With Halloween approaching, many people like sharing their paranormal stories, and Wildcats are no different.
Weber State University student Gissel Santoya was around 17 years old when she visited her family in California.
“I heard that my aunt was a bad witch, and she practiced black magic,” Santoya said. “I was pretty skeptical about it. It wasn’t really something I believed in.”
Santoya said her mother warned her not to take anything the aunt offered her. However, she did accept a drink. Santoya choked on the drink for a few minutes before regaining her breath.
“I just forgot about it and then went on with my life until I started getting this really bad cough, and it was so bad that I would wake up and I wouldn’t be able to even breathe.”
Santoya’s mother told her enough was enough, and it was time to see a doctor. When she went to the doctor, they treated her as if she had bad allergies. She was prescribed some generic medicine for post-nasal drip, but that didn’t help with her symptoms. She continued to cough and cough with no relief.
“Finally, my mom thought it would be best if I got a cleanse,” Santoya said.
An energetic cleanse is a way natural healers are said to use their senses or clairvoyance to cleanse your energy or spirit. Healers use their hands and usually an object to clean the aura of negativity.
“She rubbed an egg all over my body and said some prayers, and when that was done, they cracked the egg, and inside the egg, they saw what looked like a bat covered with a sheet. Then, after that, my cough went away,” Santoya said.
Another ghost story comes from WSU instructor of communications Stephen Salmon, a self-proclaimed believer in the supernatural.
Salmon said that before returning to school, he worked at several places in the northeast, specifically upstate New York, with ghost stories, entities and hidden secrets where weird things would happen.
He said that while working at a restaurant, he had gone up to the attic to grab more coffee lids and cups.
“On my way back down, the door closed, and I couldn’t open the door,” Salmon said.
Salmon said no one was around to close the door, but he was able to knock loudly, and the people in the kitchen came and got him out. Salmon said there were always stories about strange happenings, like random toilets flushing or running and unexplainable moments.
Salmon said he also worked at a haunted theater. It was a traditional vaudeville theater with many stories of weird things happening in the back rooms.
“I’m a firm believer in spirits and things happening,” Salmon said. “I have had a couple of car accidents where it should have probably been far, far, worse, but there was somebody out there looking out for me to protect me, to make sure that I was okay.”
MaKaydee Copeland, a cosmetology student, lives in an apartment in St. Benedict’s Manor, located at 3000 Polk Ave. in Ogden.
“A lot of people have had experiences here,” Copeland said. “When I first moved here, I had night terrors about a shadow figure pulling me into my closet.”
Copeland said weird things would occur every night until she saged her apartment. She hasn’t had the terrors since.
“I’ve had things fall off of my shelves,” Copeland said. “Things randomly move or fall in a different room than me. I nicknamed my ‘ghost friend’ Albert.”
Copeland said the ghost seems friendly. She said the ghost has made a decoration play music all on its own, but she isn’t frightened.
“The laundry room is in the basement, and there are also vending machines. I once saw someone in the reflection of the vending machine and assumed it was one of my neighbors, but when I turned around, no one was there,” Copeland said.
Ogden City has many stories running its streets and paranormal activity playing through the walls. Velda Stewart, a retired intuitive, shared a few of her experiences.
Stewart moved into an old home with her family, and they felt something disturbing in the basement. It had a little ledge that went around the circumference of the main room. Perched on the edge of the ledge were baby dolls and doll heads.
“It was really creepy down there, and my kids didn’t even like going down there, like to deal with the water heaters or the furnace,” Stewart said.
Stewart finally told the landlord about the doll heads and that she wanted them removed, so the landlords came, took out all the dolls and threw them away.
“Within two days, it was all back down there, all set up the way that it was set up before. Oh, my God, and so we just left it,” Stewart said.
Stewart invited ghost hunters to her basement, and they were very uncomfortable. She said there was definitely some activity going on down there. Stewart has since moved out of the home but continues to have strange experiences here and there.
