I was around 13. It was a beautiful summer afternoon. My dad came home from work and my three siblings ran to greet him in the kitchen, because he often brought home treats.

I remained in the living room watching TV, but after noticing that my siblings hadn't returned, I walked toward the back door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my little brother standing stock still in the middle of the basement steps, which were across from the back door.

I started down the stairs and he suddenly rushed down the stairs. The second he reached the bottom, he made a tight turn to his right and disappeared.

There's a wall there with a door a few feet away. I didn't stop to think how he disappeared so quickly, and went through the door to the area behind the stairs. Nothing but boxes and old stuff. I called out his name.

Suddenly the basement lights went out. I charged back up the stairs. My siblings were all in the living room looking at me like I was crazy, a look of shock plastered on my face.

I interrogated my brother. He had been outside the whole time. My other siblings vouched for him. They were truly concerned about my state of shock, so I confessed my sighting, which freaked them out.

Fast forward 30 years to this past July. I'm back home for a family event. We're out at a venue and I ask one of my cousins who traveled from out of state if she's staying at my sister's house with five other cousins. She is.

I tell her the bedrooms in my dad's basement are available. "Yeah right; I'm not staying there," she says, a weird smile plastered across her face. Why, I ask.

She says that when she was 12, a bunch of us were all lined up getting food at my house when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a boy--me or my little brother, she thought--get in line behind her at the end.

When she fixed her plate, she turned and saw the boy walking into the basement, so she followed him. She got to the bottom of the stairs. The room was completely empty.