I'm not saying that the supernatural, extraterrestrial, or otherworldly totally exist, but these people present some very compelling evidence. How else can anyone explain all the shenanigans that happen in these strange stories? These stories will have anyone second-guessing everything around them. Content has been edited for clarity.
Accidental Dimension-Hopping
“I think I may have gone through a dimensional slip. Before I begin, get a cup of your favorite beverage and make sure you have a minute before you read, this might get a bit weird. Let’s dial it back 20 years. My friends and I were in my old man’s truck. This thing was big. Two gas tanks, both of which I filled, huge bed and it was me, my girlfriend at the time, her best friend, and one of my buds. It was graduation night for me and we were out to do one thing: partying. We skipped most of the senior parties. We had our own on the road flying through the streets, stopping in to various places. We were late-teen vampires out to celebrate the apocalypse. We didn’t get blasted out of our minds that night. We enjoyed it stone-cold sober. We crashed an open mic night for poetry at a coffee shop 45 minutes out of town with screams of bloodshed and visceral insanity. We were run out of a park by cops. We ended up out in the middle of the woods, gorging ourselves on enough Surge to make our young hearts explode. There was even a sense of hope for our respective futures. For that matter, there was even hope for our world. I was looking at the stars and admiring them. We emerged from the woods, not knowing that the stretch of road that I had chosen would take us completely out of our hope. It would strip it away and leave us stranded in this world full of nonsensical perpetual conflict.
As we were driving on this clear night, Jenny pointed from the back and so did my friend, Jimmy. I’ll never forget their words. They haunt me to this day. ‘DUDE! THAT FOG IS RED!’ both of them exclaimed. I thought it was a trick of the light or something else but no, they were right, it was red. It was as red as my cup of tea right now Yep, that color. Rust Red. I’ll never forget it. We chalked it up to ‘Gnarly Phenomena’ and moved on. We had to drive through the red fog. Once we emerged from it, we noticed a few things. When I looked up, the stars seemed different. I still can’t place my finger on what it was that was different, they just were. It wasn’t like a constellation shift with the time, but it was like they were just different, maybe in different positions? Reversed? I couldn’t tell.
A couple of years later, we all came together again. Just a few years out of the event, all of us discussed it. They mostly did the talking until I offered my theory that this is not where we belong. I seriously offered that we might have slipped dimensions and I might have gotten us stuck on a seriously messed-up version of the world where we came from and as we sat and drank, I apologized because in that few years, I’d been back to that spot on the road time and again at night and never found that red fog again.
I was looking at them when panic gripped my brain, ‘I think I got us stranded here. For better or worse, we’re not going home, guys.’
They refused to believe me and no one else does but, in twenty years, I’ve never been able to shake the sinking sensation that I may have doomed us all. The events of each passing day continue to bolster my theory. At least, to me, they do. The most disturbing aspect and the thing that leads me to believe as I do is what my parents remember about my childhood. There are major points of it where we agree, but there are some serious divergences in places, and I don’t remember it being like that at all. My mom also had a habit of saying, ‘I never thought you’d turn out the way you did.’ To this day, I still don’t have an explanation. I even went back to the coffee shop whose open mic night we crashed and terrorized. They even made it a point to ban us for life because of it, but when I went in, they seemed happy to see me there. Strange. So for 20 years, I’ve been living among you. I really don’t belong here. Make of it whatever you will.”
Anyone Else See The Mysterious Robed Figure?
“I was sitting at the breakfast bar of our home with my younger brother, eating cereal. I was 12. It was a school day. He and I were arguing. What about exactly, I can’t recall. But the rising aggression in our voices at such an early time of morning really started to grate on our mum, who was preparing school lunches. She told us to cut it out several times, but we saw red. The venom we were spitting at each other had gotten so out of control that neither my brother nor I could/would stop. As things escalated, I truly felt like punching him in the face. He had a way with words and knew exactly how to infuriate me, even at that young age. We were both yelling. Then, mid-sentence, I was instantly silenced. Something had caught my eye across the living room. I cannot adequately describe to you what happened next. I watched a white robed figure descend the spiral staircase. This presence, this being, was as real to me as if it had been my sister, or my best friend, or the next door neighbor’s cat. My brother and mum saw something pass over my face, because they both immediately reacted, argument forgotten. ‘What?? What happened? What is it?’
‘There!’ I said, pointing to the staircase. ‘Oh My Gosh.’ My voice shook. They couldn’t see what I saw. I started crying. My mother came over to me.
‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ The presence, or the angel, as I now call it, was bright and big and beautiful. Its feet did not touch the wooden steps; they simply hovered delicately above them. The train of its robe was long enough that it cascaded lightly over the steps as it descended. This image is ingrained and has never left me. There were two specific things I experienced in those moments that absolutely rocked me to my core. The first was the emotional impact. I felt a wave, no, a tidal wave, of fear and reverence and love of such magnitude that I have neither experienced before this incident, nor after. The second was the communication I received from the angel. It issued me a warning. A warning so simple, so clear, that I could not mistake it- the kind of warning not up for discussion. Don’t fight with your brother, it told me. Then it vanished.
I was hysterical with emotion. Not from terror, but from the deepest, humbling, fearful respect, and the knowledge that I was in the presence of something powerful. When I regained my speech, I told my brother and mum what happened. Then, just as soon as it had vanished, the being reappeared. This time, closer, at the base of the stairs. The experience happened all over again. Stop fighting with your brother, it warned for the second time, but more forcefully. Once again, my brother and mum watched my face and knew it had returned. I apologized to my brother instantly and told him we needed to stop arguing right now. How strange, I’ve always thought, that this should happen. An argument between two kids, disrupted by an angel? I don’t understand it. I cannot prove it happened. I cannot explain the science, psychology, or even perhaps the spirituality, behind it. And yet it changed me nonetheless. It changed my heart, it opened my heart. I matured. I grew up a little that day.
One Magical, Mystical Evening
“I was 17 and was struggling with my identify. I had ‘known’ I was gay since a young age. Yet with puberty and the hormones came the realization that being gay was a conflict. It was more accepted, as this takes place in the late 90s in New York City, but it was still somewhat taboo, and the idea of being ‘out’ in high school was unheard of. I went to a boys/girls catholic high school. I didn’t have the horrors a lot of other students had. It was a good school for the most part. I had friends, I did well in school. I knew I was gay, and also realized it was a very small minority. This was very soon after the internet was launched, so chat rooms were just becoming a thing as the way people talked to each other. On the first day of school of junior year, my 5th period class was AP English. I remember lining up outside with classmates and waiting for the teacher to come in. I remember immediately liking her. The usual first 10–15 minutes of the first class was spent assigning seats. The guy in front of me was a new face. I had never seen him before. When he collapsed into his seat, he turned around and gave me a dazzling grin and introduced himself as Roberto. He offered his hand like a politician and I shook it, smiling slightly.
Roberto and I became ‘acquaintance’ friends. We were in different social circles. I was in the music groups of orchestra, jazz and woodwind ensemble, he was an athlete and played on the baseball and volleyball team. Yet we chatted amiably in class or in the lunch room when we passed each other. It took me three months to realize he was my first crush. Days that I would have AP English were my favorites. We both realized we both had a younger brother that was coming in as freshman the following year, and that gave us a little bit of a bond. Roberto was relatively smart, but it was clear I was a better student in this subject. I helped him with his essays from time to time and he always treated me to lunch when I did. Twice, he and I had lunch just us together and I remember thinking, ‘Wait? is this what a boyfriend feels like?’ While I knew I was gay, I knew I was a silent minority and given the lustful stares at our female students, I was sure he was straight, so I just said nothing and nursed my crush in secret. I was thrilled when he would talk to me. My heart sped up when I saw him. Doubly so when he smiled at me and waved. I paid attention to his clothes. I always thought he looked the best when he wore dark green or black.
Towards the end of junior year, the teachers and students alike all became listless. I remember it was May and we were met with an unbearable heat wave. The teachers usually just put on videos or gave us self-work to do and nobody had any energy. During one of our last classes in AP English, our teacher was trying to set up a video, but couldn’t and had to call an AV Tech for help. While they were trying to figure things out, Roberto turned around and started talking to me. I remember I was in a bad mood because of the heat, and he was disappointed at my lack of responses to him. Finally, he said, ‘What you need is a song. I’m going to sing to you. I’ll cheer you right up!’
And so he began singing. He did it playfully, laughing at himself. He sang a song I vaguely recognized. I had heard it while my mom drove me to school sometimes. It was the first time anyone sang to me. It was the last time anyone sang to me. It was one of the most beautiful moments I can remember of my formative years. And what was just a silly act for one person, became an act of emotional meaning for someone else. My head and heart were completely flushed and I realized this was what love feels like. I knew then that my concepts were probably immature, but I recognized that feeling. That connection. That wellspring of positive flood and good intention. I thanked him at the end, made fun of his singing voice, which he dramatically acted insulted by, and the teacher called us to attention to watch the movie.
Throughout the movie, I kept starting at the back of his head. Wondering what it would be like to touch it, to touch his short hair. At one point I almost put my hand on his shoulder, I was going to tell him to move a little bit to the right, but even that act filled me with such anxiety and ‘crossing a line’ that I just held my hands folded under my desk.
The rest of that day and night, I was on cloud 9. I kept thinking about the song he sang. I knew I had heard it before. It was new, playing on the local radios. There was one word that was repeated several times that I guessed to be the name of the song, or at least in the title. I couldn’t remember that word. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t think of it. While doing homework that night, I went to my CD collection and pulling out the first one I saw. The more I listened, the more I zoned out. Eventually I fell asleep, waking up with a jolt. A voice that was not my own said out loud the name of Roberto’s song. Maybe I said it in my head and heart it out loud? To date, it’s one of my favorite songs. I keep the CD as a reminder that magic and wonder can exist. That sometimes strange and bizarre things happen. I’ve told this story over the years and nobody every really believes me. I prefer a world where some things can just be enjoyed without an explanation.
Ghosts Lending A Helping Hand
“This is the one and only thing that I will never, ever in my life be able to explain completely. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it happened and to this day it freaks me out. So, about two years ago, I got called to work on a vacant house. I was asked to paint the entire interior of the house and rebuild the fence. I had a friend come help me, and the first day on the job I noticed that whoever lived there prior had measured all of their kids and grandkids in the entryway to the kitchen. After each marking, there was a name and a date. For some reason, it made me sad and I refused to paint over it. This dated all the way back to 1909. It was just the entryway, no big deal I suppose, but it was somebody’s memories that I felt that I should not disturb. Anyway, my friend got super sick and had to back out of the job two days in. I could not find one person on the planet to actually show up to work to help me. Everybody flaked out and never showed up. So I was stuck doing this alone. I had never done an entire house alone, but I figured I would give it a shot.
Then, my truck broke down. I got stuck staying at this house, it was October, it was snowing, I was not getting paid until the job was done and not one freaking person that I knew would come help me. So, here I was, sitting in the hallway of this vacant house one morning, by myself, trying to open a bottle of apple juice but my hands were so cramped from so much painting that I couldn’t unscrew it, and I just started crying. I don’t care, I was just so frustrated with everything, and I just slumped down against the wall and said, out loud, verbatim, ‘Seriously, what the heck?! Can somebody PLEASE just give me an actual break??!?’
I mean, literally, I was sobbing. I just broke down. Now here’s where it gets crazy. I was in this hall where the bathroom was right next to me. It had like a three panel mirror type thing and the middle part was sticking open. I had been in this house for three days entirely alone after my friend got sick, and it bothered me that the middle mirror was opened. I got up and looked inside and there was this bottle. I put some on a rag, I have no idea why to this day, and I rubbed it on the wall. I can’t explain why I did this. But, some of it got on my hands and instantly my hands were no longer cramped. I felt this warmth go through my hands, up my arms and all of my strength came back.
Later that day, the guy I work for called me to let me know that a potential buyer was coming to look at the place. So, as I was going from room to room to make sure that everything was perfect, I realized that a room that I had been working in that I liked the least still had tape on the closet rails. So, I go in to take any tape off that I might have missed. Out of nowhere, there’s a decent amount of money, fanned out, inside the closet. This freaks me out even remembering it, I cannot make this up. It was old money, it was dusty, and I don’t care what anybody on this planet says, it was never there before. Remember, I was there by myself for days. I was in every single room of that house every single day. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed a pile of money, right?!? It was the EXACT amount of money that I needed to get out of debt at that point. I’m talking EXACTLY. Nobody in the entire world would have known what my debt was. Nobody!! It was all $20 and $50 bills. Here’s the thing, I found out that the house was vacant because the lady that lived there passed away in that room. She didn’t want to die in hospice, so she spent her final days in her home. I never liked that room because there was a chandelier in there and every day a bulb would burn out and the door would slam shut. It was weird.
Fast-forward a year later. So I get a call from the guy I work for, and he tells me that the people that moved in abruptly left. No notice, no nothing. They took off and didn’t even ask for their deposit back. The reason for his call was that he wanted me to go back and make sure that nothing needed to be repaired, and if it did, to please fix it. I didn’t want to go back. I just didn’t want to. But I went and I brought a different friend with me that night. It was pouring rain, with lightning so freaking bright I could FEEL it. This friend also got sick while we were driving there, to the point that he had to pull over so I could drive. We get there, and his huge black lab dog would not go in. He literally put his head down and shimmied on his stomach back to the truck, whimpering. I walked inside and the only light in that entire house that worked was that same bulb that would always burn out in that chandelier in that room the year before. Honestly, this is something that I could never in a gazillion years make up. Nobody will ever understand.
Her Uncanny Ability Revealed
“I have an uncanny ability to avoid very, very bad situations, often times totally unaware of what is about to befall me, or only later realizing how bad it was and could’ve been. I avoided an eight car collisions once by making a turn last minute that I didn’t normally take. I would’ve been the first car of impact of a high speed red light runner if I had gone straight like I always did, instead of turn. I bought a weapon two weeks before a man broke into my house to rob and murder me. I had never held a weapon in my life, let lone shot one. I had to shoot him to save my life. This was a total impulse buy, and anyone who knows me knows that I am not an impulsive person. I gave birth to a
When my brother and I were kids, we got lost in the forest while sledding. Unexpectedly, a major snowstorm began dumping snow on us and covered our tracks. After a long time of walking in what should’ve been the right direction, my brother was too tired, cold, and scared to walk anymore. He sat down and cried. He’s four years younger than me, so I felt the full weight of responsibility for getting him into this mess, and I had no idea how in the world I was going to get him out of it. It was completely my fault that we had gone too far and gotten lost. I was so scared and didn’t know what to do. Not long after, we heard some strange men calling out — just shouting, ‘HELLO!’ randomly in a blizzard deep in the forest. I called back. When they found us, they gave us fresh warm mittens, hats and jackets (ours were soaking wet). The items were so warm, it seemed they were just taken out of the dryer. They also gave us hot chocolate, the warmth of which reached my toes when I drank it. I was not in the least bit afraid to take this from the strangers. The men then led us to our very own backyard, as if they knew exactly where we lived. Then, they turned around and went back into the forest in the middle of the raging blizzard. We lived in a VERY small town, and I had never seen those men before or after. I’m pretty sure they were angels sent to save our lives.
Two times that I remember, exact amounts of money came to me. Once when I was buying a house, I ended up short on the deposit a few days before closing. A car accident settlement (that was years and years old) suddenly was awarded to me — and it was the exact amount that I needed for my deposit, plus a full tank of gas. Another time, I was extremely young and it was my first time driving alone when I had gotten lost — terribly lost in a huge city on the freeway system. I made wrong turn after wrong turn, then yet another wrong turn and was heading out of town. I had no idea how to get back to my house. I was leaving the city and had nearly run out of gas. I also had responsibly forgotten my wallet (and this was before cellphones). I pulled over to a gas station not knowing what to do. A man walked up to my car and gave me the exact amount of money I needed to fill up my tank without me asking. He said God told him to give me the money. He also gave me directions to get within the area of my house. It turned out that I was quite far from home.
One Vision Saved Countless Lives
This is one of the most unexplainable, unbelievable things that has happened in the 43 years of my life. It was 1987. I was in 7th grade. I lived less than a mile from school, so I was a “walker”. Since my little sister had changed to a different school, I walked home alone. It was only two years since the disappearance of Cherrie Mahan, a local girl. Our parents had all beaten our ears about ‘Stranger Danger’, and everyone became a lot more cautious. I have always been sensitive by nature, very empathic, and even sensitive to the paranormal, since early childhood. My street was a fairly busy road for traffic, but residential. A lot of drivers used it as a shortcut to get to the main road, where the businesses were. Usually at the time school was dismissed, the road was fairly deserted.
I was walking along, looking at the newly blooming flowers in my neighbors gardens, when I saw in my mind, a vision of a beat up, rusted, orange 1970s station wagon. This station wagon was creeping along next to me. Inside the car was a very creepy looking man. He was dirty and grimy looking, with a beard and a white undershirt/tank top. He had a scar on his cheek and broken teeth in the front. And he was watching me, following alongside of me. I booked it home the rest of the way. Now remember, this was in my mind. This vision scared the living daylights out of me.
My dad worked from home, so he was there when I got home from school. I ran to his office and told him what had happened, except I left out the part about it being in my mind. I was afraid that he would not believe me. But I felt as if this vision was an urgent sign of some sort. I was sure my dad would tell me I was just paranoid or something, because of what happened two years prior to Cherrie. He called the police. They arrived, and asked me what happened. Again, I left out the part of it just being in my mind. They asked for a description of the man and the vehicle. I described both, and they drew a composite sketch of the man that looked almost identical to the man in my vision.
A few days passed, and I refused to walk home alone, so my parents gave permission for a friend to come home from school with me. I was too spooked to walk alone. When my friend and I arrived at my house, there was a police car in the driveway. Once we got inside, the officer stood up and shook my hand. He informed me that because of my report, they were able to catch the man that I had seen. They caught him at a local school bus stop, following girls home from school. The man and the vehicle matched my description identically. I still cannot explain what happened that day, but somehow I was able to save those girls from potentially being kidnapped, assaulted, or even murdered. When I tell this story, I get a lot of eye rolls and ‘yeah right’ comments, so I try to keep it to myself. Years later I did tell my parents the truth about it being a vision, and they actually believed me, because of other ‘psychic’ type things that have happened in our family.”
Do Angels Walk Among Us?
“Back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, I was married to my (now) ex-husband and we had 6 children together. Having a family that large meant that when we went out for day trips like to the beach or something, it was more practical (and cheaper) to pack a small portable Weber grill and bring along food than to stop somewhere and buy pre-cooked meals. We also had a huge igloo thermos, which I would fill with Kool-Aid and ice. So my ex-husband had some very unyielding ideas about most subjects. One of them was that he did not drink out of paper cups and he did not eat out of paper plates, like all the rest of us did. We always had to bring a regular plate and a regular glass for him to drink and eat out of whenever we went anywhere. Back in those days, my ex mother-in-law LOVED tupperware glasses. She had sets in all kinds of colors. And when my husband would go over to her house, he would sometimes grab one of her Tupperware glasses, fill it with whatever beverage she had in her fridge, and bring the glass home, saying he would return it on his next visit.
Now there was one glass that he brought home that he never returned to her. Reason being is that he brought it into the backyard and after he finished drinking whatever was in there, he gave it to the kids to use in their sandbox. It was the perfect shape for a turret on a medieval sandcastle! The kids would fill it with wet sand and use it to form intricate details on their creations. Eventually, it became one of the main accessories of their sandbox. After months of this Tupperware glass being left out in the sun, it gradually started fading in color. It had started off a kind of peachy orange, but after being exposed to the sun and other elements, the plastic started looking mottled and blotchy. The blotches had faded to a near-white color, but there were other areas on the glass that retained the original peach/orange, and others that had faded to gradient shades of pink, peach and orange. It was very distinctive looking. Eventually, I guess the glass made its way back into the house and was washed and put into the cabinet. And one day in prepping for a beach outing, I grabbed the glass and threw it into a bag that contained the fixings for a family picnic/lunch.
After a long day at the beach, we started heading home. I had put all the leftovers and stuff inside a large bag and stuck it inside the back of the minivan. The kids were all strapped into their places, my ex-husband sat in the driver’s seat, and I got into the front passenger seat. We passed a guy walking along the side of the freeway, dressed in raggedy clothes. He had long hair and a walking stick, was probably in his early 30s. My husband turned on his signal light and stopped on the shoulder of the freeway.
Me: ‘What are you doing?’
Him: ‘That guy looks just like Jesus Christ!’
Me: ‘Well, he has long brown hair and a beard and mustache. Most white guys that fit that description probably look like Jesus. Not that anyone knows what he really looked like.’
Him: ‘Well just in case, I’m gonna see if he wants something to eat and drink! It’s hot outside and he’s in the middle of nowhere!’
Me: ‘Okay. I guess.’
He gets out, opens the rear door, takes out some food, gives it to the guy, then gets the mottled peach glass and fills it with Kool-Aid. I hear the guy thank him, he sounds totally grateful. He downs the Kool-Aid in a couple of big gulps, then I hear my ex-husband say, ‘Here, let me pour you some more. It’s hot out here.’ He pours him another glass of Kool-Aid and then I hear, ‘No, that’s fine. Go ahead and keep the glass! You’re welcome.’ He gets back into the car, starts it, merges back onto the freeway, and we pass the long-haired bearded man in raggedy clothes. The man holds up one hand to say goodbye/thanks.
I say to my ex, ‘Why did you give him the kids’ sandcastle glass? That was the perfect thing for them to make their sandcastles with!’
Him: ‘They can use something else.’
Me: ‘So could he! Why didn’t you just give him a paper cup? He’s probably going to just throw that glass in the bushes as soon as he finishes the Kool-Aid!’
Him: ‘No he won’t!’
Me: ‘What do you mean, he won’t? He’s not gonna want to walk around carrying a glass everywhere he goes! I can’t believe you did that! That was the kids’ favorite thing!’
Him: ‘Can’t you understand that was Jesus we just saw walking the earth?!! Or at least an angel??!! You need to stop being so selfish. Everything is always about you.’
I groan and sit back in my chair. We rode the rest of the way home in silence. When we get home, after the kids all exit the car and take turns jumping into the shower, I go to the kitchen to put away the stuff we took on the beach trip. I get the Igloo cooler and dump what’s left into a pitcher and then turn to the sink to fill it up with soapy water. That’s when I see it. In the dish drying rack is a Tupperware glass, originally a peachy-orange color that had been left out in the sum for months and as a result, had turned a blotchy white/pink/orange/salmon/cream. There could not be another one like this in the world. And I had just seen my then-husband hand it to a long-haired bearded guy walking down the 101 Freeway not 45 minutes ago. Nobody believes this story and I would not believe it either if I had not seen it myself.”
That Mysterious Artistic Spirit
“I’m a senior in high school, and I take AP Studio Art. For this class, I have to submit a portfolio by the end of May consisting of 24 works, 12 which show my technique and another 12 which all relate to a certain theme. This is my concentration. I’ve been struggling since last May to figure out what I want to do for my concentration, nearly 8 months by the time this story takes place. By the middle of January, I was still stuck with no ideas. At this point, I was three projects behind, and nearly getting ready to begin some random concentration that I’m not even interested in. But three weeks ago, on Thursday afternoon, I was in my economics class when I got a sudden urge to draw my grandmother. This wasn’t a bubble of inspiration that randomly popped into my head, I don’t ever really get those, but a need I had to fulfill. The next period I immediately began this drawing, without any input from my teacher. I used a picture I had saved on my phone of her from when she was young to use as reference, and I swam through the drawing in three days, extremely out of character for me when compared to the three weeks I tend to take on any work for my art class. The next Monday I went to school to show my teacher for a critique, and I finished by Tuesday. I left it in my drawer at school, planning to pick it up on Friday, so I could show my grandmother the next time I visited her, which was usually every Saturday and Sunday, as I couldn’t go during the week due to school. As luck would have it, we had a snow day on Wednesday.
The entire day felt strange to me, I showed my mom the portrait on my phone and asked her if I could show grandma today, but she told me no, that the roads were bad and that I should wait until her birthday the following week to show her. I said okay, but I still felt a sense of urgency. The next day was Thursday, and I still felt weird. I told my mother that I had a headache and asked if I could not go to school, something I’d never done before. Surprisingly, she agreed. I went back to bed for a few hours, planning to ask my mom if I could go with her to visit grandma, but I woke up to the sound of the garage door. A few minutes later, I called my mom and asked her if she was going to visit grandma, and if I could come along, but she said they (her and my older sister, who was still on break) were already nearly to the hospital, and that I could just come next time.
My mom texted me a few hours later, saying she just left the hospital where my grandma was staying to go to my sister’s hair appointment. Even after receiving this message, I felt like something was happening, just as I had since economics class exactly a week before. For the whole three or so days that I was working on this drawing and the days after, a voice in my head kept telling me I wouldn’t get to show her- that she was literally going to die before I got the chance, but I waived it off, because I get random what-if thoughts like that every once in a while as a result of my mind wandering. I was still making an effort to speed up the next time I would see her to make it sooner. But even after my mom’s text, it just kept nagging me, getting worse and worse, and for an entire hour I sat at my desk doing absolutely nothing. Staring blankly ahead at the wall, thinking about it. Waiting. Anticipating. Knowing, but convincing myself it’s just in my head. Then my phone rang.
I was crying before I answered the phone. I could hear my mom trying not to breathe out as she told me to get dressed, knowing she would begin to sob if she let the air escape from her lungs. In those 60 minutes between when my mother last saw my grandma to when she called, she was gone. But I knew. I’ve always been very close to my grandma; my mom was the closest with her, in part due to her being the only daughter of her five kids, and would talk to her for at least an hour every single day, and we’ve always lived within a ten minute’s drive away from her. Something that brought the two of us together is our shared ‘love for the arts’. She sculpted and drew, and her dream as a teenager was to be a designer someday. She would tell me stories about her childhood, and how she used to take summer classes at the art school, even earning a scholarship to go there once she graduated. She never had the chance to take advantage of these opportunities, so I think it made her happy to see what me and my sister (who was in choir like her) were doing. I always made sure to show her what I was working on, even when I was too embarrassed to show my parents. I think there will always be selfish sort of sadness from me in knowing that I’ll never got the chance to show her what I finally made for her.
After all of this, I finally found my concentration. There are so many strong women in my family just like her, who never got to have a break. Both of my grandmothers raised their kids as (mostly) single mothers; working as factory workers and janitors. They had all of these dreams and aspirations that they never got to fulfill because of the way life goes, and I decided to make my concentration about these women in honor of them and what they’ve done for me. They all influenced the person I am, and even though the person I am is always and forever changing, I take pieces of them with me in my memory.”
This Can Only Be Seen To Be Believed
“Have you ever wondered why UFO abductees all seem to be simple folk? Not a single one of them are engineers or scientists who could describe the space aliens and their craft with detail and precision, and maybe try to bring back an artifact. That isn’t entirely true. I’m a college-educated gadget guy. I like to reverse engineer technology and figure out how things work. I fix things. And, I was abducted two decades ago. I would never admit to this in public, however, because I would not want to risk being lumped in with those nitwits. My abduction began when I awoke to noise a clashing noise outside my bedroom window. The window blew open and I sat up in bed, only to have some kind of a quick-acting paralytic agent administered through an airborne mechanism. I was awake and alert, but I could not move. I ruled out a waking dream, where the body was still paralyzed temporarily after waking up, because I was able to sit up before becoming unable to move.
I was gently pushed back and then covered with some kind of thin fabric mesh. It felt like plastic, but was breathable. It seemed to be translucent, as I was suddenly surrounded by a bright light, with no focal point. The light dimmed and I could sense movement, and was transferred to a flat but resilient table. The mesh was removed. It felt like silk as it brushed against my face. It smelled sort of like cinnamon and vanilla. I couldn’t move my head, but I could see movement to my right. I could see a creature with a big, light-bulb shaped head with gray leathery skin and dark recesses that could be eyes (but without an iris or sclera, just a big pupil). There were no discernible ears or other openings. There was a suggestion of eyes on the sides of the head (maybe even on the back). But, unlike depictions by others, the shape of the body was not anthropomorphic. Instead, there were numerous tentacles symmetrically arranged around the body. The tentacles appeared to be used both for locomotion and manipulating tools. The underside of the tentacles were covered with what seemed like cilia, providing very fine control. It’s like the way some people spin a pen in their hands, but the instrument seemed to float above the tentacle and change shape as it was manipulated. The creature could move in any direction: forward, backward, left and right. But, it moved smoothly in an efficient manner, not in rigid directions. It’s hard to describe, but it was as though it plotted the optimal path to get from point A to point B, traversing the distance in between smoothly.
Another gas was spayed in my face, but this one seemed to be a numbing agent. My entire body lost sensation. That was a good thing, because next some kind of a thin, robotic snakelike instrument was threaded into my every orifice. If I had been able to feel it, I would have gagged. I could also hear them in my ears. Another one of the robots penetrated my belly button. Each was manipulated by a different tentacle. The cilia seemed to merge with the robotic instruments. I wonder if the cilia were sensory organs in addition to millions of tiny manipulative fingers. When the robot that entered through, my belly button was removed, it sealed the entrance with a liquid substance that quickly turned into a solid but flexible membrane. The creature left the vicinity of the table and I fell asleep.
When I woke later (I’m not sure how long I was asleep), I seemed to be alone. The paralytic agent had started to wear off, so I could move a little. The more I moved my arms and legs, the more I was able to move. After exercising for a while, I was able to sit up and dangle my legs over the side. The side of the table seemed rounded. I slipped off the table. The ground seemed soft and cushiony. I looked under the table and did not see any supports. It was just floating there. The table was sturdy, as through supported by invisible legs. But, even when I passed my arm under the table, there was nothing there. Except for the table, there was nothing else in the room. The walls all appeared to be smooth, without differentiation. There was a diffuse light all around, without any focal source. The walls seemed to glow faintly. When I looked at the walls up close, they light source seemed to be on the surface, as though it was painted on. I could not see any doorways anywhere in the room. The walls and floors were joined in a smooth manner with no sharp edges. The room was not rectangular or square, but more rounded, almost like a bubble. The walls had a little give to them, but were still firm and solid. I found what seemed like a panel in the wall. It was sensitive to touch, lighting up when I touched it, but only when my fingers moved over the surface, not when I touched the wall without moving my fingers. Before I touched it, it was indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. The panel was seamlessly embedded in the wall. It was integrated, without any fasteners or rivets. There wasn’t any sign of an adhesive. There was no gap that I could get my fingernails under to try to pry it loose. When I touched it, it functioned like a display, but the representations that appeared seemed to be 3-dimensional drawings that were in motion, folding in on themselves. The drawings were very complex, with a lot of detail. If I had to guess, they were representations of complete abstract thoughts.
I tried different motions of my fingers, drawing circles, squares and triangles, and even pushing slightly into the wall. Each different motion elicited a different response on the display. Something I did must have set off an alarm, because the door suddenly opened and one of the creatures entered. The door appeared as a diffuse thinning/misting of a portion of the previously solid wall. The wall was there one moment and gone the next, with just a quick thinning transition. The creature approached me quickly, sprayed something in my face, and I lost consciousness. When I next woke up, I was back in my bedroom. I checked my belly button, but the membrane was gone. My skin was completely healed without any sign of a scar.