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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