I used to live in Clifton, VA with my father after my Mom and sibs were killed in a 1992 car crash in Alexandria, VA. We lived there for 6 years as I went to a school nearby. When living there we lived on present day Ivakota Farm Rd. We would go for walks at night from time to time, especially in the fall and spring. I always saw this creature, that looked like an escaped mental patient. My father would see the same thing. There was a neighbor whose daughter Karen swore by it that she saw the same thing. She was anti-social so I never really made friends with her. One day the 3rd year we lived there my Dad and I were coming back from visiting my late mothers family in Luray, VA for a long weekend (Labor Day) and we saw police everywhere. I laughed that maybe another dumb teen was driving. We got closer and it was no laughing matter. Karen had committed suicide. It was a tragedy but since I was not close to her I did not attend the funeral though my father did. Funerals were hard for me after my Mom and sibs died. While he was at the funeral my paternal grandmother stayed with me for the day. We were walking and felt the ground shake. She said "maybe a truck was somewhere or on rare occasions we get a tiny earthquake". It was at 2:00 PM. Her funeral was 12:30 PM with burial to follow about 30 minutes away. It was the time of her burial. From then on the next 3 years I would, from time to time, feel that small quake. I no longer walked at night as I was older and my Dad and I often went places. However, one night we were walking at night with a cousin who was visiting and suddenly, we felt the earth move, and we saw Karen. Yes, it was her. Karen (last name I am leaving out for privacy). My Dad thought it was part of my mental illness but then he and my cousin Phil both saw it also. It was her. We told a neighbor and they had seen the same thing and were so glad to know it wasn't just them. We told Karen's mother (her father had died from alcoholism at that point) and she told us never to talk to her again. She died by 5 months later herself after apparently choking to death. At that point the images of her daughter Karen stopped. We never saw them again in the last 2 years we lived there. Strange things happened on that street. A girl died doing the "choking game" and another person fell from a ladder to their death. Another family had a son go into violent seizures and when they moved it stopped. As my mental illness (anxiety and schizophrenia) got worse and worse my Dad moved back to Alexandria with me. When we moved, all my symptoms of schizophrenia stopped and to this day, 16 years later, while I still have anxiety issues there has been no schizophrenia. The family who bought the house with 3 children. Six years later they were moving as their son had significant mental illness and needed to be committed long term and the mother was suddenly suffering from Bipolar Depression for the first time. Maybe that was just menopause, but I call it the ghosts of Ivakota.
It is now 16 years later and I seldom go to Clifton though I was out there with my father this year for the first time since 2017. We both live in New York now. When visiting we learned there was a horrible tragedy where a mentally ill man stabbed his father to death and then ran into Compton Rd. acting disturbed and suicidal. I knew immediately we were wise to move. There is a ghost of mental illness on that street. The street that for years housed the insane asylum which was home to many mysterious deaths that remain unsolved. I said to my Dad "I am so glad we moved" he said in his elderly voice (now 84), "me too son". When he dies, he is in hospice now, I will visit Clifton, VA more frequently and investigate however only in the day, I am too scared even as a 39 year old man to ever go at night. I talked my cousin Phil out of moving there 3 years ago. His daughter was adopted from foster care and has the issues that come with that, I cannot imagine what Ivakota Ghosts would do. I have no idea whether the rest of Clifton is haunted or not though I did have a friend off of Fairfax Station Road as a kid who swore his house was haunted. It was through them that my Dad found Clifton when we had to leave Alexandria way back in 1992.
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