Phantom Felines And Other Ghostly Animals - Gerina Dunwich 2006

Igor, the Supernatural Bat
Other Ghostly Animals

by Gerina Dunwich

One of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had with the supernatural was a phantom bat that haunted my old Victorian house in upstate New York. Every time it visited us it would first appear in the music room before flying up the stairs to the second floor, where it would disappear into thin air.

I could never figure out how it got in or out of the house when all the doors and windows were shut tight, the front of the fireplace was sealed off to accommodate a wood-burning stove, and there were no holes or cracks in any of the walls.

The bat’s mysterious visitations, which always took place in the evening hours, became so regular that I affectionately began calling it Igor, after the pet bat on the old television show The Munsters.

I know for a fact that Igor was not a figment of my imagination because other people (including my mother, my husband, and our friend Lisa) also saw him. At that time we had two indoor calico cats (Endora and Isadora), and whenever the bat showed up, they got very excited and would chase after it. It was amusing watching them leap into the air in their vain attempt to catch the bat as it would fly through the house.

One night when Igor paid us a visit, my husband managed to trap the bat in a paper bag, or at least so he thought. He quickly folded the top of the bag over and stapled it shut. He then put the bag in the car and drove out of town about fifteen miles to a rural area that seemed a good spot to release the bat. He could hear and feel the bat fluttering around inside the bag as he picked it up and carried it to the side of the road. But, when he opened the top of the bag to set the bat free, nothing flew out. He peeked inside the bag and discovered it was empty. He was quite puzzled, as there were no holes in the bag and no way the bat could have gotten out without him seeing it.

It didn’t take long before we started seeing Igor flying through the house again. I think that’s when we realized that the bat was some sort of ghost.

After the “ice storm of the century” hit in 1998 and caused widespread damage, we sold the house and moved back to California. With new owners at the helm, the house was converted into a group home for developmentally disabled persons.

Recently, I was contacted by one of the staff members who work there. She told me that, after purchasing my old house and witnessing a number of disturbing supernatural events there, the new owners called in a Native American shaman to perform a special cleansing ritual in the hopes of putting the spirits to rest. During the ritual, the glass door on the kitchen oven shattered. She said staff and residents alike have experienced strange sounds, apparitions (including one of a ghostly cat), unexplained balls of light rolling around on the floor, and the playing of the antique piano (which I sold with the house) when no one was in the room.

I asked about the phantom bat and was told that it still appears inside the house from time to time, flies up the stairs to the second floor, and disappears without a trace.