goatskin and the paranormal

Goatskin and the UFO 
A true story

It happened nearly 50 years ago. For some reason I can not recall the exact year and I can't recall exactly when I first told someone about the incident. For several years something kept me from talking about it--what that was, I don't know.

The time was something after 11:00pm (closer to midnight, I think); it was a relatively clear late summer night in the hills of western Maine and quiet except for the drone of the paper mill  across the river. And it seemed that all of the neighbors had retired for the night.

My house was dark except for the kitchen light left on for me. I had just returned home from a date, a dance or whatever, and had taken the trash to the street. I  was returning to the shed, which was connected to the kitchen, to lock up and then go to bed.

As I approached the shed door, I felt a strong pressure on me from above. I don't know how to describe it except that there was the feeling of something very heavy above me. There was no sound other than that of the mill. I looked up and, off to my right (east of the house), what appeared to be perhaps two or three hundred feet in the air (how high depends upon the object's actual size), traveling at a very modest speed, was a roundish glowing white object.

Having a long-standing interest in UFOs and other unexplained phenomena, my first thought was that at last I was experiencing a UFO. I quickly moved away from the house to the west side of the shed in order to view the object from a better vantage point. As I did so, the object started to turn slowly northwest in an arc which soon became more westerly and then southerly, finally moving in a straight southerly line which brought it toward me and directly over my head. In all of this time, there was no sound from the object  that I could detect.

As it passed over, the object seemed to slow down for few seconds and I was able observe it well. It appeared to be about 75-100 feet over my head. And, as I have said, it made no detectable sound. I could feel its weight. It was essentially round but, perhaps, slightly oblong. It glowed with the whiteness and intensity of a "cool white" fluorescent bulb. If the object was in fact 75-100 feet above my head, it was between 35 and 50 feet in diameter.

I watched in awe as it moved slowly south above the trees, across the river and...I do not actually recall seeing it disappear.

My next memory is going into the house and going to bed.  I do not recall anything said about the incident until some years later when the memory came back vividly and I related the story to a friend one night when the subject of UFOs came up.

      MORE ABOUT UFOs COMING SOON...

The Ghost in the Rocking Chair 
A true story

In the summer of 1963, my wife and I were staying with my parents for the summer--in the house in which I had lived since I was four and in which there often was the sense of "something there".

Late one evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, it happened.

I was still up, I think to finish something I was reading. When I was ready to go up to bed, I needed to go to the bathroom which was just off the kitchen. And in that  kitchen was a rocking chair (about four feet from the bathroom door). The rocking chair had a loose rung which would thump while someone was rocking. If you simply rocked the chair without sitting in it, it would not thump; it required the weight of a person (an adult) to make this occur. In the bathroom, although behind the bathroom door, I was sitting just four feet from that chair.

At first I wasn't sure what the sound was, but very quickly it came  to me--it was the rocking chair. Someone was sitting in the rocking chair and probably was waiting to use the bathroom. I spoke through the door, I'll be out in just a minute. There was no response. The rocking chair continued to rock.

My wife and I were staying in my old bedroom which was right over the kitchen and, with the floor register, you could hear clearly anything that went on in the room below. My wife heard the chair rocking. She thought I was still downstairs reading and it was getting late. So, she came downstairs to see if maybe I didn't realize how late it was and to suggest that I might come to bed.

I opened the bathroom door just as my wife was coming to the kitchen. The rocking chair had stopped rocking, and was only moving slightly (but moving enough to indicate that it had been in use just moments before). Both my wife and I had expected to see someone in the rocking chair--no one was there.  And, checking with everyone the next morning, no one else had gotten up in the night.

Recently I was talking with my brother about strange memories of the old house and he mentioned the "ghost in the rocking chair--not my story because he hadn't been there that summer--he had experienced the ghost also.

      MORE ABOUT GHOSTS COMING SOON...