Readers' Stories New Age Tiscali

I had an unexplained encounter in 1974 at the age of 12 when my family moved into my mother's guardians house which the latter had left to us after she had died. The first few weeks in the house were fine and our family and pets, a dog and cat, settled into our new surroundings. However, as the weeks went by I became increasingly aware of what I can only describe as a presence in my bedroom every night.

It is hard to explain what I thought it was but I just felt that something was in the room and watching me every night when I went to bed. I should also at this stage explain that every night the pet dog used to sleep in my room and the pet cat would sleep in my sister's bedroom. As time went on I felt that the presence in the room was getting stronger. After a while the pet dog refused to come upstairs at night and would stand at the bottom of the stairs loking up as if it could sense something before whimpering and running off into the kitchen with its tail between its hind legs.

My family also started to notice strange things occurring aroud the house mostly upstairs and usually at night time. My sister told us that the cat would for no apparent reason start hissing and snarling with an arched back and all it's fur stood on end whilst looking towards the staircase landing. To cut a long story short the presence in my room continued to grow until one night I awoke with a feeling of a weight pressing down on my legs. Initially I thought it was the dog or cat which was lying on me. However when I switched on my bedside lamp I could not see anything on my bed but the weight was still pressing on my legs. I immediately kicked out, jumped out of bed and ran out of my bedroom onto the landing.

It was as I was running I had the unnerving feeling that the presence was chasing after me and wanted to catch me, so I swung round to face 'it'.

As I did so I punched the air with my right fist and immediately the whole of my right arm felt freezing as if I had just submerged it into a bucket of ice cold water. Almost as instantaneously as I felt the presence it vanished. I immediately ran down stairs to the lounge and told my mother who was sat watching TV.

From that point on we never had anymore unexplained instances in the house and the day after the dog and cat returned to sleeping upstairs.