Twilight Zone Moments

PTG at the Plains Feeder has an interesting post up about a chance encounter with Buddy Holly. The main problem is that it occurred in 1966, decidedly after The Day The Music Died. After we've lived a certain amount of years, we get the idea that maybe, just maybe, we've seen it all. Until something unsettling like this happens.

I've never had any kind of supernatural experience. I think in order to perceive some of these occurrences, one's psyche must be somewhat in tune with other worlds, as it were. I think I've got all the psychic ability of a lump of coal, perhaps less.

It is no secret that I live on a farm. Western Kansas, windswept prairie, lonesome and desolate. Four miles from here is some virgin pasture that still holds the impressions of tepee circles. A mile from here a spring used to run, before irrigation killed the water table. I dug up a rusty old barrel of a gun in our garden as a kid - it was too far gone to tell what it was. The Santa Fe Trail is about four to five miles south of here.

As a child, the banshees in Darby O'Gill and the Little People certainly struck a chord with me. It was very easy to imagine the wind that was howling in the blackness of a thunderstorm in the middle of the night held the howl of a banshee or three. The chair that I'm writing in now held my father as he took his last breaths.

I'd think this location would be rich in psychic energy. Hell, even Coronado came through here. His "treasure" is supposedly buried in this area, despite the history that he never actually found any gold.

One of my friend's father died when he was a teenager. He says he saw his father in reflections in glass quite a bit after his death, and he was pretty unsettled about it. He felt his father was benevolent - just worried about his family after he had to "leave" far earlier than he wanted to.

As for shows like Ghost Hunters, well, I tend to be a Doubting Thomas. Too many people believe that We Couldn't Say It On TV If It Weren't True. Yeah, and there is no such thing as special effects - The Exorcist is all true, but on the other hand, the moon landings were faked, because that couldn't be true. Trick photography doncha know.

Let's just say I doubt that an hour long series can find enough material every week that is truly psychic in nature. Let's not forget that Houdini challenged all the prominent psychics of his day to reproduce their experiences in controlled situations. They failed. Even today, The Amazing Randi offers the same challenge, and he's never had to cough up a million bucks for definitive proof.

Does this mean I don't believe PTG or my buddy? Not at all - my considered opinion, for what it's worth, is that these sort of things can and do happen, and far from any sort of measuring instrument capable of trustworthy readings. Last night, about three a.m., a thunderstorm with fairly heavy hail woke me up. The wind was blowing and the nearly marble sized stones were rattling the windows and beating on the air conditioner. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a banshee or two twisting in the wind, howling at my soul.

This will be my St. Patrick's Day post - bringing up the subject of banshees. I've now done my Irish duty.