It had been a cold cloudy night on the 14th of January in 1991 in Edinburgh, Scotland. At the time I was 10 years old living with my father who was a soldier and my mother a Berliner (German). We lived in an army estate overlooking Edinburgh City. It all started when our upstairs neighbour had informed me and the other 10 families in our block of flats that he had seen UFO activity on the night of the 13th and that the lights had returned.
I initially dismissed the lights as the spotlights on Edinburgh castle which were occasionally tested and shone into the sky but the lights were indeed different. Everyone in the block went to look out their windows. What I observed was one bright white light that was of considerable height above Edinburgh Castle that gradually split into five lights that formed into formation like of 5 on a dice.
As they floated in our direction the middle light turned red and the other lights moved in synchro-nised movements and patterns. Our observation point was about 10 miles from Edinburgh castle itself, which was on the south side of the city. At one point people were getting nervous as I could see from my own parent’s behaviour. The lights closed in on our location. It appeared that whatever the lights were, they had knowledge that we were observing them because as they floated above us they seemed to have grown in considerable size. I judged the object to be larger than a 747. As we gazed out our windows at approximately a 60 degree angle we noticed that nearby animals were alarmed and acting distressed. Dog’s barked excessively and other pets acted strangely.
At the age of just 10 I was more curious then afraid. My stepfather went outside and estimated the size of the object as he himself couldn’t explain what the lights were. The object then moved slowly away and my mother and I ran to the bedroom window to get a better look at it. My curiosity got the better of me and I went and got my flashlight that I’d got for Christmas while my mother stood at the window. When I returned, I pointed the flashlight at the object and then turned it on as if to signal. At exactly the same moment I switched the flashlight on the hovering lights went out and immediately disappeared in front of my eyes or so it seemed.
My mother and I were confused and bewildered that it had suddenly disappeared at the moment I shone my flashlight at it. The whole encounter lasted approximately 25 minutes and as far as I am aware the incident was never reported to the base Commanding Officer and nothing was heard about the incident again.
As the years wore on little did I know I would become a witness to many paranormal and anomalous encounters. In 1994 at the age of 14 in December, and whilst still living in Edinburgh, I awoke around 2 or 3 am with my attention drawn to a flickering white light on my curtains near the bed. I sat up to look out of my partly opened window. As I gazed outside I heard distinct sounds of rustling, made as if people were walking on the grass. The garden was partly lit by street lights from the main road. I was left with a feeling of confusion and a bit fearful. For the next half hour I lay in bed becoming more scared as the sounds continued outside. It was then that I began to question a prior experience I’d had years earlier and wondered if this was in some way related to it.
In Jan 1995, a month after my second experience, my family and I moved to the outskirts of London, England, to a place called RAF Headley Court. I was awakened on the second night in a way similar to my December experience, again with a flickering white light at the window but this time I heard a humming sound. After what I had experienced in December and now in January, I felt as if all my fears about my first encounter had come true.
This wasn’t something in my mind and of course I questioned my own sense of reality.
During a May afternoon in 1995, at approximately 2 pm my friend and I were confronted as we were walking out the house door by what seemed to be a glowing transparent ‘shoelace’ type object. As we walked out the door we froze upon seeing the object hanging from the porch outside. Suddenly it disappeared and it made claw-like sounds as it scratched its way up the wall towards the roof in a matter of seconds. We questioned each other immediately about whether we had both witnessed what we saw. We were amazed by this strange encounter because we had no rational explanation. The encounters as I described in Dec and Jan then seemed to happen more frequently. I began to have dreams of blackness that would surround me and make it difficult for me to breathe and I would see non-descriptive black figure like shapes. It was as though it was part of a dream, my vision and all around me had become choked and full of a blackness (I describe it as oil slick pouring from each four corners of a canvass which became suffocating). The dreams were violent and I often woke being short of breath in panic to hear an ultrasound hum and vibration and a feeling as if the air around me was ‘alive’, only to then to hear people (I assumed to be) walking around the perimeter of the property. When I would search to see if I could locate the source by walking outside I could never find anyone? The fear within me grew so much so that it made it difficult to sleep. I would always keep the TV and lights on as long as possible. The vast majority of evenings I would finally drift off to sleep at the point of exhaustion.
After the year 2000 the experiences became much less frequent. The last encounter was 21st of August 2010. On that occasion I had a girlfriend and lived in town called Offenbach, just east of Frankfurt, Germany. Again I awoke at 3 am from a disturbed dream, similar to those mentioned earlier. The symptoms were the same, the thick blackness in my dream returned and I awoke to comforting words from my girlfriend. I told her to “Stop, listen, they’re here again”, we both heard the ultrasound hum and felt the air come ‘alive’. We heard movement outside in the communal garden (as it was an apartment). Suddenly we heard a screech, like a mix of a bird and lizard, extremely loud, yet somehow electronic in nature.
As you can imagine we were both shaken up and frozen in terror. The encounter lasted approximately 25 minutes. Before that night my ex-girlfriend had doubted my stories of strange encounters. From that day on she did believe me and I felt vindicated.
During some of my other anomalous experiences I’ve had scratches appear on my chest as I’ve awoken, I’ve also heard scratches on walls late at night and unidentifiable scratches appearing on electronic appliances. On one occasion I even woke up to see a green mist around me which quickly dispersed.
Since 2010 I haven’t had any encounters, but at the height of them (1995-2000) it seemed like a type of a psychological terror was upon me. The encounters were too numerous to even count. The fear was always there. To function in a normal sleep pattern was virtually impossible for me.
One could say it was the honesty of puberty or perhaps due to an overactive imagination but those who know me would describe me as a very down to earth person, not prone to spin a yarn or two. So what did I experience?
The controversial suggestion of “shadow people” has been thrown around. I cannot say if it was shadow people, it could have been but I never personally witnessed any shadows. Many other questions still remain, was I abducted?
The subject of alien abduction doesn’t sit well with me, it’s not something I can’t consciously say ‘yes it has happened to me’ and when asked I always deny that it could have ever happened, but I have to accept it remains a possibility.
The quest for answers is what has driven me into the field of paranormal/UFO research and investigation. I now administer a page on Facebook with some of the leading names in the paranormal field.
Paranormal World is one of a kind page on Facebook. No sensationalism and it simply looks for the truth by cutting past all the nonsense out there, these are the driving forces behind the page.
Dave Blank
Paranormal World
In 14 months he has gained a following of more than 12,000 people and has had great success in promoting a non-sensationalistic view of paranormal news. Dave is working with a partner in Canada to open a haunted heritage site to the public and paranormal investigators. He also plans to collaborate with MUFON and become a qualified UFO field investigator. He currently resides in Canada but will return to Europe to live at some point in the future.
True UFO Accounts: From the Vaults of FATE Magazine
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Bloodline of the Gods: Unravel the Mystery in Human Blood to Reveal the Aliens Among Us
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