Ahhh a ghost, or something

[granda080]

For those who do not know I am a school administrator and I work in an old building (100+ years). Weird stuff happens sometimes, but Monday's was a doozy. I guess I should start with last year during our state testing. We had a teacher, Sherri, who kept calling the office asking us to tell whoever was playing the music to stop. So I went to Heather’s classroom which was below Sherri’s room and told her that they were doing the state test upstairs and asked if she could stop playing music. Heather said she wasn’t, nor had she been, playing music.

I went upstairs to Sherri to see if the music had stopped. The kids were silent, taking their test, and sure enough, very softly, I could hear jazz music. It seemed to be emanating from the vents. Sherri told me that it started when they began their test. I told her it wasn’t the teacher in the room below her, but I would check to see who was playing music. We sent out an email to all of our staff asking whoever to stop playing the music. I looked all over the building and couldn’t find anyone playing any music, let alone jazz.

Fast forward to this last summer break, we were in the same room the jazz music incident happened before, prepping the room for summer school when the music started again. This time there were three of us in the room when it started playing. We looked all over again and nothing. There was a radio in the room. We turned it on and tried to see if we could find the station that was playing jazz, we couldn’t find anything even close. We were able to 100% tell that the music was coming from the vents. In our looking around the building for the source, another teacher at the other end of the hall said that she sometimes hears music as well. She never had thought about it and just assumed someone was playing music in their room.

Fast forward to yesterday, I was covering music class for the day and we are currently without a teacher. While I was there I thought I would start to tidy the room up and organize it a bit better than it was. During the planning period I decided that I was going to move the desk, rather spin the desk so that it was just on the other wall. I didn’t need to unplug anything because it was just moving to another wall. As I started to rotate the desk, jazz music started playing through the external computer speakers. I instantly knew what it was. I stood and listened to the music playing through the speakers. I decided to begin the “I’m not crazy this must have a reason” process and looked at the computer. There weren’t any programs open, except my work email. I closed that and it still was playing. It was louder than it had been when hearing it in the rooms. I then adjusted the volume knob on the speaker up and down, which had no effect on the volume of the jazz music playing. At this point I was starting to get a little uncomfortable and just wanted it to stop, so I pulled the speaker plug out of the back of the computer…and the music was still playing. Instant goosebumps. As I am holding the 3.5mm jack in my hand I realize that the music is getting louder if I touch the end of it and softer when I stop. I decide to plug it back into the computer to see if I can get it to stop. It doesn’t. I then roll the volume knob to the off position and it still plays. At this point I get at very uneasy feeling and become hyper aware of my surroundings. I turn the speakers back on and leave the room.

I went into the closed room which was the cafeteria and Dan, our lunch coordinator, was there. I asked him to come with me to make sure I “wasn’t going crazy”. He asked what asked what was going on, but I said nothing until we got into the room. When we stepped in the music room I didn’t hear it and thought, “Oh great, I am crazy”. So I started to tell Dan about what had happened. As we approached the desk we heard the jazz again. I went through the whole process of unplugging and adjusting the volume with the same results. Then all of a sudden it just stopped.

This isn’t the first time things like this have happened in our building and it probably won’t be the last. The Dan and I swapped a few stories about “oddities” that have happened. He always says, “Hi Ralph” when things like this happen. Our school is named after Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Later in the day I was telling my principal about what happened and told him that the Dan always says, “Hi Ralph”. He didn’t get it at first then I said, “You know Ralph Waldo Emerson?” He laughed and said, “I wouldn’t worry it is probably Ms. Carl saying hello.”

Ms. Carl was our music teacher my first year, who tragically died in a car accident on Monday December 1, 2008. This incident happened on Monday December 3rd, the 1st was a Saturday.

Just wanted to share.

[Pokey]

You must be smoking some good chronic!!!! Seriously though.....that is some crazy stuff right there, at least she is a friendly ghost.

[ScubaCinci]

Wow cool!

[NinjaDoc]

awesome, shud have videoed it right there and then.

[ScubaCinci]

I used to have a cheap guitar amp that picked up voices. I finally figured out they were coming from trucker CB's as they passed through the area. Cheap electronics I guess. You had to turn the amp all the way up to hear them and then there was a lot of white noise as well. Had I had a gate pedal to clean it up, it wouldn't have taken so long to figure it out.

[Anden]

It's probably someone you and Oldschool murdered for bike parts. You know the hey let's go riding, end up in a dark parking lot and hack this guy up in the basement. thank god my bike isn't all that desirable.

That is some creepy stuff.

[TRMN8TR]

I've always been a non-believer of this sort of thing. I don't know if its because of my negative, non-believing attitude or what, but I've never experienced any sort of "paranormal" activities. I don't knock anyone who does believe in it or feels they've witnessed it, but I haven't.

I guess its one of those things that I'll believe it when I see it.

[granda080]

awesome, shud have videoed it right there and then.

Sadly, I didn't think of that. Next time I will try to remember.

I've always been a non-believer of this sort of thing. I don't know if its because of my negative, non-believing attitude or what, but I've never experienced any sort of "paranormal" activities. I don't knock anyone who does believe in it or feels they've witnessed it, but I haven't.

I guess its one of those things that I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm actually with you 100%. I just assume there is some sort of factual reason. That said it was still creepy as shit and made me very uncomfortable, as do most of the strange things that happen there. This one was just extra creepy.

[Scruit]

Next time something like that happens try to record it on your smartphone, or carry a cheap voice recorder around.

Powered but unused speakers can pick up signals from things like CBs. Same concept behind the "mobile phone buzz" or the "da-dit-dit-da" sounds that you hear from speakers near older cellphones. My blackberry did it all the time. I have some old iDen phones that make my pc speakers go nuts if the phone is nearby. Internet communications can do it but I've heard right before a call arrives. Whenever I heard the sounds I reach for my phone and most of the time there's something that needs my attention (call, sms etc).

The conference room phones where I work have labels "no mobile phone buzz" which means they are shielded and tested ok to not get this effect.

CDMA doesn't seems to do it. iDen, GPRS and EDGE seem to be the worst.

[madcat6183]

I have a lengthy story that my aunt told me about my grandpa as he was getting ready to pass on, but I'll just give the gist of it and spare everyone the whole thing.

Basically she walked in to take him home to pass away from the hospital, and he was pretty much passed out. She left to get a nurse to get him ready, came back, he was up sitting at the end of the bed, shoes tied, staring in the distance(wall), and was talking to his sister, brother, and wife, who all were dead. He was telling them that he was coming to see them and getting ready for the trip, and just shooting the breeze. I guess my aunt and nurse both saw this, and when they tried to talk to him, he didn't even know they were there.

Finally he stopped, and looked at my aunt and said, let's go home. He went home, had 1 more fall, ended up in the hospice facility and never woke up. My aunt told me this as my cousin(not her daughter) were with Ghost Adventures at the Mansfield prison doing a lock down. She did NOT believe until that day, said it made her a total believer but up until then she never did.

Mom said she had an experience the other day in Mansfield on some ghost hunt thing, dad said it was BS and said that it was rigged. I think a lot of it is up to the person if they want to believe or not.

[ReconRat]

I've heard sympathetic harmonics from lots of things, mostly metal. And mostly AM, since that is a set frequency and a length of metal will attenuate that if the wavelength matches. Speakers are common, plugged in or not. Motors with fan blades can do it. And oddly, I've seen/heard metal window frames vibrate the glass and play music.

[Tigerpaw]

A lot of things can pick up Radio Disney AM.

[NinjaNick]

I'm a believer there are no such things but our minds fucking with us if we think there is an entity. I never had such an experience because I don't believe that stuff is real. Maybe that's why I never had an experience. I don't know, but I just know I find ghost stories amusing.

I'm sure there was a reason for what happened and you just couldn't find it. I definitely don't think it was something from beyond the grave.

[granda080]

I'm a believer there are no such things but our minds fucking with us if we think there is an entity. I never had such an experience because I don't believe that stuff is real. Maybe that's why I never had an experience. I don't know, but I just know I find ghost stories amusing.

I'm sure there was a reason for what happened and you just couldn't find it. I definitely don't think it was something from beyond the grave.

I don't either. It is true. It did creep me out. The rest are coincidences that make for a far more interesting story.

[TSB67]

Powered but unused speakers can pick up signals from things like CBs. Same concept behind the "mobile phone buzz" or the "da-dit-dit-da" sounds that you hear from speakers near older cellphones. My blackberry did it all the time. I have some old iDen phones that make my pc speakers go nuts if the phone is nearby. Internet communications can do it but I've heard right before a call arrives. Whenever I heard the sounds I reach for my phone and most of the time there's something that needs my attention (call, sms etc).

My old Nextel phone did this. Anytime you were near a powered speaker you heard the "ticking" and knew the call was coming before it rang. I was at a Winking Lizard or something once that must've had a wireless speaker system for the whole place - I got a call and their entire system went apeshit like a full-volume surround test. Everybody shut up and started looking around as I frantically ripped the battery out of my phone. My friends at the table were wide-eyed asking "your PHONE did that?" They thought it was the greatest thing ever and were trying to pay me to turn it back on - I was just embarrassed...

[Scruit]

My old Nextel phone did this. Anytime you were near a powered speaker you heard the "ticking" and knew the call was coming before it rang. I was at a Winking Lizard or something once that must've had a wireless speaker system for the whole place - I got a call and their entire system went apeshit like a full-volume surround test. Everybody shut up and started looking around as I frantically ripped the battery out of my phone. My friends at the table were wide-eyed asking "your PHONE did that?" They thought it was the greatest thing ever and were trying to pay me to turn it back on - I was just embarrassed...

When cellphones first came out my mother was the first person I knew who had one. From the day she got it we heard that ticking sound on the radio in her car and in the house for weeks before we figured it out. We joked about it being alien communication or morse code from invading Russians.

It was one of these:

http://www.retrobrick.com/marsbar.html

Edited December 9, 2012 by Scruit

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

I'll chase big foot down, but if I see a ghost Iam going to the other fucking way screaming like a little girl.

[OsuMj]

Ok, so next time, turn your phone off, your video camera on, post on youtube, make $$$

[NightRider]

Just out of curiosity, what's the actual name of your school?

[Gixxus Christ!]

When I used to play bass, and carry a pager, the right combo of effect pedals and proximity of the pager to the pickups in the bass guitar would result in, no shit, Mexican fucking radio.

[Helmutt]

We get some weird crosstalk through our PA or instrument amps at rehearsals occasionally, typically we just assume its interference coming in around us from somewhere. First time or 2 we weren't sure what to think. There's so much being broadcasted planet-wide anymore, you just never know how electronics will behave.....especially when it comes to amplifiers/speakers. Andy, I wouldn't worry until things start moving on their own:D