The 'Captain'
I grew up in a victorian house and still live there today. Sitting at home right now, freaking myself out.
My parents have a running story about a ghost that was living in our house which they named The Captain. He's known for taking things right before they are going to be used and then returning them months later in an obvious spot, usually right where they are supposed to be.
He is most famous in our house for taking our old VHS tape that had a recording of A Christmas Carol on it. We watched it every Christmas Eve as a family. He took it so often that my mom had to go out and buy a copy of the movie so we could have a backup. Later when we updated to a DVD version, he took that took.
I actually never really believed that he was real until the day he took my purple pillow. That pillow sat on my bed for years and I never moved it except to wash it. One night I was getting ready for bed and couldn't find the pillow. I searched high and low for it and it was just gone. Six months later I walked into my room and the pillow was sitting right on my bed where it should have always been. I asked my family if anyone had found it and they all said no.
I believed in him right then and there.
My dad has had the most experiences with The Captain. He has his workshop down in our basement (creepy basement) and can spend hours down there doing manly things and escaping from a house full of women i'm sure. He often says that must be where The Captain lives because he can feel him down there with him, especially when it's late. My dad said he would be working and all of a sudden he would feel his presence and my dad would look at his watch and realize it was time to get ready for bed, or just time to get the heck outta there.
I remember one time that really had my parents riled up. They were never scared of The Captain, more like in awe that this was really happening. My dad had left his jacket down in the basement in another room that is adjacent to his work shop. He said he was wearing the jacket but got hot and took it off, laying it down on a table. He forgot it when he went back upstairs and the next day when he went down to get it he didn't find it where he left it but back in his work shop hung nicely over his chair. He said he never went into his workshop that day and clearly remembers putting it on the table in the other room.
Of course my dad asked everyone if they had moved it or even gone down in the basement and no one had. It was The Captain.
I have never felt afraid of The Captain and he never moved anything of mine after the purple pillow. He's become a bit of a celebrity in our house and with our friends that we've told about him. I hope he doesn't mind!
Edit: Lol everyone posting about it being a made up thing made me really think about if it was. Honestly though this is just the most innocent story I have about our house because I have many other paranormal experiences in my house that I plan on writing about later. Although maybe they created The Captain to make it seem like our house being filled with spirits wasn't anything to be scared about. - Reddit.com
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Pat Robertson Blames 'Witchcraft In The Family' For Boy's Stomach Pains
Tell most people your son is having extreme stomach pains, and they will tell you to get to a hospital as soon as possible. Pat Robertson on the other hand might say, "Check your family for witchcraft," as he told a mother on a recent episode of The 700 Club.
Viewer Dianne wrote in to the show asking Robertson:
"My son heard sounds that send painful shock-waves thru [sic] his body as I was praying for him and I called on the name of JESUS. My son said it felt like something hit him very hard in the stomach. I know this is not of God. He is a Christian. Can Christians be attacked by demons?"
Robertson responds that demons might be causing the boy's stomach pains but warns the woman about seeking help from "quacks" who will try to exorcise non-existent demons. Instead, he says, the woman should look to her own family to see where the influence might be coming from.
“If I were you, I would look back at your family," Robertson suggests.
"What in your family — do you have anybody involved in the occult, somebody in witchcraft or tarot cards or psychic things? Has there something been there that you don’t know about. Some grandparent, great grandparent or something. Look into the family tree, and then get some people in there and cast this stuff out. But that does not sound like normal.”
Wiccan priestess Courtney Weber told HuffPost, "It deeply saddens me that in a man as wealthy and powerful as Mr. Robertson who could be using his resources to inspire and uplift is touting superstitions and inspiring fear in the mother of a young boy who clearly needs medical attention."
This isn't the first time Robertson has expressed disdain for so-called witchcraft. In a famous 1992 letter attacking "the feminist agenda," Robertson wrote:
"[Feminism} is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - THP
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Mistaking body for mannequin, workers toss it in a dumpster
For the second time this year, someone in the Tampa Bay area has mistaken a body for a mannequin and thrown it in a dumpster.
It happened in St. Petersburg this spring when a security guard trashed the body of an elderly woman who had jumped to her death from her 16th-floor apartment.
And it happened in Spring Hill on Thursday when two workers hired to clean out a house believed the body of a man who hanged himself in the garage was a mannequin used for a prank. One of the men took the body to a dump, where county workers became suspicious and called deputies.
"It was obviously very unusual and very hard to believe," Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said at a news conference Thursday evening.
Sheriff's officials said Israel Lopez, 50, and Adam Hines, 36, were hired to clean out the vacant house at 6527 Treehaven Drive.
The house was in disarray, Nienhuis said, similar to an episode of Hoarders. Dead rodents filled the house and the workers believed that was the source of a foul smell, he said.
While cleaning, the men saw what they both believed was a mannequin hanging from the ceiling in the garage.
"Both individuals as well as the property owners believed the lifelike mannequin was a distasteful Halloween-like hoax left by the former renters," sheriff's officials said in a news release.
The men cut the body down, placed it in a pickup along with other refuse, and hauled everything to the West Hernando garbage transfer station.
There, county employees became suspicious. Shortly before noon Thursday, they called the Sheriff's Office and reported that a body had possibly been disposed in a Dumpster.
Deputies arrived and confirmed their suspicions.
While deputies investigated, Lopez returned to drop off another load of garbage. County officials recognized him and notified deputies.
Nienhuis said Lopez and Hines made an honest mistake and all the evidence indicates that no crime was committed. They could not be reached for comments Thursday night.
"I think it's important to realize that … most people, they either have seen someone who has very recently passed … or they see them at a funeral home," Nienhuis said. "Obviously, this body was not anything close to either of those. It was somewhat mummified."
Deputies identified the dead man as Jeremy Allen Witfoth, 33. Sheriff's officials said he was a previous renter, and it appears hanged himself sometime in the past several weeks.
At the home Thursday afternoon, a forensic technician and detective worked in the garage, which was cluttered with empty boxes, clothing and trash.
"It's always been a sketchy place over there," said Thomas Gast, 43, while watching from his yard down the street.
Gast said he has seen law enforcement cars at the house before, as well as one from a child services agency. He frequently saw a family with children around the home, but said he hadn't seen anyone on the property for the past two months.
Neighbor Fred Simerson, 68, said that on Thursday morning, he saw a woman and two men at the house about 9:30 a.m. who looked like they were showing the house to a potential renter.
A few hours later, he saw a pickup back into the driveway and men cleaning out the garage. Soon after that, deputies arrived.
"This is heavy, man," Simerson said. "I see this stuff on TV. I never thought it would happen in my neighborhood."
This type of mistake is not unprecedented.
In St. Petersburg this spring, a security guard at a downtown apartment complex trashed the body of a 96-year-old woman who had jumped from her 16th-floor unit. The guard believed the body was a mannequin used as an April Fools' Day prank.
The guard was not charged with a crime, but the apartment complex fired him. - TampaBay
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Man starts fire using ‘blowtorch’ to kill spider
The creative arachnophobe managed to burn his house down while trying to kill a spider with fire.
Most of us might try to remove a big spider from the house using a piece of tissue paper or a glass, but one Seattle resident this week attempted something a little more drastic by fashioning a makeshift flamethrower out of a lighter and a can of spray paint.
Firefighters were soon called out to tackle the inevitable blaze but fortunately both the man and his mother had been able to escape the house without suffering any serious injuries.
"I don’t want to encourage people to do this, but that's what he did," said Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore. "The spider tried to get into the wall. He sprayed flames on the wall, lit the wall on fire, and that extended up to the ceiling. There are safer, more effective ways to kill a spider than using fire. Fire is not the method to use to kill a spider."
It isn't clear whether or not the offending arachnid actually managed to survived the ordeal. Read more at Washington Post
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