u/Scary-Height4394

Encountering a dark sinister figure is terrifying and extremely surreal to process. But what if it was a stunning, naked apparition beside your bed instead. In my case, a gorgeous female spirit. This kind of haunting I could happily live with, however, I envisioned my wife’s reaction, which was frightening.

The following story dates back several decades ago in Bardon, Brisbane, Australia.

A young Brisbane woman claimed that the ghost of a tall, young man with shoulder-length blond hair (a ‘surfie’ type, she called him) had appeared one night beside her bed, stark naked. 

Friends and neighbours told her it must have been a prowler, a burglar or wishful dreaming, but she was convinced she had been visited by a ghost.

Two other young women appeared on television shortly after to tell a similar story, of a blond-haired young man, completely naked, sitting in a tree outside their house in the leafy suburb of Bardon staring in through their window. 

A television crew set up their cameras and waited in vain to catch the saucy spirit on film, but he was too shy to appear. A few days after they departed, however, locals reported catching fleeting glimpses of him back in his favourite spot among the foliage.

Local opinion maintained that it was the ghost of a young man whose girlfriend had once lived in the house.

The town house that my partner, daughter (aged 4) and myself rented in 1994 was located along the shores of Lake Illawarra, Australia. Shortly after we moved in, I began hearing someone walking in the upstairs hallway. At first I thought it was my daughter sneaking out of bed…which sometimes it was. But other times when I went to investigate, she was in bed, asleep. I never said anything about the footsteps to my partner, making the assumption that the sounds were the result of the town house settling or my imagination.

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My partner takes care of our daughter, so she is home all day. Soon she began telling me that she kept hearing someone walking around upstairs when nobody else was up there. She said that she heard the sounds often, so I told her that I was also hearing things.

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One day my partner was in the kitchen cleaning the oven, our daughter was with her and busy playing in the tiny yard by the back door and inside on the first floor. My partner was working on her hands and knees and had stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Still on her knees, she was suddenly hugged from behind. It was such a loving hug and wonderful feeling that she turned around to give our daughter a hug in return. 

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But there was no one there.

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She said a strange sensation of happiness, loneliness, and love flowed through her body. She immediately jumped to her feet and called out to our daughter. She was in the lounge room a few metres away, playing with her toys.

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Another night while my partner and I were in bed, we heard someone walking in our bedroom. The sounds started on my side of the bed, moved around the bed, then went out of the room, down the hallway and down the stairs.

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However, one night, our daughter came running out of her room into our bedroom, wide-eyed and out of breath, and started telling us about the 'mice' that were in her room at night. Scratching noises on the floor and the sounds of a child running around in her room, she wouldn't go back in there. She slept with us for the remainder of the lease.

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Sadly, my partner and I didn’t want to leave this fascinating and surreal experience but had no choice. We feel that the encounters were of a lonely child, perhaps still looking for mum.