Joshua P. Warren - It Was a Dark and Creepy Night: Real-Life Encounters with the Strange, Mysterious, and Downright Terrifying

REAL-LIFE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE STRANGE, MYSTERIOUS, AND DOWNRIGHT TERRIFYING

BY JOSHUA P. WARREN WITH ANDREA SAARKOPPEL

ILLUSTRATIONS BY STEVE OWENS

Copyright 2014 by Joshua P. Warren

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

IT WAS A DARK AND CREEPY NIGHT
Illustrations by Steve Owens
Cover design by the Book Designers
Printed in the U.S.A.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Warren, Joshua P.
It was a dark and creepy night : real-life encounters with the strange, mysterious, and downright terrifying / by Joshua P. Warren, with Andrea Saarkoppel.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-60163-328-6 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-449-8 (ebook)
1. Occultism. 2. Parapsychology. 3. Curiosities and wonders.
I. Title.
BF1411.W325 2014
133--dc23

2014009777

Imagine youre in a huge forest, sitting next to a crackling campfire on a cool, dark night. In front of you are the warm, flickering flames, twisting and dancing hypnotically. And behind that fire, in a dark, wooded space, is a rugged log. This log is more of a stage, really. Thats because, at any moment, from the darkness will emerge a person, a storyteller, to sit upon that log, for a few minutes, and share a spooky tale. The person could be anyone from any spot on earth. You dont know exactly what to expect next, but you do know this: each persons story is claimed to be true. And its usually something he or she experienced first-hand. Perhaps it will be a ghost story, or an alien encounter, or a monster attack, or an angel, a demon, or something too strange to even fathom. It could be almost anything.

That scenario is precisely what you hold before you. It may be impossible to experience that enchanted evening physically, but the magic of technology has made it possible on paper. Thanks to the power of media and the Internet, people from all over the world have come forth to share a personal experience. And those hair-raising testimonies are in this little book.

I have been collecting strange stories for more than 20 years. I began on a local scale, working in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, where I was born. As a teenager, I spread posters and ads around my town, Asheville, requesting weird, true stories. I was amazed when my mailbox was flooded with tales of fairy folk, flying saucers, disembodied spirits, and inter-dimensional time warps. Those stories were compiled in a book called Speaking of Strange. And, as years passed, I wondered when the time would be ripe to expand the project. I continued publishing and building a global audience through television and radio work. I recently realized it was finally the perfect time to present my invitation to the entire world. And I was delighted to see the stories flood in once again. Nothing had changed.

I only asked for these personal experiences to be true, short, and creepy. It didnt matter whether or not the submitter was a good writer or speller. I explained that editing would resolve any lack in writing prowess, and that slight embellishment could be provided to flesh out descriptive details. And it is important to note that I did not define creepy. I did, however, provide the following true story as an example:

In 2002, in northern Connecticut, a 34-year-old brunette, named Jennifer Styles, found herself in a chilling position. Im a well-known ghost hunter, so she called me after a night of paralyzing fear. Jennifer had recently gone through a bad breakup and was searching for a new place to live. She worked at a law firm, and when a coworker named Toby heard of her situation, he suggested she rent a house he had recently inherited. It was a 3-story farmhouse in the countryside.

Why dont you live there? she inquired.

Because its haunted! he said. The one night he tried to sleep there, he kept hearing footsteps on the long staircase. Jennifer had no fear and quickly took the amazing deal he offered.

The first night, all was well. Jennifer slept in the big bed on the third floor. There was nothing spooky, but at exactly 2 a.m., she shot up in bed, suddenly wide awake. After a few minutes, she went back to sleep. The second night, the exact same thing happened at 2 a.m. Upon hearing of this, Toby became curious. He loaned her a video camera and suggested she set it up while she sleep. The third night, as video was rolling, the same event occurred. She shot up at 2 a.m., then went back to sleep.

The next day, after returning from work, Jennifer rewound the video and watched it. The footage was stunning. In the green night shot, you can see her relaxed, slumbering away. Then at 1:58 a.m., a tall, dark, hooded figure appears to the left of the frame, and silently glides up to her bedside. It leans over her, like the grim reaper, as she sleeps. It quietly watches her until 1:59 a.m., and then glides away. At 2 a.m., Jennifer, wide and wild-eyed, shoots up in bed. Who are these phantoms? And why do they watch us when we sleep?

When someone submitted a story for this book, I gave that person the option of selecting a general category: Ghostly/Haunting, UFO/Alien, Cryptid/Inter-dimensional, ESP/Psychic, Spiritual, Synchronicity, or Other. The accounts sent in spanned the entire spectrum. I could have broken this book down into sections, by category. However, I find it far more interesting to mix them all up and allow you, the reader, to simply envision each story unfold without a particular expectation. You may not know what kind of story youre reading until you reach the very end. But thats part of the fun. It also happens to be a more realistic way of grasping these tales. You must remember that the person experiencing the phenomenon generally did not know, at the time, what was happening! That element is a crucial component in what makes these stories truly creepy. Put yourself in the authors place, often very confused as events were unfolding. Only in retrospect did the developing pieces seem to clarify.

Granted, we have no way of verifying that each of the stories is indeed true. I asked for true stories, and the teller of each professes it is true. We have the persons legal name and contact information, so we can at least say a real individual is willing to stand by the accounts authenticity. So what more is there? Prior to cameras, wasnt all of history recorded this way, by human testimony? And its important to consider how integral the human experience is to each of the stories. After all, we decide what is normal and what is paranormal, based on our level of understanding.

These stories are certainly entertaining. And yet, I believe they document something even more significant. Experiencing the unknown is what humbles us and reminds us of our place in this gigantic universe. Theres something very creepy about simply acknowledging how small we look compared to the infinite blackness of space all around us. What is out there? And perhaps, more importantly, what is right...