A Personal Experience By Steve and Steph

I have been fascinated with the supernatural my entire life and have spent the last 25 years chasing good ghost stories. I have been blessed for the last 14 years with my VERY wonderful and adventurous wife, Stephanie. Like me, Stephanie is drawn to and fascinated by the supernatural—we actually met for the first time waiting in line at a local haunted house put on by the V.F.W. in 1990 and started seeing each other the very next week. Ever since this time, we would check out any good stories for ourselves. We have experienced so many strange and unexplainable things over the years and what happened in May, 2005 was no different.

It began when one of my co-workers heard through the grapevine that I loved scary and haunted places and came in to offer a challenge of sorts. She told me about the seven acres of land she lived on and that she believed that it may be close to an Indian burial ground, or, where many deaths had occurred. Her challenge was to anyone brave enough to walk out to her barn at night and spend five minutes standing in it. She said that she had offered this challenge to numerous people over the years, including several "tough guys," but, in all of that time, only three people had even made it all of the way to the barn. I told her that I would talk to Steph that night and let her know in the morning. That night, Steph quickly agreed, but we also agreed that we would not make any assumptions that this would be a piece of cake. We set it up with my co-worker for that Saturday night.

When we arrived at her house at about 7:30 PM, the first thing we noticed was that it truly WAS the middle of nowhere! We talked a little bit about others who had tried and failed, including a man who said, "After 30 years in The Corps, there ain't NOTHING that scares me!" This poor man had only taken about 12 steps off of the back porch and could not leave the property fast enough. By now, it was 10:00 PM and very dark, so we decided to go.

Immediately after stepping out the back door and off of the porch, the unmistakable feeling of being watched was undeniable. The barn was only about 50 yards from the house, but would seem like 50 miles under these conditions. When we got almost halfway, Steph stopped suddenly, grabbed my arm VERY tightly, and said, "There is someone standing right next to me and he is REALLY eyeballing me!" At that moment, I caught a cold chill as I realized and thought to myself that in the 15 years that we had been together, this was the first time I had EVER seen her get spooked or jumpy about ANYTHING—even a couple of years earlier when we were out camping, a snake slithered right between her feet and she didn't even flinch! As we stood there, we started to get the feeling that we were being surrounded by VERY unwelcoming eyes and, I have to admit, my own courage was beginning to feel a bit questionable at that moment. We each drew a deep breath and said, "Shall we?" and continued on. The closer we got to the barn, the more we felt like we were NOT wanted there and the tighter her grip got on my arm.

Finally, we reached the barn, and Steph asked, "Are we sure about this?" to which I replied, "We've come this far, we might as well go all the way." She agreed and we went in (Steph has more guts than some men I know). Once inside, the feeling of pure panic and impending doom gripped both of us and it sounded like people were whispering to each other. Although we could not make out what was being said, it was clear that they were talking about how to get rid of us. Both of our hearts were pounding like we had just ran a marathon, and Steph asked, "Five minutes yet?" I quickly replied, "Close enough, let's go!" As we "calmly" walked back to the house, we could clearly feel the presence of someone following us and lots of watchful eyes on us. When we stepped in, my co-worker asked us, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" and started laughing. She then congratulated us on being only the fourth and fifth people to even get to the barn and the first people to make it inside. While this whole trip out and back only took 30 minutes, it sure felt like eight hours.

As we drove home, we talked about the experience and agreed that it was very scary, but it was not the worst thing we could have done. We still love to go in search of any good ghost stories that we can chase down and see for ourselves. It may be a strange hobby to some, but we have many good stories to relay, and we know for sure that there are spirits out there—just waiting for us to come in to the barn!