Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

Starting this Friday I will begin posting stories and experiences that have been related to us over the years that are my personal favourites. These will include Crypto, Ghosts, UFO's and other strange events that may be considered Fortean from in around the Toronto, Canada area .... and since they are from my own personal files will likely not be found elsewhere on the web .... enjoy!

Today's entry ....... Wandering Ghost Of Swansea!

Often we are asked if ghosts or spirits are confined to one location. The following account suggests that this may not be the case.

"Hi my name is (deleted for the privacy of the witness) and I live in the Swansea/Bloor West Village Area. I live on a street called Lavinia Avenue. At the end of Lavinia Avenue there is the Swansea Town Hall and the Fire Station at the corner of Lavinia Avenue and DeForest Avenue. For years I've walked down Lavinia and DeForest without any incident. But last summer (2003) I was walking up DeForest and I was waiting to cross the street. I suddenly felt someone put there hand on my head and gently rub my hair. I turned around and no one was there. This past January(2004) I was walking down Lavinia Avenue...it was 6 am and dark. When I walked by the Town Hall....I felt as if someone was watching me....or I just sensed I wasn't alone. Then this past April 2004...I was walking home down DeForest and passing the Fire Station. All of sudden I was shoved forward....I felt a hand on my back and I was pushed.......when I turned around no one was there....and there wasn't anywhere anyone could've hid....I would've seen them running up the street. The last incident came in July 2004, when I was walking right between the Town Hall and the Fire Station and as I walked I felt cold....like there was a chill in the air.......but only at that spot. It was a very hot and humid day.......so I assumed I wasn't alone!!

Just this past August (2004).....they found a skull under the Swansea Town Hall, where they are doing construction and deemed it human.... Since then.... I haven't felt anything around there."

Our thanks goes out to the witness for sharing the above report. We were able to verify that a skull was indeed found through the Swansea Town Hall and a community newspaper called "The Villager."

We held onto this report in our offline files until another unrelated potential witness came forward.

I received another report on April 25th 2005 that is eerily similar to the above. The witness wrote to us that they had a very odd experience at DeForest and Windmere. They were walking north on the west side of Windmere. They describe a sudden sensation of being tugged by the cheek and pulled onto Deforest. They insisted that they had no reason to walk along Deforest other then the weird physical sensation. It stopped in front of a particular house. The witness has no idea why and does not know the occupants of the house. It was the first time anything like this had happened to them and they were not aware of the first report to us.

All of the above experiences occurred within a block of each other and outside leading myself to believe that there may indeed be a "ghost" wandering some of the residential streets of Swansea.

Update February 2006 - From one of our gentle readers:

I have read about the 2 experiences around the Swansea area and wanted to write. I walk up Windemere to Bloor West Village very regularly for my coffee and I am drawn to the area of the hall. I however did not know the street name.

It seems no matter which way I decide to walk back home I always end up at the corner of Deforest and Lavinia (I did not know the street names until today). Today on my walk to the Village, I purposefully walked to that corner to see what was up.

My family has sensitivity to spirits. I never see or hear them, only feel them emotionally. My sister is able to "see dead people" and hear them and all that jazz. I get jealous so I keep trying to see them.

Anyway, I walked by today and something strange happened. As I reached a house on Deforest my left hand went all tingly and became numb and stayed that way as I walked around the east side of the house.

As soon as I crossed the street to the fire hall, it stopped tingling. I went to the town hall, nothing. I went back to the house - more numbness. I crossed Deforest, nothing. Only in front of the one house.

I decided that was interesting (my hand had never gone tingly and numb before) and headed back toward Windemere. I was almost in front of the house when I heard a noise as if someone had hit or kicked the car that was parked on the street a few steps behind me.

I turned around and felt an emotion (which is what I usually feel - emotions, not physical sensations like the numbness). I felt like an adolescent and the expression of frustration like when kids click their tongue and roll their eye. I think he was thinking "come on, lady. Geez". Which made me think he had been trying to bring me into the house by my hand.

And then it stopped. I went for my coffee.

Our thanks to the witness for sharing this experience with us!"

I am actively collecting reports from Swansea, Bloor West Village, Roncesvalles Village and The Junction. You may contact me at sue@psican.org

Do you have a real life ghost story, an encounter with a UFO, or other paranormal experience/s you'd like to share? If so, we'd love to hear from you! Post your own experiences in our comments section. Please post only true life experiences ... we love good fiction, but there are other fantastic blogs out there to post fictional accounts to.