This first one happened in the mid 1990s.
We were sitting in Sunday School, which was held in the auditorium of our little log cabin church (Trinity Baptist, in Gunnison, Colorado). The preacher's wife taught the class, and we all sat in a semi-circle in folding chairs. She had her Bible open on her lap, and her empty styrofoam cup beside her chair on the floor. I was sitting almost directly in front of her.
As she was talking, I saw something suddenly fall from about shoulder-height into her cup. The cup rocked and everyone looked. She picked up the cup, looked in it and there were 2 or 3 coins in it. There was no way they could have fallen out of her Bible, or from her pocket.
There was no balcony or anything, nor anyone who could have tossed the money in from somewhere else. She just kinda said "Huh." and went back to talking. No one else in the room seemed to think anything too odd had occurred. I couldn't concentrate anymore, trying to figure out what had just happened. I never did.
Years pass....
After my life got turned upside down, my second wife talked me into moving to PA (against my better judgment) in the summer of 2000.
Years pass....
After my life got turned upside down, my second wife talked me into moving to PA (against my better judgment) in the summer of 2000.
The house I moved into in PA was very strange. When I was downstairs in the half-basement, I would clearly hear footsteps on the hardwood floor above me, but when I would go (stealthily) upstairs to look, HEAVILY armed, no one would be there. The cat would also react. I could hear the front door open and close, and someone walking across the floor towards the top of the stairs. I'd would be prepared to shoot the home invader, but none ever appeared.
Once my friend Amy came to the house and opened the door. I was thinking it was just the same old routine that I heard at least once a day, when she called my name. I just about jumped out of my skin!
I would also hear voices that seemed far away. I could not understand what was being said. My wife (at the time) Angel was scared to be there alone. But she was very superstitious anyway and claimed that her childhood home had been haunted by a ghost they called "Stella".
Finally:
I was living in my pet store in Gunnison, Colorado in the spring of 2004 when I experienced this.
One afternoon I was cleaning under the counter and found a knife catalog that was several months old. I looked at it and decided to add the company's website to my 'favorites' on my computer. I am not a good typist, and was even worse back then, so I have to concentrate on anything I type.
After entering the web address, I put the catalog on a small landing halfway up the stairs and started cleaning the shop. About fifteen minutes later, I took a break to read the catalog, but the catalog on the landing was different than the one I had left there.
It had changed. It was from a different company. The pictures on the front were similar, but not quite the same as when I placed it there, and it was older than the catalog I had found earlier. No one had been in the store during the elapsed time to switch the catalogs. (Not a busy day; that's why I was cleaning under the counter.)
I looked around the store wondering if I could have been confused. Then I remembered adding the Web site to my favorites so I went to the computer. Being from a different company, the web address on the back of the catalog I now held was a different one than the one I had entered earlier.
The website for the original catalog was on my 'favorites' list but had not been moved to the proper folder yet, just as would happen to a new addition. This is how I knew it was the one I had just added, and not one I had put there at some earlier time. (The "new" catalog's website address was also not in my "favorites" yet.)
Finally:
I was living in my pet store in Gunnison, Colorado in the spring of 2004 when I experienced this.
One afternoon I was cleaning under the counter and found a knife catalog that was several months old. I looked at it and decided to add the company's website to my 'favorites' on my computer. I am not a good typist, and was even worse back then, so I have to concentrate on anything I type.
After entering the web address, I put the catalog on a small landing halfway up the stairs and started cleaning the shop. About fifteen minutes later, I took a break to read the catalog, but the catalog on the landing was different than the one I had left there.
It had changed. It was from a different company. The pictures on the front were similar, but not quite the same as when I placed it there, and it was older than the catalog I had found earlier. No one had been in the store during the elapsed time to switch the catalogs. (Not a busy day; that's why I was cleaning under the counter.)
I looked around the store wondering if I could have been confused. Then I remembered adding the Web site to my favorites so I went to the computer. Being from a different company, the web address on the back of the catalog I now held was a different one than the one I had entered earlier.
The website for the original catalog was on my 'favorites' list but had not been moved to the proper folder yet, just as would happen to a new addition. This is how I knew it was the one I had just added, and not one I had put there at some earlier time. (The "new" catalog's website address was also not in my "favorites" yet.)
I was completely bewildered. I decided to try to get my mind off of the bizarre occurrence, so I began surfing the web. I was not searching for anything related to what had just happened, but was just browsing randomly, yet one of the first websites I went to had an account of "reality shifts" where something changes in your reality, as had just happened to me, but no one else seems to notice. Now I was really in shock.
Over the next few days, I looked for the original catalog just in case I had imagined the event, but it didn't turn up.
I never did see the original catalog again. I had also never seen the replacement before the instant it appeared in place of the other one. I love knife catalogs and look at each one until it is memorized, so I would have remembered it.
Over the next few days, I looked for the original catalog just in case I had imagined the event, but it didn't turn up.
I never did see the original catalog again. I had also never seen the replacement before the instant it appeared in place of the other one. I love knife catalogs and look at each one until it is memorized, so I would have remembered it.
....
Now, since I don't understand any of these events, does that mean they were supernatural in origin? Of course not! They all have a natural explanation that fits with the laws of the physical Universe, even if I (or anyone) don't yet understand those laws. Even extraterrestrials, other dimensions, or whatever "woowoo" that might be must operate under the laws of the Universe as we know them or as they can be extrapolated or yet to be discovered. But, in the meantime the unknowns sure can make things interesting.
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I've had very similar experiences to two of those.
ReplyDeleteI once lived in an apartment that had a similar "haunted" thing going. It was a sort of "shotgun shack" type apartment, 1/4th of a house, second floor, from front to back, and this would happen even when nobody was home in the other three apartments.
When in the bedroom at the front of the building, we (my girlfriend and later wife) would hear what sounded like a quiet party -- clinking glasses, low conversation, sometimes music) coming from the other side of the door (the living room). When we'd open the door, the noise would instantly cease, and we would hear the back door (which was down a hall, past a bathroom and kitchen) shut. Never did figure out what it was.
On the "reality shift" thing, some time between the fall of 1983 and the spring of 1984, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead died of a drug overdose. I read about it in the newspaper, and the reason I remember that it happened, who it was that died, and when is that I was sitting at a particular table in a particular classroom across from a guy named Victor Weir (all of which could only have happened in that timeframe) when I read about it, and remarked on the same last name thing. It was only years later that I hung around anyone who was into the Dead enough to be told that no, he wasn't dead after all and that that had never happened. But it had.
Those reality shifts are freaky. I have had others similar to the one you mentioned. Makes me wonder how trustworthy my memory is- because the alternative is just so incredible.
ReplyDeleteOne that happened to me was when a fast food restaurant that I passed on a regular basis suddenly turned into a different fast food restaurant. Since I had experienced the reality shifts before I cautiously asked someone how long that particular restaurant had been there and got chills when I was told "several years".
ReplyDeleteI have also seen a vacant lot suddenly sporting an obviously not new, but aged, building- overnight.
Spooky stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of the SF writer Philip K. Dick ("The Man In The High Castle"). I think all of his books, though quite different, included sooner or later elements of Reality Breakup.
Those type of experiences are fun to remember, but not quite as fun while they are happening. And I love reading about them.
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