The Paranormal Blog

Each Friday we will have a look at the stories and experiences that have been related to us over the years that are amongst our personal favourites. These will include Crypto, Ghosts, Hauntings, UFO's, and other strange events that may be considered Fortean, from in around the Toronto, Canada area .... and since they are from our own personal files will likely not be found elsewhere on the web .... enjoy!

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada Near The Otonabee River

The following was submitted to us by one of our readers. Please note that this area is rich in Native Canadian folklore, and legends.

"I don't know if this falls into the category of a ghost story, but it is true and it did happen to me.

In 1989 I was 13 years old. My friend and I would each day go to the woods by our house, and play and build forts. The wooded area was just off highway 115 in Peterborough Ontario next to Kennedy rd, and on the Otonabee river. It was also right next to the water treatment plant.

Nothing strange ever happened to us until one day my friend found a patch of large tomatoes growing along the fence line of the water treatment plant. I could not understand why and how they got there, but we started picking all the big red ones. They had to be and still are the biggest tomatoes I have ever seen!

As we filled our shirts I heard singing, and thinking it was coming from the highway I kept on picking. It was hot and sunny, and daylight, so the thought of ghosts was never a problem, nor even entered my mind. Then the singing started again, but this time it came from the tops of the trees, and seemingly all around us! It was loud, and sounded like older women singing together, something you might here in a church.

Well that did it for us, we dropped our tomatoes, and booked it down the path to get home!

The path had grass about 4-5 feet tall on each side, and we kept hearing it move like someone was shaking it or running through it. I was scared, so scared I was crying!

We got to the end of the trail on Kennedy rd, and stopped. We were tried to figure out what had just happened to us.

Five years later I was watching a TV show about witches. And in the tv show the witches sang the very same song while standing in a circle for one of their dead.

It took only a few months before I went back to the woods. and still today I never heard a thing like we had heard that day.

As a side note to this story a few years ago I was told by someone that a mother had killed her little girls in a house that once stood years ago..which makes sense to me since a lot of bricks, and parts of an old white picket fence are still there. They called that part of the woods Diamonds Run."

We also received another couple of interesting reports as a result of this one:

"That's a really interesting experience. In some ways it reminds me of something that happened to me when I was younger, that was explained to me as being The Trickster (or The Old Man of the Woods). He plays tricks on people; singing or voices talking, the rustles in the grass like someone is after you or is trying to scare you, but he would never hurt anyone; that was how one Aunt explained it. (Of course my Uncle said it was the Windigo and I couldn't sleep for three days...) Given the Native history angle, that was what occurred to me. I really am looking forward to a follow up!"

And another:

"Up north of Peterborough...we (hubby and I) were snowmobiling years ago, and he and a friend decided to go across the lake to an island and see what's there. My hubby said that they were exploring the wooded area of the island when they realized the trees looked really old and gnarled, like old fruit trees, so they stopped and took off their helmets to look around.

That's when my hubby said they could hear a gentle noise, like voices from far away, that got closer and louder as the wind picked up in the trees around them. Just as it got loud enough that you might make out what was being said, the hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he motioned to his friend to start up and get out of there. I was watching from across the lake, and there was no one walking or cross country skiing anywhere near the island. During the summer the island is occupied, and we haven't been back in the winter since."

A third report of a current, and active haunting in the region is too lengthy to add here, and deserving of a future entry of it's own.

Our thanks to the witnesses for sharing these reports with us. Our investigator from Durham Region is following up, and we may update these reports in the near future.

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 or send us an email. Please post only true life experiences ... we love good fiction, but there are other fantastic blogs out there to post fictional accounts to.