As unbelievable as it seems, the following is a true story. Names have been changed for anonymity.
Several years ago, on October 30, some friends and I were celebrating the Eve of Halloween by sitting around the dining room table using a Ouija board. One person, I’ll call him John, asked whether any spirits had a message for us. The board answered, inevitably, YES. John asked what the message was. The board spelled, “B-I-R-T-H.” We were perplexed. “Birthday” maybe? But none of us had a birthday anywhere near that time of year.
Then I remembered that my sister-in-law was pregnant. “Is this possibly … the spirit of Yvonne’s unborn baby??” I asked, thinking that surely I was stretching it.
YES, said the board. Whoa. I pressed further. “What is your message?” No answer. “What do you want to tell us?” No answer. I tried to think of something specific. “When will you be born?”
“T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W.”
We were shocked. Yvonne wasn’t due yet; in fact, her C-section was scheduled for sometime in mid-November.
“Wait. Are you saying you’ll be born … on Halloween?”
YES.
To test the board, I tried to pinpoint a definite time frame. “OK, let’s try this. Will you be born within the next 12 hours??”
YES.
I made note of the time. It was 11:30 PM, October 30. My niece was born at 9:00 AM on October 31. No lie. I still get chills retelling that story.
If you’re into Ouija history, the Smithsonian has a nice overview and short video on the game here. It might also interest you to know that Pulitzer-winning author James Merrill used a Ouija board to write poems. The full transcripts of his sessions can be found here. This digital archive includes scans of handwritten manuscripts like this:
Difficult to read, but here are my favorite lines: “No object will for long conceal its mystery when lights shine on it. … No mystery is able to prevail, nor will it. Man in today’s form, or tomorrow’s, will unmask it.”
Really neat story, kind of raised the hair on my neck…
Thanks!!! I’m glad to spread the goosebumps! 🙂
yeah. creeped me out too.
Thanks for sharing this…TOTALLY a ghost story!
a real one!
Omg!! Creeping out Pumpkinrot himself is likely my greatest achievement!!! 😀
A group of friends and I used to have Ouija board sessions a lot back in the 90’s. We used a glass set upside down on a smooth table with scrabble tiles. There were a few times when the answers it gave were startling. The glass would also go madly in circles while we were touching it and forcefully spell out the words. I’m a believer! Not sure in exactly what, though…
Wow! 😮 That’s amazing.