The group of friends huddled around a game board, their fingers hovering over a small flittering planchet.
It was the 1960s. Roland Sneed and his then-wife were in Kansas City from Oklahoma visiting her parents when someone decided it would be fun to play with the unknown.
“My former wife and I spent several hours with friends using the Ouija board,” Roland, now of Blue Springs, said. “Sometimes the planchet went very slow and sometimes it would go so fast that it would fly off the board. Some answers were cryptic, some muddled, and some very, very interesting.”
Later, the couple slept in a seldom-used room in the old house. But the board wasn’t finished playing.
“My wife began making strange movements and then started talking in a voice not her own,” Roland said. “I wasn’t scared, but fascinated. I started asking questions about who she was and she replied that she was an ancestor of my wife. It is hard to know whether or not this was true. Specific facts were not given.
“After a while, my wife came out of this trance with beaded sweat on her brow and scared out of her mind. She said that she could feel the spirit trying to take over her body and had struggled against it until she got back into control. She refused to even look at a Ouija board after that.”
Roland and his wife met what Dawn Newlan, a medium with the Ozark Paranormal Society, calls “lower-level energies.”
“Generally, the things that come through always tell you they are a friend, a family member, a whatever,” Dawn said, adding you should keep your distance.
“Ouijas to me, and to most anyone who’s been around one will tell you they are very dangerous,” she said. “When someone plays with a board they begin to open up the doorways of communication with the other side.”
Negative energies come through these doorways, Dawn said. Sometimes these energies are people who were bad in life, and sometimes they are demons.
“Satan has his legions,” Dawn said. “If you do not know how to discern good entities from bad entities, that’s when you wind up with your problems.
“What most people don’t understand is that if you ask them a question, ‘hey what is my dog’s name?’ (The name) is in your head,” she said. “That spirit can take it out of your head and give you what you want to hear.”
Dawn speaks from experience. She’s used a Ouija.
“I was young and stupid,” she said. “Something came through and told me it was my grandma. It told me it loved me and wanted to visit me.”
Later the board began spelling “evil, evil, evil, evil.”
“A Ouija board, until you experience it, is a fascination,” Dawn said. “Your common sense tells you you really shouldn’t be doing it, but your curiosity pushes you. Once it scares the hell out of you, you’ll quit.”
But some people believe the Ouija board works, not through spirits, but through the subconscious mind of the user.
“It’s my preferred explanation for the phenomenon,” Marleigh, who posted on from-the-shadows.blogspot.com, said. “One or all of the participants is moving the pointer, subconsciously. I’ve had it happen to me where you will ask “what is your name” and I will think a specific name, say, “Jason,” and without me pushing the pointer, the name Jason will be spelled out. This could explain Ouija board happenings.”
Maybe. I don’t want to find out.
Copyright 2006 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. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason Offutt is a syndicated columnist, author and fan of all things Fortean. His book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri,” will soon be available at www.jasonoffutt.com and all major bookstores.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Strange lights in the sky
Gary was a Kansas City Police officer in 1960. He and his partner Richard were working the “dog watch” from midnight to 8 a.m. one Saturday when they saw something strange in the sky.
“About 2 a.m., we drove to St. John and Hardesty and were sitting at the northeast corner of Budd Park,” he said. While they were filling out reports, a bright light appeared and hovered above their car.
“There was no engine noise at all,” he said. “Just as suddenly as it appeared, it shot away into the western sky from a dead stop to gone in the count of three.
“Dick and I just sat there and stared at each other and then I said, ‘should we put this in our log report?’ His response was, ‘well, I guess that depends on how much you like psychiatrists.’”
They had seen a UFO. And, no, they didn’t report it.
Twenty-one Missouri UFO cases were reported this year to the Mutual UFO Network, an international investigation group. The cases range from witnesses reporting glowing spheres to seeing unidentified craft. On rare occasions, a case will include contact, or telepathic communication.
“I was about four and a half years old. I was sitting on the front steps to my house,” Fred of Kansas City wrote in his MUFON report. “I saw, suddenly from the east, a UFO come into view. … I kept mentally asking for a ride. I suddenly got a reply, ‘no. Not now. Not yet.’ Being a kid I got angry and shot three rolls of single-shot caps at it. A few minutes later, it flew back east.”
This was in 1950.
Most reports don’t include contact. Jim Johnson, director of the Kansas City chapter of MUFON, said the group’s objective is to apply scientific methods to the investigation of UFOs. But simply seeing a strange light or reporting mental contact isn’t enough to attract MUFON’s attention. The group needs physical proof, or at least corroboration in order to make the investigation worthwhile.
“It’s hardly credible if only one person saw it,” he said.
But, one-person reports make up the majority of UFO sightings, so the Kansas City area only has “one or two” UFO cases a year MUFON considers worthy of an investigation.
Gary’s second encounter in 1979 might fit into that category.
Gary and another officer, Paul, decided at 11 p.m. to drive to Bennett Spring for trout fishing. Gary stopped at his house to pick up his son, fishing equipment, and coffee.
They stopped in Cole Camp to use the outdoor restroom at a closed gas station.
“When we walked outside we were enveloped in light,” he said. “We looked up and just like the first time, hovering right above us was a UFO.”
The three of them rushed into the car and the UFO “left in a blink.” They continued to Bennett Spring, but didn’t sleep much that night.
“I occasionally see a show on the History Channel about UFO sightings and find myself thinking how incredible some of those stories are,” Gary said. “If I find them hard to believe, how can I expect those who have not seen to believe?”
Copyright 2006 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. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason Offutt is a syndicated columnist, author and fan of all things Fortean. His book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri,” will soon be available at www.jasonoffutt.com and all major bookstores.
“About 2 a.m., we drove to St. John and Hardesty and were sitting at the northeast corner of Budd Park,” he said. While they were filling out reports, a bright light appeared and hovered above their car.
“There was no engine noise at all,” he said. “Just as suddenly as it appeared, it shot away into the western sky from a dead stop to gone in the count of three.
“Dick and I just sat there and stared at each other and then I said, ‘should we put this in our log report?’ His response was, ‘well, I guess that depends on how much you like psychiatrists.’”
They had seen a UFO. And, no, they didn’t report it.
Twenty-one Missouri UFO cases were reported this year to the Mutual UFO Network, an international investigation group. The cases range from witnesses reporting glowing spheres to seeing unidentified craft. On rare occasions, a case will include contact, or telepathic communication.
“I was about four and a half years old. I was sitting on the front steps to my house,” Fred of Kansas City wrote in his MUFON report. “I saw, suddenly from the east, a UFO come into view. … I kept mentally asking for a ride. I suddenly got a reply, ‘no. Not now. Not yet.’ Being a kid I got angry and shot three rolls of single-shot caps at it. A few minutes later, it flew back east.”
This was in 1950.
Most reports don’t include contact. Jim Johnson, director of the Kansas City chapter of MUFON, said the group’s objective is to apply scientific methods to the investigation of UFOs. But simply seeing a strange light or reporting mental contact isn’t enough to attract MUFON’s attention. The group needs physical proof, or at least corroboration in order to make the investigation worthwhile.
“It’s hardly credible if only one person saw it,” he said.
But, one-person reports make up the majority of UFO sightings, so the Kansas City area only has “one or two” UFO cases a year MUFON considers worthy of an investigation.
Gary’s second encounter in 1979 might fit into that category.
Gary and another officer, Paul, decided at 11 p.m. to drive to Bennett Spring for trout fishing. Gary stopped at his house to pick up his son, fishing equipment, and coffee.
They stopped in Cole Camp to use the outdoor restroom at a closed gas station.
“When we walked outside we were enveloped in light,” he said. “We looked up and just like the first time, hovering right above us was a UFO.”
The three of them rushed into the car and the UFO “left in a blink.” They continued to Bennett Spring, but didn’t sleep much that night.
“I occasionally see a show on the History Channel about UFO sightings and find myself thinking how incredible some of those stories are,” Gary said. “If I find them hard to believe, how can I expect those who have not seen to believe?”
Copyright 2006 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. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason Offutt is a syndicated columnist, author and fan of all things Fortean. His book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri,” will soon be available at www.jasonoffutt.com and all major bookstores.
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