March 14, 2007

Boy from the 70s

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] [Name Withheld Upon Request], Newark, Illinois, 1989

When I was 11, we lived in an old farmhouse just south of Newark, Illinois. The house was very old and it was empty for a very long time before we moved in. The encounters started when it was being remodeled. Some of the occurrences were quite random and others were a regular occurrence.

We had an old clock radio that we would listen to while we worked. One night the radio cut out and there was a whistling sound that seemed to come from all around at us at once. It wasn't a power outage because all the other lights remained on and the clock which had been blinking 12:00 showed a steady 3:17. This all lasted for about 30 seconds.

We had a dog that we kept on the property that at any time we brought him in the house he would immediately run upstairs and bark down the hallway nonstop. There was a room at the end of the hall and we figured he was seeing his reflection in the bedroom window so we kept the door shut but he still carried on. We had to resort to keeping the door at the bottom of the stairs closed.

I also regularly encountered a teenage boy. I don't really know how to explain it. It was like I was always catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and he was always stepping around the corner and out of my site. But what I saw was consistent. He looked like he stepped out of the 70's. He was wearing a green football jersey -- the cottons ones with the stretchy stripes on the sleeve which where yellow/white/yellow. The last number on the jersey was either a 3, 8, or maybe a 9. He was also wearing blue jeans with those old blue Nike's (like the ones Forrest Gump gets in the movie).

There's another one that happened all the time. We had a window air conditioning unit in the living room and the shade did not come all the way down so there would be about a 6-inch bar of sunlight that would shine through. This bar would disappear and reappear from one end to the other as if someone was walking in front of the window. It would happen several times in row and then quit. It wasn't someone outside. We would all be in the house. The house was also out in the boonies, our nearest neighbor was a mile away. It wasn't the dogs either as neither one was tall enough to block the window.

There were other random happenings: cupboards opening, doors shutting, and strange distant sounds. We only lived there about 5 months or so. My mom still swears there was nothing wrong with the house. It wasn't until I was grown and out on my own that my dad told me that he saw some of the things like the disappearing sun light. He also admitted that the clock radio thing really creaped him out but he acted nonchalant when it happened because he didn't want me to freak out. He also told me that on several occasions when he was home alone he would have this overwhelming feeling of dread that would drive him out of the house.