Well, I appeared two years ago, vanished and have reappeared again... You can't get more paranormal than that!
Actually, no.
I've had a mad two years, so many apologies for leaving you kind folk who replied hanging. I've had a big break up with my partner and I've been diagnosed with M.E./ C.F.S since I last posted so my life got turned upside down. I intend to be more of a contributor now that things have settled down.
So I'll try and answer you all.
1) Han:
yes that's the book, thanks for this and yes, I will write something on my experiences but it could be a book... I'm not sure if anyone wants to read something that long on a forum. It's quicker to state things I've not experienced... Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster... Mogwai. I'm a magnet for odd experiences, strange occurrences (not just paranormal) and odd people. My mission on Earth is to confound myself... Apparently.
2) Mike and Stoneheart:
yeah, I got the name indirectly from Tull. I used to draw a cartoon character strip called Mr. Aqualung, and the name of the character was taken from the song. I don't listen to them much to be honest anymore. My musical taste is quite... Eclectic... My favourite bands include black Flag, Hawkwind, Butthole Surfers, Mudhoney, Motörhead, Black metal and death metal, old blues, folk and dub reggae. My CD collection is more varied than some music shops.
3) RenaissanceLady:
thanks for the welcome and yes I'll post some of my experiences. I already have here as it happens.
Sleep paralysis - who else has experienced this?
4) bbridges and Gogs:
during my thesis, in 1995/96ish I went o see David Icke speak in a function room of a pub in Hull, where I was studying. His poster said he was going to talk about Roswell. (He didn't by the way. For the vastly sum of £4 I got to see him scream and shout at an audience of 30 people about how negativity affects people. It was rather like watching Adolfo Hitler rant at a rally, hand gestures and all. At one point he said that all books should be free, at which point someone asked why his were for sale at the back of the room then and someone else asked him if he'd ever heard of public libraries.) At this event I was introduced to a fellow student who claimed to be a friend of the author John Allegro. He told me that via his contacts he could get me the address of the author Bob Oechsler (is that how you spell it?) and that I should contact him for my thesis. I have to admit I hadn't read anything by either of them... At the time I couldn't have told you much about either, I'd heard of them and that was it.
This guy, was studying Architecture and not in the same university campus as I was in, we swapped phone numbers and then I didn't hear from him for about 3 weeks. Then he phoned me. He asked if I'd got the address and when I said I no, he went apeshit! For no reason he had gone to the illustration department, found my girlfriend who had never met him and gave the address to her. My then girlfriend was really well known around the Uni because she was a clone of Catherine Zeta Jones. You couldn't miss her really. (She's now a very well known artist.) I asked him why he had given it to her, he claimed a mutual friend had told him that if he couldn't find me that it was the best thing to do. So apparently he told her, the address was very important, she had to pass it onto me, not mention it to anyone and not lose it. He told her Bob Oechsler was wanted by the secret services and that if the address fell into the wrong hands, he could get arrested. I thought this was complete BS. I had no idea who this guy was, what he had written, why he would be wanted by whoever and why if he was wanted for some kind of espionage, cloak and dagger BS... Why give me his address. I wasn't that into contacting him anyway because my thesis was practically finished. The next thing I know this guy is harping on about clicks on the telephone and that the call was tapped. He claimed it was Menworth Hill listening in. I recall taking the piss out of him and joking about the men in black. I told him not to worry I was going over to my girlfriends later on for the night and I'd get it. I really just wanted him off the phone because I thought he was a nutter. Well after all I did meet him at a David Icke event. I came off the phone from him and Laughed about it with my housemates (the boyfriend of one was selling marijuana at the time so he was warned to not use the phone for any deals ).
After this I went over to my girlfriends, it was 5 minute walk from my house, the route went via Princes Avenue in Hull, which is a busy road with shops on it. As I walked up Princes Ave. I felt like I was being followed by someone on the other side of the road... I know this is sounding paranoid and absurd. Tbh I don't tend to tell people this, because it was one of things that led me breaking up with my girlfriend. She told people I was paranoid because of it. I did become paranoid. This person followed me into her street but by the time I got to her house ( a large three floored student house on Westbourne Avenue), He had gone or I certainly couldn't see him. I told her what had happened and she just made a joke of it. She said she wondered who this weird guy was and why he'd dumped this address on her. I asked her where it was and she said she'd left it in her illustration studio space on her desk. The thought of it just lying there made me quite anxious.
Anyway, I stayed the night and the next day I was up at 6.30 and at my studio by 7.30 ish. I was studying animation and was working in my final film, so I was putting early mornings in. The day was perfectly normal. I got the address and at the end of the day we went back to her house. Her room was on the second floor, the locked door was open and her room was ransacked. Her drawers were all on the floor and tipped out. The weird thing is that nothing was stolen. It was like someone had searched the place rather than it having been a burglary. The front door to the house was fine, no one else's rooms had been touched, nothing in the house was stolen and the only room that they'd been in was hers.
It scared the crap out of us both. Unfortunately I got labelled paranoid by the event. She took it out on me and eventually we broke up.
I spoke to the guy who gave me the address the next day. He was livid that she'd left it on her desk and once again became paranoid. I told him what had happened to her room and he told me he'd been being followed himself. I was later told by our mutual friend that he had actually tackled someone who had followed him in the centre of Hull and he'd been questioned by MIB's as to why he had been on some moortop near an RAF base taking photos. He had told me already that he had been doing this with John Allegro. I saw him once afterwards. We had a very small Students Union in the centre of Hull that was called The Strand. It was rarely used and most of the time there was only around 15-20 people who went in there regularly, so I was surprised to see him in there this one night, with three other people I didn't know. He was sitting there without a drink, covered in soot and he had no shoes on. I realised they were all covered in soot and none of them had a drink. I asked him what had happened and he told me that someone had burnt their house down that evening. He hadn't even managed to get his shoes on before getting out and they'd all left money, cards, purses, wallets in the house.
Ok so I know this all sounds stupid, far fetched and over the top. I swear it's true. I don't know who entered my girlfriends room and smashed the place up. As an older person I look back and wonder if it was him all along. After all he knew I was going to her house, he could easily have followed me. He might have been a perv after her underwear or something. Our mutual friend told me that he had a thing about my girlfriend, but to be perfectly honest she was stunning so there'd have been something wrong with him if he didn't. I don't suppose it's enough to accuse someone of breaking and entering. It's the only rational explanation I have now. At the time though it made me decide that I'd scratched the surface of something I couldn't handle and I'd stared down that rabbit hole about as much as I wanted to. So that's why I lost interest, I weened myself off the subject. For all I know John Allegro might have been dead when this happened and as for Bob Oechsler, has he ever been on the run?
I wouldn't know.
5) Goggs:
The Cryptid I experienced was in an old miners cottage that I lived in four years ago in Medomsley, County Durham. It was a small bald, grey man with jet black eyes. Apart from the obvious description it wasn't a grey. It looked nothing like the common assumption. It looked like a very small person with quite a wizened human face that was too small for its head. The only thing I can say it was similar to was Stuart Lee and Richard Herring used to joke about Leonardo Di Caprio having a tiny little face on big round head . I'm sure I may be the only person to have come face to face with a Cryptid and their first thoughts are of Leonardo Di Caprios tiny little face.
That day I'd been to see an acquaintance who was a Reiki healer. I'd only met her once before and she was one of these potty new agers who tell you stuff like 'you have Merlins energy with you. St Michael is with you and he's bringing you strength.' Anyway, I met her for a coffee at a leisure centre where she'd been giving Angel Readings. Much to my horror, she got up from her seat and in a full cafe, she started laying her hands on my crown chakra and channeling Metatron energy into me. I just had to sit there, totally embarrassed with all these locals from Stanley watching us with funny looks. All the time she's doing it, she's making weird humming noises, you know, just to make the occasion seem more normal. She may as well have had a big neon flashing light with her too that read 'screwballs over here!!'. Anyway, I let her do it, safe in the knowledge that nobody knew me. I'm not sure what she did but it felt great, as it happens. I felt envigorated afterwards.
That night I'm sitting in bed with my dog fast asleep on the end of my bed. I was sitting in the dark, listening to music on my iPod and thinking about what had happened to me that day. When the little guy just turned up. It was like he emerged from the darkness and was right in front of me. He wasn't scary at all. It was more like he was curious as to what I was. He came close up to my face and looked me over and then as quick as anything it was like he stepped backwards into the dark and he was gone. He was like a little gnome, with a large head and a tiny face. If you can imagine something a bit like The Watcher from 60's Marvel comics, your almost there. All I saw was head, neck and shoulders. I really don't think I saw much if a body or any arms.
So anyway it happened, the dog didn't wake up (not unusual, he was a lazy Tibetan terrier) and I sat in bed thinking 'WTF! That was like Leonardo Di Caprio with a tiny little face.' I got up put the light on and went and made a cuppa.
I mentioned it to Angel Rose the Reiki woman when she phoned the next day to see how I was after her 'gift' to me. She said it was an elemental. She'd lifted my energy vibration and it was probably just passing through, saw my energy and out of curiosity checked me out. Well she speaks to Merlin so who am I to argue. Presumably, he's sitting on a toadstool smoking his pipe and telling someone how he once had this strange encounter with a fat, Northern English bloke sitting in the dark with an iPod on.
6) Goggs:
The main thrust of my thesis was the social aspects of the footage; why was it made, who by, what would their reasons be for making it and what impact it may have. Well that was the intention, I daresay I must have managed something because they gave me my degree. I have to be honest it was a mess and a good two thirds of it was recounting the history of the crash, the arguments for and against and then the last third on the footage. The only footage I could get was from a Channel 4 documentary. Much to my horror, my mum actually phoned Bob Ricard up, from a phone number in the front of The Fortean Times and asked him for a copy. I gather he wasn't very happy with her, as he had nothing to do with the footage.
7) Nameless:
Pleased to make your acquaintance to, mate.
Well I think that's everyone answered. It was a long one. I write fiction, so excuse me for the length of the reply. Everything I've told you is true to my experiences... I suppose we could debate truth and if the truth exists or if it's only expanded memory, reality shaped by belief, perception etc. I rather like Timothy Leary's idea of the reality tunnel that Robert Anton Wilson used to cite. All I can say is it's my truth. If you want to take it with a pinch of salt that's fine.
Best wishes to you all and I'll try and post more regularly than once every 2 years.
I feel quite sceptical myself, reading all that. That's my biggest flaw, I experience something strange and then try to explain it away.
