My first strange experience came surprisingly late. Especially for a kid who spent too much of his time poring over ghost books (especially the ones with pictures). In spite of this, nothing strange ever happened. At the time I was glad. However, I was starting to feel slightly skeptical about the whole idea of the supernatural. If these scary stories were true, how come I've never experienced anything? Spirits are purported to be floating all around. Wouldn't one of these spirits decide to have some fun and scare a little kid?

At the time, I was an eighth-grader at East Brook Middle School in New Jersey. Despite my short stature and lack of NBA prowess, I somehow made the basketball team and proudly hung my blue and white reversible basketball jersey (which I still have) on a hook at the back of my door. I was a terrible player, but as long as I was on the team (or on the bench) I was happy.

One night, I was sitting at my desk at around 8 o’clock doing homework. My desk faces the wall, and the door is 4 feet to the right of me (take a look at the photo up top). The desk is on the left side of the photo facing the wall). I had my walkman on and started getting into the rhythm of doing my English homework to the tunes of heavy metal. Out of the corner of my eye, I was distracted by some movement.

I looked up to see my jersey swinging back and forth on the hook. It looked just as if someone tipped the hanger to one side with a finger and let the jersey swing on the hook.

For some reason, I don't remember feeling scared. Right away, I checked to see if the door was locked. Maybe my father had opened the door after I didn't hear him knocking. I was alone in the room, so this would seem logical. However, the door was locked and there was no noise behind the door. All the while the jersey continued swaying back and forth, eventually stopping after losing speed.

Next, I checked to see if the window was open, even though it was November. I had no reason to let in the cold air and sure enough, all the windows were closed. Then I remembered that the last thing I did was put my large red dictionary quickly down on the table before I saw my jersey moving. My red dictionary is about 10 inches long and 3 inches thick. Perhaps by putting it down, I created enough wind to move the jersey. I tried carefully to move the jersey by putting down the dictionary, but eventually saw that this was impossible. By this time, the jersey was pretty much still again.

Like I said, I don't remember feeling scared and continued studying with the walkman at the same volume. Nothing like this has ever happened again. Looking back, I'm quite relieved that nothing else has happened in my house in New Jersey.