I will first describe my own personal paranormal experience from George's Island and a story from my friend I talked about in an earlier post. I will then describe an experience I had in the San Luis Valley (CO), a supposed UFO hot-spot (also well known for the mysterious cattle mutilations, featured on Fact or Faked). These are my most vivid memories within the paranormal, in addition to my previously-described ghost hunt at the Stanely Hotel.
In 1993 (I believe), we took a field trip through the Civil War Club to George's Island, which was used in the Civil War to house prisoners. During our tour of Fort Warren, we heard the story of the Lady in Black and were determined to see this for ourselves. A synopsis of the story is as follows:
The wife of a young prisoner attempted to rescue her newlywed husband from encampment and was captured and ordered to be hanged. In her rescue attempt, she had dressed in men's clothing in hopes of slipping under the radar. Her last request before execution was to be dressed in woman's clothing but the only garment the soldiers could find was a black robe used for theatrical performances, hence the "Lady in Black." It is said that the room in which she was hanged had been sealed off due to so much paranormal activity but the halls surrounding the room and the fort grounds were still haunted by this mysterious woman.
We were told that if you stood at one end of a particular hallway and patiently watch the room that was sealed off, the Lady in Black will reveal herself. We stood...and waited...and waited...until all of a sudden, both of us at the same time jumped from being startled and took off running outside. (side note: I now know that if you experience something like this, don't go running and screaming...investigate! Thank you, Brian Harnois for this important lesson. I was like 12 at the time so I'll cut myself some slack). When we got outside and caught our breath, we starting describing what we saw and our stories were the same: a sudden black shadow rushed towards us. The shape I could see was a long, flowing black mass in what looked like a gown of some sort (robe?) and the "head" was a faint ball of light.
This experience shook both of us to our core. If you know me well, you will easily discover that my memory is horrible; downright pathetic. But this event and all of its details are still well imprinted in my mind. It is as if it happened yesterday (well, in my case, earlier today LOL). You would think that it would have scared me off from the paranormal but it actually fueled the fire. I want to experience it again and I want to find out how to prove to others that it happened!
On to my friend's story. As I said in my first post, she believed that her house was haunted and she had many strange experiences to back up her reasoning. One particular story always comes to mind that I would like to share because I believe it to be truly unique. She tells the story as if it was a dream but she was not sure if she experienced it or if it was truly a dream (you'll understand what I mean at the conclusion). One night, she wakes up and decides to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, which is downstairs from her room. As she is walking downstairs she notices that her stairs are wooden, not carpeted as usual. She is extra tired and shakes this off as a delusional state of mind. She notices as she is getting her glass of water that the kitchen is basically as expected but just a bit off: the layout is slightly different, items are in the "wrong" place, even the dining table is not the same. She looks out the window overlooking her backyard and first notices that the large white fence is not there but then also sees an older woman picking flowers from a garden she doesn't have. At this point, she is a bit freaked out and is not sure what is going on. It is the middle of the night, why is a woman picking flowers in her backyard, from a garden that doesn't exist? She heads back up the stairs (now carpeted again), goes into her bathroom and pulls out a scrunchie (you know, those big cloth hair ties we used to wear for ponytails?) and puts it around her wrist. She figures that if she is dreaming, the scrunchie would not be there when she wakes up. She struggles to get back to sleep but eventually does and when she awakes the next morning, the scrunchie is there.
When I first heard her tell this story, I thought she had to be dreaming. She even slept-walked and pulled out the scrunchie while sleeping. Nevertheless, I thought it was a cool story and filed it away. I didn't think about it again until we had a sleepover one night with a small collection of friends and she told the story again. She told it with such passion and honest-to-goodness truth in her voice and eyes that I started to feel bad that I didn't believe her the first time and that no one else believed her either. For some reason, I didn't want to believe her! I guess I knew back then that it was a personal experience and without proof of the experience, no one knows for sure what happened except for her. The story is exactly that: a story. My George's Island experience did not happen until after that and after our friendship had started to fade; maybe I would have believed her more after that.
I will now switch topics to a strange personal story of which I do not know how to categorize, within the paranormal, other than UFO. During one summer, I was a coordinator for a "bridge" program for students transitioning between high school and the college I worked for. My colleague and I were driving 15-passenger vans filled with students up to the San Luis Valley Sand Dune National Park. He was driving the van behind me and I was keeping him in my sight so that we would stay together and arrive at the same time. At one point, on a long stretch of the highway, I suddenly noticed he was gone. I kept looking back trying to figure out if he had slowed down or had to stop or what was going on. I had a student calling his cell as well as students in the other van but cell phones are usually useless on this stretch out in the middle of nowhere of the mountain valley. I was close to a turn we needed to make so I made the turn and pulled over at a safe point in the road. When we still couldn't see the van and couldn't contact him, we decided to keep going and figure it out when we got to the park. We pulled into the parking lot and I couldn't believe what I saw: the other van. They had arrived and were already out and enjoying the day. How did he get to the park before me? There is one other way - that I know of - to get to the park from Alamosa but he was still behind me beyond that turn. To this day, I have no idea what the heck happened. Time warp? Abduction? Did he pass me and I somehow missed it? I tried to talk to him about it but we never came to a logical conclusion and being the laid-back guy he is, never blinked an eye. And the students were too excited about their adventure to the Dunes that I was left thinking about this by myself. And still thinking.
If you have any stories you would like to share, please add them to the comment section below! If you'd like me to post a story separately, I'm happy to do that as well!
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