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Slashdot Ghost Stories?
clemens asks: "As Halloween is just around the corner, does anyone have good geek-oriented spooky stories to share? No, I don't mean that hey-freddie-is-creeping-out-of-your-screen stuff, but some after-wee-hours-in-comm-room-i-see-dead-people stories. Anyone?"
I'm sure there are enough creative people out there that can come up with a few Scary Stories that are uniquely Slashdot. So if you're game, write away! CT here's my favorite :)
The Story of Magic from the Jargon File always amuses me...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I don't know about you... but I have worked in hardware engineering labs for many years. The only really scary story that I can think of is about a fellow named Black Cloud that I once worked with.
He got that nick name cause for some reason hardware would stop working when he was near. Sometimes all he would have to do was walk by and it would fry is a most spactacular way. (Rolling black smoke, hense the name.)
Personally I have always that that was one of the most scary things in life. Cause it was true.
Anonymous to protect both the innocent and the deathly guilty.
That reminds me of this.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Anyway, one day one of the support staff got a call from a customer asking about delayed email, specifically could messages arrive months late. Well, it was possible if the site had two or more servers and if after some types of problems the "Resend" command wasn't used but it was rare and *months*?
Anyway, this was a small office that was calling and they just had the one server and no external email (this was about '87). Our support person said that no, there wasn't any way she could imagine this happening though possibly if a client machine hadn't been used in all of that time but it was still unlikely... The customer seemed to accept this, thanked her and hung up.
The next day they called back. More mysterious email. It turned out what really bothered them was that the sender was an employee who had died some months ago. Getting the messages was very disturbing to the staff and was there any way to purge them? Not to purge as there wasn't a centralized email store but the account could certianly be deactivated. As the folks calling weren't technical our support person faxed off a set of direction for them to give to their systems consultant.
Three days pass then she gets another call and the person on the other end is in tears: More email, it contains personal information and current events! The office is in an uproar, half the staff is freaked and the other half is furious. Our support person reassures the caller we've never heard of anything like this and to have the systems consultant call her as soon as they come in before *anything* is touched.
Eventually through some sleuthing (well, mostly login times) it's determined that someone has the password to the dead fellow's account, had gone through his old email learning personal details and was now using this to harass co-workers.
Once the times and dates of the messages creation were firmly established it was in the hands of the customer but they apparently had a good idea who was doing this once it was confirmed how & when.
Real ghost story? No - but creepy enough that someone would torture their co-workers this way.
BTW at the same software company we had to go around removing a screensaver that randomly composed funny headlines with staff's names in it after a person listed died.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Where to begin - My great-grandfather built the house that my parents currently live in at the beginning of the last century. My grandfather grew up in that house. The strange things started to happen towards the end of the second world war. My grandfather's brother was killed over Sicily, and buried overseas. The night he found out about the news, my great-grandfather went across the river to the sawmill he owned and paced the yard. His son appeared to him, in uniform, and told him not to worry, and that he was ok. A short time later, my grandfather awoke to see the image of his older brother standing at the end of his bed, smiling at him, and then fading away into the darkness.
We moved into the house when I was 8 years old. My great grandmother died peacefully in her sleep, in what was to become my bedroom. I had had a good relationship with both of my great grandparents. The first things I began to noticed were the balls of light at night. For the frist 6 months, a white ball of light the size of a softball would travel back and forth across the bottom of the wall opposite my head. I blocked every light source and curtained all the windows, (the house is in the country so not much outside light anyway), but the light remained. Later, it moved into the hallway directly opposite my head as I slept, and then after another few months, disappeared. I like to think of it as my great-grandmother watching over me.
But it didn't end there. At night, after 11 or se when everyone had gone to bed, I would hear what sounded like big band era music coming from the basement, through the heating ducts. I would go out into the living room (I was the only one who slept on the ground floor), but I could onyl hear it coming from my room. It wasn't until last year that I mentioned it to anyone, and that's when I found out that my great-granparents would always listen to their big band records in the basement/den that they had.
I have seen objects move, seen movement in hallways when I was the only one home in the house. I once saw a small statuette fly 6 feet off a piano into the middle of the room. My sister has some more negative experiences with the house. She is 2 years younger than I (19) and will not stay in the house alone at night. She either invites a friend over, or leaves. She has seen and heard doors slam, windows close, heard loud noises and felt presences. Which leads me to the scariest single thing thing that has ever happened to me at the house.
I no longer live with my parents, and when I go back to visit, I sleep in the basement, on a hideaway couch. I have never had any creepy feelings or bad dreams in the basement, and as a child I used to mow the lawn in a cemetery as a summer job, so I do not scare easily. One night, around 2 am, I woke up, staring out into the room, and I SWEAR I saw a thin hand reaching OUT OF THE DARKNESS towards my face. Scared out of my mind, I lunged towards a lamp and after several agonising seconds turned on the light and saw nothing at all except an empty room. I ran upstairs, lit a candle, put it beside my bed and tried to forget about it, but I couldn't. I am getting chills just writing this. This happened last April. Now, when I visit, I have to have a small light on in the basement, or I CANNOT sleep. It is the only time I have felt or seen anything other than the protective spirits of my family in the house.
I don't know if I am more sensitive to spirits, or what, but I have had some other experiences that were definitely weird. I like my parents house, but some people, like my sister and my best friend, refuse to spend the night there, as it gives them the creeps.
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
Dungeon Keeper has to be about one of the coolest games to play late at night. Nothing quite like the computer telling you to go to bed or give up because it's late and your soft bed is calling.
There is even weirdness around special dates like the solstices and equinoxes. I haven't played it on Halloween in awhile but maybe I'll try it again tonight.
I'm a hobby musician with the computer..
Well not quite "hobby" anymore since this story happened; one night I was working late behind my computer and I didn't have a musical inspirition so I went out with some friends, when I came home and watched on the computerscreen, it had generated a track out of nowhere, I listened to it, it was awsome. The rest is history (yeah I'm quite famous and rich now!)
(would be fun eh? but it's not true however..I'm still working quite hard myself to make cool tunes)
this really happened - for real - once:
One winter-night I was slashdotting really late at my parents place. They live in a 600 year old house with parts that are even a little older than that. I felt quite tired but kept on reading comments and downloading some stuff I really didn't need. At one moment the printer turned itself on and started to make some noise like it was cleaning the heads or whatever and a paper slit into the printer. It scared me a little because I knew I wasn't messing with the printer and hadn't print for a couple of days. Then I heard it print and the page came out:
It had print one character, a black heart.
I used to live with my Aunt when going to college. My bedroom was down in the basement, and had a large opening into the rest of the basement with no door. One night, it was completely dark in my room except for the light on my stereo. I was just falling asleep, and I heard that little purring noise that cats make right before they jump up on something, and then felt something land solidly on my chest. There are no pets in the house, so as you would imagine, I was pretty freaked out. I tried to jump up, but I couldn't move, I was paralyzed. I managed to finally crack my eyes open, and I could barely see my lights on my stereo. Finally, after what seemed like 2 or 3 minutes, I felt whatever it was on my chest jump off and I was able to jump up and hit the lights. Nothing in my room, nothing in the rest of the basement. I have no idea what it was, but I slept with the light on the next few nights. It scared the hell out of me.
Last night, I watched a show on TLC about sleep paralysis and people who have similar experiences, some with actual physical damage from it (cuts and scars). It hasn't happened since then (about 6 years ago), but everytime I think about it I get the shivers.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Anywho, I would work late nights alot, being the only person in the whole complex. Almost every night I ever stayed there, I heard things. Indistinct voices down the hall. Doors opening and closing. Footsteps walking across rooms. I'd stand up to see what was happening, instantly all sound would stop.
Now for the doozy. One night, working late. It had been raining, but had stopped. Usual footsteps, voices in the background. After a few hours of this, heard some very loud footsteps walking through an adjoining office. Walked into the office and across the carpet, from one side of the room to another, wet footprints of some sort of work boot. Started in the middle of one wall, walked straight across the room to the other side, through two cubicle walls, to the other wall. No doorways anywhere near the footprints. One print actually was underneath a cubicle wall, half the print on either side. These prints were not there minutes earlier. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out, left the work unfinished and went home.
Talked to the boss about it the next morning. The prints were gone before anybody else saw them, but I pointed out where the prints were. Turns out where the footprints ended at the walls, there used to be doorways there before they remodeled and added the office space.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
So I was walking around the building late one night (probabaly after 1 or so) and I see a coworker and say hello before ducking into the bathroom...
While I was "relieving" myself, I realized that he had been struck and killed by a train about a month ago... Good thing I was already in the bathroom...
I've got two stories... The year is 1987. Witness the house I grew up in: High ceilings, creaky wood floors, so cold inside on a winter night you can see your breath. Outside, the vast dark expanse of looming trees that are Seattle's Interlaken park. A skittish nine year-old (me!) hears noises coming from downstairs, and crawls out of bed to investigate. The house is dark. Rain pounds the roof. I reach the bottom of the stairs. The eerie phosphorescent glow of the computer screen spills out of the study, as do shrill beeps... the shrill beeps of a Centipede-like game called Mouse Stampede. I say to myself: "Mother must have stayed up late playing the game," but this would be out of character for her, and I know that. I approach the door and peer inside, to find.... the COMPUTER IS PLAYING ITSELF! Of course, the computer (a Mac 512Ke!) had just been left on and had gone into demo mode, but I'd never seen such a thing before. Terrifying! I ran back up to my room and shut the door. And now my other story-----------------> I started working for my present employer last July. I inhabit the cubicle of a dead man. His name was Steve. No one told me this; it is information I have pieced together. Old software manuals gather dust on the shelves. The Seattle Times, dated June 28th (my birthday!), sits on the extra desk. It has faded, just slightly. A few post-it notes, quickly scribbled, shoved into a drawer by me, silently mourn: "Meeting Thurs. ... 47A2." The post-it notes of a dead man.
There's a ghost here. Not the howling, chain-shaking variety, but something passive: I can see it in the eyes of my colleagues when their eyes chance upon the stack of manila folders with notes jotted on them, or the half-full can of Pepsi, long-since flat. Nobody has managed to sort through these artifacts, and nobody has the heart to throw them away. So they remain here, in purgatory; a shrine. I keep them as a reminder. Steve died peacefully of a heart attack while he slept. The day before was, no doubt, just another ordinary day at work. A day like today.
Requiescat In Pace, Steve.
In a supernatural sense, at least. I was riding my bicycle late at night (It was about 2:00 am) and I was on a road with almost no lights. However, I did have one of those friction-powered lights on my bike, the kind that runs off of your front wheel.
I was riding past a graveyard, and just had time to think about how bad it would be to be walking past this instead of riding, when I ran over something in the road. Both of the tires on my bike blew, and I fell half sideways. As the glow faded from my light, I could just make out a tombstone with "Eternal Rest" written on it.
I remember thinking that this was how many horror movies started out. I don't think I EVER walked as fast in my life as I did the rest of the way home.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
"Ghost in the machine"
"kill -9"
"terminal madness"
"the curse of the zombie process"
Anyway, here is my story:
It was a dark and stormy night at an engineering school not unlike
this. The wind was howling and the branches of the trees tapped against
the windows. I had just powered on my terminal and settled in for an
evening of working on a programming assignment. The assignment was due
the next morning, but I thought I'd have plenty of time to finish.
After an hour or two, I had just finished the first draft of the code
and it was time to compile. I guess everyone else had waited until the
last minute too, because the compiler was running very slowly (good
thing I saved the compile results to a file). After what seemed like
ages, it had finished with only 666 warnings and 13 errors. I got up to
make myself some ramen to eat while I was debugging the code. The
lights flickered for a second and then came back. Fortunately, the
computer I was using was still up and running.
The first compile error I saw in the results file was the following:
/var/tmp/ccsfAMEG.o: In function `main':
/var/tmp/ccsfAMEG.o(.text+0x10): undefined reference to `kill_user'
That was at the same time ominous and a bit confusing because I don't
remember using that symbol name. I thought I'd search my files just to
make sure:
% grep kill_user *.[ch]
%
No matches. That was strange. I always liked to deal with the compile
errors in the same order that the compiler gave them to me, but I
thought I'd go on and come back to this first one later. When I went
back to view the compile results, I noticed that the error had changed.
It now said:
/var/tmp/ccsfAMEG.o: In function `main':
/var/tmp/ccsfAMEG.o(.text+0x10): undefined reference to `free_buff'
Of course, I recognized that symbol as the name of one of my functions,
but before I could go edit the source to see what was wrong, The screen
started showing strange characters:
% ~#!!~~~!~~~!~~!~!
Damn, line noise, or someone being cute with the dorm's terminal server.
Either way, I thought I'd best go down to the terminal room. It's a
good thing it's open to students all day. I grabbed my backpack and
threw in some CDs for good measure and headed down to the computer
science building.
I didn't make it more than about 20 yards before I realized it was
really cold and I'd better go back and change into some jeans and a
sweater instead of my normal shorts and t-shirt. I got back in my room,
and as I was looking for my sweater, the lights flickered and then went
out. Well, I'd have to go to the terminal room now. Fortunately, I had
a flashlight and was able to grab my sweater and head down to the
terminal room.
I ran the whole way there, because I figured it would be very crowded.
As I turned the corner and saw the lights on in the building, I was
relieved that the power would still be on in the terminal room. I
entered the building and was about to take off my sweater when I
realized that it was extremely cold inside. Not only that, but the
building was completely deserted. I made it to the terminal room, which
was also empty and even colder than the rest of the building.
I duct taped some cardboard over the AC vents and sat myself in the
corner next to the hard drives and the line printer. Hopefully that
will keep me warm.
I logged in and started up the CD player. I always listened to
instrumental classical music when programming because there were no
lyrics to distract me. 'Pictures at an exhibition' was just starting as
I logged in. The system login script told me:
Welcome to the computing cluster, you have -559084514 new messages
Funny. I thought I'd take just a second to mail the sysadmins and let
them know something was funny with their login script. But wait, that's
a funny number. Let's see:
(gdb) p/x -559084514
$1 = 0xdead0c1e
That ain't good. I quickly sent of the email and got back to the
project. The computer was even slower than before, so I figured I'd
better do as many fixes as I could before recompiling. After I had
finished my edits, I started the compile, then I went to the soda
machine to pick up some caffeine.
I was bummed out that the machine was empty. On the way back, I heard
some strange scratching noises coming from the machine room. I had been
in the room before, but I wasn't on the sysadmin staff, so I didn't know
the combination for the door.
But I did have my student ID card and the door looked easy to jimmy open.
When I got inside, I was met by a knee-deep pile of backup tape strewn
around the room. Lights were blinking everywhere, and the smell of
burning resistors hung in the air. I followed the scratching sound back
into a corner I had never seen before, and couldn't believe what I saw.
It was one of those old "washing machine" type disk drives that held a
million bytes and cost almost a million dollars. These guys don't throw
anything out do they? Then I heard the scratching noise again, followed
by a faint moaning. "help me" it said, "I'm trapped". I don't know
what I was thinking, but I pushed the unload disk button.
The lights in the room flickered again getting slightly brighter and the
disk shuddered to a stop. The lid opened and a hand reached out and
grabbed my arm. I screamed, and then noticed that I was back in the
terminal room. The line printer had woken me up.
"Can you look at this error with me?" One of my classmates asked. He
always printed this stuff out before asking for help. "Sure I said",
and rubbing my eyes, I looked at his printout:
/var/tmp/ccsfAGRE.o: In function `main':
/var/tmp/ccsfAGRE.o(.text+0x40): undefined reference to `kill_user'
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Hello...
:( The fact that none of these lights are ever supposed to be shut off and that there is no light switch for them publicly exposed didn't help me cope with the situation any better.
I am enrolled at a state university in northern Wisconsin. The fact that this city in Wisconsin has the highest unemployment percentage in Wisconsin is scariest at best but the dorm I live in is worse... 'Specially around this time of year.
The dorm itself, from what I've heard, started out as a hospital (the main part of it) and the basement part that contains the cafeteria used to be a morgue type arrangement as well. I've had a few encouters that have been interesting. When I first moved in and heard the stories and figured it was all B/S... Well one time I was down in the sauna (in the basement as well) by myself on a Saturday night. Let me tell you one thing, people do NOT stay here on weekends, so it was a bit eerie that nobody was around. Anywho, I heard some knocking. Figuring it was someone at the door (you need a key to get into the sauna bathroom from the frontdesk and from there you can get to the sauna but it's always locked from the outside...) I got up to let them in as the front desk only gives out one key to the room. Went through the changing area / bathroom and opended the door but there was nobody there. Now when I closed the door I just stood there really quiet as I figured if it was someone playing a joke they'd come back in a minute and do it again. This time the knock came from inside the Sauna. Now at this point I figured I just better leave, but my stuff was in the sauna still (towel, water). I slowly walk over to the door and open it up and as fast as I could go in and get my stuff and get out. At this point I could care less about showering and figured I'd just go up to my floor and do that stuff there. I opened the door to the hallway and the lights are all out. Now this wouldn't be so bad if the hall wasn't downstairs with a security door at both ends, neither of which have windows.
After that I've never gone back down there alone. Since then most of the unusual things I've heard of happening in the dorms I don't just blow off anymore.
No it's not techie, but one of the guys on my floor down the hall last year had something on that verge. All the rooms are wired with ethernet jacks. For some reason every morning his cable was dangling from a hub that sits on his desk and the other end was removed from the jack. Good cable end, the clip wasn't broken and the box itself wasn't damaged. We tried 3 different cables. Clicked in and you could pull on it but it wouldn't come out. We Quaked all one night and didn't go to bed 'till 9am, but the cable stayed in. Anywho... This dorm is haunted, blue moon + halloween should be interesting tonight!
I swear this is true - I wish I were making it up...
My system is rather set up wierd - I have two tower systems underneath a 6 foot folding table, 19 inch monitor to one side, keyboard, hub, KVM switch, printer, scanner - and various other things.
Now, this setup is out in the middle of the floor - all the wires are laying along the back, in a loose bundle. For power, and my network connection (which goes to a back room in the house), I run the wires up and along the ceiling, then down to the outlets (the wires are bundled in cable split-loom tubing). Anyhow, my speakers are on the wall, up high, each near the corner of the room directly across from me. The sub is down low, all is connected through a garage sale stereo (with tape deck etc - hooked up to allow me to make MP3s of old tapes a friend and I recorded in HS, another story). They are wired together well - using normal connectors - except for the wire between the speakers (one is amped, and drives the other on the other end of the wall) - which is soldered well, of 12 gauge stranded wire.
Anyhow, all this is hooked up to my SuSE Linux system, running ALSA, so I can play my MP3s and whatnot through XMMS. It works well, and has good sound (not the best, but adequate for my needs). Pretty, though - it isn't - rat's nest would be a better word for it.
Anyhow, I am sitting there late one night, just browsing around, doing a little Perl coding, and the like. Not playing any music. Nobody else is in the house, so it is pretty quiet...
I hear a sound - like somebody talking. But in the attic? Or - maybe it is coming from the speakers. I can tell it is a human voice. But I can't understand it. I get closer, wait for it again - there! - but even though I am right next to the speaker, all I can tell is that it is a man's voice - nothing more.
It sorta sounds like speech - but I don't know what it is. Scared the shit out of me the first time it occurred - thought it was in the attic - because our attic is open on the sides (to allow air to blow through - you gotta see this house we rent), and anyone could climb up into the attic if they were inclined enough.
I don't know what it is - but it only comes through when the speakers are on (if everything is unplugged from the computer and stereo - but the speakers are on, it will still happen). I have theorized that it is simply radio interference - except it doesn't sound like a radio broadcast. I have thought it might be walkie-talkies from construction, or CB radio - but this is at night, and while we have construction going on around us, as well as a nearby rock quarry - they are both shut-down at night...
Of course - it doesn't help that both me and my SO have seen some strange shit in the house (doors openning and closing on thier own, appliances, TVs, and lights turning on and off spontaneously, we even have some funky pictures taken last halloween - in that case, there is the "ghost fog" streaked through the image of one of our guests we were taking pics of, but the guest pics taken before and after that guest, in the same spot - do not show the streaks, and it was done with the same camera, not more than a few minutes apart).
I am not making this up - and everyone here knows that I am a pretty rational and intelligent individual, or at least I hope. My rational side says that there is a good explanation for it - and indeed - for most of the things that happen, there is. But some of the things I have seen (as well as some of the things my SO has seen which I hadn't, but I have no reason to doubt her veracity) - let's just say it stretches the mind.
Anybody up for a real haunted house Halloween?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon