[Gym Whourlfeld]

When I was in the JCs scouting for spooky things, I was brought to a remote farmhouse to listen to their old windmill.
If only I had access to some good sound recording devices! This thing had needed grease for a long time (A job my Grandfather used to do) The windmill squealed, roared, "ground" gears all in it's own breeze-inspired schedule.
For our second JC haunt , which used what is now my wine cellar, we were loaned an 8-track tape of some very old, classical organ music which was played very loudly in the 32 by 16 underground stone arched ceiling room!
As people left the Haunt sometimes I would ask them:"What did you think of the music?"
Almost everybody would shrug and say:"What music?"
I guess the music "Fit" this room that well? (We sure didn't have much to distract them otherwise with a $2.00 budget and only 4-6 workers.)
But, THE Sound of all-time scariness will still and always be... the wind as it blew around or over my Parents original front door.
I still can not understand how it ever made such sounds?
The door was a thick wooden door, fairly new at the time with multi-panes in the top half, thick wooden window framing.
The door was exposed to the outdoors, no storm door and there was a stubby little porch roof above it, which may have helped it make it's "Music"?
Here goes as I TRY to describe the sound(s) it would make: There may have had beginning vibration that was really no warning at all since everything would happen so quickly as a high-pitched other-worldly scream that could have resembled a huge violin being tortured would seem to go ranging from the bottom edge of the door to the top of the door seeming to require about five seconds to get to the top and finish in a lower register.
If there was ever an actual terrible monster at the door... it would have been scared away!
I would be in the same room most of the time with this door, playing with toys, maybe unscrewing the door's hinges with my tiny screw driver when this incredible scream would happen , without warning making me turn towards it and shudder with fear.. because I just could not get used to the volume and scariness it could make!

 

[Gym Whourlfeld]

A few years ago two young women from the Chicagoland area spent much telephone time trying to find us in Mount Carroll, Illinois. They finally arrived at 12midnight, I took them into the house for the tour anyway (we normally close at 12 mid,)
By 2am we were all three standing in the wine cellar, the room's lights were turned up, it was very well lit.
The one young woman was a few feet away from me at the back of the room, the other woman was standing in the middle of the room about 15 feet from us when all three of us heard a very beautiful female singing voice sounding like a talented opera singer! This only lasted maybe 6 to 8 seconds.
As we returned to silence , the woman standing 15 feet away asked me:"Do you have speakers in this house? Was that a special effect?"
"Yes I do have some speakers in the house a few very cheap, tinny-sounding speakers and I like it that way, that way we know for sure what it is we may be hearing."
A month later the young woman who had been standing in the room 15 feet away, returned with her boyfriend, my first question to her was :"Is your girlfriend who was standing close to me a vocalist or a singer?"
"Oh, No, she was scared to death from that night,she belongs to a ghost-hunter group and that was all that she could talk about all the way back to Chicago!"
She had been standing close to me but standing in a dark shadow. I know how sounds can seem to come from other and sometimes opposite directions when you are standing in this room.
I am still wondering ....? Maybe 10 years ago I did hear a rather distinct,male voice call me by my first name in the wine cellar, just one loud:"JIM!", it came from behind me , at the back of that room....

 

[Rumsfield]

What a great story to start the day with. Your right - the spookiest of all sounds just cant be replicated. I grew up on a ranch and the sounds of the windmills, wind blowing through the cracks in the barn were terrifying during the day - let alone being out in the night. Being a young mind my imagination translated all those sounds into wolves howling, witches screaming and laughing with the occasional whisper I knew had to be directed towards me.. A team of horses could not have dragged me into that old barn after dark.
I miss those days and the ambient sounds. As a adult milling around on the ranch those sounds were no longer there as I remembered as a kid, I wonder where they went...

 

[DaveintheGrave]

Cool story, Gym!