Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

Today I received the following report, which I thought I would share with you (all personal/identifying information have been removed).

I do believe that certain items may hold an emotional or psychical imprint from their past .... with that said, every time I stumble across a "haunted" auction on EBAY the old line "there is a sucker born every minute" does come to mind .......

"I'm an avid antique clothing collector, and I went a vintage and antique clothing show. After perusing the racks, I was astonished to find an intact and very rare black mourning bodice that, based on the sleeve design, dated to the late 1830s. I had never seen such an old piece for sale at a show, and so with some disbelief, I paid the measly $80 the vendor was asking, and took the beauty home.

Closer examination of the piece revealed that it was wool, with one whalebone stay and very minimal jet bead decoration, denoting a mourning bodice that would have been worn quite early on during the typical year-long mourning period. It was winter weight, and lined in flannel. Apart from a ripped collar, it was in very good condition. I laid it out on my guest bed in the basement, and put in a load of laundry. I went upstairs to read the paper, and after about 15 minutes, heard the washing machine stop. I thought that the load had become unbalanced, but when I went downstairs, I saw that the lid of the washing machine was raised. This was odd to me, because the machine won't start if the lid is up, and I had definitely heard it going for at least 15 minutes...

A few days later, I realized that I had lost one of my mittens. I searched high and low for it at home and at work, but to no avail. I had resigned myself to the fact I would have a perpetually cold left hand, when about one week after it went missing, I found it in the garbage pail in front of the washing machine in the basement. I could not fathom how it had ended up there... Given the timing of these events, I wondered if the bodice was haunted, and if the lady in question had an interest in modern appliances... and mittens? I have many friends who also collect vintage and antique clothing, and while we are all imbued with a certain sense of romanticism, I wouldn't say we're too prone to fits of fantasy. That being said, almost every single one of them has a story about a "haunted" piece of clothing, the idea being that these items have, by their very nature, been exposed to strong emotional events (births, deaths...), and that some of this emotional energy gets trapped in the fabric... An interesting theory if nothing else!"

Thanks so much to the witness for sharing her experience with us ......