The Night People

Young Vern often saw people outside his house at night.

From age five to six, Vern would look out his bedroom window in Orrick, Mo., and people with large, fishlike eyes would walk around his yard and sometime into his neighbor’s houses. At the time, this wasn’t strange to him.

“They were the Night People,” Vern said plainly. Everyone Vern knew – himself, his family, his friends – lived in the real world during the day. The people he saw outside his bedroom window lived there when the sun went down. “In my mind we were the Day People and they were the Night People. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it seemed.”

Vern, now an adult living in Liberty, Mo., thought the Night People were normal.

“I’d wake up at night and see these people with big eyes living a regular life,” he said. “I could see faces, clothes, they had kids… I do remember the adult mowing the yard. But I thought it was weird because I couldn’t hear the mower.”

He also watched them walk up and down the street, pausing to speak with each other.

“They seemed like they were talking and interacting normally,” Vern said. “Like down home. You’d just see people talking.”
Then Vern’s family moved from Orrick to nearby Liberty and he saw the same fish-eyed Night People outside his window.

One night, he finally made contact … and never saw them again.

“The children were playing in the yard next door and I thought, hey, I might go play with them,” he said. “What’s weird, though, is the last time I saw them, it seemed like all of a sudden they seemed to notice that I’d noticed them. One of the adults just looked at me and just realized, ‘they see me now.’ And the next thing I see is it’s daylight and I never see (them) again.”

Vern had blacked out and came to hours later.

“If this was real, I probably wasn’t perceived as a threat until I decided to come out and play,” Vern said.

But who were these Night People only Vern could see? Vern’s memories of them are similar to that of alien abductees who also wake up to see large-eyed, friendly, familiar beings they later identify as classic gray aliens.

Margie Kay, host of the Quest paranormal radio program, ghost hunter and psychic, said Vern’s experiences were related to alien abduction.

“This is more common than most people think,” Margie said. “Vern is likely an abductee.”

Extraterrestrials, Margie said, live in another dimension and are capable of entering and leaving ours whenever they want to – like Vern’s Night People.

Another piece of evidence may have come out of Vern’s nose when he was 14.

“I had a nose bleed and didn’t stop it,” he said. “I finally blew my nose.”

What he found shouldn’t have been there.

“It looked like a capsule of silvery something,” he said. “At first it felt hard then started dissolving. I was trying to figure out what it was and it dissolved in my hand.”

Many people who claim they’ve been abducted by extraterrestrials report similar metallic objects coming from their nose. UFO researcher and physician, Dr. Roger Leir, has reported surgically removing many similar objects from patients.

“I wonder if I wasn’t tagged or something,” Vern said.

Margie thinks he was.

“This sounds like a typical implant in the nose scenario,” Margie said. “And he probably saw aliens, too.”

Whatever the true origin of Vern’s Night People – whether they are the product of a child’s imagination or alien abduction – it’s affected his life for decades.

“You have to realize I was five and six at the time,” Vern said. “It’s vivid enough I still remember it after 45 years.”

Copyright 2007 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's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

University of Missouri Professor Understands the Power of the Kalanoro

Under the surface of Madagascar, deep in the caves sacred to the Antakarana and Tsimihety peoples, lurk the Kalanoro.

A recent Internet story alleges Navy SEALs photographed a group of 13 Kalanoro in the late 1990s-early 2000s in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – far from the island of Madagascar. These Kalanoro were described as a gray “unidentified ape” with quills that run along its spine.

Legends of the Kalanoro are older than 1997 … much older. The Kalanoro have been a part of Madagascar traditions since people arrived there 2,000 years ago. But opinions differ on what the Kalanoro might be.

According to travelafricamag.com, the Kalanoro is a physical creature covered with hair, less than three feet tall with long fingernails. One was reportedly captured by the Royal Geographical Society in 1889. The society discovered the Kalanoro not only had feet that point backward, the creatures were telepathic.

In the 1964 volume Western Folklore, Vol. XXIII, an article by Bacil F. Kirtley – “Unknown Hominids and New World Legends” – paints the Kalanoro of Madagascar as a “land-dwarf” that, much like European elves and trolls, steals human children and replaces them with Kalanoro children.

University of Missouri-Columbia professor Joe Hobbs knows something about the Kalanoro, and their connection to children. While researching the relationship between people and caves in Madagascar, Hobbs came into contact, not with the Kalanoro, but with local people who are convinced the Kalanoro exist.

“This story may strike some as funny,” Hobbs wrote in a recent e-mail. “But the people in Madagascar are quite serious about these and other spiritual beings.”

Unlike travelafricamag.com, Kirtley and the Navy SEALs story, the local people don’t consider the Kalanoro to be animals – they are spiritual beings. In Hobbs’ 2001 article, “People and Caves in Madagascar,” published in The American Geographical Society’s Focus, the people of Madagascar refer to the Kalanoro as “earth genies.”

People of Madagascar who have historically buried their dead in caves have a great respect for the Kalanoro – because the Kalanoro physically interact with them. One Kalanoro near the village of Ambalakida, pays particular attention to bad parents, Hobbs said.

“On three separate occasions, one as recently as 1998,” Hobbs wrote in his 2001 article. “The being became angry that parents had insufficiently cooked meat for their children and done other things particularly unacceptable to it.”

Unhappy with the parents, the Kalanoro kidnapped their children, Hobbs wrote. To get the children back, the distraught parents consulted another local spirit, a Tromba which had possessed a fellow villager. The tromba told the parents to leave offerings of honey and liquor in the forest. The parents did, the Kalanoro was pleased, and returned the children – one by one – to a local cave, the cave of Andoboara.

With permission from King Tsimiaro III, Hobbs visited the burial caves, including the cave of Andoboara, and saw first-hand the Kalanoro’s influence on the local cultures.

“The night we visited the cave, my assistant Patty Vavizara stayed close to me, fearful that the Kalanoro might be about,” Hobbs wrote.

Regardless of whether the Kalanoro are real or legend, animal or intelligent and telepathic, unknown hominid or earth spirit; to the peoples of Madagascar, the Kalanoro are real.

Copyright 2007 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’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

Jim the Wonder Dog

Mary Burge, Arrow Rock, Mo., wore this dress in the 1930s when Jim the Wonder Dog picked her out of a crowd. What's wondrous about that? His owner told him to pick out the girl in the red dress.


A small group of girls stood in the lobby of the Ruff Hotel in Marshall, Mo., a local meeting place in the 1930s. Three of the girls wore red dresses. One had a polka dot bow in her hair.

Sam VanArsdale, owner of the hotel, called his dog Jim over to the girls and the English Llewellyn setter did something amazing. Sam wasn’t surprised. Jim was always doing something amazing.

“I had this dress on and a red and white spotted bow,” Mary Burge of nearby Arrow Rock said. “Mr. Sam said ‘Jim, go to the girl with the red dress on.’”

Jim just looked at the girls, then walked back to Sam.

“There were three of us with red dresses,” Mary said. “So (Sam) said ‘go over to the girl with the red and white polka dotted dress.’ Well, there were two of us. He went back and you could tell he didn’t know what to do.”

Then VanArsdale narrowed it down for Jim. He told him to pick the girl with the polka dotted bow in her hair.

The dog walked to Mary. She was the girl wearing the bow.

It was displays like this that gave the setter the name Jim the Wonder Dog.

Sam got Jim as a pup in 1925 from a fellow hunter. The hunter had picked the runt of the litter as a joke, so Sam just hoped Jim would be a good quail-hunting dog. He was; flushing out enough quail to earn him a write-up in several Missouri magazines.

Then, when Jim was three, Sam discovered Jim was a lot more than just a good hunting dog.

“To me he was psychic,” Mildred Conner of the Saline County Historical Society said. “They don’t want me to say that, but he knew things before they happened.”

Jim picked the winner of the 1936 presidential election, seven straight Kentucky Derby winners, and could predict the sex of an unborn baby. He could understand commands in English, foreign languages and Morse code. He could also read commands in foreign languages and shorthand – yes, read. Sam would just show Jim a written command and say, “Do whatever it says.” Usually, Jim obliged.

He could also pick out numbers on license plates and he knew colors.

“(Sam would say) ‘Jim someone’s in here with brown and white shoes’ and Jim went and picked him out,” Jim the Wonder Dog buff Ken Yowell said.

Veterinarians at the University of Missouri-Columbia tested Jim and determined that the setter was just a normal dog.

“They thought the owner was giving him hand signals,” Mary said. “But he didn’t do that.”

Stories on Jim were featured in Field and Stream, Missouri Ruralist, Missouri Life, Ripley’s Believe It or Not and The Kansas City Star. Hollywood came calling, but Sam wanted no part of it.

Jim died of natural causes March 18, 1937 and was buried near Marshall’s Ridge Park Cemetery. Although he was not buried inside the cemetery grounds because he was a dog, the cemetery boundaries were later extended and now include Jim’s grave.

A park and water garden at 105-1109 N. Lafayette in Marshall, features a statue of Jim the Wonder Dog and Jim’s history.

Darlene Savage, Jefferson City, has toured the park.

“It really was an amazing story,” Darlene said. “Somehow that dog was touched.”

Ken estimated thousands of people come to Marshall every year just to learn about Jim.

“Some believe. Some don’t,” Ken said. “I do.”

Copyright 2007 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’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

Does a Secret ET Base Exist in Jefferson City, Mo.? Part 2

Gil McDonald, Sr., took this picture of something hovering over the former Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City in 2004.


Author’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on Gil McDonald, Sr., who claims to have proof a space alien base exists in the Missouri state capital.

Gil McDonald, Sr., studies the night sky above Jefferson City. He’s seen things there; things he’s sure are not from our planet.

“I’ve seen so many (UFOs) the last few years some people consider me a fake,” he said. “It seems like any time I go out I’m going to get a picture of (a UFO) around Jefferson City.”

Gil, a retired guard from the state penitentiary in Jefferson City (which was decommissioned in 2004), knows alien spacecraft have landed on the penitentiary grounds for years because he’s seen them – and he’s photographed them.

“Some of the first photographs I got were about two blocks away from the Governor’s Mansion,” Gil said. He couldn’t see some of the craft, but captured them on infrared film. “The (aliens) have some kind of design that emits rays that makes the (craft) invisible to the human eye.”

But it’s not the UFOs that have haunted Gil – it’s their occupants.

“I saw a lot of those. I think they’re from out of the cosmos,” he said. “The best description I could give on those creatures is that they are the same thing we’ve always called ghosts. Some of them look like humans except they’re gray; like they’re drawn in pencil or something. Several times I have seen them walk directly through a solid object.”

Gil also saw alien executions, which made him think the Jefferson City penitentiary was also a prison for them.

“I did see them shoot a couple of their creatures and it wasn’t like a laser gun,” he said. “It looked like it shot something the size of a golf ball into them. The creature was shot and fell down and in 2 or 3 seconds it was dust.”

But if anyone else saw UFOs or aliens at the penitentiary, they kept quiet about it.

“They don’t talk about them,” Gil said. “We had an inmate at one time who said he saw a ghost. They ridiculed him so bad he never said anything about it again. And the officers knew they’d be fired if they brought it up.”

So Gil kept quiet, too. Then aliens began following Gil when he left work.

“It’s like they go home with you,” he said. “I don’t really know what they’re doing.”

But whatever the aliens’ purpose, Gil said he doesn’t think it’s benevolent. He said he’s seen evidence we may be lunch.

“It makes me think that we’re not on the top of the food chain,” he said. “It looks like they’re using humans. I think they take some people and don’t bring them back. We should not trust them completely.”

After Gil retired, he decided not to keep quiet about the space alien presence in Jefferson City and launched his Web site (http://cosmostarman.tripod.com) to warn the world.

“I’m just trying to give out information,” Gil said. “At first I was really excited about this, but it’s got a real price tag attached to it.”

Gil said he’s under government scrutiny. He’s been followed and his telephone has been tapped.

“I’ve been harassed for about three years now,” Gil said. “The entire neighborhood has been told I’m some kind of monster or totally insane. It drives people away from you. This is the authorities that are doing this.”

He’s even been paid a visit by the Men in Black; strange dark-suited, semi-human entities that have been reported harassing UFO witnesses since the modern UFO flap began in the 1940s. One night, while working bingo in Columbia, three MIB came into the room.

“These three young guys come in. All were dressed in black suits,” he said. “All were about the same size... Same kind of shirt, same kind of tie, same kind of haircut.”

Then they disappeared. Gil asked, but no one remembered seeing them.

“I’m just hanging out 100 percent and if the (government) wants to watch me or listen to me I’m not going to try to stop them,” Gil said. “I’ve been totally honest on this thing since the beginning and will continue to be.”

Gil hopes to see the day when his honesty is justified.

Copyright 2007 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's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.