The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial

[Foxfyre]

Faith and religion have nothing to do with the question of the existence of things like paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestial. They may exist or they may not, but the truth is the truth either way.

True, but our faith or lack thereof could very definitely have a bearing on how we perceive or interpret a paranormal experience.

 

[Steelplate]

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported. It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.

ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.

I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.

 

[IGetItAlready]

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported. It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.

I believe he was referring more to different species rather than different races of people. IE: Big cats kill amphibians, invertebrates and other mammals and have developed advanced hunting techniques with which to do so. The same is true of Killer Whales and other predators.
He was simply making the case that advanced intelligence and peacefulness or an evolution beyond doing harm to another living being, do not necessarily go hand in hand.

 

[Foxfyre]

I do think my theory that visitors from other worlds to ours would not have harming us in mind because if they're here, they haven't done that and would almost certainly have the capability to do so.

Looking to Spielberg's movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", I would hope that our government would realize we have no capability of any kind to fight an invasion of beings with the knowhow and ability to come here. So we might as well figure out how to greet them as friends in the spirit of how we greeted the fictictous visitors in that movie.

 

[Foxfyre]

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported. It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.

ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.

I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.

Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies. But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way. And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.

We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.

 

[SayMyName]

It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

I kinda feel the same way as Hawking does on this matter.

 

[IGetItAlready]

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

I kinda feel the same way as Hawking does on this matter.

I tend to agree. CRASS, INAPPROPRIATE HUMOR ALERT!!! Aside from how to walk, talk or feed himself, what DOESN'T Hawking know.

 

[ItsjustmeIthink]

It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

I think the issue there is that Hawking infers that extraterrestrials will have a human way of thinking. I think how they perceive things would be, maybe, more interesting than their tech.

Edit: I still think this applies for animals and other non-human, earth-bound organisms. What I mean to say is that the concept of the food chian, survival of the fittest, what a predator is, etc etc are all specific to Earth; i.e. 'Earthlings' have created these concepts from scratch with their humans minds and I think that doesn't give us much reason to think that other, alien life would be inheirently predacious.

 

[American Horse]

I do think my theory that visitors from other worlds to ours would not have harming us in mind because if they're here, they haven't done that and would almost certainly have the capability to do so.

Looking to Spielberg's movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", I would hope that our government would realize we have no capability of any kind to fight an invasion of beings with the knowhow and ability to come here. So we might as well figure out how to greet them as friends in the spirit of how we greeted the fictictous visitors in that movie.

I agree with you, and not much with Hawking who did in the last year or so make comments about the possibility of dangers in making alien contact. It's always possible for an "out of control/self replicating" highly technological and artificial entity to overrun our sector of the galaxy, mining raw planetary material into more of their own kind with a prejudice or nonchalance to life-forms that get in their way.

In that scenario it would be possible to obviate the vast time scales needed to cross space, since as machines, not biological matter vulnerable to the harsh radiation and cosmic rays, they could for their purposes be indestructible, immortal, and self perpetuating with a single "minded" goal.

But barring a bizarre scenario like that, the investment is too great for an entity to reach across space, even between stars a few light years apart, and be bent on destruction of the rare intelligent fellow traveler they might encounter. They could only carrry the biological seed of their race and civilization, not a whole population.

If they come, thay can have Mars, or one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

 

[American Horse]

I believe there is no question there is alien intelligence in our home galaxy. There is no convincing evidence or firm support they have reached our environs. There is a very large community of observers qualified to identify one by separating ordinary ambiguous phenomenon from real encounters or sightings but they don't identify any legitimate sightings.

There is a very large community of constant and daily observers of the sky, astronomers, professional and amateur, who spend a lot of time looking at the skies as a lifetime avocation. They have the advantage of convenience and opportunity to spot likely events and they don't. Anyone can search out forums where astronomers talk their interest and you'll not find any mention, except by the newbie visitor asking for answers who believe they have seen something unexplainable by natural phenomena.

 

[Montrovant]

I'm pretty skeptical of most paranormal ideas. Ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, etc...I am of the opinion that most of the time, when people see something strange and unexplained, they put their own label to it without really having enough evidence. I imagine that the vast majority of cases have a more mundane explanation, but because they are so rare or unusual, people who experience them believe in something supernatural, instead. And let's face it, there are plenty of things in the natural world that can appear supernatural!

As far as alien life, I think there's a good chance it exists. I don't know about intelligent life, but everything we have seen tells us the universe is vast almost beyond imagining. If life could arise on earth, whether through natural, random occurrence or at the impetus of some intelligence, there's no reason to think it can't happen elsewhere. It is also quite possible that there has been life elsewhere in the distant past that no longer exists, that we are currently the only life in the universe, and that life will spring up on other planets in the future. Again, the vastness of the space and time involved make me question the reasoning of anyone who denies the possibility.

I don't especially think this planet has been visited by alien life. Perhaps if some way were found to surpass the barrier of the speed of light, greatly surpass it, we might have intelligent visitors. I don't know if that is taken into account often enough in this type of discussion; it could take ridiculously long periods of time to travel to other planets. Even at the speed of light it would take any alien visitor about 4 years to get here from the closest star to us. Much as I love sci-fi and want to see interstellar travel happen, it may be that the distances are to great and there is no way possible to traverse them in a reasonable timeframe.
As to the many supposed UFO sightings, alien abductions, crop circles, and various other supposed examples of non-terrestrial life, none of them have been compelling to me. I don't believe the people who say they have been abducted. Sorry, I need more than someone's testimony to buy that idea. With UFO's, again, the number of people who have supposedly seen alien craft seems ridiculous. It makes this planet appear to be some kind of interstellar traffic light! And again, I expect most or all such sightings have a more mundane, if perhaps unusual, explanation.

 

[FA_Q2]

If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported. It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.

ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.

I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.

Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies. But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way. And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.

We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.

And there is your key. Sure, advancement has ensured a more peaceful approach to our own kind because if it did not we would never have advanced. It has also seen the complete subjugation of all other life on this planet. We keep pets in cages and subject animals to some pretty horrific treatment in the food industry in order to feed the world. Essentially, ‘lesser’ life forms would not agree with your conclusion that we are far more peaceful. That is exactly what we would be to an alien civilization that is capable of getting here – ‘lesser.’ I don’t think that aliens would travel all this way for nothing be it resources, space for colonization, research or simple exploration. Only the latter example might work out for us.

All in all, while I do not believe in the supernatural I do believe there is life out there other than us. What I cannot agree with is the idea that it has visited us before or is currently visiting us now. If they were here and wanted to remain unseen there is essentially no way that we would have seen them. The technological gap would be breathtaking as they not only would need to break the speed of light, they would need to solve a thousand other needs for real space travel. If they did not care about being seen, there would not be any question to their existence. It would be obvious.

The accounts of abduction are even more off the charts. Most of them involve a secrete message to save the world that somehow missed anyone of importance and ended up with the guy in the trailer park or they involve some sexual tryst with an alien/hybrid. Really? That makes ZERO sense. Crop circles? Sure, there are a ton of reasons that an alien would want to bend wheat….

Maybe cow mutilations because what the aliens really want is beef.

No, they are not here as far as I can tell. My mother is a HUGE believer in aliens and I was subjected to all the conspiracy theories and alien ‘UFOologists’ that you can find. At the time, I believed in it all (young impressionable mind and all that). When I was 10 I read a good book on the subject by Carl Sagan: A Demon Haunted World that really opened my eyes and got my critical thinking skills started. He asked the one question that was avoided by everyone else: WHY? If you can give me a good motivation for visitation and the occurrences that are attributed to them, perhaps I can start to agree again but the truth is, there are no fathomable reasons for ET to fly hundreds of light years to bend some wheat, cut up a cow and tell Johnny that we need to start recycling more.

If we do ever encounter a benevolent species I would imagine it would happen more like Contact or The Day The Earth Stood Still.

 

[Foxfyre]

Faith and religion have nothing to do with the question of the existence of things like paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestial. They may exist or they may not, but the truth is the truth either way.

But truth may or may not be a factor in what we believe. Do people see ghosts because they believe in ghosts? Or because there are ghosts?

Do people believe they have encountered an angel because they believe in angels? Or because there are angels?

Do people see exterrestrial spacecraft or beings because they believe they exist? Or because they do exist?

And I think very often our faith comes from our religion whether that be theistic or based on other passions such as math or science.

 

[Foxfyre]

ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.

I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.

Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies. But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way. And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.

We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.

And there is your key. Sure, advancement has ensured a more peaceful approach to our own kind because if it did not we would never have advanced. It has also seen the complete subjugation of all other life on this planet. We keep pets in cages and subject animals to some pretty horrific treatment in the food industry in order to feed the world. Essentially, ‘lesser’ life forms would not agree with your conclusion that we are far more peaceful. That is exactly what we would be to an alien civilization that is capable of getting here – ‘lesser.’ I don’t think that aliens would travel all this way for nothing be it resources, space for colonization, research or simple exploration. Only the latter example might work out for us.

All in all, while I do not believe in the supernatural I do believe there is life out there other than us. What I cannot agree with is the idea that it has visited us before or is currently visiting us now. If they were here and wanted to remain unseen there is essentially no way that we would have seen them. The technological gap would be breathtaking as they not only would need to break the speed of light, they would need to solve a thousand other needs for real space travel. If they did not care about being seen, there would not be any question to their existence. It would be obvious.

The accounts of abduction are even more off the charts. Most of them involve a secrete message to save the world that somehow missed anyone of importance and ended up with the guy in the trailer park or they involve some sexual tryst with an alien/hybrid. Really? That makes ZERO sense. Crop circles? Sure, there are a ton of reasons that an alien would want to bend wheat….

Maybe cow mutilations because what the aliens really want is beef.

No, they are not here as far as I can tell. My mother is a HUGE believer in aliens and I was subjected to all the conspiracy theories and alien ‘UFOologists’ that you can find. At the time, I believed in it all (young impressionable mind and all that). When I was 10 I read a good book on the subject by Carl Sagan: A Demon Haunted World that really opened my eyes and got my critical thinking skills started. He asked the one question that was avoided by everyone else: WHY? If you can give me a good motivation for visitation and the occurrences that are attributed to them, perhaps I can start to agree again but the truth is, there are no fathomable reasons for ET to fly hundreds of light years to bend some wheat, cut up a cow and tell Johnny that we need to start recycling more.

If we do ever encounter a benevolent species I would imagine it would happen more like Contact or The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Wow, a very well reasoned and constructed post. Kudos.

Crop circles have already been pretty well debunked by those who have figured out how to make them and do. Cattle mutilations have been less conclusive and who knows who has done that? I do not for a minute think it was aliens, however, as it makes no sense to single out cattle.

But that brings us to the 'why'. When we cannot fathom scientific technology that would allow the 'how' of them getting here in the first place, I can accept that we might not yet be evolved enough to grasp the 'why' either. So that is a question of course I have, but not one that particularly bothers me. As for 'being seen' or 'not being seen', I could believe that they would at times choose to be seen, maybe to test how we would react to them? I don't know. But it is all fascinating to me.

Meanwhile those of us who have not encountered other beings or been aboard spacecraft are limited to the film versions of hostile visitors: "War of the Worlds" or "Independence Day" versus friendly visitors: "E.T." or "Close Encounters. . ." or "Star Man" or others.

Or we still have the conspiracy theories as you mention, not the least of which are some kind of bizarre government experiments at Area 51.

 

[Dajjal]

Nowdays it is immposible to look up into the sky and expect to see anything but human creations. Either you are seeing some kind of aircraft, or if you see strange things in the sky at night you are probably seeing space junk, or the space station.

But back in the days of sputnic one, I used to go out into the garden in Kent, England when the sputnic was reported to be passing over head. I saw the sputnic once, and it was quite bright, and it moved smoothly across the visible sky in a couple of minutes.

BUT! while I was looking for it, I noticed something else was moving. It looked like any other star, but it was slowly moving in relation to other stars. Then it stopped moving for a couple of minutes, then it moved off again very slowly. It took about twenty minutes to cross the night sky, and it stopped and started moving again in a regular pattern. I saw this phenomina twice on different nights while looking for the sputnic. The only other thing up there at that time was the U2 spy plane, and that could not stop.

Considering there was nothing up there that could stop moving and start again, at the time, I have always wondered what it could have been. It was definately an unidentified flying object.

 

[Foxfyre]

I'm pretty skeptical of most paranormal ideas. Ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, etc...I am of the opinion that most of the time, when people see something strange and unexplained, they put their own label to it without really having enough evidence. I imagine that the vast majority of cases have a more mundane explanation, but because they are so rare or unusual, people who experience them believe in something supernatural, instead. And let's face it, there are plenty of things in the natural world that can appear supernatural!

As far as alien life, I think there's a good chance it exists. I don't know about intelligent life, but everything we have seen tells us the universe is vast almost beyond imagining. If life could arise on earth, whether through natural, random occurrence or at the impetus of some intelligence, there's no reason to think it can't happen elsewhere. It is also quite possible that there has been life elsewhere in the distant past that no longer exists, that we are currently the only life in the universe, and that life will spring up on other planets in the future. Again, the vastness of the space and time involved make me question the reasoning of anyone who denies the possibility.

I don't especially think this planet has been visited by alien life. Perhaps if some way were found to surpass the barrier of the speed of light, greatly surpass it, we might have intelligent visitors. I don't know if that is taken into account often enough in this type of discussion; it could take ridiculously long periods of time to travel to other planets. Even at the speed of light it would take any alien visitor about 4 years to get here from the closest star to us. Much as I love sci-fi and want to see interstellar travel happen, it may be that the distances are to great and there is no way possible to traverse them in a reasonable timeframe.
As to the many supposed UFO sightings, alien abductions, crop circles, and various other supposed examples of non-terrestrial life, none of them have been compelling to me. I don't believe the people who say they have been abducted. Sorry, I need more than someone's testimony to buy that idea. With UFO's, again, the number of people who have supposedly seen alien craft seems ridiculous. It makes this planet appear to be some kind of interstellar traffic light! And again, I expect most or all such sightings have a more mundane, if perhaps unusual, explanation.

All you bring up are reasonable concepts to reasonable people. Two schools of thought exist re the frequency of 'sightings', however. Either the plethora of sightings and experiences speaks to a greater probability of visitations or it is the power of suggestion or some other such phenomenon.

I am reminded of many years ago, our rather elderly church nursery worker and a much younger good friend of mine, mother of three, were returning to our small northern Texas Panhandle town after a meeting they had attended in Amarillo. Now these were about as normal, intelligent, reasonanbly well educated, and down to earth people as you would ever find anywhere. Neither given to making up stories, both honest to a fault, and given to measured common sense.

Yet that day, when they were still about ten miles out, they both report a very large silver disc hovering over the wheat field of yet another church member family. They slowed the car to get a better look. They both report that the disc hovered for a short time--probably less than a minute--and then quickly rose high into the air and sped away vanishing in a few seconds.

Upon the report the farmer family went to the area in the field as they instructed and did find a disturbance in the wheat.

What was it? They don't know. I don't know. But it is such things that would make a person a hard core believer.

 

[Dajjal]

As for spooky stuff, I was a regular visitor to spiritualist churches, and to trance lectures in the London headquarters, the spiritualist association, in Belgrave sq.

I also sat in two psychic developing circles myself. during the 1970s.

I have had many messages given to me by various different mediums in different churches up and down the country (England).

I had one message from a dead brother I did not know existed, until I got a message from him, and when I went home I asked my mother about him and she was shocked. She was not a spirtualist and had never been to the church, but never the less I had been told his name, and the exact circumstances of his death by a medium I had never seen before, who was visiting the church.

Over the years I also had many evidential messages from my grandparents ,who told me things the mediums giving me the message could not possibly have known.

Added to that I have always been able to feel psychic energy myself, and although I did not develop into a medium I did learn how to control my chakras, and close out negative feelings. I also learned how to seal my aura against unpleasant psychic feelings.

 

[Foxfyre]

Very interesting Dajjal. So given your experience, of course you are a true believer. I have talked with others who are equally true believers.

The closest to that sort of thing I have experienced is levitating a table during a seance as a kid and playing with a Ouiji board. But even during those sessions, I was never convinced that somebody in the group was not manipulating the process rather than some summoned disembodied spirit.

 

[Swagger]

One constant throughtout this thread is the assumption that alien vessels that have visited and/or observed our planet/galaxy are 'manned', in the conventional sense. Who's to say that these extraterrestrial beings are only ahead of us in the sense that they're capable of sending unmanned craft out to probe and explore neighbouring galaxies, but haven't yet developed sufficient life support systems to accomodate a sentient crew? There could well be a number of extraterrestrail races that are well aware of our existence, and are in the process of collecting data on us and our planet, but haven't yet reached the level of technological advancement we assume would render them capable of visiting us in person.

 

[Mr. Jones]

Impossibility? I don’t think so. But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do. And the fact that they haven’t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.

I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.

If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported. It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.

Perhaps if or when the visitors do stop by, they will take into consideration that the intelligent Earthlings, that do not engage in wars and murder, need to be liberated from the ones that do and help us out a bit..

I have experienced some very strange things, paranormal if you will, lived in a haunted house where lights would go on and off, my kids saw a lady staring at them who had no feet, just floating, found a strange dead cat in the upstairs guest bedroom, sprawled out in the middle of bed, heard someone walking up and down the stairs, and even invited friends over to play cards and wait for this to happen and sure enough it did.
By this time we expected it, but it freaked them out, and they insisted we accompany them on a search of the whole house...
We called the police on several occasions thinking an intruder was in the house..
We also heard moaning coming from the basement many times...It was so creepy the hairs on my arm stood straight up..The kids would sleep in the living room..
Did some inquiry with locals and neighbors and found out the house was abandoned for years prior to a complete rehab, and that kids used the place to conduct "devil worship" parties...
There was a wooden door that opened to a storage room in the basement, and in it I found a machete that appeared to be bloodstained IMO...

When I was around 10, I was awakened and visited by the voice of a woman who was singing to me...I could feel her/its presence, right in my face and I was so terrified I completely soaked the bed.
My family and I were new tenants to the building and didn't know our neighbors.
I hung out with other kids on the block and we used to go to the local grocery store and ask old folks if we could help them with their grocery bags, for some change, and to my surprise, a strange looking old lady with extremely overdone makeup on, enlisted our services and she ended up living on the 2nd floor of our building.
The other kids were acting funny as we were walking with her stuff, and later they told me that she was a witch who kept chickens and rabbits and cats in her apt. in cages etc...

I spied on her through her kitchen window and sure enough that was true. She was weird. Can't say she was an actual witch or there was any connection to my singing lady experience....but....

One other time I was visiting my cousins and uncle, who was a jockey and was staying in the employee section of Arlington Park Race track in Illinois.
This was a few months before the 1971 fire that killed 26 horses.
We used to sneak in the stables and go and feed the horses hay and sugar cubes.
One night as we were walking back and crossing a big dark field, a bright light came from behind a tree line, shot up into the night sky, and illuminated us like a huge spot light. It seemed to hover over us as we looked up in shock, then we grabbed each other and tripped over ourselves as we ran with this light still on us. Looking up at it while trying to run from it as it followed us, it suddenly just flew higher into the sky and we watched it disappear straight up out of sight.....UFO? IDK... But it scared the crap out of us

So I'm a believer of the strange and paranormal, and I believe in the good force of God, so therefore I have to believe in the existence of its opposite as well. The battle between the 2 is all around us...