This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/paranormalencounters by /u/UrsusRenata on 2025-02-20 18:39:05+00:00.
(Apologies for the length; brevity is not my strength.)
A decade ago I bought an old general store to set up a manufacturing shop. I’m fairly sure it threw me plenty of paranormalcy over the years...
It was just an 8000/sf box — no long corridors or office clusters. It was built in 1980 on an old homestead next to a big red barn (turn of the century era). In the early 2000s an arsonist set fire to the barn and nothing remained but ash and iron. The only other physical details of note to the weird happenings might be the federal energy labs 20 miles up the road, or the wayback-era of Shoshone occupancy on the land.
From the first month on, I suspected some kind of “something” in my building.
Mainly, I had the worst luck with machinery. No matter how new or well-maintained, machines broke down constantly in random ways at “malicious” times (like under deadline or holiday rush).
This went on for ten solid years. No single human has that much “bad luck” with so many varying types of equipment. Things like: alignment adjustments to big drum sanders and CNCs; knob tension changes and wheel adjustments in industrial embroiderers; fridges flipped off at night (not tripped, but flipped); loosened bolts and partially-sliced drive belts; overnight congealing in $5000 plotter heads; wire cutters and soldering irons flipped on; room temperature settings changed to the low 50s… Those things don’t just happen. It was so ongoing that it seriously felt like sabotage.
So I had the place professionally tested for freak issues to find anything fixable, like electricity surges, static buildup, humidity problems, rogue wireless signals, rodents, carbon monoxide... I had all the locks changed and was very strict about key distribution. I never had more than 12 employees and a handful of family there. Usually the place was run by just five or six of us. Some of them would have no idea how to adjust the level of a sander drum, planer, or CNC just enough to screw up materials or chip belts/blades.
Equipment aside, most of us had seen, heard, or felt things we couldn’t reliably explain. Examples:
~ “Distant” voices in the storage lofts
~ Clicking and whispering over the wired (not WiFi) speaker system when the music was off
~ Shadows appearing here and there (disclaimer: my husband thinks these were caused by reflections of passing headlights. That’s a reasonable idea. But he was rarely there and never actually saw the shadows. They weren’t sharp or fast, weren’t visually striking. Just soft, dark areas that were there, and then were not. If you didn’t know what a spot looked like without the shadow, you probably wouldn’t notice it.)
~ Barely perceptible movement in reflections on powered-down computer monitors.
~ Cold spots and passing breezes (the place had no open-able windows, three exterior doors, and one garage door. Cold was noticeable enough that I had roofers come check the fascia to make sure the roof was intact, had no invading birds or wasp nests.)
~ Sudden crashes or drops of tools, materials, or shelves where no one was near. (For a year I was convinced that a stray cat must have found a way to get in. I had the building’s whole perimeter and siding checked by an exterminator.)
Of all the staff and my family over the years, five females in particular were certain we had experienced something “odd” there — as if something lingered after-hours when it was quiet and we were working alone. Three of the younger ladies got to the point of burning sage and incense. Late work nights were often described as “uncomfortable” or “interesting”.
Now to the pinnacle of my experiences...
After ten years, I decided to sell the place and get the hell out. The machinery problems were beyond frustrating and so damned expensive. It was a money-pit and I was worn out. Between that, Covid, and the political landscape around here, I just didn’t have it in me anymore.
One evening I was wrapping up the realtor’s listing paperwork, and joked to my daughter across the space that the ghost(s) would be happy to see us go. Then I turned to walk across the warehouse to the printer, and SLAMMED full-body into one of the shadows.
The experience was like walking into a physical person coming fast the opposite way towards me: I hit it / it hit me, and I BOUNCED backward. My arms flailed and I almost fell. The shadow wasn’t there for even a full second — so briefly that I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it. There was nothing I could have tripped on or clothes-lined myself with. It was just a big, empty area with a clean concrete floor.
Here’s the kicker: My adult daughter witnessed the incident in full unobstructed view. She was looking right at me because I was talking to her. She said it was like watching someone get punched by invisible energy in a sci-fi or war movie.
After I scrambled myself up I yelled “JFC DID YOU SEE THAT?!” My daughter was frozen, her eyes popping-round. She said, “Let’s. Go. Right. Now.” We didn’t even turn off the lights. From then on we kind of nagged friends to come help us move out faster. We had seen and experienced many, many odd little things, but this… If something actually wanted to hurt us, game over.
Was it that damned thing’s reaction to my joke about being rid of us?!
Our husbands have given us plenty of shit; they come up with explanations for everything... The thing is, I’m only a few childhood church-lessons from being atheist myself. I’m not spiritual. I don’t personally believe in fairies or sky lords or spaghetti monsters; I’ve never burned a bundle of herbs in superstition. Science and sci-fi are my bag. So I too tried to explain away the building’s many years of much weird shit. But that last incident — unless I had some kind of singular seizure or stroke — something was there and it physically HIT me.
I hope whatever it is likes the building’s new owners more than it liked us. (My realtor was like “Um, please don’t joke about ghosts in front of potential buyers” heh.)
__
Parallel Tale: One of my older employees (a no-nonsense tough-as-nails 60-year-old) had worked at the federal energy lab up the road, in security, back in the 90s. She said that stories of paranormal activity on the desert grounds were common among security staff. (There was a nuclear incident in the 70s out there, and Shoshone & Bannock tribal history on the land.)
One early evening she was foot-patrolling the outer perimeter when a voice spoke to her, as clear as someone standing right next to her.
Picture it: Dusk; empty desert; buildings hundreds of feet away, and someone said actual words to her. She said it was so freaky that she barely had the presence-of-mind to draw her gun. She spun, and spun again, and then SPRINTED back to the buildings. She said workers liked to play jokes on each other out there, but there was no way this was a joke. She was completely alone and isolated in the field, and the voice was near her head.
So I wonder if that area’s old history was related to my building issues somehow. Something to ponder.
Man, I’m so happy to finally be out of there.
__
Thanks for joining me.
