Real Life Mysteries

by Kris Neri

When you consider that I write paranormal fiction, in addition to humorous traditional mysteries, and that I love fantasy fiction, I have no fondness for real life encounters with things that go bump in the night, or any other time.

When you write or read fantasy, it’s not necessary to believe in any of it. That’s why it’s called fantasy. You can buy into some of it, or just enjoy a trip to another world, which might be similar to ours, but really different in other ways, without believing in any of it.

I used to maintain a strictly skeptical bent on all things woo-woo. Although some questionable things did happen to me on occasion, I always found another way to explain them. I’ve also had prophetic dreams, but I wrote those off to coincidences.

Then we had an author come to sign at our bookstore, who was an EMT who claimed she communed with  those who had passed over while she tried to help them during the course of doing her job. I didn’t necessarily believe, although I figured she did. I even enjoyed her nonfiction book, although I approached it as if it were fiction.

But when she appeared before the sizeable crowd she drew, a round shadow suddenly popped up on the wall behind her, where there was nothing to cast a shadow. To say I was freaked was a criminal understatement. I kept trying to find a logical explanation, but logic totally eluded me.

After the author left, I tentatively broached the subject of that distinctive orb cast on the wall with a customer. “Oh, sure, that was an entity,” the customer said. “I figured she brought it along with her.”

Wasn’t that nice of her? Shouldn’t she have asked permission first?

In all the years we operated our bookstore out of that suite, which was more than six, I never again saw anything like that, but neither was I able to forget it, or explain it away. Maybe there really are more things in heaven and earth… Even if this paranormal writer doesn’t want to believe it. I wish that incident were unique, but I experienced too, too many things I can’t explain.

We recently encountered another real life mystery that proved to be just as troubling and just as perplexing. While in New Mexico on vacation, we had repeated problems with a super loud TV in the room next door every night. While it playing at different hours, the TV was always tuned to a soccer game.

We put up with it one night. When it was repeated the next night, my husband initially went next door to talk to our inconsiderate neighbors. He knocked over and over, but no one answered. By then the TV was at a staggering volume, so he assumed they simply couldn’t hear. He went downstairs to report it to someone at the desk, while I remained in our room.

While he was gone, the TV went off. Joe came back with the night manager, who insisted there weren’t  any guests registered in that room. We thought that an employee might have used his passkey to enter it, and used that place to hide out and watch a soccer game when he was supposed to be on duty. But the night manager insisted that there was no indication that anyone had used the room since it was made-up by the maid days earlier.

Maybe so, maybe not. Neither Joe nor I had gone into the room with him, so we weren’t able to verify it either way. The TV had gone off by then, which was all we cared about.

Next night, same thing. Televised soccer game played at maximum volume, though at a different time than the night before. This time Joe went straight downstairs. With the night manager off that night, the head of security accompanied him back upstairs.

Joe entered that room with the security guy. The TV was still on, still playing at full volume, airing another soccer game. But the room was dark. When they turned on the lights, the condition of the room was perfect. As the night manager had insisted the night before, there was no sign that anyone had ever sat on the bed to watch the game. There was nothing to indicate anyone had entered the room at all, apart from those checking on a TV that seemed to turn itself on.

Joe pulled the plug on the TV, and it never bothered us again, although we only spent one more night  there. The security man maintained there was no way to program the TV to either go on or go off with the remotes the hotel provided. I’m still looking for that logical explanation, though. Maybe there were other remotes that the staff had access to, which had greater capabilities. Maybe some guest in another room had a way of activating TV sets through the wall or from across the hall, just to play with people’s heads. Maybe someone really did sneak in and out quietly, watching soccer games in stealth, and taking pains to leave the room in faultless condition.

The security officer also said that the hotel maids reported that strange things often happened in that wing and floor of the hotel. We didn't ask what they meant by "strange."

I’m still clinging to any one of the logical explanations I’ve managed to come up with. But it’s getting harder.

What do you believe? Have you had encounters you can’t explain?

 

Comments

[Susan Neace]

It was 1970, it was nearly 1:00 a.m. and I was on my way to pick up my husband when he finished playing (musician) I was driving his little Kharman Gia, on a one way street where the lights were timed so if you were driving the right speed, you would hit all the lights on green. There were a couple of guys in a big car in the next lane, also timing the lights so the noses of our two cars were roughly level as we drove. As we approached the next light, a voice I have never heard said in my head, "people run that light sometimes" and I was shocked and hit the brakes, dropping the Gia back a car length behind the other car. As the other car (still on a green light) crossed the intersection, another big car ran the red light, hit the car I had been next to, and threw it into my lane. I stopped the Gia before it hit the two cars now blocking the intersection, where I would have been creamed but for the voice. It has never happened again. I have no explanation.

[Skipper Hammond]

When we were kids, we looked for and found mysterious phenomena like the warning voice and blaring TV. Wish I could still find them; they're so much fun.

[krisneri]

Susan, reading your story gave me a chill. Someone was sure looking out for you.

[krisneri]

Skipper, I'll leave finding them to you, okay? I'll hope they come to you instead of me. ;)

[Elaine Viets]

Good blog,Kris. Wen I worked as a hotel maid, we had a "trouble room." That was the room with the suicide, the couple who had loud fights, the woman who caught her husband cheating on her. We wondered why -- maybe because it was on the top at the top of a staircase.
Looking for a logical explanation: was there a short in the ghostly TV on/off switch?

[krisneri]

Elaine, you're right -- it must have been a short. It does weird me out to know certain hotel rooms have bad mojo.

[Joe Neri]

Not an electrical short, not unless it was on a timer to turn the TV on at the same time every night.

I'm going with the paranormal explanation!

[Storyteller Mary]

On the Delta Queen in 2004, I slept the first night in the lounge, because our little cabin had mold from water damage, and I couldn't breathe . . . very allergic. As I tried to sleep, I heard some interesting sounds, four knocks about every 30 seconds. I saw a picture of Captain Mary Becker Greene hanging near my refuge. She looked like someone it would be fun to know. The ship’s info sheet the next day featured rumors that Captain Mary’s presence is still felt on the boat . . . perhaps looking out for a female passenger in distress. There is much information on Captain Mary, one of the first female pilots of a riverboat. She allowed no liquor to be served on the boat; after her death, that rule was changed, and the bar section was struck by a boat, the Mary B!

[Marcia Talley]

Oooooooooh, Kris. Your post made the hair stand up on my arms! Spooooo-keee! A perfect story for Hallowe'en.

[krisneri]

Mary, that experience would totally weird me out! Hard to find a logical explanation for that, too.

Thanks, Marcia.