Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's 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!

Old Fort York, Toronto, Ontario Canada

The following was submitted by one of our readers...

I just wanted to submit an unusual experience that I had on March 30th at Fort York.

I was with my family at Fort York in the late afternoon. It was a cool, windy day so aside from another couple we had the place to ourselves.

As we were walking towards the Officers Brick Barracks/Mess (bldg. 3 on their map), I noticed that the curtain on the window to the right side of the door went up and fell down again. I just assumed there would be somebody standing inside the door. My eldest kid was ahead of me and I was about to yell at them to not go barrelling inside in case they ran into somebody but they were at the door before I had the chance. As soon as they had the door open and we caught up I realized that there was nobody there. In fact there was nobody else in the building. As the family moved on I stood inside the entry with the door shut to see if the wind would blow the curtain up. You could definitely hear the wind hitting the door and even coming in the cracks around the edge but the curtains didn t even budge much less raise right up.

I thought this was weird but continued on.

In the same building we continued on to the kitchen. We were all busy looking around when we heard a sound coming from the kitchen door. It sounded like somebody was pushing it to come through so we moved out of the way and then it just stopped and nobody came through. There was nobody on the other side either. My husband and I just gave each other a look like that was weird and continued on through the building. It wasn't until after we left Fort York that I started thinking about how strange it was.

Make what you want out of this. It was likely just the wind playing tricks on us. I must admit I can't figure out how that curtain would have raised up like that without somebody holding it up to look out or somebody brushing by right beside it. I was so sure there was somebody there.

This is interesting as The Officers Barracks is a site of many report... and the kitchen in it was a place where Matthew Didier and Sue Darroch ran into something similar with the door a number of years back.

While talking with two staff members in the kitchen about "ghosts" (both of whom were more-or-less poo-pooing stories, but at the same time telling us about interesting events that happened there to other people, the latch on the door between the kitchen and the hallway to the dining area started to move back and forth with enough sound to attract everyone's attention. We all watched the latch move back and forth but never "up" which would open the door. After a few seconds, the movement stopped and Matthew ventured out to see who was there... and no one was. The staff members said it was the wind, but this did not make much sense... wind would have moved the door back and forth which making the latch move up and down on it's lever... not side-to-side... The only way this movement could be achived is if the wind blew a small latch back and forth without moving the door... highly unlikely... but the staffers stayed with their explanation... it was the wind.

We thank our witness for this report.

Does this report sound familiar? Do you have a similar experience at this location that you would like to share? If so, we would like to hear from you. Please send your submission to submissions AT torontoghosts.org

Image Credit: Matthew Didier