UAP (The Skies above New Jersey), January 13, 2020

I should have known 2020 was going to be wild.

On December 30th, 2019 around 10:45 pm a large explosion rattled a good chunk of my home area, Saratoga County, NY, followed by an odd green glow in the sky seen for miles. Explanations ranged from "frostquakes", to transformers exploding (debunked) to meteors. A meteor was the final conclusion that was drawn, but there seems to be as little evidence of that as anything else. More fantastical, or sarcastic types, may as well have just assumed it to be a herald.

Then a few weeks later, January 16th became an odd day for my Facebook feed. First, a good friend of mine (who remains anonymous here) noticed this in the Albany NY sky:

A few folks at the time pointed out similar ring pattern phenomena, but all seemingly at night, in cloudy skies. The fact that his sighting was in broad daylight, in a mostly clear sky makes his quite a bit more interesting. In his Facebook post he was certain the lights were not drones, however, in his NUFORC report, he does not say one way or the other. His NUFORC report is here:

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/152/S152714.html

Very shortly after, another friend of mine, Tara Rule, posted to Facebook this status: 

anyone have any idea what this light could be? 

It is quite large and hovered right above the clouds for about 20 minutes. 

It must have been moving with us during the time it stayed directly across from us, 

because it would have moved farther out of my view if it were stationary. 

After about 20 minutes, it started to move upward and dart around in a really 

bizarre way. If you speed up the video, you can really see how it darts back and 

forth in an unnatural way. It was much too fast to be a weather balloon as it kept up 

with us, and lasted way too long and was much too large to be ball lightning. 

along with these photos, that were taken a few days before, on January 13th, in the skies over New Jersey (approximately near Trenton, according to a later email) on a trip from Orlando FL to NY:

as well as the footage used in this video:

In the video you will notice I have included the raw footage, then a version with brightness / contrast enhanced,  as well a third version with slight stabilization and sharpening. I tend to avoid sharpening due to it unfortunately creating artifacts in the video, but I figured the dim nature of the video could use all the help it could get. Finally, I added a fourth version with the raw footage at 3x speed. At this speed the erratic nature of the light is obvious against the clouds as it sort of bounces around the sky, even with the camera occasionally wandering about.

Upon seeing her post, I suggested she report the sighting to both MUFON and NUFORC (which I recommend anyone with a sighting do). Here is her NUFORC report, which she also later emailed to me:

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/152/S152725.html

Here it is in full:

I was on Frontier Airlines flight F91006, with direct service from Orlando, FL to Albany, NY on January 13th, 2020.

At 5:30 pm, I looked out the window and noticed a bright light. The light hung directly above the cloud line. At first, I thought it may have been a tall building or another plane, but I saw the city lights below and realized that no building would have been tall enough to reach such heights since we were at 30,000ft. I realized it wasn’t another plane, as the light stayed consistent and did not move. I watched it for a few moments and saw another plane in the distance fly in front of it. At that point, I was able to gauge the size of it a bit better. The plane that flew in front of the light appeared much smaller than the light behind it. The other plane was maybe about 1/3 of the size of the light, and the light was very far away from the other plane as well. At that point, I decided to take a photo.

Moments later, I heard a few other passengers talking about the strange light. I did not engage with them.

The light stayed in the same place for 5-8 minutes. If the light had been stationary, it would have moved out of sight of my window. It stayed in the exact same place relative to my window. That’s when I realized the light must have been moving at the same speed that we were flying. That’s when I began filming at 5:38 pm.

After a few moments, the light ascended from its original position. It moved upward and then started to make unnatural movements laterally. Over the course of about 3 minutes, it moved higher into the sky and continued to make rapid movements to the left and right. The light would occasionally pause and remain still for a few moments. 

Eventually, the light moved back toward the rear of the plane and I could no longer see it out the window.

The city I listed is an approximate location based on the time and flight path. 

Unfortunately, I had fallen asleep at some point during my flight. I woke up from some rough turbulence and some unusual electrical activity on the plane. (Seat belt sign turning on and off, flickering lights.) I looked out the window when I woke up and I immediately saw the light. Unfortunately I cannot account for where the light came from and how it manifested because I was asleep prior to seeing it. 

Having watched the video and read the report a few times, a few thoughts came to mind;

1. The "unusual electrical activity". While a common detail reported in most sightings dating back to 1951, Tara explains that she woke up to both it AND rough turbulence. I am not aware of any reports (outside of outlier cases with seemingly antagonistic lights/craft) causing turbulence, however I am aware that turbulence can occasionally cause unusual electrical activity. This is caused by planes diverting power to systems that are a higher priority in turbulence.

2. The usual suspects were initially where I landed. Venus (debunked, in my opinion by the obvious movement of the light). Another plane on a similar trajectory (though seemingly debunked by Tara stating she was able to see another plane fly in front of the light, at which point she was able to gauge the size of the light as three times that of a passenger jet).

3. Her first thought that it was a building, I found interesting. There have been a handful other reports in recent years of buildings spotted breaking the clouds, but people realizing the buildings would be 30,000 feet in the air (not to mention the "sky cities" spotted from time to time, explained, perhaps dis-satisfyingly, as fata morgana and hoaxes). This is clearly not the case in the video, but an interesting first thought.

4. Other options of the ab/paranormal variety jump out. Unidentified craft is the first, but in my opinion, least likely. It moves erratically. Seemingly aimless, though intentional, like a fly. Though, as Tara states, it seemed to keep up with the plane, from a distance. If I had to lump it into an ab/para category, I'd file it closer to the "intelligent" light phenomenon with the Min Min Lights, the Marfa Lights, the Brown Mountain lights, etc. Those all generally appear only a few feet above the ground in most cases, however as anyone with even a vague interest in the phenomena would know, a massive amount of sightings involve lights and not (visible) craft.

5. Lastly, though she discounts ball lightning, I'm not certain I can. Ball lightning is not well understood, and it was only fairly recently (2006) that modern science accepted it as existing at all when it was recreated in a lab.

From a phys.org article on ball lightning studies:



"[Scientist John] Lowke proposes that ball lightning occurs in houses and aeroplanes when a stream of ions accumulates on the outside of a glass window and the resulting electric field on the other side excites air molecules to form a ball discharge. The discharge requires a driving electric field of about a million volts.




So, seeing as two planes are in this report, and the east coast of the United States is, in general, a heavy traffic air corridor, is it possible that electrical discharge has built and somehow sustained itself in a pocket of air pressure and whatever other conditions it would need at 30,000 feet to exist? Perhaps. I don't think an answer to that is available until we understand the phenomenon of ball lightning more fully.

I also looked into NUFORC for similar sightings within this four day period from Tara's sighting to the Albany sighting. This is a map with all regional sightings reported to NUFORC between January 13th and 16th, 2020. Red indicates January 13th, blue indicates January 15th, and purple indicates January 16th. Oddly, there were no regional sightings reported to NUFORC on January 14th (though most of the country panicked and reported Starlink like it was War of the Worlds).

One other interesting note about these data points is that there does appear to be a clear corridor of activity. However, this is also a high traffic area as far as commercial flights go, and I am positive that most sightings in this area could easily be attributed to regular, mundane, misidentified aircraft (as long as you don't read the NUFORC reports, anyway).

I have reached out to Frontier, with no reply.

Unwelcome in the Francis Marion National Forest (August 2018, South Carolina)

A few years ago now, Elizabeth and I took a long road trip down the east coast and eventually into Texas. While mostly mundane (as mundane as a month long road trip can be) a small handful of things happened that may have asked for attention, but we brushed off upon heading out for any new location. Apparent "star jelly" and odd noise distortions in the Glastenbury Wilderness in Vermont, immediately springs to mind, though I seem to have assigned any others to the "things I will only recall at 3 a.m." file in my brain. While our South Carolina experience was troublesome, and often regarded as a low point in our trip when we speak about it, only this morning did a few bits and bobs begin to click into place.

I will only recount here what I have spoken of in this blog, or what I can verify through online sources.

I don't remember what day we arrived in South Carolina. August 10th or 11th, I believe.

To save cash and further the adventurous spirit of the trip we had been camping in Wal-Mart parking lots and National Forests. We had left the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina (home of the Brown Mountain Lights) and spent the night between sleeping in shifts at a rest stop just inside South Carolina. After spending the following day at the ocean we found the closest National Forest and decided to make camp.

The Francis Marion National Forest is large and thick with new growth trees. Winding dirt roads and mostly empty, save for the occasional something to catch your eye and think 'huh...', such as blank road signs. Or a tricycle in the treeline.  We weren't sure how to get to the campsite, and had two different sets of directions. We picked one and drove into the forest, hoping for the best.

A truck followed us part of the way, and then wasn't. I didn't see it turn off, but I don't know the forest, and maybe he did.

Nearing dusk, we arrived at the Elmwood Recreation Area. Two (or three) campsites, a restroom, and a looped road. A camper was parked at the treeline of the furthest campsite, so we took the next largest open space.

Once or twice a truck would drive through, loop the dirt road, and go back out.

We explored the area (under a constant rising and falling screaming choir of cicadas) and noticed a large owl sitting in a tree. As we moved, so did it. Tree to tree. Never far. We both noted to each other how it watched us. How it felt as though it was keeping an eye on us. I became uneasy and messaged a friend where we were. They messaged back that multiple bodies had been found in that forest, which did not help.

As we set up our tent, a truck (not the same truck) pulled into the site, looped through the taken site, and then drove into ours, over the grass and right behind where we were setting up our tent.

The driver and I spoke, and while polite, I remember being unnerved enough to keep a hand on the knife in my pocket. At one point the driver asked; "Do you know where you are?"

"Yeah, Francis Marion," I said, not immediately recognizing what he meant.

He didn't respond to that, but then informed me that his friends will be there soon but we "shouldn't worry because they're all good guys", which comes off slightly unnerving.

He drove off and back to the actual road, and then to the camper which was apparently his. As he sat outside of it enjoying the evening, Elizabeth and I finished setting up for the night, sweating to death and decided we should just call it a night. We never heard a vehicle after that.

I had a bad sunburn from the beach on my back and slept uneasily because of it. Elizabeth also slept uneasily, and partly because at one point she said she heard two separate sounds. First an owl. Second, according to her, what sounded like multiple people behind our tent making fake owl calls. She said it kept up for a while before she passed out, though I have no memory of this.

In the morning, we both woke sweating, exhausted, and somewhat sick feeling. We assumed that was because we washed our faces and skin with water from a tap near our site and maybe that had given us something (we were sick feeling until we left the forest).

When we exited the tent shortly after daybreak, we noticed the camper was gone. There was no sign of our neighbor. None of his friends ever showed up, and despite our restless sleep, neither of us had heard him leave.

The sun was excruciating and, sick, tired, and uneasy, we both felt as though we were not welcome there, by the man in the camper, by the forest itself. It was hard to articulate, though it felt as two magnets repelling. We packed, and left, shortly thereafter feeling just fine (if not still exhausted).

We filmed most of our trip, and here is the section of that footage from that forest. Interesting to me now, a few years later, is the morning where we both seem distressed, tired, and a bit confused (though admittedly, the heat was unbearable).

Today, this morning, reading various reports and jazz online as I usually do, it struck me that the feeling I had leaving that place was similar to the feeling after shortly after this event. I know what I am implying, and to be honest, some of the obvious symbology makes it a bit hard to ignore. The Owl. The disappearing act. The odd ball questioning. The intense sense of being unwelcome. The activity in the night that Elizabeth heard but I did not, despite being awake in chunks through out the night and sleeping poorly. The "friends" that didn't show up (even though Elizabeth believes she heard multiple people in the woods). I am not entirely convinced that I remember everything that happened there, in the Francis Marion forest.





As a side note; shortly after our night at the site, there were at least four UFO/UAP sightings in South Carolina.

Activity in My Apartment (Updates from December 2019 through January 2020, Burlington VT)

The following paragraphs are notes I had taken over the last couple months of anything in the apartment that caught my attention.

12.20.19 - 7:30 or 8 am. Was awake briefly before it happened. Clacking again. Maybe a tack falling? No tack missing from wall that i can see. Felt as though I was woken up to hear it.

12.22.19 - 5:05 pm-ish. Elizabeth is in the bathroom putting on makeup. She hears a distinct whistle, almost a tune. She says it was in the hallway. I was at work and the apartment was empty.

01.06.20    - 10:45 am. I am in the bathroom and hear Elizabeth talking to the cat in the kitchen. Leaving the bathroom I hear her still in the kitchen say something to me. The cat however is in the living room. I ask her what she said and she doesn't answer. I go into the bedroom and she is in the bedroom with her headphones on.

                 - 11:14 am. Elizabeth is working and stops and tells me her desk just shook. No doors have closed in the house to shake it. She describes the shake as "more than a bump, as if someone purposely shook the desk." Says she had not bumped it.

                 - 11:30 -11:50 pm. Being such an active day, I use an EMF reader to conduct a house-wide emf sweep, looking for anomalies. The sweep is mostly normal, save for one corner of the bedroom and the front bedroom window. mid to high level readings over an old painting of mine called "Eve" that drop to normal readings outside of the painting. Mid level readings at 11:30. (thought: could be power lines in the wall or on outside of house). ten minutes later normal low readings in same area, save for a small bubble that seems to be about six inches away from the wall and 4 to six inches in diameter. Over three minutes of reading the area the bubble wanders and eventually dissipates. Low level readings throughout room (NOTE 02.05.20: and regularly afterward during random sweeps over the following weeks.).

the painting "Eve".

01.20.20 - sounds heard throughout the night in the closed bedroom. Around 2am I heard what sounded like a foil bag crumpled on the other side of the room. Nothing over there. Later Elizabeth heard what sounded like a pen being dropped on her desk and sliding across it. A pen is on the desk. She also heard the water droplet sounds that were occasionally picked up in the audio recordings from the earlier posts, 20ish randomly over the course of ten minutes or so. No source of a sound like that.

Anxiety in the apartment had overtaken both of us, whether due to a poor roommate situation (poltergeist  activity had crossed my mind), or perhaps something a bit more darkly fantastical, we had to move. On January 26th we moved out of the apartment. We discovered a small patch of mold growing in the same corner where the painting was placed. Both of us have experienced adverse reactions to mold in the past, Elizabeth physiologically and myself mentally, becoming paranoid and depressed potentially from constant (years long) exposure to black mold in a house I had lived in at one point. Mold is a suspect.

In our new apartment activity has not stopped. Update coming.

Past Life Regressions (July 4th, 2019 / January 13th, 2020 South Glens Falls NY / Burlington VT)

Generally, I try to talk about things that are more centered in "reality". Things that I, or the people around me, have witnessed or experienced. However, being a blog focused on the "ab/para" (as I've come to describe it) I'd like to talk a little bit about a slightly more mystical experience. As far as my skeptical point of view, let's get it out of the way right off the bat;

Most likely I imagined this all, and generally, I am inclined to follow this notion.

Now that the party pooping is out of the way, let's look at my two experiences with past life regression. 

In our western world reincarnation is laughable, and why wouldn't it be? You die, you die, right? 

Or wait... Do you die and go to an afterlife? What was the point of life? To learn? What if we have more than one lesson? Does my spirit (or as I'm more inclined to think; me) learn everything I need in my current life, as I would as say... a 1 percenter? Or as a Malay farmer? The more I consider it (and other eastern philosophies, karmic debt for example), the more I find it difficult to rule it out.

So, on the 4th of July 2019, I gave it a shot. I found a Brian Weiss video on Youtube, waited for a silent house, killed the lights, and laid down. First you are told to relax. Then a sort of hypnosis session begins, though I do not feel as though I was not in control at any point. You relax. Relax more. Relax more. From there you remember a childhood memory. Any memory. Focus on it. See it. Be there. Float above it. 

Then further back. In utero is the aim, but the point (I believe) is to jump start the next part, regardless of whether you remember being in utero (or the state of non-being prior as possibly remembered and described by a surprising amount of people). 

He tells you you see a door. Step through it. 

Where are you?

Look at your hands, look at your feet. What is around you? Are there people around you?

Your mind is not only capable of but duty bound to filling in blanks, and were it not for a few confounding reports of people remembering minute details only to be later verified independently, I would write the process off then and there.

However, I am an explorer. A wanderer. I want to see the journey through.

The regression is in three stages.

First, a random point in the life you are revisiting.

Second, an important event in that life.

Third, the end of that life.

These are the notes from my first regression, written immediately after coming out:

merchant/sailor?

17 or 1800s? English/French?

on a boat. blue coat. white shirt. brown leather boots. not a captain, or dont feel like a captain... maybe my ship. i feel emotionally lost. the sea is my respite but it also makes me feel detached as though i am wasting my time.

home now. wife (name Rebecca?) strained relationship. (my name is gregory? gerald? nathan pops into my head too but i dont think i am nathan.) love, but nearly broken. white shirt. brown vest. long hair. brown. she has dirty blonde/brown hair. white shirt. brown dress. house is small. in a crowded port city. stone. wood. paper and books around. arguing or just hostile. sad. i feel sad.

later. back at sea. under the water. coat gone. drowning. something wrapped around my legs. i am looking up. not fighting much. i think above the water it is evening. there is light above me but not a lot.

throughout the experience i can feel my body tightening. i can feel waves of pressure through my head.

The emotional experience was unexpected. I felt the sadness. I felt the emptiness. I felt the marital stress. I felt the relief and panic as this person drowned (a note: I, as in 2020 me, love the water, but am deathly afraid of drowning).

It is easy to draw conclusions or make connections to your current life here, much like newspaper horoscopes. Yes, I love water, who doesn't? Yes, I'm afraid of drowning, who isn't? 

There are a couple of other personal connections I can make, but again, if I am imagining it, of course those connections would be there.

I sat on this experience for a while. I can still see and feel it six months later. Even if I imagined it, my brain put it there for me to experience, and I wonder if there is a lesson in it.

Today, I decided to go again. 

Here are my notes from this morning:

January 13, 2020

11:17 am

Scenario 1:

It is early day. Maybe 10 am. I am in a field. I am a male. My hands are older, and I am wearing dark clothes. I am walking through a rolling field, with a tree line to my left, A small mountain to the north east. Wooden log fence on either side. I am walking in tire ruts. I feel as though I'm not the one who worked this field but it is mine. Maybe I haven't worked it in a long time. I know my house is behind me and I feel very safe in this sanctuary area. It's going to be a nice day.

Scenario 2:

It is earlier, ten years earlier maybe? I get the impression that I am in my late forties, maybe early fifties. It is night. I am at a garden party. There are lights above us strung across the top of a structure.  People are happy. I get the impression that it is a wedding. It might be my wedding.  I am old though and I feel like those days are behind me. I am dancing with a beautiful woman. Her hair is a dark blonde or brown and thick and her smile is big. She is so happy. She is happy because of me. I can feel myself smiling. Her face is bright and I can't get over how happy I feel at that moment. 

Scenario 3:

It is the end. I am only a few years older than I was in scenario one. Maybe five or ten years. I am in my bed. A grey blanket and a wool knit blanket on me. My bedroom is dark. A window to the right of me. Evening. My bedroom. Someone stands in the doorway. The room is dark I cannot see them. It feels like my son. The happy girl from scenario 2 is sitting on my bed. She is still smiling but she is not happy. She holds my hand. My brother is not here and even though I will not see him before I go I know that he is happy and I look at my son and my wife (it is my wife) and around my dark and safe bedroom and I think about the war and I am okay to go. I know I lived well.

I get the impression that this took place in the 60's/70's (maybe early 80's) in a rural area. Could be new england. I felt tired from life but fulfilled. I felt like I was alone most of it, and then became happy late in life. I felt like I worked hard, but was not happy until the people in my life came to me. I had a thought about the war (WW2? Korea?) but I don't know if I fought or served at all, or if it just had an impact in some other way.

A message in my head popped in just before coming out: The next one will be wonderful. Could mean next experience, but I took the meaning as my next LIFE.

Waking up I felt a thick sort of joyful sadness.

This one was also interesting for a handful of reasons. While the first one was at least a century (or two or three) back, this one seemed like it may have been my life directly before my current life, as I was born in 1983. 

Interesting notes to make: The wife in both, while to me now is the same woman, is at the least described both now and six months ago as similar looking. Both lives featured a mystery man that I loved, "Nathan" in the first, and my missing brother in the second. Both lives centered around a place of solitude, the sea in the first, the field in the second.

The emotional toll was definitely present in the second one, to the point where when I came out I felt as though I might start crying, even though I felt proud and satisfied. 

The message at the end though, was a surprise. I don't know where it came from. It just popped in.

So, imagination? Most likely. But even so, I found both to be powerful experiences that have left me with fresh perspectives. I will most likely explore these more, and if you have the time, I see no reason to not try one yourself. Worst case scenario you get a good 45 minute nap in.

A Connection between VT Covens and Trafficking? (Late Fall. Burlington, VT)

Walking home from somewhere around 1 a.m. on December 3rd, in Burlington with Elizabeth, down Buell St, and on the corner of Union I saw the first one. A flyer stapled to a telephone pole.

Looking down both roads, they were stapled to every telephone pole I could see. I ripped it down and stuffed it in my pocket.



Of course, a myriad of ideas and arguments start flooding in.



For a good chunk of 2018 I had lived in Texas, where human trafficking (or "slave-trade", if we want to maintain a continuity of terms) was an issue of previously unbelievable scale to me. Where people are regularly grabbed from the street and never seen again. Where you couldn't go a day without following the thread of an investigation, especially in the Houston area. Beyond that, I have good friends who practice varying degrees and branches of magic, from basic intention setting to spells and rituals, to things I have little to no understanding of. The flyers had my attention.



My first instinct, which may still prove to be the case, is that the person responsible for posting the flyers (found in the same area as another batch of pro-christian homemade flyers a few weeks prior) was your run of the mill, well, you know the type. However, I am new to Vermont. I don't know the people well. I don't know the climate of spiritual communities. The few practicing folks that I know have been mostly kind, gracious, and loving people. But, people surprise you. People in general can be monsters. Was it likely that a coven was trafficking people? No. Was it possible? Unfortunately, yes.



First, I began to look into missing persons in Vermont. Forty-ish cases, dating back to the 40's. A very small handful of them (less than four) are what I would consider to even fit the profile of someone likely to be a victim of human trafficking. A few hikers that had gone missing (including Paula Jean Welden, whose disappearance is reminiscent of the Missing411 profile and went on to inspire the creation of the Vermont State Police). A few people abandoning their lives, seemingly purposefully. A few gruesome cases, including two victims of the recent serial killer Israel Keyes. But almost no one that leapt out to me. It then occurred to me that victims may not be from here, but merely funneled through.



From there I discovered that in 2013, Vermont had assembled The Vermont Human Trafficking Taskforce, and noted:





 "Between 2014 and mid-2017, in the Chittenden County area alone, the HTTF’s data collection efforts estimate that there were over 250 suspected incidents of human trafficking. Due to the inherent challenges of counting those whose activities are deliberately shielded from sight, we believe that the incidence of sex and labor trafficking in Vermont statewide is substantially higher than these numbers suggest."



Chittenden County is where Burlington is located, and in only three years there were 250 (or a "substantially higher" amount) cases. I began to dig into news reports and found only one instance of a sex-trafficking trial occurring recently. However, further googling brought up a wide community concern with at least one public forum being held in January of 2019, and a large mural downtown that reads "YOU ARE LOVED" along with contact information if you are or know a victim of trafficking.



A task force was involved, and the state police (who had just been awarded a $1.2M grant to assist with the issue) were assisting them. Various sections of the community were concerned. But only one trial?



I began reaching out. First to the head of the task force (who as of this post has not responded) to clarify some smaller questions I still have. Then, to the wicca/pagan/occult communities, to inquire how they felt about what I still suspect is small-town religious bigotry.



Contacting those communities has so far proven difficult. I have contacted people via what now appear to be dead forum communities. I have reached out on Reddit (where only two practitioners have come forward, but a good handful of people have made a point to ridicule them). I currently have a handful of interviews to conduct in the next week or so with local practitioners, and am hoping to gain some insight into their point of view on the matters.



At this point, I feel as though my original guess is correct, an over-zealous religious person with a printer stapled non-sense to a handful of telephone poles.



However, those statistics from the Vermont Human Trafficking Taskforce sit uneasily in me.





I plan on following this up regularly.







In the meantime, if you or someone you know may be a victim of human trafficking, you can make an anonymous report at







Vermont:

https://vsp.vermont.gov/tipsubmit.

text: “VTIPS” to 274637 (CRIMES).

call: Vermont 211.

or nationally:

text: 233733

call: 1-888-373-7888

https://humantraffickinghotline.org/report-trafficking



To see how your purchases may affect human trafficking: http://slaveryfootprint.org/#where_do_you_live

Activity in My Apartment (November 23-24, 2019, Burlington VT) (UPDATED 12.16.19)

Initially this began with me wanting to see if someone was coming into our bedroom. We live with a roommate (who was not home at the time of the recordings), and though I doubt they would come in, they often have people over that we don't know and never run into (one of which, I am pretty sure was in the apartment at the time of the recordings). I set up my webcam to take photos based on motion detection, though I hastily downloaded a program a few minutes before I had to leave for work, so as a back up plan I set my room mic up as well.

In the recording you will notice just how loud the doors in the building are. Our bedroom door in particular falls just short of deafening. The apartment door is distinct, and all other doors in the building come off as low thuds. I found that while closing my eyes and listening to the audio I could map almost every cause of sound recorded.

The first batch of audio is from November 23rd, between 1:22 and 2:02pm.

Immediately I would like to note a couple of things; At no point did I hear anyone leave my roommates bedroom. The sounds from outside the apartment are muffled as they should be, and the sounds from inside the bedroom are clear. There is a cat in the apartment, but beyond a small thud, I don't recognize any of the sounds as her sounds.

There are a series of "clacks" that occur over ALL of the audio, beginning around the 8 minute mark. To Elizabeth and I they sound like someone hitting keys on a keyboard and of varying intensities. Sometimes one clack. Sometimes multiple.

As I went to sleep on the night of the 23rd, I noticed that my television makes small pops for a couple of minutes, maybe ten or fifteen. I assume this is an electrical discharge within the unit and could be responsible for the clacks. However, the sounds do not sound similar enough to convince me, and in the audio for November the 24th, as if to punctuate that it isn't simply discharge, the clacks last well over an hour.

In addition to the clacks are several anomalies. On the 23rd, the sound of scraping can be heard at various times within the room. My mind sees it as a coffee cup across the computer desk, that, however, is me assigning responsibility to something. I found nothing awry in the bedroom. There is also an odd digital anomaly in the right channel at one point. A small beep. Another anomaly is the incredibly faint sound of a water droplet. On the 24th, much the same continues except that partway through, the sound of the room mic being tapped occurs. This could be the room mic shifting, despite it being on a flat and stable surface for an hour prior to the tap.

The motion detecting camera, though capturing nothing valuable, is also odd. It captured us leaving the room as expected, however only one shot of Elizabeth entering the room and then nothing after. Not even Elizabeth shutting down the program. A useless or improperly installed software is my best guess. All three shots are in the video at the appropriate timestamps.

Below I have included the notes I took while listening to the audio, as well as the embedded audio via youtube.



November 23rd:

notes:

Whole recording has a low rotating hum that seems to change in frequency over time.

00:00 - Setting down mic

00:15 - We are leaving.

00:44 - Elizabeth shutting the door

00:50-01:14 - us walking down the stairs and shutting the front door.

05:35 unknown noise outside of room. something getting set on the bare floor? possibly cat. possibly unknown person in other bedroom.

06:30 unknown noise, possibly outside of apartment. small thump.

08:09 unknown noise outside room

8:18-8:20 unknown noise INSIDE room. Clacks. Similar to keyboard strikes or tacs hitting the wood floor?

09:30 Same unknown clacks INSIDE room.

10:24 Same unknown clacks.

10:39 Same clack. Louder. 

10:58 Same clack

11:09 a huff? an exhale? very quiet.

11:20 exhale again

11:50 Clacks 

12:58 Clacks

13:25 - 13:56 Car engines outside

14:06 Clack

15:14 two clacks

16:24 Clack

17:22 - 17:42 Car outside

17:38 Clack

18:54 Clack

19:37 Clack

19:43 Something being dragged along with small clacks.
  
19:56 another small drag

20:07 car in distance

20:10 Clack

21:18 Shuffling maybe outside room or apartment

22:18 Clack

23:36 anomaly in right channel. small blip.

23:51 car drives by.

24:24 - 24:40 cars driving by

25:32 low thud. possibly house front door.

25:48 door. possibly downstairs apartment. 

28:08 car noises.

28:52 car noises.

32:18 two thuds. Possibly footsteps elsewhere in building.

33:25 car noises.

33:50 anomaly in right channel. a low rumble.

35:04 - 35:09 Multiple clacks of various intensity.

35:33 something dragged. sounds light. metal? 

36:30 a small droplet sound? almost inaudible

37:03 a thud outside of room, possibly outside of apartment

37:23 unknown noise outside of apartment. Vacuum? Noise continues for a while.

37:44 footstep in room? Floor creaks under weight (Elizabeth says it is "the sound of the door downstairs" but I don't hear it)

38:08 Thud

38:29 car

38:35 Noise in apartment. Elizabeth opening door.

38:52 Elizabeth comes into bedroom. (2:02 PM)


I listened to the audio from the first night immediately after returning home from work. The clacking and scraping in the bedroom was intriguing. The best explanation I have is that the person in the other bedroom is making noises in the house, however, knowing my house, the way sound operates here, and the clarity of the recording, I find that explanation inadequate for all of the sounds.



November 24th, part one:

notes:

(note: three times in this audio I heard a sound I could not identify and when I went back to the time stamp there was no sound.)

00:00 - Getting keys and shutting bedroom door.

00:20 - Shutting apartment door.

00:41 - 00:43 Shutting house door.

01:08 - Cat

01:11 - Footsteps. Possibly in Apartment.

01:24 - Footsteps in building.

01:32 - Building door closing.

01:48 - 01:53 People walking up building stairs.

02:13 - Car noises

02:27 - Clack

02:39 - Cat

03:46 - Unknown noise. Possibly airplane? Possibly dragging in upstairs apartment?

04:21 - Clack

05:35 - Clack

06:27 - Clacks

06:36 - Clack

06:42 - notably quiet Clack

06:57 - quiet clack

07:36 - Quiet clack

07:39 - two clacks

07:45 - quiet clack

07:50 - quiet clack

08:35 - Quiet clack

08:36 - Clack

08:51 - Quiet clack

08:55 - Clack followed by quiet clack

09:31 - Clack

09:44 - Quiet clack

09:50 - Quiet clack

10:17 - Quiet Clack

10:23 - Clack

10:35 - Unknown high pitched ringing

10:38 - Quiet clack

11:03 - quiet clack

11:12 - quiet clack

11:15 - clack

11:17 - clack

11:30 - quiet clack

11:45 - tv can be heard quietly in building

11:57 - quiet clack

12:14 - clack

12:25 - quiet clack

12:34 - quiet clack

12:50 - clack

13:02 - quiet clack

13:05 - two clacks

14:06 - clack

14:21 - quiet clack

14:45 - quiet clack

15:08 - two clacks

15:25 - quiet clack

16:30 - multiple clacks (three?)

16:48 - quiet clack

16:53 - clack

17:10 - quiet clack

17:23 - Footsteps outside on porch.

17:30 - building front door opens and closes, a clicking occurs, possibly the mic moving because of vibration from front door, but why didn't it move every other time the front door opened?

17:34 - two clacks

17:44 - Unidentified noise in apartment.

17:51 - Elizabeth uses keys to open front door.

18:04 - Elizabeth enters bedroom.

The second batch of audio seems to have constant clacking, right up to a minute within Elizabeth coming home. There is audio of Elizabeth in the bedroom afterward. No clacking is heard. In fact save for Elizabeth occasionally moving around the bedroom and typing before she shuts off the mic, there are no anomalous sounds. That audio I have not uploaded because it is uneventful, though I have it saved.

Elizabeth, prior to leaving again, set up the mic one last time:

November 24th, part two:

notes:

(note: at this point in the day the television has not been on for over two hours. Any clacking caused by electrical discharge, historically speaking, should have stopped sometime in the middle of the first audio of the 24th.)

00:00 - Elizabeth takes keys and leaves bedroom.

00:13 - bedroom door shuts.

00:22 - soft noise

00:28 - chair/floorboards creaking?

00:35 - Apartment door shuts

00:37 - Creaking again

00:47 - creaking again

01:55 - car noise

02:10 - 02:20 footsteps downstairs. presumably Elizabeth leaving.

02:20 - front door of house shuts.

02:42 - indiscernible voices. possibly television in the building. 

02:52 - 03:01 - voices again.

03:24 - voices again. This goes on through the recording.

03:30 - scraping

03:43 - scraping

03:52 - scraping

03:58 - scraping

04:04 - scraping

04:12 - scraping. This now sounds like a power tool somewhere in the building.

04:18 - Clack

04:25 - clack

04:28 - scraping

04:37 - scraping

04:50 - pulsing scrape. Again, I am inclined to think power tool.

05:08 - scraping and loud clack.

05:16 - scraping

05:28 - unidentified noise

05:32 - scraping (tool, almost without doubt now. From here on out I will refer to it as "tool".)

05:55 - Tool/scraping? Here it does not sound like a power tool.

07:49 - quiet inhale

08:25 - unidentified sound

08:36 - small clack

09:14 - 09:20 - car sounds

09:26 - unidentified sound

10:24 - quiet clack

10:55 - unidentified sound. Phone notification??

11:22 - quiet clack

11:48 - creaking in building

13:17 - nearly inaudible inhale

13:32 - car noises

14:24 - 14:27 - slight breathing? again nearly inaudible.

14:31 - droplet sound and more slight breath

14:33 - car noise

15:01 - unknown noise

15:14 - creaking and more slight breath. Not to be gross, but if my roommate has someone hidden in their room, they may be crying and/or masturbating, hence the sudden breathing being picked up.

15:56 - clack

17:42 - House front door closes.

18:22 - Thump in building

18:44 - unidentified noise. Exhale? TV?

19:08 - unidentified noise

22:42 - inhale

22:50 - creak

22:56 - scrape

23:04 - TV?

24:19 - TV? Phone call in another apartment? This continues for a while.

30:16 - car noise

30:40 - two quiet anomalies in right channel. small pops.

32:21 - car noise

32:29 - tv noise continues.

32:39 - small thump

32:47 - another apartment door closing

34:18 - car

35:04 - very quiet unidentified sound. similar to droplet. 

35:49 - high pitched tone

37:09 - inhale/creaking? Hard to determine.

37:25 - car noise and slight creaking

38:53 - Clacks. Three again.

39:12 - 39:22 - slight breathing

40:14 - TV?

40:27 - car

41:15 - low thud

41:29 - car horn

41:36 - house front door opens and closes

42:08 - two small droplet sounds

42:25 - tv (continues)

44:22 - unknown sounds

44:47 - tv?

45:03 - thump

46:27 - loud clack

46:30 - footsteps in building

46:35 - front door of house shuts

46:57 - Click in apartment. Footsteps.

47:31 - door in building shuts, followed by footsteps.

48:15 - footsteps in another apartment

48:33 - tv

51:12 - tv

51:55 - Tap on mic. sounds like a tape ending, but this is a digital mic. Sounds plastic, which the mic is, but has no moving parts. I have no explanation.

54:54 - creaking in apartment.

55:17 - creaking in apartment, walking down hall. No door has opened in the apartment.

56:08 - Elizabeth opens apartment door. Walks to bedroom and opens door.

Again, I find most of this easily explainable as a person squirreled away in my roommates bedroom. Most of it. The clacking I don't really have an explanation for that I believe. I feel like the discharge is most plausible, but falls apart due to the fact that it is only a similar sound (not an exact match), and that when I notice it at night it lasts under 20 minutes, and here it lasts for a couple hours, and even takes a break while Elizabeth is home. Also of note, the tap on the mic in the third audio and the scraping in the first audio. Again, no suitable explanation that I have found yet.

Of course, the curious enthusiast in me wants to jump to entities and whatnot, but the investigative, over-analytical skeptic in me refuses to accept anything without evidence.

UPDATE 12.16.19:

Last night, somewhere between 3 and 5 am, though presumably closer to 3, I was awoken by the clacking noise. There had been no notable oddities in the apartment or room, or in my life save for a number of synchronities. I had vaguely thought of the audio recordings over the last two weeks, but in no meaningful or thorough way. I had taken note however of exactly what the electric discharge pops sounded like, and had nearly resigned myself to saying that the microphone I had set up had somehow made the discharge pops sound different in the recording, even though that has never been an issue with this microphone (Zoom H1). I had also been half-heartedly attempting to explain to myself the other noises on the audio, to no satisfying conclusion.

Elizabeth and I were asleep. Our roommate was out. I woke suddenly to the clacking. Immediately I knew it was not the discharge pops I had been listening to over the last few weeks. It was loud and quick, as if someone hastily typing some stroke of genius on a mechanical keyboard. It was brief, but enough for me to be awake fully before it stopped. Afterward, the odd water droplet sound. Next to my bed there was a half empty seltzer can. It is possible that maybe a bubble popped in the can, though a popping carbonation bubble and the water droplet sound are not the same. I laid in the dark listening for another minute or two, and then I heard our roommate and his guest come up the sidewalk, into the house, up the stairs and into the apartment. 

A short while goes by silently, ten or fifteen minutes and then the clack. Not as heavy or loud, but it happens. Three clacks. Then two water droplet sounds. Only a minute or so later the roommates door opens and the guest leaves, and leaves the house. Then silence for a while. I fell asleep.

Speaking this morning to Elizabeth about it, I noted how it was odd that it happened in the first place, but also that it only happened when there was about to be a change in environment. 

Elizabeth leans closer to the idea of it being a warning system for me, based on past experiences I have had.The reasoning being, this is a situation that gives me anxiety, so it is saying "hey, wake up, be aware that there is a change happening." I find the idea romantic, and on the surface plausible, but at this point, I have no evidence for that. The timing is most likely coincidental. The origin of the sounds however I am currently unable determine.

Brian. (Spring, 2003, Kingsbury NY)

I've written about this (although heavily masked for certain peoples privacy) years ago on my other blog. I will retell it here briefly and coldly with some dates and names slightly changed to maintain that privacy.

Kingsbury, NY is mostly farmland. Patches of trees and brush outline large and mostly empty fields.

I was living in a modular home with my then girlfriend (we will call Lynn), her parents, her sister, and her sisters boyfriend, Brian.

On the night of April 8th, 2003 Lynn and I had the house to ourselves. Her parents were out on a date night, and her sister and Brian were line dancing in Saratoga NY. We made a bed on the living room floor and watched a movie. We fell asleep and just before midnight Lynn shook me awake.

She was sweating and distraught. When I asked her what was wrong she recounted a dream she just experienced;

She woke up (in the dream) and saw Brian sitting on the couch behind us. He was all black. Like ashes, and not shadows. He looked at her and said it was okay. Then she woke up.

I assured her it was okay, and then ten minutes later the phone rang. Lynn answered it and it was her mother.

Brian and the sister had been driving back from line dancing. It was freezing rain on the interstate and their defroster wasn't working. They pulled off to the right on the interstate and Brian had stepped out of the car to scrape the windshield.

As he did a car tried to pass between them and the guardrail and hit Brian. He was thrown into the air over the car and hit the pavement. He was rushed to Albany Med.

Lynn cried and I assured her he would be okay.

We got dressed and drove to Albany med.

Brian was brain dead. He was bruised, swollen, and though alive, gone.

We wept around him for two days until they took his body off of life support and declared him.

I am skipping over personal and private details.




The activity began almost immediately, though I equate much, if not most to mourning. Grief is a monstrous emotion and wreaks havoc on sensibility, reason, logic, and even perception. However;


It began slow. Lynn, her sister, and I would sit either on the back porch or in her car facing the dark if the nights were too cold and talk. It wasn't a few days after the funeral that we began to see Brian. At first only a shape of a person in the field behind the house in the dark. The first night we were scared it was something more nefarious, a person staking out the house was an early thought. The shape stood in the field, then walked into the dark. It moved like Brian.

We brought it up to Lynn's parents, who thought as I do now that it was a trick of the brain.

This "trick of the brain" continued.The shape would be seen in the field from time to time.

A week or so later Lynn's sister came into our room crying because she had walked into the kitchen for water and Brian was standing behind the counter. She ran and when we got up to look nothing was there, of course.

Then, leaving the bathroom, I saw Brian walk from the living room into the parents bedroom. Only a glimpse, and at this point, I could easily chalk it up to me becoming wrapped up in the excitement and grief.

Lynn saw him in the house.

Her parents.

The dogs in the house began to act oddly. For example one would be in the living room and begin rolling and shaking her leg as if someone were playing with her.

Then Lynn's father felt someone grab his shoulder. When he turned around he said he saw a glimpse of Brian and then it disappeared. By the time he relayed that story it had already been a few days since it happened.

We were all seeing him.

However, I still contend that this could all be grief and hysteria.

To that point.

A couple weeks had passed and now it was the end of May.

We were all home and just going about our normal routine. A phone rang. A ring unlike the normal ring. More of a bell sound than a digital ring.

In the house there was a landline connected to two wireless handsets. One in the kitchen, one in the parents bedroom. We were unable to find the kitchen handset and so Lynn's mother went to the bedroom to get the other. She came back out confused and holding the extra handset. It was not ringing or lit up, but the ringing continued. She even went so far as to answer the handset, but of course was met with a dial tone.

Soon, Lynn's sister realized it sounded as though the ringing was coming from her bedroom and as she led the way there, we all followed, first Lynn, then me, then the parents.

The ringing was in the sister's room, buried somewhere in the closet. She pulled laundry out, boxes, everything. Eventually finding a box and opening it up and emptying its contents all over the floor. The ringing was louder.

She pulled out an old regular wired telephone, wrapped in a phone cable, unplugged, and it was ringing loudly.

She unwrapped it quickly and answered it.

She asked hello twice, her face went white.

She handed the phone to Lynn, who seemed to be listening intently but confused.

Lynn handed the phone to me, and on the other end was silence.

Not as though I were listening to an unplugged phone, but as though someone on the other end was just remaining quiet. Their was an atmosphere. Then it clicked off, as if they hung up.


There was never any more activity.