by Tom Shafer
November 7, 2018
Okay, so recently I was asked this question: What is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you? Now, I have to admit, this wasn’t the first time I had heard this query. When I was teaching my language arts classes, a discussion about the use of repetition in an Edgar Allan Poe poem might elicit this “weirdest thing” question from one of my more “curious” students. Of course, I knew this was a subterfuge; someone wasn’t all that crazy about poetic devices. Occasionally, I would take the bait and answer, especially if it was relevant or I could tie it in in some way. And of course, the “weird thing” changed as appropriate.
I have to admit, I do have an impressive list of “experiences,” ranging from interesting noises in the backcountry to interesting noises in abandoned buildings to interesting things that I’ve seen in a variety of places. Many of these occurred when I was out on my own, by myself, so perhaps they are tainted because they lack witnesses or some kind of documentation. I will dismiss those – though some of them are pretty intriguing and too cool for school!
Still, I am left with two, both with multiple witnesses, both with explanations that defy the known world – and logic and physics!
Let us begin . . .
When I was first married, Christmas turned into a marathon – actually a marathon that incorporated elements of a decathlon or triathlon. We had to be at her parents’ house at this time, my parents’ house at that time, our friends’ apartments at another time, my grandmother’s house . . . okay, you get the picture. And perhaps you know this experience. It seems to be commonplace with young couples, the beginning of the endurance race known as marriage.
Anyway, one of our Christmas rituals back then included a Christmas day visit to see my wife’s grandmother in St. Henry, Ohio, in a home with an attached five and dime store. This was a very large family gathering and celebration which would best be counted in tens rather than ones or fives. Now, this was after a Christmas Eve dinner at my wife’s parents’ house, followed by an opening of presents, and completed with a Midnight Mass visitation – then a Christmas breakfast with my family, followed by the opening of presents, and prolonged with the hour and a half drive to St. Henry from Beavercreek. Needless to say, by the time we headed home to our apartment in Kettering after our Christmas marathon, we were pretty whipped.
This particular experience occurred while driving home from St. Henry on a very cold Christmas night. Because I have always had an affinity for driving backroads rather than freeways, this night was no different. After taking Route 118 out of St. Henry, I picked up Route 571 in Greenville to continue on to Piqua and then home. Somewhere between the towns of Greenville and Laura, I became aware of an airplane flying low along the horizon. I thought it was odd given the late hour (9:30ish) and the fact that it was Christmas night, but dismissed it and went back to concentrating on not hitting a deer (something I’ve done with three different vehicles now, and no, please don’t start calling me Deerslayer!).
At some point, I noticed that the plane was now flying lower and toward us – and, it appeared to be slowing down. I realized that instead of being an airplane, it must be a helicopter, and though it didn’t look much like a helicopter, I watched it pass over us and wondered if it was an urgent CareFlight mission. A couple of minutes passed, and suddenly a panel of lights appeared rather low (maybe at a thousand feet) in front of our car, heading in the same direction as us, and seeming to travel at our same speed (about fifty-five miles per hour)! I had no idea what it was, but I somehow knew that this was the same “thing” we had just seen, and it wasn’t a helicopter or airplane. Instinctively, I slowed my vehicle’s speed by half, which seemed to be mirrored by this “craft.” My wife became very concerned and asked me to accelerate and just keep going.
But, my curiosity was now full on. Scanning the road ahead, I saw a large farmhouse with attending barn complex, and decided to pull over into the large gravel area in front of the main building. As I came to a stop, I could no longer see the craft or lights, so I stepped out of my car (against the panicked urgings of my wife) to get a better look. As I craned my neck back to take in the entire sky, I found what I was searching for, hovering directly overhead, perhaps less than 500 feet up, making absolutely no sound. The craft was oval in shape, maybe a hundred yards by fifty, with bluish-white lights circulating its circumference. I was speechless, transfixed, and wasn’t aware that my wife was screaming at me to get back in the car. As I studied the scene taking place above me, I tried frantically to bring logic – and science – to it.
At this point, I became aware that we weren’t the only witnesses to this event. Unbeknownst to me until just then, a pick-up truck was already parked on this gravel lot about a hundred yards in front of us, and a similar scene was playing out there. A man a little older than me, wearing a cowboy hat, was outside of his vehicle while his wife was screaming at him to get back in. My eyes quickly pulled me back up to the craft just in time to see it moving slowly off in the same direction we had been travelling. Then, in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, it blasted off noiselessly to the western horizon and was gone!
Flabbergasted, I stood there for a long moment, then glanced back toward the cowboy and his pick-up truck. We looked at one another intently, both of us posing the tacit rhetorical question “What the hell was that?” Then, both of us, now fully aware of our anxious wives, silently got back into our vehicles, put them into gear, and continued our separate journeys – but now connected forever by the experience we had just shared. I honestly don’t remember much about the rest of the drive home, nor what my wife and I must have discussed.
Because of my science background (three+ years of systems engineering classes in college), I couldn’t just accept a “flying saucer” theory, but at the same time, I knew that what I had seen possessed technologies that simply did not exist. Stealth technology was in its infancy then, but even that could not explain a silent propulsion system that could hover AND accelerate to speeds I had never before observed.
My father had just recently retired from his supervisory position at FTD (Foreign Technology Division) on Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Because of his Air Force intelligence background, I thought he might know something about my “event.” I didn’t ask him directly because – well, I couldn’t, but instead asked if he knew about any “cool” propulsion systems in the research and development pipeline, anything that he COULD tell me about. With the polish of a well-seasoned politician, he responded that yeah, there are always cool things in the R&D pipeline. With that, I closed the case of my Christmas night UFO.
A UFO over Devils Tower — or a scene from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Reader’s choice.
Today, I still don’t know what to think about that experience. I know what I saw – actually, what four of us saw. When I was teaching my Research and Exposition class to college-bound seniors, some students would delve into the UFO phenomena as part of a research assignment. Of course, they would ask for my position regarding the topic, and I always provided the same fun response: “Why, we are merely a colony here, an ant farm if you will, and occasionally tourists will stop by for a visit, sort of like a living history museum.” I would elaborate as necessary and sometimes convince a student or two into wandering down that path with their research.
I’m not so sure I wasn’t on to something there with my half-smart aleck response. And, if you want to wander down another interesting rabbit hole, spend a little time researching the development of the computer, and in particular, computer processing and “the chip.” Perhaps our little ant farm needed a newfangled “tiller” to accelerate our development. Looking at any news today, I wonder what they might think about our “development.”
Okay, so that’s the first of my “weirdest things.” Trust me, skeptics, I’m just as incredulous as you are. But I know what I saw. It reminds me of a t-shirt I’m buying for myself for Christmas: Bigfoot saw me, but nobody believes him.
One of my favorite hats
My next weirdest thing happened just a couple of years ago (2016). Unfortunately, my wife and I were not blessed with children, so we’ve doted on our nieces and nephews in a variety of ways. Personally, one of my favorite ways to dote is to share my love of the natural world, and in particular, to take all of my nieces and nephews (of appropriate age) on a month-long tour of our western national parks. Because of my given profession (teaching), I was fortunate enough to have a three month window every summer to accommodate just such an adventure. I have now made a trip like this on four occasions, and likely have one more in a few short years (grand niece and nephew!).
Now, these trips encompass lots of fun activities and experiences: hiking and climbing, camping, whitewater rafting, kayaking, canoeing, horseback riding, general sightseeing, and historying (yep, made up a fun, new gerund!). And who wouldn’t want to do those things in Yellowstone, Glacier, Arches, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Zion, the Tetons, the Badlands, the Great Sand Dunes, and the Grand Canyon (and that’s the short list!). Of course, there are lots of other parks, monuments, and sights that we see along the way – I just wanted to give you a little taste to make you jealous!
Deadwood Dick’s Hotel, Deadwood, South Dakota
Anyway, back in 2016, I had nieces Cinderella and Snow White in tow (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent), and pulled into the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, around 10 p.m. after a long but fun day spelunking in Wind Cave National Park and visiting our four stoned presidents at Mt. Rushmore. We were staying at Deadwood Dick’s Hotel just off of Main Street, a three-story warehouse-now-hotel built in the late nineteenth century. After securing our room key at the hotel’s saloon, the three of us, exhausted, dragged our backpacks and pillows into an original European style Otis elevator with scissor-gated doors and made our way to our third floor room. A circuitous route steered us to the back of the building and actually took us outside to a darkened balcony that led to our home for the evening. As we turned the last corner, we were startled by an older woman who was smoking a cigarette on the other side of a metal railing just outside of our room. We exchanged pleasantries briefly, then I opened the door and we started to settle in. The girls realized that we were missing a few needed items, so I headed back down to the Subaru to gather them.
I stepped back outside and was once again greeted by the little old woman smoking her cigarette. She asked what my daughters and I were doing, and I explained that they were my nieces and that were on a big tour of our national parks. She seemed a little confused by my response, so I quickly asked if she was travelling as well. She said no, adding that she had lived and worked here her entire life – and didn’t really like how it was changing. I told her that it must be difficult to live in a tourist town like Deadwood. She looked at me with a stone-cold stare and retorted, “This isn’t a tourist town.” Now I was confused – and a little bewildered – so I excused myself, wished her a nice evening, and continued on to my car.
After I gathered a couple of phone chargers, books, and snacks, I slowly made my way back to the elevator, not-so-secretly hoping that my spooky new friend had finished her cigarette and gone back to her room. Fortunately, she had disappeared.
Inside our quaint suite, my girls were all worked up. They wondered if the “freaky” woman was still out there and asked if I had noticed what she was wearing. I responded that I remembered a whitish or grayish dress and commented that she was really short. Snow White alleged that she was dressed like an old-time mental patient and that she was really, really creepy. I then told them about our little conversation and theorized that perhaps she was lonely and had a touch of dementia. That only weirded the girls out even more, and Cinderella jumped out of her bed and checked the lock on the door. Of course, I made things worse when I told her that a locked door wasn’t going to be very effective at keeping Ghost Smoker out of our room. Dodging a couple of thrown pillows, I returned to the living area to the sound of grumbling consternation – and lots of giggling!
The next morning, we were hungry and anxious to get on to Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. A little alfresco breakfast place was just across the street from our hotel, so we gathered our belongings and headed out the door. Always the responsible one, I paused at the entry and looked back in the room to make sure that nothing was being left behind. Just as I turned back around, I heard a very audible gasp from Snow White and heard her scream, “Look!! Look, look!!” She was pointing to a spot just beyond the metal railing, and I quickly recognized that the “spot” was exactly where the little old smoking woman had been standing the night before. And, the “spot” was open air – with a three story drop onto the alley below!
Photographic rendering of Ghost Smoker.
At breakfast, we talked endlessly about our little experience – that and a young relationship that was dissolving at the next table over. I quick phone internet search revealed a few ghostly encounters at Deadwood Dick’s, but nothing compared to ours.
The three of us have told this story a few times, mostly to family and very close (and very open-minded) friends. Though my nieces enjoy the ghostly aspect of it, again, I looked to science for guidance here, and as always with this realm of the supernatural, I turned to Albert Einstein and his fourth dimension theory. More recently, some physicists have posited that there might be up to ten or eleven dimensions – but for my purposes, four is just enough.
Einstein at Princeton
According to Einstein, the speed of light is a constant, and that at great speed, time slows down (relatively speaking) and space becomes distorted and may even turn back on itself. In these distortions, other dimensions exist (or are created) and they can rub up on (or warp) one another. If these quantum physics theories are true (and physicists will tell you they are), then perhaps these “rubbings” (or warps) explain ghostly encounters – or déjà vu or even my UFO story. As this dimension “rubs” up against another, a slight opening is potentially created, and maybe, just maybe, we get a brief moment to connect with one another – and maybe even converse, like I did. I concede that this is quite a stretch – after all, these things have to happen at very, very high speed. But given that our universe is expanding (or travelling) at approximately 67 kilometers a second, perhaps it is possible.
Physics aside, I know what I know – that I carried on a strange conversation with little smoking woman who was standing on a three story pile of air. And, I have witnesses. Because of my atheist-Buddhist leanings, I still don’t really know how to catalog this experience. As little kids, we are enchanted by ghost stories and things that go bump in the night. But as we age, we become more skeptical about such things – perhaps because real life stuff becomes even more frightening!
So, do I want Ghost Smoker to be a real, honest-to-goodness apparition? You betcha I do, but not because it would make life even more interesting than it already is. I want her to be Ghost Smoker because she would be absolute proof of an afterlife! Talk about fun!! (For even more fun, check out the song “Ghost Smoker” by Saint Karloff!!)
Oh, and before you think I’ve gone completely off the deep end, I will leave you one more conundrum to consider, one attributed to Stephen Hawking in an interview just before his death, a question that Stephen wished he had more time to explore:
Why does the universe exist?
You’re welcome.
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