SECTION THREE
Shadows in the Rift

Entry #0025: The Ghostly Photo

My old friend Calvin Jones had been on vacation for a few months in his expensive RV. At the tale end of September he had returned. He invited me over for coffee and homemade apple pie from the Kountry Kitchen, and he enthusiastically relayed his adventures. He had traveled with a female companion (his new buxom blond girlfriend!)to places like the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon in Utah, and also Yellowstone National Park. His brother and family lived somewhere in Wyoming so they stayed there for a few weeks. He showed me photographs of his vacation. That's when I saw something weird, and it was something he didn't notice before. One particular photo displayed a scene of a snowcapped mountain and evergreen trees, but in the lower right-hand corner I saw what looked like a fuzzy dark silhouette of a head and shoulders. Calvin had no clue what it was. To me it looked like a shadow person. I asked him if anyone was standing in front of his camera, and he said no; his girlfriend was behind him. Neither one of us knew what to make of this.

But I began connecting dots again. If this was a shadow person, not only could they grab onto and steal physical objects, they could be photographed!


Entry #0026: The Paranormal Frequency of Halloween

Beginning early in October, Jezz and I fervently worked on our Halloween episode, and she brought in a friend of hers, a gal using the handle Dusk. First we worked out a makeshift script and chronology of events. It would be a show with short skits interspersed throughout our discussion with the three of us. The discussion revolved around Zombies and Horror movies basically. It took a lot of work during a few get-togethers, and I think we did a hell of a good job.

We filmed it at her house in Apple Valley. Jezz and I put on goofy zombie makeup, which may not have been too evident, and I'm not sure what Dusk was supposed to be. So then Jezz spent the next day editing it and getting it all fine-tuned. Then she submitted it online in October 13, 2010 to YouTube. So this episode, and the first one of course, can be viewed at YouTube on the Paranormal Frequency Show.

Unfortunately, we each got busy with other things in life and didn't pursue any further episodes until the next year. Plus, there weren't a lot of views. Oh well. But that can always change! (Hint hint!)

The Paranormal Frequency Show:
http://www.youtube.com/user/OuterEdgeOfReality


Entry #0027: Rook's Books

About the third week in October, something happened that assured me things were getting pretty weird, so the plot was definitely thickening.

I drove to town to get groceries at Mulvern Market, and when I drove by Fanny's Thrift Shop, I noticed once again the sign above the door that read ROOKS BOOKS. I slammed on the brakes in mid-traffic. Fortunately nobody was behind me, because there was no such thing as heavy traffic in Mulvern. I pulled into the narrow dirt parking lot, turned off the engine and stepped out. The newly painted white sign with dark blue letters did indicate this was a new establishment. I stepped in and observed books on wall-to-wall shelves, paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines, and comic books. Most of them were old or used, but some were new. An elderly gentleman with a trimmed white beard sat behind a counter with an old register. Both the counter and the register had been there when Fanny ran this story.

I asked the man, "What happened to old Fanny?"

He replied, "Fanny? I don't know anyone by that name."

I pointed out, "She used to run this place as a thrift store."

He just shrugged, "I don't know anything about that. I'm a recent hire."

I smelled that something really fishy was afoot. But I gave up and decided to browse. Nothing seemed to jump out at me, not even in the sci-fi and fantasy section, the first place I'm usually drawn to in a bookstore. I found a nonfiction section that comprised mostly of old books, and one did jump out at me, figuratively. It was titled The Shadow World, by someone named Winfield Clement. I grabbed the book off the shelf, and opened it to the second page, noting the copyright date was 1928. A very old book.

I purchased it, a mere $5.00, and drove home, wondering if this unusual volume would hold any answers for me.


Entry #0028: The Reality Shifting Earring

As soon as I got home, down in my bunker in my station of operations, I called Jezz and told her about this very strange reality shift that just took place. She said she had been to Fanny's a couple times, but not recently. She admitted it was a pretty dramatic reality shift if the store's name had totally changed -- not to mention everything inside of it.
Then she said she experienced something weird herself the other day, probably a reality shift, and she wanted to know what I thought about it.

Thankfully, I recorded our conversation:

Jezz explained, "I have these cute pearl earrings and they're pretty hard to get on and off. But at some point the right one fell off somehow onto the floor of the kitchen when I was cooking dinner. That was odd in itself, but I didn't feel like messing with it, so I put it on the kitchen table. They're too hard to put on, so I just left it there, but the one on my left ear was still intact. A couple hours later I took a shower, and the strange thing is I found the right-side earring stuck in my hair! How the hell did it get there?! I pulled it out my hair and when I got out, I set it down on the sink."

I asked, "I know it sounds stupid, but did you ever look on the kitchen table?"

"No, silly! I had both of them with me now. One in my left ear and the other on the bathroom sink."

"Yeah that's pretty stupid of me. It would mean you'd have a duplicate earring -- or three altogether."

Jezz insisted, "But I distinctly remember putting it on the kitchen table, so how the hell did it get stuck in my hair in the shower? As if it fell out of my ear and got tangled in my hair or something. That's pretty freaky!"

I beamed, "That is freaky. I'd say you experienced a genuine reality shift."

"No shit! I guess I know how it feels now."

"Welcome to the club!"

"But what does it all mean? We experience these strange shifts in reality, as if reality isn't solid, more like molding clay or something."

I said, "Yeah. I tend to believe we live in a world of illusion, not reality. That being the case, I suppose anything can happen."

She replied, "That's a scary thought."

"Sometimes I think it's like a glitch in the Matrix, where you see things out of joint."

We wrapped it up, and I decided to read this strange book I had just purchased.


Entry #0029: Clues of the Existence of the Shadow World

Late that night, down in my bunker, by lamplight I began reading this old volume. This passage is from the first page:

"I have written this impossibly true account due to the fact that strange events occurred in my life. I used to only believe the material world was all that existed, but then another world began to impinge itself upon me, that which I call the "shadow world." It would usually occur at night, when I would be walking down the corridor, or entering my bed chamber, or even taking an evening stroll down the avenue, I would see dark figures, but from either one side or the other, but rarely directly in front of my eyes. I decided to call them dark ghosts, for perhaps ghosts are not white and wispy as people had once thought. However, I am aware that people will experience these types of phenomena differently, so I can only draw from my own unusual experiences, which should not detract from another's in this similar area.

After many months I began to notice that these strange dark ghosts were whispering, is if attempting to communicate to me. Perhaps they were endeavoring to deliver a message to me."

Was this a strange coincidence? To stumble upon a book about mysterious beings I myself had been encountering? And from a book store that should not exist? How freaky was that? Actually, instances like this were purported to be a matter of synchronicity, not just random coincidences. So here again I felt I was seeing how a reality shift could tie into synchronicity.

Then I skipped ahead several pages until the word "vortex" caught my eye:

"I believe these dark ghosts enter through some kind of vortex, temporarily leaving their shadow world, and then enter our sunlit world. I discovered such a vortex or ethereal doorway when it appeared that one of the dark ghosts was leading me along as I was taking one of my evening strolls in the neighborhood. By now these figures were more evident and salient. The particular silhouetted creature led me to an old abandoned house, one I had paid little attention to until now. I gingerly entered through the front door, and the entity led me down into the cellar where there lay a narrow wooden door. I carefully opened it, the black ghost slipped through it, and I eagerly followed. To my surprise, I stood on a vast barren plain with low mountains to either side. The sky appeared to be a grey twilight, neither day nor night, and there was no sun giving light, and yet there was just enough light to see all around me. Every now and then I would see other wispy figures, dark figures that would appear and disappear, and my guide was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if this was some kind of interim plane of existence, between my earthly world and the next, for these shadowy beings did not appear to be completely manifest even here.

"I began to become frightened, for the dark ghosts were slowly circling me as they whispered loudly, words I could not comprehend. I turned and ran, and seeing a low depression in the ground, I stepped into this, and I enter the cellar once again. I left that ominous house and never returned to it."

After reading these strange passages, I wondered if this was simply the product of the author's imagination. Perhaps he did see these strange beings at the corner of his eye now and then, and perhaps this merely inspired him to write a strange tale about them and the world they came from. The volume was listed as nonfiction, but of course most of it was paranormal discourses, and it also discussed case histories of other people's similar experiences.

But I also wondered if the author was describing that dark plane that existed somewhere beyond the earth plane, the Dark Side? Or as Sheila also called it, the place of Shadows?
It sure made sense. Which means this would be the place these mysterious shadow people came from.


Entry #0030: More Clues on the Shadow World

I closed the book and set it down at the right-hand corner of my desk, facing my computer, I decided to Google "shadow world." Mostly I got information for role-playing games or shadow government conspiracy theories, but I did find an interesting essay called "Entering the Mysterious Dimensions of Shadow World," by Brad Steiger. This author has been one of the regular guest speakers on my favorite radio show, Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory, but he had written a book with the previous host of the show, Art Bell, a book which I have in my shelf, called The Source: Journey Through the Unexplained.

Anyway, I begin reading Brad Steiger's strange account on this shadow world, and he discusses vortexes or doorways into other worlds. From a letter sent to Brad Steiger, he relays an account of a man who claims to have the ability to enter these strange doorways. Here is a passage from this man's account:

''There are two places, one in Missouri and one in Arkansas, where I walked into this next door neighbor of ours. It is very silent. It looks like our world, but there is no sound, no wind, no sun, even though it looks like the sun is shining.

"In the state of Missouri I found two fields that had doors, or what I call 'vortexes': No matter where you walked you would come back to your starting place, and if you hit the center of the vortex, then you would come out from a mile to two miles beyond the place you entered in a section that would be unrecognizable to you until you stopped and regained your inner balance. Then the surroundings would gradually become familiar.

"Each door is different, but it is my belief that if one couId recognize these door openings, one could pick the door in Arkansas that would permit me to step into your front yard in Iowa.

"In the region of the Ozarks, it was nothing for me to see into this other dimension. I could not enter, but I could see into it, as if through a large window; and I could see the people,livepeople, who entered our world or dimension, using the same mode of transportation so as not to give themselves away as aliens. The question is who arethey?"

His words seemed too incredible to believe. Likewise, Brad Steiger related accounts of people who had entered various doors or elevators, and came out completely in different locations, as if these were teleportation portals. For instance, one lady was in a music store, entered an elevator, and exited into a railroad station. The essay also discussed cases of missing people and missing time, but nothing about actual shadow people.
Brad Steiger sums up his article with this conclusion:

"Whether there truly are "holes" and "doorways" between dimensions of reality, whether there may exist kidnappers or interlopers from other planes of being, whether swirling vortexes may snatch up unsuspecting men and women and send them spinning into another Space-Time continuum, remain among the many challenges to be explored in these encounters with the Shadow World."

I felt this author was on to something, something eerie and paranormal, but something little understood by many and definitely not believed by most skeptical people. The idea that doorways into other dimensions existed made a lot of sense. Considering I myself along with Chad and his paranormal group witnessed a vortex to which things disappeared, I knew that I was stumbling upon a reality that most people could not accept. But like it or not, there are many things in this world, and beyond, that are real, which won't go away just because we disbelieve them.

"Entering the Mysterious Dimensions of Shadow World"


Entry #0031: The Disappearing Book

I didn't sleep soundly that night, laying in one of the bunk beds of the bedroom of Area 57. Perhaps my mind was fueled with strange ideas that I had read, but I dreamed that I was walking through the narrow passageway of the bunker, those strange whispering shadow people moving all about me, but I don't remember anything else. Perhaps I was astral projecting, which as I understand is a normal occurrence one experiences during the dream state.

Early that morning, I got up to start a pot of coffee on the back corner of my desk in my station of operations -- and I noticed that the book I purchased was gone! It should have been sitting on the right-hand corner of the desk where I left it. I knew I didn't move it. I was perplexed, suspecting this was yet another one of those reality shifts occurring. Then I had a spark of intuition. If the book was gone, did that mean -- ?

I impatiently let the coffee brew, and when it was done, I tried to drink it hastily while eating a strawberry flavored toaster pastry. Finished, I took off in my Chevy Blazer and headed down toward Mulvern.

Turning right on Highland Rd, I slowly drove down Mulvern Ave, and stopped at the location of Rook's Books -- which was not there. Fanny's Thrift Shop was, however, just as it always had been for well over half a century. What did this mean? The book I bought disappeared, and so the bookstore I got it from went with it? Strange. I suppose that meant if the bookstore never really existed, neither did the book. I began wondering if I was experiencing weird schizophrenic episodes, just as I had suspected previously in my bizarre ordeal with those ominous dark strangers. In times like this I always tend to question my sanity.

I parked in front of Fanny's and on my cell phone called Chad, telling him about the whole incident. Again, he didn't know what to make of it all, but admitted this was one of those paranormal encounters that was beyond his expertise. His little paranormal society was a group of enthusiastic amateurs after all. I could call Leo and tell him all about it, but he would be just as clueless. And if I told Calvin, as usual, he would just snigger and tell me I was crazy. So I called Sheila, told her about it, but she only said that many other dimensions exist beyond the earth plane, and that there were other documented accounts of rifts opening here and there. I was at least relieved that she believed me, but she could offer no real help. I knew who to call next. My girlfriend, Monica. Unfortunately, all I got was her voicemail. I left a quick message. Then I tried to reach Jezz. Same thing. Damn! So I took off back toward my little yellow cabin up on the slope.

A theory began to form in my mind. Perhaps these freaky reality shifts I was experiencing were incidents where I was inadvertently stepping through unseen doors into another dimension, or even a parallel world. This was at least one possible explanation, as radical and insane as it sounded.


Entry #0032: Halloween night

On Halloween, October 31st of course, I didn't do much of anything, except call Jezz, who enjoyed giving candy out to the kids in the neighborhood. We hoped enough people would view the Paranormal Frequency Show on YouTube, but she said it was slow going, but then it was too early to tell. I told her about the disappearing book phenomenon, and how Fanny's oddly became Rook's Book's, and then back to Fanny's again. She was perplexed and didn't know what to make of all this. She jokingly asked if I every talked to a shrink. I replied that perhaps I should see one after all, just in case I was going insane - again.

The rest of the night I visited various websites, reading horror stories and drinking beer. I found some excellent sites displaying scads of stories by Edgar Alan Poe and also H. P. Lovecraft. I got thoroughly creeped out after reading several ghastly selections. My own Outer Edge of Reality website had a selection of my own scary stories to celebrate Halloween, which I usually removed soon after the occasion was over. Every Halloween I put up a Halloween special on the site.

I had some pretty freaky dreams that night, probably because of the horrific stories I read. Also, I have heard that the psychic energy level around Halloween time is more intense, or that the veil is thinner at this time, whereby spirits or entities are more easily perceived, so more hauntings occur, and so forth; so that may be a factor too.

Nevertheless, my own personal ghastly horror story was unfolding, or perhaps it was a paranormal mystery thriller. So as usual, the plot continued to thicken.


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