1960s and that NO ONE had lived there in a very very long time.

After some more investigation, the boys found out about "Lola Kamola."

She had been a student at what was then the state Teachers College. This was just at the beginning of WWI. She was madly in love with a fellow student, and he went away to war. Despondent, she then hung herself in her fourth floor room. That room was directly above my son's room.

Eventually, the boys learned to just talk to the ghost as if it were a living person, asking it to stop moving around and making noise, when they did so, the sound ALWAYS stopped, and would not resume until the following night. My son lived in that room for two years total, his roommate moved however. --T.R. Talbott

Dormitories, like hotels, are very popular spots for hauntings. The concentration of emotional energies and the usually violent or sudden natures of any deaths that take place lead to all sorts of hauntings.

I was about 16 years old. Living with my parents. I always had strange feelings about the house we lived in. Always felt like I was being watched.

Well one night, very late, I was just about to fall asleep when I heard someone banging on my bedroom door. I got up thinking something had to be wrong for someone to knock that hard. But when I looked out, no one there.

I checked everyone's bed and they were all fast asleep. So I decided to keep my door open. Got into bed and the door slammed shut and the knocking started again. I opened the door and felt like I was being pushed down the steps ... not hard but like that was the way I had to go.

When I got down there I heard this strange noise coming from the back yard. I turned on the light and there was my neighbor's little boy, about 7, sleepwalking in my back yard, walking toward the street. I got his parents and they grabbed him. I now pay attention to every noise I hear. --Colleen B.

The "warning" or "watchdog" ghost is a popular theme. Could parents or grandparents who had passed on have been watching out and seen the little boy? Why did they choose Colleen as their physical instrument? Most likely it has to do with her age at the time. Adolescents are believed to be more susceptible to paranormal suggestions and influences than adults.

About 15 years ago, I went over to my boyfriend's house (he lived in an old historic house in West Chester that dates back to 1732). I knew that his parents were not home at the time and the only one home was my boyfriend.

As I pulled into the circle drive in front of the house, I looked up to the third floor where my boyfriend's bedroom was. In the window was a figure that I thought was my boyfriend waving me to come up.

So, I went through the front door and proceeded to go up the stairs. I got to the third floor landing when all of a sudden I can hear my boyfriend's voice -- only it was coming from the first floor! I turned around and took off down those steps as fast as my feet could carry me.

He asked my why I went straight up the stairs instead of finding out where he was. I told him that someone was in the window motioning me to come up and that I thought it was him. Well, it wasn't him. Chris A.

The ghost in the window ... he sure does get around! It would be no surprise to find that a house that old had a ghost or two around. I'm a little more interested in what Chris was doing heading to her boyfriend's house with his folks out of town.

This one was passed on from my great grandmother to me: There's a dance hall on the far outskirts of San Antonio that was closed for years, before it opened up around 10 years ago, around the time I was in high school. It is said that this was one of the most popular dance halls back in the '40s and '50s.

Everyone would go and on one particular Saturday night there was going to be one heck of a party there. While everyone was having a good old time, the most handsome man walked into the hall. He had jet-black hair that was slicked back, dark eyes, one of those pencil moustaches, and he was dressed in a suit. He spotted one particular woman that he wanted to dance with, and they began dancing. A good song came one so everyone started to dance, when halfway through the woman began to scream out in agony and terror. To everyone's horror, she was standing there, her beautiful dress all torn and cuts and slits all over her body, face and arms. Of course some men came to her rescue and tried to beat up the guy, but no one was able to bring him down. Well the man turned around, hand by his side, and vanished into the night, leaving behind the smell of sulfur (As you know that's supposedly the smell of hell: fire and brimstone).

Nobody followed him out, but they said that they noticed as he walked out of the ballroom he didn't have regular legs anymore, he had chicken legs, if you believe that. Well that was the last time they had a dance there until like I said around 10 years ago it opened up again. You always here that story, especially now that it's open and there's going to be a party. I know me and my cousins always got warned, but I don't know who else was there the night the devil appeared at the ballroom. Raquel H.

Now HERE's a tale I can sink my fangs into! The devil in the dance hall makes for a great scene, and a great cautionary tale. Say you're a grandmother trying to keep the grandkids from sneaking off to the local honky tonk and getting into trouble. Or say someone asks you about the history of the nightclub you just opened back up and you want to spin a yarn that will give your joint just the right tinge of the forbidden to make it irresistible. This is the kind of story that fits any number of bills.

I haven't had a very exciting brush with the paranormal, but everyone who hears this story finds it amusing.

My grandfather haunts my Grandmother's house, but he's not very active. I have heard the front door open and close, his bedroom door open and close, and the bathroom door open and close, even though the doors never actually moved. Then I would find the toilet seat up! (My grandfather was famous for leaving the seat up.)
I lived with my grandmother for a few years, and the two of us used to blame the position of the seat on my then boyfriend all the time. My grandmother went on vacation, and I was the only one in the house for a week. I heard doors opening and closing, and it freaked me out so much that I called the police. I realized after they searched the house and found no sign of forced entry that it must have been my grandfather. I couldn't very well tell the police "False alarm. Sorry to disturb you, it was just my deceased grandfather wandering around." Unless, of course, I wanted to spend the evening at the hospital being evaluated. Later that night I heard footsteps coming down the hallway, and the next morning I found the toilet seat up. Now I feel kind of bad for yelling at my ex all those times!!! --Jackie Knapp

Now, you see, ladies? You keep blaming US for leaving the seats up, when it might very well be spectral activity responsible for your late-night splashes. I feel vindicated!

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Dept. has a haunted Property Warehouse. I work as a deputy in crime scene investigations for the department, and have no problem with the ghost. It seems friendly enough, creaking and whistling and making weird noises when no one is there. I work at night, so I only experience it at night. One of my co-workers refuses to go there alone. It creeps her out. The dayshift employees who work there tell me it hides in the freezer section.

From what I hear it's the spirit of a woman who was murdered. Her murder is supposedly unsolved and many of her personal possessions are stored in the property warehouse as evidence. She's supposedly wandering around waiting for her stuff to get out, which means the case has been solved and the stuff is being used for trial.

No one seems to know which of the many unsolved murder victims she is.

Also, the County courthouse downtown has a ghost or three. I don't know anything about them, other than when I worked there at night for a year and I could hear and feel them walking around behind me. Lights flicker, footsteps, windows flex, doors slam, voices in hallways and I was the only one with keys and the only one in the building. THAT one creeped ME out! --Carol Wilson

Somebody call Grissom! CSI is haunted!

When the police start seeing and hearing ghosts, I start getting worried. What are they going to do if the spooks get rowdy, slap the cuffs on them?

Thanks to all of you who sent in ghostly tales. If I didn't get yours in this time, rest assured it wasn't because they weren't spooky enough!

A Burning Question

We'll close this week with a spectral display of another sort.

A produce stand owner in Apopka, Fla., erected a Halloween display that's got a worldwide audience up in arms: a statuelike display depicting a witch tied to a stake, with firewood piled around its feet.

Wiccan and Pagan Web sites around the globe, along with several other social issue-oriented groups, have picked up on the display, calling for it to be taken down. Stand owner Kathy Plyer, maintaining that the display is all in fun and part of her Halloween decor, has refused to take it down.

I've never been the screechy type. I tend not to walk around looking for things to take offense at. However, I can see where the folks who are upset here are coming from. Granted, it may not have the grand temples or TV networks that some of the mainstream denominations do, but Wicca is a federally recognized religion. The "burning times," as they're known, were a time of unprecedented persecution and outright murder in Europe and the American colonies. They're neither funny nor cute.

On a related note, click here to read my good pal Larry Frum's outstanding column "Touch 'Em All" on the witch trials. I probably shouldn't give you that link. He's a better writer than I am and you'll all desert me.

Next week, more of your hometown ghosts and ghouls!

I welcome your comments, complaints, stories and professions of undying love. Large cash grants are also accepted. Just click here, type and send.

Previous Stories:

• Oct. 8, 2004: Going Ghost Hunting, Part 1
• Oct. 1, 2004: So Weird It's Scary
• Sep. 24, 2004: I'm A Lumberjack ...
• Sep. 17, 2004: Barkeep, More Grog!
• Sep. 3, 2004: Enjoy The Ride
• Aug. 27, 2004: Fuzzy Menace IV: The Sugar Land Incident
• Aug. 20, 2004: Fuzzy Menace III: The New Breed
• Aug. 13, 2004: Fuzzy Menace II: Rogue's Gallery
• Aug. 6, 2004: The Fuzzy Menace
• July 30, 2004: The Idiot Bell