Fortean Times: It Happened to Me vol.1 Read online

  “Faulty gauge,” said John, “because if it isn’t you are in a lot of trouble; with that sort of depth on the clock you had better stay within camp area and keep someone with you in case of any bends problem.”

  About one week later I was summoned by John, who told me that the depth gauge had been tested and was completely accurate and serviceable, making my dive the longest and deepest in club history. Why I did not get the bends was a mystery to him. He also told me that Mr Mallia, the curator of the archaeological section of the Malta national museum, had identified the jar I had retrieved as a Phoenician scent jar of about 2000BC, used by the royal ladies of that time. The mystery was that its contents still smelled fresh, the potter’s stamp on the side of the handle was crystal clear and the jar was described in the report as being in mint condition. John was curious where I had got it. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said.

  In September 1995, I revisited Xlendi Bay and swam out to the entrance of the bay for old time’s sake. The next day, on my return to England, I suffered a severe heart attack. I was very fortunate to survive.

  Ian Skinner, Hull, Humberside, 1996

  FENCE FIEND

  Five years ago two friends told me about a ghost they had seen on a suburban road in Bradwell (near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk). Interested but sceptical, I went with them the following night to a passage that bisects a block of houses about two minutes from where I live. They described a “tall man” who would appear at the end of this passage. It was dark, but visibility was good thanks to ample street lighting.

  I was told to stare hard at a fence 20ft (6m) away, where I could instantly see movement. After a few minutes an apparition came plainly into view. It was humanoid, at least 7ft (2m) tall and wearing dark, heavy clothing (see drawing). It had a white, pear-shaped head with two dark eye sockets as its only features. The head was topped by tight orange hair, flat on top, which gave the face the appearance of being an upside-down triangle. Its arms were very long, almost touching the ground, and it carried a black doctor’s bag in one of its gloved hands.

  Despite its malignant appearance, I didn’t feel afraid and watched as it repeatedly took one step forward and then return to its previous position, like a projection. It faded after about 10 minutes and my friends commented on how much clearer it was than when they had seen it the night before. One of them was terrified and suffered nightmares for weeks afterwards.

  I returned several times, but despite feeling uneasy, I never saw it again.

  Karl Thornley, Corleston, Norfolk, 1998

  GRAVEYARD VISION

  In the summer of 1998, I think it was Saturday 27 June, I was out driving around with two friends, and we decided to take some back roads to see where they went. We were in Ohio, driving down State Route 141 from Gallipolis to Oak Hill. We turned off 141 onto 233, and after a couple of miles we saw a country road leading off to the right. None of us knew where it went, so we took it. It was just before sunset. After about a mile, the road became much darker because of a wall of tall pine trees that lined both sides. Half a mile further on, we came to a clearing in the woods to the right.

  The road came to a dead-end just past the clearing, so we decided to get out and look around. An old church stood at the base of a slight incline, looking as if it hadn’t been used in decades, but not in bad condition. A cemetery stretched out up the hill behind the church. At the top of the hill, there were two tombs with large, concrete slabs. My friends and I looked around the church, and then walked up the hill. By this time the cemetery was starting to get pretty dark, so we sat down by the tombs and looked around at the surrounding area. After about a half an hour, we decided to walk back to the car.

  As we walked down the hill, my friend Brad was commenting on how large the tombstones were when all three of us noticed a black, man-sized shape rise up from behind the tombstone that we were looking at, less than 10ft (3m) away. Brad stopped dead in his tracks and started to freak out, because this thing was standing right in front of him, with its ‘hands’ on the top of the tombstone, just staring at us. It was like looking at a void. You could almost see through the shape, but it still appeared to be almost solid. I grabbed Brad’s arm and pulled him towards the car.

  My friend Matt, on my left, saw the figure as well, and started walking, almost running, towards the car. The shape ran up the hill towards the area where we had been sitting, but when it reached a tombstone before those at the top, it disappeared behind it, as if it had dropped down into a grave. Needless to say, we left in a hurry. Brad, who is a devout Christian and doesn’t believe in ghosts, was on the verge of a breakdown, saying, “Oh my God! Oh my God! What was that? Oh my God!” The three of us were all genuinely scared.

  We decided to go back to the area the next day to get a clearer look and to search for footprints (thinking that someone might have played a really clever trick on us). When we passed the rows of pines and made it to the clearing, we couldn’t believe our eyes. The abandoned church was now in ashes on the ground, smoke still rising from its foundation. Most of the tombstones had been turned over and were lying on the ground. Some of these were too large for one person, or even four or five people to budge, and would’ve taken a machine of some sort to actually push them over.

  Andrew Beattie, by email, 2006

  BEDSIDE VISITOR

  Around 2:30 or so one morning 11 years ago, when I was around 15 years old, I put down the book I was reading, got under the covers, and switched off my reading light. As I was setting down my glasses on the bedside table, I noticed that my room had become very warm, almost oppressively so. I felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable - so I reached for my glasses again. The lenses were fogged and I used my pillowcase to wipe off the condensation. I looked around but saw nothing unusual, so I kicked off the covers and began to relax.

  After about maybe 30 seconds, I heard a vibration, fast and buzzing like a muted cell phone. The volume increased at least tenfold and was joined by an almost metallic-sounding whine. The vibration was so loud the glass in my bedroom window was shaking violently, almost to the point where I felt it would shatter. An enormous pressure began to build around me, as if I were on a rollercoaster, and the fillings in my two back teeth started to get very hot.

  Then, to my horror, the air to the right of my bed expanded like a soap bubble being blown and revealed a tall, completely white figure that was very thin, almost two-dimensional, and featureless. The figure pushed violently against the air around the ‘soap bubble’ as if it were pushing through a balloon, and distorted the air like a funhouse mirror. At this point I tried to scream, but the vibration completely drowned out any noise I tried to make. The figure then started whipping and thrashing harder than ever, and the pressure around me increased so much that I started to get blurred vision. After a short time - I don’t know how long for sure as there wasn’t a clock in my line of sight - I lost consciousness.

  When I awoke at around 3:30am, my pillow and bedclothes were soaked with blood from my nose, and I had a horrible headache from the back of my eyes to the top of my head. I went into my mother’s room to tell her that I didn’t feel good. My mother, who was awake, took one look at all the blood on me and immediately made my stepfather drive me to the hospital.

  On the way, I asked her why she was awake. She wouldn’t give me a straight answer but mentioned something about a loud noise. She was recovering from a stroke at the time, so it was hard for her to describe things. My stepfather was visibly shaken and wouldn’t look me in the eyes when I described what happened.

  We arrived at the hospital and they gave me a CAT scan (I think they did anyway) and other tests. The doctor kept asking me if we had flown on a plane, or been anywhere with high elevation within the last day or so - which of course we hadn’t. I was sent home with some mild pain relievers and a clean bill of health.

  Dustin Hiles, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2006

  LISTEN TO THE PENGUIN

  When I was about six, in 1
958 or thereabouts, I had an experience which has stayed with me ever since. In those days I often shared my parents’ bed, sleeping in the delicious safety and warmth between their bodies. One night I awoke and, looking down past the foot of the bed towards the built-in wardrobes, I saw a circle of light apparently projected on the doors. The circle grew until it was about three feet in diameter, at which point a face appeared in it and began to give a news summary or similar kind of account; I received the distinct impression that this, whatever it was the man was talking about, was merely the preamble to some unknown main business.

  After a few moments the talking head announced that “the moment you’ve been waiting for” had arrived and proceeded to introduce “the penguin”. This turned out to be nothing less than a giant (ie. adult-sized) bird which promptly climbed out of the frame on the wall and waddled around the end of the bed on my mother’s side. Leaning over her sleeping body, of which I was perfectly aware and wondering why she didn’t wake up with all the noise, it poked its beak in my face and told me that if I didn’t start eating my crusts (something my mother had constantly nagged me to do) it would return and eat me!

  The penguin then climbed back into the frame, there was a final burst of music and the light went out. Only then was I able to move to shake my mother awake and tell her the whole terrifying story. I remember she insisted it was all a dream - naturally. But I also recall that at the time there was absolutely no division between this event and waking events. I believed totally in the reality of that penguin and the seriousness of its message. In fact I accepted the incident as real for probably more than 20 years; had someone asked me if I had really been visited by a nocturnal flightless bird with an interest in my eating bread crusts, I would unhesitatingly have said yes.

  I recall the event, whatever it was, often and always manage to summon up the feeling of apprehension and fear which went with it. Like most children, I accepted the world the way adults said it was, I accepted their authority. Perhaps the penguin was some subconscious manifestation stemming from guilt at not obeying Mum’s constant reminders to eat my crusts. But why a penguin, of all things? Why the chat show format years before the invention of chat shows? The whole thing was in full colour, years before colour TV.

  There is the possibility that the penguin was a waking dream. Reason demands the question: what else could it be? It’s too trivial, too silly to be anything significant. Still, I always ate my crusts after that night.

  Anthony Purcell, Chelmsford, Essex, 1997

  Mysterious lights

  THE FIREBALL

  During World War II, I was staying with my grandparents here in Stokesley (near Middlesborough). They lived in a small cottage by the river, and one day we had a thunderstorm. My grandparents went to every room in the house opening every door and window, “so if the lightning comes in it can get out again.” We were all sitting in the small back room when there came the biggest flash of lightning and peal of thunder that I have ever heard, and above the sound of pouring rain we heard a loud fizzing sound. I went to the back door and there on the step was this football-sized blue bubble which seemed to be spinning on its axis at a terrific rate of knots.

  The draft caused the bubble to be drawn into the room, where it floated gently into all four corners, passing under the table twice. It did not seem to emit any heat, although it fizzed and crackled and was nearly of blinding intensity. At this time we were all standing on chairs. The cutlery in the table drawer was all magnetised together.

  The bubble was then caught in the through draft and left via the sitting room and front door, and as it passed the electricity meter behind the front door exploded. The bubble then gained height and speed, sped away in a great curve and smashed into the roof of a house 300 yards (275m) away. We were really alarmed at the explosion and amount of damage caused by our visitor, which seemed to us to have no more substance than a penny balloon.

  Ron Parker, Middlesborough, Cleveland, 1980

  OKLAHOMA SPOOK LIGHTS

  I was born and bred in Miami, in the north-east corner of the state of Oklahoma, where the government herded all the Indians around 1905. Here are situated the 1930s boom towns of Cardin and Pitcher, known as the badlands, where Bonnie and Clyde holed out when they weren’t killing people. After World War II the lead and zinc mines closed down and the towns declined. By 1970, the population of Cardin had dropped from 20,000 to under 100, and that of Pitcher from 30,000 to 200. The area is full of ruins and deserted roads, and is honeycombed with mines which tend to collapse, leaving large holes in the ground.

  Near the small town of Quapaw is a large Indian reservation, which has its own spook light, reputedly known to the Indians before the white man arrived. It appears on a lonely country road with few houses. My father told me it was much more pronounced in the ‘40s and ‘50s before a highway was built close by. One time he and his brothers went to see it, and after waiting a while they saw it appear down the road. As they watched it, it seemed to get larger and rolled down the road towards them. Shaken, they jumped in the car and the light passed straight through the car. When they turned around to watch it, it was gone.

  I saw the light many times when I was young. It was well known, and generally there was a crowd watching for it, but it was usually a long way away. There was a small, run-down museum with old clippings about scientific studies made on the light in the ‘30s and ‘40s. In 1973 I moved to Nashville, but returned to visit the following year. On Hallowe’en night I drove out with my cousins Ken, Roy and Sherry to check out the spook light. We parked and waited in the rain. At about 2am we saw it bouncing back and forth across the road, at a guess about half a mile away. As we watched, it split in two and started crossing itself as it bounced. My father told me he had seen it do this. Suddenly it disappeared, and after a few minutes it appeared in the woods right next to the car. Then something hit the roof of the car. This scared us, and we drove away fast. This is the first time I have written about this, and I still get cold chills thinking about it.

  Paul Moss, Nashville, Tennessee, 1989

  SPINNING SUN

  In September 1983 or 1984, when I was 11 or 12, my mum and I went on an organised coach trip with loads of other people from our Catholic diocese to Hazelwood Castle, near York. The point of the excursion was to meet other religious folk there and pray for world peace.

  In the early evening after we’d finished praying we went into the car park to board the coach. I looked up into the sky and saw the Sun, which was rather enlarged, spinning around really fast like a Catherine wheel. Sparks were flying off it and it changed to blue, green, red, purple, and all the colours of the rainbow. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It didn’t hurt to look at it - in fact, it almost seemed to soothe my eyes in a kind of blissful way and I was hypnotised by its beauty. My mum kept telling me to stop looking at it but I couldn’t. I kept saying “But it doesn’t hurt your eyes! Look at it!” But she wouldn’t stare at it, even though she knew it was happening.

  Eventually she managed to drag me onto the coach and I ran to the back so I could keep on staring at it through the rear window. I must have looked at it for about half an hour, but I’ve no eye damage. When we’d travelled a fair bit, the Sun went out of view and when I saw it again it was back to its usual self and hurt when I looked at it.

  Both my mum and I remember the event very clearly, although we can’t remember the date. Everyone thinks we’re bonkers.

  Julia Burns, Keighley, West Yorkshire, 2002

  CHASED BY BALL LIGHTNING

  When I was about 12 years old, I lived with my family in a semi-detached house in Hampshire with no overhead power lines nearby. One beautiful clear summer afternoon, without a cloud in the sky and no hint of thunderstorms, I was in the living room doing a school assignment; my mother and great grandmother were in the kitchen cleaning. The only electrical appliance on in the house was a small battery-powered radio. The letterbox rattled and, thinking we had post, I put down my books an
d went to see. At that moment, a blinding ball of blue-white light floated lazily into the living room and hovered about a meter away from me at head height for several seconds. I made a break for the door and ran into the kitchen with my hair standing on end.

  A few seconds later the ball of light (BOL) bobbed and danced its way into the kitchen and hovered over my head. It seemed to like me. “Bugger me!” exclaimed my mother and my great gran threw a tea towel over her head and shrieked, “Don’t panic!” At this point the BOL wandered out of the back door into the garden and vanished. The whole incident took about a minute.

  Ever since that day I seem to have had an inherent ability to trash electrical equipment just by touching it or even just looking at it. I can arc lightning across my cat’s ears (he hates it, but I don’t do it on purpose). My partner won’t let me anywhere near his electronics equipment and I still suffer from really, really bad hair days.

  Kirsten Cross, Bampton, Devon, 2003

  Extraordinary objects

  CUP-CAKE PRAM?

  I must tell you of a mysterious object which I encountered in June 1975.

  I recall sitting on the grass of our local park, in Grimsby, one night with a schoolfriend. From where we were sitting, at the very edge of a large expanse of lawn used for bowling, we had a clear view of Park Drive to our right, its stretch broken here and there by clumps of trees.