Witness Testimony: “I still get nightmares about staying in the house and the yellow room”

This witness testimony comes from Mary, a lady who claims to have had more than her fair share of paranormal experiences. It was her grandmother’s English country farmhouse which she reports as having been the location of many of these inexplicable – and undoubtedly haunting – events.

Editor’s note: The following account has been edited to correct grammatical errors and increase clarity of information.

“I still get nightmares about staying in the house and the yellow room”

My grandmother lives in a 200 year old farmhouse in Wiltshire, England. The house is called Shaw Farm and has been in my family for generations. My grandfather used to farm the surrounding land. Sitting on top of the hill, the house is very much secluded. Both the house and the surrounding land have what I would describe as very strong energy, with there being an abandoned settlement named Old Shaw at the top of the property. No one knows what has happened to the inhabitants.

Many strange things have happened in the house. A figure in a black maid’s outfit has been seen walking down the stairs and out the door, and my grandmother would often hear a child crying, despite there being no children in the house and no TV or radio playing, and, as I said, the house is very secluded. There is one room in the house, named the yellow room due to its buttery yellow walls, that seems to be the hub of paranormal experiences. Many people have experienced strange things whilst staying in the room, such as coins inexplicably dropping off the bedside table, one at a time, and people waking up at around three in the morning for no apparent reasons. My grandmother even had an exorcism performed in the house. This stopped some of the activity, but not all of it.

In has become a tradition for my family to spend a week together, each summer, in the house. This is a crazy week as there are seventeen people living under one roof, however as the house is large, this is not a problem, except for the fact that no one ever wants to sleep in the yellow room. When my brother and I were seventeen and fifteen, it landed on us to sleep in the room. At the time, we were not aware of the paranormal stories or the exorcism. The real ghost stories had been kept from us to stop us being scared. Even so, I had never liked the room and remembered how, as a child running past it, it had scared me. During a previous visit I had been made to sleep in the room and ended up waking my parents up as I could see flies swarming my head despite the fact that there were no files in the room. It was unsurprising, then, that returning to sleep in the yellow room was an uncomfortable thought.

Every night I woke up around three for no reason. I hadn’t been dreaming, I was just suddenly awake. My brother would also be awake. Whilst trying to sleep, I experienced pins and needles all over my body and a sensation that I was being watched. I remember not wanting to move as I was scared I would see something – and I did not want to see anything. This feeling would last for around an hour then lift, and I would be left questioning if I was crazy or if I was actually feeling what I was feeling.

After a few nights of this happening I mentioned it to my dad. He said that when staying in the room he would also wake up around three and would experience weird sensations. He told me that if it happened again, I should come find him and stay in their room. I also mentioned it to my aunt whilst having dinner that night. She told me about how my cousin, who was seven at the time, had told her about weird things she had been experiencing. My cousin was sleeping in the room next to the yellow room. According to my aunt, she had dropped a M&M and had been looking for it on the floor. She said she had been searching for few minutes before she saw it slowly rolling towards her from under the bed. My aunt explained to me how she had tried to downplay this to her daughter, telling her it must have bounced or rolled or something, but she was unconvinced. My cousin had told her adamantly that there was no way the M&M could have rolled as she had dropped it a while before – any momentum would have already been spent. My aunt also told me about the time when her daughter was little and they had stayed at the house one Christmas. They had fallen asleep together and her daughter woke her up, telling her to stop whispering her name into her ear. She had been three years old at the time. My aunt had been asleep and not been saying her name. At this point my mum joined the conversation and spoke about how she had felt a pressure on her chest, multiple times, like someone was pushing down on her. It was at this moment that our conversation was interrupted by the handle of the front door turning. My mum got up instinctively to open it, as some of the younger family members find it hard to open the door and often get stuck outside. However, when she opened the door, there was no one there. All the children were asleep and the rest of the family were in the kitchen. My aunt, mum and I all saw the door knob turning.

The point was proven – occurrences such as the ones described by my family members were common in the house.

That night I woke up at three a.m. again and felt the same uncomfortable feelings. As soon as they lifted and I felt I could move, I went to my parents’ room where they created a makeshift bed on the floor, as neither of my parents wanted to trade places with me and go sleep in that room. That night, my brother, now alone in the room, woke up freezing cold and without his duvet. He told me later how he had turned on the light and discovered his duvet across the room. It was tucked around a large arm chair in the corner, as if someone was sitting in the chair and the blanket had been placed around them. My brother has no recollection of doing this and has never slept walked before in his life. It is fair to say that both of us were creeped out by sleeping in that room.

The next summer I refused to sleep in the yellow room and instead opted for a blow up mattress on the floor of my cousins’ room. One night after dinner I had been helping clear the dishes, so my cousins were asleep in bed before me. I was just settling down to go to sleep when I felt a sensation I recognised from the year before: pins and needles and a tingling sensation all over my body. I had my eyes open and, as the hall light was on, could see around the room. I could not see anything, yet I felt my body being pushed down and felt myself sink into the blow up mattress deeper than my normal body weight. I repeated out loud, “Go away, go away, go away”, and the feeling lifted. I did not wake up my cousins and I was surprisingly un freaked out by the experience, as I did not feel like the presence I felt was harmful.

Since this experience I have learnt to recognise the feeling of tingling and associate it with a supernatural presence. I have had many other weird things happen to me since, both in the house and at other locations, and have even been told by a complete stranger that I have strong energy and need to learn to protect myself. Despite the fact I have very happy memories of the farm, I still get nightmares about staying in the house and the yellow room.

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