Imagine this: You just finished watching the scariest movie of your life, huddled on your living room couch with blankets scattered about. Your heart is racing as the screen turns black and the credits start rolling. Suddenly, the light flickers down the hall and you can’t even tell if your soul is inside your body or not. It’s a ghost! Maybe?

Nearly everyone has experienced a similar form of fright once in their lives. Something eerie happens in the most fitting times, like a floorboard creaking behind you as you walk down a dark hallway at night or a child’s toy goes off without anyone touching it, and it makes your heart jump. Most people blame these events on the paranormal, such as ghosts or spirits. Many people say they have ghosts that follow them and their loved ones, such as the ghost that “haunts” my family and me.

Sheldon, the namesake of the ghost being a teenager who died decades ago, is the ghost that my family has been followed by for years. My lovely mother blames every unexplainable thing on Sheldon and truly believes that he follows us around. A light flickers during dinner? Sheldon’s eating with us. There’s a tap on the window randomly? Sheldon’s outside, peering inside the home. All of these can simply be explained, but that’s the fun behind it. Blame something on Sheldon if it doesn’t have an immediate answer. Even during the family week, I wrote “SHELDON’S WATCHING” on the notepad in my mother’s hotel room hoping to get a spook out of her.

Delaney Love, a freshman, describes her ghost as “a friendly spirit that roams about upstairs in my home.” Fred, the ghost in question, is heard walking around her house, and when people stay in her upstairs the lights flicker. Sometimes, on brief occasions, Delaney says that you can even see his tall stature out of the corner of your eye. Of course Fred isn’t real, unless he is…

If you want to explain some of the unexplainable things you experience maybe try adopting a ghost into your life. You never know, Darla from the 1800’s may be the thing that’s causing your lights to flicker all the time.