There are continual debates over the actual existence of apparitions, hauntings, and the restless spirits on the other side. Perhaps due to traumatic and unexpected deaths these lost souls continue to walk the earth or perhaps they cannot find the portal that leads to a new dimension and existence for the soul once the body has died. Some ghost hunters claim that familiar places may simply be revisited by one who has passed out of fondness or the inability to simply let go of a past life. Some researchers like John Keel believe that the supernatural is comprised of a variety of visitations from UFO’s to demons, from Fortean phenomenon, to fairies and Leprechauns, even Bigfoot sightings seem to be more than just the sighting of a physical being as many Indian tribes believe.

Reaching across the lines separating the living and dead

Yet, as Harry Houdini, the famous escape artist and magician was to find out, there are charlatans who will shamelessly create hoaxes for fame and fortune. Houdini desperately tried to reach his beloved mother after she died saying she promised her son that when she passed into the afterlife she would make an attempt to contact him from beyond the grave. However, Harry only exposed hoaxers in his attempt to reach his deceased mother. When Houdini died from an intestinal rupture just before going into one of his escape acts even his surviving wife attempted to reach him beyond the realm of the living but to no avail.

The historic unknown

In my personal walk of life I have had the peculiar privilege of sharing some amazing and chilling firsthand accounts of both ghostly encounters and those who have seen UFO’s. All of these happening in the state of Texas. Being the second largest state in the US and the largest by far among the 48 domestic zoned states there are thousands of square miles of history making sites, Indian burial mounds, pioneer graveyards, battlefields, and even remnants of the old “Pony Express” route where stage coaches delivered mail, transported passengers, and even stopped so their patrons could take hot steam baths in route to their destinations.

On a lonely street

Gary was a good friend of my brother while he attended junior high and high school. They became inseparable buddies, getting into mischief, racing cars, and having a few beers on a Saturday Night. Gary came from a blue collar family with a father who was often gone as a trucker and his mother being an office manager. He worked a paper route job after school. One night was he bundled and wrapped newspapers on the curb of a North Dallas neighborhood beneath a dim street lamp a strange encounter occurred. Gary was a straight forward guy who got right to the point. He didn’t have the time or patience to waste people’s time with fake stories, and what he saw that night changed his mind about the paranormal forever!

Who or what?

As he sat alone on the street in the gloom of a weekend night the strange noise of shuffling feet eerily echoed from down the road. At first he couldn’t make out the direction or source of the sound. Finally looking down the long paved street he saw in the distance a little figure coming his way. The shuffling of feet seemed to be coming from the child-like figure coming toward him. As Gary watched he seemed to be able to make out what looked like a young boy.

Odd visitation

The child was dressed in a 1940’s sleep outfit that resembled a full length, one piece night gown looking more like a striped shirt with a long shirt tail untucked at the bottom. The boy was wearing a night cap as well. Oddly, he had his hands folded in front of him as she shuffled along making this loud noise on the pavement as he moved closer with a transfixed expression on his face.

Moment of terror

Gary, thinking it might be a kid sleep walking and had not yet taken too much alarm out of the bizarre situation that was, until the little shuffling figure passed beneath the next regularly spaced street lamp closest to Gary’s seated position. As the small figure moved across the sidewalk now illuminated by the light post from above Gary saw that the figure was translucent! He could almost see right through the child-like entity that was walking toward him. Immediately he was paralyzed with fear! Now, he knew he was not witnessing a normal event! No, he was staring at the ghost of a child rigidly shuffling its feet as it made its way down the lonesome street! Never uttering a word as it passed through the night!

No need for this job

Needless to say, Gary did not stick around to ask questions! He took off on a dead run leaving not only a stack of newspapers he was supposed to have delivered, but even his bicycle! That was the last of his paper route job. He never returned to his job again. After a few inquiries in the neighborhood and among kids who lived in the area once he was back at school there were some interesting facts that turned up.

A child some years before had been drowned in a creek that paralleled the street that was part of Gary’s paper route. Rumor had it that either during a storm or a freakish ground tremor that had changed the course of the creek so that the young boy had been swept away by flood waters. The creeks in the area have deep culverts more than 10 to 12 feet and are wide. Children love to play in them during most times of the year when there are no storms raging or the rainy season is underway, but sudden flash floods can transform a babbling brook into a rushing wall of surging destruction that can sweep away an adult and even snag someone underneath tangled up tree branches or underbrush when rising waters scour the creek bed. Gary would never forget that bizarre rendezvous with the unexplained as he sat on a quiet dimly lit street in the dead of night wrapping newspapers and hearing the odd shuffling sound that led to his unnerving encounter.

In Part II we will explore more unearthly encounters from Texas eye witnesses.