Strange Spring type noises

The house has been abnormally quiet through the fall. But just before Christmas I experienced a strange situation. With all the activities that go with the Christmas rush I just hadn't had time to record it here. Anyway, my wife has a part-time job that, on rare occasion, requires her to open a large store rather early. She had fretted all day about getting up so early to do the opening. So we went to bed early and the older of our dogs went to his bed next to the heat register and laid down. The younger dog jumped up on the bed and it looked like she was following something overhead, twisting her head like she was following something that we certainly couldn't see. Then she jumped from the bed and ran pell- mell down the hall. She was gone a few minutes and I heard her yipe, so I got up to see what the problem was. But before I much more than got up she came running back into the bedroom and back upon the bed where the whole series of events repeated. This occurred several times and my wife in desperation got up and went downstairs intending to sleep on the recliner. This behavior on the part of our younger dog is very uncharacteristic. Usually she goes to bed and sleeps until we awaken her in the morning. I was the one stuck with trying to figure out what her problem was. I finally threw the top blanket over her and tried to calm her down. She about shook me apart. Thats scared shaking not cold. About 3 am she settled down and I was able to turn off the lights and try to sleep. But that was not the end of the weirdness. I bagan to hear noises about the house, not common noises like we are use to, but strange noises too indiscrip to pinpoint. It was not scarey, but it was irritating; then very low I thought I could hear crickets. Thought I was hearing things; it is cold this time of year in Ohio and crickets just don't sound off this time of year. The sounds grew louder and instead of crickets I realized I was hearing a springtime chorus of crickets, peepers, and other insects like one hears in early spring near small bodies of water. These sounds, when I was a child, were very soothing and would lull you to sleep, but not when you couldn't figure where they were coming from on a cold day in December. I got up and checked around, I could not detect a source for the noise. I cracked open a window but the sound was inside not outside. I finally gave it up and a few minutes til 4 I let the sounds put me asleep. I have no idea how long they lasted but I didn't hear them when I got up the next morning. The dog was fine the next morning and her older counterpart had gone to sleep and never was bothered by any of it. When my wife returned from her job I asked her if she heard anything unusual during the night and she replied "No, Why?"What was bothering the younger dog so? Where on eaerth did springtime sounds originate from? Why was all of it just upstairs in the front portion of the house? Might be totally logical explainations for all of it. But I haven't found them yet.

Very Loud Noises

We have experienced three very loud "crashes","Explosions" something. One of them sounded like a shotgun blast in or very near the house. The other two were as loud as shotgun blasts but didn't really sound like that. None of my neighbors have heard anything out of the ordinary. Yet these "blasts" were extremely loud and if they were outside the house I can't understand why no one in the vicinity has heard them. If they were inside the house, surely there would be obvious signs of what caused it. They were all during daylight hours, in the early afternoon in all three cases. It seems that no one in this village ever hears any loud noises. When we first moved here 30 years ago, a fireworks factory exploded. My wife and I certainly heard that one....but no one else in town did. After it made headlines in the local paper a few locals admitted they heard a "bang" but thought it was a truck backfiring. At the time none of them suggested hearing any backfiring. This is what small towns are like, folks. They can't hear a foreworks factory explode; but they know every time you fart. Small towns are picturesque in magazines; but irksome to live in at times.

Strange footfalls heard again.

Today, I was working in the attic, trying to make more room for more stuff we rarely use. Our attic is quite large as attics go and is divided into two rooms. The front room has 8ft ceilings in the center and slope downward on both sides to roughly 5 ft. The ceiling of this front room was, at some time in the past, finished with plaster ceiling. Over the years, primarily when this house sat empty the roof leaked and ruined much of the ceiling. The back half of the attic was never finished and stands roughly 7 ft at the center with the rafter and roofing slats quite bare. Over top of the roof slats is an old tin roof. This roof sprouts an occassional seep leak which is duly noted and stopped with tar or Elasmaric roofing compound. I had started to fiberglass between the studs; but have not progressed very fast as there is a lot of "stuff" to climb over. Today I had been working for an hour or so in the front room of the attic when I heard, no question, the attic door open (It is very close to the hallway carpet and drags slowly over it when you open or close that door. The sound is characteristic and like nothing else. I then heard heavy footsteps accend the attic stairs. Again, no mistake, as the attic stairs are bare wood and hard soled shoes make quite a racket. My wife absolutely refuses to come up to the attic. In 30 years she may have been there very briefly twice. Even so, because there was noone else around, I assumed it must be my wife. I called out from the front room, of the attic, that I was in there. I got no response. Figuring that if it was important enough for her to come to the attic; I'd better see whats was up. But there was no one in the attic but me. I did not hear anyone decend the stairs and that would have made as much noise as coming up them. There simply was no one around who could have made those sounds. I went down to the second floor and stepped around to the back stairwell to the kitchen and shouted down to the first floor (the kitchen is just off the backstairs) asking my wife if she had been upstairs. She assured me that she had not. Later, over supper, I told her what I had heard. She replied, "You couldn't get me on those attic stairs and you know it." Chuckling, she said maybe it was Mrs. Ramsbottom. When this house was built for a U.S. Senator in 1857, he and his family had a personal black servant (paid not slave) who lived in the attic of the house with her young son. This is who my wife was referring to. The son later grew up to become a bishop in one of the larger church bodies). He did his homework on the walls of the attic which was still in evidence when I bought the place about 30 years ago.

Phantom dog paws

While this is not a big deal; nonetheless it can be disconcerting. While reading my E mail, today in the Library, just before 8:00 pm, I distinctly felt two dog paws on my rightside pants leg. Often, if my dogs need to go, they will let me know in this manner. I immediately put my hand down to stroke which ever dog (we have two) was asking. My hand met with blank space and the paws released like the dog had jumped back down. There was no dog there, nor was any even close. My wife insisted they were both in the kitchen with her. Just an interesting observation.

Follow-up

Nothing new in the paranormal has occurred since I last posted. But I hought I should mention that my dogs are back to normal, Believe me three nights of that was way more than I needed. I have no idea what had them so scared for three consectitive nights; but it appears to be over now....thank goodness.

Dogs suffer night-nerves

For the past three nights my dogs have about driven me nuts. Everything is just fine all day but when night-time sets in problems begin. Even at the point where we go upstairs for the night the dogs, both of them, seem happy to go upstairs. Once upstairs they will play with each other and chase the toy. But sometime during the play, before my wife and I turn in, they both suddenly head for the bed and shake, not your typical lets rearrange our hair shake, but rather I'm scared outta my hide quiver-shake. The older dog heads under the bed and the younger jumps up on the bed and shakes so hard the whole bed shakes. sometimes it takes a half an hour to get them settled down. So we my wife and I have seen absolutely nothing that should scare these two. The older dog isn't easily frightened. This whole episode is beginning to wear thin. What do they see or sense that my wife and I do not? This has gone on for three nights now. If it continues I'm not certain what I'll do. Heres hoping it does not repeat again.

Dog ears

Yesterday I worked in our attic making room for more stuff too good to throw away but not good enough to keep. The attic is large, has fairly high ceilings, is made up of two rooms and smells like bat. After an hour or so the heat and smell tends to drive one out of the attic into cooler, fresh air, zones. I needed to take a box of small stuff to the attic but noticed some items I figured I'd be using shortly, so I took the box into the master bedroom and layed across the bed with it, under the ceiling fan, to sort it out. While I was laying there I distinctly saw a pair of fuzzy, floppy, ears come up over the edge of the bed. But I was busy and figured it was my older dog the ears fit. After a moment or so, I realized that neither of my dogs should be upstairs. I looked a second time and still saw the ears. I started to call him on up on the bed but I had several items laid out and figuring my wife must be coming upstairs (how else could he get through the downstairs gate) I got up off the bed and there was no dog. I looked all over, there was no dog. I looked under the bed, no dog. He couldn't have gotten far in the few seconds it took me to get up. I went downstairs and my wife assured me the dogs were both with her and the gate hadn't been opened. So what did I see? The older dogs ears are characteristic; they are folded over, grey fur. I didn't just see them once, but twice. Of all of the dogs I have owned only three of them had the floppy ears. Two of them are the dogs I presently own and one of those two has black floppy ears. The other three dogs that I have had here, one had cropped ears and the other two had ears that were generally straight up (both occassionly carried one ear up and the other flopped, but never both down). I had a dog for almost 18 years that was grey and had two flopped ears. I wonder if I was seeing him? If not? What?