The Light that Walked at Midnight

It has been a while since I've put anything out here. Life got chaotic. Like, more so than normal. Anyway, I'm going to try to keep up with this. I'd like to at LEAST get something up per week. I would like to make writing a proper habit, and not just a sporadic one.

Anyway. I had mentioned in my first post, that I have had two paranormal experiences in my life, and I got some feedback that these are stories that should be shared. So, I'm going to attempt to tell one today.

To set the stage, I guess I should explain the house I grew up in and some things about me. Let's start with me. My attitude to "paranormal" stuff is that I want to be open-minded. That said, most "Ghost Hunter" crap on tv is full of nonsense. It shouldn't be labeled paranormal if there is a possible (and often much more likely) "normal" explanation for the phenomenon.
Example:
"Oooh...what was that knocking noise? It must be a ghost."
-Or could it be the pipes rattling because you just used the sink? I mean, your "ghost" does have a tricky habit of showing up right after you wash up...just saying.

You get the idea. The word paranormal simply means "other than normal." Something not understood. So when I say I have had experiences, this is true, but I don't hold out that they are necessarily "ghost stories." I don't know if it is ghosts, aliens, elementals or perfectly explainable happenings that I just simply don't currently HAVE an answer for. And to be perfectly honest- if there IS an explanation for what I saw, it would help me sleep at night. Sometimes just knowing that not ALL of these kinds of "ghost stories" are fake, really makes it hard to go back to sleep when you hear banging in the kitchen at 2 am. Know what I mean?

So on to the house.

 It is very old- well over 100 years. It was once two houses, and they were later moved together to make one bigger house. So it is big. It sits on a hill,and on about 15 acres of land. The back of the house faces a small yard that used to have two trees (my father later cut them down) and the yard butts up to a field which is probably around 5 acres long. The field ends in a small wood that comprises the rest of the acreage of the property. The above photo, is taken from the edge of the little yard, looking at the back of the house. And yes, I picked the "spookiest" looking shot I had. You're welcome. :)
 There is actually an additional reason I picked this photo. So let's get on to the real story, shall we?

Alright. I was graduating high school in June of 1995. I stayed up that night, making a gift for another friend. I really wanted to give this to her as a graduation present. it was a little book of silly poems I had written. I was trying to put it all together, and it was getting really late. Everyone else had gone to bed.

Just as I was finishing my project, the power went out. This was a frustrating, but not uncommon occurrence in this old house.  The power used to go out a lot. And when it did, that was when weird things happened. To this day, power outages make me nervous.
With nothing left to do, I crawled into my bed in the dark. My bed faced a window. In the above picture, this is the window you see on the top floor, first on the right side. That was my bedroom.
As I got into my bed, something caught my eye outside. It was a light, but it went by quickly and disappeared. I almost dismissed it and laid down without any further inspection, but then it came again. And again and again.

I always struggle to explain this part to people. This was not a "normal" light. It was intensely bright and white. Almost like the light that comes from a welding tool. It would come on, move to the right, and disappear. Then it would come back, move to the left and disappear again. With each movement, it trailed. It appeared to be a spot (ball? orb?) that moved back and forth, and the light from this spot streaked as it moved. Have you ever "written" your name with sparklers on the Fourth of July? It was like that. Also, the light was fairly large, and did not illuminate any other objects or seem to be casting any shadows.

So, on seeing this, I was confused. At first, I believed that what I was seeing must be high in the air. I assumed that maybe I was seeing some sort of airplane, albeit a strange one. It unnerved me, but I didn't think UFO, because there is an Air Force base nearby, and who knows what they could be flying. It made me really curious. This light was so strange. But as I stared at it, I started to realize that it in fact, did not seem to be up high. I started trying to figure out its position. I did this by sitting up and leaning back in the bed. I knew that if I laid back, I could see the sky, but when I sat forward the view of the sky would disappear and all that could be seen was the field and the yard behind the house. That was when I became frightened.

The light could not be seen when I laid back. It wasn't in the sky. By slowly sitting up until the light was visible again, I determined that the light was in a position in my window that meant that it must be fairly low to the ground. In fact, it was very close to the house. Go back and look at that picture now. You see the two trees? The light was moving back and forth in front of the tree in the middle of the shot- the one right in front of my window.

Now I felt threatened. Something was in my yard. Something that I could not identify was moving back and forth in front of my window. I racked my brain for an explanation. Streetlight or car headlight? No. Not the right type of light, and none had ever been seen in the yard before. There were no roads visible from that viewpoint. A person? That was the only plausible explanation I could think of, except, why would someone be pacing back and forth under my window in a very rural neighborhood, where no other houses are very close? And what are they carrying that is making that kind of light? If there was a person carrying a light, why did it not illuminate anything? I'd seen my sister in the backyard carrying a flashlight before. This did not look similar.

Nothing quite explained it. No insect makes a light that bright or large in this area. A vehicle was highly unlikely, as was a person. So what does that leave? I have still never figured that out.
I watched the light for about an hour. It continued pacing back and forth, streaking as it went. It looked like something being turned on and off. A device? Not a normal flashlight, in any event.
It just kept on going. Kept on pacing. I started getting really tired. It was about 1 am. The light hadn't changed its behavior. It hadn't gone away, but it didn't appear to be about to do anything else. Eventually I laid down and decided to try and sleep. In the morning, nothing looked unusual outside. No footprints, tracks, etc. Believe me, I looked.

So that was one of my paranormal experiences. I call it thus, because I have no explanation so far that makes sense. Was it a ghost? A UFO? I suppose it COULD have been. The point is, I don't know what it was. And unfortunately, that leaves it open to be something spooky. It certainly made ME feel nervous.

There were a number of weird things that happened when I lived in that house. I'll talk about my second experience in the next post, and I'll try to include some of the things that happened to others as well. I can only vouch for my own stories, though. But certainly, I've heard things from other family members that seem to suggest that maybe the house is haunted- if such things are possible. At minimum, our house was (is) unusual. Maybe there's something in the ground or the water that makes people hallucinate. Maybe it sits on an old burial ground. Maybe it has a weird electrical vibration that causes "paranormal" events. Maybe maybe maybe. Until I find out, though, it sure feels creepy.