Kenneth Hughes - High Strangeness: Real Reports of Paranormal Experiences

High Strangeness

Real Reports of Paranormal Experiences

Kenneth Hughes

These are real reports that I have stumbled across during my time researching paranormal experiences. I have compiled everything I have found compelling into the following book. I di d not write any of these myself, t hey were lightly edited for clarity and readability but otherwise left untouched. I have long had a fascination with all things paranormal and would love to hear from any readers regarding their own experiences.

I can be contacted at the following email address. author.kenneth.hughes@gmail.com

I was on a 41 foot sailboat in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay with about 7 other men, doing a shake-down/ test cruise and planned to be out for about 12 hours. Mid 1980's, weather prediction resources not as reliable as they are now. We get caught in a tropical storm, winds gusting into the 50 mph range, just short of a weak hurricane. We had just barely rigged storm hawsers and storm sails because the one fellow onboard who was the best sailor sensed the storm was almost on us , otherwise we would have died. During the storm itself, I expected to die at any time. In fact we made a "Security, security...." call on the radio (if you have time at sea you know what I'm talking about, if not, it's not that important). For what seemed like 15 minutes, we were in a maelstrom, no visibility, but then it passed. We would live!

This was at about 3pm, and although there was cloud cover of course, the ambient light was such that you could see 2 miles or so in any direction.

If you're familiar with the sea, you know that such storms, particularly in shallower depths near land masses, dredge a lot of things of the sea floor.

We're all on deck, working lines, checking damage, etc. and the bay around us is c hoppy and churning and foaming. Old timey sailors often used the saying "the sea is confused." I look about 15 feet of the starboard side and something swims to the surface, breaks the surface, looks at us, then submerges again.

It was like a thin man, with humanoid shape, arms articulated like a man with a human head, but its skin was covered in scales like a snake. It looked at us, blinked its weird, heavy-lidded eyes and then dove back under.

So maybe you need to know a few things about m e at that moment. No drugs, no alcohol, no injuries. I was elated because I was glad to be alive, but my senses in that situation were sharpened, not dulled. I had, at that time, about 6 years of experience on ships and fishing boats, and had seen squid, octopi, flying fish, sharks, skates, etc. all around the world. I was not the type of guy to see a patch of seaweed and call it a sea monster.

I made an instant decision that I was not going to say anything. What could I say? "I just saw a strange creature, take my word for it!" The men on this boat were all mechanics and engineers and professionals. Why get a reputation as a flake? At the time it was important for each of us to get "D" skipper or OOD qualifications, and saying something like that would be frowned upon.

And as I stood there in my life vest, soaking wet, hooked onto the steel lifeline, glad to be alive, one of the other sailors, a USN Captain J_______ S________, with over 30 years of experience in the surface navy, piped up and said "I just saw a brown thing pop up on the surface! It looked like a lizard man, with a scaly face. It blinked at us with these big eyes and then went back under!"

"Yeah, I saw it too," I said. No one else said that they had seen it.

Then we sailed back to the pier later that day and didn't speak of it again.

Some friends and I would take my truck up into the mountains during the winter time and tow someone on a tube across the snow. We'd drop the tailgate in my old long-bed Ford and a few guys would sit in the back with one of those bazillion candlelight spotlights. When I was driving it'd be fun to make really wide turns in the dark so the person on the tube didn't have the luxury of headlights or taillights to somewhat illuminate their trail. The person in the bed of the truck with the spotlight would be funny and shine the light clear off to the side so it was pitch black if you were on the tube.

One particular winter night a snowstorm was rolling in so we headed up to the usual spot and it was DARK that night. A friend was on the tube, I was driving watching my mirrors as I'd swing him wide enough he had little light to see anything. The guy with the spotlight shone the light clear to the side of the truck and as I checked my mirror, I made eye contact with a guy dressed in jeans, a red plaid shirt, and a blaze orange ball cap. As we made eye contact I lost all control of my body for probably only 5 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. I stopped the truck and turned it around and asked the guys if theyd seen him. They all said no, so I flipped the truck around and turned on the high beams and they shone the spotlight all over. I got out and looked for footprints in the fresh snow and saw nothing.

That night we went back home and I told my dad about the weird experience and he didn't think anything of it. A week later on the news the police reported finding a body in the area close to where we were and asked for any tips. My old man convinced me to call the police and tell them we were up in the area and saw that guy. I called and the police said they'd send an investigator over. He came over to the house, I recalled the same experience saying it happened 7 days earlier. As soon as I said that, the investigator asked me "you are sure on your date?" I was positive, and he showed me a picture of the body they found wearing the same red plaid shirt and blaze orange ball cap. He informed me the body had been on the mountain for at least 1 month so I must have just seen something. Turns out it was a man who suffered from some mental handicaps and committed suicide on the mountain, 1 month prior to when I saw him.

I grew up in the arctic.

In the town I lived in, as long as it was a clear night, it was an extremely normal occurrence to see all sorts of strange lights move across the sky. Keep in mind that the winter is long in the arctic, which means more time being spent under the stars. It's quite beautiful, as long as you don't mind the cold so much. Sometimes I would drive a snowmobile a few kilometers out of town, shut it down, and just lay down on the snow looking up at the majesty of it all, the only thing disturbing the silence being the occasional breeze.

The northern lights are also a common occurrence. Doesn't happen every day, but often enough that they start getting ignored after a while, as long as they aren't too spectacular anyway.

On one particular night, without asking my parents (it was their snowmobile), I decided to go on one of my midnight drives out of town. I drove a few kilometers over the hills to find a spot devoid of light pollution from town, shut off the machine, and settled into a good spot to look up and be introspective.

It wasn't all that interesting a scene. A few satellites passing here and there, some relatively boring activity affecting the magnetic field, etc. and then I started noticing a clicking noise.

At first I thought it was the sound of the snow machine cooling down, as engine expands and contracts a lot in the cold. But the source of the sound definitely wasn't coming from that direction. My next thought was there must be an animal nearby in which case I need to get out of there fast (you don't really want to mess with a wild animal). But, the clicking is far too regular for an animal to produce it. It was fairly mechanical sounding. And again, the source of the sound isn't coming from anywhere around me laterally. It was coming from above. So naturally I look up determined to ascertain the origin of this strange noise.