We still have a wood-burning furnace in our basement, and when it isn’t cold enough to turn on the oil furnace, we use the wood-burning furnace.
Our family room is also in the basement, and we can see the wood furnace from the family room.
We were down there watching television one evening, and my son started screaming. The furnace was throwing shadows on the walls. When my son saw the shadows, he began crying. He thought we had ghosts. He pointed at the scary ghost that was trying to get to him, but he didn’t listen to my explanation. He told me I didn’t see the ghost, but he did. I took him upstairs and put him in the shower and then to bed. He felt more secure when he got under the covers and away from the door. It took me almost a week to convince him that everything was fine in the basement. We had to take him down there and let him see how the flames of the furnace caused shadows. I showed him how the flames would reflect on the mirror that was in there, and cause shadows in the room. He watched for a while and then turned to his dad. He said he knew there were no ghosts near the furnace. He just had to convince his dad they weren’t real. It wasn’t hard to get him to go into the basement the next day, but I didn’t notice he wasn’t going near the furnace wall. He said he just didn’t like the mirror we had in there and asked his dad to take it down.