Reader Information

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Seeing and Hearing Things in Ohio


Over the years, I have received hundreds of anomalous accounts from the state of Ohio. In fact, I believe I've received more submissions from Ohio than any other state in the US. The range of sightings and encounters encompasses every level of the supernatural. The following submissions include multiple interesting phenomena:

Dear Mr. Strickler,

"I will be upfront an honest with you. I am one of those who want to believe. However, I am also one of those who is very skeptical. I have read the books of Eric Von D, Robert Bauval and others. Mainstream media has tickled my interests in DaVinci and the Free Masons. And for over 15 yrs or so (now being in my early 30's) I have always had a love of Mayan, Inca, and ancient Egyptian societies. Maybe a year or so ago while watching something on NatGeo/SyFy/History Channel, I was browsing the WWW and came across your blog. I have followed on and off since then, and with your posts of the little lizard man and most recently your post of the "Red Man", they kinda hit home for me. With "V", I felt that if this person could come forward then I know I am not alone and they may also know that they are not alone in having an experience."

"I was born and raised in NE Ohio. I had a normal upbringing (or what some would call). Parents are still married, went to church on Sundays, had a dog, picket fence, all those things. I did a little marijuana in high school, I rarely drink, and there is only one reported case of a mental illness in my family."

"When I was 12-13 yrs old, I remember having a very vivid dream where I was sitting in my living room watching TV. While watching TV (which in my dream I was viewing myself in 3rd person) something made me want to look out through the dining room and out through the large sliding glass door into the backyard. When I turned my head, it was completely dark outside, and then in almost a comedic way of film, this giant moon slid up from below the horizon (like from the 9 to 12 position on a clock). The moon was enormous, almost filling the sky and was brilliantly white. As I sit dumbfounded in my dream staring out the back window, something pulls my legs out from under me while I'm sitting on them on the floor. This startled me but while in my dream I am still staring at the moon this voice from what I can only assume was in my head said, "its almost over"."

"This frightened me horribly. So much that I woke up hot and sweaty only to find my bedroom door partially open with a small, dark figure closing the door and saying without moving his mouth "don't tell"."

"I don't recall really any of the small humanoid's features. I just recall him being about 2-2.5 ft tall and seeing the figures darker than gray complexion and nothing moved on its face when I heard it speak. Even to this day this incident is one of the most vivid memories that I have."

(Seeing your photo of the reptile man was nearly like pulling out a photo of my head from that past memory)

"I mentioned nothing of this occurrence until a just a few years ago to a close friend. I never even told my wife."

"Well I went off to college, came back home, got married, had a couple of kids and just over a year ago bought my parents house. On and off since the encounter/dream/incident (whatever you would like to call it because I don't) I get this feeling like I'm being observed. Not the kind of being watched where you are sitting up at night unable to sleep and you feel like someone is watching you through the window. More like something is waiting for me as I walk into rooms and sitting in the car with me while I drive to work. This was only in small increments and I never felt it to be constant. But since moving back home, I am feeling it more so."

"My son is the fun age of 5 and recently started talking about some guy he met here at home named 'Kyle Foker'. He tells my wife and I that he has seen him all over the house. Yes he is a child, with an imagination. But while giving him the 20 questions over his new friend I am rattling my brain on what TV show/commercial/movie he could have come up with this, and so far have come up with nothing."

"While that is going on I was in the kitchen just a week or so ago talking to my mom and for some reason I felt compelled to look the other way and I saw a dark figure. This figure that I saw had an upside down triangle for a torso and a rectangular block for a head. When I turned to look I could tell that it looked at me because while my brain was trying to comprehend what I just had seen, I could see that the block head sort of rotated and proceeded to take an immediate left and zip its way through my stairs that go up to our bedrooms."

"From everything that I know, no one has died on this property. (My grandfather that lived with my parents and I (at my current location) for a few years while from the time I was six until I was in high school became ill with Alzheimer's and later passed away having a complication from a stroke at a hospice center.) But I am afraid partially for my sanity but more for my family. Although no one has been hurt in any way, I can't help to think like a father/husband and want to protect my family from any possible threat. But my issue here is that what the hell am I dealing with? Possible alien thing, spirit, mental illness, or D: all of the above? Am I seeing one thing and my son is seeing something else?"

'Any help you could lend would be greatly appreciated."

Sincerely,

Seeing Things in Ohio

**********

It's getting close to summer and we (living at our 1902 farmhouse) are expecting the brothers to start arguing again.

We moved into the house in July, 2007, but before we did, our new neighbors told us the place was haunted. The sellers did not disclose this information to us. I don't know if the "heavy" atmosphere in the house can be attributed to the warning or if it felt "funny" because of the big old empty spaces, but I went upstairs one day and said, in one of the bedrooms to no one in particular: "If there's anyone here, you are welcome to stay. Just no parlor tricks. You know, things levitating or apparitions popping up in the dead of night or behind you when you're looking at a mirror."

At first we heard voices, as if there was a family gathering. Then, the porch light going off, then coming back on. Then my husband reported a bag of homemade cookies fell off a shelf and into his lap, which would have taken some force since he was sitting a few feet away. A library book flying off the center island, which might have been knocked off from vibrations of us walking around it, though we haven't been able to reproduce it. There's been humming and more talking. And one night, while we were both trying to sleep, I was just about to say something about a woman talking when my husband asked, "Do you hear that? Sounds like a--"...."Female", I answered.

The next year my husband mentioned hearing two male voices outside, discussing business in an intense way. Our neighbors aren't close and they're not night owls, and my husband heard them mention doing something "after death." My daughter reported the same conversation.

It was last year when I heard the voices, apparently right outside the family room, where we keep our computer. I wasn't frightened, but was skeptical. A few nights later, I returned home after work. I work late into the evenings, so I returned about 2 am I heard two male voices yelling at each other. I couldn't make out what they were saying, and the first thing I thought was some kids were arguing. Outside. At 2 am in the morning. And none of my neighbors were disturbed by the sound of it as no lights popped on or police cars entered my drive.

With a cold chill I realized that these arguing men could be the same heard by my husband and daughter. I did not hesitate in getting into the house.

There could be a reasonable explanation. A sound arc. Two people arguing in the middle of the night, outside on a warm evening.

However, earlier this year, my husband went into the hardware store to get something to fix an old doorknob. In conversation with an elderly shopper, my husband mentioned the difficulty in finding the right items to fix something in an old house.

The man asked him some particulars, where he lived, how old the place is, etc. My husband told him....the man's reply gave me chills.

"I know the place," my husband reported to me. "Are those brothers still arguing?"

I'm hoping they will settle sometime soon.

HD, Ohio

**********

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this to you in order to add it to your many varied collections of the paranormal and oddity phenomena reported daily.

I am a 29 year old man and I have read through several stories on your site.

I thought I would share with you and your readers one of the many strange things I have personally experienced, and like other people I would like to know if they too had this type to experience; in September 2008 my best friend Ciera (pronounced Sierra) and I went to a park named Hocking Hills in Ohio for a day retreat from our busy lives. She and I had decided on this at random when we first got together early in the morning just after sunrise; it was a nice warm late summer day and we'd just decided to make a full day drive and hike out of it. Hocking Hills is well known for it's several walking trails, a cave or two, and several water falls and running water / creek areas. The day was very warm, sunny, hardly a cloud over head, and very nice.

We started a walk at random and found that one of the trails had been washed out so we had to take another path which forced us to cross a road; on the other side was a tall fire look out ranger's station which doubled as a Fire Tower. We had seen a lot of people out walking with us that day and a few hiker/backpackers had passed us by on their treks up until that point. We played with our phones a bit on the way to show each other some pictures we took a few days before on a different outing and noted it was roughly after 12-noon when we came out of the woods and walked across the road; it was then that we noticed there was caution tape all over the fire tower, there was a pungent smell in the air which we could not identify, the windows on top of the tower appeared to be taped up, grimy, and there were flies all over the area. We walked past it, commenting how odd it was, and continued down a seemingly new trail we hadn't seen on a previous walk in the area. The trail took us past the fire tower and then cut into the woodlands; as we walked into the forest we took notice that no one seemed to be around. In fact not only did we feel isolated from others but we felt very chilled without explanation. That day had been very warm as we both wore very cool clothing and when we entered the forest it began to feel very cool, much cooler than we expected and we both were shivering as we felt the temperature drop.

As we continued down the way my friend pointed out that it was getting darker than either of us should have expected or seemed to be - we looked around and there were nothing but trees on all sides, there should have been a forest edge somewhere as the area wasn't really that big but aside from some hills and tall pine trees there wasn't a real 'ending' to the woods like we expected as the area tends to be narrow and normally you can see the edges. She took out her phone to use her GPS because she instinctively felt lost but her battery was nearly gone, I took mine out and it had no signal, the battery was also near dead, and showed "EE:EE" for the time (meaning it couldn't update as it was a older style flip-phone with camera and when set to auto-adjust would contact the mobile phone network every 15 min).

It was only then as the light grew dimmer as we continued on our way that I noticed it was very silent suddenly. Our foot steps echoed, the leaves, grass, twigs, and our breathing just echoed. Ciera got spooked and I did too, she mentioned it was very out of ordinary. I agreed but I couldn't shake this sense of foreboding that something was amiss. I tried to rationalize it but I really, honestly, couldn't figure any of it out at all.

We continued forwards going down a small hill on trail and back up when it got darker. The world seemed to have gone from shadowy to near twilight darkness. My friend grabbed my arm and started freaking out about how weird it got - then the air grew chillier, and had a feeling of something wrong. We both took off running looking for an exit, for some odd reason we never thought to turn around at all as we ran we could hear our steps echo off the area as things just felt like they grew more gloomy.

Then ahead of us down a small hill and back up the other side we could see two large bushes on either side of the trail like a gate. We made a mad dash for the bushes and just as we pushed through the plants something odd happened - we were nearly blinded by light as sound and warmth returned all at once. It was like stepping outside of a cold, empty, and dark building to a warm busy street. We stood at the edge of a place known as Old Mans Cave which has a large water fall and a u-shaped cliff where you can look down into where the water and people gather. We turned around and the bushes were the same but the area was different, brighter, not silent for sure, and warm. In fact our skin was cold to touch which just reinforced the facts. We took out our phones and the time had finally updated, it was now 4pm. The normal trail would only have taken an hour to walk fully so it was a loss of three full hours!

Logic attempted to set in and we decided the trail we came up must have just appeared creepy because there may have been clouds over head or a storm blew by but when we went back between the bushes there was no trail. Nothing looked like it had a few seconds ago. Ciera walked around the bushes twice and it was the same bright sunny day with no darkness and no trail. We waited, it was blue sky over head and we could see the edges of the forest and other people. The trail had simply vanished as if we had never walked it.

On returning past the trail where the fire tower was located, we noticed it was normal looking and there was a blond haired young lady with her hair in a pony tail climbing the steps, the windows were not taped and very clean, and no pungent smell. We don't know what it was, but it certainly was creepy. Of course I jokingly told her later that day over dinner we had entered the faerie realms by mistake and were lucky to get away. She didn't find that funny of course but either way we felt we should share this with you and if anyone out there has had a similar experience perhaps they can provide insight.

Thanks again,

- Danny

Strange Ohio Monsters

The Headless Horror: Strange and Ghostly Ohio Tales

Ohio Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff, 2nd Edition

Weird Ohio: Your Travel Guide to Ohio's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets