The chair, the door and the ghost?

20th August 2023. Reading Time: 8 minutes General, Paranormal Investigation, Strange and Unusual. 1642 page views. 0 comments.

When the ghosts don’t want you in a room so they barricade the door with a chair ????‍♀️ This is a weird experience I had at Black Rock involving a chair and a door. Paranormal or not, it was weird but just what I needed to regain a spark and maybe that was the point all along!

Before we begin, this article is not a clickbait "amazing evidence" capture. It is simply a weird experience I had at Black Rock House and I am not trying to prove anything to anyone. I just want to share what happened, and why it actually really mattered - paranormal or not! So let me set the scene.

Before everyone arrived we were in the house just looking around as we always do. We spent a little bit of time in the library and once we were done, we closed the door behind us ready to go back in later in the night. We started our tour and everyone was in another room and we decided to go into the library. The door has still been closed. The house had been completely locked while we weren't there so no one else could go inside. We decided to go into the library. I went to open the door and I couldn’t because something was pushed up against the door. At first, the way the force of opening the door felt was like it was caught on a carpet or a rug. When I pushed the door with a little more force, to my surprise it was a chair. I remember swearing and everyone kind of stopping to see what was going on. I was puzzled. Excited puzzled and people that investigate with me know that if I start to get excited (it happens rarely), they take notice. I pushed the door open and there was a chair that had been set up against the door. The only way to do this is from the inside (and of course, no one was inside). We had been in there only an hour earlier and we certainly didn’t put the chair up against the door. Again don’t really know how because you can only do it from the inside. The windows were all closed and locked so someone from outside would not be able to open the window and go inside. There is no other access to the room. There is a door that leads into the room next door but there is currently a very large bookcase in front of the door and it is also blocked off with furniture in the adjoining room so there is no way that someone was able to use that door (and even if you could, you need a key which only I had). The curious part of me wonders, did something not want us in the room?

Of course, I know how ridiculous it sounds ..... ghosts barricading a door closed. As someone on Twitter joked with me "See now I have a mental image of two spirits going "Oh shit she's coming! Quick! Get the chair!".

If someone was recounting this story to me, I’d probably have some internal dialogue going on saying something similar. So let’s get that all out of the way, I KNOW IT'S CRAZY!

This is an old photo I took in the library which shows where the chair is normally placed. I don't have a photo of it on this night to show its exact positioning before I closed the door which obviously is a bit of a flaw as we can't get a visual on exactly where the chair was before we closed the door last night, but you can't close the door from the outside if there is a chair in front of it.

After it happened we spent a little bit of time looking at it and then after everyone had left a further amount of time trying to work out how easily and freely the chair moves. It seemed there were 2 small wheels on the back of the chair. We tried to move it without lifting it and it is very hard to move and also made a very loud dragging noise. In order to use the wheels you have to tilt the chair backwards and only move it on the wheels so it still required some force (like when you are moving one of those trolleys you use to move boxes). It is not loose enough that it can roll around freely if it is knocked which is what our initial thought was. You can give me your thoughts and suggestions on what it could be and they are perfectly reasonable and possible explanations I would be giving in the same circumstances. I am just not so sure that I want to figure it out though! While we are honestly a little stumped, it also got me thinking on the way home as I was trying to debunk it in my head ......

Maybe it doesn't matter?

I am sure there is something perfectly explainable that I just haven't thought of to explain why or how the chair was able to move in front of the door. Maybe when I closed the door the force caused the chair to move and slide in front of the door. Maybe I knocked it on my way out, because I was wearing a big coat. A large part of me can't understand how a ghost or something paranormal could move such an item and put it in front of the door, but I also wasn't able to recreate it naturally without actually picking up the chair and moving it. The thing is, for me right now at the moment, I don't care! I don't care if it was a ghost. I don't care if there was a perfectly rational explanation that I could rack my brain over for days until I maybe figured it out. I will still never ever know for sure what happened. ...... And there it is. The reason why we keep coming back. The unknown. A weird experience we can't explain or recreate. Some will be certain it was a ghost. Some will be certain it was just coincidental and perfectly rational. We can talk about it, we can argue about it, we can go back every single week and it will probably never ever happen again. This is what paranormal investigating is all about. It gets the adrenaline running. Most of all, it gives us hope. Here we had a group of 15 people, some knew each and some didn't. By the end of the night, we were all bonded by this one experience. I find that remarkably special.

For me, I had lost my spark, I am not ashamed to admit it. We need to be honest that it doesn't make us any less of a presence in the field if we need a paranormal break for a bit or if we sometimes wonder, is it worth all the time away from our family in the little amount of spare time we have after work and everything else is done for the week. I wasn't sure I wanted to continue paranormal investigating. Work burnout is real and with a lot of my family commitments I have had less time to commit to the paranormal and I was wondering, would I miss it? Is it worth it with all the drama? It is not the first time I have felt this way and I am sure it won't be the last because real life does get in the way sometimes. I have changed the way I interact with the paranormal field to find a balance that I can comfortably work with. That means I just do Black Rock House a few times a year and focus on my own writing and research. I very rarely have the time to step out and attend paranormal events. It is not because I am being snobby, I am just careful with where I spend my time and energy and for now, this is the right balance for me. It could change in the future but this is where I am right now. When I did too much and was out every weekend at every investigation I could find, I burnt out quickly. You have to do it on your terms.

At the beginning of this year, I felt that maybe I was done completely with investigating and just wanted to focus on writing and research for a while. I then had to host a private investigation at Black Rock House to start off the year. It was a 40-degree day and I really didn't want to do it because it was so hot and oppressive. I dragged my feet but I went because so many people were excited to be there and I also needed to do something to see if it was something I wanted to keep doing. The night ended with a picture seemingly being thrown off the wall. You can read about it here: Strange and Unusual: Black Rock House That experience gave me enough to keep going. I found myself in a similar position questioning things recently, and an even weirder experience was presented to me that has had me excited for the first time in a really long time. While I was potentially ready to let go of the paranormal, maybe it wasn't ready to let go of me?

P.S: I am not going anywhere, I'm here to stay!

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