Here are a few strange real-life tales from the readers of 'Phantoms & Monsters':
Pretty in Pink
Hi Lon,
I really enjoy your blog but honestly, it scares the hell out of me sometimes. I wanted to relay a weird experience told to me a while back that I have only told to one other person...my wife. When I was with the police department in a jurisdiction near Ames, Iowa in 1988 a deputy told me about an experience he had one evening while driving down an isolated country road. The area was new to him as he was covering for another off duty officer. He told me it had just finished raining at about 6:30 pm when he drove past a cemetery on his right. About a quarter mile down the road he noticed a girl walking on the side of the road. He stopped his cruiser to offer the girl a ride to wherever she was going. She accepted his offer and sat in the back seat during the ride. The deputy remembered how pretty she looked dressed in beautiful pink prom gown. She explained she was on her way to her school prom and after about two miles down the road, asked to be let out on the dimly lit corner at an old filling station. He dropped her off then proceeded down the road to continue his tour.
It was a dark evening and he got concerned about the girl's safety so he turned around and went back to where he had dropped her off, but she was no where to be found. He passed the old abandoned filling station and continued back down the road to the cemetery and a small house located next to it. He parked his cruiser in the dirt driveway and knocked on the door. An old man answered the door and the police officer described what had happened and he had wondered if the girl possibly came to his house. The old man just smiled and said to come inside and he would explain.
It seems that the girl the deputy picked up that night, was killed on her way to her school prom back in the 1940's by a drunk driver. The old man stated that several times a year she walks down that same road trying to get to her prom. He took the deputy into the cemetery and showed him the girl's gravestone. After shaking off the shivers the deputy returned to his cruiser and began his tour again. He was driving on the same road but at the corner where the old filling station was located there was just an open field with trees. The deputy asked me to never tell anyone about this experience.
I no longer live in the area but I have been told that the pretty girl still frequents the old country road searching for a ride to the prom.
Jim C.
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Vanishing 'Man-Beast' Encounter
About three years ago, I had a strange encounter in the length of woods that borders my house. It was winter and I was on one of my routine hikes with my brother. We would periodically stop and rest, listening to the sounds of the forest. We were climbing a steep hill and having a hell of a time with it. Our march was halted when I stepped in a pothole and when I finally dragged my foot out we decided to take a breather. That's when I saw it. We were just standing there, making small talk, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure. I turned and saw a large, lanky creature watching us from atop a hill. The very instant my gaze fixed on it, it began to barrel down the hill at us. I tried to run or even alert my brother, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear.
I heard my brother asked "what's the matter?"...but I couldn't tell him because I didn't know. I didn't know what I was looking at. I was finally able to break my paralysis and was about to tell him what was happening and then it was gone. Just POOF! Like smoke in the wind. Needless to say I hauled ass out of there. If I was to describe the thing I would say that it was at least 6'1 with some of the longest hair I've ever seen. It had a slim build and was completely nude. It's body was pale with a large patch of hair on it's chest. I never caught sight of it's face or any reproductive parts, but I have the feeling it was male.
Every time I look back on it and try to analyze what it might have been I always come up short. I can't come up with a believable or concrete explanation. I sometimes doubt I saw anything at all. Granted this is not the first strange experience I've had in those woods. The disembodied baby's cry comes to mind.
Cody B.
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The Red Man
Being the only girl in the family, at the time, I had a bedroom all to myself. I was just a teen in junior high and was interested in witchcraft. (I guess I was watching too much 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' or something). I was spoiled with a computer and a TV in my room. Back in the day, kids having a computer in their own bedroom wasn't very common. I would go online trying to find spells that I could do, stumbled across this one website that had an Ouiji board online. I had heard stories of how the board is the devil's game. I figured since this was online it wasn't the same.
The website had a prayer or a chant that I remember I had to say to have God protect me from whatever may happen. I asked a simple question "is anyone here"...I thought..."ok now whats suppose to happen...is the mouse suppose to move around? How do I get an answer?" It just came to a point where I thought it was ridiculous and shut off my computer.
A couple of nights later, I noticed my teddy bear missing from my bed. (I've always slept with a bear because it brought comfort like someone was there with me). I bent down to go pick it up, and staring at me was a red man standing half way through my door. I looked at him and froze. He just smiled at me, not moving. I left the bear and pulled the blanket over my head and trembled...terrified that the thing would come over and just rip the blankets away from me. I was too scared to sleep so I waited until the morning, when I can see some sort of light in my bedroom.
I was eating breakfast at the table with my two younger brothers and my dad...so I told them what I saw. My dad overhears me and goes "oh dont worry, that was me". I didn't say anything because I didn't want to freak him out if he couldn't explain it, but how could it be him if I locked the door? I am the only one who has the keys to my door (like I said I was pretty spoiled, I changed the locks myself and had both the keys that came with the door knob). I lock my door every night, I hate the feeling of someone, anyone...that can just burst into my room in the middle of the night.
That house terrified me. Late at night I could hear creaks and banging noises. I'm now 26 and no longer live in that house. I truly can't explain what I saw. My eyes don't play tricks on me, when I'm up...I'm up, even if its going to the washroom at 2 am or even 5 am.
I've told this story to my friends and co-workers but they laugh at me like I'm messing around. It's gotten to the point where, I'd rather not say anything at all because they are non-believers.
V
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Ghost at 30,000 Feet
I would ask my colleagues if they had a ghostly experience or anything related to it. This is one of my favorites...
Chona, a senior flight attendant at that time, was standing by her door in first class. The steward and the other flight attendant had gone on their first shift of their crew rest. The purser decided to turn off the video in the main screen because there was only one passenger and he requested not to be disturbed...he wasn't interested in the movie. The aircraft was a 747-200 series and we had 18 seats in first class.
The cabin was dark and Chona was enjoying her alone time staring at the darkened cabin when someone stood up from the front row. A steward! But...no one asked if they could sleep in front. So she waited as the steward turned and walked away from his seat...and through the fuselage into open air at 30,000 feet!
Without thinking, she ran towards business class to look for real humans. They never found out who the steward was and they left it at that.
Dawn
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Flying Jelly Fish
Hello, my name is Jordan and this is my story of a close encounter when I was about 17.
It was a Friday night in Phoenix, Arizona...believe it or not it was raining heavily and the clouds were very low. Me and 4 other people were at a friends house watching a movie trying to kill time. My friend Daniel and I were getting hungry so we had both decided to walk to the gas station and get some snacks. I walked outside and the clouds were extremely low. I have never seen them like this before...they were just above the street lights to give you an idea. As Daniel walked outside he exclaimed, "What the hell is that!?". He pointed to the house right across the street and it looked like there was something on the roof. As I got a better look at the object it looked like a balloon floating in the wind right above the house. But as I stood there looking at it, it stopped in mid air just floating there almost as if it were staring at us. That's when I knew this was no balloon, because balloons cant just stop and hover.
We approached it and I got a better look at it. It looked like a robotic jelly fish, if that makes any sense at all. It had a blinking red light on it. There were various things hanging down, what looked like tentacles. It was probably a little bigger than a basketball. Daniel grabbed a few rocks and threw them at the "balloon"...that's when the object zipped behind a tree faster than anything I have ever seen. I was extremely frightened as was Daniel when we realized that what we were dealing with was intelligent.
We both took off running down the street, I was looking behind me with every chance I got and I could see the blinking red light behind the tree. The thing was watching us...I knew there was something operating it. My friend, whose house we were at, had also seen the same thing but was in denial that it was a UFO. This experience changed my life forever. You hear of big UFO sightings but I have never even heard of a sighting like mine. I was so close to it, it was amazing. After much thought (many years) I believe that it was a probe used for surveillance. I have never seen anything like that again, until I looked up flying humanoids in Phoenix, AZ. I believe that they are kind of similar but not completely. I would love to have a reasonable explanation for this event in my life!
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