# Encounters with the Supernatural



## Tarrasque Wrangler

I'm trying to collect some good stories on peoples' brushes with unexplained phenomena for some D20 Modern I intend to run soon. How prevalent are these experiences? Does everyone have one? Just for fun of the topic, let's declare this a skepticism-free zone. I'm a big skeptic myself, but we all know about Ockham's Razor and kids in wheatfields with boards and rope. Let's just have some fun.

I'll get the ball rolling. I've seen a UFO, near Area 51 in fact! About five years ago, my friends and I took a weeklong road trip to Vegas. Being big X-Files fans at the time, we just had to take a day trip out to Area 51. Night had fallen by the time we made it to the valley on the other side of the ridge from the Area. We stopped at the Little Al'e-Inn in Rachel and spent about an hour there browsing the store and talking to the owner (neat guy, BTW). We bought our souvenirs and headed out, wanting to stop at the Black Mailbox on our way.

We pulled our van up to the Black Mailbox (which was white at the time, incidentally) and I hopped out. Immediately, I noticed a bright white light above me, and a whir of helicopter blades hovering above our van. We were being buzzed! The whir became noticeably quieter after only about a 100 feet when it left us. That in itself seemed noteworthy, as you can usually hear a helicopter a mile away.

We had apparently picked a very interesting night to be out in the valley. It looked like there were some kind of maneuvers going on. We could see the lights of a couple dozen helicopters moving along the ridge all around us. They didn't appear to be doing much more than that though, so we started stargazing (an absolutely AMAZING place to do that, as there are no city lights around for like 100 miles). 

Something caught my eye along the hill line across from us. It was a dim orange light suspended above a hilltop, which looked somewhat like a flare. I pointed it out to my friends, and no sooner had they turned to look when suddenly it started doing the most bizarre gyrations I've ever seen. It would bob up and down in the air like a cork in water, and side to side, making 90 degree and 180 degree turns with no curves! I noticed that two helicopters were flanking the hill around it. This orange light danced about for 2 minutes or so, and the comments all around were "That can't possibly be a plane or helicopter. NOTHING moves like that." After it had stopped for awhile, we packed it in and drove back to our hotel.

When we got home the next week, I told my boss about it, who was an aviation buff. He told me that he'd read in Popular Mechanics (or something similar) about spy drones the size of toasters which are light enough to move like the object we saw. Still, you gotta wonder...

Before anyone asks, this is not BS. We really saw this.

So anyone else have a UFO/Ghost/Poltergeist/Flukeman story? Does anyone see werewolves anymore? Those seem to have fallen off the map.


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## BiggusGeekus

When I was a kid, we had an appartment near a train station.  The place was old and it had very, very thick glass.  The lights of the station were bright and you couldn't block them out without making the entire room completely dark (not an option for a 7-year-old-Biggus!)  Anyway, between the movement of the trains and the thick glass, I always had a slowly shifting pattern on my far wall and I would constantly see faces in the patterns ... as if they were people trying to escape something or come and get me somehow.

Spooky.


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## Argent Silvermage

I used to do some amature ghost hunting and have all kinds of stories. I'l type them up and post them later.. at work right now.


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## RingXero

Ok, Supernatural occurences that I have witnessed.

Let me just list one or two to start.

I used to live in an very old house, and if you want to hear more about the house just ask, this house used to be a farmhouse, so there was a fairly large barn (2.5 story) and an old Silo, these structures sat on about 2.5 acres of land that is now forested.  Which in turn butted up against a state park, Clear line of site to the barn from the house, the silo obscured by many trees.

Events that have happened to more than myself.
- Screaming Lady - A Woman Screaming outside of bedroom doors, localized to one hallway.  Extremely loud, sometimes repeats up to three times an evening.

- Swaying bushes - Large and small bushes lining the driveway sway, specifically occuring in no wind.

And the best so far, (in fact this has made it into my game)
- The White Owl - Repeated sitings by multiple independant people, all without knowledge of what other people have seen.  This owl is either normal sized or up to 4 feet tall, and in all cases without any discernable face, no eyes or beak, just a smooth 'face'.  Soft white light emanates from it, so that it is easily seen in the dark.  Will be standing on the ground, or on a bench, or tree branch, when seen, will 'stare' at person a couple seconds, then always fly into the Barn's second floor wall.  This side wall has no holes or windows.

That's all for now, I've got tons, if you want more, just ask.


RX


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## Christian Walker

*I think I saw a ghost/apparition.*

One night my friend and I needed to swing by his house. He lived with his grandmother at the time.

We parked across the street and I looked into the house and saw her walk into the kitchen. The kitchen blinds were open, so I had a pretty clear view, and I was only 50 feet away.

We went into house and as I walked through the front door, I called out to Granny, saying hi. My friend looked at me and said that she wasn't home, that she was out of town. I told him he had to be wrong, because I just saw her in the kitchen. We went into the kitchen, but sire enough, it was empty. 

I though that maybe there was an intruder in the house, but my friend seemed indifferent. He just kind of grinned and went about his business. Later, he told me that the house was haunted and that over the years quite a few strange things had happened, so he really wasn't surprised that I saw something. 

Until that day, I though ghost stories were a bunch of crap. But I KNOW I saw a woman in that kitchen! The fact that my friend wasn't surprised, and actually believed me, lent credence to my experience. I wonder who that lady was/is?


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## s/LaSH

Hm... I haven't observed anything spectral beyond certain places in the bush having a really creepy feeling about them.

On the other hand, things _people_ do are sometimes supernaturally tinged... like someone saying my name in my ear when I know for a fact they're on the other side of a few rather large buildings, or my tendency to see 42 seconds on my watch more than half the times I checked it (normally at least 10 minutes apart), or my siblings sitting on opposite ends of the couch occasionally spontaneously pointing at each other and giving each other shocks (I've done something similar once - it screwed up TV reception so I haven't tried again).

I've also done a statistical analysis of psychokinesis (with a really small population though) which came out noticably (20%) in favour of my being able to roll dice to a target number.

This is more 'abilities' than 'phenomena', though, unless Freaky Psychic People are going to be showing up in the game.


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## Andrew D. Gable

Only overtly (and even this isn't) supernatural thing that ever happened to me was once, about 7 years back now, when I woke up suddenly around 3:00 AM (for some reason, I often wake up about 3:00 AM, but that's another tale) experiencing the whole sleep paralysis deal.  I saw a human figure, completely pitch black with no features (rather like a DnD shadow) standing in one corner of my room, near my closet.  It just stood motionless, looking out my window, and then vanished after a few moments.  

Although I do have mysterious dreams - the haunted admissions office at Gettysburg College (Pennsylvania Hall, a former Civil War field hospital, and we all know about the wonders of Civil War-era medicine...) shows up with unnerving regularity in my dreams.  Every few nights, I'd say, it appears, whether it makes sense in my dream or not.


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## FluidDragon

I have 3 stories.

1. This was a couple years ago. I was taking a walk with my little brother in Syracuse, NY. We were talking and out of the corner of my eye I saw what I though was a shooting star. I told my brother to look, and it appeard at first to be a shooting star but did not fade, just looked like a star. Then it stopped dead. It was moving fast and stopped. Then it zipped to the right about 5 miles, stopped and imediately went left about the same distance to its starting point. It stopped on a dime and reversed direction very quickly. It seemed to move very fast. Then it got smaller like it was moving directly away from us very quickly. Whole thing lasted about 15 seconds, and My brother saw the whole thing too. It looked like a white light like a normal star but a bit brighter.

2. I was in my apartment over looking the city. It was a very cloudy night, very low to the ground. The amber lights reflecting over the city was very pretty. There was a BRIGHT blue flash in my window. I got up to look adn it was gone. about 10 seconds later it happened again, but was a little distant. It looked like a giant bar of blue light coming through the clouds about 300 yards wide and about a mile long. It flashed and then about 10 seconds later it flashed again. A little further way. I watched it do this for about 10 minutes. Every 10 seconds or so it would flash and be about further way like it was moving at a slow steady pace from south to north. Very wierd. My wife saw this too.

3. In this same appartment we kept feeling like we were being watched and it kept getting worse. We had people over adn they would say the same thing. Sometimes we would see reflections in the glass of people moving quickly. It was there then gone before you could blink. Sometimes we would see a shadow where there wasn't anything, and always that feeling of being watched. Small things seemed to be disturbed. Nothing big, no noises just moved 6 inches from where you left it the night before. This was in the winter so no windows were open. We started feeling very uneasy.

We started using insense and did some buhdist space clearing excersizes. Chanting mantras of protection. We started this abot 6 months after we moved in every day was a little worse. At first when we started doing the insense and mantras things got worse. More unease, more glimpses. We kept 3 sticks of incese burning in each room most of the day. After about 3 weeks we saw no more glimpses and we did not feel like we were being watched. Nothing has happed since.

4. Ok a little more. My wife has "spider sense" Pretty often she will put her hand out and catch something before it falls, before it starts to fall. Or avoid a car accident. She says she can see it a split second before it happens. It is totaly hit or miss, sometimes it doesn't happen for months.

One time when she was 16 a car past her car while her dad was driving. She yelled stop and said they were going to die. 10 seconds later the car that passed them was going through a green light at an intersection and another driver went through a red light very fast and hit them. The people in the car that was hit died. She saw the whole thing before it happened.

I also had a similar experience. My mother was driving and we were going behind a mall. There was a sharp right were the corner of the building was. Before we got there I yelled at her to stop. I said a red car is coming fast around the corner. Sure enough a little red car zips around the corner not stoping and would have hit us if we did not stop. There was no way I could see anything around the corner due to the building.


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## Teflon Billy

I have two.

First on the list is my UFO sighting.

My friend Mike and I were about 11 years old, and were hanging out in my Grandparent's backyard in British Columbia, Canada shooting our BB guns at tin cans when way off in the distance there was an object that looked like 2 multifaceted spheres connected by a bar. It tumbelled end over end from one horizon to another in about 10 seconds.

During it's "flight" it went in front of one mountain, and behind another, so we knew it was about 100 miles away.

It didn't seem like a big deal to us at the time (we thought it was some kind of balloon), but given the speed it was going, we were just amazed a couple of days later after giving it some thought.

Still don't have any clue what it was...I mean it doesn't even fit the "normal" UFO sighting template.

I'll post my Ghost one later.


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## William Ronald

TarrasqueWrangler, 

You might want to check out the website for Coast-to-Coast A.M., a radio program that often talks about UFOs, ghosts, and other unusual topics.  Do a Google search for it, or can someone post the link in this thread?


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## Angcuru

> Ok a little more. My wife has "spider sense" Pretty often she will put her hand out and catch something before it falls, before it starts to fall. Or avoid a car accident. She says she can see it a split second before it happens.



Same thing with myself.  It's called good reflexes.


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## dave_o

This is a rad thread!

I have quite a few, one way similar to Andrew D. Gable's:

1. When I was around three I was sitting on my springy horse, outside, in the back of our house. My sister, eighteen at the time, was out back watching me, and went around front to get our mail. I looked over my shoulder at the back door to the house, and standing in it was a seven foot tall shadow, for lack of a better term. It was man-shaped, and completely black, almost like an abyss. Being, y'know, three - I freaked, and it promptly vanished.

2. In my place, now, pretty often I hear tapping on my windows, followed by giggling. Obviously way malicious.  But, interestingly enough, two younger girls are buried in a family cemetary (not mine) around a hundred yards from my house.

3. More creepily, sometimes, though rarely, something runs across my backyard and slams into my back door. It sounds huge, like a full-grown person throwing themselves against my back door.


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## Sollir Furryfoot

One UFO siting here.

I was on a plane flight from I think Texas to Arizona, and it was like in the middle of the night, I woke up because it was pretty cold and the person sitting next to me was gone.  I had the window seat and I looked out into the side and I watched the sky for a bit, and I noticed a couple flashes of light on the ground, followed by a falling star.  I was like, wow, I'm glad I was up to see this-but then it (the star, or what I thought was) stopped in midair.  I remember it hung there for a few seconds-multicolored lights flashing about, then it went in one direction in a short burst, stopped, and then continued onward in little, quick bursts.  I don't think it was a dream, since I remember how cold the window felt as I pressed my hand against it, and how I wrote down everything I could remember in the dark in one of my notebooks (Including the time, etc...)

It may have been a dream, but from what I can remember, it wasn't (Edit-Reason being, right before I saw the 'UFO' I looked to my side to see the person gone, and while I was getting out my notebook to write down the stuff the person came back).


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## Gnarlo

Have had one UFO sighting, back when I was about 8 or 9, by brother, cousin, and I were sitting on the back steps of the house one night. We were talking and star gazing, and one of us pointed out a red flashing light moving low across the sky. We used to see plenty of airplanes come over back then (we lived just a few miles from a small, country airport), but helicopters were rare around there, and it was low and slow enough we figured that's what it must be. We sat and talked a little while longer as it got closer and closer, then all of a sudden it shot straight up into the air and disappeared. The three of us looked at one another, jumped up and ran into the house scared out of our wits to tell our folks. Needless to say, it was a long time before we sat out back star gazing again. 

My only ghost stories are the creepy feelings I get everytime I sit and read message threads like this at this time of the evening


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## Severion

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *Only overtly (and even this isn't) supernatural thing that ever happened to me was once, about 7 years back now, when I woke up suddenly around 3:00 AM (for some reason, I often wake up about 3:00 AM, but that's another tale) experiencing the whole sleep paralysis deal.  I saw a human figure, completely pitch black with no features (rather like a DnD shadow) standing in one corner of my room, near my closet.  It just stood motionless, looking out my window, and then vanished after a few moments.
> 
> *




Wow, almost verbatum for me (more like 12 years ago) whats up with 3 AM any way, thats when it got me.

My other is i was once feeling fairly ill and trying to force myself to sleep.   I thought i had succeded and woken up, so i got out of bed (thought 'how odd, where did the colors go') and went to talk to my wife who was in the living room watching tv.  Our cat was acting unusually skittish around me and my SO looked like a pure white light.  I panicked and jumped right through the wall and landed back in my body in bed.  My fever had broke and she confermed only that the cat was acting strange.


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## blackshirt5

OK, I've got two of them(most of my weird occurences have something to do with freaky chicks):

1) I have really bad deja vu.  So bad that I can sometimes repeat FluidDragon's wife's feat of catching things as they fall because I already knew it was going to happen; unfortunately I can never manage to remember anything around Angcuru or those guys so they've never seen it happen.

2) The Target store that I used to work at(probably getting fired soon after calling a former sex-partner a bitch and telling her I'd smack the taste out of her mouth ) is haunted; not surprising, considering that it's built over an old asylum that they closed down, demolished, and paved.  Chains in the back(for the door to the compactor) swing when there's no breeze, monitors go into red fuzz(which I've never seen and which we can't capture on tape; security has tried to get it on tape, but so far hasn't succeeded in the 6 years the store's been there), and lights flicker on and off like someone's walking up and down the aisles(we have automatic lights that go on when you walk into an aisle and are supposed to turn off after someone leaves the aisle); this last one is so disconcerting that some of the employees(mostly the women, although more than a few "big tough men" too, although they aren't as open about it) refuse to go into the backroom alone.


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## Dog Soldier

I don't have any personal stories about the supernatural, but here in North Carolina there are the Brown Mountian Lights. Despite the fact that they are in the same county as I live in I've never made the trip to see them.


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## RingXero

Hey blackshirt,

That's the target store in menlo right?

live about a mile away.

anyway that i'd recognize you?

-- oops, forgot to add to the discussion.

My Father and I had a period of 'lost time' that was verified by about 25 people.  We went camping/white water rafting, we left from a relatives house much later than everyone else, it was night.  I was reading a book, and for some reason was getting no where in it(continually having to restart paragraphs/pages).  Anyway, when we arrived at the campsite everyone was up and rather nervous about our whereabouts, see it took us over 5 hours to make the trip, it took everyone else about 30 minutes.  We hit no traffic, and made no wrong turns.


RX


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## Angcuru

He works the night shift, so I don't know about that.


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## orbitalfreak

*A quick copy/paste/edit from an earlier thread: [OT] What Scares You?


> _Originally posted by: orbitalfreak (that's me!)_
> I did have a bad experience with another member of the spirit world, though. ... I apologize, but I can't bring myself to go too deep into detail, but suffice to say that I was "attacked" (I guess you could call it that) by a ghostly being, who passed a part of itself through ... my heart, and caused me to experience the most bone-chilling cold I have ever felt. To this day, I feel its presence inside of me, a lancing pain in the part of my heart that it touched. [That ghost] is the only thing that I have ever been truly afraid of.




*We've also had a ghost haunt our house before, but it "move out" several years ago.  We would see it glide up and down the halls, but it never bothered anyone or anything.

*Chalk up another one for precognitive abilities.  I, like a few others have mentioned here, have intense bouts of Deja Vu every now and then.  I'll be going about my activities as usual, and suddenly I'll feel like I've been doing (whatever it is) before.  After a few seconds of what feels like living the moment for a second time, I'll get accustomed to the feeling; at these times, not only do I feel like I've done "it" before, but I know what's going to happen in the immediate future.

 As such, I've been able to predict the course of a conversation, and know _exactly_ the words that would be spoken in the next five or so seconds.  I've sat in my chair at dinner and mouthed conversations between my parents with unerring accuracy at times.  On a few occasions, I've responded to a question before it was asked, when the asker gave no preamble to the question.  Or, I've switched the topic of conversation to another subject when I knew someone else was just about to do the same thing (interrupting them before they began to speak, as it were).  I've also had more than my fair share of "catching the glass before it falls" moments.

*My mother and I share a brain wave-length, it seems.  I know that when you are close to your parents, friends, lovers, whatever, that you get used to them and do things like complete each others sentences and such.  With my mother, though, we will usually have a "brain-wave sharing" incident about three to five times a day, sometimes on obscure subjects.  I guess this could be rolled into the Deja Vu thing above.

**Prophetic Dreams*
You know the old saying, "Dreams can come true"?  Unfortunately, that saying is sometimes right in my case.  I've had dozens of incidents where I've dreamt about an event before it happened, though these events are usually not of any importance.  I remember this ability starting when I was 14 years old, in 9th grade (1997).  I had a dream in which I met for the first time two young, beautiful girls.  The dream stayed with me when I woke, and the feeling of "Meeting" was prominent; the identities of the girls were immaterial to the dream.  That morning, we had a new student in school (a rare event, in our rural area), who was female and quite attractive.  

I dreamt once of a ring of shining white gold, set with a 1/4 carat diamond, with smaller diamons channel-set in the band.  That was the entire dream, the ring set against a black background.  The next day, my best friend announced that her boyfriend had proposed to her.  The engagement ring was the exact same one that was in my dream.

On the subject of rings, I also dreamt about someone losing a ring, and the next day my mother found out that the diamond from her wedding band had fallen out.  Other incidents have included getting mail that I wasn't expecting on any particular day (like my loan check that I recieved today; dreamt about it last night); I predicted through dream that my aunt would be involved in a vehicle accident; fires, floods, and hurricanes have happened after a dream that related to them; I've even dreamt of a few people passing away, before I heard of their death.

*On the subject of predictions:
My stepfather has predicted the gender of all seven of his neices and nephews, one of which he predicted while overseas and before the mother knew she was pregnant.  He also predicted the gender of his child before she was born.  Years ago, he had dreamt that he would marry someone named Angela, who had slightly-crooked teeth.  My mom's name is Angela, and yes, her teeth are a little out of alignment.

I have a few tales of UFOs as well, but I'll save them for another day; I've rambled long enough.


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## RingXero

some more stuff.


My parents house is haunted.

Chairs have slid across the kitchen floor 5-10 feet.

Black fog has floated into rooms

Lights go on and off in rooms, both before and after an entire rewiring of the house.

and the winner so far.
reddish clear stuff driping down the walls of the stairwell, and I mean a lot of it.  These three walls have no pipes or ventalation systems within them and are full insulated.  My mother had the stuff analyzed at the local University by some friends, and it wasn't water, but blood plasma based.

Necco candy has repeatedly dissapeared, as well as amounts of  'Coke' beverage within bottles.

RX


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## Angcuru

orbitalfreak said:
			
		

> *On the subject of rings, I also dreamt about someone losing a ring, and the next day my mother found out that the diamond from her wedding band had fallen out.  Other incidents have included getting mail that I wasn't expecting on any particular day (like my loan check that I recieved today; dreamt about it last night); I predicted through dream that my aunt would be involved in a vehicle accident; fires, floods, and hurricanes have happened after a dream that related to them; I've even dreamt of a few people passing away, before I heard of their death.
> *



Ever seen that movie _Sphere_?


			
				RingXero said:
			
		

> *and the winner so far.
> reddish clear stuff driping down the walls of the stairwell, and I mean a lot of it.  These three walls have no pipes or ventalation systems within them and are full insulated.  My mother had the stuff analyzed at the local University by some friends, and it wasn't water, but blood plasma based.*


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## WillTheBuddhist

Ok, I'm a huge skeptic. Not to discount anything anyone here as sad, but even as I read these things, I'm still skeptical.

But...

There are a couple things that make me really wonder. They're probably gonna seem really small and inconsequential, but for whatever reason, these things make me think there's more to this world than any of us know.

1.) I get deja vu...a lot. Nothing ever cinematic like dreaming of an accident or anything, but the sheer amount of times it happens really makes me wonder. It happened yesterday actually. I was talking to a guy, telling him a story, and someone said hi to me. My description is pretty vague, but that's to spare you the boring details. Trust me, though, every detail was the same.

2.) This is the biggest one, and yet by all measures the smallest one. I have this weird habit of causing street lights to turn off. I know it sounds absurd, but hear me out. This happens almost EVERY SINGLE TIME I drive when street lights are on. Now, of course not every light turns off, but almost every single time I drive a light will turn off or on.

This has been going on for about 4 years or so. It happens at all times, too. 8 in the morning, 10 at night, 2 in the morning. It happens when there's a lot of traffic, when there's no traffic. Rural areas, urban areas. I've picked this apart ad naseum trying to find a pattern to it all, but I can't, and that's a big admission from someone who's mind is so pattern oriented.

My friends thought I was nuts when I told them this. But now every time I'm with them at night and a light turns off, I point it out to them. Granted, it happens to everyone, and it happens to my friends also, but this happens almost every time I go out and there's a street light on.

The only logical (?) explanation I can think of is a certain emanation or sorts that everyone has, something that I think interferes with the lights. It seems stronger in me. That's not a good or bad thing, just a thing. I know that sounds crazy, but I can't think of anything else. It's just not plausible that these are all coincidences.


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## WayneLigon

dave_o said:
			
		

> *3. More creepily, sometimes, though rarely, something runs across my backyard and slams into my back door. It sounds huge, like a full-grown person throwing themselves against my back door. *




OK, that one gets added to the d20 Modern idea book as 'person who murderered the two little girls tapping on your window' 

Have never had a paranormal experience. Figures.

Edit: No, Wait. RingXero reminded me: a friend and myself were driving to the D&D game in a beroom community about 15 miles from the city we live in. He was driving. It's about a flat 20 minute trip from my house to there; I'd driven it myself many many times. My friend even drives faster than I do. We left my house and went straight to the game. They wanted to know why we were late. It had been over an hour from the time we left my house until we got there.


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## WayneLigon

RingXero said:
			
		

> *My parents house is haunted... Black fog has floated into rooms
> ...reddish clear stuff driping down the walls of the stairwell... but blood plasma based.*




OK, that has 'GET OUT' written all over it.


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## orbitalfreak

Angcuru said:
			
		

> *
> Ever seen that movie Sphere?
> *




I knew you were going to ask that. 

More seriously, I have read the book and seen the movie.  I know what you're getting at, but I think this is prediction, not causation.  Well, I hope so anyway...


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## Gnarlo

orbitalfreak said:
			
		

> As such, I've been able to predict the course of a conversation, and know _exactly_ the words that would be spoken in the next five or so seconds.




I have this happen on occasion as well, and it will give me goosebumps. Last time was last week, walked around a corner at work and had the strong feeling I'd experienced the exact same time before, and as I walked up to the nursing desk I knew exactly what the secretary would say to me, and she did.



> *My mother and I share a brain wave-length, it seems.  I know that when you are close to your parents, friends, lovers, whatever, that you get used to them and do things like complete each others sentences and such.




Agree with this, too. My wife and I are constantly picking up the phone to call each other and find the other one on the other end of the line, having just finished dialing the other without the phone having had a chance to ring yet. Now whether this is due to the fact that we are more likely to call each other than anyone else we know, and just due to the law of averages it will happen and we will notice it when it does I don't know, but it's still sweet and spooky when it does 

edit: Oh, and my mother kills watches. She was hit by lightning on a camping trip we were on about 30 years ago, and ever since then she can't wear a watch. Whether it's a wind-up, battery powered, analog, or digital, it stops running after a couple of hours of her wearing it. She takes it off, sets it aside on the counter or table, and a few hours later it will be running again


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## Andrew D. Gable

dave_o said:
			
		

> *1. When I was around three I was sitting on my springy horse, outside, in the back of our house. My sister, eighteen at the time, was out back watching me, and went around front to get our mail. I looked over my shoulder at the back door to the house, and standing in it was a seven foot tall shadow, for lack of a better term. It was man-shaped, and completely black, almost like an abyss. Being, y'know, three - I freaked, and it promptly vanished.*




While I know with about 97% certainty that mine was a hypnagogic (?) hallucination, which is often associated with sleep paralysis, as it was in mine (hypnagogia is basically when half of your brain is still registering sleep and the other half is awake), I've often wondered whether something similar could occur during wakefulness.  Maybe that could account for a lot of these late-night, roadside, unconfirmable sightings of Bigfoot and ghosts and such.

And I see Severion had his own encounter with hypnagogia.  And that's a good question: what IS up with 3:00 AM?  I recall seeing a few bits in Fate Magazine (I know, not that reputable...) that suggest this is a widspread thing, I believe there were some quotes from Ivan T. Sanderson (explorer/cryptozoologist) stating that things in the jungle got rather noisy at about that time...


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## Terraism

Gable - you mentioned your black shadow as part of the whole "sleep-paralysis" deal, so I'm guessing you're probably already aware, but that's actually relatively common among those who suffer from sleep paralysis.  I'm no expert or anything, but I researched the phenomenon and wrote a fairly in-depth essay on it about a year ago... a surprising number of those who have experienced paralysis while only borderline awake have reported seeing an absolutely black figure at the time or immediately after.  A lesser number have reported actually being attacked by said figure.  Hm.

Oh, and, sorry folks - I've got nothing personal to add to the thread.  I think.  I'll see if I can dig up anything creepy in the memory.


----------



## William Ronald

I mentioned the program Coast-to-Coast A.M.  It's website is Coast to Coast.

No, stories but I hope this thread will give some DMs some ideas.


----------



## Angcuru

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> *No, Wait. RingXero reminded me: a friend and myself were driving to the D&D game in a beroom community about 15 miles from the city we live in. He was driving. It's about a flat 20 minute trip from my house to there; I'd driven it myself many many times. My friend even drives faster than I do. We left my house and went straight to the game. They wanted to know why we were late. It had been over an hour from the time we left my house until we got there. *



Assuming there was no traffiv....

Did you have a strange aching feeling where the sun don't shine soon after that?  Aliens tend to stick stuff up there when they abduct you.....


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

Terraism said:
			
		

> *a surprising number of those who have experienced paralysis while only borderline awake have reported seeing an absolutely black figure at the time or immediately after.  A lesser number have reported actually being attacked by said figure.*




Wow.  I knew of associated hallucinations and "hagging" and stuff, but I didn't know that this particular version of the hallucination was so common.  I read up on this too a few years back: as I said in my other post, I'm fascinated with how many reports of ghosts and alien abductions and such this could be responsible for.  After all, if (not knowing of this phenomena) you wake up, paralyzed, with several humanoid figures possibly seeming to poke and prod at you, what are you most likely going to think it is?


----------



## Terraism

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *Wow.  I knew of associated hallucinations and "hagging" and stuff, but I didn't know that this particular version of the hallucination was so common.  I read up on this too a few years back: as I said in my other post, I'm fascinated with how many reports of ghosts and alien abductions and such this could be responsible for.  After all, if (not knowing of this phenomena) you wake up, paralyzed, with several humanoid figures possibly seeming to poke and prod at you, what are you most likely going to think it is? *



Definitely.  Taking off of the number who have reported they were attacked, it seems likely that a number of myths about witches "riding one at night" may have been caused by this.  Your average joe in 1650 wakes up to a shadowy figure, unable to move, and then feels a heavy weight on his chest and sees the shape leap onto him... then passes out, waking up sore the next morning as though he'd been moving all night.  Explains a bit, I'd think.

Another interesting tidbit I found in the same research was that a study had been run that measured the number of reported sightings of the virgin Mary over the years, as well as the number of reported sightings of UFO's.  As could be expected, the former decreased while the latter increased... but, oddly enough, the total each year stayed almost _exactly_ the same.    Freaky coincidence?


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

Terraism said:
			
		

> *a study had been run that measured the number of reported sightings of the virgin Mary over the years, as well as the number of reported sightings of UFO's.  As could be expected, the former decreased while the latter increased... but, oddly enough, the total each year stayed almost exactly the same.    Freaky coincidence? *




I heard about that one.  Apparently, in addition to that, certain areas saw reports of the Virgin Mary (Fatima sticks out) and at the same time, other individuals in the community reported seeing not Mary, but UFOs.  My theory's that what you see, what the phenomena appears to be, is dependent mostly on the psychology and perceptions of the individual.  Maybe an extremely religious person sees Mary, while a not-so-religious person applies the UFO template to what they see.  I wonder if the association (in some cases anyway) between Bigfoot and UFOs suggests the same type deal there.


----------



## Samnell

I've had occasions where I could have sworn I dreamed the events before they happened, but since these never register before the event occurs and I only have this convenient realization afterwards I assume I'm editing similar memories of dreams to fit things that actually happen after the fact. Always happens with mundane stuff you'd expect to happen anyway.

I privately (without commenting in particular on anyone's experiences above posted) suspect lots of deja vu works like this.


----------



## Samnell

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *I heard about that one.  Apparently, in addition to that, certain areas saw reports of the Virgin Mary (Fatima sticks out) and at the same time, other individuals in the community reported seeing not Mary, but UFOs.  My theory's that what you see, what the phenomena appears to be, is dependent mostly on the psychology and perceptions of the individual.  Maybe an extremely religious person sees Mary, while a not-so-religious person applies the UFO template to what they see.  I wonder if the association (in some cases anyway) between Bigfoot and UFOs suggests the same type deal there. *




It would stand to reason. If you're brain's wired in such a way that it might on occasion produce visions and you happen to be very religious, what would you expect to see? Even if not personally religious, if you lived in a very religious climate the images would likely also figure prominently in your mind. Likewise people who watch lots of shows about UFOs and the paranormal would produce those sorts of visions.

In the case of mass visions, especially in the non-recent past, we should also consider the effect of peer pressure. If everyone else is seeing it, one could call a lot of potentially unwelcome, or at least uncomfortable, attention to oneself by mentioning that one doesn't see it. Especially if the people seeing things are in a very heightened emotional state.

In retrospection after such an event, one might begin to think one saw it after all even if one was just going along, thanks to the pressure and so forth. This can be a real problem in very chaotic situations too.

"Did you see that guy with a gun?"
"Well, no."
"But he was RIGHT THERE. You must've seen him!"
"You know, now that I think about it I think I might have."
Fast forward twenty years.
"I saw a man with a gun."


----------



## Tiberius

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I heard about that one.  Apparently, in addition to that, certain areas saw reports of the Virgin Mary (Fatima sticks out) and at the same time, other individuals in the community reported seeing not Mary, but UFOs.  My theory's that what you see, what the phenomena appears to be, is dependent mostly on the psychology and perceptions of the individual.  Maybe an extremely religious person sees Mary, while a not-so-religious person applies the UFO template to what they see.  I wonder if the association (in some cases anyway) between Bigfoot and UFOs suggests the same type deal there. *




Eh, I chalk it up to Vorlons visiting us periodically to make sure their conditions still works.  And occasionally grab people to seed the telepath gene. 

-Tiberius


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## Sarellion

Same as Samnell, but I know that I dreamed of stuff, then I often forget it and then it happens. I remember trying to remember. 

I know of an iranian mystic who seems to be quite comfortable with this kind of stuff.

It is is sad  that I don´t speak his language so that we can talk aout it.


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## Eternalknight

WillTheBuddhist said:
			
		

> *2.) This is the biggest one, and yet by all measures the smallest one. I have this weird habit of causing street lights to turn off. I know it sounds absurd, but hear me out. This happens almost EVERY SINGLE TIME I drive when street lights are on. Now, of course not every light turns off, but almost every single time I drive a light will turn off or on.
> 
> This has been going on for about 4 years or so. It happens at all times, too. 8 in the morning, 10 at night, 2 in the morning. It happens when there's a lot of traffic, when there's no traffic. Rural areas, urban areas. I've picked this apart ad naseum trying to find a pattern to it all, but I can't, and that's a big admission from someone who's mind is so pattern oriented.
> 
> My friends thought I was nuts when I told them this. But now every time I'm with them at night and a light turns off, I point it out to them. Granted, it happens to everyone, and it happens to my friends also, but this happens almost every time I go out and there's a street light on.
> 
> The only logical (?) explanation I can think of is a certain emanation or sorts that everyone has, something that I think interferes with the lights. It seems stronger in me. That's not a good or bad thing, just a thing. I know that sounds crazy, but I can't think of anything else. It's just not plausible that these are all coincidences. *




I was reading about this the other day in a local magazine, as it happens to me whenever I walk down the street, though not when I drive.  There is no scientific explination for it so far, and paranormal investigators are starting to treat it as a serious paranormal event.

Anyway, onto mine:

I used to wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to go outside.  This would normally happen if I was stressed over something.  Anyway, even if I really didn't want to, I would eventually find myself outside and staring at a large blue wolf.  A sense of calm would come over me, and I'd make my way back to bed.  This is even stranger due to the fact there are no wolves in Australia...

A friend saw me go outside one night and decided to follow.  He said he saw something, but that it was just a shimmering image to him.  But to me it was the blue wolf.

Haven't seen it in a few years now.  It's strange, as I kind of miss it.


----------



## Terraism

You know, I don't believe in the supernatural.  I never had, in any way, shape of form.  I'm a hard-core skeptic, for reasons that we can't get into on these boards.    But it's funny, because I trust the people here, and I can't idly dismiss all these posted events as coincidence (some of 'em are too precise for that) or misunderstanding (too exact) or made up (r: I trust these people).  [Shakes head.]  Drat and bother.  Thinking deep thoughts at midnight-thirty does odd things to my head.


----------



## Eternalknight

[Hijack] Is ther any good websites out there that deal with the paranormal?  Not stories that people have reported, but actual investigative reports?[/Hijack]


----------



## hellbender

Over the years, I have had a number of odd things happen around me. For example:

1)Ghost cats. My mom's house has one, as does the house I live in. My girlfriend, who used to be a skeptic, has seen these cats in both places, without my having told her first.

2) Shadow people. A phenomenon brought to light on the Art Bell show (now Coast to Coast). During a suicide attempt many years ago I was bleeding profusely, and saw one coming for me, it was scary enough to bring me back to my senses and get patched up. Then, after the Shadow People were talked about, I contacted two other people who had basically the same experience that I did. The slow sinking horror of that was something in itself.

3) A two year stint as an English teacher in Sumatra. If you are skeptical, come with me next time I go, I guarantee you will not return a skeptic. I have seen ghosts in the daytime, something like a Buddhist deity and people who can talk to spirits and convince the spirits to fix objects (like cars). Old men who can bend iron bars, rooms with no air conditioning that are extremely cold, haunted houses that get so loud at night that living two houses away I was almost driven mad by the sounds, including manaical inhuman laughter. I decided it was a prank, until I had a plate fly at my head when I went to investigate. Hell, in one remote town, people swore I was a vampire and actually believed it.

4) If you don't want to go overseas, I live 20 minutes from the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, not a place to have your car breakdown at night. Many Nez Perce friends have had supernatural experiences, including being attacked by various entities of unknown origin.

hellbender


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## Krieg

Eternalknight said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I was reading about this the other day in a local magazine, as it happens to me whenever I walk down the street, though not when I drive.  There is no scientific explination for it so far, and paranormal investigators are starting to treat it as a serious paranormal event. *




...and here I was thinking *I* was the only one!


----------



## hellbender

Eternalknight said:
			
		

> *[Hijack] Is ther any good websites out there that deal with the paranormal?  Not stories that people have reported, but actual investigative reports?[/Hijack] *




Try:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
http://www.paranormalnews.com/default.asp
http://www.forteantimes.com/

hellbender


----------



## Eternalknight

Krieg said:
			
		

> *
> 
> ...and here I was thinking I was the only one! *




Nope, definately not unique


----------



## Eternalknight

Thanks, hellbender.


----------



## Bloodstone Mage

Oooh...this thread is excellent! Kudos to everyone posting here.

I'm not a skeptic, but I'm not a believer of paranormal activities. My religious choice to be agnostic kind of lets people know that. I mean, the world has a lot of interesting and unexplained activities that would be hard to explain without the presence of something outside our comprehension. That's just IMO.

For personal experiences, I have been through little. I remember when I was about seven years old, I heard my grandparents' dog Tootsie barking, despite the fact that she had died days earlier. The bark was so distinct, and I heard it coming from the other bedroom in the house. It couldn't have been an outside dog, or it would have been muffled a bit or otherwise.
Another personal experience was when I spend the night at my aunt's house in Midland. That night was the longest night of my life. I slept in a bedroom in the basement, and down there, I was surrounded by a shelf of books (mostly medical), a pool table, a television set, and an unfinished staircase that lead outside. I remember this odd, creepy feeling that something was in the basement. I only slept one hour.

My brother has had some interesting experiences, although they were during the period when he constantly was on substances. He, too, has seen the Shadow People. In his experience, he says that they leap from tree to tree, rooftop to rooftop, barely visible in the corner of your eye. His description of the Shadow People match every other persons' description. From this common experience, I can probably be lead to that the Shadow People exist in some form or manner (and personally, I believe them to be some extension of the collective unconscious that are manifestations of some unearthly entity we've surpressed, but that's just IMO). Another experience my brother has had is the "Words Between Words". During his hallucinations, these words would come out from some weird or odd vision (like a man walking out of a head and shouting them, or the words being echoed will strange government officials in containment suits freeze time and inspect everyone else's brains). One of the words that I can remember off the top of my head was, pronounced phonetically: "Adda-too-com-bar."

Recently, I've set out to actually see if paranormal activities, for me, exist. I've started by setting out for haunted sites around Lubbock and San Antonio. There is a report that upsets me about a Texas Tech professor who saw a significantly deformed ghost in a parking lot. Too bad that is the only information available on the report.

A site I visit often is GhostStudy.com. It has some interesting pictures. I especially like the "thing in the window" pictures. Y'know, where you can see a mysterious figure or face in the window of a house from the inside. There's one on GhostStudy.com that creeps the heck outta me. It is supposedly after an Ouija board session, and it shows a menacing red face smiling in the window. From the Ouija board session, all of the words they received were gibberish except for a Latin word meaning "to take away".

Anyways, I'm done boring you guys.
Cheers!


----------



## Qlippoth

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *Wow.  I knew of associated hallucinations and "hagging" and stuff, but I didn't know that this particular version of the hallucination was so common.*



At a young age (7 or 8 or so) I had trouble sleeping--the only time I felt tired enough to sleep would inevitably end up in episodes where there would be a roaring sound in my ears accompanied with an inability to move. As I got older, the "sleep paralysis" continued, with all sorts of "extra" effects. It culminated in my feeling awake but unable to move while a whispering voice laughed again & again outside my window (mind you, "my window" refers to any window in my bedroom across several years of moves). After years of this experience, the only way I could "answer" to it was to say, repeatedly (within a dream-state), "Stop it. Stop it." Once, at age 21, the laughing stopped--at which point, the whispery voice said, "Thank you."  Hasn't happened since (12 years running).


----------



## Gnarlo

Mmmm, seeing the posts on Shadow People have made me remember another one I generally like to forget  

I've worked around a lot of old and dying people at nursing homes and the hospital, and one recurring thing keeps coming up: seeing children or little people. I've had more than a few patients dying with alzheimers or dementia who see "children" in their room or running in the halls past their doors. One of the more disturbing times was an elderly lady who the weaker she got, the more she'd call us to her room to get the "children" out of it, complaining that they were sitting on her bed and disturbing her and not letting her sleep. We'd point out that there weren't any children in her room, and she'd say "I know, they all jump up and run out right before you come in."

Easily enough dismissed, until I met the elderly lady in the home that knew when anyone else in the care home had died because she saw the "little people." The only time any of us ever recall her asking if someone had died was when someone had, and she always said she saw the little people. The spookiest time was when we had two patients die about the same time on the opposite end of the building about 3 am, and I had gone into her room to check on her IV a short time later. She woke up while the pump was dinging, turned and asked me "A couple of people died tonight, didn't they?" I was used to her asking this, so distractedly told her "yes, maam, Mrs. so and so and so and so." Then I got a cold chill up my back when she nodded and looking around the room said "I thought so, those little people are _everywhere!_ " I got out of the room as quick as I could, and we all looked in our chairs before we sat the rest of the night 

I've wondered since if the "little people" and "children" they see are the same thing, much like the above post about the ratio of angel vs UFO sightings changing while the actual overall number stays the same.


----------



## Tarrasque Wrangler

William Ronald said:
			
		

> *TarrasqueWrangler,
> 
> You might want to check out the website for Coast-to-Coast A.M., a radio program that often talks about UFOs, ghosts, and other unusual topics.  Do a Google search for it, or can someone post the link in this thread? *




Way ahead of you William.  I was a devoted fan of Art Bell, and listen to the new guy occasionally (not that I don't like him, I just don't find myself listening to the radio late at night much anymore).  Loved the Ghost-to-Ghost call-in shows most of all.  Those used to freak me out.


----------



## Tarrasque Wrangler

Wow, these are great stories everyone.  And even better, they're giving me some potent ideas for my game.  I might have to print this thread out later to review.  

BTW, my girlfriend has her own bizarre sleep stories.  I actually heard her wake up one night at my first apartment, saying something like "What are you doing up?".  Then she went back to sleep.  In the morning, she asked me if I'd gotten up in the middle of the night.  I said no, but I'd heard her wake up and try to talk to me.  She said that she'd woke up to see a figure of my build standing over her, leaning towards her face.  Apparently it had really freaked her out.

I once had a conversation with her while coming to bed late one night, after she'd been asleep for a couple hours.  She was actually asleep through a somewhat disjointed 30-second conversation with me while I got ready for bed.  I didn't even realize she was dreaming until she asked, in a rather concerned tone, if Gwenhyfar (sp?) was OK.  This was a character in Mists of Avalon, which she was reading at the time.  She was having a dream about the book, and I had somehow intruded on the dream, and she just rolled this sleeptalk conversation into the dream.


----------



## Afrodyte

The closest thing I have to paranormal experiences are the small things that happen frequently (or have happened on more than one occasion).

The first thing happens on a regular basis, at least once a month or two.  Many times, I'll be minding my own business, and suddenly a song pops into my head.  It's not the ones they play non-stop on the radio.  These are generally considered retro tunes.  I don't have to particularly like the song, but in many cases I do, so when I think of it for no particular reason, I think, "Yeah, I'd like to hear that song."  No more than a few days later, the songs comes on the radio.  This sort of thing wouldn't stand out if I listened to the radio everywhere and all the time, but I only like listening to the radio in my car, and I don't usually drive for more than about 30 minutes at a stretch.

I also frequently get deja vu.  I can be looking for something I misplaced or just don't know where it is, and I get this funny feeling that I'd been doing that before.  I can have a conversation with someone and get a vibe that says I've heard it before.  I'm not talking about the general idea, but usually a turn of phrase in casual converstion that have are not common gestures on the speaker's part.

On two occasions, I was talking with someone, and I thought of a phrase, and not a minute later, the person says the phrase exactly as I thought it in my head.  I don't mean things people commonly and casually say in conversation.  Once while I was on this field trip in high school, I was sitting down on the floor.  One of the guys on the field trip with me walks over to me.  He starts to sit down when I think, "sinking to my level."  As soon as his butt hit the floor, he says, "Well. . . I'm sinking down to your level."  The other incident has been forgotten, but I know that it has happened twice.

I've also had dreams where the basic events had come to pass.  The two times I remember this happening were the most vivid because I remember the dream.  Once, about 3 years ago, I had a dream that my grandmother fell very ill and died.  That summer, on the 4th of July, my grandmother passed away due to a stroke.  It wasn't the grandmother I dreamed about, though.  It was just weird.  Then, the following year, when I was getting ready for my trip to Beijing (obtaining visa, etc), I had a dream I was in Beijing on business (in reality, I was going to study), and I get a phone call saying that my father fell ill.  The whole dream I was running around like a madwoman trying to get home.  I don't think I made it.  Anyway, after I return from my Beijing trip, my mother tells me that my father had been in the hospital, and they didn't tell me because they didn't want to upset me while I was on my trip.

As a result, I'm learning to at least acknowledge gut feelings more often.  After a while of practicing this, surprise at certain events in my life is rather infrequent.


----------



## Gothmog

Andrew Gable and Terrasim: What you guys have been saying about hyponogogic dreaming is dead-on.  Full paralysis (sign of still being in a REM sleep-like state), feeling awake (but possibly arguably still in some stage of sleep), seeing humanoid/tall shadows near/bending over you, etc.  I remember reading about a psych sleep study done a few years ago where they induced hyponogogic dreaming by putting electrodes on a person's head and passing low current into certain brain areas.  In the five cases they did, each person reported the same thing- basically the alien abduction experience.  However, the people they did this experiment on all had sleep disorders, so its not known if it generalizes to most people.  Kinda discredits the whole alien abduction story though.

I am a skeptic, but I also find amateur ghost hunting really fun.  I have been to probably 20 locations, never seen anything convincing, but I have heard noises and had strange things happen.  A few of the more odd:

I was driving on a remote two-lane highway at night, and there was an old 50's era car about 300 feet in front of me (had the tailfins).  Anyway, I was going downhill, and I was messing with the AC.  I can't be sure, but I glanced out the windshield, and thought I saw the car get to the bottom of the hill, but fail to make the 70 degree left turn and go off the road into a ravine.  I got to the bottom of the hill about 10 seconds later, and pulled over to see if the driver was hurt.  There was no car in the ravine, no tire tracks or disturbance in the grass where it would have left the road, and the road after the left turn was straigt for about 1 mile after that- and that car that was only a few seconds ahead of me was nowhere in sight.  Pretty unnerving.

Our family business is supposedly haunted.  There have been dozens of incidents reported there, some from not-so-reputable employees, but many from reputable sources, including my dad.  Some of the things include: seeing an old man out of the corner of the eye walking around with a clipboard, a light touch on the shoulder when some people are in the freight elevator, footsteps, voices, low rumbling noises that sound like freight carts moving after business hours (which always remain in the same place), moved objects, damaged light fixtures (by damaged I mean pulled out of the ceiling), and one case of a cop who was scared silly by something when the alarm went off at 2 am one night and my dad let him in the building to check for intruders.

After my parent's Scottish terrier died at 14 years from cancer, something strange happened to me.  They had to have him put to sleep because he was in a lot of pain, and I wasn't there to tell him goodbye.  I was really upset- this dog followed me everywhere when I grew up, but I was in grad school and lived 150 miles away.  He used to sleep on my bed at night, cuddled up with me.  The night after he died, while I was half-asleep, I thought I felt something settle on the bed next to me where he used to lay.  I almost immediately dozed off, but I remember feeling completely at ease and comforted.  The really odd thing was that when I got my current scottish terrier, the first night I had him- he settled in to sleep in the same place, and always sleeps there every night.

Thats enough for now.  I'll post more later


----------



## Kesh

The only one I've personally experienced is the street light thing. For some reason, lights will sometimes turn off as I pass them. But, only _specific_ ones.

My most recent example was about a year ago. I worked for Dell's phone tech support, and usually got off work between 11 pm and 1 am. It was about a mile walk home, and I would pass this pharmacy on the way. After a few trips, I noticed that the street light in front of the building would always turn off when I walked past.

It wasn't a timer, because I would pass the lamp at various times of night. It wasn't motion sensitive, because cars would drive by or pull into the parking lot and not affect it. Yet, when I walked by _on the opposite side of the street_, it would turn off. Got to be a kind of ritual for me on the way home.

For other stories I've been told...

1) *The Man in the Room*

This one really freaks me out. I remember my mother telling me about this a long time ago... see, when I was about three or four, I had a certain nightmare (which recurred until my late teens). At this time, I got up and went to my parents bedroom, but I didn't want to wake them, so I stood in the doorway, trying to decide what to do.

That's when my mother screamed.

I don't remember anything until a few minutes later, when I was in the bed with them crying. Mom told me years later that she had woken up and saw a young man (in his twenties) standing in the doorway.

Move ahead to just a few years ago. I was sleeping downstairs when I heard my mother scream. Ran upstairs where my father told my sister and I to go back to bed, mom had just had a bad dream.

About a month later, I was awakened by my sister's scream. Ran upstairs where she was crying, telling my father she had seen a young man standing at the foot of her bed, then he had disappeared. He finally calmed her down and got her back to sleep.

The next day, my mother confided in me that she had seen the man that night she screamed as well. At this point, it just sounds like the sleep paralysis you folks had mentioned.

However, according to my mother, the person she saw was an _exact_ match for the man my sister described, right down to the clothes he was wearing.

2) *Ouija Boards are EVIL!*

I've had two friends tell me about problems with spirits they contacted while playing with Ouija boards. For one, it was his sister and her friends that played with the boards. They told him that whatever they contacted became surly and rude while they were talking with it via the board... then a few girls complained of scratches on their bodies.

For years after that, various people in the household complained of strange sounds, doors opening on their own, and occasionally of the feeling that something just shoved them when they were at the top of the stairs.

My friend himself said that one day he brought another guy I know home to play video games. He noted that, oddly enough, all the doors inside the house were open, when normally they were kept shut for cooling the main rooms. Just as he was getting a drink for his friend, every door in the house slammed shut simultaneously... and he says they heard the chainsaw in the garage start.

They ran outside. 

I spoke to the other friend later, and when I asked about it, his eyes got wide and he just refused to say anything but, "I'll never go in that house again!"

Another person I spoke with said he and some friends had contacted something via a board in college. After that, they all experienced strange sightings and bad luck. At one point, one of them decided they should destroy the board to get rid of the thing. They did, but a few weeks later, one of the group was killed in a car accident. My friend believed it was the spirit's fault, as the driver was known for being cautious and had just had the car worked on... yet the brakes had failed at an intersection, and the truck driver that struck him said he never even saw the car until he hit it.

Later, my friend and his colleagues got together with someone known for her abilities to do a banishing ritual. He said that after that, it was finally gone.

Of course, at the very moment he told me that, the street lamp above us burned out with a loud 'pop'. We decided to go home right then and there. 

3) *Tarot, On the Other Hand, is Pretty Cool*

Haven't done it in years, but a friend introduced me to tarot cards. I had no idea what I was doing, but she asked me to perform a reading for her and the friend I mentioned with the Ouija board problem. According to them, my reading was frighteningly accurate. The Ouija board friend needed a cigarette afterwards to calm himself down.


----------



## dave_o

Okay, so I did a little research, and now I'm afraid.

After the time of the two dead girls and their dead doctor (all TB cases), but before little ole' Dave came along, there was a family of people living in a house just a couple yards to the right of the graveyard. The family, the Wheelers, were quite - strange. Not anything overtly strange, but just a general creepiness. Eventually, all the Wheelers were dead, and the house was abandoned since no next of kin could be found to claim it.

Then, in the Model T era, two girls were driving through here in said car. They were in their early 20s, and the place I live was merely a couple of homesteads at the time. The weather got bad, and they needed a place to stay - the abandoned Wheeler house was perfect.

Or, not-so-perfect, as both girls were murdered by an unidentified source.

I went on a walk to check for a foundation, and I found one, with bloodstains all over the masonry of the basement.

I'm so glad I'm moving in May.


----------



## blackshirt5

Um, wow that was freaky.  I was walking around last night(I'm an insomniac, I'm suspended from Target[gonna find out my status tonight], and my family's hassling me) and I walked onto this one stretch of road near the Target; it's right by the VFW hall for Angcuru and RingXero's benefits, it's the section surrounded by woods and not very well lit, between the apartments and the VFW.  I was playing with my box cutter, cutting my forearm to keep myself awake, when I noticed two things:
1) I saw a shadowy figure dart under the bridge; now mind you, this is about midnight so who else is walking around at midnight, and what are my chances of meeting them on that road?
2) I was cutting a set of words into my forearm; I'm gonna show them to Angcuru when I go to his house in about an hour but they seem to spell out the words "WANTED DEAD" with a backwards "E" on "WANTED".  Wait a second; AUGH!  The words are actually fading off my arm; you can still see where I cut myself nearer to the elbow, but not really the words; they're a lot more indistinct than they were last time I looked at it, which was about half an hour to an hour ago.  Still, suffice to say that I took off running like an Indian at a Klan rally when I realized what my hand was doing and what I had seen; although I've seen the figure darting underneath the bridge before.

Oh, and RingXero, I work the overnight shift and my bosses don't like us talking about "bull like ghosts and hauntings", either at work or with people outside of work; I heard that they've caught some people trying to sneak into the backroom during the day and night shifts to see that stuff, although the red static used to be easy to see, it was in the electronic's department right when you walk in the door.


----------



## Angcuru

You gots problems, man.  You're supposed to punch yourself in the head, not cut your arm.


----------



## blackshirt5

My head is worth a lot more than my hands buddy; unlike you I wouldn't die of frustration of a certain nature without your hands. 

And haven't you always known that I had problems?  But carving words into my flesh was NOT one of my problems.


----------



## Amrynn Moonshadow

Great thread, btw!!!

A little bit of history, i'm a ridiculously religious person (hindu), and as it stands in my faith, paranorm / mind powers / all that junk is perfectly legit. (even ufo's fit into the cosmology of my particular branch of hinduism)

I don't want to go too long, but things like this always happen to my family.

My mom is a ridiculously empathic person. (we are usually on the brain wave deal, but partly due to use spending alot of time with each other) My dad, he is reliably clairsentient. more often than not if he has a hunch you have to listen to him. (from airplane disasters to what to study the day before an exam)

we lived in a very remote rural area. it was a good 5 hours to the city with a hospital in it. my mom was 7 months pregnant with me, and was coming in to town for a check up. she wanted to come back with dad that same night, dad said no, and that she has to stay in the hospital that night. needless to say i was born that morning around 5, mom was having a complete renal shutdown, and we both would have died had we not been in the hospital then.

other things just about my dad: he has accurately influenced the name of 95% of my cousins and siblings. (even to the point that when all the family was picking a name out of a hat for my cousin (who was just born) when he was not around they picked the name he wanted. then tried again another two times -- of course the name my dad wanted popped up each time. and after then they decided not to fool around with my dad's powers)

again, dad on the road at night in a rural area of canada (in newfoundland), mom sleeping in ottawa. (almost the distance of los angeles to milwaukee - with a body of water in between) the car he was driving was hit by a moose and he almost died. of course, mom was having a dream that night about a moose.

dad also gets 'feelings' of ancestors watching over us, and communicating to him their feelings. out of no where at breakfast he'll casually announce that his father in law visited and said things are a-ok. or whatever.

while alot of this is interesting ... it only gets more interesting.

my olderbrother used to get tons on nosebleeds as a kid. (this is usually a sign of alien abductions, along with missing time) back when we were little kids in that remote area of the world dad, and his psionic buffer wouldn't always be around. brother used to wake up in the middle of the night (3 am, btw) alot. these things would never happen if dad was around though. {also of note when i really got big into exploring ufo's etc i used to be so crazy paranoid that i would had to take medication. i would never have to when dad was around because i knew his 'powers' would protect me no matter what.}

also my dad seems to have passed on alot of things to me too. i get ridiculous deja vu, 4 out of 7 days a week. i also have some minor testible esp (as opposed to his major testible esp). no psychokinetic powers though (unfortunately). but dad and i do share a common psychic link -- similar to luke and darth vader and how they can sense each other when no logical explaination exists for them to do so.

dad lived and worked in another city. he would just drop in to visit without telling anyone. those days i'd just know not to go out, but wait for his call from the airport so i could pick him up. (not even miss empath / mom could pick up on it, but i could)

as for missing time, i think we all experience it, but are kind of told, mostly by our logical brian, to disregard it. countless times i'd wake up in the middle of the night at the same time each night. (usually 3am or 2:59 or something like that . . .) also during highschool, i suffered a head injury during a rugby match. silly things like that can jog latent talent. (esp. with it being around puberty and so forth)

after the mri's and ct scans things kept on popping up and out of my head. (but not like alien implants, just like growths in my head in areas of the brain which were ill-defined --non-traditional areas, like the underunderstood limbic system) a little after that i went through a phase where i have a very low will to live.

or something like that.

very poor will saves.

up till the end of highschool to a few years ago i'd feel crushing sensations which pinned me on my back in bed, when awake, when resting, when on the phone with my then g/f, when asleep. in my dreams i felt like i had no option but to just let things 'happen' to me. i felt hopeless. it felt like i was drowning. i just want it all to end, i wanted to just, well, i guess, die. somewhere along the line i developed this will to live and fight though. i kept reading my holybooks and meditating. i kinda also picked up on 'new age' stuff (which is actually quite old stuff -- much of it in the vedas). i turned to 'lucid dreaming'. i made it so i was able to control my brain when i felt this drowning / paralysis.

i remember (sorry i'm rambling right now) that i also felt incapable of speech, i couldn't make a sound if my life depended on it, and it lasted moments after i regained use of my limbs. it was so terrifying, i wouldn't even be able to call out for help if i needed it.

eventually all the meditation / mind power harnessing helped and i was able to immediately wake up / move about / shout out / wriggle in bed whenever it used to happen. (like mom would be cooking in the kitchen, making breakfast, and out of no where there would be this commotion upstairs) (yes, mom used to make breakfast at like 3 am . . .)

those things don't happen to me anymore. (and back when they did, didn't happen when dad was in the house)

since then i've really been trying to harness the latent ability i think all people have.

my wife and i are a bit telepathically linked, though i feel like our offspring would be so much more diluted than i myself am, from the obvious power my dad seems to have. (he's also very charismatic, making trusted friends and people willing to help him out of strangers)

as far as other stoopid stuff, well, back in the late 90's there was a dedicated miracle, as it was called, which occured to faithful hindu practicioners accross the globe. in india, the us, canada, uk, australia and africa sold stone, bronze, marble, etc statues of the various avatars of Hindu gods and godesses began to attain a funny ability. if offered holy water / or milk from a spoon to their mouths the statue would 'drink' it.

funny stuff.

absurd stuff.

and it happened to me too. of course, the first few tries failed misrably. (going in order of the Gods one must when performing rituals) after a while i said "c'mon..." at how dumb my luck was. here i was, trying to get some miracle to happen, feeling stupid. and so forth. i got to the statue of the Lord Shiva (Shankar, Mahadev, Bolenath...) and took a deep breath. the day hindus are supposed to devote to the Lord Shiva is monday. i was born on a monday. i was also named after one of the avatars of shiva. his sacred mountain in the Hymaliayas has a naturally occuring formation which is also his symbol. he is also supposed to be really really easy to please.

regardless of my past failures i was going to go on with my ritual. of course, because God felt my faith waning, the statue of the Lord Shiva drank the purified offering i gave him.

cool stuff, huh?

too bad i didn't really go nuts over it like i should have. i felt more like homer simpson in the 'poochie' episode where he is auditioning for the part of poochie. "ooh, so i get the job now, huh?"

i pretty much said aloud in english (ceremony i was performing was in sanskrit) "OOhh, so now you drink the milk, eh?"

=========================

anyway, regarding the people who get the flickering of street lights  . . . usually happens to very positive people, upbeat people, usually to people who have something like a 'guardian angel' over them, but not mutually exclusive to those people.

all people do radiate a specific 'aura'. yours just is attuned to something more electro-positively charged i guess . . .

all this psi/ghost/ufo/parapsych stuff is fascinating, and with the internet there is alot of info on it, if people are really interested in it.

check out

http://www.rense.com

archives are great, also has live streaming radio programs with jeff rense. good stuff.

and thanks again for starting this thread.


----------



## Angcuru

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> *And haven't you always known that I had problems?  But carving words into my flesh was NOT one of my problems. *



You have more problems than a Sand Merchant in the Gobi Desert.


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## Amrynn Moonshadow

Afrodyte ... those things (esp the music issue) happens to me too.

I will 'hear' a song out of nowhere in my ears mins before it happens, and then the song will come on.

and i hardly ever listen to the radio either.

othertimes i just hear past conversations and future conversations in my ears. i'll be at home and say "what do you mean you didn't think it was important!" to the wife, of course she didn't say anything. but a few days after that she'd say something, explain about not getting an oil change or whatever, and i'd kind of have to stop myself from saying that phrase i blurted earlier.

also of note is that i've been getting seizures of late. think i have to get another mri soon . . . something else happening in my / to my brain. i used to think i was in the middle of an earthquake, but nothing else in the room would move. very interesting stuff.


----------



## hellbender

Not to argue at all the Shadow People, but from seeing people's pictures on the website and hearing various stories and theories, not everyone has a similar experience, and the Shadow People are very different to different people. I looked at the pictures and didn't have a reaction until I saw the picture that made my blood freeze, then I contacted the person and they told me what had happened to them, and it was so similar to what I had experienced that went a shade paler.

    Ouija Boards. Ok, here is the story I held back because it is way too out there. In High School (back in the Stone Age, aka the '80's) I went out with this cute blonde, dumber than a post, but hey, that wasn't the point back then. Anyway, I got her a Ouija Board for a gift and she got into it. Way too much. This girl could barely spell her name, but when she was on the Ouija she could write like a pro. I used to sit and watch fascinated as she wrote down what the board said. Then somehow, she contacted this woman on it. And people started seeing this woman around me, not druggies, people at parties, people totally sober with no knowledge of any of these events. She wasn't exactly a woman, but something else. I draw, and began drawing her and writing about her. In Creative Writing class, I was the only person the teacher ever had get in front of the class and read my presentations, all about this woman. Things started getting out of hand, and I had to get away from it all, I took back the Ouija and had it burned. It let out a wail as it went down in flames. She was known as Lady Sin. A few years later, I was in a comic shop and almost had a heart attack, there was a comic by a company called Chaos! named Lady Death, and she was a dead ringer for Lady Sin, down to the colorless eyes. And the scariest part? Maybe it is coincidence, but I can prove that I drew and wrote of the character, for my little high school in nowhere Idaho had a small press, and we printed up a little book, with a story and picture of Lady Sin in it. 


hellbender


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## Afrodyte

I can't believe I forgot this one, and it happened to my mother.

When she was younger (a teenager I believe) her paternal grandmother died.  They were really close, so she took it very hard.  Because of that loss, she had a crisis of faith, and for a time didn't believe much of anything.  Now, one day while she was cleaning dishes or some other chore, a bar stool slid across the floor.  I don't mean like wobbled a couple of inches, I'm saying it moved about a foot and a half or two feet, like something out of _Poltergeist_.  I don't recall if she was thinking about her grandmother at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was.

Needless to say, Mom had no more problems believing.


----------



## weiknarf

Black Eyed Kids


----------



## s/LaSH

Here's a couple more I've remembered.

My brother and other relatives can't wear battery-powered watches. The power goes off - within hours, I believe. This is probably related to that whole electrical aura thing; see my previous story about said brother zapping my sister from a distance just by waving his hands.

More seriously, I've pulled a Ben Kenobi and felt a great disturbance in the Force... note first that I live in New Zealand, time zone +12 (or thereabouts, around 18 hours ahead of the USA) for reasons that will become clear. One night a couple of years ago, about 1 or 2 am, I was lying in bed, quite asleep, when I was half-awakened by what I thought was the sound of an explosion followed by the pattering of debris. I was really tired, put it out of my mind and went back to sleep. Imagine how freaked I was when I woke up on September 12th the next day and discovered the news.

Strangely, ever since I haven't been as nervous looking at aeroplanes flying overhead.

Then there are the stories I've heard from my parents, like when my father was with the Army Engineers in the Solomon Islands in a tiny little dinghy with a couple of other soldiers trying to land on a beach somewhere in, like, ten metre swells (that's about 30 feet). They actually succeeded, against all odds, but my mother (then presumably just a friend, as he was in the army as a fully ordained Catholic chaplain) had a really bad feeling at that point (3000km away) and _his_ mother said she saw two officers walking up the path to her front door at the same time, but when she looked again they were gone (again, 3000 km or so away, but in a section of country 200km away). When quizzed on their appearance later, she described the officers who would have been sent to inform her of her son's death. Indicating, of course, that I'm rather lucky to be alive right now.


----------



## Grim

When I was at a summer camp up near Redding, CA, the camp leader guy told us the tale of the Red Lady, whom many of the councilers and campers have year after year wandering the camp.

See, one of the current buildings stands on the foundation of what used to be a... "bath house." One night, a woman of ill repute was falsly acused of cheating a miner and his friends, and late in the night they raped and killed her. They threw her in the small river that runs through the middle of camp, and when she was found the next morning, her blood had soaked into her clothing and turned it bright red. The Madam had her burried, bloody clothing and all, next to the bath house.

Now she roams the night appearing as either a woman in smoky red clothes, or two red eyes, and if any man stares straight at them, when they fall asleep she will hang over them as they dream, torturing them for what they did to her.

I never saw the Red Lady, but... I could have.


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## Amrynn Moonshadow

lots of people around the world were 'antsy' to call it that pre 9-11.

i remember i really didn't want to go to work, and was basically acting like an animal does before an earthquake, etc . . .

though, i guess by 'a lot' i'm talking about around 200 / 6 billion. so that's not really alot then.

cool stories everyone, keep posting!


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## alsih2o

i was flying from an francisco to nashville once and my flight got cancelled so they routed em first class through dallas. as we switched planes in dallas donnie and marie osmond got on and sat near me. marie looks like anyone else, but donny is realy kinda tough and scary looking in real life.


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## LGodamus

I have an odd experience as well but I only have vague memories of it nowadays. The holes in what I remember of it were filled in by my mother, as I apperently told everyone if the living room at the time of the incident....
I used to live on a 400 acre farm in rural Virginia and one of my duties was feeding the horses in the evening. The barn was about a quarter of the mile from the house, but vision of it was obscured by a large hill between the two. I think it was late fall around 1987 or so, it was just a regular night I had fed the horses and cleaned up a mess I had made earlier in the day and started towards the house with my dog Joe. I feel like it was darker than it should have been, but that could be a part of my hazy memory. Anyway less than half way home I was ambushed by an odd looking humanoid creature unlike anything I have ever seen, but when I try to recall it now I cannot even remember anything ..no details whatsoever. The thing rushed out of a copse of trees and attemted to grab me as I tried to dash away. It managed to get its hands on me from behind and it began to pick me up, but my dog..a large half german shepard timber wolf mixbreed, attacked the thing.....and I ran full tilt towards my house. I ran directly indoors and told my mom and dad. At first they didnt believe me till they saw my pants were torn and stained ...but the tears looked claw like and the stains were an odd color...then my dog came running up onto the poarch and he had a blood soaked mouth. My dad says it never happened but my mom believes me...I have mostly forgotten it. The only two things that bug me about it are  1. at first I thought it may have been a person in a mask, but the town I grew up in is extremely small and we knew everyone by name...and a person being mauled by a dog of Joes size wouldnt have gone unnoticed...and 2 I have an uncanny memory for details...I recall most of the facts of my 2nd birthday...but not any of the details of the thing that ambushed me..even though I described it exactly to my parents immediatly after the incident.....


----------



## Pillars of Hercules

*A way to find out?*



			
				Terraism said:
			
		

> *You know, I don't believe in the supernatural.  I never had, in any way, shape of form.  I'm a hard-core skeptic, for reasons that we can't get into on these boards.    But it's funny, because I trust the people here, and I can't idly dismiss all these posted events as coincidence (some of 'em are too precise for that) or misunderstanding (too exact) or made up (r: I trust these people).  [Shakes head.]  Drat and bother.  Thinking deep thoughts at midnight-thirty does odd things to my head. *




I feel basically the same way - a skeptic that can't entirely dismiss this stuff from the relatively trusted source that it this board.  However, many of these stories are "explainable" depending on circumstances.

The is a skeptic society of some kind (can't remember the name, but I imagine they have a web site) that offers a $1 million dollar reward for verifiable proof of the supernatural.  So far, no one has been able to collect.

In all seriousness, maybe some of the folks in this thread (the red blood plasma walls and/or the haunted Target, for instance), might want to take a shot at it!  It would at least be interesting to see what the skeptics would make of whatever they could find in these haunted places.

To add to the thread (although this is not supernatural), my brother suffers from night terrors.  One night when we were on vacation he was fishing late (4am or so), and my mom heard some kids yelling in the night.  

She went down to check on my brother, and it turns out he had already gone to bed.  She leaned over him and said "Are you ok, I heard someone scream?"  Later, my brother said that a dark figure leaned into his field of vision and said "I can kill you once in your dreams!"  Note how the two phrases rhyme.  

Anyhoo, my brother came out of the bed and attacked her in self-defense (my family is way more into "fight" than "flight," even where demons are concerned), knocking her backwards.  She hit her head on a table, was cut, and quite a lot of blood was shed (superficial but nasty looking wound).  

I heard all this and charged down the stairs, intending to grab a kitchen knife and ready to fight to the death (again, my whole family is fanatical, what can I say).  I never made it to the kitchen because of the bizarre sight I encountered - my brother pinning my mom down and clearly attacking her.  The chilling thing was, he wasn't using his hands - he was trying to bite out her throat like some primal wolf-thing.  Creepy.

Anyway, we got my bro off my mom, he woke up, and promptly freaked out over what happened.  Mom needed a stitch or two, but came through fine.  We've never spoken of it again.


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## Samnell

> The is a skeptic society of some kind (can't remember the name, but I imagine they have a web site) that offers a $1 million dollar reward for verifiable proof of the supernatural. So far, no one has been able to collect.




The James Randi Educational Foundation. www.randi.org


----------



## Gothmog

Originally posted by Amrynn Moonshadow:


> i remember (sorry i'm rambling right now) that i also felt incapable of speech, i couldn't make a sound if my life depended on it, and it lasted moments after i regained use of my limbs. it was so terrifying, i wouldn't even be able to call out for help if i needed it.




This is basically a clinical definition of hyponogogic dreaming.  People usually grow out of it, or experience it during stressful periods of their life.  Bascially, the brain is asleep, but thinks it is awake.  However, some aspects of REM sleep are active (paralysis, not able to speak, heavy feeling), which many people liken to being held down.


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## Bob5th

I'll try to post my UFO experience tommorrow and one of my creepy cool experiences.  But I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight after reading all of this.


----------



## hellbender

Samnell said:
			
		

> *
> 
> The James Randi Educational Foundation. www.randi.org *




   Actually, there is a girl clairvoyant that they make excuses not to pay. It is not the fact that there is nothing to prove, it is that they find reasons not to pay. Which opens up the theory that they do believe that there are supernatural occurences and that they are getting the people to perform them so that they can get the people to work for them. The source of the little girl is the Coast to Coast show, Randi is a bit of an eccentric oddball. Who really knows what he is up to? To much weird stuff happens for people to not be able to prove unnatural abilities. There has to be more than one Wolf Messing on the planet.


hellbender


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## Rathan

Qlippoth said:
			
		

> *
> At a young age (7 or 8 or so) I had trouble sleeping--the only time I felt tired enough to sleep would inevitably end up in episodes where there would be a roaring sound in my ears accompanied with an inability to move.*




(This is not Rathan, this is Kamard)

Holy crap.

I was just reading through this thread idly, and reading that reminded me of my own night times when I was but a child, things I had completely blocked out.

Every night I heard deafening wave-like rushing sounds that got louder and louder as I lay there, and in my visions the darkness looked like static and I could vaguely percieve skulls and skeletons and ghosts cavorting about in this darkness, coming toward me and hovering in my field of vision before moving out of it again.

In later years I realized that that sound all those years ago was the rush of my own blood moving through my ears, and as I got more and more scared, my heart beat harder, making the sounds louder and faster! 

I feel like I was very much young and foolish at the time, but still, I wonder...why was I always unable to get the patterns out of my vision, even if I closed my eyes?


----------



## haiiro

weiknarf said:
			
		

> *Black Eyed Kids
> *




This absolutely belongs in a game. Just enough detail to make it believable, but vague enough to let you fill in the details -- and very, very creepy.

I started reading this thread (which is excellent) and sifting through memories to see if I had any stories that qualified. I do, but just one:

In the summer of 1993 I did a 3 week Outward Bound course in North Carolina. One of the last things we did was a half-marathon trail run (probably about 14 miles, including elevation changes), and after 3 weeks of hiking, rock climbing and whitewater canoeing, I was in great shape for a run. I made it a personal goal to run the entire way -- no stopping, and no walking.

The area we were in was pretty hilly, and with people of different fitness levels everyone who did the run pretty much did it solo after the first couple of miles, as we were fairly spread out. About halfway through, I was cresting a large hill, tired but not loopy-tired, and off to my left I saw a flash of white among the foliage (low ground cover and tall grass in a low-density forest).

I was still running, and I probably only looked right at it for about 1 or 2 seconds. It was large, about the size of a gorilla, with stark white fur, and it seemed to be facing me. It looked roughly ape-like, too, with large black eyes that showed intelligence, a large head, and long, bulky arms. It was crouched about 50 feet away, and I was past it almost before I registered what I had seen -- the only thing I remember being certain of was that it was _not_ a deer.

I ran like hell, terrified, not even daring to glance behind me and convinced that it was going to be loping after me. After putting maybe a hundred yards (and some bends in the trail) between me and it, I did slow down and look back. I didn't see anything, and I didn't hear anything beyond my own footfalls (I still wasn't going to stop).

After getting out of that section of the trail, I didn't worry too much about it. I finished the run in about 2 hours, and walked it off by the pond at the "finish line." I asked the person who had finished shortly before me if he had seen anything odd in that section of the trail, and he said no. I described it to one of the instructors, and he said it sounded like I had seen the back end of a whitetail deer -- the ones with white hindquarters. I wasn't too worried about it at that point, and I pretty much left it at that.

That's not what I saw, though, and there's nothing I'm aware of that lives in the hills of North Carolina that looks like what I did see. I can think of all sorts of plausible reasons that I might have seen one thing -- something reasonable -- and thought I had seen another: endorphins, my tendency to scare easily, a vivid imagination, my emotional state, etc. As I would guess is always the case with things like this, though, none of them square quite right with me.

Not so odd compared to some of the stories others have told so far, but it still creeps me out when I think about it. 

Edit: I should probably add that I was 16 in 1993, which makes me less likely to dismiss this than I might be if I had been younger at the time.


----------



## Abigail

Hope you all don't mind me joining in on this discussion, I thought you would be interested.
I've had unusual experiences all of my life. Probably due in no small part to my family being very open in regards to matters of the spirit. 
But some of the strangest stuff happened in my teens. I met a girl who was so much like me that it seemed we developed a bond almost instantly. We used to do everything together.
We both were interested in magick, and started doing stuff like seances and medium work. At the time, I was living in an old haunted house out in the rural middle of nowhere, with old abandoned houses in the fields nearby. My friend and I constantly saw two little girls playing in the front yard of one of the abandoned houses closest to us, and we would also see a shadowy figure of a man at the window, watching them. It was creepy, but after what I had experienced in my life, it was not out of the ordinary.
It was when we started doing seances and playing with a ouija board and doing medium work that things started getting nasty. I would awake in the middle of the night with a dark presence in my room, not being able to cry out or move until I passed out. Handprints would appear on the walls of the hallways. I would hear someone in heavy boots walking up and down the hallway at night, and when I asked my family, they swore that it was not them. I would have scratches all over my chest, stomach and back when I woke in the mornings, some dep enough to bleed. During the medium work, I would see faces blend over my friends face, and feel a presence enter the room. I would hear someone call my name in another room, when no-one else was in the house. 
I think the scariest thing was that one night my friend was sleeping over, and we both had the exact same dream at the exact same time. We both dreamt that we were standing, looking out of my window, and the two little girls were tapping on the glass from the other side. When I asked them what they wanted, they told us that we had to let them in. I awoke with a start, and heard my friend gasp, and when I asked her if she was awake, she told me that she had had a dream of the two little girls wanting to come in. Needless to say, we were both scared, and decided to sleep in the loungeroom.
These occurances didn't cease until I moved home. I don't know who lives there now, but I would love to know if they have had any trouble.


----------



## haiiro

Abigail said:
			
		

> *Hope you all don't mind me joining in on this discussion, I thought you would be interested.*




Welcome to the boards, Abigail.  You picked an interesting thread for your first post.


----------



## Speaker

All right, I'm reading this thread, feeling the chills go up and down my spine...  Turn left, and there's a doll (glassy eyes and all) someone left sitting on the cabinets, staring at me.  Great, thanks.  Now I'll never sleep again.  And I don't want to get up and move it, in case it bites something or me.  Brrr.

Having lived in Indonesia for five years, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the nature of the spirit world.  You cannot go five feet without running into a ghost story, or so it seemed.  One of the local houses in the neighborhood I lived in was haunted, and people would come from all the city districts to see it.  One day after a particularly widespread story got loose, the traffic was backed up all day as people came, and saw, and left.

Then there is the _Jeruk Purut_ cemetery - not the place to hang around at night.

Now, the local magicians, I have seen.  And they have some tricks up their sleeve to make a hardened skeptic to do a double take.  You have to wonder just how they are getting those cold, hard stone floors to light on fire.  The (arguably) greatest of them all, Didi Kabusi (sp), once did a show at the mall in which he made a friend's (analog) watch spin extra fast, and bent a spoon.  For his finale he managed to tell the same friend the exact name of her significant other – and scared her half to death.  He claimed that half his tricks were just that, but the other half...  magic.  _Kotok_.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a doll to beat around with a ten-foot pole...


----------



## RSKennan

Speaker said:
			
		

> *Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a doll to beat around with a ten-foot pole... *




And he was never heard from again.


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## Andrew D. Gable

haiiro said:
			
		

> *It was large, about the size of a gorilla, with stark white fur, and it seemed to be facing me. It looked roughly ape-like, too, with large black eyes that showed intelligence, a large head, and long, bulky arms. It was crouched about 50 feet away*




It's a nalusa falaya!  Or a skunk ape that's way too far north...

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~mboucher/mikebouchweb/choctaw/shakchi.htm


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## hellbender

Speaker said:
			
		

> *
> Having lived in Indonesia for five years, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the nature of the spirit world.  You cannot go five feet without running into a ghost story, or so it seemed.  One of the local houses in the neighborhood I lived in was haunted, and people would come from all the city districts to see it.  One day after a particularly widespread story got loose, the traffic was backed up all day as people came, and saw, and left.
> 
> Then there is the Jeruk Purut cemetery - not the place to hang around at night.
> 
> Now, the local magicians, I have seen.  And they have some tricks up their sleeve to make a hardened skeptic to do a double take.  You have to wonder just how they are getting those cold, hard stone floors to light on fire.  The (arguably) greatest of them all, Didi Kabusi (sp), once did a show at the mall in which he made a friend's (analog) watch spin extra fast, and bent a spoon.  For his finale he managed to tell the same friend the exact name of her significant other – and scared her half to death.  He claimed that half his tricks were just that, but the other half...  magic.  Kotok.
> *




   In Tebing Tinggi they called it ketok, but whatever the exact spelling, it is weird as all get out. I never saw the firestarters, but I had heard of them. One of the old Chinese Magicians (Sumatra has a large amount of Chinese people, there are a lot of stupid racial tensions there, but that is another story, not for these boards) showed me a weird trick to do using one of the trigrams from the I-Ching. While strange, most people I have shown this trick to can do it as well (it is inward and entirely mental, not an outward trick).

h e l l b e n d e r


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## Kamard- Arcanaloth

hellbender said:
			
		

> *
> One of the old Chinese Magicians showed me a weird trick to do using one of the trigrams from the I-Ching. While strange, most people I have shown this trick to can do it as well (it is inward and entirely mental, not an outward trick).
> *




Can you describe it?


----------



## hellbender

Kamard- Arcanaloth said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Can you describe it? *




   The technique is a weird sort of regression. Simply picture in your mind the 49th hexagram (ko) of the I-Ching upon  a door in your mind. Then mentally open the door and walk through. I find it easiest to draw out the figure, stare at it to get a good impression, and mentally paint it upon a door then push the door open. One aspect is that for me, every time I do this, it is a wooden door underground. I have only had to be restrained once, some people go berserk, some have pleasant experiences. I learned through later investigation that this was used as a form of past life regression by budding psychologists of the early portion of the last century. It is thought of as an experiment in atavism. 

     Try this at your own discretion if you wish, in a quiet area when you are relaxed. Don't come hunting me down if you go into a berserker rage, think you are a feral animal or a neanderthal and start biting people. It takes a few tries to get through the door for most people, and is a somewhat weird experience that I have seen skeptics come out of with strange memories of their journey through their own heads. 

    To find an example of the hexagram, go to a place like:

http://users.lmi.net/~tlc/iching/

    And look for #49 on the grid, ko, revolutionary change. I suggest drawing it onto paper and doing the experiment while lying down and relaxed, with as few distractions as possible. It would be interesting to hear back from people who try it and get something.


      I am not responsible for the weird stuff in your head. 


hellbender


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## Ashwyn

hellbender said:
			
		

> *
> 
> The technique is a weird sort of regression. Simply picture in your mind the 49th hexagram (ko) of the I-Ching upon  a door in your mind. Then mentally open the door and walk through.
> hellbender *



I did something similar to this, in an attempt to learn about my past lives. What I have uncovered amazed and scared me. If I am not insane, and what I have seen is all real(which I believe it is), there are some incredible and terrifying things out there, and down here. There are far too many things for me to decribe here, but I will say that after what I've seen(and felt), I could make a horror movie that could terrify anyone. If specifics are wanted, feel free to e-mail me. I'd be interested to compare notes with anyone who has had a similar experience as this. 

I'm also very empathic, and tend to syphon feelings from other people, whether I'm physically near them or not. My own emotions also tend to be magnified as well. There have been many instances in which I have sensed how people have felt, despite them acting to the contrary.

There have been other things which I'll post when I remember them.


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## Bjorn Doneerson

Alright I got three things.  

1.  Electronics hate me.  Last summer especially.  Phones calls wouldn't go through ("the call cannot be completed as dialed") even though I dialed the correct number.  And tried again.  Like Five times.  And could see the number on the tiny screen of the phone.  The computer would crash whenever I used it.  On one Occasion I walked into a room and the TV went all staticy.  It worked again shortly after I left the room.  This actually sounds like it could be the same phenomena as street lights, but I don't do alot of late night walking so I don't know if I'd do that.  

2.  I have prophetic dreams.  Usually of TV shows and Conversations I'll have.  They are in exact detail, including the thoughts I will have at the time, which involve me being freaked out, trying to alter my thoughts against what I dreamt, and being freaked out again that no matter how hard I try I cannot think something I didn't predict I'd think.  Also, one time I dreamt of having a conversation in which someone said to me "You know I had a dream about this talk last night." and I just had to say "Yeah me too."  

3.  My house smells funny.  The house used to belong to my mother's grandfather, who died in the house.  My great-grandfather had a very distinctive smell.  I can't possibly describe it, cause I don't know of anything else similar.  Sometimes me and my family come home and the house has that smell.


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## haiiro

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *It's a nalusa falaya!  Or a skunk ape that's way too far north...*




The description of the Nalusa Falaya doesn't really fit, but that was a nifty link. I <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=skunk+ape">Googled skunk ape</a> (which I had also never heard of), and quite enjoyed some of those links as well. Both would make pretty good game elements.


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## Gnarlo

Here's a good one from the web today, guess the guys with boards wanted to make something more challenging than crop circles...

cloud circles


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## dave_o

So, I tried the I-Ching diagram, and this is what I saw:

I walked toward a white, marble door with the 49th hexagram etched into it in black. There were marble columns extending to either side, and though I couldn't see the sky - I knew it was incredbily blue. I reached out, and took the iron ring in the door in my hand, to open it. And inside was just vast, endless, white and gold light.

So what's that mean?


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## Bob5th

Ok most of these aren't that weird I guess. But I figure I might as well share.

Well talking about dolls the room I'm in now has about 40 dolls hanging all over the walls it's kinda of creepy actually. Which is why I don't sleep in here.

There is a picture in the hall in my house that no matter wich way you look at it from it's looking back at you. It's a painting of Jesus by the way. And I have a nother painting of Jesus in my room that is the exact same as one that was shown on a show about crying/bleeding paintings and statues.

A few weeks ago my two younger cousins were at my house. Later that night we were all outside looking at the star but my cousins were out in the yard trying to catch some fireflies. Joking around with them I said "Watch out for the bears." As soon as I finished both of my dogs started barking furiously at nothing. Ok this one was more funny than spooky but it's a bit odd that I said it at exactly the right time.

Ok for my UFO one. I was driving home at about 2:00am when I saw a yellow-orange sphere about the size of the Moon in the sky at about a 70 degree angle. It kind of shrunk like it was flying away. I dismissed it to being tired and seing the moon go behind a cloud. About 5-10 minutes later I saw the same thing again but this time it was only at a 45 degree angle. I quickly lost site of it after going around a curve. After a few more curves I caught site of it again at about 30 degrees. I never had site of it for more than a few seconds at a time and I never saw it after the third time.

Hope I didn't waste your time with this.


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## hellbender

dave_o said:
			
		

> *So, I tried the I-Ching diagram, and this is what I saw:
> 
> I walked toward a white, marble door with the 49th hexagram etched into it in black. There were marble columns extending to either side, and though I couldn't see the sky - I knew it was incredbily blue. I reached out, and took the iron ring in the door in my hand, to open it. And inside was just vast, endless, white and gold light.
> 
> So what's that mean?  *




  Sounds like a very positive experience. Did you plunge inside? See if there was anything in deep? Sometimes the vastness is a screen. Did anything seem Greek or Roman in architecture?

hell bender


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## Bjorn Doneerson

Are there any web sites about this I ching thing, and people's experiences?  I tried to google it, but didn't have any luck.


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## dave_o

hellbender said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Sounds like a very positive experience. Did you plunge inside? See if there was anything in deep? Sometimes the vastness is a screen. Did anything seem Greek or Roman in architecture?
> 
> hell bender *




The columns were markedly Corinthian, so I'm guessing Roman in nature. I got the distinct impression that this place was sort of set away from civilization, maybe an isolated temple or something. I walked inside, the vastness was sort of dualistic - cold and warm, wet and dry, it was strange - but I enjoyed it. 

As a note, I'm, as far as religion goes, Taoist.


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

Bob5th said:
			
		

> *Well talking about dolls the room I'm in now has about 40 dolls hanging all over the walls it's kinda of creepy actually. Which is why I don't sleep in here.*




Is it the porch in _House of 1000 Corpses_?  The movie sucked, but that porch creeped me out.


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## hellbender

Bjorn Doneerson said:
			
		

> *Are there any web sites about this I ching thing, and people's experiences?  I tried to google it, but didn't have any luck. *




    As far as I know, there aren't any websites regarding the I-Ching being used this way. I do not know if other hexagrams have the same effect as I only try #49. But if enough people try it and get back to me, I could cobble something together. I don't want to hijack this thread with this one thing too much as it is a great thread as is.


h e double hockeysticks bender


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## hellbender

dave_o said:
			
		

> *
> 
> The columns were markedly Corinthian, so I'm guessing Roman in nature. I got the distinct impression that this place was sort of set away from civilization, maybe an isolated temple or something. I walked inside, the vastness was sort of dualistic - cold and warm, wet and dry, it was strange - but I enjoyed it.
> 
> As a note, I'm, as far as religion goes, Taoist. *




     Try it all you want and get back to me regarding it if you want to. My girlfriend is a semi-staunch Catholic from Spain and was a strong skeptic before she met me. Now she sees ghosts, understands D&D is really not so bad, and she has tried this I-Ching exercise and has seen herself in another time, walking on cobblestones down to a lake, and she swears it felt as real as if she were there. Like a lucid dream.

benderofhell


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## Tarrasque Wrangler

*bump*

Keep 'em coming.  This is awesome stuff.


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## Samnell

hellbender said:
			
		

> *Try it all you want and get back to me regarding it if you want to. My girlfriend is a semi-staunch Catholic from Spain and was a strong skeptic before she met me. Now she sees ghosts, understands D&D is really not so bad, and she has tried this I-Ching exercise and has seen herself in another time, walking on cobblestones down to a lake, and she swears it felt as real as if she were there. Like a lucid dream. *




Didn't do anything for me, and I was hoping for a berserk rage. Quite the let down.


----------



## hellbender

Samnell said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Didn't do anything for me, and I was hoping for a berserk rage. Quite the let down. *




    Sorry to hear that  I have gotten the rage once, and it wasn't all that bad........


Keep trying!
benderofhell


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## mistergone

I can't say offhand that I've ever experienced anything out-and-out supernatural or unexplainable. Nothing that I can't chalk up to having bouts of hyper intuition or even just being sort of intuitive or having a very active imagination. 

When I was a kid, I was very scared all the time, especially at night, of all the usual kid-stuff, like monsters in the closet and ghosts. I can't remember specifically anything though that ever happened that wasn't just part of a kid's overactive imagination. I think once I sleep-walked and tried to pee in the kitchen garbage can. What unholy force compelled me to do this, I cannot say for sure. These days, I still get jumpy but I like the night time and I'm pretty sure I'm the scariest thing in the dark. 

My ouija board dabbling never produced anything really cool or scary, except one time my cousins and I got a name or some woman. We also tried to get lotto numbers. The spirits are pretty stingy with that sort of thing... but names? They give out names like candy at Halloween.

I've had some very minor brushes with psychic type phenomena. Like I said, I chalk it up to spurts of intuition. Sometimes I am totally blindsided, however, so I can't say I have any special innate sense. But there was the time I was at my aunt's house and her "boyfriend" at the time had sent her a birthday card, and I made some wise crack about him inclosing naked pics of himself with the card. Well, sure enough... but then see, I knew this guy was kinda freaky anyways.

I think a lot of this type of thing is due in part to the power of suggestion, which is very powerful indeed. I had this former roommate/friend who belong to the Berkely Psychic Institue, or similar, which was also a church. He supposedly has all kinds of abilities, and I never really has any reason to doubt him. One time I had a headache and he "cured" it by passing his cupped hands by my head and having me think of something, and indeed the pain melted away, only to come right back when I was surprised that it had worked. He did a few other things, just minor predictions, but nothing super solid that made me think I would see him levitating in the living room or anything. He did have several good stories though.

I really want to believe in a lot of this kind of stuff. Well the good stuff at least. I think I could do without evil entities and black-eyed kids harassing me. I like to think that we have some kind of control over a lot of things that go on around us, sort of a "will to power". Like, for instance, I was chatting with a friend online and she commented she had a headache. So I told her to put her head against her monitor for a couple minutes and I would try to remove the pain. She said she would, and I really did think about her, visualize her, try to see the pain as a cloud, see it lifting out of her, etc... And you know, when it was done she said she did feel better, and strangely, I had a slight headache. I'd like to think the psychic powers were good at more than curing headaches, but I figure, hey, at least it's something. And if that's possible, then who knows?

A lot of it could very well have to do with where you are in your life and what state of mind you are in. I think we can be convinced of certain things and are more susceptible to suggestions when we are particularly emotional. Of course, this doesn't account for all things unusual, but certainly when I've been depressed in the past I was more likely to blame things on mysterious forces than just the usual way of reality.

So I don't know... I really hope and I kinda think there is more to the world than just what we can see with our eyes, but until I experience something really convincing personally, I think I will let a little bit of skepticism be my shield from the unknown.


----------



## mistergone

I forgot to mention I have the uncanny power to kill threads...


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## Drkfathr1

I've experienced Night terrors/sleep paralysis/hag attacks myself. I had them alot when I was younger, thankfully I haven't had any in years. Mine were always accompanied by the sound of children screaming...louder and louder and louder. quite disturbing. 

I also have semi-prophetic dreams. I say semi- because its always minor stuff. People and places that I meet or go to later. Never anything major, but enough to be noticeable. I used to tell a friend of mine about them and then watch him freak out during the day as we say people I dreamt about. 

There have been a few times that I've felt a cat that passed away brushing up against my ankles. That's actually kind of comforting, if not sad.


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## Darth Shoju

Hmm...I'm afraid I don't really have much to contribute on par with the black-eyed kids or dave-o's stuff, but I guess I'll toss it in. I grew up on a farm that was established at the turn of the century (the barn eventually went up in 1921) and before that there had been trappers and stuff living in the woods seasonally. The people who established the farm, before the built the main house, lived in a cabin in a bush-that I used to play in a lot   -about 100' from where the main house is now. The father of the family had a brother who lived with them and "wasn't quite right" by legend (what this means I have no idea as no one around there can or will say much more than that). Apparently he used to have some sort of fits during which they'd lock him in a side room until they were done. Well, one night he ended up dying from one of those fits somehow.

Now, all throughout my life at the main farmhouse (the cabin was nothing more than a vague depression and some old wood out in the bush) things allways had a tendency to go missing. Usually if you put some little thing down (tv remote, keys, wallet, etc) it wouldn't be where you left it, so you'd search high and low only to find it again, often not far from where you'd leave it. My parents always jokingly said that "Geordie, the ghost in the attic" was doing it (Geordie was the man who established the homestead) I never really believed them,  always just chalking it up to forgetfullness. That, and they never actually told me the part about Geordie's wacko brother who died until I was like 20 ( I moved out when I was 17), so I had no reason to suspect a ghost of anyone. Well, when I finally did hear the story I viewed those disappearances quite differntly. I also started recalling other strange stuff that happened in that house that I had shrugged off.

One of the creepiest was when I was a kid, I shared a bedroom with my little sister (we had bunk beds). Our room was on the main floor, and had a window that faced the woods that contained the aforementioned cabin across the yard (although we didn't know that at the time). In front of those woods was my dad's machine shed, and he had a tendancy to leave a radio on in there all day and night at times (he'd just forget to turn it off). I remember often I'd be lying in my bed trying to sleep and hear very faint voices that seemed to be coming from outside. My sister could hear them too. We ignored them for several nights, until finally one night we called our mom in to listen. She heard the noise, but said it was just dad's radio. Well, next morning I ask if my dad left the radio on and he said no. I'm not certain on this, but I think one night before we headed in to the house I made sure that radio was off, but heard the sounds again. I dunno how I got to sleep but I guess I wrote it off somehow. A couple years later when I was older I moved into my own room and my sister stayed in that room. I remember her being terrified to sleep in there, as she kept saying she was afraid someone was going to come in from outside to get her. 

That house was also bad to be in alone. Regardless of the time of day, if you were in the basement you could occasionally hear someone walking upstairs. Now, we had cats in the house, but the floors weren't _that_ creeky. Also, you'd occasionally get the most paranoid, nervous feeling you were being watched. 

Heh, I know, not the most terrifying experiences, but that's one of the main ones. This post is getting pretty long so I'm gonna write the rest up in a new one.


----------



## Darth Shoju

The only other ghost (of course, it may not have been supernatural at all...I'm undecided about it or my previously mentioned experiences) experience I ever had was at my friends' house here in the city. They were neighbors of mine from out in the country, and their grandpa had died and left them a house in the city. We all moved into Winnipeg to go to university and they moved into the house with a room mate. Well, summer before school I'm over there helping them move furniture. It was quite warm outside and inside as well, as the house wasn't air-conditioned at all. I was standing in the hallway when I started feeling incredibly cold. I backed up into the living room and was hot. I moved forward back into the hall toward the bathroom and got really cold again. Suddenly I got the most terrified feeling, like fingers of ice up my spine, and had to retreat to the living room. I was completely confused, and wasn't thinking ghost at all at the time. I looked for a vent or fan or something and couldn't find one. I was speaking to my friend later and the topic came around to his grandpa. Apparently the poor old guy had died in the bathroom of a heart-attack, and they found him in the tub. Well, when I realized that the hallway I had felt the chill in led to the bathroom ( a mere 5 feet or so away) I was pretty creeped out by it. Never had another problem in that house though ( and I went over a lot too). 

My fiance says she has seen ghosts on several occasions when she was a kid in their old house. The memories are too terrifying for her though and she refuses to tell me about them (and out of respect I don't press her on the matter). Her family is aboriginal and pretty much all of them claim to have seen "little people" in their houses. They say the little people belong to the family and follow them wherever they move too. These are all pretty darn rational people, but they swear up and down that these little people exist. They tie into some aboriginal legends, and aren't necessarily benevolent; members of the family have had good and bad experiences with them apparently. They describe them as looking like the little breath-stealing goblin from that movie _Cat's Eye_ (well, they say they don't look exactly like them but pretty close). 

To be honest, I really didn't put much stock in ghosts or the supernatural until recently, when a friend of mine who is the most practical, level-headed and skeptical person I know told me he has seen ghosts twice and his brothers and sisters did too. After that I started seeing things quite differently. 

One last one, this one to do with UFO's not ghosts. This was a story of my dad. Now I say of, as I heard from my mom when I was like 20 ( I think around the same time they told me about Geordie's crazy bro). I was talking to her about the X-files when she said, in a totally off-hand manner: "Oh, your father's seen aliens." Now, my parents are also incredibly practical people. Straight-forward farm folk really. So needless to say I was stunned. My dad does like to tell a yarn at times too, but this time he didn't tell me, it was my mom. So I went to him and said "Dad, you saw a UFO?!?". His reply was "It wasn't a UFO! It was just a huge ball of fire that flew low over my head!". Ooookay. Apparently when he was a teenager he was driving his convertable home down the country roads late at night when a ball of fire flew right over his head, low and at a great speed. My dad's of the philosophy that he won't believe or disbelieve in something until it can be proven to him one way or another. So he won't speculate on whether or not it was a UFO or not. To him it was a ball of fire until someone can prove otherwise. 

Not only was I amazed my dad had had an encounter like this, but that they hadn't told me about it for 20 years! My parents are nuts.  

That's about it for my tales. Not the scariest but I think they're a little creepy. Great thread though!

Oh yeah...my mom's also been struck by lightning twice (although the second time indirectly) and is still alive.


----------



## Rugger

I LOVE these threads when they pop up...always make it hard to go to sleep...

1. The discussion on night terrors fascinates me...when I was a kid (4 years old I think) I remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing black humanoid shapes running around my walls. I screamed and ran into my parents room, and my dad came to my rescue. I SWEAR that he saw something...he ran into my room and shouted for them to get out. When he came back out, they were gone and he was somehow shaken...when you are 4 its kinda odd to see a parent scared. It was a bunkbed, and after that night, I started sleeping on the top bunk. Strangely enough, one week later I somehow "jumped" out of the bed in the middle of the night and slammed my chin on a bureau across the room...

My mom slept through the whole thing (she brings new meaning to the term Deep Sleeper), and I am estranged from my father, so I've never really been able to ask him about it...

2. I had a girlfriend in high-school, very straight laced catholic school girl, who tried a Ouija board for the first time with me and some friends at a party. Halfway through a session she got up and ran across the room, mumbling to herself and began to scream. It was REALLY strange, as she's not an actor, and she was not the type to joke around. Someone broke the board and she stopped screaming and cried for and hour afterword. She never could tell me exactly what happened.

Keep it up folks!!

-Rugger
"I Scare!"


----------



## Grishnak

Most of my things are dream based. I recall a few quite clearly and a couple that scared the bejesus out of me!

The 1st was when I was about 7, I dreamt that I found a gold watch in a field which I lived next to, now this field had dead short grass and was well used throughout the day and night. Well the next day up I get and go look on the field and sure enough there was this old gold watch and fully working.

In my 2nd dream I dreamt there was a house on an old road which was in a poor state. I went into the house with my dad and our lodger and we checked the downstairs out with nothing much of note. So in the hallway we walked up the stairs to the balcony and on here there was this huge rug. Well the lodger went 1st and walked upon the rug and it gave way to a pit with aligators/crocodiles (Not sure which) with huge teeth, much too big for their mouths, strange that this was directly above a doorway we passed through downstairs. Anyway the dream was forgotten about and I went out on a kids adventure with some mates and ended up on a knackered road with an old abandoned house there. So we all go in and 2 of us decide to look around downstairs while the others went upstairs, next I hear this loud crash and 1 of my friends had fallen through the floor with a large rug and impaled his leg on some of the splintered wood.

The 3rd dream had me waking up with my sheets soaked in sweat and an unhealthy fear of my grandparents back door. The dream happened on the night my grandad died in hospital, I dreamt that I was at the house watching football(Soccer) and my grandad used to sit behind myself and my uncle in the hallway on an old seat. Well there was my uncle and I watching the footy when I piped up and said that grandad was watching the match and my uncle just says 'he always watches the match' anyway I turn again to look and he's gone and I can feel a draft coming from that way so I go to investigate. I get to the backdoor and see it swinging open in the wind so I move to close it, grasp the handle pull it to within 6 inches of being closed when it just stops and I feel a tug on it as though someone is holding it, I also had the feeling that the something holding it wasn't too nice as I felt really scared. The force increased and in the end pulled me off my feet and flung me into the backyard.

The last thing that happened to me and wasn't a dream was a few days after my cat had died. I saw this black cat walk down our drive towards the back garden, I ran to the backdoor and looked into the garden and there wasn't anything there. I returned to the front and checked and again there wasn't anything there. The time it took to go between the back and front wasn't great enough for the cat to go anywhere either way. In the back there is a high wall it would have had to climb up and in the front it was onto an empty road.


----------



## Grishnak

Killed the thread. Bump


----------



## carpedavid

I don't have anything really impressive. I just have one experience from when I was a kid. We lived out in the "country" so there were no streetlights, or people milling around, or cars going down the street at night. It was very quiet and dark when the sun went down - no light pollution from the city - which made it good for stargazing and for sleeping.

My bedroom was on the second floor of our house, and my bed was situated so that, when I was lying in bed, I could look down toward the foot of the bed and see the only window in my room. If I turned my head to the right, I could see directly out the door to the bedroom into the second floor hallway.

One night, I woke up out of a deep sleep - startled awake - and looked down toward the foot of my bed. Right outside the bedroom window was a stark white face floating in midair. I closed my eyes and tried to scream for my mom, but I couldn't make a sound; nor could I move my arms and legs. So I kept my eyes closed, trying to wake myself up. I eventually was able to yell for my mom, and by that time, there was nothing there.

Occasionally, after that, I would have dreams that I would wake up and see a large, dark, shadowy figure standing in the hallway. When I inevitably woke up, frightened, and did open my eyes, nothing would be there - but the dream was so vivid that I was never sure that it wasn't real.

Now I chalk it up to sleep paralysis/hypnogogic hallucination - but for years I wouldn't sleep with my curtains open. Oddly, though, I never felt comfortable being alone in that house - especially at night. When I was the last one going to bed, I would sprint up the stairs after I turned the first floor lights off - I would always get this terrifying feeling that something was waiting in the shadows.


----------



## WinnipegDragon

Let's see...  I don't have a cornucopia of things, but I have a choice few...

My sister and I were playing with a Ouija board many years ago, and it would do nice little tricks, like spelling out a word that my sister was thinking of (to prove I wasn't moving it) and vice versa.  We talked to a bunch of people, but two things stood out:

1.  One 'spirit' we talked to told us it's name wasn't really a name.  It told us to call it 'Malefactor'.  Neither of us knew what the word meant, but we looked it up after.  Various descriptions in our family dictonaries defined it as 'an evildoer' or even 'mythologically, the group of angels who left heaven to rule Hell with Satan'.  Creepy.

2.  Another 'fellow' we spoke to was friendly, but kept wanting to tell us how he died.  We asked a bunch of other questions first, and found out that he was from the south, died in the 50's etc.  When we finally asked him how he died, the wierdest thing happened.  The quarter we were using as a planchette slid very quickly, and stopped suddenly on the letter K.  It moved away VERY fast, stopped VERY fast, and rocketed again to the letter K.  You can imagine where this went.  KKKKKKKKKKK over and over, each time moving VERY fast and stopping so hard that we could barely keep our fingers on it.  We had to DRAG the quarter to 'Goodbye'.  That was the last time we ever played with a Ouija board.

Also, my Dad had an experience when he was a bellhop in a little hotel in Cobourg, Ontario.  He has never told us the story, and absolutely refuses to give us details.  He tried to tell it once, but he never could finish it.  All we know is that the police and a priest brought in a woman (screaming) and a newborn baby (crying and screaming).  They were escorted to a room and a bunch of stuff happened.  The details are (as I said) sketchy, but there were deep voices that came from nowhere, walls that bled in patterns, and welts that appeared on the baby when the priest tried to baptize it.  The police said that the father was associated with a certain gang, and had promised to deliver the baby to Satan.  My dad says he regrets telling us this now, and he said he will never tell the whole story.

Finally, my own moment of wierdness.  In grade 8, I was on a bus coming back from a class trip to Quebec City.  I lost about a half hour of time.  Everyone around me remembered what happened during that time, but I didn't.    When I realized something was 'wrong' the teacher was there shaking me awake.  The other students were fooling around, and had taken my camera and shot the flash into my open eyes, and poked me with pins.  According to them, I was just sitting there, leaning on my arm with my eyes wide open and not responding to flashes, pins or anything.  The teacher realized something was wrong, and that's when she shook me 'awake'.

I thought I just fell asleep with my eyes open, and checked my watch.  As I said, it was about half an hour.  No big deal.

When the bus got back to the school, my Mom was waiting for me.  This was odd, because I lived less than a block away form the school, and was old enough to walk home.  I got off the bus, and she told me that my Grandfather had passed away at the hospital that afternoon.  The time when he passed away was EXACTLY in the middle of my lost time...   My Grampa and I were pretty close, but I always thought something happened that day.  I only wish I could remember what...


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## Estlor

I've got some stories.  Nothing as creepy as the black-eyed kids, but interesting anyway.

First of all, I see color on black and white TVs.  Or rather, I did as a kid, as we haven't had a black and white TV since then.  We had this B&W TV in the kitchen we'd watch the news on at lunchtime before my nap (I was in kindergarden and all).  After almost a year of that I remember asking my Mom some kind of a color-related question and she gave me a funny look and told me there was no color on that TV.  I refused to believe it wasn't a color set, but everyone else in my family only saw B&W on it...

My girlfriend always tells me her TV set is haunted.  I've seen what it does.  You can be watching it, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the volume goes up or down, or (more startlingly) the channel changes without any on-screen indication of it having changed.  She says it usually goes to CNN (which she would always watch in the morning while getting ready for work).  The one time it happened to me we were watching the Cosby show on Nick at Night and she had fallen asleep.  Just before 1 am it was suddenly on Cartoon Network in time for GI Joe to start.  Odd, how it picked a show I would watch but she never would.  Now, my Dad is a bit of a gearhead when it comes to electronics, and he says the power supply is acting up, and that an electronic tuner can change channels at the slightest variance in voltage if not regulated properly, but my girlfriend claims the TV she had before this one did it too, and that one had a manual tuner on it.

My girlfriend has prophetic dreams.  Nothing dramatic, but she'll have a dream that only vague details linger.  However, sometime down the line, usually close to a year later, something happens that matches those details.  The best story of this happened quite a while back.  She had a dream about her mother (who had just survived breast cancer at the time of the dream) in the hospital surrounded by crosses.  She always thought it was odd because her mother isn't religious and the closest hospital was a community one, not a religious one.  But once during a treatment she had a needle break off in her and get lodged in the vein near her neck.  They rushed her to a hospital that specialized in this kind of thing a town over, and when she came to visit sure enough it was a Catholic hospital and her mother's room had crucifixes on three of the four walls.

And, lastly, up in Oxford they have a bit of a ghost story.  One of the back roads just inside of town has three hills before it dead curves off.  The legend is that one night a man riding a motorcycle was traveling down that road.  He cleared the first two hills, but just before going over the third he lost control of the bike and died.  On clear nights you can go down to the end of the road, turn around, and park the car.  If you flash your brights three times, a light appears down on the other side of the road.  You see it go over the first two hills, but it vanishes after that and won't come any closer.  It doesn't work in the rain, and due to the traffic in the region caused by the ghost tale they put up street lights all along the road that makes it too bright to do it anymore, but "The Light" as the call it is a bit unnerving when you see it.  I'll say this much about the place - when you drive down the road at night, no matter the weather, temperature, or time of year, it is always very foggy back there, and you can see it rise up in whisps from the ground itself.


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## Amrynn Moonshadow

good stuff guys, keep it going . . .


anyone read that news article which details cia's remote viewers in their role in the lockerbie plane crash? interesting stuff for sure.



more news from the strange from me . . .


last night i woke up in the middle of the night because and old man in my dream told me to read up on a specific medical abnoramality. very odd, but i did it. i should have been sleeping, because i am in the ER now for at least 10 more hours, but i had to get to the internet to post this.

needless to say it was a pedia surgical procedure. and of course, something i didn't know how to do.

well, a few hours ago some kid came in, and of course, i was the only doc available. yup, he had exactly what i studied the night before.

the kicker, of course, is that later on his family came to see him in the hospital. his grandfather was the man in my dream.

now i have to get back to work.


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## Darth Shoju

I got a bit more info out of my fiance this weekend. We were at her cousin's wedding and afterward went to her aunt and uncle's house. They were all quite drunk (I stayed sober as I was the designated driver) and started talking about a lot of their aboriginal beliefs (some of which involve a family member trying to kill other family members with "medicine"...basically "magical" items/tokens/whatever designed to cause bad luck; her uncle also wanted them all to refrain from drinking for four days so he could consult a medicine man as he thought the family was cursed and wanted to find out how). Well, my fiance started saying more about the "little black man" that haunts their family. I had though it looked like the goblin from _Cat's Eye_, but apparently when they said that they just meant the scene where it is hiding in the hole in the wall and all you can see is it's vague shape and glowing red eyes-my missunderstanding there. She says that when she used to see it in her room (this was her old place, she lives with me now) she is paralyzed. She says others (including two of her cousins who were there and confirmed this) have experienced this while staying at her old house. At first I was going to explain to her that sleep disorder that has been referred to in this thread, but I was hesitant when I found out that these people had never experienced this except when at this house. I gotta say I find that a little odd.

She went on to say that she thinks the shape is linked to a dream she had. In the dream she went into someone's basement (she didn't know who's it was) and saw a little aboriginal boy in a residential school uniform (I may be using the wrong term there...basically the uniforms for aboriginal kids back when they had schools on the reserves that were run by the government, not the reserve). She says the boy had large (as in much larger than a regular boy's) solid black eyes! Now, I haven't told her about that black eyed kids story on this thread as I was afraid to creep her out (she gets scared by ghost stories), so when I heard that I was quite alarmed. She says the next day she went into her friend's basement (I think for the first time) and it was the basement from her dream. She later talked to a different friend (or family member...I'm not sure which, it was loud and like 3 am) who had dreamt about a small aboriginal boy in a residential school outfit who got hit by a train. 

Now they continued to say a relative of theirs was in some sort of medicine purifying ritual during which the elders determined she had two extra spirits within her. She had to leave the medicine circle in a contrary fashion as everone else, and as she left the medicine man (not sure if that is the right term) sucked a spirit out of her elbow. He said one of the spirits in her was good, one was bad, and he wasn't sure which one he got. 

So, my fiance thinks that the two aborinal boys in the dreams are twins and her family is being haunted by the soul of the one the medicine man didn't get. Now, they were all quite drunk it is true, but the seriousness of the discussion and the consistency of their accounts was rather unnerving to me. But, I'm trying to keep an open mind on this both ways, until it is proven to me one way or another (much like my Dad's philosophy  ).


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## Voadam

WillTheBuddhist said:
			
		

> *
> 2.) This is the biggest one, and yet by all measures the smallest one. I have this weird habit of causing street lights to turn off. I know it sounds absurd, but hear me out. This happens almost EVERY SINGLE TIME I drive when street lights are on. Now, of course not every light turns off, but almost every single time I drive a light will turn off or on.
> 
> This has been going on for about 4 years or so. It happens at all times, too. 8 in the morning, 10 at night, 2 in the morning. It happens when there's a lot of traffic, when there's no traffic. Rural areas, urban areas. I've picked this apart ad naseum trying to find a pattern to it all, but I can't, and that's a big admission from someone who's mind is so pattern oriented.
> 
> My friends thought I was nuts when I told them this. But now every time I'm with them at night and a light turns off, I point it out to them. Granted, it happens to everyone, and it happens to my friends also, but this happens almost every time I go out and there's a street light on.
> 
> The only logical (?) explanation I can think of is a certain emanation or sorts that everyone has, something that I think interferes with the lights. It seems stronger in me. That's not a good or bad thing, just a thing. I know that sounds crazy, but I can't think of anything else. It's just not plausible that these are all coincidences. *




This one happens to me all the time, only it is when I am walking at night/early morning and not driving. It usually happens when the one that goes out is the closest one to me on the street.

I joke that it rates a 1 point quirk on the GURPS super powers scale.

As a superpower it is pretty lame, but as an identifier of a supernatural being it is pretty cool and I've always wanted to use it in a modern magic game like Mage.


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## daTim

A few not too notable strange things in my life

I have always had a strange connection to every dog we have owned. I generally chalked it up to spending lots of time with dogs, as I know what they are thinking, and can basicly talk to my dog. Every dog we have owned has died while I wasn't home, but every time I know instantly when they die. An example is when I was on vacation in Atlanta (250 miles away) and I suddenly just knew that my Doberman named Duke was dead. When I came home I found it out to be true, that he had died on the same day that I realized it. I have always found it strange how dogs can anticipate when their masters return 5-10 minutes before they get home, even if you return at random times during the day. 

I also wake up at 3am almost every night, and have on occasion seen the "shadow men" while being paralyzed. Most likely the REM oddity mentioned before, but that doesnt make it any less scary when it is happening 

The scaryiest thing that happened to me was playing capture the flag around 2am way out in the middle of the woods at camp. It was so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face and there were no city lights around, just starlight and moon light, but that was the point! Anyway, I was out in the woods alone when a very large dark manshaped figure approached me out of literally no where. The thing seemed like a void of light. I just stood staring at it for the longest time and decided it was in my best interest to leave it alone and just go back to the base. As soon as I thought it, the thing dropped on all fours and ran around me to cut off my retreat. Suddenly, a friend of mine came towards me from a field, to whom I called out to. I slowly backed away from the shadow thing towards my friend. I stood next to him and pointed the thing out and he saw it. We both stared, and the thing started to stand up and move away. My friend turned on his flashlight and pointed it at the now standing shadow... and it wasnt there. We pretty much agreed to not mention it to anyone, and I havent. No explination as to what the thing was. The best I can come up with is a mountain cat of some kind, but they dont live in Georgia, much less stand on 2 legs (over 6 feet tall) or dissapear into shadows when you shine a light on them. 

That black eyes kids thing is scary by the way!


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## Shadow64

First - a quick tidibt my step-Dad told me about a local legend in Papua New Guinea (if i recall correctly).  In one area of town there was an extremely sharp turn that was next to a cliff, the tales have it that a man would stand to ahead of the turn on the side of the road (like he was trying to hitch a ride) with one of the legs on his pants lifted up.  Here's the thing: The leg that you could see was a goat leg and the story has it that the man was either Satan or some evil spirit (probably depending on the religion of the person telling the story) and that if you looked at the leg that you wouldn't make the turn and you would drive off the cliff.

Second - I haven't seen anything per se - but apparently one of the houses my family used to live in in Laguna Nigel, CA was supposed to be one of the most haunted places on the west coast.  Maybe I should count myself lucky that because of the visitation schedule between my mom and dad I didn't spend more time at the place because from what I have heard some bad stuff happened there.

My mom and step-dad still won't tell me all of the stories but what they tell me I do believe and makes me want to learn more about what happened.  Here is some of the stuff they say that happened in the place:

1) A giant blue "man" would walk through the halls of the place.  The same "man" apparently could also be found standing over my bed when I was sleeping in it and had a menecing air about him the times my mother walked in and found him doing so.  I slept through the entire thing of course. (Then again, i've been through my fair share of earth quakes and slept through them too).

2) The family cats would get picked up off of whatever they were laying on and get thrown across the room.  At times this was done by an invisible force, other times it was the the blue man.

3) There were other odd things seen around the house....shapes, blurs, smears of color that would float around the place.  They didn't do anything, they would just appear and dissapear.

4)  In the master bedroom was some sort of "portal"...the story I was told was that this was were all energy came from that caused the "hauntings".  I guess some ghost hunters that my parents hired verified this two ways:  1) Their were noticible tempature drops around this portal, 2) other instruments they used to find "ghostly" activity acted scrwery around the "portal" 3) Since the portal was by a window they tried to put stuff through the window (like a ladder, pole, etc), anything that was put from the inside of the house to the outside of the house didn't appear, it went into said "portal".  My mom tells me they tried to put a 10 foot ladder through the thing and even though they had 6 feet of the ladder in the window not a lick of it showed outside the house.

5) All of the people that stayed in the house before us came to horrible fates.  Most of them became extremely ill and ended up taking the big dirt nap.  The ones that moved in after we left became very sick, but ended up moving out soon afterward and recouped.

6) Once my parents decided to get out of the house it took them almost a month to do so, not a big thing in itself, but the reasons why are off.  First, the movers they hired to move us out were in an accident on the way to the house and died.  The second set of movers got into an accident on the way to the house and their truck was totalled.  Then, when they asked family to help every car that came to the house had a problem at the house.  Everything from batteries going dead, hoses busting, belts breaking to tires being flat.

7) This isn't "paranormal" per se, but still odd.  The house was two stories, or so we all thought (even the owners of the place that we were renting it from).  Apparently there was a basement to the place that had been sealed up, the stairway to hit from the first floor covered and the doorway from the backyard had been cinder-blocked over with dirt and a flower bed put in front of it.  In other words - this thing was completely hidden.  The only way to get into it was a small access "window" like you'd find to get into a small crawl space underneath a house.  A repairman "found" it when he had to fix a pipe and i guess my step-dad also went down to check it out.  It was a large basement that was divided up into rooms with cinderblock walls, with a dirt floor, and in some of the rooms were boxes of old stuff you might find in an attic or the like - old books, old clothes, stuff like that.  He said he also felt very like there was a very oppresive "force" down there.  After his one trip he never went back down, and it was shortly afterwords that they decided to move.

From what I hear the place burned down sometime in the 90's, so I can't go back and try to get my own look at the place know that I am older.


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## wally

I have had a few interesting experiences. Mainly with ghosts.  It would probably take too long to explain them here.

I do have a good link to stories from investigators and legends.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/

Go down the page about halfway and click any of the stories.

Wally


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## daTim

Forgot to mention this, Hellbender should be interested. 

I tried the thing you described several times with no success until the other day. 

I was laying quietly and alone and had been trying to open the door, when I tried it one last time. From the begining I could tell it was different, because the room I was in was "mine" I'll describe it best I can as there are some aspects I dont understand myself. 

I am decending a wooden stair case into a half circular wood room. The floors and walls are all made of very rough wood, like railroad plank things. There is a wooden door, shoddily made which I can almost see lights through the cracks and hear whispering behind and it makes me very nervous. I raise my left hand (I'm very right handed, so it feels weird, but normal somehow) and in it there is a strange tool which I have no idea what it is. It is sort of like a knife in general shape, but instead of a blade is a sort of quarter circle of a pipe with a sharp edge and point on the end. I have no idea what this is, but its what I have. I reach up to the door and inscribe the symbol described and the whispers stop and the lights go off. When I have finished making the symbol I open the door, and the room fills with rushing violent water and I drown. I have never drowned or even had any trouble in water, so I'm not sure I know what it feels like to drown but I can feel it with every part of my body. After that there is no more image and its over. Any help would be appreciated, as I am very curious as to what the tool I am holding is... Now every time I try it that is all I can get out of it and it is very ... odd to feel drowning so I have stopped.


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## Lola

hellbender said:
			
		

> *
> Actually, there is a girl clairvoyant that they make excuses not to pay. It is not the fact that there is nothing to prove, it is that they find reasons not to pay. Which opens up the theory that they do believe that there are supernatural occurences and that they are getting the people to perform them so that they can get the people to work for them. The source of the little girl is the Coast to Coast show, Randi is a bit of an eccentric oddball. Who really knows what he is up to? To much weird stuff happens for people to not be able to prove unnatural abilities. There has to be more than one Wolf Messing on the planet.
> *




Hellbender, I'd like to see some further proof of that. I've been following the career of James Randi for years, and he's not some eccentric with more money than sense. He's actually an ex-magician ("The Amazing Randi"), who became disenchanted with some of the "psychics" and "paranormalists" who were really conmen fleecing the public. He's exposed many a charlatan, and in fact, one of my favorite articles about him is where he picked up the broadcast being sent to a televangelist on a hearing aid and played it over the speakers... "Honey, honey, can you see the old guy in the wheelchair? He's from Duluth and was in a carwreck 10 years ago."... the man would take the information and pretend that he got it in messages from God when it came from a questionnaire filled out beforehand. 

As for the $1 million challenge, Randi has always said "I don't offer this because I'm such a skeptic that I'm willing to put a million dollars against the possibility of the paranormal, it's because I more than anyone want to see proof of the paranormal, and am willing to pay a million to the person who can without any doubt show it to me."


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## Andrew D. Gable

Another dream-related oddity I forgot earlier.  It likely means absolutely nothing, but here goes.  

March 16*, 1947.

What was on that date, you may ask?  Well, I had an extraordinarily vivid dream in which I was I detective investigating a murder in a small town, and I had a definite idea that this was the date on which this was happening.  Said murder was exceptionally brutal (images of a person's head being smashed through a bannister for a stairwell), and I recall buildings with specific names, specific characters, and lots of disturbing imagery (blood pouring from the walls of a room, a building under whose floor were buried hundreds of corpses).  Needless to say, it really disturbed me and I searched on the Internet for things that happened on that day.  Closest thing I found was a huge fire in Maine that burnt acres of land and killed many people.

* (I believe that was the date.  The fire is accurate, so whatever date that was).


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## Sarellion

I tried the diagram but did not work till now. But my breathing and pulse quickens a lot when I try it. How long did it take other guys until it worked?


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## Thresher

When I was a kid I used to freak out my mum by being able to, for a common term I think they use is to 'project' your mind outside your body and wander around. She remembers me telling her all sorts of things like where lost objects where or hear conversations about things the neighbours talked about and had this sense of direction where I could visualise an area from an aerial point of view and never got lost. 
It faded for awhile as I tended to do it mostly unconciously as a form of curiosity and as I got older it tended to be a fairly hard thing to do. So around 15 I started reading up on meditation, oriental and some rosicrucian methods and got fairly good at it, but it was mostly a solitary thing and I never met anyone else who was overly into it until I was about 19 and met a friend who used to practice some north american indian shamanism and he knew a lot about spirit travel, guides and other stuff. 
Over the years we helped out a small group of friends with a few things but as I got older the strain of looking after them started to take its toll and to some degree it only seemed to delay the inevitable and it was up to most people to find their own way in life, and as people do, they came and went.
I stopped the study of meditation and projection about 6-7 years ago now I guess, just felt I'd done enough and brought into enough good cause and effect for whatever I was put on this earth to do.

Im getting quite old now and I suppose the adventure and drive leaves you after some time, Im also more or less bogged down by the mundane things everyone else has to deal with like work, car payments and bills. Now, I wouldnt call myself a religous person and most people that know me would probably call me fairly practical, but we only see a small amount of the universe with the physical senses we possess.
Think about how much you see and hear in day to day life, its a fair bit and about as much as most people care to deal with. Then also consider how much you cant see, and Im not just talking about an absence of photons which makes it 'dark'. But the things we know are there and to some degree take for granted are there. 
Electomagnetics, light spectrums we cant see, radio waves and the like also have some influence on our daily life and their spectrums are far greater then what we can percieve without some mechanical assistance... and thats only with our current levels of technology letting us know they are there. 
I spend my days as the administrator looking after the largest wireless WAN in the southern hemisphere and just by looking up you wouldnt see the hundreds of thousands of mobile phone conversations, gigabytes of data and other traffic above your head. I can tell you its there, you can call your friends on a mobile phone using it and surf the net but its not something you can percieve as a human being with 2 eyes, ears, arms and legs. 

That said I think some of us can tune in a little to the things we cant normally see, hear or touch, I dunno if we'll ever give it a quantifiable measurement or if it would ever become an everyday thing. But 100 years ago if I said there would be thousands of conversations, data passing over someones head that they couldnt see or hear then they wouldnt believe me. Heck theres probably a fair few people still out there in the more remote parts of the world that wouldnt believe it either in the modern day. Most of those people still have a fairly firm and convicted belief that there are 'ancestors', gods and other beings that we cant see and its not something I'd easily dispute with them either. As a race we've been known to go to kill each other over differing beliefs in things we cant see on more than one occassion so its not entirely without some merit that an invisible god(s) have had a direct impact on our lives.

Most of you probably spent the odd sunday sitting in a building at some stage or another, with some bloke telling you theres an invisible being who loves you and either out of peer pressure from other people in society never questioned it overly much that it wasnt true.

But society and belief in things they cant see is another topic altogether


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## Djeta Thernadier

*Scary*

Okay. I've had many run ins with the supernatural. And I'm pretty skeptical. I like this stuff but mostly because I like trying to figure out explanations for it. But this one is the weirdest. I've tried to pawn this off as related to sleep paralysis* which I have had for some time. But it doesn't fit the pattern of that. 

This is rather long and it still freaks me out a bit to this day. I am not sure what it was but I know it scared the heck out of me for a long time. 

Summary:
What was it : A humanoid ghostly shape
Where did it appear: Windows, Doorways only when I was the only living thing AWAKE in a given room 
Effect on me : What seemed like temporary paralysis/ not sleep paralysis*
Time/Age : When I was 17, the summer after I graduated from high school
Duration : 1 month or so [EDIT sorry I originally said 2 month. My error in trying to recall.]

Ok, so I first saw this thing at a hotel in rural Vermont (I forget the name of the hotel...it was one of those places where families go with their kids a lot in the summer). I was with my family (mom, dad, younger brother who was 12 at the time). I was asleep on the floor near the door of the room. I'd been listening to Pink Floyds the wall on my Discman and had fallen asleep. Suddenly, around 3 am or so, I was jolted awake when my cd player kicked back on with the song that goes "You better run like hell" . Except that  rather than play the whole track it just kept skipping to that line. It was freaky. It was like a record skipping, not a cd. I looked up and in the doorframe was this ...thing. It had no facial features and just looked like a looming, ghastly humanoid shape. It was larger than a human though. I felt like it was staring at me but I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but stare at it terrified. Then I heard my brother cough and stir a little and my cd player shut off again. I was able to move and ran over to where he was sleeping on the other side of the room and curled up with him and I think I stayed awake all night. 

The next week back at home, I saw it again in my bedroom window. The same feeling of horror swept me and I couldn't move. It stopped when my dog came into the room.

The next day I was at my friends house. We were sitting on his bed listening to a cd or something and he was sort of leaning against my shoulder falling asleep. All of a sudden I felt the heaviness of when someone falls asleep and they sort of , I dunno, just feel heavier on you. Seconds later the thing appeared in his window and I froze until my friend woke up. This guy was really into paranormal stuff so I told him. He said he was going to talk to one of his friends and see what they thought it was.

The next day my boyfriend at the time, who was also really into supernatural stuff was over my house and we were watching tv in my parents basement. He was determined to catch a glimpse of this thing and so we tried to "trick it" by having me pretend to be asleep. Well that was dumb cause nothing happened. I guess you can't outwit the dead? Anyway, eventually he gave up. That night it appeared in my window. This time I was able to move and I moved to my parents living room couch. It appeared in the doorway leading to the outside. This time my dog came in the room and started growling and barking like she saw something. The thing went away.

The next day I was with my friend again and he gave me some sort of little pouch with some stuff in it. It looked kinda hokey new age esque but I was ready to try anything so I took it. He also gave me an explanation of what he thought it might be and what was in the pouch that would ward it off. I forget what he called it. It had a long complicated name that I think started with 'H'.The stuff in the pouch was Native American in origin. 

I don't know if it was that I convinced myself it was gone or what but it never came back. I wore that pouch around my neck or tied to a belt loop for about a year after that.

I still have nightmares about this. There really aren't words for the horror I felt in the presence of this thing. I have tried to pass it off as tricks of light and such but I have seen tricks of light and mind and never been so utterly horrified.

*Sleep paralysis is a relatively common and harmless problem where a person is physically asleep but their eyes are open and they can see. Because your entire body is asleep, you can't move except for your eyes and your head sometimes. It's really REALLY scary if you don't know what it is. The first time I got this was last spring during a very stressful point of my life and I thought I was dying. Often in this state you hear voices or see a menacing shape above you. Usually once you figure out what it is though, the fear factor goes way down. Some people try to control it because it's an interesting state to be in. *


*Car Crash*

Other weird things that have happened with me are, when I was 10 my cousin and I were walking around the neighborhood going to have lunch at a pizza shop and all of a sudden I got this strong urge that something bad would happen and we needed to get home. So we changed course and ran all the way home. 2 hours later a car crashed through the living room of a house a few houses away from mine.  

*Emerson College*
I went to Emerson college and at one point stayed in Charlesgate dorm. Charlesgate is one of the "most haunted" buildings in Boston. There is an extra floor, hidden from the outside where all manner of bad stuff used to take place. Anyway, during my one year there, on the hidden floor I routinely saw doors and windows open and close for now reason, even when they were in places where there was no chance for a draft. I saw flashes of light dart back and forth playfully (one of the ghosts was supposedly a little kid), saw a "ghost" of a small girl (she was cute and harmless looking) , heard the sounds of children giggling and bouncing a ball in the stairway which was often deserted. Granted all of these things COULD be attributed to other things, but who knows. After the ghost story above, anything seemed possible.


*How am I even still here??*
I have also been in several instances where to be blunt, I should have been killed and to this day have no idea why I was not only not killed but barely even scathed. I will list a few of them. Some of them are too personal to list here but if you want to know, email me and I'll tell you the rest. This boggles my mind more than anything else.

*As a baby, twice in one year, my ceiling caved in. Both times large sharp chunks of plaster ripped through the pillows in my crib where my head would have been and had been moments earlier. 

*As a toddler in a large "home fix it" type store, a model door on display fell over and landed on top of me. Virtually everyone said that there was no way a 1 1/2 year old could have survived that . I broke my leg. My parents were more freaked out that I survived and was barely injured and didn't want people to think I was some sort of freak so they didn't sue or anything to keep it out of the news.

*As a toddler again (about 3) I fell down a steep flight of stairs, landed on a metal heating grate that was turned all the way up. My parents rushed me to the hospital but my mom slipped while carrying me.  I fell from her arms and landed on the sidewalk a few feet away and hit my head. My mom broke a few bones. Through the whole ordeal, I walked away with a Band-Aid on my forehead.

*Working in a pet shop, one day I was stung by a Lionfish which is very poisonous. It had no effect on me whatsoever.

*My second year of college I was skateboarding at the bus stop. I was hit head on by a speeding car, thrown a distance, and walked away with a sprained ankle.

It's kind of weird is all. 

Interesting thread. I like this stuff. That story about the guy and the kids with no pupils was really freaky...


----------



## Afrodyte

This is very interesting stuff, so I'm keeping it on the front page.  Fortunately, I myself have only had terrifying encounters in my dreams.  Although that "run like hell" thing of the previous poster chilled me a bit.


----------



## Dakkareth

All this stuff makes me think of my Call of Cthulhu D20 Sourcebook 

I may or may not have experienced some minor stuff, but I'm on the one hand very fixated on logic and scientific explanation and on the other hand I'd like to have 1337 p0w3rz, so there's no telling, what's real, imagined, wishful thinking or explained away.

But reading such threads is always interesting


----------



## Wombat

Closest thing I had to a supernatural experience was visiting The Devil's Den at Gettysburg.

This was the single saddest place I have ever been to.

I swear they are still fighting there -- there is a feeling of sadness, terror, over-exhiliration, cussedness, and pure misery.

I don't care to repeat the experience.


----------



## dave_o

Djeta Thernadier said:
			
		

> *My second year of college I was skateboarding at the bus stop. I was hit head on by a speeding car, thrown a distance, and walked away with a sprained ankle.




Djeta, when I was hit by a car, skating, I broke my wrists and my tailbone. You should come skate with me...

...and stay traffic-ward. 

I sorta have the same thing, only, I actually get hurt - and heal miraculiously within days/moments/etc. It's my mutant healing factor!!1


----------



## Hopping Vampire

about 13 years ago, when i was 10ish, we lived in an apartment complex in goldsboro NC on Lockhaven drive i belive (near a rather unsavory part of town) called bramble wood. the 2 story townhouse we lived in was haunted. we never really looked into the past history of that particular apt. BUT: my mom was attacked by a spirit there. she had bite and Nail marks to prove it. she also was visited by her recently deceased grandmother. at night in my room, by brother and i would see a man standing in the corner. the man fit the same description of the spirit that attacked my mother. my bro, sis and i would be watching television in the downstairs living room, and we would hear footsteps upstairs ( my mom was at work at the time). and lastly, we were all out to dinner, and we came home and the bathtub was running, it overflowed and caused extensive damage to the upper floor.


----------



## MerakSpielman

Ah, things that defy proof... I love 'em. BTW, it is my personal belief that science is being very narrow minded when it refuses to acknowledge the existance of things that cannot be objectively proven (preferabley in a laboratory setting). 

At this point, I've stopped thinking it's odd when these sorts of things happen.

For instance, when my wife was pregnant, I had arranged at my job to take a couple weeks off for paternity leave. One Friday, two weeks before her due date, I came home and told her flat out, "I'm not going back to work on Monday. You're going to have the baby this weekend." I knew I was right. She thought I was being silly (if she was going to go into labor shouldn't SHE be the one to know it?). She was feeling the labor for hours, but still denying it, when her water broke and she had to admit I was right.

Two weeks ago she returned the favor. I'd been out of work for two months and desperately trying to get a job. I'd been applying to around 8 to 10 places a week, with absolutely no luck. Our money was beginning to SERIOUSLY run dry. We were contimplating moving and having us both get "anything" jobs full time to make ends meet. Then she tells me, out of nowhere, "This is the last week it's going to be like this. Something is going to happen this week." Sure enough, I got a job - from the FIRST place I applied to back when I was first unemployed. To think I wasted 2 months sending out resumes and going to interviews. I coulda just applied for one job and goofed off for 2 months, waiting for them to get back to me.

I've gone on a shamonic journey (a type of meditation) and met my spirit animal - a turtle. It told me how to pull myself into a shell, but I told it I was already too good at doing that. So instead it told me how to hatch from an egg. All from a turtles point of view, mind you. It didn't even speak English, now that I think about it. I think for the space of the meditiation I was able to speak turtleish.

One night around 10pm at the local University, my wife and I were walking back to our car after a concert. We'd walked that way several times before and knew the shortest way to get there. At one point we had to cross a street and continue down a wide, paved pedestrian path. As we crossed the street, my wife slowed down and stopped before we continued on the path. "I have a bad feeling," she said, "We shouldn't go this way." I gave in mainly because I was enjoying the walk. So we turned left and followed the street, planning to go around and get at the parking lot from the street. We'd been walking a couple of minutes when a couple police cars tore by us going the other way. We turned to watch them and - yup - they turned and started on down the pedestrian path, lights flashing. We don't know what it was that was going on down that path, but whatever it was would have had about 2 minutes alone with us before the police got there.

If you are pagan or know much about paganism or wicca, you'll understand the next bit better. My wife got into wicca several months before I did. I was sitting at my computer pondering the issue - whether I should join in or not - when the Goddess quite clearly called my name. I've never heard a human put that level of meaning behind a single word. It was beckoning, amused, wise, powerful and a good many other things I lack the words to describe. 
The Goddess spoke to me one other time on a Samhain night, when I was doing a meditation into a water-filled iron cauldron. We (my wife and I) put a drop of oil in it and watched the shifting patterns.  Eventually, we both tranced and I heard the Goddess explain to me the nature of faith in Her. I remember exactly what she said, but I consider it rather private and won't write it here.

My experiences during pagan rituals, meditation, and similar activities are too numerous to mention.

UFO: When I was a kid, probably around 10 years old, my friend and I were having a camping-style sleepover in my back yard. After a while we decided to lie on our backs on the grass and look up at the sky - deliberately looking for UFOs. We did the normal stuff - saw a few planes and pretended they were flying saucers and whatnot. Then we both saw the same thing: Three bright points of light sped out from equadistant points on the horizon. In less than two seconds, they met in the center of the sky forming a precise equilateral triangle, rotating slowly. Then, just as quickly, they sped off again, just like they had come. 

I've also had a lot of the "common" experiences. Like thinking about a person and then suddenly they call up on the phone or I get an email from them.

On the topic of black and white / color TVs (forget who brought that up...): My wife's family, when she was growing up, had a black and white TV. One day her parents splurged and got a color TV of a very similar shape, color, and size. They didn't tell her because they wanted it to be a surprise. When, after three days of normal family TV-watching she still hadn't said anything, they pointed it out to her. Her respone: "Haven't we always had a color TV?"

edit: Just remembered another strange thing. Remember old-style BBSes? They were totally text based and the fastest modem was the blazin' 14.4 baud monster. Well, there was a local BBS that all the computer-oriented middle and high-school kids hung out on. There were the usual chat rooms, trivia chat games, files depots, etc... There was also a place for people to post their original poetry or artwork (most of it was written because it was hard to get pictures into a computer back then. Not to mention the download times....). A friend of mine kept bugging me to post some of my poetry. I kept telling her no because I thought somebody might copy it. One day, she calls up: "You finally posted a poem! It's really cool! I like it a lot!" I hadn't posted a poem and I told her so. Very confused, she told me to log on and take a look. I did, and there it was: one of my poems. Posted in my name (nobody knew my password). To top it off, it was a poem I hadn't shown anybody else yet. The only way I could rationalize it was that somebody had broken into my house, copied one of my poems, hacked into my account, and posted it in my name.  This seemed pretty darn unlikely. I never did figure it out.


----------



## Krieg

I'm definitely intrigued by the number of folks who have experienced the "streetlight" phenomenom. I may have to start doing some research into streetlight failure rates...

Anyways, I've experienced some of the standard "events" most notably sleep paralysis & haunted houses. At some point I'll sit down & write about the possible El Chupacabra meeting I had in Central America while in the Marines. However there is one unusual experience I've had that I still find interesting.

"Psychics" regularly tend not to touch or even talk to me.

I've had psychics/mediums refuse to shake my hand, turn away upon meeting me, leave the room when I enter and even ask me to leave the premises of their place of business. I have seen signs of discomfort & even fear from them when I am around.

I'm generally a skeptic but I do tend to have an open mind...I have no problems believing that UFO's exist, but seriously doubt they are manned spacecraft from other planets etc etc.

Anyone have any insight of why psychics seem to avoid & even fear me?


Anyone have any insight on


----------



## LGodamus

Krieg the only reason I know of that a psychic would be that uncomfortable with you is that you may have a tainted aura. Some psychics believe you can carry around negativity that adversely affects those around you.  who knows though


----------



## Numion

Djeta Thernadier said:
			
		

> *my mom slipped while carrying me.  I fell from her arms and landed on the sidewalk a few feet away and hit my head.  *




I think that you've explained the "paranormal" things you experienced later in your life 

Just kidding.


----------



## weiknarf

Krieg said:
			
		

> *I'm definitely intrigued by the number of folks who have experienced the "streetlight" phenomenom. I may have to start doing some research into streetlight failure rates...
> 
> *




You could try here or here concerning Street Lamp Interference.


Oh yeah, here's another "eek!".


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## FluidDragon

Bump this is a great thread


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## Andrew D. Gable

Wombat said:
			
		

> *Closest thing I had to a supernatural experience was visiting The Devil's Den at Gettysburg.*




Well, it IS haunted.


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## mistergone

Not long ago, my girlfriend told me an interesting story. Kind of out of nowhere. She said that since she was 10 or 11, she's had a ghost in her room. Apparently, it's an older man in a suit. People would be afraid to go in her room when she was younger. Her mom has seen him once, and her roommate has seen him a couple times. The ghost doesn't do much, just open doors and turn on and off lights occasionally. But he follows her around. Like, now she's at school and he followed her from home, and I think to the place she lived before where she lives now. She told me that sometimes she almost forgets about him, then in the night when she's trying to fall asleep, she hears her closet door open, and she says "Close it." and it closes. She has no idea who he is or what he is doing exactly, he just seems to be around and watching over her. I told her when she comes here between semesters, he can come too, but he has to stay in the guest room.

This story kind of blew me away because we had only been together a couple weeks when she told me and we really hadn't discussed much about the supernatural, except that I think I cured her headaches a couple times, and she thinks so too, even though we were about 1500 miles apart at the time, but I told her I was going to try it the first time, but the second time I didn't tell her. Both times seemed to work.


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## der_kluge

Djeta, there was a study done fairly recently about scorpions.  Apparently, they can set their stinger on "stun" or "kill" if they desire.  I only say this because it may be that the lionfish can do a similar thing - that is, adjust the toxicity of its venom such that you might not have experienced any averse reactions to it.

Just a comment, when you dream, or see something before it happens, that's called "Preja Vu".

On the 3:00 am, or 42 second thing, I have this uncanny ability to always look at the clock at 12:34.  AM or PM, doesn't matter.  I have a pretty strong biological clock, and if I have to wake up at a certain time in the morning, I can generally do so fairly easily.  I'm always waking up like a minute before my alarm goes off.

I've had occasional deja vu, but always of mundane events.  My wife has had occurrences of preja vu before, but again always of just mundane events.


----------



## The Goblin King

I WANT to believe.  I really do.  I once thought I saw a UFO.  It turned out to be a blimp.  I have had sleep paralysis thing.  It freaked me out until I did some reading.  Living in Texas the kids talked about a 'ghost wolf' that haunted the reservoir.  It was a coyote that had wandered into the city.  In school I knew a girl who claimed she was psychic.  She could never do anything that couldn't also be a coincedence.  She told me how street lights would go out for her, light bulbs would explode, prophetic dreams, deja vu. Oddly, nothing paranormal ever happened when I was around.  She came from a bad home and was seriously into doing drugs/alcohol.  Haunted places are unusually quiet when I have been ghost hunting.

I'm not a skeptic.  As I said I want to believe.  But I am either very unlucky or am some kind of anti-supernatural.


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## Hawkeye

*Lots to tell*

At my core, I am a scientist.  I have a degree in biology and have spent years working under the scientific method.  That being said, I have always had an interest in the paranormal.  Unless soemthing has been proven totally 100% impossible or false in a experiment that can be reproduced, a good, responsible scientist has to accept that something is possible.  That is how I aproach the paranormal.  

Throughout my life I have seen and exerienced many strange and unexplained things.  From time to time, I have prophetic dreams.  I have experienced ghostly vistiros and I have seen something strange in the sky.  Here are a few of my stories.

When I was 12, I was living in New England.  I was a big astronomy buff at the time and had a telescope that you could see the rings of Saturn with.  I was out, looking at the moon one evening.  It was at dusk, since I found looking at the full glare of the moon hurt my eyes.  I took a break from looking at the moon and looked West towards the setting sun.  South of my position, I noticed 2 silver colored objects in the sky, that appeared to be heading perpendicular to my position.  Being an aviation buff too and only a few miles from Peace air force base, I grabbed my relatively low powered binoculars to see what I may be looking at.  I manged to get a sharp focus.  These objects had no wings, rudder or ailerons (sp?).  They just appeared as flat disc.  I lost them in the setting sun.  At the time I didn't live too far from Exter NH, which was a UFO hotspot for the NE.  

I am a Paramedic in RL, working for a National company.  We had an operation in Columbia SC.  I was a supervisor there.  Shortly after we moved there, I would get the distinct impression that I was being watched at night, when I would go out to inspect the ambulances that were parked at night.  This didn't happen every night, but often enough.  I never felt threatened, but it was spooky as hell.  I mentioned it one day to our Human Resources director.  She told me that she had the same sensation and that she had seen someone in our office one night when no one was supposed to be there.  She had seen a woman one night, but when she went in to drop papers off, there was no one int eh building.  Our office had a very open layout, with few places to hide.  The guy that I worked with at that service started having nightmares while sleeping in the crew room.  I would spend the nights working on paperwork and other duties and hear him thrashing around in his bunk, moaning and sometimes screaming.  He would always wake up sweaty.  When I asked him about the nightmares, he told me that a woman kept interuppting his dreams and she didn't seem to like him too much.  It got the point that he would stay awake for the entire 24 hour shift if need be.  I suggested that he sleep in another room.  When e did, he was able to sleep through the night.  I often slept in my office when the opportunity presented itself.  One night, after I had laid down, I could hear the sounds of footsteps walking back and forth walking on the carpet, very rapidly.  I looked towards where they were coming from.  There wasn't anything there.  The hesitated for a second, like someone just realised they were being watched and then the footstepswalked out of the room and faded away. (which reminds me.  I set up my video camrea, which has an IR  to tape for an entire night in that room, and I still haven't watched that tape.)  The spookiest thing involving the haunted station was this:  Our work shifts moved from 24 hours to 12 and finally to 8.  We were done for the day, my partner had already left.  I was the only person in the building.  All the paperworks were done and I had secured the building.  I went out to my car, which was parked next to the row of ambulances.  I got the feeling again that I was being watched.  I had gotten used to the feeling, but this was much stronger.  I glanced around, but didn't see anything.  I sat down at my car and as I started it, I looked at the office through my front windshield.  There SHE was!, the distinct figure of a woman, standing at the window looking right at me.  She was dressed in 19th century style and had a sad look on her face.  I am noramlly a calm rational person, but I am not ashamed to say that I was sacred witless and peeled out of the parking lot and made my way home.  It wouldn't be the last time I saw her.  Our company no longer has that office.  I still need to do some research on that property.

Now for something really spooky:

I have have pre-cognitive dreams all my life.  For the most part they are all minor things:  Seeing a house I have never been to before I visited there,  knowing that a teacher would be passing out a pop quiz.  I dreamed of the day I would be presenting my daughter to my family years before I was married and even knew my wife was prenant before she did.  Now if I could dream up some lottery numbers it would be great!   

My daughter was born in December of 2000.  I had taken a month off and had just come back to work. (Jan 2001)  Our service was getting ready to tansition from 24 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts.  It was an unsual night since we had 2 crews on instead of 1.  It was the last 24 hour shift.  We had been working hard all day and I finally got to lay down and get some sleep at about 4 in the morning.  I fell asleep immediately, something unusual for me.  I began to have a very vivid dream.  In it my Grandfather paid me a visit.  We sat and talked for some time.  He asked my all sorts of questions about my daughter and being a new Father.  He told me how his life was going, lamenting the loss of his driver license, the cold weather (he lived in New England) and felling tired.  he also metioned missing my Grandmother, who had died almost 16 years earlier from heart failure, but he knew that he would see her soon.  He was 82 years old.  It not unexpected to hear people of that age say things like that.  Despite his complaints, he appeared full of energy and very animated in our conversation.  I told him that I had planned on bringing my daughter  up for a visit that summer.  He patted me on the shoulder and told me not to worry about that right now and that it wouldn't matter after Feb 12th.  Before I could ask him what he meant, he hugged me, told me that he loved me and I woke up with tears in my eyes.    I KNEW what the dream meant.  Never before had I dreamed anything with a specific date.  I debated with telling anyone about the dream.  In the end, I didn't and I still don't know why.  More than likey, because I had never told anyone about my prior dreams.

On Feb 12th, my Father called to tell me that my Grandfather was in the hospital with pneumonia and that the prognosis wasn't good.  I started making plans to go and visit him.  My Grandfather died on Feb 22, with my family and my brother's family  still a 12 hour drive away.  I still lament that I didn't leave sooner to see him and I still despair over my decision not to tell anyone what I had dreamed.  In my line of work,  I tell people that when its their time to go, there is nothing I nor anyone else can do about it.  It doesn't make it easy watching it happen to your family.  I still have my dreams, but its back to the not so serious ones.

Hawkeye


----------



## frankthedm

I don't have much in the experiences with supernatural department. 

I sometimes get a hint of Deja vu but it is minor.

I did see a bit of what looked like ball lightning over a group of friends when we were talking outside a few years back.

I do have good luck. I ride my bicycle in pitch black nights wearing pitch black and cars barly even come close to hitting me. I only got into D&D in 95 and i have gotten almost all the old D&D books i have wanted by pure luck and low cost. Including original Ravenloft, rahashia, and most 1e hardcovers, inluding Deities and demigods with the cthulhu crew [for free].


----------



## Voadam

frankthedm said:
			
		

> *I don't have much in the experiences with supernatural department.
> 
> I sometimes get a hint of Deja vu but it is minor.
> 
> I did see a bit of what looked like ball lightning over a group of friends when we were talking outside a few years back.
> 
> I do have good luck. I ride my bicycle in pitch black nights wearing pitch black and cars barly even come close to hitting me. I only got into D&D in 95 and i have gotten almost all the old D&D books i have wanted by pure luck and low cost. Including original Ravenloft, rahashia, and most 1e hardcovers, inluding Deities and demigods with the cthulhu crew [for free]. *




Luck can only be determined looking backwards, you can only say you have been lucky up to now. Past performance of luck has no guarantee on the future. I'd suggest wearing visible clothes when biking on roads in the dark.

Really good score on the Cthulhu DDG, though, that was lucky.


----------



## Hawkeye

Shameless Bump


----------



## Djeta Thernadier

Krieg said:
			
		

> *
> "Psychics" regularly tend not to touch or even talk to me.
> 
> I've had psychics/mediums refuse to shake my hand, turn away upon meeting me, leave the room when I enter and even ask me to leave the premises of their place of business. I have seen signs of discomfort & even fear from them when I am around.
> 
> Anyone have any insight of why psychics seem to avoid & even fear me?
> 
> 
> *




I have had this routinely happen to me as well, often when I am not seeking their assistance. I always brushed it off on them being fakes, and somehow guessing from the way I speak that I know a bit about how they do what they do, and not wanting to deal with me. Or else not being able to size me up by the way I look. I have a friend who is professional mind reader (I'm not naming names, so don't ask) and I know quite a bit about how he does what he does. It's amazing.

If the people are the real deal though, I don't know. I think at least a few of the ones who wouldn't go near me might have been real.


----------



## Djeta Thernadier

die_kluge said:
			
		

> *Djeta, there was a study done fairly recently about scorpions.  Apparently, they can set their stinger on "stun" or "kill" if they desire.  I only say this because it may be that the lionfish can do a similar thing - that is, adjust the toxicity of its venom such that you might not have experienced any averse reactions to it.
> *




That's interesting. I'll have to look into it, although I seriously doubt I'll be coming into contact with a lionfish again. But creepy animals fascinate me. I always just sort of figured I wasn't allergic to it. I'm not allergic to poison ivy (as in, I could roll around in a bed of it and not get all red and itchy), so I was sort of thinking it was that sort of thing...something most people had a bad reaction to, that I just didn't.


----------



## Djeta Thernadier

Numion said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I think that you've explained the "paranormal" things you experienced later in your life
> 
> Just kidding. *




Could this be  a triple post!?

Haha. You have no idea how much I joke about this with my friends...


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

Hey, when hearing about these people that psychics avoid, I thought of something similar from history.  When Aleister Crowley first joined the Golden Dawn, supposedly the other members shied away from him.  They supposedly said that either he was messing around with evil spirits (like that would be anything new for Crowley) or that evil spirits were messing with him.  This could be somehow related, maybe, since the Golden Dawn (particularly some of the members) were big into psychic phenomena.  

Djeta said she has the psychic avoidance thing going on, and that she has unusually good luck too.  Who was the other person who had the avoidance thing going? (Edit: I see now it was Krieg) Do you generally have really good luck, too?  I'm trying to find commonalities between the people who experience this.  Although one really can't say that Crowley had particularly good luck...

daTim: that weird two-legged catlike thing might have been a Wampus Cat.  It's an old Southern legend, though I'm not sure exactly what part of the South it's from.  I actually do wanna say Georgia or South Carolina.


----------



## WayneLigon

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *daTim: that weird two-legged catlike thing might have been a Wampus Cat.  It's an old Southern legend, though I'm not sure exactly what part of the South it's from.  I actually do wanna say Georgia or South Carolina. *




Apparently, Tennessee. 
Legend of the Wampus Cat 
Another one 
Here's Another that claims the Cat has legends in other states, and is an aqautic monster of some kind.


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## WayneLigon

My aunt claims a dead relative of hers (Aunt Lucille) haunts the old house where she died; it's now her mother's house and lights will turn on and off (as in, switch has been moved), or Lucillie's favorite chair will be found moved when no-one has been in the house for a day or so. That's about it, though. Er.. I'll call her later. I think she mentioned cold spots, once.


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## WayneLigon

Apparently Aunt Lucille wanted to make that a double post....


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## Clueless

Terraism said:
			
		

> *3. More creepily, sometimes, though rarely, something runs across my backyard and slams into my back door. It sounds huge, like a full-grown person throwing themselves against my back door. *




You know.
Of all the ones in this thread - for some reason this is the one that made me sit up and go "Oh... " and shudder for a moment. I'm not sure I could take the idea of something wanting *in* like that. I know I'd be sitting out there with a cross, and a smudge stick throwing down everything from Christian to Native American rites...


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

hellbender said:
			
		

> *And look for #49 on the grid, ko, revolutionary change. I suggest drawing it onto paper and doing the experiment while lying down and relaxed, with as few distractions as possible. It would be interesting to hear back from people who try it and get something.*




I tried it and didn't have quite the dramatic experience I was hoping for, but did experience some weird sensory things: sharp pains running up and down my right leg, my left leg involuntarily twitching (only once), and a feeling that I can't describe except as waves under my body.  I also had a vision of a lion, though I dunno how that has anything to do with it.


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## hellbender

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I tried it and didn't have quite the dramatic experience I was hoping for, but did experience some weird sensory things: sharp pains running up and down my right leg, my left leg involuntarily twitching (only once), and a feeling that I can't describe except as waves under my body.  I also had a vision of a lion, though I dunno how that has anything to do with it. *





     No need to stop at only once (well, except for the sharp pains). It is a weird tapping into the subconcious that nobody can explain. Why is that symbol a trigger? I cannot say what the lion means. I have heard of people feeling they were wolves, bears, and other animals. The waves are a fairly common experience.

h.


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## Andrew D. Gable

Oh, another of my weird dream-experiences (most of my sleep and dream-related phenomena are long past) was a recurring dream which concerned a woman named Eleanor.  She had dark hair, slightly longer than shoulder length.  In the dreams, I always had a feeling that I was madly in love with her, but there was always also a feeling of sadness, too.  I'm not quite sure what this meant: oddly enough, one of my relatives (one of the children in the first generation of my ancestors to come over to the States from Ireland, so probably around 1900) was named Eleanor.

Of course, one could also argue that it was a bit of a premonition, as a few years after the dream started there was a similar experience to this...the girl's name wasn't Eleanor, though, but I guess it does sound like it, vaguely.


----------



## Andrew D. Gable

hellbender said:
			
		

> *No need to stop at only once (well, except for the sharp pains). It is a weird tapping into the subconcious that nobody can explain. Why is that symbol a trigger? I cannot say what the lion means. I have heard of people feeling they were wolves, bears, and other animals. The waves are a fairly common experience.*




I'll have to try it again sometime and see if I experience more.  All told, the leg pains weren't really *that* bad.


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## Grim

For a long while, i had a strange affinity for my DM's cd player. I would do something loud, like bang my head on a doorframe, or stomp, and the thing would turn on and off. We checked the plug, had other people try, everything. It only worked when I didn't mean to make a loud noise and then didn't notice that it changed until someone mentioned it.

Just reading this thread I know I won't sleep well.

Lets see... i sort of got into wicca/paganism a while ago, but I couldn't really find anyone to talk to about it and my family never really discusses religion, so its more of a deeply personal religion for me. I don't really feel comfortable telling anyone about it. And I haven't either. I only say that I march to a different drum, or somesuch. I actually feel weird talking about it here, but I know that ENworld is a really accepting place, and that it's effictivly private as well.

Anyway, its actually kind of nice, because I developed a really strange affinity for cats and ravens. Not anything overt, but ravens always act up when I'm around, cawing and flying around, and cats ALWAYS brush my legs and let me pet them, even one that "hates" everyone and claws at them. Strangly, dog's hate me, or at least like the taste of my skin.

I've always had a huge fear that something will run up at my window and scare the daylights out of me, but its never happened exept for my sister doing it, so... i guess its ok. But it MIGHT!

When I was little I was afriad of the dark, so my dad would help me invent devices that would keep the monsters away, like a net in the ceiling, and ladder pushers at the windows. Only about a month did I actually ask about it and learned that my dad had, in fact, not installed those things. It really surprised me, and freaked me out as well.


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## The_Universe

In reality, I have very little primary exprience with anything even vaguely resembling the supernatural.  But there are a few things I think i can add to the discussion...

This might me a little off this OT OT, but much like the strong spiritual experiences several of our pagan, wiccan, and hindu friends have reported, the very first time I took communion in the little methodist church where I grew up, I felt a great weight settle over me...not oppressive in any way, just....odd.  Very spiritual, even though I was 9-10 when it happened.  No voices, no flashing lights, just a profound sense of presence and comfort from something beyond myself.  Interpret how you will.  

Also, a UFO.  When I was 7-8, a friend and I were playing outside at 9 o'clock on my family's farm in South Dakota.  For some reason, I looked across the highway, and noticed a HUGE glowing object settle into a filed probably a mile and a half from my position.  It was orange-ish, and to the best of my recollection, looked kind of like the colliseum in Rome...but glowing orange, and not as tall.  (stupid, eh?)  for  years, I dismissed it as a dream, not a memory, since in my middle-school years, I was REALLY into UFOS, Bigfoot, Nessie, and all that.  When I was a senior in High School, I was telling the story with the caveat that it was probably just a dream, and the guy that I'd been playing with when I was 7-8, pipes up, saying, "No...I remember that.  You went inside to ask your Mom what it was...the thing took off, straight up, while you were inside.  I was freaked...I thought it was a dream, too..."  

So, either we shared the same dream (which would be paranormal, too) or we had a kinda close encounter.  

Lastly, there are HUNDREDS of ghost-stories centered around Washington, DC--where I live now.  When I was an intern on Capitol HIll, ghost stories ran rampant...most centered on the Capitol Building, itself.  Among the most commom were stories about a shadowy cat-thing (alternatively described as a panther, or a distinctly feline humanoid)   Supposedly the thing lives (unlives?) in the basement level of the capitol, and has attacked guards at night.  The story was that it was seen on the night of Sept. 10, pacing the halls, and that it appears before major tragedies, as a rule.  

Then there are the stories of the ghost of a murdered representative haunting a stairwell, killed during duel in the 1830s.  (I don't know if the whole story is true, but there was a Rep. from Tennessee murdered around that time...seems the Rep. was sleeping with someone else's wife, and got killed for it.)  There's also stories of how the capitol building's foundationa nd corner stone were laid in occult masonic ceremonies (I suspect that this one is crap--although the crypt level in the capitol is genuinely creepy...the center room IS shaped like a pentagram)

Across the Potomac, Alexandria, VA has something like 25 well-known haunted sites, none of which I have ever been to...d@mmit.  

Hope that helps...genuinely creepy thread....will copy full text when I get home from work.


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## root

Here is a site based ghost story:


Over in Canton (Michigan), there is a road which is haunted.  Many years ago, before this city was developed, a lady was driving down this road with her relativily newborn baby.  (Not sure on whether it was a boy or girl.)  Sometime during the course of her drive, another vehicle started to follow her, a vehicle with only one headlight.  Not wanting to stop, she kept driving and slowly became more and more terrified.  Finally her car stalled over this bridge on a very lonely stretch of dirt road.

Before this had happened, she managed to put some distance between herself and the other vehicle following her, she promptly got out with her baby and proceeded to run in the woods.  The man that had been following her with one headlight also got out and proceeded to follow.  This was done very easily since all the joustling had awakened the baby and started to cry.  The mother fearing for her babies life and hers, stashed the baby up in a tree as best she could and attempted to draw the man away from that tree.

Now the man caught her and proceeded to rape her and eventually kill her.  When he finished with her, he went after the crying baby.


Today, if you drive down that road and go very slowly (time of day does not matter), a one headlighted vehicle will appear in your mirrors and you can also see it if you look directly out your back window.  Due to the distance involved, that headlight will never catch up with you unless you were to stop and get out of your vehicle.  One thing to note is, that if you do stop your vehicle, the light does come closer.  Another part of the story is if you get out of your vehicle while it is on the bridge and shout, "Mama, Mama, let me hear your baby cry!!!," you will hear a crying baby.

I have witnessed the one headlight, but never the crying baby.  My friends and I tried the second part, but we couldn't get it to work.  My theory was that you had to have the one headlighted vehicle following you while you did this, but my friends wouldn't try it.  All in all, it is a spooky part of the road, especially at night.


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## The_Universe

*KABLAM!*

(elaborate bump)

As a side note to this, is it worth a separate thread to ask about people's local/urban legends (not the movie )???


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## Clueless

The_Universe said:
			
		

> *  There's also stories of how the capitol building's foundationa nd corner stone were laid in occult masonic ceremonies (I suspect that this one is crap--although the crypt level in the capitol is genuinely creepy...the center room IS shaped like a pentagram)
> *




With as many of our founding fathers who *were* Masons... this one might not be as far out as you'd think. I wouldn't know how to confirm it though.


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## The_Universe

*Who keeps the metric system down?  WE DO!*

Well, the masonic part is true, and verifiable.  The occult part is probably not, however, as most masons I know are (relatively) harmless.   

Interestingly enough, as part of the ceremony, in which the the "first stone" was laid for the capitol, there was a supposed to be a time capsule buried beneath it.....and the capsule was supposed to be made fo GOLD!  They tried to dig it up in 1976, but couldn't find it.  The speculation is that one of the masons came back that night, dug up the gold box, and had himself some drinkin' money for some time!


----------



## qstor

I'm a huge skeptic. After I saw a PBS Nova special on UFO's, it basically killed any truth I might have seen in them.

I've always wanted to see a ghost or have a paranormaly experience but I haven't. I guess I give off too much negative energy like that one PC class in Rifts.

My wife claims to have seen her grandmother after she died at the foot of the bed. But I don't believe her. I think she was dreaming.


Mike


----------



## LGodamus

Djeta Thernadier said:
			
		

> *
> 
> That's interesting. I'll have to look into it, although I seriously doubt I'll be coming into contact with a lionfish again. But creepy animals fascinate me. I always just sort of figured I wasn't allergic to it. I'm not allergic to poison ivy (as in, I could roll around in a bed of it and not get all red and itchy), so I was sort of thinking it was that sort of thing...something most people had a bad reaction to, that I just didn't. *




Well many poisonous animals , like snakes for instance, can dry bite...it happens very often with king cobras....they  will bite , mostly humans or herd animals, and purposely inject no venom....they do it just to startle what they consider to be a predator away from them, but they dont wish to kill it because it is to big to eat.


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## Cecil

Many unexplained events in my life...most of them in the precognitive arena.  Dreams, etc.

A good one for a storyline is this from my daughter.  We didn't give it any credence until a couple of days later.

Even for a three-year old, she drew what was obviously a plane and a big building.  It looked like a red flower was coming out of the building.  I'll see if I can find the picture and scan it.

But what would happen if you used something like that to identify where the bad guys were going to attack next?


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## The_Universe

Was your daughter's drawing prophetic?  You didn't include a date in your post, although I assume it was drawn on Sept. 10, or something...?


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## Bob5th

Clueless said:
			
		

> *
> 
> You know.
> Of all the ones in this thread - for some reason this is the one that made me sit up and go "Oh... " and shudder for a moment. I'm not sure I could take the idea of something wanting *in* like that. I know I'd be sitting out there with a cross, and a smudge stick throwing down everything from Christian to Native American rites... *




Me I'd just be sitting there clutching the shotgun which is in this room along with 2 .22 rifles.


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## Datt

WillTheBuddhist said:
			
		

> *2.) This is the biggest one, and yet by all measures the smallest one. I have this weird habit of causing street lights to turn off. I know it sounds absurd, but hear me out. This happens almost EVERY SINGLE TIME I drive when street lights are on. Now, of course not every light turns off, but almost every single time I drive a light will turn off or on.
> 
> This has been going on for about 4 years or so. It happens at all times, too. 8 in the morning, 10 at night, 2 in the morning. It happens when there's a lot of traffic, when there's no traffic. Rural areas, urban areas. I've picked this apart ad naseum trying to find a pattern to it all, but I can't, and that's a big admission from someone who's mind is so pattern oriented.
> 
> My friends thought I was nuts when I told them this. But now every time I'm with them at night and a light turns off, I point it out to them. Granted, it happens to everyone, and it happens to my friends also, but this happens almost every time I go out and there's a street light on.
> 
> The only logical (?) explanation I can think of is a certain emanation or sorts that everyone has, something that I think interferes with the lights. It seems stronger in me. That's not a good or bad thing, just a thing. I know that sounds crazy, but I can't think of anything else. It's just not plausible that these are all coincidences. *




The exact same thing happens to me.  Every time I drive a street light will go out.  It is the wierdest thing.  It also happens to a friend of mine.  One time we were driving in his car and were approaching a stop light that was green.  Before we reached the light it turned yellow.  We slowed to stop but instead of turning red it turned green again.  One of the wierdest things that has ever happened to me.


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## Clueless

Bob5th said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Me I'd just be sitting there clutching the shotgun which is in this room along with 2 .22 rifles. *




Admittedly. My short sword would be right beside me along with a stake and mallet... If it's gonna touch somethign physical, then hopefully it has to take a physical form to do so. If so - I'm going to kick its ass.

On the other hand having more throughly reviewed the thread (for plot ideas for a SR game - muhahahaha!) I must revise my original statement. "Door thudder" takes second place to freaky black eyed kids. I think I'm going to carry a crowbar in my car now. (This said in good humor, as having a spare crowbar around can be useful anyways. *proudly wears a MacGyver fan ID*)


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## The_Universe

Clueless said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Admittedly. My short sword would be right beside me along with a stake and mallet... If it's gonna touch somethign physical, then hopefully it has to take a physical form to do so. If so - I'm going to kick its ass.
> 
> On the other hand having more throughly reviewed the thread (for plot ideas for a SR game - muhahahaha!) I must revise my original statement. "Door thudder" takes second place to freaky black eyed kids. I think I'm going to carry a crowbar in my car now. (This said in good humor, as having a spare crowbar around can be useful anyways. *proudly wears a MacGyver fan ID*) *




Don't forget your duct tape, and swiss army knife!  What they need to do, is resurrect that show, but have MacGyver be a hunter of the undead...now that would be cool.  

Also, I'll second the vote for Black eyed kids as being THE SCARIEST thing on this thread.  I dunno, but I think the bleeding walls takes the cake over door thudder, but not by much.  

Lastly,  I have a humorous anecdote, related to the thread.  So, last night around 11:30, I'm re-reading all the freaky stuff here, and my screen suddenly goes white, with the message "Escape Now" in bold letters...  I was genuinely freaked.  I'm thinking, "Holy Christ, my computer is trying to tell me something...WHAT IS IT TRYING TO TELL ME!?!"

So, I click on the screen like a madman, trying to get it to tell me more, or whatever...and then a window opens on my screen...a window to....*gasp* cheaptickets.com.  It was a freakin' vacation ad pop-up!  I felt SO stupid.  But now, it's at least good for a laugh.


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## Datt

I think they are making a new MacGuyver.  But this time I think it is going to be either his kid or nephew.  Not sure if Richard Dean Anderson is going  to have anything to do with it either.


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## Bjorn Doneerson

Alright, three new experiences of mine.

1.  My cousin now sets off store alarms, you know the ones to make sure your stealing stuff?  Even if someone else is carying the bags she can just put her arm through the gate thing and set it off.  

2.  My friend's mother can project energy.  We were trying to get this little battery powered radion to pick up...well, anything at all, and all we got was static.  My friend's mother picks up the radio, it comes in clearly, then she puts it down and it goes back to static.  She then tells my friend to "put it up there by the fishes" (a wind chime in a tree) static the whole way over until it's on a branch just below the fishes.  It might also be of interest that they're Wiccans and very interested in psychic phenomena.  

3.  I should become a gambler.  I have on occasion willed my dice to come up the highest possible number.  (I did this trick in front of friends with a d20 and a d6, several times.)  I did this by yelling "Go, go gadget dice" as I released the dice from my hand.  Yes, I'm serious.  I also once, while playing poker stared at the deck rubbing my temples and acting psychic.  I was then dealt a royal flush.  And the most recent occasion was when I altered the outcome of an electroniic "Pocket Slots" game.  I concentrated on the game getting "rocks" (actually bells) across the center line.  It came up rocks several times after that, although I don't know on what line.  Later last night I concetrated on 7's coming up (three 7's is 5000 points, Rocks are 500, and Cherries are 100) This morning, my mother was playing the game and it came up 7's.


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## Kesh

You know that game on _The Price Is Right_ where they start out with a giant deck of cards, and turn over the first card? Then you have to call whether the next card will be higher or lower in value?

As a kid, I was damn near perfect on that one. My grandfather (a bit of a gambler) saw me doing it one day, and got out a deck of cards to play with me. I think I got bored after 15 or 16 cards correct in a row. 

I believe my mother told him something to the effect of, "No, you can't take him to the track."


----------



## The_Universe

*nearly forgot...*

I found a nearly-perfect humanoid footprint--VERY BIG--in the snow one winter when I was 10.  Pretty flat, with HUGE toes.  I don't know why anyone would pull a prank like that 1/4 mile from a farm in South Dakota.  I never told anybody but friends and my mom and dad, so it seems kinda silly if it were a hoax..

Unfortunately, that's the only only evidence I've ever seen/heard of anything out of the iordinary existing in South Dakota.


----------



## Cecil

> Was your daughter's drawing prophetic? You didn't include a date in your post, although I assume it was drawn on Sept. 10, or something...?




She drew it on the 9th....but it doesn't do a bit of good if no one recognizes it ahead of time....I mean, how much does a little girl draw?  We've recognized after-the-fact pictures on two occassions, the 9-11 incident being the most chilling.


----------



## The_Universe

well that IS creepy.   But very interesting...


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## Arnwyn

The_Universe said:
			
		

> *Also, I'll second the vote for Black eyed kids as being THE SCARIEST thing on this thread.  I dunno, but I think the bleeding walls takes the cake over door thudder, but not by much.
> *



Yeppers. The top 3 stories on this thread that gave me the heebie-jeebies were:
1) black-eyed kids
2) bleeding walls
3) door thudder

All three of those gave me the willies. (Blood plasma from the walls?! If I saw that I'd turn into a blubbering idiot rocking back and forth in the corner...)


----------



## LGodamus

The_Universe said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Don't forget your duct tape, and swiss army knife!  What they need to do, is resurrect that show, but have MacGyver be a hunter of the undead...now that would be cool.
> 
> Also, I'll second the vote for Black eyed kids as being THE SCARIEST thing on this thread.  I dunno, but I think the bleeding walls takes the cake over door thudder, but not by much.
> 
> Lastly,  I have a humorous anecdote, related to the thread.  So, last night around 11:30, I'm re-reading all the freaky stuff here, and my screen suddenly goes white, with the message "Escape Now" in bold letters...  I was genuinely freaked.  I'm thinking, "Holy Christ, my computer is trying to tell me something...WHAT IS IT TRYING TO TELL ME!?!"
> 
> So, I click on the screen like a madman, trying to get it to tell me more, or whatever...and then a window opens on my screen...a window to....*gasp* cheaptickets.com.  It was a freakin' vacation ad pop-up!  I felt SO stupid.  But now, it's at least good for a laugh. *




That is funny as Sh*t....I almost ruined a keyboard on that one


----------



## Ferret

I once saw a "plane" without wings go behind a cloud and back out the same way round.


----------



## uv23

*night terrors...*

Fun thread. Haven't read through it all yet but thought I'd post about my night terrors. Not necessarily supernatural events per se but most certainly freaky. Unfortunately, time (and a good deal of trauma) have resulted in a lot of lost details. But here's one that I can remember.

I am lying in bed, having an awful time trying to sleep. I toss and turn for a good two hours, finally winding up on my left side but still awake. I suddenly hear my name being whispered in my right ear over and over again. I am paralyzed by fear but eventually manage to pull my blanket over my head. I sense something approaching, then suddenly fingers are drumming on my face through the blanket. I do a good deal of screaming then throw the blanket off and sit up and the experience is over. Had I fallen asleep and experienced a super real dream? I certainly don't recall falling asleep or waking up before and after the experience. And there was none of the normal abstract thought and imagery associated with my dreams.

This is the second most severe night terror that I've had. I can't remember the worst but I rememeber that it happened. This experience filled me with such abject terror that even writing about it here and now gave me goosebumps and caused tears to well in my eyes.

Night terrors are nasty nasty things.


----------



## wolfen

1) UFO Sighting in the woods.  It was the size of a golf ball or so, bright blue like a magnesium flare.  My wife and I saw it slowly circle our car beneath the tree canopy, about 15' from the ground.  We drove out of there pretty quickly once we realized that we were BOTH seeing it and both felt very strongly that it was watching us.

2) Spirits visit in dreams telling me future events.  One time they told me something that I needed to pass on to someone else.  It was freaky as heck.

3) Strange "Channelling" type experiences where I can ramble about things I know nothing about but turn out to be true.

4) This guy, Barnabas, makes himself known in my head once in a while.  For example, I never knew his name but one time I was just laying around thinking about how you never hear of "spirit guides" with normal names like Bob or Joe.  Instantly the name "Barnabas" pops in my head outta nowhere.  So I figure it's a fluke.  About 15 minutes later, out of the blue, my wife is about to ask me what I think my spirit guide's name is.  There's no rhyme or reason for her to be asking it, especially just then.  The split second before she starts to ask I again hear the name "Barnabas" and laugh my ass off.  'Cause I think Barnabas put the question into her head and arranged the whole thing so I'd know his name.  Anyway, he's a nice guy, I think.  I give him a lot of crap but he puts up with it pretty good.  But I can't do certain things.  Like I wrote his name "Barney" above to joke about it -- but I can't.  I feel really bad if I disrespect his name.  

5)  When I was a kid I was asleep.  My dog's soul or whatever passed through my dream on its way...to wherever. He was loving me and wanting to be with me, but couldn't.  It was pretty friggin' scary and sad at the same time.  I woke up in the middle of the night crying, knowing he had just died in the back yard.

6)  As I posted in another thread, sometimes I get night visits (or so I believe) from entities passing by.  I think when I'm asleept my brainwaves are tuned to Bizarro World because people pop in and my body starts shakin'.  I always wake up telling somebody to leave and asking God to protect me...which seems oddly consistent to be a coincidence for all the times it has happened.  I mean, if you have a weird sleeping experience do you think your first response would be "Please don't enter my body...?"  I wake up saying stuff like that, it's not like I think it through or anything.

7)  When I was a kid I used to be able to look at people and know a lot about them.  I was extremely sensitive.  Anyway, I "toughened up" and grew older, and stopped "judging people" as I called it...and now I just barely make out simple things.  Barnabas is always telling me I could expand things if I want, but I'm not sure I care anymore.

8)  The channelling thing?  It works best with other people.  Often people will casually express some personal problem or internal conflict and it's like all this information rushes into my head and I can't sputter it out fast enough.  I can see how their soul is needing to learn something and all this weird stuff.  I've learned to keep my mouth shut, though.  'Cause I really don't know what the hell is going on.

9)  My grandmother has "Gilda" instead of Barnabas.  (Her dad was supposedly a psychic).  Anyway, Grandma was askin' to know her guide's name and she wakes up early the next morning to the sound of a woman talking very loudly in her ear "My name is Gilda!"  Jumped right outta bed and asked Grandpa if he heard it to, but he hadn't.  You could say that it was self-induced...but you don't know my grandmother.  Her Dad was pretty damn convincing, from what I hear.

10)  My wife sees and talks with spirits every day.  She is a very successful businesswoman with friends and a real life.  While most of my stuff happens in my sleep, she can meditate and have more interactive communication.  I'm not interested in doing that.  They have their life, I have mine...I'll know what I need to know.

We are not freaks, we just have freaky experiences.  I am, for all intents and purposes, a healthy, well-adjusted, successful adult.  What holds me back is I'm a tremendous skeptic at heart and I'm not sure what to believe...I just know something's going on.


wolfen


----------



## wolfen

Krieg said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Anyone have any insight of why psychics seem to avoid & even fear me?
> *




At least one psychic has indicated that I am a "dark" entity that is somewhat undesireable in the beyond.  I think you have to consider that psychic vision is like anything else -- it can be skewed by the person's perception.  You might be a fairly distasteful soul to anyone with that particular gift, but that doesn't mean you're doomed or evil or anything...just that you'd mess up their inner tranquility.  

Kinda like the very loud guy at a party who doesn't know what a loudmouth he is.  Some people won't care.  People accustomed to quiet surroundings will hate him.  You might be a psychic loudmouth, or you might have certain unseen "friends" with you that are particularly malignant.  I'd do some introspection regarding your inner drives and tendencies.  You might be attracting a very dark posse.  Barnabas says "You are known by the company you keep."


wolfen


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## The_Universe

*Shameless...*

*bump*


----------



## Kesh

Ahh, sounds like you saw a will-o-wisp. People have talked about those near my hometown too. Anywhere from golfball sized to beachball sized, usually either moving through the woods or following cars down country roads.


----------



## Kesh

Ahh, sounds like you saw a will-o-wisp. People have talked about those near my hometown too. Anywhere from golfball sized to beachball sized, usually either moving through the woods or following cars down country roads.


----------



## Krieg

wolfen said:
			
		

> At least one psychic has indicated that I am a "dark" entity that is somewhat undesireable in the beyond.  I think you have to consider that psychic vision is like anything else -- it can be skewed by the person's perception.  You might be a fairly distasteful soul to anyone with that particular gift, but that doesn't mean you're doomed or evil or anything...just that you'd mess up their inner tranquility.
> 
> Kinda like the very loud guy at a party who doesn't know what a loudmouth he is.  Some people won't care.  People accustomed to quiet surroundings will hate him.  You might be a psychic loudmouth, or you might have certain unseen "friends" with you that are particularly malignant.  I'd do some introspection regarding your inner drives and tendencies.  You might be attracting a very dark posse.  Barnabas says "You are known by the company you keep."
> 
> 
> wolfen




*shrug* I've always found it amusing as much as anything. I've always put it down to psychic's being decent judge's of people (whether they actually have any paranormal powers or not) & picking up on the fact that I'm a pretty die hard skeptic.


----------



## The_Universe

*Keep the thread alive!*

best...thread....ever!  Keep posting people!  I'm out of spookiness!


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## dave_o

Is the "door thudder" everyone is talking about from my stories? 

Believe me, worse things have happened.

*shudder*


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## The_Universe

*Door Thudder*

Yessir--we're talking about your posts.  *shudders*

What else happened?  If there's worse than door thudder, and you're alright telling us, then please do so!


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## dave_o

Okay, fine, I'll post more.  My SAN score must be _so_ high after all I've been through.

In San Diego, over the summer, I stayed in my girlfriend's mom's place. It's a huge, old contemporary Californian home, and I was staying in one of the unused bedrooms. Throughout my stay I kept feeling hands on my sides and stuff while I was asleep, and I'd wake up, thinking it was my Salem - only, she was sound asleep in her bedroom.

"Hmm," I thought, "ghosty, nothing unusual for me."

One night, I was walking through my hallway, coming from the bathroom. My vision starts to get hazy, as the hallway seems to fill up with a dark-colored mist. Standing at the end of the hall is a girl, about my height, looking down at her feet. Since I'm in night vision mode, I walk toward her, thinking it's my girlfriend.

And my arms pass through her, and she seems to dissipate into the rest. I _ran_ back into the living room and hid under the covers.

Not enough? 

A few years back, here, in Dave's Evil-o-Rama (moving in May, moving in May, moving in May), all the dogs on this stretch of road died. Around fifteen dogs in total. 

That night, I was out on the back porch, with my uncle and a few friends. The moon was full, as cliche as it is, and it was during the dog days of summer. The humidity was so bad that it was actually difficult to see. Way up the road, we hear a dog barking. Nothing unusual, until it makes a few strangled cries which get cut off.

It happens again, closer. I start fearing for my dogs, so my uncle produces the ever-present hillbilly shotgun from his truck. (Sigh, I hate Kentucky) We stand sort of close to the dogs, around twenty yards away, when we hear our neighbor's dogs start howling and barking. My aunt hastily grabs our dogs, shoving them inside, and going inside with them.

Thusly, my uncle and the rest of us run to the neighbors. We hear their dogs make the same strangled cry, and see our neighbors walking back toward their house, scared to f'in death. When asked what happened, they wouldn't say a _word_.

Fifteen dogs dead, one night, with no visible wounds save for the ones a few inflicted on themselves.

I live here.  

_Edit_ - Did I talk about the stalker in the woods yet?


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## WayneLigon

dave_o said:
			
		

> Is the "door thudder" everyone is talking about from my stories?
> 
> Believe me, worse things have happened.
> 
> *shudder*




Tell more?


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## Clueless

dave_o said:
			
		

> Fifteen dogs dead, one night, with no visible wounds save for the ones a few inflicted on themselves.
> I live here.
> _Edit_ - Did I talk about the stalker in the woods yet?




.... *stare*
 *why* have you not moved yet?

On the other hand - keep talking, yer getting me ideas.


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## Maraxle

I've got one, but it's nothing too scary.

When I was 5 or 6, my family and I were all sitting around my great grandmother's kitchen table.  My great aunt decided to show us this great party trick she knew where she could cleanse people of "the evil eye".  (I put that in quotes because I can't remember what she called it, but it was something along those lines)  Anyway, she went to the cupboard and got a bowl, brought it to the sink, and filled it with water.  Then she went to the other cupboard and got a bottle of olive oil.  She said that if the oil separated from the water, like it's supposed to, that you were free of the evil eye.  If it blended with the water, she'd have to do some incantation until it separated.  Well, she started with my mother, touching her forehead, whispering something, and then dropping oil into the water.  It separated like normal.  She went to my dad, and at first it blended, but after she said her "incantation", it separated.  It continued like this with mixed results (people being afflicted to varying degrees, or some not at all, like my mom) until it got to me.  When she dropped the oil into the water, it blended.  No matter how many times she said the incantation, it stayed that way.  After several minutes of trying, she decided to move on to my cousin who was sitting next to me.  When she touched his forehead, the oil separated.  

I've always assumed that she was just messing with me somehow, but to this day I haven't figured out how.  I thought maybe she had dish detergent on her hand or something, but I don't get how she could have timed that last part so well without touching the bowl.


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## Dr. Harry

Hawkeye said:
			
		

> At my core, I am a scientist.  I have a degree in biology and have spent years working under the scientific method.  That being said, I have always had an interest in the paranormal.  Unless soemthing has been proven totally 100% impossible or false in a experiment that can be reproduced, a good, responsible scientist has to accept that something is possible.  That is how I aproach the paranormal.




   I would say that you are making an important mistake in your methodology concerning the naturer of truth.  Science does not, and cannot, determine truth; all that can be done is to discuss the level of uncertainty held with a given proposition.

  To take this to (perhaps) an extreme as an example, it is not a scientific truth that the Sun will appear to rise in the east tomorrow morning, it is an application of hliocentric theory in which we have a great deal of confidence.  Therefore, nothing can ever be proven 100%, or disproven 100% as a matter of science.  The question becomes "what level of confidence does this have, and is it enough to choose to consider this as an option?"  For example, the idea of a flat Earth is well below the 1% mark (very well below), so I do not even think that that is worth considering.  If someone else did consider worth sufficient time to devise a way of testing a flat-Earth model, that would be their lookout.  If they claimed to have succeeded, then others in the field would begin to examine their data.

   If there is no scientific evidence for a proposition *and* the proposition violates scientific principles that are well-established and fruitful, it ain't science.

  I do not hold that every question can be answered scientifically (what makes something esthetically beautiful?), but if a situation can be addressed scientifically, I will need for that to be done before I accept it as part of the world. 

  An example of a way in which this approach can be short-circuited is by accepting that some circumstance is scientifically impossible, and leaves no evidence, but is held as a miraculous religious event, with the confidence of belief due to an internal emotional experience.  This, however, is a very personal decision, the truth of which cannot be conveyed to another person unless that person has enough faith in the speaker for that faith to provide the emotional leap.

  I am (in general) enjoying this thread very much, not because I think that anything paranormal in here is real, but because the human reactions, and the understanding of how we process the signals our senses give us in our brain is incredibly fascinating.  When I was getting my astronomy degree at Villanova, the local police would route UFO calls to the astronomy department (I don't know if it was because they liked us, or didn't like us) and some of us did our best to help people figure out what they had seen.  I'd recommend the books of Phillip Klass to anyone curious about this topic.

  I only write now as Hawkeye's comments touch on my profession.

Harry, Ph.D., Physics


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## Hawkeye

[/QUOTE]I am (in general) enjoying this thread very much, not because I think that anything paranormal in here is real, but because the human reactions, and the understanding of how we process the signals our senses give us in our brain is incredibly fascinating.  When I was getting my astronomy degree at Villanova, the local police would route UFO calls to the astronomy department (I don't know if it was because they liked us, or didn't like us) and some of us did our best to help people figure out what they had seen.  I'd recommend the books of Phillip Klass to anyone curious about this topic.

  I only write now as Hawkeye's comments touch on my profession.

Harry, Ph.D., Physics[/QUOTE]


Blessed are they that have never seen, but beleive.  
I don't automatically think that everything I have seen or heard over the years deals with the paranormal.  If I see something strange in the night sky, I don't leap to conclusions an immediately thinking its little grey men in a space ship coming to pay us a visit.  I look for other logical explanations before saying that there is a good chance that it is some form of UFO.  If those don't pan out, then it must be unknown and needs to be investigated.  When I found the first cold spot in that former office.  I noted the location of all the air conditioning/heating grills.  Then I turned off the AC system waited 30 mins and then walked back to the same exact spot and the temp hadn't changed in that spot, though the rest of the building was warm.

  I would agree that 99% of the strange stuff in this world has a real world answer, but enough things that don't fit our current understanding of the universe happen on a regular basis, that something is going on.  Not everyone who sees a UFO, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Ghosts, etc... is lying, hallucinating, being tricked by light or someone else.

Despite all of our scientific knowledge, there is still much about the universe we don't understand.  There is much about our planet we don't understand.  It is quite possible that we don't have the technology to properly measure such things as Psychic abilites or ghosts.  At one time we didn't know about Quasars, Pulsars, Black holes etc.. until we had the right tools to find them.  Atoms were a theory before they could be proven.  We had to have the right tools to do that.  I think we will one day have the proper tools to investigate these phonomena properly and will be able to fit them into our Newtonian/Einsteinian view of the universe.  After all, in an infinite universe, isn't anything possible?

BTW:  I beleive the Philip Klass was on the government payroll to debunk anything that related to UFOs.  The government did this for National Security reasons to keep the public from panicking that there were strange aircraft in USA airspace that the Air Force couldn't account for.  This was during the Cold War.  It makes sense from that perspective.  (And let me tell you some time about my conversations with Kevin J Randle, famed writer of books about the Roswell indicent and a couple of Playboy playmates at a con a few years ago on UFOS.  )    He wasn't for balanced investigations, but outright debunking.  If a UFO landed on the Whitehouse lawn,  he probably would be among the first to say that it didn't happen.  

Hawkeye


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## Hawkeye

Doulbe post.


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## simmias

This thread is starting to get philosophical, a decidedly good thing; I hope this post doesn't destroy that.  Like many of you I am skeptical about the existence of a supernatural reality, but perhaps there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy (or science).  Here are three stories of perhaps five that I could relate for which I have no natural explanation:

1.  In 1976 my youngest brother, Justin, was about two years old.  He ran very swiftly all over he house, but he fell down a lot.  His falls were normally not too painful because we had deep shag carpet (hey, it was the 70s).  One day my mother, a cook, my youngest brother and I were in the enormous cafeteria of the boy's home where my parents worked.  The floors here were all tile, and there were lots of sharp edges on tables, chairs, and various appliances—a fall here might mean a trip to the hospital.  My brother fell down almost immediately, or he began to fall, anyway.  He fell forward till his falling body formed about a 15 degree angle with the floor.  Then he stood right up.  It looked sort of like Frodo falling into the Dead Marshes in The Two Towers, except my brother's forward motion was simply reversed.  All present in the cafeteria witnessed the event.  My brother had lots of language at two, so when my mother asked him what had happened, he said, "Grandpa caught me," referring to my mother's father who had recently died.  My brother was the last of his grandchildren that my grandfather ever knew.  To the best of my knowledge, my brother had not ever lied or exaggerated about anything at that age.  In fact, he has been morally incapable of the both all his life.

2.  One day in the spring of 1974--before the birth of my youngest brother and the death of my grandfather--I was staying with my grandparents while my mother was at work.  My grandmother gave me a seed to plant anywhere I liked around the edge of the concrete slab of her carport.  I cannot remember the kind of seed that it was--I was only four years old.  I dug a little hole with a stick.  (In retrospect this hole was way too shallow for anything to ever grow in it.)  I made sure that there were no pieces of gravel in the hole, and I carefully placed the seed inside.  I then replaced the dirt that I had dug out.  I began to tap it down when a plant shot straight up between my fingers.  Its leaves opened before my very eyes.  I was terrified at first, so I ran into the house to tell my grandmother, who I must report, did not believe my story.  When I showed her the plant, she said it MUST have been there all along.

3.  On May 26th of this year, my oldest daughter and I drove 14 hours from McAllen, Texas—where I teach philosophy—to Pawhuska, Oklahoma where my brothers live.  It was the first time I had gone home without my wife and my youngest daughter.  The week was the only week that I had off this summer, so I had to go then.  Justin and I had a plan to record an EP together.  We had each written two songs.   One of mine was about someone run over by a car, and my other was about the how close my brothers and I are.  My daughter was technically still in school in McAllen, so my wife called the school and told them a family emergency had arisen.  (She didn't have to lie, but she did and did not know why.)  I stopped in Norman, Oklahoma, and a friend of mine whom both Justin and I have known since childhood, decided to take off work for a week and go to Pawhuska with us.  This was the first time he has ever been able to walk away for a week from the construction company that he owns.  We took his motorhome and completed the last 3 hours of the journey.  The first night in Pawhuska, one of my musical cousins, who is closest to us of all our cousins, called and agreed to come over the next day to participate in the recording sessions.  He had never in the past been able to get together with Justin and I to record.
The following day tragedy struck: Justin was involved in a near fatal car crash on his way to work.  (There is a picture on his band's website www.44reasons.com/whatsnew.html.)  Many of the medical staff and the wrecker service personnel told us that it was a miracle that Justin survived.  I agree with this assessment.  Beyond that, the parallels that preceded the crash are just too odd for me to dismiss as mere coincidence.  I won't go through them all, but just the fact that all the people closest to Justin were assembled for the first time in a score of years is passing strange.  We even had a place to hang out (my friend's motorhome) in the parking lot of the hospital!


I have come to think that many skeptics claim to know more than they actually do.  Science is not complete, and it has not yet come to grips with the fact that certain events are unrepeatable.  Perhaps it is best not to view such events as supernatural but as unexplained parts of the natural world.  I don't think any of these stories necessarily denies the laws of physics in its final form, should such a thing ever be possible or exist.  But some of those laws may not yet be known, some of our current laws may need to be modified or abandoned, and perhaps our conception of a physical law is also inadequate in some respects…


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## Dr. Harry

Hawkeye said:
			
		

> Blessed are they that have never seen, but beleive.
> I don't automatically think that everything I have seen or heard over the years deals with the paranormal.  If I see something strange in the night sky, I don't leap to conclusions an immediately thinking its little grey men in a space ship coming to pay us a visit.  I look for other logical explanations before saying that there is a good chance that it is some form of UFO.  If those don't pan out, then it must be unknown and needs to be investigated.




But "unknown" measn only "unknown at the present moment".  To say "I don't know what this is therefore I must accept the possibility that it is something that would go against all previous evidence and require all of our current scientific understanding to be tossed out the window" seems a bit of a leap to me.  When weighted in the balance with "... or it could be a natural item that I don't understand" and/or " .. perhaps I/the witness made an error in thinking, or in interpreting the event", I think the choice is obvious.



> I would agree that 99% of the strange stuff in this world has a real world answer,...




Ah, so we are only 1% apart! 



> ... but enough things that don't fit our current understanding of the universe happen on a regular basis, that something is going on.  Not everyone who sees a UFO, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Ghosts, etc... is lying, hallucinating, being tricked by light or someone else.




  That does not track.

 Everyone who sees a UFO sees something in the sky that they do not understand.  That does not mean that there is any reasonable chance that it is an alien spacecraft.

 This is not a case of probabilities.  If 10,000 people roll a 10,000-sided die, there is a 63% chance that someone will roll a one.  This does not work for paranormal explanations for experiences, each case must be evaluated separately.  If 10,000 people each say they had an experience, and if their prefered explanation for that experience is consodered to be 99.99% likely to be false (I am being quite generous here as to the odds), then the reasonable conclusion is that all of them were mistaken at soe point in their reasoning of processing of sense information.




> Despite all of our scientific knowledge, there is still much about the universe we don't understand.  There is much about our planet we don't understand.




By the very nature of scientific knowledge, it is impossible to attain all knowledge about the universe.  This actually makes me happy.  It is not that I think there are "things man was not meant to know", but that we will never reach a point where we are done and where there is nothing left to know. This pusuit has rules, however, and the rules are fairly strict, and it requires a lot of effort to play.  Still, this has resulted in vast gains and benefits.



> It is quite possible that we don't have the technology to properly measure such things as Psychic abilites or ghosts.  At one time we didn't know about Quasars, Pulsars, Black holes etc.. until we had the right tools to find them.




We have sufficient tools to measure the *results* of psychic powers, easily.  Such tests have simply never been successful with standard lab protocols in place.



> Atoms were a theory before they could be proven.




Atoms are *still* a theory, or rather our current description of atoms is an important and well-tested part of our model of matter.

Theory does not mean guess.  A theory is an explantion for observed phenomena; a scientific theory is a natural explanation for an observed phenomenon.

Additionally, nothing - absolutely nothing - in science is "proven", there are scientific theories that have earned more confidence than others, but no amount of confidence allows them to "graduate" from a theory to anything else, as there is no certainty to graduate to.




> After all, in an infinite universe, isn't anything possible?




Not necessarily, no.  All of the universe that we can observe shows evidence of following the same rules of physics universally.  We would need some place that had different rules.  Also, the observable universe is vast, but not infinite.  Some things are too unlikely to be expected.

I would prefer "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"



> BTW:  I beleive the Philip Klass was on the government payroll to debunk anything that related to UFOs.  The government did this for National Security reasons to keep the public from panicking that there were strange aircraft in USA airspace that the Air Force couldn't account for.  This was during the Cold War.  It makes sense from that perspective.  (And let me tell you some time about my conversations with Kevin J Randle, famed writer of books about the Roswell indicent and a couple of Playboy playmates at a con a few years ago on UFOS.  )    He wasn't for balanced investigations, but outright debunking.  If a UFO landed on the Whitehouse lawn,  he probably would be among the first to say that it didn't happen.
> 
> Hawkeye




You can believe what you want, and make whatever personal insinuations about him that you want, but that does not affect at all the strength of his reasoning.  A much better source for exposing Randle's sloppy, sensationalistic approach would be Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash"

Also, during the Cold War, the USSR did commonly use aircraft to test US air defense, flying at US territory until discovered and ordered out.  Some of these flights got embarrasingly deep; it would be in the US government's best interests to have these seen as "UFO's - mebbe aliens" than air defense holes.  In fact, some of the most famous UFO cases were Soviet planes.  (I can only assume the US was doing the same thing.)

Please examine this page for the largest scientific study on UFO's:

http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html



			
				simmias said:
			
		

> ...from McAllen, Texas—where I teach philosophy...




  Hey, I'm a physics professor in Kingsville.



> I have come to think that many skeptics claim to know more than they actually do. Science is not complete, and it has not yet come to grips with the fact that certain events are unrepeatable. Perhaps it is best not to view such events as supernatural but as unexplained parts of the natural world.




As to your first sentence, skeptics are human too, but it is test is in the argument and evidence, not the person.

As to your second sentence, please refer back to comments on the limits of the scientific method of my previous posts.

As to your third sentence, that should leave those events as accessible to science.  So far, there has not been an event that has passed that muster.


 In all this, I would not choose to address individual stories, especially those who say that the internal support for their stories is rooted in their religion.  I do have a backgroundin astronomy and observational astronomy, so I'd be willing to help people curious about UFO they have seen - if and only if they were interested.


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## Dr. Harry

*Playing Fair*

Since I was posting on this thread, I thought it only fair to have one post on the original topic.


1)  Hypnogogic paralysis

  I have had one instance of waking up before my brain released control of my sleeping body back to me.  I was in my teens, and my family was renting a cabin in the Rickett's Glen (sp?) State Park near Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania.  Since the night was *completely* black, I didn't have any visual input, so I don't know if my brain would have constructed any gray men.  I was quite alarmed at not being able to do anything, but eventually I got my body back.

2) A UFO story

  I was driving back to the college I got my Master's degree at in Melbourne, Florida, and I had driven all night.  As I approached the coast (if you are unfamiliar with the Atlantic coast side of Florida, civilation ends abruptly at I-95, a couple miles from the coast), I saw strange glowing objects ahead of me.  (It was about 6 A.M.)  They were reasonably large in angular size, glowed orange, and appeared to be two glowing pyramids.  
   Since I had had my BS in Astronomy for a couple years at this point, and helped to explain UFO's, I was a bit peeved at myself for not working out whatever this was.  Still, I could not explain what I was seeing.  
  I actually parked the car, and waited, staring at the object for several minutes until some clouds (invisible in the weak pre-dawn twilight) moved, allowing me to see the rest of the rising crescent Moon.  The cloud had blocked the lower, center portion, leaving only the cusps visible.  It is VERY easy to mistake celestial phenomena.


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## Goddess FallenAngel

*Hypnogogic paralysis*

Speaking of which, does anyone know _why_ hypnogogic paralysis causes you to see "shadow people"? And why everyone who experiences hypnogogic paralysis does not see them, or see the same or simular number of them, or see them doing the same things in the same way?

_*Scary thought*_

What if hypnogogic paralysis just allows us to see what's already there, but that we cannot normally see because we're awake? From what I understand, while in the hypnogogic paralysis state, our brains are not all awake... thus, the part that normally blocks us from seeing the "shadow people" is asleep... or, the part that allows us to see them is awake when normally it is asleep?

Wow, I _knew_ I shouldn't have spent most of last night reading this thread.... *shiver*


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## trancejeremy

Hmmm. I actually went to college in Melboure Fla, myself (I was a space science major).

In my lifetime, I've literally seen dozens of strange things in the sky, most of which were eventually obvious, but I've had about 5 things I can't readily explain.

Also, I'm not entirely sure if he was honest or just story telling, but I know one of the faculty at FIT (or Florida Tech, as they now call it) has seen a ghost.


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## Dr. Harry

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> Hmmm. I actually went to college in Melboure Fla, myself (I was a space science major).




I got an M.S. in Space Science at FIT in '92.  In '94 my advisor became chairman of the Physics Dept. at Michigan Technological University, and I finished my Ph.D. there.


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## Kesh

I can't find the 'local legends' thread, so this one seems appropriate enough.

You may have heard of the film The Mothman Prophecies. It's based on an actual series of supernatural sightings from Point Pleasant, WV (a town I grew up near). Apparently, they've started having an annual Mothman Festival now. 

For more on the legend itself, try here and here.


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## teitan

I have been studying the occult for ten years... practicing ritual magick etc. Lots of experiences with synchronicity etc.

Ok, my instructor HATED president Clinton, personally I admire the man but, hell, we all can't be perfect... Anyway, one day DB and I do a ritual to summon a Goetic spirit, Furfur to be exact... well, I was just the seer so I didn't issue the commands. Well, DB starts to raise his voice in a lilt and commands Furfur, already his servitor, to tear off Clinton's head and tear his life apart... Well, a few months later the Lewinsky scandal breaks out. We are sitting in the living room when we both hear a voice tell us to turn on the news... there is Clinton saying "I did not have sexual relations with that young woman!" and wagging his finger at the media. Of course the scandal broke out and the weird part is that the relationship between Slick WIlly and Modest Monica started about the same time as our little ritual. Of course I am reading into it, but hell, it is Call of Cthulhu darnit. 

One of my earliest memories is of Halloween night in Racine, Ohio. We had just got done rebuilding our house after a pretty bad fire. I was 5 years old and prone to seeing things that aren't there, well, I go into the kitchen and see a little red man with horns and a tail. We talk, he tells me that my mother's wedding band had broken. My grandma Betty hears me talking to someone and comes to look who it is and sees no one. She asks me who I was talking to and I say his name... Lairuhman (phonetic spelling). of course she didn't believe me. A few days later our parents take us to a restaurant called the Down Under in Gallipolis, OH after a movie, actually, I think it was Dragonslayer (I wanted to see it), though it may have been Herbie Goes Bananas. Well, they take this moment to tell us that they are getting a divorce and we are moving to Pomeroy with our mother. I actually still remember my last words to my father as we unpacked the truck at the new house: "Daddy, are you staying with us?" and it was actually the last thing I ever said of that nature to him. We were never very close...

Anyway... weirdest part... I got into drugs really bad when I was a senior in high school. One of my friends decided to help me. He had been studying the occult for a few years prior and asked me to come over. He had had a vision of me and wanted to tell me a message from... Lairuhman. Weirdness.

Jason (all true)


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## Hawkeye

Ah, so we are only 1% apart! 

And since the difference between 0 and 1 is an infinity, we can either never agree on anything, or in an infinite universe, we are the same person, with a multiple personality disorder, arguing with ourself(ves) on this messageboard. :b 

You can believe what you want, and make whatever personal insinuations about him that you want, but that does not affect at all the strength of his reasoning.  A much better source for exposing Randle's sloppy, sensationalistic approach would be Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash"

I have read both.  I don't think the entire story is known on Roswell and will probably be more mundane when the full truth is out.  The main problem is, that the government keeps changing its story.  I am not doubting Klass' intelligecne, education or dedication.  I think he was doing the job he was hired to do so.  Sometimes it seems to the point that he automatically debunked things as almost a knee jerk reaction.

Also, during the Cold War, the USSR did commonly use aircraft to test US air defense, flying at US territory until discovered and ordered out.  Some of these flights got embarrasingly deep; it would be in the US government's best interests to have these seen as "UFO's - mebbe aliens" than air defense holes.  In fact, some of the most famous UFO cases were Soviet planes.  (I can only assume the US was doing the same thing.)

I agree. The US was doing the same thing.  Last figure I heard there were like 150 US pilots that never came back from "training" missions that involved over flights of the Soviet Union.  

Please examine this page for the largest scientific study on UFO's:

http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html

Its probably the largest official, pubically known study, but I think NICAP or MUFON's ongoing scientific study of the phenomena might be the largest.  I know of this study.  Its 35+ years old.  Isn't it possible in that time that advances in technology and our understanding of the Universe might bring a different conclusion upon re-examination of the evidence?  Isn't reproducability of a study or experiment the hallmark of science?  That evidence needs to be reviewed, though since its based  mostly on eye-witness reports and we all know how fallible we all are.      the conclusions would be either the same or inconclusive.  I would like to see a new study, just like this with federal backing.  Of course, fantatics on both sides of the question would attack the results.    

Hawkeye


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## dave_o

And now, chilling tales from Dave's (soon-to-be-former) home, presents - _The Stalker in Woods_.

I live in a valley. The woods encroach on my home, to the tune of there being a nigh-inpenetrable treeline thirty yards away from my house, at furthest. Behind my home is a considerably large creek, running through the woods, and so my place is home to lots of great, creepy noises - but this one is _different_.

You've all read the former stories, about the insane Wheeler house, about the "door thudder", the giggling - but this noise, I'm rather sure, is another embodiment of that very "door thudder".

At least three of you just looked over your shoulder. 

And that's what I do, a lot, here, as well. Why? The Stalker in Woods. If you walk around outside my home, you _will_ hear someone walking behind you. It's a very obvious, distinct stepping behind you - the grass bends down behind you, and even second-hand parties hear it when you walk by. If you step up on the porch? The footsteps continue, on the wood. Walk on gravel? Crunch, crunch.

Not very creepy, right?

Sometimes, it casts a shadow. Meaning, if you're standing there with a light to your back, you'll see some _way_ tall guy standing over your shoulder. And remember my post about the big, black figure I saw around age three?

It's him.


----------



## The_Universe

*run dave, run!*

Run Dave!  Run!  

:d


----------



## Rugger

Aw dammit, Dave...

I live in the sticks in Vermont...and all of you stories hit WAY to close to home...

Is it bad that I won't let my dog get more than 10 feet away from me when I take her out at night...cause I'm scared outta my mind? 

If I EVER hear a Door Thudder, or Creepy Walking Behind You Guy...I'm moving.

Just when this thread looks to be dying out...the heebie-jeebies come right back!

-Rugger
"I CringeInFear!"


----------



## Goddess FallenAngel

Dave, if you ever vanish from the boards, we will at least know what happened to you....  *the door thudder was one of the major things that freaked _me_ out on this thread*


----------



## Dr. Harry

Hawkeye said:
			
		

> Dr. Harry said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, so we are only 1% apart!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And since the difference between 0 and 1 is an infinity, we can either never agree on anything, or in an infinite universe, we are the same person, with a multiple personality disorder, arguing with ourself(ves) on this messageboard. :b
Click to expand...



Re:  Kevin Randle, UFO publicist, and also Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash"


> I have read both.  I don't think the entire story is known on Roswell and will probably be more mundane when the full truth is out.  The main problem is, that the government keeps changing its story.




There were several difficulties to getting the "full" Roswell story.

1) The first interviews for the first book were conducted in 1978 - more that 30 years after the event alledgedly took place.

2) What evidence was available to the general public showed that the primary Roswell "witness" (former Major Jesse Marcel) has a difficult time telling the unvarnished truth.

3) Officers at Roswell AAFB were able to recognize the remnants of weather balloons and radar reflectors, but the U.S. government denied that any balloons had been released.  This was because the source of the debris (project MOGUL) was classified due to its nature.  Project MOGUL was part of a project for spying on the Soviet Union.  High altitude reconnasaince was conducted by releasing a series of balloons with radar reflectors and material that would show traces of the particles that would result from a Soviet nuclear test.  The balloons would be launched from western Europe and recovered in the Pacific.  This confusion could not be cleared up until recently, when the U.S. government declassified the material.

4)  Due to the long time lag, there is substantial evidence that the dating of other events has become confused as several "witnesses" associate events that demonstrably took place at other times with the Roswell event.  The Air Force report can be obtained through:

http://www.af.mil/lib/roswell/



> I am not doubting Klass' intelligecne, education or dedication.  I think he was doing the job he was hired to do so.  Sometimes it seems to the point that he automatically debunked things as almost a knee jerk reaction.




You are not doubting his intelligence, education, or dedication, but you are making a serious slam against his integrity.  Still, this does not affect his actual arguments.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.



> http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html
> 
> Its probably the largest official, pubically known study, but I think NICAP or MUFON's ongoing scientific study of the phenomena might be the largest.  I know of this study.  Its 35+ years old.




A scientific study must be published, and it must be made available for review by qualified individuals.  In this sense, NICAP & MUFON have simply been gathering data.



> Isn't it possible in that time that advances in technology and our understanding of the Universe might bring a different conclusion upon re-examination of the evidence?




There is nothing to suggest that the results would be any different in form: Any event that allowed reasonable examination showed no evidence of alien activity.  (That does seem to be the conclusion of your next paragraph, to be fair.)  The changes in our understanding of the universe have made the alien hypothesis less likely, not more likely.



> Isn't reproducability of a study or experiment the hallmark of science?  That evidence needs to be reviewed, though since its based  mostly on eye-witness reports and we all know how fallible we all are.      the conclusions would be either the same or inconclusive.  I would like to see a new study, just like this with federal backing.




The difficulty, of course, comes from finding funds for such a study.  The previous examinations of this material have been negative enough that I do not know of a professional who wants to spend his/her valuable research time on a question that seems to have so little prospect.

  Dr. Harry, Astronomer at large


----------



## MoonRaven

I'm actually a medium/psychic/whatever you want to call it.  I see dead people on a regular basis, as well as remote view, and I've got a weird remote-viewish sort of ability to be able to look at a mundane picture and be able to pick up on ghosts, etc that were in the area at the time of the pic, plus give details on the ghosts and what they were doing, etc. (I've actually done this for a paranormal research team in the UK several times).  I have too many stories to describe, really, since I see ghosts on a regular basis (it's actually not that amazing to me, though I can see why others can be fascinated by it).  There's a good site run by a medium in the UK at www.andrewgarley.org.uk.  I'm sure if you look thorugh their forum you'll be able to come across many stories and instances.  The people are great there, and it's a site for skeptics and mediums and everyone in between.  I suggest it


----------



## Kesh

The problem with Roswell and other similar events is that, regardless of what comes to light, you'll never convince everyone it's the truth. The conspiracy nuts will claim things are being hidden or lied about, while the die-hard skeptics will always say evidence was manufactured and witnesses were lying or misremembering.

It's one of those things, like the Kennedy assassintion, that you'll never get 100% resolution on, because there's always someone who has their own idea.


----------



## wolfen

MoonRaven said:
			
		

> I've got a weird remote-viewish sort of ability to be able to look at a mundane picture and be able to pick up on ghosts, etc that were in the area at the time of the pic, plus give details on the ghosts and what they were doing




I would think that could be funny at times.  Looking at a huge billboard of a Cheeseburger and thinking about the axe-murdering ghost that would like to make hamburger of the photographer.  Or getting a porn pop-up on your computer and associating the image with a deceased janitor looking for a toilet to clean, etc...

On the other hand, I wonder how your other perception might interfere/interrupt your gaming?  "Marylin [Monroe], can't you see I'm trying to slay the freakin' dragon!  Wait for me at home in the driveway.  I tell you, she's such a prima donna."

Anyway, thanks for the post.

wolfen
(whose glad he only has the dreams and vague conversations, for now)


----------



## Hawkeye

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> Re:  Kevin Randle, UFO publicist, and also Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash"
> 
> 
> There were several difficulties to getting the "full" Roswell story.
> 
> 1) The first interviews for the first book were conducted in 1978 - more that 30 years after the event alledgedly took place.
> 
> 2) What evidence was available to the general public showed that the primary Roswell "witness" (former Major Jesse Marcel) has a difficult time telling the unvarnished truth.
> 
> 3) Officers at Roswell AAFB were able to recognize the remnants of weather balloons and radar reflectors, but the U.S. government denied that any balloons had been released.  This was because the source of the debris (project MOGUL) was classified due to its nature.  Project MOGUL was part of a project for spying on the Soviet Union.  High altitude reconnasaince was conducted by releasing a series of balloons with radar reflectors and material that would show traces of the particles that would result from a Soviet nuclear test.  The balloons would be launched from western Europe and recovered in the Pacific.  This confusion could not be cleared up until recently, when the U.S. government declassified the material.
> 
> 4)  Due to the long time lag, there is substantial evidence that the dating of other events has become confused as several "witnesses" associate events that demonstrably took place at other times with the Roswell event.  The Air Force report can be obtained through:




I agree with all of that.



[QUOTE/]You are not doubting his intelligence, education, or dedication, but you are making a serious slam against his integrity.  Still, this does not affect his actual arguments.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.[/QUOTE]

I never doubted his integrity.  He maintained his beliefs to the end despite harsh criticism from others.  That is integrity.  My problem, is that his skepticism seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction.  Anyone who automatically denies the existence of something or automatically believes in something going into a scientific investigation is not going to have a truly objective view to review the data.  Their bias will tilt them one way or the other.  Its the old "judging a book by its cover".  I still maintain that his primary job was working for the US government to "debunk"  the UFO sightings that had normal, reasonable, relatively easy explanations for being something else besides little green men from Rigel VII.  The government needed this done to assure the public that unknown aircraft were penetrating US airspace.


[QUOTE/]A scientific study must be published, and it must be made available for review by qualified individuals.  In this sense, NICAP & MUFON have simply been gathering data.[/QUOTE]

I have not checked recently, but I believe that NICAP and MUFON do publish their studies in their own digests and make them available for review, just like any other field of science.  



[QUOTE/]There is nothing to suggest that the results would be any different in form: Any event that allowed reasonable examination showed no evidence of alien activity.  (That does seem to be the conclusion of your next paragraph, to be fair.)  The changes in our understanding of the universe have made the alien hypothesis less likely, not more likely.  [/QUOTE]

I never said UFOS were caused by aliens.   You did.  Is there something you are not telling us Mr Astronomer?   I said that I have seen something strange in the sky, that didn't fit my understanding of aircraft at that time.  That was in the early 80's.  I was near a major air force base.  There is a chance, that what I saw was an early version of the stealth bomber or a flying wing project.  I am very familiar with conventional aircraft.   



The difficulty, of course, comes from finding funds for such a study.  The previous examinations of this material have been negative enough that I do not know of a professional who wants to spend his/her valuable research time on a question that seems to have so little prospect.[/QUOTE]

Just wait until I win the powerball.  I would love to see a serious up to date sutdy similar to the one done in the 60's.

Hawkeye

Edit:  Still learning the quote system.


----------



## wolfen

I knew a guy who was in the air force for 12 years and got to see a lot of documentation.  I really trust him, he's a very respectable, conservative, down to earth guy.

He said one time 2 fighter jets were flying around Cuban airspace and caught the attention of...something.  I think they were cuban jets.  So it pursued them.  The fighters warned the "flying saucer" to stand down or they'd be forced to fire on it.  When one pilot locked/targeted its missile onto the UFO, the fighter disintegrated.  

The wingman saw the whole thing and flew back to base yelling the whole way.  The american intelligence guys intercepted all the radio traffic and radar.  In the communications, the pilots were frantic and adamant that it was a UFO. 

Was it the rumored saucer in US custody?  I dunno... but it wasn't a conventional US fighter jet.  


wolfen


----------



## Thresher

Reminds me of a story a friend told me, he was in the army for about 6 years and like me sort of ended up at uni doing of all things 'Visual Arts' for some reason.
(Beats shooting at people I guess )

He ended up doing guard duty at an air base one night when a C130 came back in after doing some terrain mapping work, at first he didnt think much about it except for a whole heap of 4wds pulled up full of MP's and brass and waited for it to taxi in. 
The crew gets off, somewhat pallid and worried as the MP's and brass move in for some questioning and everyone gets carted off for a debriefing a few minutes later. Then groundcrew end up crawling all over it for a few more hours while his patrol finishes.

About 3 days later off duty he catches up with one of the guys he knows pretty well that was an airbourne techie on the Herc and asks him what happened. Seeing theres no one else around the guy tells him what happened.
For about the first hour they where just doing their business with the precision mapping laser, its an infra red one from memory that basically sends a beam down over a large area and records how far the plane is from the ground while it maintains a steady altitude. Theres also a whole heap of other specialised radar, of which I know quite a bit, but I'll shut my hole on what that does.
Then things got pretty weird.
The lasers and radar are mapping away and everyones recording it when they pick up something 150 metres underneath the plane about 20-30 metres across which is blocking the laser. They extend the laser out and its mapping ok except for that round 30m pit underneath the plane that sitting at a constant 150m and moving around down there when they adjust their altitude.

The radar is picking up absolutely nothing. So they do everything with the visual recording devices on the plane to check out what the hell it is with starlight enhancers and even to the point of banking hard and looking out the side.
Cant see anything.
But the laser can.
So for the next 4 hours they try to put up with this thing moving around underneath the plane, check everything with the onboard diagnostics, check it again a few more times and its working A-ok. 
The laser goes down about 150m and can see the blot 30m across, focus the laser around the object and its working fine reading those areas and they can even see the object bank with the plane whenever they move.
Fed up they head home and the object heads off somewhere else.

Now, it wouldnt have been that much more than an anomaly with the laser except that its happened 3 times this bloke can remember while he's been doing mapping that particuar area and it always drew in a lot of high level brass, MP's who gave them clear instruction that "it did not happen" and it did not happen because of the equipment being faulty.


----------



## dave_o

Goddess FallenAngel said:
			
		

> Dave, if you ever vanish from the boards, we will at least know what happened to you....  *the door thudder was one of the major things that freaked _me_ out on this thread*




Well, just so everyone knows, if I'm gone a lot in December - I'm not dead, my girlfriend is living with me. 

And in May, I'll be gone for almost the entire summer - as I am MOVING AWAY FROM THIS TERRIBLE PLACE.


----------



## Rugger

dave_o said:
			
		

> Well, just so everyone knows, if I'm gone a lot in December - I'm not dead, my girlfriend is living with me.
> 
> And in May, I'll be gone for almost the entire summer - as I am MOVING AWAY FROM THIS TERRIBLE PLACE.





...or else you got thumped by the Door Thumper! Aaaaaaaaahhhhgh!

-Rugger
"I Thump!"


----------



## Dr. Harry

Hawkeye said:
			
		

> Anyone who automatically denies the existence of something or automatically believes in something going into a scientific investigation is not going to have a truly objective view to review the data.  Their bias will tilt them one way or the other.  Its the old "judging a book by its cover".  I still maintain that his primary job was working for the US government to "debunk"  the UFO sightings that had normal, reasonable, relatively easy explanations for being something else besides little green men from Rigel VII.  The government needed this done to assure the public that unknown aircraft were penetrating US airspace.




I consider that a truly objective view does not assume the existance of a phenomena when no evidence exists to support it.

I do not think that your last sentence is correct; consider the Soviet planes that were left as "UFO's" because the truth would embarrass the government.



> Edit:  Still learning the quote system.




To begin a quote type left bracket - the word "QUOTE" - right bracket.  The slash is only used in ending the quote.

I realized that I had, in a sense, another UFO story.  Back when the TV show "Sightings" was on, which my apartmentmates and I called -- well, something else, we would hit it every once in a while to see how stupid FOX TV thought the American public was.  At one point, they were showing footage by some cameramen who had snuk into the Nevada desert near "Area 51" with a camera equipped with a starlight scope to observe "captured UFO technology".  An aircraft was visible through the scope was moving about.  What makes this funny is that the current issue of popular mechanics had an article about the "Aurora", the next-generation stealth aircraft that the Air Force has denied existed.  The diagrams in the magazine matched the silhouette on the screen beautifully, so (assuming that the footage was not faked) FOX missed a chance to have a story on a top-secret plane to peddle "captured UFO" footage.

         Harry


----------



## Phaedyme

Eternalknight said:
			
		

> I was reading about this the other day in a local magazine, as it happens to me whenever I walk down the street, though not when I drive.  There is no scientific explination for it so far, and paranormal investigators are starting to treat it as a serious paranormal event.




I used to live in a small town wherein the streetlights would often shut themselves off when I walked near them. It happened so often that I actually stopped noticing it.

Same street as the streetlights, the year before I moved away, there was a weird thing with a drain. Water would flow into the street every time I walked by the drain. I'd stop and watch it, to see if the water would flow before, and nothing happened. I walked past, and it flowed. I waited after, to see if there were intervals, but no such luck. It bothered me for no rational reason.


----------



## MoonRaven

Wolfen,
Yes, actually, I have had to stop gaming for a moment to tell a ghost or two to leave me alone for awhile.  It's never been Marilyn, though   It's usually someone like "Ethel Marten, died in 1890, lived in Boston, etc, etc".  Usually I get a bio of their life and sometimes a request to find something or contact someone (usually the "someone" is long dead, though).  I've actually looked up some of the contacts I've had on geneology sites and 90% of them from the 1800's on have been correct (proof for me, at least, that I'm not some hallucinating psycho).

The pictures are usually taken at haunted places (which I'm not given any info on the location until after I read the pics), though I have had a couple of people send family photos where I've seen things.  Never any billboards yet, lol.  I've had some nice, graphic dreams of late as well (yay, more fun stuff), mainly of murders that have taken place.  I never know the exact location, though (though I'd be able to recognize them if I ever ran across them).


----------



## The_Universe

*Halloween*

With Halloween quickly approaching, I thought I'd give the site a much-needed bump, to see if we could learn more about any paranormal creepiness that all you enworlders have ACTUALLY experienced.  

Happy haunting!


----------



## Rugger

The_Universe said:
			
		

> With Halloween quickly approaching, I thought I'd give the site a much-needed bump, to see if we could learn more about any paranormal creepiness that all you enworlders have ACTUALLY experienced.
> 
> Happy haunting!





Ooh! My favorite thread back from the dead!

Aren't we do for an update from Dave_o anyhoo... 

-Rugger
"I Zombify!"


----------



## orbitalfreak

Well, I've got another one, and it's a little long.  This happened within the past month, when my great-grandmother passed away.  

*A Visit from my Great-Grandparents*

I was laying in bed when I felt it.  A presence infringing on the edge of my consciousness.  At once, I knew what was happening.  My great-grandmother had died.

She had been slipping towards death for the past few months, as her age crept up on her, so her passing was certain to happen soon.  It would not come as a surprise when we would learn of her death.  What _was_ disconcerting, though, was the manner in which I learned of her death...

Cecelia Gatlin, Maw-Maw Ceelie.  She died near 10:30 p.m.  Less than a quarter of an hour later, I saw her.  I could almost communicate with her.  She did not speak in any way that we would recognize as speech; more, it was as though her thoughts were emenating from her, and whoever was listening would interpret those thoughts and apply their own words as they saw fit.  It was the meaning that was important, not the specific words used.

She was looking for her daughter, my grandmother Maw-Maw Bonnie.  Maw-maw Ceelie had come to our (my and my parents') house to find maw-maw.  The house _had_ been maw-maw's until a few years ago, when we had purchased it;  Maw-maw Ceelie had thought that maw-maw was still there.  This is an understandable incident, as her mind had been degrading along with her body in her final days.  Thus, she was still confused after passing the bounds of life.

She was looking for maw-maw Bonnie because she wanted to say her final goodybes to her family.  As she stood confused, only yards from me (in what had once been the living room of the house), her husband, my Paw-Paw Speck, came to her.  Again, they did not communicate in words, so allow me to paraphrase their conversation:

*Ceelie:*  "Speck [[she most likely used his real name; however, since I knew him only by this nickname, that is what I interpreted her words as]], where's Bonnie?  She's not at home?"
*Speck:*  "Bonnie doesn't live here anymore, Cecelia.  Angie [[my mom]] bought the house.  Bonnie lives elsewhere now."
*Ceelie:*  "Then let me say goodbye to Angie.  But if Bonnie's not here, where can I find her?"
*Speck:*  "Don't worry Cecelia, I'll help you.  I know this is new to you, that you're confused and disoriented.  It will all be fine in the end.  You will be in PERFECTION, a place beyond happiness, a state of pure peace, of absolute serenity.  Come along, I'll take you to Bonnie."

And with that, they departed; then, the telephone rang, with the family reporting of her death.

This confirmed a thought I had entertained previously.  Our house was, at one time, inhabited by what you could call a ghost.  This was when my grandparents still owned the house, both when and before we lived there.  After my grandparents moved out, the ghost no longer visited the house.

I am now convinced that this spirit was Paw-paw Speck, watching over his daughter, Maw-maw Bonnie.  I am unaware if he "haunted" the houses of his other children, though I assume he did visit them.

Speck had died back in 1990 - 1993 (I honestly can't remember...) He stayed on Earth long enough to guide his wife into the afterlife.
***************************************

And that's another of my stories.


----------



## cignus_pfaccari

I have several stories.  The most interesting (and least weird):

Bob:  This is what I called the ghost that followed me around through several apartments.

First I noticed Bob was one day in July '97.  I was going to go see Men in Black with a friend after work, but late enough that I could run home and shower and change.  I go home, get undressed, and make sure the front door's locked.  I throw the deadbolt, but I don't set the chain, because (and I distinctly remember thinking this RIGHT THEN), frankly, that chain isn't going to do anything, right?  If somebody can go through the deadbolt, they won't care about the damn chain.

So, I'm fixing to get into the shower, and I hear a click from the front door.  O-kay.  Go and look.  The chain's set.  I didn't set the chain.  No one else could possibly be in the apartment, since I live alone at this time.  It couldn't set itself, so obviously something had to set it.  I freak for a second, and then rationalize that it can't be bad, can it?  So, I go and shower and go see the movie.  No problem.  Couple days later, I notice some stuff I'd left out on the floor had been moved such that I wouldn't trip over it in the night (like a ruler, a surge protector...which had been prongs-up but's now prongs-down...).  That may've been the ghost, I dunno.

A little over a year later, I moved to a new apartment with a roommate.  Now, I fidget.  I've gotten into a habit of playing with these empty mechanical erasers, and I'd had this one out in the living room.  Then, one day, it disappears, and my roommate (admittedly, a neat freak) doesn't remember doing anything with it.  It sure isn't in my room.  So, I go to bed.  Wake up around 2, 2:30 to go to the bathroom, and by a strange coincidence, roommate's up, too.  Talk for a second, go back into bed, and right where my foot had been before...was the eraser.  The eraser hadn't been there before, either.  So, I'm pretty sure that Bob moved with me.

A couple of months later, I was doing laundry.  I'd been sitting watching TV, and got up to change loads.  Come in, go back to my room...and I get the feeling that I really should turn around.  I do so, and there's an outline of a person, sitting on the couch, which promptly disappears.

I haven't had any contact with Bob since, so I'm afraid he's run off, decided he wasn't needed, or discorporated naturally.  Now, almost all of that is explained by either optical illusion or sheer forgetfulness...except for the door chain setting.  I do prefer to believe that I had a ghost for a while, though.  A friend of mine with MUCH more experience with the occult speculated it was a guardian spirit or ancestor of some sort (like a genius from GURPS Voodoo).

I was always convinced that we had a ghost in our house, for no good reason.  I never saw anything, except once when a cat decided to track something over my shoulder one night.  My mother, though, kept seeing a man at the foot of the bed.  She didn't have any problems getting up to shoo it off, so she wasn't being hagged.

I've had a few other things happen...seeing shadows cling to a roommate's friend way longer into the light than they should have; having a voice laugh at me from the shadows of my bedroom; having what might be called psychic assaults in college, and having to ward my dorm room against same. 

Brad


----------



## Caliber

Well this thread was pretty far back, but after reading nine pages of this I can't help but to tell two tales of my own.

The first, I dunno if it counts. It was several years ago, when I was young (I'm 20 now ... I was maybe 10 or younger then)

I was sleeping normally when I started to have a nightmare. And realized I was having a nightmare. I went through the entire thing, even trying to wake up at mutliple parts. It was weird ... I'd try to open my eyes and all of a sudden it would be like I was laying in bed with my eyes closed (as I really was) but I was unable to actually open them. Eventually I'd stop trying and suddenly everything would be in focus again (and I'd be in the nightmare again)

If you're wondering the nightmare was about aliens invading, although I believe they came from the sea as well as the sky ... and I don't think they were any kind of stero-typical aliens I could have picked up from tv. There was also an earthquake and some other stuff happened ... 

All in all, one of the worst nightmares I've ever had (I only remember two others after all these years)

The other one is a little less spooky, but perhaps a little more paranormal. This happened when I was 17, and had just started driving. I never wore a seatbelt, and in fact, HATED wearing them. I couldn't help but feel constrained and bought into the whole "its dangerous to wear a seatbelt" thing that I had heard somewhere.

So I'm turning down this street to pick up my friend and suddenly I put my seatbelt on for no reason. Less than a minute later my car is a crumpled piece of scrap after crashing directly into an Explorer. I don't know if the seatbelt saved my life ... but the wreck was pretty bad. I blacked out for a bit, and escaped unharmed. Without the seatbelt though ...


----------



## Clueless

Sounds like someone(thing) kicked your subconscious solidly in the logic centers on that... yer lucky.


----------



## MerakSpielman

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> I never saw anything, except once when a cat decided to track something over my shoulder one night.



Most of what you say sounds supernatural, but my cat does things like this all the time. I don't know if cats can see into the spirit world or what, but she's been known to chase invisible bugs down the bathtub drain, or sit and stare at a single point on the floor or wall as if expecting a mouse to appear - except there's no place for a mouse or anything to be hiding. The fact that your cat only did something spooky _once_ makes me think your cat is broken.


----------



## cignus_pfaccari

MerakSpielman said:
			
		

> Most of what you say sounds supernatural, but my cat does things like this all the time. I don't know if cats can see into the spirit world or what, but she's been known to chase invisible bugs down the bathtub drain, or sit and stare at a single point on the floor or wall as if expecting a mouse to appear - except there's no place for a mouse or anything to be hiding. The fact that your cat only did something spooky _once_ makes me think your cat is broken.




I do realize most cats will do that.  Of course, we only ever had one cat come inside, this one, and she *tracked*...her gaze, which was obviously locked on something, went up and to the left.

Probably doesn't hurt that she was named Witchy, though.  

On a slightly more serious note, in the second apartment, the one where I actually saw Bob the ghost, the cat who'd come in and whore himself out* didn't react in any way, shape, or form.  Then again, when I was at a friend's, her roommate's cat wouldn't come into my friend's room, where my friend kept Seeing Things.

Brad

* - He'd meow to be let in.  Go to the food bowl we'd gotten for him.  He'd eat.  We'd sit on the couch.  When he was done eating, he'd come over, hop on one of our laps, and let us pet him.  When he was done, he walked to the door to be let out.  Man, he had the routine down pat.  I never thought to try and see if the amount of petting varied directly to the food we gave him.


----------



## mistergone

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> I do realize most cats will do that.  Of course, we only ever had one cat come inside, this one, and she *tracked*...her gaze, which was obviously locked on something, went up and to the left.




Just about all cats do that. All cats I've spent any time around. My cat does that a lot, and every time I turn to look, there's nothing there, and when I look back at the cat, she's either looking somewhere else, or looking at me slyly. I think any moving thing, even a mote of dust, can attract thier attention. I have a picture of me holding my cat, and there's these floating globules of white around us, like three or four, really small, but slightly wispy. I wish I had a scanner so I could post it, but most likely it's just an anomaly of the film, aand... no one needs to see my ugly mug surrounded by ghosts. 


edit: tags!


----------



## Majin

I'm not sure whether it's supernatural in nature but for years now I've had a weird form of sleep paralysis that I can't explain. I don't even know if I should call it sleep paralysis because it doesn't really match the description of what I've read up about it. Now I would really like to get anyone's opinion about this, especially if someone has experienced something similar. I would really like to know that this is just some kind of sleep disorder and not something more diabolical in nature. 

This usually happens to me in small grouped "incidents", as in 5 times in a row in one night for 2 or 3 days, and then nothing for weeks at a time and then all of a sudden it's back again. Maybe it'll only happen once that night but it'll be every night for a week or something. Anyway heres what happens.

I fall asleep normally and sleep an undetermined amount of time, although I try to check the clock whenever I wake up from these things and it's usually under 10 minutes from when I estimate I fell asleep. When this happens it can happen in what seems to be two different ways. First of all I seem to be fully lucid when this happens, I know that I'm asleep because I can almost feel like I'm in two places at once. I can sense and FEEL myself lying in bed but yet the scene that I'm dreaming about is what I can see. Sometimes there is nothing at all but darkness, so it's like I just have my eyes closed but I can't open them. The feeling I get is very uncomfortable, almost like I'm being smothered, and I know that the only way that I can wake up is to open my eyes. (This counts for both the darkness "dreams" AND the ones where I already have my eyes open!)

Because I know I'm dreaming I feel trapped but if I'm able to see whats around me in the dream I know I have this 2nd pair of eyes in my real body that I need to open. This is where it gets really terrifying for me. I try and try to open my eyes but they won't open. The sensation I get makes my heart race in my chest and I panic. The only way I could describe it is to try closing your eyes really tight. That squeezing sensation is what I feel trying to open them. 

"Dark" dreams - I sometimes try to just lay there as if I have my eyes closed and go back to "sleep" since nothing is happening around me but I just feel too uncomfortable and have to try "waking up"

Visual dreams - When this happens and I can actually see things around me as in a dream it usually kicks in when something in my dreams attaches itself to me in one way or another and won't let go. (This also gives me that sense of pressure and smothering) About a week ago this happened by having a relative in my dream attach his entire mouth over my ear and not letting go. (Weird I know), and even weirder last night it seemed to be some tall lanky being made out of snow I believe grabbing me by my arms. 

Waking up - I can do it but it simply takes a lot of willpower and "pushing" through the pressure of opening my eyes. When I wake up my heart is still racing like crazy and I'm slightly out of breath but I never see anything in my room at all. No shadows on the wall or anything. 

Has anyone ever experienced something similar? I would love to hear about it if so, I always dread falling to sleep sometimes fearing that this will happen to me. Especially when it happens repeatedly like I mentioned earlier, 5 consecutive times a night. (Although these seem to be constituted by the "Dark" dreams and rarely visual repeats.


----------



## Caliber

What you describe as a "visual dream" is very much identical to my experience (although much better described)

Its only happened to me once, though, and it was a long time ago. I never really thought about it, but the first memory I have of the entire incident was a pair of divers deep in the ocean stumbling upon the aliens who threw a net about the divers. A similarity to the attachment you notice?


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## Majin

Possibly. Were you one of the divers or just observing from some place? In my experiences it is always been me personally in that situation. Feel free to e-mail me personally. I'd like to know more about what you dreamt and what sensations you felt waking up and after you were fully awake. Anyone else with their own stories can e-mail me as well if you'd like to talk more about this. I know I would!


----------



## Caliber

Majin said:
			
		

> Possibly. Were you one of the divers or just observing from some place? In my experiences it is always been me personally in that situation. Feel free to e-mail me personally. I'd like to know more about what you dreamt and what sensations you felt waking up and after you were fully awake. Anyone else with their own stories can e-mail me as well if you'd like to talk more about this. I know I would!




Hrm. Okay, I'll try to give you as many details as I can. Let me preface that though with the fact that this happened well over a decade ago, so some details are pretty fuzzy. 

The first thing I remember lucidly (as in my first conscious moment) was of the divers. There were two of them and they were swimming downwards. I very well could have been one of them (and simply watching from outside my body ... I've done that before) or alternatively could have been another diver swimming with them. 

Then there were aliens there (very similar in look to Sahaguin from DnD) who captured the divers in a net and dragged them down. By now I was defintely a diver as I remember being caught in the net and freaking out. 

Obviously this dream was really a nightmare, and by now I would have woken up. In fact, its roughly around this point I realize it IS a dream. 

So I try to wake myself up (who wants to sit through a nightmare right?) I try to open my eyes, and I kind of ... "lose focus" I guess is the best way to put it. I stop existing (or at least experiencing) the dream, and instead see only darkness, as if my eyes were closed (which they were) 

I try to force them open but they refuse to go. I struggle with it until I get tired, and reluctantly go back to the dream. 

Now at this point, I know its a dream. Nonetheless I find myself getting scared witless as the nightmare progresses. I try to wake myself up a few more times but with similar success.

The dream progresses and eventually I DO wake up. I can't remember if it was through my own efforts or if the dream ended on its own. Anyway, lets just say that I remember this nightmare for two reasons. One is its the only lucid dream I've ever had. And two, its one of the scariest dreams I've ever had.

I woke up terrified, with my heart racing. Helped ya out?


----------



## Majin

I think so Caliber, that sounds almost exactly like what I experience when I have these dreams, although you are lucky and have only experienced it once. As I said in my other posts this stuff happens to me many times a month. It gets to be quite frustrating and as you mentioned _very_ tiresome. The pressure I feel when I get the trapped sensation may be escalated by the panic really. It's almost like a tightness in my chest mixed with some kind of heavy mental pain when trying to force my eyes open.

I think the part of your post that hit home the most was when you talked about your dream going in and out of focus. I neglected to mention that in my post as something that happens a lot as well when this happens. I fight to open my eyes and I nearly do and the dream may fade to black and then through straining myself to open my eyes it will get to much and I will fall back into the dream, which I don't need to tell you is a very uncomfortable and hopeless feeling. When experiencing that though it almost seems like an OOB experience and I was wondering if it could have some kind of relation. I don't dream often and it seems that lately this problem has been happening more often then I just have regular dreams that I wake up from, nightmares or not. But it is comforting to know that someone at least experienced something similar, I'd just like to know what it actually is since it happens to me quite often. I wonder if it's a documented occurance?


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## TheBadElf

Hmm...might as well contribute my little bit to the Thread that Won't Die...

My wife has quite an effect on electrical systems.  When she's upset, lightbulbs frequently blow out.  She can't be around computers when she's in a bad mood; I've seen things happen ranging from system reboots (when no one was touching the machine) to a hard drive failing.  She hasn't ever done the streetlight thing, though.  I keep trying to convince her to apply to the CIA for training; she could get a cool costume and be America's secret weapon against Evil Robots...


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## Oni

I'm not sure whether to be sad or glad I've never seen or experienced anything remotely like what has been recorded in this thread.  

Shoot my father made his living as a psychic traveling and doing readings when I was a child, everyone one in my family has odd stories about various supernatural occurances.  Me?  Nothing.  I've never seen one thing in my life like that.  What the heck, it's like everyone ones in some cool club and I can't join.  Razza Frazza....


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## Krieg

TheBadElf said:
			
		

> She can't be around computers when she's in a bad mood; I've seen things happen ranging from system reboots (when no one was touching the machine) to a hard drive failing.




It's called Windows.


----------



## morrolan

Badump.  And Dave_o needs to give you a report on the Whistler.  Probably not the same guy as in the Tull song!


----------



## Kesh

Just as a minor update, now that the time changed, I was out and walking home last night in the dark.

Wouldn't ya know it. A street lamp turned off as I approached.

I was walking up the street, with a parking lot on either side of the road. And _only_ the lamp nearest me turned off, and it turned off when I was a good 10-20 yards away still.


----------



## Hammerhead

You know, this thread is really freaking me out. I used to not believe in this ghost junk, but then, during my Junior year in high school, I learned that the Exorcist movie was real. I met one of the guys who was there, and found out about the creepy Legion spirit and everything. 

I wouldn't say I've ever had a supernatural experience. No UFOs, no ghosts, no anything. But then, there is a really weird experience. One night, I awoke to splitting headaches that consumed me. I coulnd't move I was in so much pain. I could feel some kind of prescence trying to take over, at least as far as I can remember. Fortunately, I'm a lot tougher mentally than physically, and I fought back, mentally shouting "I am (my name)! I'm not going to lose myself!" Pretty freaky, looking back on it. Why did I think someone was taking over me? Any other experiences with this?

If supernatural stuff began happening to me, I'd really get some kind of firearm with blessed bullets and a crucifix (or your religious item of choice).


----------



## Victim

Hammerhead said:
			
		

> I wouldn't say I've ever had a supernatural experience. No UFOs, no ghosts, no anything. But then, there is a really weird experience. One night, I awoke to splitting headaches that consumed me. I coulnd't move I was in so much pain. I could feel some kind of prescence trying to take over, at least as far as I can remember. Fortunately, I'm a lot tougher mentally than physically, and I fought back, mentally shouting "I am (my name)! I'm not going to lose myself!" Pretty freaky, looking back on it. Why did I think someone was taking over me? Any other experiences with this?
> 
> If supernatural stuff began happening to me, I'd really get some kind of firearm with blessed bullets and a crucifix (or your religious item of choice).





That sounds like the whole sleep paralysis thing, but without any visuals.  Your brain's FX department is poor it can't even generate shadow people.


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## Hammerhead

But do those usually occur with splitting headaches that occur even while awake and me getting up to take some Excedrin as well? I don't think this experience was really supernatural, just me being delusional, but you never know...

Any so-called supernatural experiences Victim?


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## Rugger

A Halloween bump!!

-Rugger
"I JackOLantern!"


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## Krieg

*bump*

(since people are looking for it again)


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## The_Universe

This is my favorite thread of all time.  I think it needs to be resurrected...I'd also like to hear from some of our newer members on what THEIR paranormal experiences have been.  Anyway, this thread is a great read...especially the black-eyed children, and the door thudder.  If you haven't read through this one yet, I suggest you do so.


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## Ulrick

I've had all kinds of strange encounters. Strange happenings under bridges where a man hung himself. Me almost getting hit by a car when I went to a neighbors house to destroy a Ouija board. A strange owl ornament staring at me. Prophetic dreams. Bringing in TV reception by just raising my hand and not getting up from my couch. 

But the most strangest event to happen in my life so far was when I had a really strong sense of Deja Vu. 

It was at the MWL Dining Center here at ISU. I was eating with some friends. One had brought a book about "Life Questions." It had questions like "If you had one day left to live, what would you do?" and "If you knew your friend had one day to live, what would you say to him or her?" Stuff like that. 

I was glancing through this when everything just seemed to "stop" for a split second. I looked up and stared off into space. I felt like I was "stepped outside of myself" and was somebody "else"--perhaps another version of myself. Somebody seemed to ask "Is he where he is _supposed_ to be?" This "other version" of me said, "Yes he is." 

At that point, I came back to reality, but had a very strong premonition that something major was going to happen. That night I didn't sleep well. This event really disturbed me. I was worried but I didn't know why.

The First Words I heard the following morning was roommate saying "Wake up!! Wake Up!!! The World Trade Center is GONE!!!" 

You can interpret my story however you want. I still don't know what to think of it.


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## kirinke

well here's my two cents.

while i was still in college i had to drive my mother to the hospital, because the family friend had been admitted there sometime earlier. it was serious, but i didn't know how serious it was.
while i was driving to college (30 miles away). i had this image-sentence flash through my head.

"Maxie is going down the green road." a euthanism for dying.

i found out that at that exact same time, maxie had died.

freaked me out. still does to this day.

i suppose it's a form of esp no? but still scary.


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## Kesh

I'll just repeat what I said in this thread last year. Ouija boards are bad.

And street lamps _still_ turn off when I walk past.


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## ChrisWaller

Man, this thread is just sweet...might as well add to it.

When I was a kid, I lived on a farm in northern Ontario. Every year or so one of the farmers in the area would loose a cow. The only trace would be some extreamly large feline footprints in the pasture; no blood, no hint of violence, just the footprints. This had been going on for years.
On another farm a few years later, my dad was woken up by hideous howling coming from the backyard. Being just a little lacking in the common sense department, he went to investigate armed only with a flashlight. He's not sure what he saw, but he claimed that it was the size of a large dog and had glowing red eyes. It really shook him up and it was quite some time before he'd let us go outside after dark.
Finally, I've got really good instincts when it comes to troublemakers. Now I don't mean the obvious ones, I mean the folks you wouldn't look twice at. When I was working in stores I could tell you who was a thief just by looking at them. These days I generally find myself in the middle of a fight just before the fists start flying. The bouncers at the clubs I frequent have learned to watch me and follow my lead. And yes I have seen Unbreakable.


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## kirinke

Kesh said:
			
		

> I'll just repeat what I said in this thread last year. Ouija boards are bad.
> 
> And street lamps _still_ turn off when I walk past.




man.... every gamer knows ouija boards and pyschics do NOT mix. Especially untrained psychics and i bet you dime to a dollar that most of those bad experiences were with people who were latently gifted or marginally gifted. 

don't people watch horror movies now and again? i mean... just because....

errr.... ranting.

will stop now.

goes to take a valium....


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## Turanil

> Quote:
> Originally posted by Andrew D. Gable
> Only overtly (and even this isn't) supernatural thing that ever happened to me was once, about 7 years back now, when I woke up suddenly around 3:00 AM (for some reason, I often wake up about 3:00 AM, but that's another tale) experiencing the whole sleep paralysis deal. I saw a human figure, completely pitch black with no features (rather like a DnD shadow) standing in one corner of my room, near my closet. It just stood motionless, looking out my window, and then vanished after a few moments.
> 
> 
> Wow, almost verbatum for me (more like 12 years ago) whats up with 3 AM any way, thats when it got me.




Sheesh! When unpleasant (seemingly) supernatural things happen at home, it is ALWAYS between midnight and 3 AM. I had a very unpleasant experience once (of course between midnight and 3 AM), but hell, as I am reading this thread in the middle of the night (a bad idea!), I won't write it down.


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## Ssyleia

I have always half-believed in supernatural things. Hey - I play D&D *laugh*

However, I am also a rational person - easy to dismiss strange things on "coincidence" or "being tired"...

In 2001, I finally made an experience that confirmed my believe that there are things out there that mathemathics cannot describe:

I have battled a ghost and I won!!!

Now the long story. I have met a girl - a very sad girl, very beautiful and very lovely. It didn't take very long for us to fall in love. Her mother had died a few days before we met. Her mother had hated her - done everything possible to make her feel miserable, basically imprisoned her until she was 18, also subjugated her father who is such a kind and nice lovely man. By what I've been told her mother must have been evil and I'd say her early death was maybe God's relieve to her kin...

The first night I've slept over at my new girlfirend's was probably the worst night I've ever had. I've been struck by panic attacks several time, sometimes seeing things move just on the corner of my eye. It was horrible. I didn't catch any sleep at all. Now, I've never ever had these kinds of "imaginations" in my life before - not even as a boy!

I thought - maybe I had a bad day. Things happen. However, they happened again every night I would sleep over at my girlfriend's. As it happened the second time I no longer believed in coincidence. The ghost of her mother just would not allow my girlfriend to become happy....

But if this wasn't strange engough - things would turn worse. As night falls, huge birds of prey would be looking inside from outside of the large glass windows of my gf's living room with yellow glowing eyes - even scaring her almost to death. When taking a smoke on the balcony I was stung by a wasp twice, bitten by a spider once (That is: within 2 1/2 Month). So far, these were the only times in my live when I was stung by wasps or bitten by a spider... All three stingings occured at dusk...

I have been trained in the martial arts since age 7. Apart from physical training, martial arts trainees of my style (Kung Jung Mu Sul   Hap Ki Do) learn mental discipline such as meditation. At youth our grandmaster always told us, if we had trouble coming to meditation "imagine" a waterfall. To combat the panic attacks at night I meditated visualizing a dense, light green jungle with a small - just about man sized waterfall and a very lazy tiger doing nothing all day but laying there and lazily rolling on his back and letting the warm sun shine on its belly or taking a refreshing bath in the small pond below the waterfall - afterwards shaking off his pelt so hard that the birds in the sourrounding jungle would fly off as the water hit them. 

Of course, the tiger in there was a symbol of myself.

After two and a half months - early in november - the haunting stopped. Ever since then I slept peacefully at her house until we seaparated after 14 months of happiness together...


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## Aezoc

Ok, this is freaky enough that I have to add it to the thread. I've just been sitting here catching up on this thread for the past half hour or so. My suitemate (I'm in a college dorm) walked in a minute ago and asked me what I was reading. I told him it was basically a collection of peoples' supernatural experiences. He laughed, made a dismissive comment, and walked out. Well, I'm sitting here with Winamp on random play, and White Zombie's Super-Charger Heaven started up as he was walking out. In case you aren't familiar with the song, it starts with a sample from The Haunting ("Look, I know the supernatural isn't something that's supposed to happen, but it does happen."). Well, immediately after that, the music's supposed to start, but... nothing. I checked Winamp and it's on pause (I sure didn't do that), and more than that, clicking the play button doesn't do anything at all. I'm now officially VERY freaked out.


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## Ssyleia

@Azeroc

I've thought long about posting whether I should. 
Maybe I shouldn't have... 
Maybe some other people shouldn't have...
Maybe some things you better take to the grave without telling...


----------



## RangerWickett

I stand by my assertion that nothing supernatural exists.

Except God.

*knocks on wood*



Spoiler



P.S., what the hell does 'knock on wood' mean, and where does it come from?


----------



## Clueless

Sooo.... door thudder man. You moved out yet? Still alive?


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## PallidPatience

This is one creepy thread... I love it... Dave-O, you'll think I'm mad, but I'm a little jealous. My experiences are pretty tame compared to yours.

I was at my girlfriend's dorm in Michigan (MSU, West Akers Hall), and it was night time. I looked out the window, because I was sitting at her desk on her laptop, and this cat was just... hovering outside the window and staring inside malevelontly. It was grinning widely, and its teeth were longer than normal. It looked almost shark-like... I just told it to leave, and it did so (I find that I can often do that).

My sister (who has these experiences a lot) was sitting in the living room of my house with a friend she had over. Suddenly, her friend just stared off into nowhere, focussing on this one spot that seemed empty. My sister ran to get me, and pulled me in there. Apparently, my sister's friend had seen this tall being with red glowing eyes. Its head brushed the ceiling, she said. It left before I showed up.

I was sitting in there the night before the above incident with my sister and her friend, and my sister suddenly just stared behind me for a moment. She said that something was calling my name. Moments later, I stood up to walk around the room, and she told me to stop. She just stared past me. She said there was a maggot-covered woman behind me who was reaching for me. I stepped away, and looked back, but she vanished just as I looked at her (and saw her, faintly). I had my back turned to my sister and her friend at that moment, and they both just gasped and looked at my back. A trail of claw marks had appeared running down the center of my back. My sister still sees that woman from time to time.

My old house, a trailer out in the middle of nowhere, was seriously haunted. Everyone would always see this small shadow dart from what used to be my sister's room into the bathroom across the hall. One night, my sister roused me from slumber and pulled me into her room. She pointed out of the door, into the kitchen (the dining room, living room, and kitchen were all part of the same large room, partitioned off with little walls) and we both froze. This woman was floating, glowing a soft white, in front of the sink and staring out the window. A second after we both saw her, she vanished. Apparently, that woman visited my sister a lot. She was a Catholic mother of the boy whose shadow everyone saw when he would run from the closet in my sister's room into the bathroom across the hallway. She was always mean to my sister. There was also a meek little girl there that my sister always saw.

I went out to that house with a couple of friends last Samhain. The three of us are pagan (I'm almost Enochian, while the other two are Wiccan/Druidic types), and we were going to perform a ritual in honor of the dead. We set up our things and called the circle, and all was going pretty well. Soon, however, this shape started prowling around the outside of the circle (If you don't understand what a circle is, I'll explain. A circle is a protective measure that one is supposed to call before a ritual. It focuses the user's energy, and it also holds forces and beings that would interfere with the ritual at bay. They can be called in a variety of ways, and it's often enough to just visualize one around you if you're alone). It was a dark, feline shape, almost like a panther. Soon, it just left. A veritable swarm of other shapes surrounded us soon after, though, and as we were beginning to end the ritual, a fog sprang up around us. It didn't enter the circle, which was odd, and it wasn't smoke; we weren't burning anything that would leave smoke, only rubbing alcohol. I looked past them, and this dark blot showed up starkly against some of the trees in the distance. It wasn't a shadow, because the rest of the trees showed up clearly. This one man-sized blot, however, was just... nonexistent, it seemed. The ground across to that point swarmed with shapes, though. It was almost like an army of spirits. Shortly after that, we closed the circle, grabbed the stuff, and ran for our female Wiccan's car (she's the one who suggested we come out here). The fog chased us all the way down the driveway.

She and her boyfriend took me out to that old place again last Tuesday. This time, things were much calmer, but the woman who haunted the place did come out, as she did at Samhain, to watch us. When she pulled out her Tarot cards, with the expectation of taking one for each of the three of us, an extra one simply fell off of the top of the deck. We took that to mean that the woman from the house wanted a reading, too. We did as she wished, reading each of ours first; hers gave further instructions to us. She wanted to be free. So we basically exorcised her, giving her freedom to move on to her next life or to wherever it was she wished to go. The creepiest thing about the whole ritual was that there was always SOMETHING crawling around in the tall grass behind me, and to my left and right. Whatever it was growled once, but it became apparent that there were at least two when the grass to my left rustled just before the grass to my right did. It may not have been anything supernatural at all; it could have been a small group of possums or dogs, but it was still a freaky experience.

There are others, but I cannot remember them at the moment. I'll see if I can think of them later.


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## The_Universe

Sweeeeeeeeet.  I Love this thread.  Wish I had something to add, but I do not.


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## Numion

Majin said:
			
		

> Waking up - I can do it but it simply takes a lot of willpower and "pushing" through the pressure of opening my eyes. When I wake up my heart is still racing like crazy and I'm slightly out of breath but I never see anything in my room at all. No shadows on the wall or anything.




I've experienced something like this. I'm in a pseudo-sleep like state where I often 'see' my current sleeping place (I mean I always know where I am) but there's something threatening next to me (different things - for example once a drill sergeant when I was in the army. Good it wasn't true since when I shook the effect off I kicked into the direction where I though he was ). I can't move, and only after a lot of trying I can shake it off. In this paralyzed state I know that I'm really asleep and that I need to wake up, start moving again, but I never realize that the threat is in the dream only (that is, I think I need to wake up to confront the threat, and not only to move again). Then I wake up, can move again and realize that there's nothing there. 

It hasn't happened for a while though, and I suppose there isn't much paranormal in it, or anything dangerous. It usually happens during daytime napping, and only once during the night IIRC.


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## krichaiushii

I experienced a life-saving dream.

First, some background.  During high school, a close friend killed himself.

Fast forward some years to college.  Its a rough period in my life, and I decide that suicide was a viable option.  Washing down a handful of sleeping pills with some wine, I lay down to die.

I drifted off and dreamt that I saw this friend, dressed in his funerary clothes, and carrying a softball bat - one of those nice aluminum ones - standing in the corner of the room.

I was thrilled! So I greeted him and he advanced and proceeded to beat on me with the ball bat until I woke up.  On waking up, I called the local emergency center who told me to stay awake for some time, and eventually what I took would leave my system.

To this day, I am thankful for his timely appearence.  I know my wife and son are.


----------



## Kesh

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I stand by my assertion that nothing supernatural exists.
> 
> Except God.
> 
> *knocks on wood*
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> P.S., what the hell does 'knock on wood' mean, and where does it come from?



 For your question: Clicky.


----------



## PallidPatience

I forgot my own preja vu experiences. I often catch myself in the middle of a conversation remembering dreams I've had that match entire conversations exactly. I predict to myself the exact words that people will reply with, and even the expressions on their faces. "Now, William will say, 'But you have to look at it this way. It's not as simple as that,' and grin widely before turning to whisper something I don't hear to the girl beside him."


----------



## Bad_English

*Hmmm lurking and the changes of lifes fortunes*

I will make this one short.

Back in the day, 1973 in a Northwestern US town, that at the time was very small and crouched in the shadows of the cascades. Us locals used to go up on the 'middle fork' road which dated before the 1920's and supported logging, fishing, mining and hunting.

Of course this was the 70's and we were quite the roudy bunch of misfits. It was decided late one night about 1 AM, as we were unable to get anyone to buy us beer and we had no other mischief (herbal), save our on going obsession with LotR. So we hopped into the old 71 Cougar and booked out into night.

Now the Middle fork has a reputation; but not one we were aware of and a history that goes back quite a ways, but it was only after this night and asking alot of questions, this made sense.

It was decided not to go too far as it still was late spring and the wash outs up further would have reaped havoc on the car finding a spur road that lead out to a wide spot in the narrow valley so we could look at the stars and try to convince one of the girls to 'make out'. The loneliness and darkness was sure to work on them, (alas, it did not) shutting off the car and waiting abit for our eyes to get used to the moon light, we talked of the usual stuff. Galadriel and Frodo and how no one could ever make a movie that could even encompass the depth of the story. 

The night was warm enough you could get away with a sweatshirt and soon we walked out on to the huge sandbar. People seperated to 'talk' and others tried to show off and build interest from the one other present and unattached girl.

I would say we got out about 300 yards out onto the gravel, when the couple in front of us stopped and instead of holding hands and all that they looked around as if startled.

As we approached the sound of the rushing water that filled the background with a soft echo seemed to stop. When we got closer, the air seemed to chill and we could see our breath when tha moon suddenly drooped behind a cloud everybody jumped and we looked about but could see nothing. Now youth played into this, we decided it was the moon and although the light breeze stopped it was just we needed to make a fire.

Turning to the northeast, for some reason we walked towards a stand of willows clustered around a log embedded in the sand. There forty feet away was an old fire ring with charred wood in it, we can do something and look cool. Then one of the other guys pulled out a pint of whiskey, he stole from his gramps and the adventure began. 

We suddenly felt invulerable and every one scattered to find firewood, except the couple of whom the girl was still disturbed about the strange, cold spot.  Her friend amazingly went off by herself looking, so we could not be shown up. The search for wood, was a noisy affair perhaps brought on by the moment earlier and the burning burbon in our stomachs.

The fire going and the fight over the last of the whiskey over, we got warm the only sound was the popping of the burning wood and the soft movement of the water echoing off the tall ring of trees, far away. We got quiet, and other than occasional bits of conversation we mostly sat and stared into the flames.

The wind suddenly started the trees to rustle and move and drown out the river as we looked about, some of us stood, suddenly a loud bang came from up close. Sounding like our friends small caliber pistol or larger, we all turned at him he sat look at us a shocked look on his face.

Now everybody was moving in the direction we thought was towards the car. The wind had stopped and the night got very cold, and fingers of mist were creeping out of the trees. "God!" We cannot leave the fire and our folks would be more angry at the fire left than the girls and the booze. So we head back and as we start to kick sand over it another loud report goes off and a hot rock comes flying out of the fire.

"Some one is shooting at us! Screw the fire we are booking!!" Now we are trying to move at a dignified scramble what was once an easy walk turned into struggle for every step. Once again we get stopped in the same spot a chill that just seems to take your breath away and all sound seems muted except your breath and the sensation of something watching and it was evil the hair stood up on my neck. 

Strange you could look about there was no movement save the mist and the trees stood as if watching and waiting for something. Then the relief as I saw the reflection of the now setting moon on the chrome bumper of the car as a brief gap in the fog formed. 

The cold spot was investigated during the day and out on that sand and gravel bar it was always colder and sound seemed deadened. Even in the daylight you felt it. 

But we did however solve the mystery of the 'shots'. 

The explosion was a phenomina from what are called "clay babies" natural concretions in clay that in this case was formed during the last ice age. The water trapped in the concretion super heats then explodes throwing red hot fragments out. Frightening the heck out of dumb a******
that should have known better.

The area on the 'middle fork' that we decided to stop at had a rock formation hidden in the hills nearby, that according to tradition was made from the hair of some sisters abducted by 'spirits from the moon' to be their brides. 

The women grew their hair long and made a rope in order to climb down from the moon and they pulled the rope down so as to stop the 'spirits' from following. The hair fell and made the rocks.

Oh the name of the tribe the women come from translates to "Childern of the Moon."  or Snoqualmie.

The broken half circle of mountain called Mount Si, is supposed to be a portion of the moon that fell from the sky. It was called "Twin Peaks" on TV.  

The name of the river is also the Snoqualmie and the famous satquatch tracks were made in the 80's by a good, and very drunk friend of mine. Who cut off some old cross counrty skies and made a plywood feet nailed to it and on the bottom was cardboard, cause even a drunk knows a plywood print has to have something on it. 

Lubricated with Jack Daniels he puts them on his feet only to discover the stiff plywood feet caused him spring board, in a marvelous show of luck and dexterity to wind up  making huge drunken strides into the river. Where he barely survived drowning with those monstrosites attached to his feet only to finally remove them 40 yards down stream and drag his wet self out onto the rocks.

News crews, researchers, plaster castings, and a very drunk wet friend. Now you cannot say that is not scary.

You know Twin Peaks was filmed in part there and in that year about 8 miles away Ted Bundy' first victims were found. And the truth about the cherry pies made famous during the filming was, made from a can. Ted continued his terror for many years to come.


----------



## ^Graff

*thread necromancy*
The following story is fiction, as far as I can tell, but it's the same flavor as some of the other stories on this thread.  Some of you may have read this before, when I posted it on WoTC's CoC forums.  

http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/

Personally, I haven't had many weird encounters.  I had sleep paralysis once, and premonitions a half-dozen time in my life (nothing major).  I do have Deja Vu often, though.  Sometimes I have it 2-3 times a day.

And what's up with Dave-O?  Has anything else happened at your house?  Are you still moving in May?


----------



## The_Universe

^Graff said:
			
		

> *thread necromancy*
> The following story is fiction, as far as I can tell, but it's the same flavor as some of the other stories on this thread.  Some of you may have read this before, when I posted it on WoTC's CoC forums.
> 
> http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/
> 
> Personally, I haven't had many weird encounters.  I had sleep paralysis once, and premonitions a half-dozen time in my life (nothing major).  I do have Deja Vu often, though.  Sometimes I have it 2-3 times a day.
> 
> And what's up with Dave-O?  Has anything else happened at your house?  Are you still moving in May?



 I am assuming that the author intentionally leaves the 11th page unloadable?  

Very clever.  Creepy, too.  It's no doorthudder or Black-eyed kids, but definitely scary.  Too much seems contrived to be true, but it makes a great story.  If anybody knows 'Ted,' send him by the boards!


----------



## Queen_Dopplepopolis

*Freaky story I've never really told anyone...*

Background...

My grandmother wasn't the most positive of people... in fact, I would go so far as to say, for most of her life, she was a very bad person.  She cheated on my grandfather for years and years, aborted a baby for not logical reason and showed no remorse, abused her children, and managed though her illness to make the lives of her children and grandchildren completely miserable.

However, in the two years before her death at the young age of 61, her and I became close.  She and I visited weekly--she told me about her entire life.  And, I felt bad for her.  She had emphasima (spelling?) and was suffering from liver failure due to her years and years of alchohol abuse and chain smoking...  
As she grew sicker and sicker, I tried to ask her about the afterlife... what she thought was going to happen after she died--it could no longer be denied that she would, in the very near future, pass away.
I got little to no reply.  She was raised Catholic.  My grandfather made a large show of having the priest there to read her her last rights and whatnot every time she came close to death... but, she never really took it seriously.

When I was called out of the classroom on an early May afternoon, I knew what the principal was going to tell me... Gram was dead... it was no surprise...
Her funeral was rough... I consider myself to be christian... though, no preacher... I knew that she had not accepted God into her heart... and, if anyone has been placed in that situation before-- you know... it hurts worse than anything.

The night after her funeral, I had the most vivid dream I've ever had in my entire life... my grandmother screaming in brutal pain... her frail body, twisted and contorted and she writhed in what shifted from flames to snow... she wept and cried out... and begged for it to stop.  I just stood... or floated... and there was nothing I could do.  I reached out for her but the heat or cold would be too extreme for me to get to her.

I awoke weeping in a way that I've never wept before.  I can't say that I know for sure... but, after that dream, I became almost certain that my grandmother went to Hell.

I don't know if this story really applies... it is the closest I have to a story about the afterlife reaching out and touching me directly.
I've never really told anyone as it's depressing... but, there's a first time for everything.


----------



## blackshirt5

*BUMP*


----------



## The_Universe

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> *BUMP*



 Blackshirt, what happened to the story you had here earlier today?!  I didn't get a chance to read it, and now it's gone!  YARGH!


----------



## Queen_Dopplepopolis

Here's a weird story that I just remembered while looking through this thread again..

My ex-boyfriend and a friend of his-- both named Jon-- were traveling through Madison, WI a couple years ago... while stopped at a gas station, they noticed a man in the rear of the 7-11 ramming repeatedly into the large brick wall... apparently he was slamming into it so hard that he was knocking his own teeth out and appeared to have broken his nose.
Jon and Jon, both generally caring people, were a little weirded out--but, at the same time, were very concerned.  As they walked back toward the man, he cried out in a very un-humanly deep voice to stay away.  His voice changed very suddenly and he started to weep-- claiming to be possessed by demons.  He said that he was attempting to get the demons OUT by slamming himself into the wall.

When Jon and Jon offered to get help, his voice went back to the deep scary hell voice and he demanded they leave him immediately.  Then, he started to run at them...

Needless to say, they were incredibly terrified.  Ran back to their car, and quickly drove away.

The Jons called me right away afterwards to tell me about their brush with the freak man behind the 7-11... 

I'm sure that I am missing some very creepy details... but, my memory does not always serve me as well as I would like...


----------



## cignus_pfaccari

More weird stuff that I forgot to mention back in October...

One night, at the old apartment, about 2-3 AM, I felt something, that I'd have to describe as a cat leaping off my bed.  Well, we had a cat that came in for feeding and petting, but Chairman Mao didn't come to the door that night.  Now that I think about it, it was about that time that my pet cat at home would've died (my parents, of course, forgot to tell me until I asked how she was doing).

Another thing, back in 2001.  I mentioned in an earlier post that a friend Saw Things in her bedroom.  Well, we'll call her Georgia Girl, since she was, at the time, living in Savannah, GA.  At night, she saw things in her bedroom...like pictures of her and her mother and sister changing into those of rural black slaves or sharecroppers (she's of Polish extraction).  A pile of laundry on a chair became a little boy, etc.  It seems, though, that this started after she inherited some furniture from her grandfather, who'd also lived in Savannah, and put the chairs in her room.

I'd had some weird things happen in college and after, so I took what my witch friend suggested it and relayed to Georgia Girl...take some ivy and orange peel and stuff, say some prayers over it, and then swish it around the room while praying with the ivy.  She never went into details, but it apparently worked.  (Note that when I tried it, I didn't see any demons frying, but there was a nice lemony scent!)

Brad


----------



## LazerPointer

I love this thread.  I have no events that I can add (for which I am thankful, despite how damn interesting it would be) but I did experience sleep paralysis once only.

It was mid-afternoon, I was napping on the couch, and I woke up completely immobile.  I heard someone fumbling with the front door.  After 10-20 seconds it stopped, and I lay there waiting to see if anyone had come in for about five minutes.  I eventually decided to fall asleep again.  I think my head probably made up the doorknob sounds, and I'm really glad it didn't make up more.  Keep the stories coming!


----------



## blackshirt5

The_Universe said:
			
		

> Blackshirt, what happened to the story you had here earlier today?!  I didn't get a chance to read it, and now it's gone!  YARGH!



 Realized that it didn't really seem supernatural(but for the short version, my girlfriend, her mother, her mother's mother, and her mother's grandmother all look EXACTLY ALIKE; as in, mistaking old pictures of Great-Grandma Hilda for my Brooke).  Also, wanna look more into how often things fall on the remaining three, Brooke, Talba(her mom), and Grandma Heller(stuff around the house ALWAYS falls on those three, and just those three; never Brooke's stepdad, Keith, or her sisters, or anyone who comes to visit; it's never anything dangerous or life-threatening, at least not toomuchso, just irritating and annoying), before I post that part of the story; all I know is that I've spent plenty of time in that house and even walking to the fridge in the middle of the night, nothing falls on me.

Plus, it just seems spooooooky!  My story DISAPPEARED! *waggles fingers and makes spooky moaning sounds*


----------



## The_Universe

I agree, Blackshirt--I had been reading back through the thread, and when I came back to your most recent post, I was shocked--GHOSTS STOLE YOUR STORY!  

But then rationality kicked back in.  I think the identical generations thing is VERY strange...at the very least, someone has consistently dominant genes.  Are they all the oldest (or only) girl in the family?  Does the trend extend back before her grandmother?

Haunted chairs are neat.  

Cignus, what part of Arlington are you in?


----------



## blackshirt5

Yeah, each of them ARE the oldest girls in the family.

Dunno about it extending back past them, that's as far back as the pictures go(Brooke's Great-Grandmother was the first american generation, before that, they were in Europe).


----------



## The_Universe

blackshirt5 said:
			
		

> Yeah, each of them ARE the oldest girls in the family.
> 
> Dunno about it extending back past them, that's as far back as the pictures go(Brooke's Great-Grandmother was the first american generation, before that, they were in Europe).



 One more commonality.  I don't really remember much from High School Biology, but even with science on my side, three nearly identical generations is a tremendous coincidence...highly unlikely.  But, if there'a anything I know, it's that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean that there is something changing the rules--unlikely things happen...just less often.   

Does Grandma remember if she looked like her mother?  Did your girlfriend's mom remember thinking that her mother looked like her grandmother?  Do _they_ think it's odd?  This is just so fascinating!


----------



## The_Universe

RingXero said:
			
		

> And the best so far, (in fact this has made it into my game)
> - The White Owl - Repeated sitings by multiple independant people, all without knowledge of what other people have seen. This owl is either normal sized or up to 4 feet tall, and in all cases without any discernable face, no eyes or beak, just a smooth 'face'. Soft white light emanates from it, so that it is easily seen in the dark. Will be standing on the ground, or on a bench, or tree branch, when seen, will 'stare' at person a couple seconds, then always fly into the Barn's second floor wall. This side wall has no holes or windows.
> RX



This sounds a lot like descriptions of the mothman--the thing from the movie from a couple of years ago with Richard Gere.  the shape, the color, even the eyes sound like descriptions I have read in Keel's books, among other places...

Also, I demand more supernatural stories!  

uh...please.


----------



## Lucky Number

*i finally quit lurking and register*

1- My mother once rented an apartment which had a haunted kitchen, at least while she was there. More than once, she walked inside to discover a spot where the temperature was drastically and inexplicably lower, and at least once, something that was laying in a stable position (no way it could have fallen from just wind or being bumped into) was thrown across the kitchen while she was in a different room.

2- Myself, i've had a number of dreams where i would experience some simple, rather uninteresting event, such as standing in line in a restaurant while talking familiarly with a person i did not know at the time of the dream. Several months later, i would find myself experiencing the exact same event several times, exactly as it was in the dream- in the case of the restaurant, it was one i had never been in until i met my girlfriend, who turned out to be the person in the dream, and the restaurant was one with distinctive internal architecture.

3- i live in the Hudson River Valley, near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, and the state of the famed Washington Irving (who set his stories in those towns). Though i've never been there, i've heard many times that Irving's ghost will sexually harass young women (nothing serious, as far as i've heard). Aside from that, the Valley is just really creepy in and around that area. People walking in broad daylight have been suddenly overcome by feelings of fear and apprehension.

4- While riding from a friend's birthday party, i was snapped out of a state of drowsiness by a feeling of 'unnaturalness', and began noticing that the people in the area we (my father was driving) were passing through had a slightly bizzarre cast to their features. Several minutes later, we passed the sign for Indian Point.

5- My grandparents have a property upstate which relies on a septic tank for sewage, and the system has a maintenance tunnel behind the house. One day, the tunnel was open for whatever reason, and i looked inside at the tunnel floor, where sunlight was shining down from above. I saw two or three of what i thought were very large bullfrogs, and wondered at how they got down there. Then i noticed the patterns on their backs, and realized that it was the colour and markings of the pickerel toads which frequent the area in the summertime. Pickerel toads are a little smaller than a kiwi fruit, but these amphibians were about the size of grapefruits. Whether they were large bullfrogs with markings that somehow matched a species of toad (the bullfrogs in this area are an avocado green, whereas the pickerels are primarily tan), or toads the size of large frogs, i can't be sure. However, i did later see one sitting before the garden on the opposite end of the house, so i know it wasn't a trick of light and shadow (it hopped away into the brush when i tried to catch it).

6- If you're a New Yorker within driving distance of NYC, you've at least heard firsthand accounts of the sewer rats. The size of cats, monstrous things with vicious temperaments. A former classmate claimed to have kept one as a pet, though the truth of this is doubtful.

7- Any number of inexplicable technological/mechanical quirks and failures may be blamed upon gremlins. My girlfriend says she is fairly certain there are some living in a tree outside her window.

8- Since childhood, i've been haunted by visions and what i was fairly certain were imagined monsters lurking near my bed. However, in the past year, some of these 'imagined' creatures reached out to me, and i came to understand that they were not harmful, but protective in nature. Their horrific appearance was something akin to that of a gargoyle- designed more to frighten away even more terrible things than to put fear into regular people. As far as i have determined, they are called Darklings or Darkling Folk. At least one has possessed my body to carry on a conversation (speaking in a poorly faked english accent), mostly because he has no body of his own, not even an immaterial one.



A Modern game set in the areas of the lower Hudson River Valley and NYC, possibly crossing into Jersey occasionally, would have a fairly good variety in the monsters. Aside from a variety of ghosts, "monstrous" versions of normal animals, gargoyles (a number of buildings in the city have them), and the numerous devils (including the famed Jersey Devil), one may also easily include monsters which immigrated here from other regions.


----------



## Lucky Number

hellbender said:
			
		

> The technique is a weird sort of regression. Simply picture in your mind the 49th hexagram (ko) of the I-Ching upon  a door in your mind. Then mentally open the door and walk through. I find it easiest to draw out the figure, stare at it to get a good impression, and mentally paint it upon a door then push the door open. One aspect is that for me, every time I do this, it is a wooden door underground. I have only had to be restrained once, some people go berserk, some have pleasant experiences. I learned through later investigation that this was used as a form of past life regression by budding psychologists of the early portion of the last century. It is thought of as an experiment in atavism.




Except for what mark is on the door, this sounds exactly like a dream recollection exercise my mother was taught- she was taught it by her sister, who swears she learned it thusly-

Walking her dog down the street, she struck up a conversation with an old woman who happened along. Somehow the topic arrived at dreams, and the woman suggested visualizing a hall ending at a doorway with the word "dreams" upon it, and opening it. The woman disappeared as soon as this conversation ended, and it occured to my aunt later on that she had appeared in such a manner that she would have been seen coming up or down the street- there was nothing but a tall wall on either side of the road, nothing an elderly woman could or would scale easily. 

My aunt is convinced she dreamed the whole thing after nodding off from the repetitive motion of walking, though i don't know many people who fall asleep while walking.

Anyway, the method reportedly works for recalling dreams, though i have yet to actually open the door (i have visualized it once or twice).


----------



## The Goblin King

Lucky Number said:
			
		

> 2- Myself, i've had a number of dreams where i would experience some simple, rather uninteresting event, such as standing in line in a restaurant while talking familiarly with a person i did not know at the time of the dream. Several months later, i would find myself experiencing the exact same event several times, exactly as it was in the dream- in the case of the restaurant, it was one i had never been in until i met my girlfriend, who turned out to be the person in the dream, and the restaurant was one with distinctive internal architecture.




Deja Vu is wierd for me too.  Is there any scientific explanation for deja vu?  I often experience it however I have always dismissed it.  My daily routine is very boring.  One day is very much like the last with little variation.  When I get the feeling "Hey, I've done this before." I'm all like "Dur!  We do this every day."


----------



## Xath

I've had some odd experiences, but only one of them has been truely frightening.

1) I will never use a Ouij- board again.  When I was 10 years old (about) a bunch of us were playing with a board and "talking" to spirits.  But as 10 year olds are prone to do, we were moving the pointer ourselves.  We talked to a man every day for about 2 weeks.  But during the 2nd week, i picked up the pointer and had a vivid premonition/vision/i don't know.  A horrific face combined with a feeling that there was a taint everywhere.  Decidedly evil.  I never touched a board again.  Even when I worked for WotC, I never restocked them.

2)I have had a few dreams that have seemed wierd.  Some others on the board have described similar experiences.  When I first moved to Catonsville, MD, I had a dream about a building I had never seen before, with a play-ground area outside.  There was a double door entrance and I recall that the hallway inside was carpeted blue.  A few days later, my mom and I were riding our bikes to explore our new neighborhood.  Surely enough, I saw that building and went to investigate the carpeting.  Blue.

3) I had a dream on the night of April 12 which stuck with me after waking.  The only things seemingly stressed were the military and June 12, 2010.  But I guess I won't know if anything happens until then.

4)  Apparently sometimes I make uncanny predictions.  When I was 2 years old, I was in the car with my mom and I asked her why a bus would be on a sidewalk.  She said that busses wouldn't be on a sidewalk.  Five blocks later, we turn a corner and what do you know; a bus on the sidewalk.

5) I knew my aunt was pregnant before she told anyone.

6) Once when playing Cities and Knights of Catan, a friend of mine was dealt a yellow action card and I told him what it was before he looked at it.  For the rest of that game, I was able to choose which cards would be most beneficial for people to steal from one another, and which cards the player didn't want to be stolen from them.  At first, my friends were annoyed and then intrigued by the accuracy.

7) This is more of a place thing.  The Medieval Museum in Paris is inside what were originally Roman Baths in the 4th century, and then in the 12th century, an abbess was built onto the ruins of the bath.  The lower levels of the baths were used as a crypt and you can go down there today.  Now, this is not the most popular of museums in Paris, so most of the time, you're alone in any given room.  In the crypt you can hear moaning, which is easily explainable by the pipes and the Metro which run nearby.  But neither of those explains the eerie feelings people seem to get down there.


----------



## Hemlock Stones

*All The Scary Is Awesome Stuff!*

GREETINGS!

First I'd like to thank everybody for all the different posts. The stuff is all incredible. I am going to try the I-Ching thing and see what happens.

Here are some of the weird things I've experienced.

When I was seven on a Sunday night I asked what time it was. I could have looked at the clock on the wall in the same room but didn't. (Yes, I could tell time at that age   ) I was told 7:30 PM. About 15 minutes later the phone rang and it was my brother calling to tell my Mom that our father had died. My father had passed away at 7:30 PM in Florida. I was in Michigan at the time.

I remember one time I had fallen asleep. My dog was on the bed with me and had also fallen asleep at the same time. I started having a weird dream. I was walking down the street to my next-door neighbor's house. What was strange was the view I had as I walked. It was as if I was only two feet tall. I got to the driveway of the house and looked at one of those maroon picker bushes. The colors were all wrong. It freaked me out and I woke up. I looked over at my dog, and he was in the throes of a dream. I think somehow I was dreaming about the same thing he was.

This is probably the freakest thing I have ever experienced. I just got dropped off home from work. One of my co-workers got drunk and smashed their car into the side of my parked car. Needless to say I was upset about it. I walked in the house. I was angry. I was storming about the house and my dog seized up and had some kind of an attack. The dog went out and I was fairly certain she was dead. I felt no heart beat. I started crying and held her in my arms and started praying. My dog came back! The dog was a bit loopy for about ten minutes and then everything was normal. The vetrenarian examined the dog about a month later and didn't find anything wrong.

This is my last dog story. My dog and I were outside one night. I walked with the dog to the corner of the street. The dog was doing her business. I noticed two big black shapes running down the street. As the shapes got closer to me and my dog, they were two huge black dogs. Both the same breed, I think an elkhound or an irish setter. I yelled at my dog to get by me, I didn't want her to run into the street if she got spooked by the two dogs. When I yelled, one of the two black dogs darted into the street and got hit by a car. One of the dogs kept on running. The other lay dead in the street bleeding. The next morning there was no sign of either dog. No puddle of blood, no drag marks, nothing. 

Keep up with all the posts!

So Sayeth the Bone Daddy!


----------



## blackshirt5

The_Universe said:
			
		

> One more commonality.  I don't really remember much from High School Biology, but even with science on my side, three nearly identical generations is a tremendous coincidence...highly unlikely.  But, if there'a anything I know, it's that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean that there is something changing the rules--unlikely things happen...just less often.
> 
> Does Grandma remember if she looked like her mother?  Did your girlfriend's mom remember thinking that her mother looked like her grandmother?  Do _they_ think it's odd?  This is just so fascinating!




Oh, they all know they look like their mothers.  And it was 4 generations(Brooke's great-grandmother, Brooke's grandmother, Brooke's mother, and Brooke), not 3.  The picture I saw was Talba(Brooke's mom)'s grandmother.

And Talba finds it funny; Brooke thinks it's creepy(and I think is a bit sad that when she's 40 she'll look like her mom).


----------



## The_Universe

Okay--4 generations.  I was confused.  My apologies.  Still, neat stuff (although I am sorry that they apparently don't age like movie stars).  

This just seems like it'd make a great plot-point in  Dark*Matter game somewhere...


----------



## blackshirt5

The_Universe said:
			
		

> Okay--4 generations.  I was confused.  My apologies.  Still, neat stuff (although I am sorry that they apparently don't age like movie stars).
> 
> This just seems like it'd make a great plot-point in  Dark*Matter game somewhere...



 Actually, for a 40 year old woman, Talba is pretty darn good looking.  I keep it to myself right now but hey, if I'm with Brooke in 23 years and she looks like her mom(well, maybe a wee bit thinner; which isn't a problem for Brooke she watches what she eats, as opposed to her mom who married a professional chef.  But only a wee bit.), I'll be a happy camper.


----------



## The_Universe

Well, good luck, my friend!  Keep us updated on the supernatural happenings...


----------



## mafisto

*Deja Vu all over again...*



			
				The Goblin King said:
			
		

> Deja Vu is wierd for me too. Is there any scientific explanation for deja vu? I often experience it however I have always dismissed it.



Discover magazine had a good piece on _deja vu_ a few years back.  The explanation - theoretical, like all explanations for the phenomena -  was that when the brain is storing and shaping a new memory it sometimes 'misfires' and confuses the new, short term memory with a long term one.  Essentially, as you're experiencing something you're constantly building a new short term memory that is stored and accessed immediately - but in the case of _deja vu_, your brain is saying that you're accessing an old memory, not a brand spanking new one.

For more info, this is pretty interesting and seems similar to what I had read before: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Johnson2.html.

A little off topic, but I once had a conversation with a neurologist (friend of a friend) who described the human neurological state as 'constantly failing and recovering'.  I was a little taken aback by the statement, but he asserted that the stresses and emotional complexes and chemical interactions that we moderns put upon our systems are simply outside of the brain's original specification.  I'm still not sure how true this is, but given the wonderful diversity of neurological failings so many humans have, I can't discount it entirely.


----------



## BlackMoria

I somehow missed this thread until now.  It is amazing the number of people who have had brushes with the supernatural or unusual.

My life is full of psychic happenings - so much so that I could post pages of stuff I have experienced.

When I was in my teens (I'm 48 now), a metaphysical society came to town and beside doing some lectures and exhibit stuff, they did some ESP/PK tests.  Curious, I undertook the tests and was told that I score high in the ESP/Precognition and usually high in the Psychokinesis (PK) tests.

I've played D&D for nearly 30 yrs.  I have noticed that I have an uncanny (one person even went so far as to say 'unsettling') knack for controlling the dice or predicting what the dice will roll.  

People who I have played with have noted this.  My 'dice control' is such that I have been accused on more than one occasion of cheating or using loaded dice, only to prove to the accuser that the dice are normal and that cheating is impossible (like affecting their dice that they roll for me!).   I consistently warp normal probablity statistics.  I've even demonstrated my ability to seemly control the dice or predict the outcome to dozens of people over the years. 

Several months ago, I was asked to demonstrate my uncanny ability to influence the dice to a group of people who I was playing a pickup game with and had noted that I (openly and witnessed by players beside me) rolled 2-3 times the number of natural 20s of the rest of the group combined.  I spoke about my 'gift' with the dice and someone proposed a challenge - roll two d10s and have the numbers match each other (ie.  roll a 3 on both dice).  I don't know normal probability for that is, but I did it 7 times out of 25 rolls (rolling both dice counts as 1 roll) - a fact which amazed the on-lookers.

The ability is tied to my well-being - emotionally, mentally and physically.  If I am stressed out, overly tired or feeling ill, I can't do it at all.

When I was in my 20s, there was a little demonstration that I did.  I would hold my palms several inches above their palms.  Then I would concentrate.  About 75% of those I did this with would described a feeling of cold on one palm and a sensation of heat on the other.  Interestingly enough, which hand felt the cold and which felt the heat was dependent on the sex of the person I demonstrated upon.  Some women (I am male) reported the most intense experiences - the cold was almost like holding on to an icecube and the heat was almost a burning sensation.  I had one woman actually claim I 'burned' her.  In all cases, I don't tell the person what they might feel, to avoid the phenomeon of 'suggestion'.

A few people reported a sensation like crawling ants over their bodies; or a sensation of nausea or vertigo.  I stopped doing this when the last person I did this to (a woman) fell unconcious - a event totally unexpected and which frightened me.  The woman took a few minutes to recover and when she recovered enough to recount what had happened, she stated that she felt an intense 'electrical' shock and felt very light headed before everything went black.  Needless to say, I don't do that demonstration anymore. 

People joke about hauling me off to Vegas for the weekend and camping at the craps table....   

edit: after checking my journal, I reported an number in error.  Damn swiss cheese memory


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## cignus_pfaccari

Xath said:
			
		

> 6) Once when playing Cities and Knights of Catan, a friend of mine was dealt a yellow action card and I told him what it was before he looked at it.  For the rest of that game, I was able to choose which cards would be most beneficial for people to steal from one another, and which cards the player didn't want to be stolen from them.  At first, my friends were annoyed and then intrigued by the accuracy.




Back when I played Magic, I'd often know what card I was drawing.  I distinctly remember, in an Emperor game, someone putting down a nasty enchantment, and I said "Don't worry, I'll take care of it."  Next draw, a Disenchant card.

That was the other thing...I noticed that the longer I kept a deck together, the better it worked.  Like, it got better over time.  If I took it apart and then built the exact same deck, it wouldn't work nearly as well.  I speculated to my Tarot-wielding friend that, maybe the decks had been alive, or had bonded to me in some way.  Of course, that's really weird and out there.

Brad


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