Author’s note: This is the first part of a two-part follow-up to October 2009’s “Night of the Harlequin.” Dan Mitchell’s childhood waking nightmare still haunts him.
When Dan Mitchell and his wife moved from their southern Wisconsin three-bedroom townhouse, they kept in touch with their neighbors. When Mitchell’s wife called to announce they were moving back into the townhouse in early March, she found someone had been looking for them.
“The woman who lives there with her husband she says that her and her husband were up watching a movie (Feb. 5),” Mitchell said. “She had a pizza in the oven and when the timer went off she goes into the kitchen to take it out.”
Someone was waiting for her.
“Once she gets to the kitchen she is horrified to see a strange woman standing in her kitchen,” Mitchell said. “She says that she knew she heard something, but thought it was the cats. It didn’t sound like the door even opened.”
Mitchell’s neighbor said the woman in the kitchen looked like she was wearing a disguise. Blonde hair, big sunglasses, “and overall she was just weird looking.” She also held a key.
“She says something like, ‘I have this key for the house next door (Mitchell’s townhouse). I tried it but it didn’t work. I have the wrong key because it opens (Mitchell’s neighbor’s) door,’” Mitchell said.
The couple demanded the woman leave, and she did.
“They lock the door behind her and start to run around to the windows to see if she is getting into a car,” Mitchell said. “They wanted a license plate so they can tell the police.”
But there was no car and the woman seemed to have disappeared.
“They called the landlord and he came out to change the locks the next day,” Mitchell said. “The landlord says he never gave anybody the keys to the houses and has no idea how it could have happened.”
The encounter has rattled Mitchell’s neighbor.
“She tells me that she can’t sleep at night and wants to buy a big dog to have in the house after what happened,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell is convinced this woman trying to get into his townhouse is the entity that’s plagued his life; a sexless, moon-eyed entity that often spoke with him in his bedroom as a child – an entity he calls the Harlequin. This creature has randomly appeared to him for almost 30 years.
“I am starting to suspect that perhaps I am being tracked down,” he said. “I can’t say that there is anything malevolent going on around here, but there is something odd and disturbing.”
Mitchell doesn’t know if this entity is angel, demon or extraterrestrial – he just knows it’s not human.
“I’m convinced at this point, not a doubt in my mind, that we are dealing with something that is as real as you and me,” he said. “And for whatever reason it has taken an interest in either myself or my family.”
Mitchell and his family want to know that reason.
“We just want to get the story out in the hope that maybe someone can tell us they have been seeing similar things or have more information than we do,” he said. “It doesn’t seem that many people are seeing this type of being.”
One person who has seen a similar entity is Adrian Hicks, a councilman from Winchester, Hampshire, England. Walking down High Street at 1:30 p.m. on a Saturday in February 2004, Hicks saw a blonde girl in a white ballet dress, but what set the girl off from the crowd was her walk.
Hicks described the woman as a “humanoid” that walked “with a penguin-like gait,” and was taking keen interest in everyday objects, like a bank clock.
“Most definitely an alien,” Hicks said. “I watched her for a very good eight minutes plus.”
Although the street was busy that winter day and Hicks reported someone taking pictures of her, no one else has come forth to say they saw the girl in the ballet costume, Andrew Napier, chief reporter of the Hampshire Chronicle, said. Napier was the first person to interview Hicks about his encounter.
“Despite lots of publicity in the local papers and Web sites, no one has come forward to corroborate what Mr. Hicks said he saw,” Napier said.
However, the drawing made of the entity Hicks saw made an impression on Mitchell.
“The likeness in his drawing was the spitting image of what we have here, the collar was identical,” Mitchell said. “I recall he said that someone got pictures of this thing. I’d pay to see those, I really would. Hopefully someone might know something or have a similar story in all of this. Time will tell. I’ve been taking my camera with me everywhere I go.”
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.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Return of the Harlequin -- Part One
Author’s note: This is the first part of a two-part follow-up to October 2009’s “Night of the Harlequin” (http://from-the-shadows.blogspot.com/2009/10/night-of-harlequin.html). Dan Mitchell’s childhood waking nightmare still haunts him.
The entity would visit five-year-old Dan Mitchell’s bedroom at night. The thin, androgynous creature that called itself “the tooth fairy” would appear and tell him stories. Large, wide-open eyes – too large to be human eyes – stared at Mitchell as words spilled through its always open, round mouth.
Angel, demon or extraterrestrial?
It’s been more than 28 years since he first saw the entity he grew to call “the Harlequin,” but, although he goes years without feeling its presence, it’s always been with him, walking like cheap animation along the side of the road, or staring at him from the dark.
Mitchell and his family lived with his mother-in-law in a Milwaukee suburb briefly in 2009, just a few blocks from the house where he grew up – the house where he first experienced the Harlequin. It was waiting for him.
“A couple weeks ago I was helping my mother-in-law clean out her basement and organize a few things,” he said. “I woke up fairly early to get a head start on it before everybody started to wake up.”
Mitchell started working in the basement about 6:30 a.m. when he heard a noise from the top of the stairs.
“Within the first 10 minutes of going downstairs to organize, I keep hearing a tapping noise coming from upstairs by the back door,” Mitchell said. “It sounds like someone was gently tapping the window of the back door.”
At first he thought wind caused the sound, until it grew louder.
“Almost instantly it goes from a tapping to some quick thuds on the door that just stop abruptly,” Mitchell said. “It sounded like someone was knocking rather desperately. I was actually pretty startled by it.”
Mitchell grabbed a piece of pipe and slowly ascended the steps.
“I get to the top of the stairs and notice that whoever was knocking on the door was walking away toward the alley,” he said. “I can only see this person from the back and my heart utterly sank. I knew immediately what I was looking at.”
It was the Harlequin.
The entity walked away from the door like a bad theater actor. It wore a blonde wig, black winter cap and reddish-pink pants pulled up to the knees revealing unnaturally pale skin. It also wore penny-loafers with no socks and a winter coat with ruffles sewn onto it.
“For a brief second I thought maybe it was a homeless person, but there is just no way,” he said. “These things communicate they aren’t human just by their presence. I can’t describe this; you just can’t mistake it once you see it.”
The thin, sexless thing walked to the end of the sidewalk that cut through the back yard and disappeared behind the garage.
“I felt like I went instantly pale,” Mitchell said. “As it turned the corner to go behind our garage I caught a very quick glimpse of the eyes, the orbits were gigantic and the face was expressionless, almost mask-like. The thin mouth almost too small for the face.”
The thumps on the door woke Mitchell’s wife and she rushed downstairs worried her husband had tripped on the stairs. She found her husband staring out the window of the back door. Mitchell’s voice quivered as he told her what he’d seen.
“They don’t understand the dress at all or how to fit in,” Mitchell said. “I could have left this event as being a homeless person for the sake of my own comfort, but then we had another strange thing happen.”
Part two: The Harlequin speaks.
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.
The entity would visit five-year-old Dan Mitchell’s bedroom at night. The thin, androgynous creature that called itself “the tooth fairy” would appear and tell him stories. Large, wide-open eyes – too large to be human eyes – stared at Mitchell as words spilled through its always open, round mouth.
Angel, demon or extraterrestrial?
It’s been more than 28 years since he first saw the entity he grew to call “the Harlequin,” but, although he goes years without feeling its presence, it’s always been with him, walking like cheap animation along the side of the road, or staring at him from the dark.
Mitchell and his family lived with his mother-in-law in a Milwaukee suburb briefly in 2009, just a few blocks from the house where he grew up – the house where he first experienced the Harlequin. It was waiting for him.
“A couple weeks ago I was helping my mother-in-law clean out her basement and organize a few things,” he said. “I woke up fairly early to get a head start on it before everybody started to wake up.”
Mitchell started working in the basement about 6:30 a.m. when he heard a noise from the top of the stairs.
“Within the first 10 minutes of going downstairs to organize, I keep hearing a tapping noise coming from upstairs by the back door,” Mitchell said. “It sounds like someone was gently tapping the window of the back door.”
At first he thought wind caused the sound, until it grew louder.
“Almost instantly it goes from a tapping to some quick thuds on the door that just stop abruptly,” Mitchell said. “It sounded like someone was knocking rather desperately. I was actually pretty startled by it.”
Mitchell grabbed a piece of pipe and slowly ascended the steps.
“I get to the top of the stairs and notice that whoever was knocking on the door was walking away toward the alley,” he said. “I can only see this person from the back and my heart utterly sank. I knew immediately what I was looking at.”
It was the Harlequin.
The entity walked away from the door like a bad theater actor. It wore a blonde wig, black winter cap and reddish-pink pants pulled up to the knees revealing unnaturally pale skin. It also wore penny-loafers with no socks and a winter coat with ruffles sewn onto it.
“For a brief second I thought maybe it was a homeless person, but there is just no way,” he said. “These things communicate they aren’t human just by their presence. I can’t describe this; you just can’t mistake it once you see it.”
The thin, sexless thing walked to the end of the sidewalk that cut through the back yard and disappeared behind the garage.
“I felt like I went instantly pale,” Mitchell said. “As it turned the corner to go behind our garage I caught a very quick glimpse of the eyes, the orbits were gigantic and the face was expressionless, almost mask-like. The thin mouth almost too small for the face.”
The thumps on the door woke Mitchell’s wife and she rushed downstairs worried her husband had tripped on the stairs. She found her husband staring out the window of the back door. Mitchell’s voice quivered as he told her what he’d seen.
“They don’t understand the dress at all or how to fit in,” Mitchell said. “I could have left this event as being a homeless person for the sake of my own comfort, but then we had another strange thing happen.”
Part two: The Harlequin speaks.
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.
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