Tony DeAlessio
My name is Tony DeAlessio and this is my Ghost Story... It all started in the historic, two story brick house that I grew up in located in the old historic Wolflin district here in Amarillo. The year was about 1972. I saw the same female apparition in my bedroom on two different occasions when I was probably 7 or 8 years old.
The first time I saw her, I thought it was my mother sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed...it looked just like her.
I remember sitting up in bed and calling out to her… "Mom?...MOM??"...and no response. Just a blank stare slightly to my right.
I then realized this was kind of a hazy, translucent figure. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was a spirit lingering in the corner of my room. Although it didn’t seem threatening in any way, I was still terrified and covered my head for the rest of the night. I asked mom the next morning if she had been in my room that previous night and she said no.
A couple months later as I was lying in bed at night trying to go to sleep, I rolled over and that same woman was standing right next to my bed looking down on me. She was less than three feet from me...she was even wearing the same red, yellow and orange flowery looking gown from the first time I saw her.
Once again I just covered my head and wouldn't look out until morning.
Years later, I learned that this phenomenon was known as a “Doppelganger.” (Doppelganger is when a spirit takes the form of a family member as they manifest themselves…it is said that if you ever see your own Doppelganger that you will die soon afterwards).
About a year later, my parents had done some painting in my bedroom so I was staying in my sister's room for a couple of nights. There were two small kid‘s beds in her room…I was sleeping on one and my sister in the other.
I awoke during the night to see a young girl (probably late teens or early twenties) with long, dark and wavy hair. She was dressed in a white, pleated gown. She was behind the headboard of my sister’s bed staring down on her while she slept. Once again terrified, I buried my head under the covers and didn’t look out again until it was daylight.
Although no one else in my family ever saw a spirit manifest in that house, my mother did say that she used to hear footsteps going up and down the hallway at night. She would get up to tell us to get back in bed only to discover we were already in bed and very sound asleep. My sisters said on occasion they could hear voices and conversations going on downstairs during the night while they knew everyone was upstairs and in bed asleep.
However, there was one summer night when my sisters had some friends over to spend the evening. They had decided to have a séance and try to communicate with some spirits. They decided to summon “Helen Keller” of all people.
Our parents were going to try and prank us. They made us believe they had gone out for the night, but they were really hiding in the kitchen. Their intentions were to watch the séance from the darkness of the kitchen and start turning the lights on and off to scare us once the séance began. Little did anyone know, there was a real scare about to take place.
It was a warm evening so we had the air conditioner going that night. As my sisters and their friends all joined hands around a lit candle, a girl in the group started calling out to Helen Keller to give a sign of her presence.
At that very moment, the flame on the candle started violently flickering as this loud, demonic groaning sound began coming from the air conditioner unit that was hanging in a midlevel window where our staircase was.
This really startled our parents...so much that they let us know they were still home and they instantly put a stop to the séance.
They never even get a chance to play the prank they had intended...and the air conditioner unit never made that eerie sound again.
Now fast forward to 1982... I was a senior in high school. It was just me and Dad living at home. My Mother had passed away in the previous year and my sisters had married moved away.
It was a school night and I had been up late studying for a test before falling into a deep slumber. I was awakened from my sleep to the sound of the hangers in my bedroom closet rattling and scraping up and down the walls. I tried to call out for help, but something had a hold of me and I was totally paralyzed...I couldn't move, I couldn’t breath, I couldn't yell out...nothing. It was like there was a dark, unseen presence in my room that night and it had me pinned down.
This went on for about 30 or 40 seconds, although at the time it seemed like an eternity. Suddenly the hangers became silent and whatever had a hold of me released and I could once again move and breath. That definitely freaked me out a bit. It was a long time before I ever told anyone about that occurrence.
It was many years later that I learned about the “Sleep Paralysis” phenomenon.
Many years later, another paranormal episode occurred in about 2004 and it went as follows:
My wife and I had a lady that we knew at the time baby sit for us while we went out for the evening. Ironically, the babysitter lived on the same block as the haunted house I grew up in….same side of the street only opposite end of the block.
The girl babysitting for us lived in the guest house to the side and her sister lived in the main house which is a three story historic brick house on the corner.
When we picked the kids up at her house later that night, the babysitter wanted to know if we wanted a tour of the main house because her sister had gone out of town for the weekend and it was vacant to show.
It was a beautiful, plantation style house that was built in the 20’s. During the tour she told us that her sister was putting the house up for sale because she was convinced that there were "Little People" living in the house with her.
There were just too many strange things going on in that house that couldn’t be explained. She would not even go down in the basement to do her own laundry...she would hire it done. Even the house cleaning crew would refuse to return to that house after a week or two.
After the grand tour, the house was empty and she had locked up the doors. We were all standing outside visiting in the breezeway between the main house and the guest house. I was telling the babysitter of my ghostly encounters I had experienced as a child in the house at opposite end of that block.
I had just finished telling my story when all of the sudden, from the inside of the large picture window (that was probably only four feet behind us) we ALL heard two loud knocks on that window ! The knocks definitely came from inside of the house…as if someone was watching and listening to me from just inside that window.
We all just looked at each other like "Uhhhh, did you just hear that too?".
..We (the adults) just kind of down-played what we had just heard for the kid's sake so they would not become too scared about the situation.
It didn’t work…The knocks on that window were just too loud and unmistakable. The kids knew what had just happened.
The next day we visited with the babysitter. She told us that after we had left that night before, her dog was very restless and had been growling and barking at the walls all night long.
She also told us that her cat would just sit, staring upwards and hissing as if there were someone there.
I'm convinced that the spirits that night were trying to let me know, Hey Buddy...we're still here…and we remember you !