Friday, August 12, 2011

My Paranormal Misbegotten Youth by Lisa Fox


First, a big thanks to Rebecca for inviting me to be here today!!!
As many of you may know, I grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Like all suburban kids, I was bored most of the time. I mean there were only so many hours in a given day that I could spend at the mall. It does close eventually. Thankfully, New York has a wealth of freaky, unusual and alien sighting locations so when my best friend could get the keys to the ye olde parental Lincoln Continental, there were plenty of strange and sinister places to explore.
One of my favorite adventures was the time we went to Pine Bush to hunt for aliens. Supposedly, it is the alien capital of New York State, complete with ghost lights, abductions and strange objects in the sky. There used to be a billboard on the Route that would get you there that read:
ET Phoned Home
You Can Too!
Pine Bush, NY
I don’t know if it’s still there, but I sure hope it is.
One snowy night in the middle of winter, we decided to hunt up some aliens of our own. I don’t quite know what we were expecting to find—something odd I’m sure—but all we found when we arrived was a small suburb that was shut down for the night. There were no other cars out and it was so quiet we could feel the silence.
My friend, who was driving, decided that a certain Dead End road looked suspiciously a little too dead end-ish and we absolutely had to explore it. I agreed and we set out down the dark, deserted road. There wasn’t a single streetlight to be had and there was snow everywhere and I swear to you, forces beyond the human realm existence forced our car into one of the drifts. Really. Or maybe it was just an ice patch. Either way, we were stuck.
Now this happened in a time before cell phones and back in those days, a person had to go inside somewhere, a house for example or store or phone booth, and use a phone that remained fixed in that location. Unbelievable, I know, but nonetheless very true. Unfortunately for us, it was so pitch black on the tiny road it was impossible to ascertain if any of those things were nearby.
As luck (or maybe forces beyond this dimension) would have it, a police car appeared from the supposedly ‘Dead End’ portion of the road and pulled up alongside our hopelessly incapacitated car. Two police officers exited the cruiser, one tall and blond, the other dark-haired and wearing mirrored sunglasses. Now I realize that mirrored sunglasses on a cop is not an unusual thing, but it was close to midnight. And pitch black as I think I’ve mentioned. I can’t say why he would be wearing them in the middle of the night while sitting with his partner at the end of a dark, deserted, dead end road, I’m merely telling you the facts. You must draw your own conclusions.
The blond took my friend’s driver’s license and when he noted the address, he asked us what we were doing so far from home. We told the truth. We were hunting for aliens. Mirrored sunglasses just nodded and said, “Yeah, I’ve heard something about that.” These were troubling words spoken in a very troubling (and perhaps alien?) monotone, but we had no time to dwell on the irregularities. The car was stuck, it was getting late, and we had school in the morning. Something had to be done.
The officers agreed to see what they could do to help us and offered to help push the car out of the snow mound. When my friend and I had tried this before the officers arrived (or beamed down) the car had not budged, but with their superhuman, indomitable strength, the car went flying out of the snow with very little effort. Before I could even blink, we were back in the car and left with the suggestion to maybe do our alien hunting in the summer months. And then, the officers were gone, disappeared, just as though they had never been there at all.
And that is the story of the time I went alien hunting in Pine Bush, NY.
Actually, maybe that one isn’t my favorite paranormal story of my youth. I didn’t see any aliens after all. Trying to find the Amityville horror house out on Long Island was pretty fun too. And so was that time we went to Sleepy Hollow. Or that trip to Untermyer Park where the Son of Sam was said to once roam. All good times.
Have you ever gone on an alien or ghost hunt?


11 comments:

Emily Cale said...

Great post, Lisa. I've never purposefully gone ghost or alien hunting, but my mom did manage to trick me into staying at the Stanley Hotel this past year. That's the one Stephen King used as the inspiration for the Shining. Let's just say I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Anonymous said...

What a fun adventure! I hope you will be sharing more of your fun adventures with us.

I've never actually gone alien hunting, since I am an alien from another planet, as you know, but I did have a scary encounter with a ghost one time when I was a kid.

Great post, Lisa!

Rebecca Royce said...

I went ghost hunting in the town next to ours growing up. Apparently, if you drove around this circle three times backwards, the car would move itself. We never got to try. Like you, we were stopped mid-way by the police who had seen people try this before and did not think we should be driving backwards in a circle on a residential street at midnight. Can't imagine why.

My husband spend the night in a haunted mansion in Louisiana. Although they saw nothing while they were there, weird things appeared on their pictures.

Lisa Fox said...

Emily - We'll have to ghost hunting one night. It'll be great! I am very jealous of your hotel stay. Did it have the creepy carpets and everything?? I hope so.

Casey - It was a fun adventure. I'd love to know more about your ghost encounter. It would be a great blog post!

Rebecca - Cops are such party-poopers, I swear. No fun at all. The thought of things showing up in pictures totally freaks me out. Creepy! And thanks again SO much for having me over today!

Sewicked said...

I didn't do any paranormal chasing until college. We went to a bridge nicknamed Chicken Bridge; supposedly because a truckload of chickens went off it and they all drowned. Yes, this is in the South, how could you tell?

The only oddity was the place was so creepy I wouldn't walk out onto it. I stayed on the road and just stopped, still yards away.

Lisa Fox said...

Ghost chickens??? You are braver than me Sewicked! All kidding aside, I've been creeped out by places like that before. In fact, even looking at pictures of Untermyer Park gives me the creeps. I could never go back there again. I totally understand.

Jessica E. Subject said...

Oh, love it! I can think of so many stories to write from that adventure. LOL Never been hunting for aliens. I always assumed they were hunting for me. LOL and the church I went to as a child, I swear was haunted.

Lisa Fox said...

Wow, I never thought of aliens hunting me. What idea Jessica! Let them do all the work!

Lisa Fox said...

And by that I mean, "what A GREAT idea Jessica" Ugh. I need more coffee. Immediately.

Liia Ann White said...

Ooohh that's creepy! And awesome!
I want to see an alien. Even if it's a terrifying thing that tries to rip my head off, it's far less scary to me than ghosts or things that are unseen.
My scariest ghost/demon/whatever the hell it was experience was the one I blogged about a few weeks ago with the black eyes *shudders* it still scares me to think about lol
Great post Lisa!!

Lisa Fox said...

Thanks Liia! Things that are unseen have a whole extra dimension of scariness. It is one thing to physically face the weird and bizarre another to only be able to hear and sense it and not actually see it. Talk about creepy!