In honor of October and Halloween, I wonder if anyone has any good ghost stories (either of their own experience or merely literary) that they would like to share? Alas I have none, having never encountered a ghost, goblin or poltergeist. My family did drive an AMC Gremlin for awhile, which was really worse than a haunting...

Funny you should ask. The elder of my two younger sisters, who has never been accused of having much in the way of imagination, had what appeared to be a poltergeist in a house she was renting in Auckland some twenty-three years ago.

The first time she had evidence of such a manifestation, it was doors slamming and tins on the bench in the kitchen being thrown on the floor. She assumed it was her kids, although they hotly denied it and, what was more, failed to blame each other.

The next time, if I remember rightly, something similar happened at a time when none of her kids (nor her husband) were at home, and it scared the bejeezus out of her because she thought she had a particularly clumsy burglar on her hands. This time, though, there were also the sounds of footsteps on a wooden floor walking away from the lounge door in the hallway. This was pretty peculiar because the hallway floor was carpeted. At that point she started believing in ghosts.

For a while, it became a regular feature of their lives. It was always at night. The noises continued - doors opening and closing, footsteps, the occasional tin (never crockery) being knocked on to the floor. Her kids called the poltergeist "the boarder". They'd be sitting watching TV and they'd hear a door open and close or footsteps. Occasionally the sound of a tin hitting the floor.

Then after a while, it just stopped.

Go figure!

Go figure!

Parbly flying squirrels.

Parbly flying squirrels

I don't believe in flying squirrels.


Far more likely that one of Cap's nephews/nieces was just pre-teen or an early teenager, and his/her deep-seated primordial angst was emerging as psychic energy. All paranormal activity stopped as soon as that child grew up and realised, like us, that everything is right in the world.

I don't believe in flying squirrels.

Oh, OK. How 'bout Parbly honey gliders?

Parbly honey gliders

Are they like sweetened sky hooks?

If so, yup, much better.