Files From the Edge (7 page)

1929, July 8: The
New York Times
reported a tiny toad shower on a hill just outside New Brunswick, Canada.
[16]
One witness said “The toads fell like rain from a clear blue sky and many of them were still alive and jumped away when they hit the ground.” Scientists from the New Brunswick Museum investigated, but could find no answer concerning how the toads got there.

1933, July 22: The
New York Times
writes that a couple living on a farm in Enfield, Connecticut, reported toads falling from the sky during a “frightening” thunderstorm.

1954, June 12: The
New York Times
reported a fall of little frogs after a thunderstorm in Sutton Park, Yorkshire, England.

1973, January 2: The
Camden News
of Arkansas reported showers of tiny frogs the size of quarters during a violent thunderstorm that seemed to form out of nowhere.

1973, September 22: A small article in the
New York Times
said that thousands of tiny toads were seen falling from the sky during a freak thunderstorm near Kent, England.
[17]
A local meteorologist theorized that a water spout must have lifted the toads from another location and transported them to Kent. The toads were found to be not common to the area; the article does not go into detail from whence they came.

Fishing in the Sky

A case of small fish falling from the sky came to my attention in 1986 from a neighborhood in Rhinebeck, New York. On September 23rd, at two in the morning, there was a violent thunderstorm with winds that actually blew over several trees. The next day, many residents in the northern section of this very rural suburb found their property covered with little minnow-like fish. Several days before this occurrence, I did a series of cable television shows in the area on UFOs and the paranormal. One of the families that found fallen fish on their property had seen the show and decided to give me a call in hopes of shedding light on this mystery. I arrived on the 23rd, sometime in the early afternoon where property owners were still raking up fish and placing them in baskets. There were hundreds of them scattered over the yards of four homes, but not one on any of the roofs—the strangest thing was many of these fish were still alive.

One of the dead fish was sent to the Connecticut Department of Wildlife Management where the species of minnow was identified as the bluntnose minnow, found across the Midwest from Louisiana to New York. The bluntnose is the most common type of minnow. One resident, an avid local fisherman, joked that he’d wasted years fishing in area lakes—perhaps he should have started casting his line up in the sky!

Fallings of toads, frogs and fish from the sky are the most common, but there also exists many reports of blocks of ice, blood, meat, unidentifiable organic substances, jelly-like material, blocks of limestone, and the most perplexing of all due to its white, silky appearance: angel hair.

Do Angels Shed Their Hair?

Angel hair, so named for its similarity to fine silver threads, is a substance allegedly dispersed from UFOs as they fly overhead; some think it similar to spider webs. Paranormal researchers most often compare it to ectoplasm due to its tendency to disintegrate shortly after being found.

Reports of “angel hair” falling are worldwide; the greatest numbers comes from North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In the Portuguese city of Évora, angel hair was collected and analyzed by a local school director in November 2, 1959. Later, armed forces technicians and scientists of the University of Lisbon took interest in it as well. Their conclusions were that angel hair was formed by a small insect of an unknown species or perhaps some kind of single-celled organism. An unconfirmed report also states that angel hair was seen falling from the sky on November 3 of that year as a UFO passed over the Air Force Base of Sintra; soldiers were seen collecting the material in containers.

Other Noteworthy Angel Hair Fallings

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1881:
Scientific American,
volume 45, p. 337: People of Milwaukee were astonished by the fall of a web-like material that appeared to come from over Lake Michigan. The strands seemed to fall from a great height and were 2 or 3 feet in length. They covered the ground and trees over many miles. In all instances, the material was said to be strong in texture, very white and vanished five minutes after reaching the ground.

Port Hope, Ontario, September 26, 1948: A story entitled “Cobwebs or Flying Saucers?” appeared in the December 1949 issue of
Weather.
At 2 pm eastern time, a number of objects that looked like stars were seen streaking across the clear sky. Shortly after the objects passed over the town, residents witnessed a silk-like material in the shape of long threads falling from the sky. The threads quickly dissolved after touching the ground.

Montreal, Canada, October 10, 1963:
The Marine Observer
reports that a Captain R. H. Pape noticed very fine white threads falling from the sky while his ship, the
Roxburgh Castle
was moored in her berth. Calling the attention of the chief officer, the captain picked up one of the threads from the ships deck and said that it was “quite tough and resilient and after keeping it in [his] hand for three to four minutes, it disappeared completely.” Looking up, they noticed “small cocoons” floating down from the sky. They tried to pick up the material and preserve some of the filaments, but they disappeared very quickly.

A Recent Fall of Angel Hair

On July 24, 27, and 30 of 2008, a considerable number of UFO close encounters took place in the small New York town of Hopewell Junction.
[18]
I received calls and emails from a total of fourteen people reporting that a very bright object, triangular in shape and the size of a large aircraft flew silently over their homes at about ten-thirty at night.
[19]
The UFO circled one particular neighborhood for ten minutes and projected down a beam of red light that moved across residents’ properties. After “scanning” the ground, the object moved northwest and vanished.

On October 10 of that same year, I received a telephone call at six in the morning from one of the witnesses from the aforementioned sighting stating that he once again saw the object that very morning, this time at 4 am. When he went outside at sunrise, his lawn and trees were covered with a silky, white material that looked like “cobwebs.” When he picked up the material in his hand, he said excitedly, “it just dissolved like it wasn’t even there!” I made arrangements to drive to his home from my place in Connecticut—I wanted to get there as soon as possible because it sounded like a rare case of angel hair. With my research in mind, I knew this phenomenon would likely completely dissolve a short time after its fall from the sky. I arrived about two hours later at the witness’s property; he told me most of the material was gone, that it just “vaporized,” but some of it was still left on the front lawn.

I picked up a small amount and it felt like fine threaded silk. It wasn’t sticky like a spider web and the strands were so thin that the slightest breeze blew them up into the air. I collected as many of the threads as I could and placed them in a specimen jar, took some photos and left. I was hoping to take the material to a laboratory in the area that I often used to perform quantitative and qualitative analyses. Unfortunately, half an hour into my trip, the material in the jar was gone and nothing at all remained. I called the property owner and was told all the “cobwebs” were gone; just “evaporated away.” I was able to get my laboratory associates to take rubs from the inside of the glass jar, but nothing was found. The next day I discussed the incident with an entomologist who guessed I had found spider silk. She explained that spiders often use a finer thread-like material spun into sheets or balls for transportation. Air currents take them up in the air and they’re used to migrate from one place to another. I then asked if they could dissolve. The entomologist replied that yes they could over time, if exposed to moisture, but she could not explain why this mystery material vanished on touch and inside the jar so quickly. As of 2009, the angel hair (or spider silk) never reappeared, so the question remains whether those wispy silk threads were from a UFO or nothing more than a migrating spider web.

High Strangeness

“High strangeness” is a term used to describe an event that is more unusual than a typical paranormal experience. Although Fortean phenomena are strange to begin with, there are reports and claims that are so bizarre they must be placed in a special category. The term “high strangeness” was originally used in UFO research to describe encounters that involved more than just a sighting of an unknown object; today it is used in all areas of paranormal to denote a very bizarre case.
[1]
UFO investigators have always been in the forefront of paranormal research and because of this, many of them (including myself) have had the opportunity to investigate a number of very bizarre cases.

The majority of these high strangeness reports seem to involve some type of extra- or ultra-terrestrial contact, but in most of the claims, no UFO was seen and some experiencers never had a sighting in their lives. The stories present, in my opinion, some type of contact with a being from another physical dimension, or perhaps another universe. Although the claims may be very hard to believe, witnesses (or experiencers) are relating what they believe is the truth. Because the intelligence behind the contact never fully represents itself in its true form, the experiencer is left trying to interpret the encounter and make sense of it by drawing from their education and cultural beliefs.

High Strangeness Case Number One: Moving Through Time

In September 1982 I received a call from a man then in his early forties. His real name is Frank, but to protect his identity, I will not publish his last name. Frank had an outrageous story to tell and his claims seemed to be so fantastic that I felt no one—not even the most imaginative science fiction writer—could invent what he was to tell me. I agreed to meet Frank the next day in the afternoon at a restaurant in Darien, Connecticut. I arrived at the restaurant early and when Frank arrived, I invited him to sit at my table. The first question he asked me was “What day and year is this?” Frank claimed that since his interaction with an “alien” intelligence, he had been moving backward and forward through time. Frank said, “I was thirty years in the future and the towns from Norwalk to Greenwich were destroyed by an atomic explosion set by a terrorist who will soon become known only as “Carlos.”
[2]
I asked him to slow down and start his story from the beginning and tell me how this all started happening to him. Frank’s claim was so fantastic that I will present what he told me word for word. I was interested in what he had to say; according to my background check, he had until this point led a pretty normal life as a successful corporate executive and property owner in Connecticut.

Frank’s Story

“I guess you can say my life was normal until I had my first contact with what I thought at the time was an alien emissary from another planet. I owned my own home in Darien, had been happily married for ten years, and although we had no children it was still something considered for the near future. In December 1981, at about eight in the evening, I was watching television alone at home when suddenly the power went out. My wife was away visiting her mother who lived in New York City; the thought of spending the night alone without power did not sit well with me. I tried calling the electric company, but when I picked up the telephone there was no dial tone. I went and got a flashlight, looked out the window, and noticed that the power was still on in the neighborhood. I then started to go down to the basement to check the circuit breakers when the phone started ringing in short, loud bursts. It didn’t even sound like my phone, but as I picked up the receiver there were two voices: one of a man and the other of a woman, but they didn’t sound human. I think they were computer generated.

“The voices took turns speaking and said: ‘Greetings. We are from another galaxy and have chosen you to communicate with. Do not be alarmed—we mean you no harm but we have neutralized the power to your home so that we could speak with you.’ I tried talking back and asked them what they wanted with me, but it was as if they used some type of pre-recorded message; they didn’t respond to my questions. The voices also said that in ten seconds after the communication ended, electrical power in my home would be restored and at that time I was to go back into the living room and sit by the television. This seemed like a strange request, but the voices did not sound threatening and were very polite; they often apologized for the inconvenience and they often said the word ‘please’ when they wanted me to do something.

“The power came back on just after the voices stopped and the dial tone on the phone returned. I walked into the living room and sat near the television. As I sat there the set turned on all by itself and although the picture was fuzzy there was an image of a person. He had very large eyes that wrapped around his head, which looked almost like the shape of a pear. I could not see a mouth moving, but the being spoke and said, ‘Greetings to you from the light of the radiant ones. My name is Lomunk and I am projecting my image to you from a ship located behind your moon. I come from a race of beings called the Ashtar which has been observing your planet for over ten thousand of your years. We are now making contact with individuals who have been genetically programmed to assist us in saving your planet.’

“I told this Lomunk guy that I wasn’t interested and they should find someone else. He said, ‘You have no choice in the matter and we shall have your assistance even if we have to use force.’ I then went over and pulled the plug on the television, but it was still on and this Lomunk said, ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily. I am very real and control all that you see and hear on this primitive device.’ I was really getting scared! I picked up a glass ash tray and threw it at the TV screen which made the tube explode, causing glass to fly everywhere. I was so scared, my hands were shaking so I went into my private supply of alcohol and drank several shots of whisky. I convinced myself that the whole incident was just a bad dream or hallucination of some kind. I cleaned up the glass in the living room and wondered how I was going to explain all this to my wife when she returned home. I was very upset, but the alcohol made me sleepy so I decided to go to bed and try and forget what had taken place. My wife would be back the next day, and my life would hopefully return to normal.”

A Shadowy Night Visitor

Frank went to bed, and for some reason he was very tired and “drained.” He slept until the wee hours of the morning and woke up in a cold sweat with a feeling of terror. Here, his story continues: “When I woke up, it was about two in the morning and the room had a heavy-like atmosphere to it. I felt incredible fear as if something awful was in the room with me. I can only describe it as a presence of pure evil somewhere in the dark, waiting to pounce on me. I sat up and the bed began to vibrate. A shadowy mist came out from under the bed and hovered at the foot. Although the room was dark, it was partly illuminated by a night-light, but this cloud was jet black. The mist formed into a human-like shape; it was very tall and seemed to have a hood. It looked like the angel of death and the first thing that came to my mind was that it was there for me because I was dead or about to die. I could not see any facial features, but this image had long arms with no hands. It stood at the foot of the bed and pointed its arm to me and as it did, I yelled at it asking why it was here. Then it formed back into a black cloud and went through the ceiling. I turned on the light and noticed a slight smell of cigar smoke in the room. The feeling of fear was still with me; I stayed up all night with the lights on until sunrise. My wife returned about noon the next day and asked what happened to the television set. I told her everything that had taken place, and she didn’t say a word but just looked at me with a concerned stare of disbelief.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but what Frank described was an encounter with a shadow person. Shadow people seem to be some type of dimensional entities that exist in a reality very close to our own. They also seem connected to UFO-contact-abductions and cases of demonic possession. Paranormal researcher Rosemary Ellen Guiley has done extensive research on the shadow people and has complied hundreds of case studies.
[3]
Her initial findings indicate that encounters with this type of entity are increasing and are global in nature. Shadow people sightings are discussed in the chapter “Entities from an Unseen World.”

Encounter With the Silver Ball

Frank was so upset about his nighttime visitor that he stayed home from work the next day. At one in the afternoon he decided to go for a ride in his car to clear his head. Frank drove down to Greenwich, Connecticut, into the backcountry, and as he was driving, he heard a buzzing sound. He looked back and noticed a silver ball about 2 feet in diameter behind his car just above the hood, following him. No matter how fast he went, the object kept up with the car and the buzzing sound was getting louder. He looked around for another person, but no other cars were on the road. Suddenly, the object shot down three red laser-like beams on the trunk of the car, causing the vehicle to vibrate wildly. Frank began losing control of the car and finally had to pull over to the side of the road; as he did, the engine died. Frank looked around and to his relief the object vanished. He opened the door, got out, and walked around his vehicle looking for damage. Looking at the trunk, he noticed three silver spots where the silver ball shot its “lasers.”
[4]
Shortly later, a Greenwich police officer stopped and helped him with his car. Frank didn’t tell the officer about the object because he didn’t want to look “crazy.” The officer gave him a ride home to Darien and about an hour later, the tow truck delivered the car.

The spots on the trunk were still there, and when he placed a compass near them the needle spun around in circles. Later that evening, Frank’s wife came home from work and asked about the car. When Frank told her his story, she once again gave him a strange look and said she did not believe him. Frank then took her out to the car to show her the circles but they were gone. Frank’s wife started to yell at him, “What’s wrong with you? First the TV, now the car!” She suggested he see a doctor and get some tests done since what he was saying happened to him was “just plain crazy.” To make a long story short, Frank did see a doctor and had a CAT scan of his brain and it showed nothing abnormal. His doctor suggested that Frank should see a psychiatrist, but he was reluctant to do so despite his wife’s insistence.

Several days later after the encounter with the silver ball, Frank began hearing voices that spoke in some language he didn’t understand. He also claimed that at night, he would close his eyes and have visions of people and alien-looking beings in some type of operating room. Two days later, Frank would disappear for forty-eight hours, returning home with an even more incredible story for his disbelieving but concerned wife. Below is his account.

A Trip Through Time

“Things were not going well for me: my wife thought I was losing my mind and I could not function at work so I decided to spend the day walking through Bruce Park in Greenwich, Connecticut. I parked, got out of the car, and began to walk down the path when all of a sudden everything around me got blurry and I felt as if I was spinning around in a circle. After a minute or so, things settled down and the dizziness stopped. My vision was clear but something had changed. The path ahead of me looked different, with plants and flowers that were not there before. I continued to walk and saw three people, two men and a woman, walking toward me on the path. They were dressed strange, like what people wore in the mid-1800s. As they approached I said, ‘Nice getup, are you going to a costume party?’ One of the men replied, ‘Excuse me, what do you mean, sir?’ They looked at me like I was some kind of nut and walked past me. I looked back to apologize and they were gone. Then, without warning, the dizzy feeling and blurry vision returned; I fell to the ground and looked up and saw an alien being. It was that Lomunk person from my TV. I got up to my feet and he told me that I moved from one hundred years in the past to thirty years in the future. He then said he had something to show me, but first we had to go up to a ship cloaked and five hundred feet above us.

“Lomunk waved his hand and a device attached to his wrist glowed. I saw a bright light and the next thing I knew, I was in a room that had all kinds of equipment with people strapped to five tables. The people were human; two of them (a man and a woman) looked at me, smiled, and said hello. I asked this Lomunk guy what they were doing and he said that these people like me ‘were volunteers who are being conditioned to help us save your planet from disasters that will take place at different points in time.’ I yelled at him and said I never volunteered for anything. Lomunk told me that I did and pointed to a wall where a screen appeared. The screen played some type of video of me when I was a teenager, talking with him and agreeing to help. It’s strange—I remember that experience, but always thought it was a dream. Lomunk pointed to another screen and told me to look, and what I saw shocked me. Several cities along coastal Connecticut were in burning ruins, thousands of people were dead. Lomunk said that a terrorist set off a nuclear device, and it was my task to stop the disaster by disarming the bomb. He then said that they were going to take me back in time twenty-four hours and place me at the location of the bomb. I told him that I didn’t know how to do this and he replied, ‘We will teach you.’