Red Eyes in the Darkness

Two red lights stare at Chris Black's motion-controlled camera from an impossible vantage point. Click on the picture to get a closer look. The lights are in the upper center part of the photograph.

Dry brown leaves cover the floor of deer hunter Chris Black’s wooded property near Park Hills in Southeast Missouri. Black keeps a small camper there during deer and turkey seasons and, while he sleeps in the camper to get an early start, motion-controlled digital cameras strapped to trees take photographs of, hopefully, deer.

He captured lights on those cameras in 2006, lights that shouldn’t have been on his property miles away from roads. He captured more this year.

Black thinks something highly strange is happening on his property.

“The same property, right before deer season, and more strange lights,” he said. “This time with three deer in the photo and these lights are fire red.”



A daytime photograph (above) shows two deer, one grazing and one apparently startled, maybe by the noise from the camera. Behind the deer is a plain of dead leaves and young trees. All normal.

Then there’s the night picture.

Three deer, one in the foreground, stand looking at the camera, their eyes shining with the flash reflection. But about 10 feet off the ground are two red lights set apart like eyes.

“They aren’t that hard to see,” Black said. “Right above the deers’ heads, they look like two red eyeballs without a face.”

Taillights? No. The trees in the night picture match the trees in the day picture. There’s no room for taillights in these images and the lights are much higher than any truck. But Black sees more than just the lights.

“There are a number of things in this photo which disturb me,” he said. “The first thing is the odd-looking expressions on the deer themselves. They look as if someone just screamed, ‘hey.’”

All three deer in this picture are looking directly at the camera.

“And they all looked at the camera at once,” he said. “None of the other photos taken during this three-day time frame show all the deer in the background looking in the direction of the camera at the same time.”

Black’s camera took 65 pictures, many of which have multiple deer in a frame.

“Usually, there will be one or two with their heads down feeding, and maybe one looking in the general direction of the camera, but never directly into it,” he said. “To me it looks like they are all focused on one thing and sort of mesmerized by it.”

After Black downloaded the photographs onto his computer, he took a closer look at the red lights – that one frame the only one with the red lights – and didn’t like what he found.

“When you zoom in on the red light on the left; now this is going to sound off the chart, but I swear when I zoomed in on it, I can see a face in the light,” he said. “It’s not at all hard to see. Plain as day there is a little face inside the glow. To me it resembles (a) little devil face.”

Black and his father stayed in the camper most of the first week of deer season, Black’s brother came the fourth day. That night Black’s brother slept in a bed against the far edge of the camper next to the canvas wall. The next morning, something was bothering Black’s brother.

During the night, something happened. While Black’s brother slept with his arms above his head against the canvas, he something touched his arm.

“He said he didn’t move because he thought it might be a deer’s nose pushing against the canvas of the camper,” Black said. “He said he wasn’t asleep but he felt something solid touching or pushing against the canvas and against his arm. He said it moved from one side of his arm, towards his head, then back along his arm.”

The brother froze, not wanting to startle whatever was outside.

“Then he fell back to sleep,” Black said. “It was only then that I told him about capturing the lights on my trail camera. I just think it’s awful strange that he would experience something weird like that in the same weekend that I captured more weird (stuff) on my camera.”

But Black wouldn’t have considered a paranormal explanation for the two red eyes staring at his deer camera if it wasn’t for the lights he captured two years ago.

“It seems like there are just too many things to pass off as imagination, or coincidence,” he said. “I’m convinced that this property is haunted. In some way, by something, but I don’t know what. But when it gets caught on camera that’s hard evidence that I’m not seeing things.

Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

A Haunted College –- Part 2

Author’s note: In From the Shadows 54 (October 2007), 88 (July 2008) and 106 (last week), I brought you three of the better-known haunted buildings at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. Here I explore another Northwest ghost story that isn’t as well known … but just as spooky.

Deep concrete and brick stairwells lead into the basement of Wells Hall. This thick structure, built as a library in 1939, is almost soundless as you walk its halls, tricking students and faculty in the building after hours into thinking they are there alone – they never are.

Mold built up over 70 years drifts through the air of this structure that houses the departments of Mass Communication, Speech Communication and Foreign Language, and – in the basement home of Student Publications – the ghost of Amos Wong.

Wong seems to be somehow attached to the old library.

Dominic Genetti, a reporter for the student newspaper The Northwest Missourian, sat in the newsroom when he saw Amos in 2008.

“I turned and looked out the corner of my eye and I could have sworn I saw somebody in a button-down blue shirt,” he said. “Not a royal blue, just blue. And I couldn’t really get the body type out of it, but it was definitely a person I saw walk by in jeans.”

When Genetti looked, expecting someone to turn the corner toward him, no one did.

“I walked into the hallway and there’s no one in the basement,” he said. “There were times in the Convergence Lab that the light above me will flicker. There will be a reflection in the Mac computer that looked like someone walked behind me. And I looked behind me and no one was there.”

The Convergence Lab is special; before digital cameras, it was the darkroom.

Amos Wong, a photographer for the school yearbook, The Tower, died in a 1991 car accident as he traveled to California to visit his parents. Assistant Professor Laura Widmer, student publication adviser, said Wong joined the yearbook staff because of his passion for photography.

“He was just on staff for a year,” Widmer said. “He was an international student that enjoyed photography and joined the yearbook staff. He was a go-lucky kind of guy. Wouldn’t hurt anyone. Just a little mischievousness in his eye.”

But soon after his death, student publication staffers began to notice something strange in the basement.

A student who had worked on staff with Wong told Widmer, “‘You know, Amos is back in the darkroom,’” Widmer said. “I’m not sure he ever saw Amos, but there are things like music going on and lights going on. Just strange occurrences. Photographers would say there was someone in the darkroom with them. It just felt like someone.”

Scott Jenson, Northwest graduate and newspaper adviser for Platteview High School, in Springfield, Neb., worked with Wong on the yearbook staff and said Wong’s personality might have kept him around.

“Once he broke out of his shell he was one of the guys,” Jenson said. “We spent many evenings in the darkroom so there was always jokes and pranks going on. I will agree with Laura that he was a great kid and mischievous.”

But current students don’t see Wong that way. Tower editor-in-chief Katie Pierce gets “creeped out” in the Wells Hall basement, and Genetti is uncomfortable alone in the bowels of the building.

“There are times where you just get that feeling you don’t want to go to the other end of the basement,” Genetti said. “There are times I just don’t want to go down there.”

At certain times of day, sunlight shines though the door and brightens Amos’s photo on an award in his honor, a reminder to all that Amos is still around.

“I don’t want to walk through the dark,” Genetti said. “I just get that feeling. I just don’t want to do it when you know the history of that stuff down there.”

Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

A Haunted College –- Part 1

Author’s note: In From the Shadows 54 (October 2007) and 88 (July 2008), I brought you two of the better-known haunted buildings at Northwest Missouri State University. In this first of a two-part series, I explore two ghost stories that aren’t as well known … but just as spooky.

The Northwest Missouri State University campus, a usually tranquil garden of well-trimmed grass that stretches under the 1,300 trees of this state arboretum, is home to its share of triumphs – including a pair of Division II football national championships.

But it’s the tragedy that lingers long after the seasons are over, and students have gone home for summer. Like at any school, students have died while attending Northwest, but here some still walk down its majestic halls.

Phillips Hall

The dormitory was quiet the night Resident Assistant Shane Sherwood, a friend Rachel Ost, and a smattering of others were posting homemade decorations on doors welcoming new students to Northwest. Students would arrive in a few days, on Aug. 26, 2007, but as Sherwood and Ost discovered, someone was already there.

Ost pealed Scotch tape off a role and attached another piece of colored paper to a door, the rip on the adhesive loud in the lonely hall. Ost was the only person on the floor, an odd enough feeling when in a building that would soon house hundreds of students, but she soon found she wasn’t really alone.

“Shane and the other RA were on rounds, or something like that,” she said. “There was no one on the floor except for me.”

Nonetheless, something moved and Ost froze as she watched it move past her.

“I was hanging up door decs and there’s this pair of legs,” she said. “This pair of legs runs by. No torso. There’s just feet. I said, ‘what the (heck) was that?’”

The translucent legs ran down the hallway and disappeared. Although Ost never told Sherwood of the encounter, he would soon meet his new hall mate, too.

The night before hundreds of freshman would pour into Phillips Hall, Sherwood and the other RAs worked to finish posting door decorations. Sherwood was alone on the sixth floor, the only other person authorized to be on the floor was his fellow RA, but he was on the opposite side of the building and out of sight.

That’s when Sherwood saw someone move.

“I just saw something walk behind me,” he said.

He looked around, but there was no one in the hallway. Sherwood started looking into the nearby rooms and found nothing – until he walked toward the open door of Room 626. Something there was different. The windows in the room, like in all rooms in the dormitory, were closed and the air conditioning was still off for the summer, but the air in Room 626 was cold – cold enough to staple a note onto Sherwood’s memory.

“I went into Room 626 and there was somebody sitting in the corner,” he said. “I couldn’t really make out his face.”

Startled, Sherwood backed away from the room, and it’s inhabitant, and went to find Hall Director Aimee Rea.

“I went to see if she knew anything about it,” he said. And she told him the story.

In April 1999, Northwest student and Phillips Hall resident Kevin Bayer, 19, of Sutton, Neb., died from injuries received in a car accident, according to the campus newspaper archives. And, according to the culture passed from RA to RA over the years, Bayer is supposed to haunt the dormitory.

Rea said it’s people who keep the ghost story around – not a ghost. She’s not convinced the story’s true.

“Supposedly, his spirit resides in the halls and spends a lot of time in the (hall director) apartment,” she said. “I have not experienced anything paranormal and believe that my friends made up the stories just to see if I would get spooked.”

But people have encountered strange things in Phillips Hall, like cabinets opening and shutting on their own, pets reacting to something their owners cannot see, and the feeling of being watched. Many people have reported seeing Bayer’s ghost – like Sherwood.

“There’s a picture downstairs in the trophy case of a student who died in a car crash,” Sherwood said. “He was wearing the same clothes as the guy I saw.”

Next week: Wells Hall.

Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

Which Aspect of the Paranormal is the Most Unbelievable?

Each week in this space I explore the world of the paranormal. Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot and Shadow People; these topics are all mysterious, frightening and usually dismissed by science.

Since these topics are unproven, I recently I asked this question on my blog (from-the-shadows.blogspot.com), “Which aspect of the paranormal is the most unbelievable?” My loyal readers answered the question, and here’s what they said:

The most unbelievable: Nineteen percent; faked Moon landing. There are people, and I know a few, who believe the Apollo missions never went to the Moon – the landings, they say, were faked by the United States government. Regardless of the fact that the U.S. government can’t hide its incompetence on a daily basis, the evidence purported by hoax theorists (humans can’t survive the Van Allen Radiation Belt, the American flag flapping in the breeze, stars missing from photographs, etc.) has all been dismissed by scientists.

However, researcher Keith Mayes, who addresses “theories with problems” on his Web site www.thekeyboard.org.uk, doesn’t think people who believe the hoax will ever be convinced.

“The thing is, (the moon landing) wasn’t a hoax, it actually happened,” Mayes said. “Those that think it was a hoax will continue to ignore all the evidence no matter what is put before them, which makes it all a bit of a waste of time.”

Ten percent; Werewolves. Traditional Hollywood werewolves … unbelievable. An undiscovered canine … eh, maybe.

Eight percent; Time travel. Ignoring the fact that physicists – including Albert Einstein – have said time travel, in some respect, is theoretically possible, readers ranked it as the third most unbelievable paranormal topic.

Seven percent; Vampires and Bigfoot. Although the evidence for vampires is limited to first-person accounts, the amount of evidence for an unidentified ape tramping through the forests of North America (hair samples, eyewitness testimony, footprints and, in one case, a butt print) is enough for a conviction in a court of law.

Six percent; Ghosts. Although every culture on the planet has ghosts as part of its belief system, these spectral visitors ranked fifth on the most unbelievable list.

Four percent; UFOs, Alien abduction, Artifacts on Mars. Sure, the evidence is sketchy. First-person accounts – some acquired through hypnosis – photographs, strange marks in a wheat field. But, much like the evidence for Bigfoot, people have gone to prison for less.

Three percent; Shadow people (two-dimensional human-shaped, blacker-than-night entities that wander your house at night), Chupacabra (the three-feet-tall, red-eyed creature from Puerto Rico that sucks the blood from livestock), Demonology (the study of demons). All these rank as more believable than ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot and, most probably, unbiased news reporting.

Two percent; Remote viewing, Lake monsters, Psychics, the conspiracy of the Knights Templar, Near death experiences.

One percent; Lost civilizations, Astral projection.

Of course, 10 percent of readers agreed, “it’s all crap.” Do you have an opinion about these paranormal topics? I’d love to hear it.

Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.