Author’s note: This is the first in a two-part series about Jenice H.’s knowledge of and encounters with intelligent insects.
There are more than 4,000 known species of cockroaches on earth today. Jenice H. knows there are more species – giant species. Species science knows nothing about.
Jenice lived in San Antonio, Texas, in 1990 when she struck up a conversation with a man in his mid-20s from New York who walked his dog through her neighborhood.
“He said he had nothing else to do but shoot the breeze, so I barbecued him up a hot dog,” Jenice said. “He asked if I wanted to hear a weird, but true incident that had happened to him around 1985. He said he had quit on the spot, as it had scared the bejesus out of him.”
The young man had just graduated high school and got a job at a restaurant that he soon found had a pest problem.
“He had only intended to (work) there a few years, as there was bad sanitation problem what with the rats and breathing in cockroach (waste),” Jenice said. “He said he wondered why he had been wheezing more about that time for some many weeks.”
Cockroach feces and saliva carry allergens and can trigger asthma, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
One day, the grease trap under the kitchen floor clogged and the owner asked the young man to clean it out. It was early evening and the young man was preparing to clock out.
“His boss had asked him if he could squeeze through a small crawlspace in the kitchen floor,” Jenice said. “The boss said there’s something blocking up the natural draining of the fry grease. Fix it before inspectors reported it.”
So, the young man did what his boss asked and shinnied into the crawl space the city uses to vent the pipes under buildings. The beam from his flashlight cut through the darkness as he pulled himself through the dank, filthy, cramped area under the floor, and he noticed what clogged the drain.
He reached for the object and pulled out something that looked like a plate of an insect’s exoskeleton – but this was two-feet long.
“He then heard some kind of screeching, and thought perhaps it was a rat,” Jenice said.
The sound came from a semi-circular ventilation shaft leading away from the crawlspace. As he moved his arm to toss the object he’d found into the shaft something in that shaft moved.
“He almost didn’t piece it together until he saw two long feelers about a yard long swish around on the other side of the groove,” Jenice said. “It was a giant cockroach. By the dimension of the feelers, maybe six-feet long.”
The young man dropped what he was now certain was exoskeleton and pushed himself out of the crawlspace and back into the restaurant kitchen. He resigned immediately and never went back.
“Roaches are purported to be an intelligent insect,” Jenice said. “The roach was smart enough to clog up the grease to harden it and eat in the dark hours when the restaurant closed. Borders on the bizarre.”
Next week: Jenice encounters the giant cockroaches in California.
Copyright 2010 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “What Lurks Beyond: The Paranormal in Your Backyard,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Shadows in the Night
A tug on Rhonda Smith’s hair yanked her awake late one night in 2008. Smith, who lives near Springfield, Mo., expected it to be her boyfriend.
“My boyfriend worked at a bar and usually came home around 1:30 to 2 in the morning,” Smith said. “I was sleeping in my room and I thought John was home (and) was pulling my pony tail.”
She then felt John start poking her in the back.
“I told him to cut it out and come to bed,” she said. “It continued to poke me and pull my hair as to wake me to full awake.”
Now alert, Smith turned to tell John to leave her alone and come to bed – but instead found something terrifying.
“I saw a black – and I mean dark black – figure which to me looked like a man for the way it was built,” she said.
The figure just stood next her bed, staring at her.
“It was looking at me, but I don’t remember seeing any face on it,” Smith said. “This really scared me, but in my head I still thought somehow it was my boyfriend.”
The poking topped and Smith brushed off the figure she thought was John and went back to sleep.
“Then I realized John came home after this when he kissed me goodnight,” she said. “I fully woke up again and sat up in bed asking him, ‘weren’t you here a while ago?’”
John shook his head and told her he’d just come home.
“I knew something else had been in my room,” Smith said. “My granddaughter used to live here with her family before this incident, and she came out of her room saying something about a dark man and that she was scared and can’t get to sleep.”
Everyone thought the little girl’s “dark man” was imaginary, even Smith, until that night.
“Now I realize she’d seen something I saw,” Smith said.
Smith’s dog saw it, too. The dog follows Smith around the house, but one day it refused to go into a room.
“Sometime in the same week my dog was at the beginning of the hall and was not going in (the room) and looking up growling,” Smith said.
Smith saw the shadow man again on Jan. 17.
“I was sleeping in my bed with John; it was 2:45 in the morning,” she said. “I was facing the door this time and something bumped me in the nose like a big dog.”
Smith knew it couldn’t be her dog; her dog is small, and she’d locked it in its pen.
“I woke up to see at my bed level a dark image,” she said. “This little image went fast down and popped up to a man size image of the same dark man I’d seen before years back standing there looking at me.”
Smith lay still, trying to form the word “John,” but no sound would come.
“I closed my eyes and opened them to see if it was still there,” she said. “It was gone.”
Too afraid to go back to sleep, Smith got up and went downstairs.
“I thought maybe my house was haunted because other stuff happens around here as well,” she said. “So I had some local group from the Springfield area come out to do a reading.”
Smith wasn’t impressed with the results of the ghost hunting group’s investigation.
“The lady of the group said if it was dark then it was not a good thing,” Smith said. “Well I could have told her that.”
Smith, a Christian who reads from the Bible almost every night, now sleeps with the closet light and television on to keep the shadow man at bay.
“My boyfriend comes home from working nights at the local school as a janitor now and he has gotten slugged by me once because he has startled me when he kisses me at night,” she said. “I want someone else to see this thing, too. I know that sounds mean but why is just coming to bother me and freak me out?”
Copyright 2010 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
“My boyfriend worked at a bar and usually came home around 1:30 to 2 in the morning,” Smith said. “I was sleeping in my room and I thought John was home (and) was pulling my pony tail.”
She then felt John start poking her in the back.
“I told him to cut it out and come to bed,” she said. “It continued to poke me and pull my hair as to wake me to full awake.”
Now alert, Smith turned to tell John to leave her alone and come to bed – but instead found something terrifying.
“I saw a black – and I mean dark black – figure which to me looked like a man for the way it was built,” she said.
The figure just stood next her bed, staring at her.
“It was looking at me, but I don’t remember seeing any face on it,” Smith said. “This really scared me, but in my head I still thought somehow it was my boyfriend.”
The poking topped and Smith brushed off the figure she thought was John and went back to sleep.
“Then I realized John came home after this when he kissed me goodnight,” she said. “I fully woke up again and sat up in bed asking him, ‘weren’t you here a while ago?’”
John shook his head and told her he’d just come home.
“I knew something else had been in my room,” Smith said. “My granddaughter used to live here with her family before this incident, and she came out of her room saying something about a dark man and that she was scared and can’t get to sleep.”
Everyone thought the little girl’s “dark man” was imaginary, even Smith, until that night.
“Now I realize she’d seen something I saw,” Smith said.
Smith’s dog saw it, too. The dog follows Smith around the house, but one day it refused to go into a room.
“Sometime in the same week my dog was at the beginning of the hall and was not going in (the room) and looking up growling,” Smith said.
Smith saw the shadow man again on Jan. 17.
“I was sleeping in my bed with John; it was 2:45 in the morning,” she said. “I was facing the door this time and something bumped me in the nose like a big dog.”
Smith knew it couldn’t be her dog; her dog is small, and she’d locked it in its pen.
“I woke up to see at my bed level a dark image,” she said. “This little image went fast down and popped up to a man size image of the same dark man I’d seen before years back standing there looking at me.”
Smith lay still, trying to form the word “John,” but no sound would come.
“I closed my eyes and opened them to see if it was still there,” she said. “It was gone.”
Too afraid to go back to sleep, Smith got up and went downstairs.
“I thought maybe my house was haunted because other stuff happens around here as well,” she said. “So I had some local group from the Springfield area come out to do a reading.”
Smith wasn’t impressed with the results of the ghost hunting group’s investigation.
“The lady of the group said if it was dark then it was not a good thing,” Smith said. “Well I could have told her that.”
Smith, a Christian who reads from the Bible almost every night, now sleeps with the closet light and television on to keep the shadow man at bay.
“My boyfriend comes home from working nights at the local school as a janitor now and he has gotten slugged by me once because he has startled me when he kisses me at night,” she said. “I want someone else to see this thing, too. I know that sounds mean but why is just coming to bother me and freak me out?”
Copyright 2010 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Haunted Museum
A large man walking through the Ray County Museum in Richmond, Mo., caught Margo Clark by surprise.
“My friend saw a ghost,” Karen Windsor Bush, museum curator, said. “She was taking a nap in the parlor. She woke up and it embarrassed her because she didn’t want anyone to see her napping.”
Clark was working on a jewelry display when sleep crept upon her.
“My eyelids got so heavy, I had to take a short nap,” she said. “I settled in the parlor on the settee and dozed, but lightly. I awoke when I heard nearby footsteps and watched a very big, tall black man cross the hall in front of the parlor. I had seen him so clearly, I was sure I was seeing a living person.”
Clark got up after her encounter and went back to Bush’s office.
“I thought it didn’t look good for someone to see me sleeping in the parlor,” she said. “I told (Bush) I felt awkward that I had been sleeping while a visitor was in the museum. She gave me a strange look, then told me not one person had come in since I laid down for my nap.”
Museum volunteer Rod Fields confirmed it – no visitors were in the building.
“Karen asked me to describe the man I saw,” Clark said. “When I did, her eyes became like saucers. Apparently, I had just described John. Only then did she tell me about him and his life at the Poor Farm.”
Ray County built the three-story, Y-shaped building that houses the museum in 1910 as a home for the poor; people simply called it the Poor Farm. The structure also housed Elm Park Rest Home from June 1959 to November 1971 when residents were relocated to Shirkey Leisure Acres retirement home. It’s been a museum since the 1970s and is on the National Register of Historical Places.
Learning she had seen John, once a resident of the Poor Farm, startled Clark, because John is dead.
“He was a black man and quite tall. We know of a black man who lived in the basement when it was the Poor Farm,” Bush said. “His apartment was downstairs. He was seven feet tall. His name was John. We don’t know anything more about him.”
Sightings of John are rare, but strange noises and opening doors are quite common. Volunteers at the museum usually blame them on a spirit they call “George.”
Fields, a three-year volunteer, has heard George on a number of occasions.
“On Sundays I would come up to look at the old newspapers,” he said. “I would sit there in the library and I would hear footsteps upstairs. I’d look up there and it would stop. Then, five to 10 minutes later, it would start again.”
Fields knew no one was upstairs, at least no one living.
“I’d say, ‘George, I heard you the first time. What do you want?’ and it would stop the rest of the day,” he said.
Fields said no one knows if anyone named George ever lived at the Poor Farm or nursing home but “We had to name him something.”
Bush has heard more than footsteps.
“I’ve been in the kitchen and the cabinets open, which isn’t a biggie, but one day I was washing dishes and the cabinets shut,” Bush said.
Although Bush isn’t sure the swinging cabinets are anything paranormal, she knows George is real – she saw him.
“I was volunteering up here in 1973. I looked on the stairway and there was a little man standing there,” Bush said. “When I started working here three years ago my daughter said, ‘are you going to see the little man again?’ Id never told anyone. She must have seen him at the same time. She was five when I saw him.”
Ghost Tours of Kansas and Missouri and the Paranormal Education Documentation and Research Organization investigated the museum on Feb. 20. Sean Comer, a reporter for Richmond’s newspaper, The Daily News, covered the event.
“That I be an active participant was actually the suggestion of the organizers,” Comer said. “A few people felt cold spots around their shins and we found a few EMF (electromagnetic field) spikes.”
Comer followed the investigators throughout the building, and was disappointed with the results until the group explored the basement.
“ I was interested in hearing from the spirit of a large black man supposedly named ‘John,’” Comer said. “We didn’t encounter anything, but then the investigators pulled out the dowsing rods.”
These rods, also used by dowsers to discover water sources, are reported to move when in the presence of a ghost. Although Comer doubted the validity of dowsing rods as a research tool, his experience with them startled him.
“At one point, I held them and asked questions,” he said. “I didn’t move them. My hands were totally still. Yet, they moved on cue with answering each question.”
With those questions Comer learned John didn’t like him because he reminded John of a housemate who had been afraid of him.
“ Honestly, I’m hooked,” Comer said. “I’ve had one interesting experience that made me a little more of a believer. ”
Copyright 2010 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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Haunted Real Estate
The house seemed normal enough; two stories in an older neighborhood. But real estate agent Virginia Gruver soon found there was something wrong.
“I had a listing back in the ’80s when I was a new agent,” she said. “Another agent was going in to selling Better Homes and Garden franchises and he had about a dozen listings that he needed help with. He split the commission with me and let me work them.”
The house seemed nice and Gruver looked forward to what might be an easy sell.
“The owners had taken good care of it,” she said. “They’d updated the kitchen and two bathrooms. I could have lived in it and I am picky. There really wasn’t anything scary about this house.”
The house was a short distance from where Gruver lived and quite often the neighbor called Gruver to tell her someone had left lights on.
“So I would drive over, go through the house turning off lights and curse those stupid agents for leaving them on,” she said. “At least that’s what I thought was happening.”
In the 1980s, agents showing a house would take a key out of a box that hung from the front door and, as is still customary, leave a business card in a prominent place to let the selling agent know they’d shown the house. It made Gruver even angrier when she got to the house to turn off the lights and no one had left a card.
“Well this happened a few times and then one day the neighbor called, it was evening just about time for the sun to set,” she said.
She drove to the house along with her kindergarten-age daughter.
“I unlocked the door and for some reason I felt uneasy,” Gruver said. “I told her to stay by the front door while I checked the rooms and turned out the lights.”
Gruver switched off a light in the den that was always on and went toward the stairs to the second floor when she felt a sudden panic grip her.
“At the foot of the stairs, there was a bath; the door was partly closed,” she said. “Something told me not to open that door. I trusted my intuition.”
Gruver ran past the partially open door to the stairs, turned off the lights quickly and ran back down.
“I grabbed my daughter and locked the house up,” she said. “At that time, I wasn’t thinking ghost, I was thinking there was a person hiding in the house. It just spooked me. I planned to take someone over the next day and check it out.”
She didn’t have to wait.
“I got a phone call that evening from another lady agent from my office,” Gruver said. “She told me she’d had an appointment to show that house that day but the buyers stood her up, so she ended up waiting alone in the house. She told me she had an odd feeling in there.”
Gruver didn’t tell the agent her story, she just listened.
“She said she thought someone was in that bath at the foot of the stairs,” Gruver said. “She was braver than me and she went into the bathroom, pushed back the shower curtain, looked behind the door – nothing.”
The agent told Gruver she felt so uneasy she brought their manager to the house.
“She thought maybe a vagrant had broken in, so they went through the house looking for some way that someone could have gained entrance,” Gruver said. “There were no broken windows, nothing that they could see.”
The house spooked the agents’ manager as well.
“They both said the house made them uncomfortable and my manager said he thought it was haunted,” Gruver said. “This is a big man who has always been a no nonsense type of guy.”
The next day Gruver announced to her office she had a listing she thought was haunted.
“Everyone piled into cars to go check out my house,” she said. “One group went through and left me there with an older guy, John B. He thought it was a great house. He didn’t believe in any of that nonsense and told me that he’d sell that house.”
About two weeks later, he did.
“The first thing his buyer did was have the house re-wired,” Gruver said. “My guess is that they had issues with the lights also.”
A few months after the sale, Gruver received an odd phone call.
“John B. called me and told me that they moved out,” she said. “They didn’t share a reason with him. John B. did ask me what I knew and I explained that I had never met the sellers. By the time I got involved they had already moved to Chicago.”
Curious, Gruver contacted the agent who had originally listed the house and asked about the sellers.
“He told me that they were a couple with a few children,” Gruver said. “He said it was a sad story.”
The wife worked for a company that sold supplies for remodeling kitchens and baths and had just finished remodeling the kitchen and her favorite room – the first floor bath at the foot of the stairs.
“She was working on the second floor bath when she died from an aneurism,” Gruver said.
When Gruver heard that, her uneasy feeling suddenly made sense.
“I suspect she loved her house so much, she really didn’t want another woman taking over her space.”
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.