Shadow People – blacker-than-night, two-dimensional, human-like figures that seem to appear and disappear at will – have been reported worldwide. The reports, like “From the Shadows” read Casey’s, are never good.
“I've experienced this Shadow figure, the same one, numerous times,” he said.
It was December 2007 when Casey first met the Shadow Man. Right before Casey – a high school student – dreamed of the entity, his girlfriend broke up with him then his brother was in a car accident. As Casey lie in bed one night, the Shadow Man came into his sleep.
“I was in a car in the back as two girls were in the front,” he said. Both girls had brown hair, but Casey couldn’t see who they were. “They were driving and the thing that sat beside me was a Shadow Person.”
The Shadow Man kept motioning Casey to come closer to him, but he didn’t.
“I was feeling a little scared but then the girls are saying to me, ‘we need to get you and your friend away from here now far away as possible,’” he said. “I look at the Shadow thing and all it did was motion faster and faster and it was getting angry at me, signaling at me to come over.”
Then Casey’s vision went white, he heard the car crash, the girls screamed and he woke up confused. But later, Casey realized his dream might mean something.
“My ex-girlfriend that broke up with me dyed her hair brown a few days before I had this dream and so did her mom,” he said. Her car had the same interior from his dream, and there was his brother’s car accident …
“I started to put stuff together like this Shadow Person is running my dreams and he’s using things that hurt me when I'm awake to hurt me in my dreams,” Casey said.
His next Shadow dream was in February.
“This time me and this Shadow were like best friends,” Casey said. “We were laughing walking down the street. Then all of a sudden this little boy ran by with a bloody knife, crying.”
Casey and the Shadow Man caught the boy.
“He told me that his mom stabbed his dad in the chest and he grabbed the knife and now the cops were after him,” Casey said. He recognized the boy – he was a friend with a past Casey never knew.
“The little boy was my friend but grown up,” he said. “His mother stabbed his dad and the cops thought he did it. When I woke up I looked around fast and saw nothing. I thought that something wanted to help me through my old mistakes – but it was torturing my mind.”
A week later, the Shadow dream visited again.
“I was a old man working at a high school as the janitor,” he said. “I was retiring and I was happy and I saw that Shadow Guy just watching me. This time he just stood there and he was shaking like a laughing way. I didn't know why but I looked around and everyone started talking about my brother saying, ‘what if he hit a deer?’ ‘what if he was just too drunk?’”
Casey had heard those rumors and knew the Shadow entity was using them to hurt him.
“I felt confused and inferior to this thing. I woke up screaming that night,” he said. “Right then I knew it was out to get me. I was scared of going to bed and not waking up or waking up somewhere else.”
His last dream encounter was in June.
“I was dreaming of the first day of school,” he said. “I get to first period and these Army troops burst into the school speaking some language I didn't know.”
The soldiers took the students to a large, desolate, fire-damaged building with steel garage doors.
“They only gave us pillows,” Casey said. “I laid there and beside me sat this Shadow guy in a Indian-style sitting (position) staring at me.”
Casey’s best friend was there, along with his ex-girlfriend.
“I flipped out screaming at her saying, ‘what do the hell do you want from me?’” he said. “When I did this a guard came over telling me to get up.”
Casey stood, but his friend jumped up to protect him and was shot in the arm.
“This Shadow guy ran up and got into the soldier’s face yelling at him telling him that he can’t have me that he needed me for something,” Casey said. “The soldier laughed at him and said, ‘why?’ The Shadow got up really close and whispered something to him and all I got out of it was, ‘brother.’”
Casey wonders if the Shadow Man isn’t just torturing him in his dreams – but outside his dreams.
“Right now I’ve been scared and confused,” he said. “I don't know what to do but my doors do open by themselves now and my lights do turn off by themselves and I sense there’s something in my spare room that stands there. I can’t go in there without getting really cold and the chills like something right behind me is breathing on my neck.”
Copyright 2008 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, black-eyed children, 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.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Ghost of Yeater Hall
The red brick walls of Laura J. Yeater Hall stand amongst the trees that surround its entrance. A single window pointing from its attic looks toward the center of campus.
Generations of college students at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg have whispered about a woman sometimes seen looking out from that window, a window inaccessible by the students who live there. Yeater Hall, they say, is haunted.
That’s what I was told more than 20 years ago when I was enrolled at the school – and students are still talking about it.
Yeater was built in 1940 and named after the former head of the college’s Latin and Greek department. While Yeater taught there, from 1901 to 1914, she pushed for women’s housing on campus. By 1940 she raised enough money to build the first the school’s first women’s dormitory.
Over the decades since Yeater’s death, many residents of the hall have reported mysterious footsteps, the sounds of moving furniture, blankets ripped off beds and strange lights. Maybe Yeater put so much of herself into the construction of the dormitory she couldn’t bear to leave.
I met director of residence and Greek life Alan Nordyke and custodial worker Carol Mullins at the entrance of Yeater Hall. It was late summer.
“It’s a very old myth that Laura Yeater, her ghost supposedly is here,” Nordyke said. “I’ve never heard any encounter that couldn’t be explained.”
Mullins, however, is more certain of the unexplained.
“Oh, there are ghosts,” she said. “The first three years (I worked here) I hadn’t experienced anything that would convince me that there were ghosts here. But there’ve been enough the past two years to convince me something’s here.”
Hard wood floors run through each room and windows look out on either a tree-lined path or a spacious courtyard. Banquets and dances were once held in the large rooms downstairs, and sororities lived on the upper floors.
But I wasn’t concerned with dances or sororities. I wanted to see the third floor where footsteps, scooting furniture and unexplained lights have been reported. A metal latch and padlock hold tight the entrance to the third floor. No one has lived there since Spring 2001.
“It’s closed because of electrical problems and the decline in occupancy,” Nordyke said as he open the lock with one of a very few keys on campus that open that door. “The only people who’d have access are employees. Students don’t have access.”
Some ceiling lights were on as we walked down a dusty hall lined with doors.
“I thought there were electric problems,” I said, pointing toward the lights.
“Some lights are left on,” Nordyke said.
On an abandoned floor with electrical problems?
Strange lights have been seen coming from the third floor of Yeater, such as lights in rooms 337 and 343 that occasionally come on after 10 p.m.
“The lights have been going on for 20 years,” Mullins said. “Nobody’s going to (play a joke) for 20 years.”
As we walked by room 337, I stopped and noticed the ceiling light was on.
“This shouldn’t be,” Nordyke said.
He switched the light off, blaming the light on maintenance workers, then we walked a few doors down to 343.
“The light comes on when no one is here,” Mullins said about room 343. “I had (another maintenance worker) lock the door and I duct taped the light switch. When I came back up the doors were still closed, but they were unlocked. When I went in, the duct tape was pried open to turn the light on.”
Finished, we turned to leave and, as we walked back by 337, we stopped. The light was on again.
We had been in full view of the only door into room 337, and no one had been in or out. I poked my head into the room – the light switch I had watched Nordyke turn off, was in the “on” position. No electrical problem could have caused that. Maybe Laura Yeater was just telling us she’s still around.
As we turned to leave the third floor, Mullins said, “Thank you, Laura,” as Nordyke padlocked the door shut again.
“There’s too many stories,” Mullins said. “Even though I love this building, sometimes it gives me the heebie jeebies.”
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.
Generations of college students at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg have whispered about a woman sometimes seen looking out from that window, a window inaccessible by the students who live there. Yeater Hall, they say, is haunted.
That’s what I was told more than 20 years ago when I was enrolled at the school – and students are still talking about it.
Yeater was built in 1940 and named after the former head of the college’s Latin and Greek department. While Yeater taught there, from 1901 to 1914, she pushed for women’s housing on campus. By 1940 she raised enough money to build the first the school’s first women’s dormitory.
Over the decades since Yeater’s death, many residents of the hall have reported mysterious footsteps, the sounds of moving furniture, blankets ripped off beds and strange lights. Maybe Yeater put so much of herself into the construction of the dormitory she couldn’t bear to leave.
I met director of residence and Greek life Alan Nordyke and custodial worker Carol Mullins at the entrance of Yeater Hall. It was late summer.
“It’s a very old myth that Laura Yeater, her ghost supposedly is here,” Nordyke said. “I’ve never heard any encounter that couldn’t be explained.”
Mullins, however, is more certain of the unexplained.
“Oh, there are ghosts,” she said. “The first three years (I worked here) I hadn’t experienced anything that would convince me that there were ghosts here. But there’ve been enough the past two years to convince me something’s here.”
Hard wood floors run through each room and windows look out on either a tree-lined path or a spacious courtyard. Banquets and dances were once held in the large rooms downstairs, and sororities lived on the upper floors.
But I wasn’t concerned with dances or sororities. I wanted to see the third floor where footsteps, scooting furniture and unexplained lights have been reported. A metal latch and padlock hold tight the entrance to the third floor. No one has lived there since Spring 2001.
“It’s closed because of electrical problems and the decline in occupancy,” Nordyke said as he open the lock with one of a very few keys on campus that open that door. “The only people who’d have access are employees. Students don’t have access.”
Some ceiling lights were on as we walked down a dusty hall lined with doors.
“I thought there were electric problems,” I said, pointing toward the lights.
“Some lights are left on,” Nordyke said.
On an abandoned floor with electrical problems?
Strange lights have been seen coming from the third floor of Yeater, such as lights in rooms 337 and 343 that occasionally come on after 10 p.m.
“The lights have been going on for 20 years,” Mullins said. “Nobody’s going to (play a joke) for 20 years.”
As we walked by room 337, I stopped and noticed the ceiling light was on.
“This shouldn’t be,” Nordyke said.
He switched the light off, blaming the light on maintenance workers, then we walked a few doors down to 343.
“The light comes on when no one is here,” Mullins said about room 343. “I had (another maintenance worker) lock the door and I duct taped the light switch. When I came back up the doors were still closed, but they were unlocked. When I went in, the duct tape was pried open to turn the light on.”
Finished, we turned to leave and, as we walked back by 337, we stopped. The light was on again.
We had been in full view of the only door into room 337, and no one had been in or out. I poked my head into the room – the light switch I had watched Nordyke turn off, was in the “on” position. No electrical problem could have caused that. Maybe Laura Yeater was just telling us she’s still around.
As we turned to leave the third floor, Mullins said, “Thank you, Laura,” as Nordyke padlocked the door shut again.
“There’s too many stories,” Mullins said. “Even though I love this building, sometimes it gives me the heebie jeebies.”
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.
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