The following anecdotal accounts were received from 'Phantoms & Monsters' readers:
OLD MAN HAYES
This is a true story. When I was about twelve or so my family moved into a rural neighborhood called Hayes Glenn. It was some old farm land owned by a man named Mr. Hayes. We built a new home on five acres and moved in the winter of 1986. About a year or so later another house was being built next door to us. Being kids me and a good friend would hang out in the house while it was being built. One day we were just sitting in the unfinished house talking when we both heard foot steps coming down the hall right toward us. They were very loud because there was no carpet on the concrete foundation so they could clearly be heard. I looked down the hall and there was no one there. Thinking the owners were there we ran out of the house but I soon realized there was no body there.
A couple of weeks later I awoke up about two in the morning. My room was on the side of our house that overlooked the property that the house was being built on. I don't know why but I looked out of the window and clearly saw an old man standing outside of the house. I could see him in the moonlight. I went and woke my mom up but when she got to my room he was gone. Nothing else happened. The house was finished and a couple of years passed. I happened to be talking to a friend's dad who lived in the area. He was a police officer who, about 10 years before all of this, handled the case of old man Hayes...the farmer who had hung himself in a barn exactly were the neighbors house was built. JJ
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STOP SIGN ENCOUNTER
About two years ago, I had an experience which I will recount to you. I have been speaking of this more, but it took some time to reconcile.
I believe it would have been early March. I am an interiorscaper, which means I take care of plants in offices and estates. At the time, I had the contract to maintain the plant material in the executive offices at Electronic Data Systems in Plano, TX. Because I maintained the plants for the highest level employees (ceo, cio, etc..), I would do my work pretty much in the middle of the night by escort of their security personnel. I had the contract to do this work for them since 1998.
Once a week, I would leave my home, where I live in a country setting, and travel about 45 minutes in to Plano to do this work. On this morning, it was about 2:30am. I had loaded my van with my work materials, and started out on a very cold and unpleasant morning. It had been raining and the wind was blowing. I had my windshield wipers on because the wind was blowing water off the trees, though it wasn't raining at the moment. I turned on the residential street to make my way out and to the main roads. As I approached the first stop sign, my headlights illuminated a being.
This is how I describe it: First, I must comment that I was immediately struck by a terrible fear. I believe my neck hairs stood on end, and I realized later that I had popped out in a complete sweat. I never sweat, and it was very cold, but my shirt had huge armpit rings by the time I reached the toll road. So I instantly knew that I was seeing something very out of the ordinary at the first second.
I would say this being was about five feet tall. It crossed the road on the cross street in front of me. I had probably 10 or so seconds as my van approached the stop sign, and I had my foot on the brake pedal already when I saw it. (I was traveling slowly anyway). It was a glossy white color, and I could not discern any clothing. It was the same glossy white from its head to its feet. It did not turn its head to look at me, so I do not know what the eyes looked like. It moved in a very strange fashion. It did not seem to have any bend at a knee area, and shuffled rather than walked. The arms were very long, much longer than a person's, and they hung down much past where one would expect knees, and also had no bend where one would expect elbows. I believe the hands were large. The head was not very big, nothing like one sees looking up pictures of 'greys'. There was nothing threatening in its manner, but I was terrified, nonetheless. I must say it took every ounce of courage for me to turn my head to the left in the direction it had gone when I came to a stop at the stop sign. I saw nothing there, and I floored it and got the hell out of there.
Nothing strange or unusual happened on the rest of the trip, although I was really scared. And nothing has happened in all the time since then. I wish I had known that there would be no consequences from seeing it and I could have saved myself a lot of anxiety. I would love to see it again, if I could know for sure that again there would be no consequences, and I could look at it from behind an army of people who probably believe me to be deluded or a liar.
Obviously, I have no idea what it is. Except to say that I know it is not human. I guess it could be an alien from space, or a creature from another dimension.
Seeing it had a big effect on me. I have never been in the least bit afraid outside in the night (I breed and raise horses, and I have spent many, many nights out in the barn by myself waiting for a mare to foal) but I was very nervous outside after that. I also began to dread going to that account. It was eons before I could go by that stop sign without feeling that fear.
I have had some unusual experiences in my life, but nothing like this. I do not know what to make of this experience, other than to acknowledge that there is much more to this world than we know. I come from a well-educated family of engineers and economists, and they would have preferred no family member of theirs have an experience like this, which puts on in a category of 'kooks'. Kate
Strange Encounters : Bizarre & Eerie Contact With UFO Occupants
Encounters: With the Strange and Unexplained
Trucker Ghost Stories: And Other True Tales of Haunted Highways, Weird Encounters, and Legends of the Road
