Ghost Experience at River Ridge Castle

I read stories on here alot, but I didn't expect to be posting one! I've been interested in the supernatural for a long time, but never had any experiences.

Last weekend ( 01.12 - 01.14) I stayed up at the River Ridge Castle in Franklin, PA on a retreat with my youth group. The castle is very big, old and full of history. There's just hallway upon hallway, door after door, staircase after staircase, it's like a big maze. I finally figured out how to get to my room without help on the last day. =D
Anyway, there are actually two towers there, but you can only get into one of them--the other one is closed off. A few friends of mine and I decided to go up there, it was really cold. I mean, it really wasn't that cold outside, but it was freezing in the tower and there was lots of condensation on the walls.

So we were in there being hyper and taking random pictures. We took a particularly funny one and all gathered around the camera to look at it when I calmly pointed out that there was an orb in the picture. I guess my friends weren't as cool with that as I was, 'cause they freaked out and bolted out of there. I followed them, and we ran and told my friend *S,* who informed us she's sensitive to the supernatural and wanted to come check it out. We went back up, all of my friends were huddled on the steps while my friend *C* and I watched *S.* She told us to be quiet, and after a moment's deliberation she told us that there was definitely something up there. So we sprinted out and went back to my friends' rooms. We zoomed in and examined the pictures more closely, the orb was very big and had a shape which resembled a swan inside. There was also a smaller orb near the floor we hadn't noticed. I thought it was exciting the castle was haunted, my friends: not so much.

Later that night I was with some of my other friends, *K* and *E* in my room, we were staying up late and talking. We were the only group in the whole castle still awake, you see all the other groups were sleeping in the same room as their leaders, but my group was divided up into smaller rooms and my leaders were at the end of the hall. We took advantage of that. ;] But we kept hearing loud thuds and people walking around. It was rather creepy. I also saw odd lights on the main floor (no one was sleeping there--girls slept on the second floor, guys slept in the basement "dungeon.")

The next day, I noticed that in the larger bathroom in our hall, whenever I went past quickly I saw a whitish figure in there out of the corner of my eye. Every time. Needless to say, I always went past it quickly. =]
The only other significant thing that happened was when we left. We had cleared out our stuff from the room, and everyone was downstairs getting loaded into buses/vans. I ran upstairs to get my blanket and camera which I had almost forgotten, and I glanced around the empty room and said "Goodbye." As I closed the door, I heard the muffled sound of a girl crying.

After I got home, I looked up the castle on Google and found out that Joseph Sibley, it's original owner, had died there. You can find an article in Wikipedia on him. My friend *S* later said she dug up more information and found out his daughter, Celia, died there too, and there was a fire there sometime in the last century. The castle now belongs to Life Ministries and is used for retreats and such.

One last thing--all the pictures I've seen of the place have an seemingly supernatural anomaly somewhere in them. Even in the postcards the castle sells there's an odd face--in the window of the closed off tower!
Anyway, all in all, it was a great weekend. =]

By: xmandariin@gmail.com