Paranormal Activity...at least I think it was...

Let me emphatically state first and foremost that I do not believe in ghosts. When I was younger, we used to joke that our house was haunted because when the furnace turned off at night it would make a sound as it was cooling off, that sounded like someone walking up our staircase. That was as ghostly as things ever got at home when I was a boy.

In later years we had a furnace that would growl (sort of) as it was starting up and we would tell people that it was Spot the Dragon, who lived under the stairs.My Cousins and I used to swear that my Grandpa's farmhouse was haunted. After my Grandma passed away, there was an upstairs room where the light would come on by itself.  Being kids, we just attributed it to the fact that our Grandma's ghost was looking out for Grandpa and us kids, too.

In the not-so-distant past, I recall a night when my Son, Dustin cried out in his sleep and as I groggily walked into his room to check on him, his tennis shoe rolled across the bedroom floor right past where I was standing. My Wife, Sherry, swears that I dreamed this, however, how does this explain the fact that after it happened, there I stood, wide awake in the middle of my Son's bedroom?

Then there was the Tony Hawk incident. I know, Tony Hawk...Skateboarder...Scary, right? To explain: Dustin received a Tony Hawk remote control toy that featured a large Tony Hawk figure on a skateboard. The remote control not only made the skateboard go forward and backwards, but you could also control Tony's movements from side to side so that if he fell over, one push of a button and Tony would swivel and push himself back into an upright position.

One night I awoke to hear an electronic buzzing sound followed by a thump. This process repeated several times until I was fully awake enough to realize that something was bumping around across the hall somewhere. I followed the sound to Dustin's room where I found Tony Hawk, rolling across the floor, thumping into the baseboard and tipping over. When he hit the floor, he swiveled and popped back up and rolled back across the room. After running into a Batman beanbag chair, he'd go back across the room and perform the same routine.

I immediately began looking for the remote control to see if the kids had put it down with something on top of it, pressing one of the buttons. I located the remote on Dustin's desk chair and picked it up. As soon as I touched it, Tony stopped moving. I carried the remote control back across the hall with me, and laid it on the nightstand before climbing back into bed.

No sooner did I close my eyes than I heard Tony start up again, rolling slowly across the floor and then "Thump."  I raised up in bed and fumbled for the light switch. I pulled off the back of the remote and took the batteries out and sat them down on the table. Fastening the remote back together, I put it down and then slid back down under the blankets while flipping off the light.

A few minutes later I heard a buzzing sound, followed by a soft thump. Now I was getting ticked off. Was one of the kids playing with me? I walked into Dustin's room, where he was fast asleep. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tony Hawk, raising himself up off the ground and beginning to roll towards me. I reached down and picked up the toy and carried it down the stairs to the garage, where I left it to roll and buzz all night.
I can only think it was some sort of electrical interference of some sort, but who knows?

After our youngest Son, Jared was born, we installed a high tech video camera and baby monitor in his room, just above his baby crib. Night after night I would fall asleep watching him squirm and wiggle until he fell asleep. One night I heard him cooing and gurgling and as I looked up at the screen, I saw a shadow pass by his bed. Remembering the shoe incident of some years earlier, I spent the remainder of the night in a rocking chair beside his bed.

At other times I'd see floating things cross the black and white screen of Jared's monitor. At first they appeared to be white dust particles, but some of them were just too big to fit my dust theory. Since I don't believe in ghosts, I assume they were also some sort of electrical disturbance. In other words, I'm sure there is some sort of logical explanation.

More recently, in the area of unexplained phenomena here at home, I can't figure out how Luke, after many years of living in our garage, suddenly figured out how to open up the garage door by hitting his nose or paw against the keypad, or why Socks has suddenly become so "talkative," or how Kevin gets my gloves out of my coat pocket without unbuttoning my coat pockets?

I wish Robert Stack was around to solve these Unsolved Mysteries!

David