Static - the "Not So Shy" Ghost

From: 
Story type: Ghost
Location: Sydney, Australia
Source: Form Submission

I have always found this story unusual because unlike most ghosts, Static would not only appear if there was only one person in the room, but rather seemed to enjoy performing in front of large crowds....

A little background on this story. The ghost in question haunts a television production facility that is staffed for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On the evening shift (I'll avoid calling it the graveyard shift) there can be up to thirty people working there. The ghost's name - Static - came from the fact that he is always particularly active during thunderstorms or when there is alot of static electricity flying around.

The first story takes place in the canteen. Because it's the midnight to dawn shift and management aren't around, everybody takes their meal breaks together in the canteen. Sydney was in the grip of one of it's usual summer storms and nobody was very surprised when Static finally did put in an appearance. The entire staff (around twenty or so people) were sat at one of the long tables all quietly eating away when one of the supervisors took his place at the head of the table. Before he could commence eating, his plate started to move - slowly at first, but gathering speed. The plate slid along the length of the table, past the astonished faces of all of us and off the end where it smashed on the floor.

Although there are numerous other stories, perhaps the best is the only night I witnessed somebody actually try to take Static on. Again, there was a large thunderstorm underway. Static was somewhat of a poltergeist, and seemed to enjoy switching the tape machines off, flicking light switches on and off and the like. Unfortunately, when you are working to a deadline this can become less and less amusing as time goes by. This particular night, the editor in Edit One (the first in a long corridor of edit suites) had been forced to switch machines back on several times and was on the verge of losing his temper in a big way. When Static finally switched off every machine that the edit suite was controlling, my editor jumped up from his chair and began screaming at Static to knock it off. He stalked out into the corridor and began swearing at Static at the top of his voice (seems stupid, I know, but Static could really get to you by the end of a long night...)

Static, never one to miss an opportunity, waited until the rest of us had joined the editor in the corridor before slamming every single door, one by one, for the length of the corridor. (And if you think this doesn't sound so scary, you try standing in a corridor in the early hours of the morning, and watching thirty or so doors slam themselves closed one after the other....) Just a note about these doors: When an edit suite is not is use, these doors were secured open by a hook and eyelet - in order to get the door to close, you had to lift the hook out of the eyelet and then push the door closed. The edit suites are placed in the direct centre of the building. Because of the need for darkness and silence these rooms do not have any windows and the air conditioning is pumped in gently and silently - certainly not enough to slam a heavy soundproof door.

As I said, there are numerous stories about Static - nearly everyone who has ever worked there has felt his presence. As far as anybody can find out, nobody has ever died in the building, it wasn't built over a cemetery, and there are no gateways to hell in the basement. There is no real reason why a ghost should have popped up in this particular building in an industrial suburb of Sydney, and although we have tried to contact him, he's not much of a talker.

Strangely, I've never met anybody who was particularly frightened by Static. Although he is annoying, and does fairly nasty things (I haven't even told you about him flooding the toilets) he isn't really evil or scary. Although it could be that he tends to wait for an audience rather than haunting individually, so I guess it's alot easier to take a haunting with a few other people around.

I no longer work there, but I do occasionally still speak to people who do, and Static is still around, and still making life difficult for the midnight to dawn shift.