Author’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on Mary Vincent of Kingston, Ontario, who’s had more than one encounter with the unknown.
The paranormal seems to follow certain people. Are they blessed, cursed, or just unlucky? Mary Vincent of Kingston, Ontario, is one of these people … one of the unlucky, or one of the cursed.
Mary, at the time 17, was staying with her brother when she realized something in his house wasn’t right.
“I was sleeping in a loft-type bedroom,” she said. “I woke suddenly one night with the immediate knowledge I wasn’t alone.”
Sitting at the side of her bed, staring at her, was a man.
“He just sat very still and the darkness of the room wouldn’t allow me to see his face,” she said. “It seemed as if he had a hat on. I was totally terrified. I tried to move but found I couldn’t. I couldn’t even turn my head away.”
She lie in bed, trying to scream for help, but could only manage a whisper. Then, as quickly as she’d noticed the dark man, he was gone.
“I lay there scared and shaken,” she said.
The next morning, she didn’t talk about her encounter … nor the next day, or the next.
“I did not tell anybody about this for years,” she said. “I didn’t want to hear ‘you were dreaming’ when I knew I wasn’t.”
The dark man with a hat remains a mystery to Mary but she wonders if she somehow invited him into her life.
“As a young mother I started doing the Ouija board with a close friend,” she said. “The more time we spent on it the more depth the messages seemed to have.”
One message was from her friend Milly’s mother, who had recently died.
“She told us some personal stuff that we did not know about money left to an alienated brother,” she said. The entity told Mary’s friend not to fight the will, which, unbeknownst to Mary, Milly and her sister were planning to do.
Was the entity Milly’s mother? According to people well-versed in the Ouija board, no, the entity was demonic. But it was convincing … even down to spelling “mom,” “mum,” like Milly’s British mother would.
Then Mary’s Ouija board experiences escalated. A group at a military camp asked her and Milly to hold a Ouija session at the base.
“I knew some but not all of the people,” Mary said. “We explained to them this was just for fun and we were in no way psychics.”
After what Mary calls “fluff,” the Ouija became alive, the planchette forcing itself across the board.
“It finally spelled out a name I had never heard of,” Mary said. “When I asked if anyone recognized the name, a woman – a German wife of a Canadian soldier – said it was her sister’s name.”
Then Mary stared to feel “terrible.”
“I felt ill, panicky and dark,” she said. “There was no better word than ‘dark’ for my feelings. I told the woman that I wasn’t getting a specific message just a terrible feeling. I felt angry, confused and totally unstable. She told me her sister had committed suicide.”
This frightened Mary.
“I realized that I was getting too close to the spirit side and, in this case, it wasn’t a good feeling,” she said. “I have never sat at the Ouija board since.”
But she couldn’t stay away from the paranormal. Curious about automatic writing, she allowed something unseen to write with her hand.
“I twice tried automatic writing,” she said. “The first time, when the pen started to move I got scared, being alone, and threw the pen.”
But that didn’t stop her from attempting to contact the spirit world again.
“The second time I kept my head averted but let the pen write,” she said. “When I looked at it I saw various words that didn’t mean anything but in the last place it said ‘Mary Elizabeth, it’s Grandma Hogeboom.’”
The handwriting of the last five words wasn’t Mary’s.
“I took the paper to my mother and she pulled out an old card my grandmother had once sent her,” she said. “The handwriting was identical. Absolutely identical. My mother flipped out.”
Did Mary channel her grandmother, or did something evil write with her hand … something that would find its way into her dreams?
Next week: A field of dreams.
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 here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Has it all happened before?
The apartment in Leighton Buzzard, a town 40 miles north of London, was only two years old when Adam Patterson moved in. It was typical; bedroom, bathroom, kitchen/dining area and a living room spilling inside the front door.
But, as normal as it looks, there is something strange about the apartment.
“Upon my first day there, I noticed the carpet was all worn out in front of where the TV goes, but I didn't think too much of it, only that it was a little bit odd,” Adam said. “I also saw that a plug socket above the sink was hanging off. Again, I didn't think too much of it, but at first glance, I did question the reasons for this.”
Adam’s life in the apartment was “fine for the first few months.” But that has changed.
“Despite being very low about certain aspects of my life, in regards to the actual flat, I was pleased,” he said. “However, the past two months have been increasingly strange.”
Like the feeling of being watched every night. Then there are the lights and shadows.
“Strange lights appear whilst sitting on my couch in front of the TV, when I only had two small wall lights on, which are placed behind me at the kitchen area,” he said. “A couple of strange shadows would regularly appear and they would react to my movements when I decided to 'test' them.”
And, by testing, Adam meant touching.
For the past two months, Adam has kept the same schedule. He’s spent every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, sitting in front of the TV waiting for the lights and shadows to appear.
“(I turn) the TV off with the remote control, and look in the TV's reflection if I can find the source of these shadows and lights,” he said. “I have always been convinced that what I am searching for is behind me at the kitchen area.”
For these two months, Adam has obsessively moved from the couch to the TV to gain a better view of the light and shadow reflections on the screen.
“Last week, I had an extremely interesting consideration dawn on me,” he said. “I suddenly realized that for two months now – several times each week – I have been in the middle of experiencing these strange lights and shadows, and ended up moving from my couch to sit in front of the TV in order to give a closer inspection to the screen's reflections.”
He thought, ‘I am probably going to start wearing out the carpet at this rate,’ when he realized the carpet between the couch and the television was already worn – probably by the previous occupant.
“This same night, I worked out that from the direction of light, together with the placement of each shadow, the source of the disturbance was most definitely coming from the kitchen wall,” he said. “‘Next door have found a way to look at me through the wall,’ I thought.”
He walked into the kitchen to try and find a gap where his next-door neighbor might be playing jokes on him, when he thought if he were doing the peeping, he’d unscrew the wall socket.
“Wow, another coincidence,” he said, the wall socket in the kitchen already hanging loose. “This has perhaps already been done by someone else.”
Was the apartment’s former tenet, he wondered, thinking and doing exactly what he was … and if so, why?
“Saturday night I stayed in to watch TV and during the entire night I was experiencing a very strong feeling of being watched,” he said. “The shadows on the wall were looking more and more like human heads, and they were once again reacting to my movements.”
Adam turned off the television and he saw a reflection on the television screen.
“Two slightly distorted human silhouettes were sitting on either side of me,” he said. “I also noticed my own silhouette was very unlike me; my head seemed a little larger than usual, and the reflection of my movements was often delayed or ahead of me.”
He started playing games with the reflections, watching them move as he motioned toward them. Then he noticed something even more unnerving – one of the shadows was nudging him closer to the other.
“For the entire evening, one of them was attempting to lure me into the other one,” he said. “I think it wanted to consume me somehow. I know this all sounds crazy, but ... I was in direct contact with two very real 'shadow people.’
Although Adam speculates the shadow people are from a different dimension, he doesn’t know this. He only knows what he feels.
“I don't think they are necessarily evil. I describe them as curious,” he said. “But it's absolutely horrible for me.”
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 here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
But, as normal as it looks, there is something strange about the apartment.
“Upon my first day there, I noticed the carpet was all worn out in front of where the TV goes, but I didn't think too much of it, only that it was a little bit odd,” Adam said. “I also saw that a plug socket above the sink was hanging off. Again, I didn't think too much of it, but at first glance, I did question the reasons for this.”
Adam’s life in the apartment was “fine for the first few months.” But that has changed.
“Despite being very low about certain aspects of my life, in regards to the actual flat, I was pleased,” he said. “However, the past two months have been increasingly strange.”
Like the feeling of being watched every night. Then there are the lights and shadows.
“Strange lights appear whilst sitting on my couch in front of the TV, when I only had two small wall lights on, which are placed behind me at the kitchen area,” he said. “A couple of strange shadows would regularly appear and they would react to my movements when I decided to 'test' them.”
And, by testing, Adam meant touching.
For the past two months, Adam has kept the same schedule. He’s spent every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, sitting in front of the TV waiting for the lights and shadows to appear.
“(I turn) the TV off with the remote control, and look in the TV's reflection if I can find the source of these shadows and lights,” he said. “I have always been convinced that what I am searching for is behind me at the kitchen area.”
For these two months, Adam has obsessively moved from the couch to the TV to gain a better view of the light and shadow reflections on the screen.
“Last week, I had an extremely interesting consideration dawn on me,” he said. “I suddenly realized that for two months now – several times each week – I have been in the middle of experiencing these strange lights and shadows, and ended up moving from my couch to sit in front of the TV in order to give a closer inspection to the screen's reflections.”
He thought, ‘I am probably going to start wearing out the carpet at this rate,’ when he realized the carpet between the couch and the television was already worn – probably by the previous occupant.
“This same night, I worked out that from the direction of light, together with the placement of each shadow, the source of the disturbance was most definitely coming from the kitchen wall,” he said. “‘Next door have found a way to look at me through the wall,’ I thought.”
He walked into the kitchen to try and find a gap where his next-door neighbor might be playing jokes on him, when he thought if he were doing the peeping, he’d unscrew the wall socket.
“Wow, another coincidence,” he said, the wall socket in the kitchen already hanging loose. “This has perhaps already been done by someone else.”
Was the apartment’s former tenet, he wondered, thinking and doing exactly what he was … and if so, why?
“Saturday night I stayed in to watch TV and during the entire night I was experiencing a very strong feeling of being watched,” he said. “The shadows on the wall were looking more and more like human heads, and they were once again reacting to my movements.”
Adam turned off the television and he saw a reflection on the television screen.
“Two slightly distorted human silhouettes were sitting on either side of me,” he said. “I also noticed my own silhouette was very unlike me; my head seemed a little larger than usual, and the reflection of my movements was often delayed or ahead of me.”
He started playing games with the reflections, watching them move as he motioned toward them. Then he noticed something even more unnerving – one of the shadows was nudging him closer to the other.
“For the entire evening, one of them was attempting to lure me into the other one,” he said. “I think it wanted to consume me somehow. I know this all sounds crazy, but ... I was in direct contact with two very real 'shadow people.’
Although Adam speculates the shadow people are from a different dimension, he doesn’t know this. He only knows what he feels.
“I don't think they are necessarily evil. I describe them as curious,” he said. “But it's absolutely horrible for me.”
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 here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.
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