Author Archives: J. B.

Life After Drowning

Nationality: American
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English
Language: Some French proficiency

Life After Drowning:

D.S.: It was 1976. A friend and I had, uh, gone over to Catalina, and we were scuba diving. We were on a dive boat, and we went over to the kelp beds, because you know, where the kelp are the fish are. We were in the kelp beds, and all of a sudden, he came up, and he grabbed the snorkel out of my mouth, and started breathing on it, and he had run out of air on his tank. And he came over to rip the snorkel out of my mouth so he could breath, right? And I was surprised because I still had a quarter tank left of air, OK, so uh, he was panicked, and instead of buddy-breathing, and calmly going up to the surface, he had panicked. And so, he starts to, uh, swim up, and basically, I’m at the end of the snorkel, left behind, and he crashes into all the kelp. The surging kelp. And so then, I got hung up in that kelp bed, and I’m biting through seaweed in the kelp trying to set myself free. And in the meantime, I look up to the clear blue sky and think, “God this can’t be happening to me!” And uh, I took a pure breath of water, and unlike you think drowning in the water and chocking, it’s not like that. You take a total breath of water, and it does not hurt. I’m trying to make my way, departing from the kelp bed, so I could make my, part the kelp bed, so I can make my way to the top. In the mean time, he made it up to the top, and he signaled the dive boat. And so they were getting an Avon out and coming. I didn’t know this, I’m still down below. I didn’t know that. Then he went up and signaled again, then he did that three times. I’m down there the whole time. I took a second breath of pure water, I got dizzy. After my third breath, I started to go to sleep. And so, I had already taken my weight belt off, and my body came up through the kelp bed, and the Avon got there, and threw me up in the dingy. All of a sudden water came out of my mouth, like a pop. Then after a while I could breath again, and became conscious. And so, all the way home from Catalina, I was in the bathroom, because I had diarrhea from all the saltwater in my body, so when I got home, I started to feel really dizzy and drunk. I knew something was wrong, so I went down to the emergency room in San Pedro Hospital. And so, they had, they admitted me because I had all this salt water in my bloodstream. And all night long, I had nurses come in and ask me because under the old definition of death at that time, I had died. I had aspirated, I had stopped breathing, and my lungs and my blood were full of salt water. And so, the thing, the one thing I got out of that is the fact that I’m not afraid to drown, because it wasn’t painful. I believe that was a miracle, because at the time my body popped up, uh, R. my friend, he was up on the top signaling the dive boat. I was uh, biting the kelp trying to get through, and it was all wrapped around the back of the tank. I didn’t date him anymore, by the way.

 

D.S. describes her brush with death. She was traveling to Catalina Island by boat, and her friend R. at the time nearly killed her, likely without thinking much in the way of possible consequences. With that mentality in mind, he was in a struggle for his survival, but D.S. was worse off, and even questioned later by doctors and nurses, who believed that she should have been dead due to the salt water intake. D.S. attributes her survival to being a miraculous recovery, despite the overwhelming odds against that.

Ghost Sighting in Cambridge, England

Nationality: American
Residence: Newport Beach, California
Primary Language: English

Ghost Sighting in Cambridge, England:

G.H.: Uh, in 1972, I went uh, surfing in Europe, Spain and France, and travelled around Europe, then I ran out of money. And I had friends living in Cambridge, they said I could look for work, because these people said they could help me get a job. One guy was a professor at the University of Cambridge, and it was his girlfriend, a Greek lady. And so I stayed with the Greek lady for a while. And her house backed up along a place called Jesus Green, and Jesus Green Park is kind of oval in shape, and uh, I learned a lot about Cambridge area. The significance of Jesus Green in that area, was that it was very old, and people walked along that area like a promenade. I don’t know, that area is super ancient. And one day, I was standing at the sink washing dishes, and it’s not dark, but dusk. I’m washing dishes, and out the back, the window looks out the backyard. There’s an opening where a gate should be, and the other side, the continuance of the brick wall. So the house backs up against Jesus Green, and as I look up, this translucent grey figure walks left to right, and when he gets almost abreast of me, he turns and looks at me, then turns his head away and continues to walk. The guy is dressed in 15th century, I could see the buttons on his coat, long hair, you know, real fancy jacket kind of thing you would imagine from Rembrandt portraits from that era. I could see his face to this day, but he was a translucent kind of grey. Very distinctive. As if that didn’t blow my mind, he walks ahead, he turns and looks at me, and all of a sudden where the gate should be, he walks a ghost dog, a little Pekingese kind of thing.

ME: Very interesting. Could you describe the translucence a little more?

G.H.: It was like a half tone of grey, if you, you were to take an image on your computer and ask for grey tones. It was different shades of grey.

ME: Thank you.

 

Ghost sightings are common, and in G.H.’s case, he visited Cambridge, England, and at the area of Jesus Green, where he stayed with his friend, he believes he saw a ghost. The apparition appeared to be a figure of the 15th century, as evidenced by his very antiquated clothing, and appearance, down to the hairstyle and the coat of many buttons. I am not sure about what others experience. They may let me know something they have seen or heard, yet I have to make a judgement about it for myself. It is often difficult to fully believe such stories, and there are always attempts to try to rationalize it. For example, this experience could have had to do with G.H.’s state of mind, and the dress of the man he believes to be a ghost, may be explained as that of a re-enactor, or an eccentric fellow walking in that area. What is striking about G.H.’s account is how utterly unnerving the experience must have been. He was startled by the sudden appearance of what appeared to be spectral figure in his midst, being very close to his position. It is completely understandable why such a sighting may become a personal memory that endures decades later.

Croatian Wedding in 1964

Nationality: Croatian, American
Age: 71
Residence: San Pedro, California
Primary Language: Croatian
Language: English

Croatian Wedding in 1964:

ME: What was your wedding like in 1964, Croatia?

V.H.: In the morning we get up, I fixed my hair, I dressed up, and around one o’clock we go to church. S. comes too, and we had a ceremony in church. After that, we go a little around the village, and one guy had an accordion, he made music, and young kids were singings. After four or five o’clock, at the H. house, his Mom and Dad, and my Mom and Dad fixed the table and made food. We ate dinner, it was a meal like regular meals, with soup, and bacon meat, like that. And then we had cake, and after that, we had singing and accordion music, and after midnight everyone left.

ME: Thank you for letting me know your wedding experience.

 

V.H. explains what went on during her wedding day, being wedded to her husband S.H. in 1964. This wedding was done according to the traditions of the Zadar region of Dalmatia, Croatia, and included a visit to church, and a later afternoon and early evening celebration that lasted up until midnight. Various phases were experienced, such as the dinner meal, the cake, and the music. To this day, the clothing this couple wore on their wedding day also survives.

Possible Bigfoot/Sasquatch Sounds in Colorado

Nationality: American
Age: 45
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Possible Bigfoot/Sasquatch Sounds in Colorado:

A.B.: Well, this was approximately five years ago, I, we, well two sons went, and after the incident, we haven’t been since. It’s not because of the incident we didn’t go back, but it was because of my injury, I hurt my arm.

ME: Tell me about that incident, where you might have heard a Sasquatch or Bigfoot?

A.B. OK, all right. Well, I’ve been hunting for a long time, and heard different things out in the woods and wilderness. This was so different from anything I have ever heard. Probably, the closest I could simulate this to, is for example, up at Frasier Park, I once heard caged lions. They feed them, and they roar, you could hear them and you could feel the power of their roars. But early that morning, it didn’t compare to the actual, it wasn’t similar to a lion, but what’s comparable is the depth, and the velocity of the power. The power of whatever it is we heard, basically I’ll lay out what happened. It’s the first season of elk season, which is only five days long. It’s probably been October 15, 2011 or 2010. And we actually, this was the second year in a row we had been there, and everyone in the camps left because it was the last day of the season. Oh, and by the way, this is a very remote area near Craig, Colorado, and the only way to get to this area is horseback, or driving through private property on a truck, and my friend knew him and we were able to go through. There were eight other campus, and on the very last night, most others were gone. On that night, I was woken up, and I catch the tail end of this, crazy screams. My hair is standing up, and I’m listening to the tail end of this thing. I’m thinking, “Oh my God,” I was afraid, I was, I went from being dead asleep to ultra alert, just frozen trying to listen to any sound again. I was afraid to lay my head down again, and we had a big canvass Montana style tent, wood burning canvass tent. There’s probably eight of us in this tent, and my head’s against this thing, we had game bags, meat hanging on trees, elk antlers, and my son woke up, and this thing yells again. A yell isn’t really a correct description, it was a really girthy scream. It may have lasted about thirty seconds long, but I didn’t time it, and I was dumbfounded, I could not believe I heard it again. I didn’t know what it was, but I know it wasn’t a mountain lion, or a coyote, coyotes are different, cackling away like that. It was freaky, the impression that it left me was this thing is pissed. One thing that went through my mind is that hunters were leaving this area, leaving carcasses around, and I was wondering if this thing was angry because all these hunters left gut sacks and all this stuff. But, I don’t know what it was. I watched all this stuff, like Finding Sasquatch on TV, and listening to recordings of screams, and yells, but it was nothing like what I’ve heard. This thing was shocking, gut-wrenching. One son heard it for sure, and another got up to use the bathroom, and he went outside. I looked outside, and I half expected other lights to be on, and as I looked around, it was a dead silence. We were close enough to other tents that I could hear others if they were talking, but it wasn’t that. It was pitch black outside, didn’t hear anything else after that, except for those two, crazy screams. I shut, shut the tent, and started walking back to my cot, and my son D. went up to use the restroom. I walked him out, as I didn’t want him to be alone for darn sure. I walked out, and he said, “Oh, I gotta take a dump.” I said no, take a leak, and get back in. You have no idea what I just heard. So he’s kinda, he did it, and I guess he really went or whatever. But he got back in after using the restroom, you know, and uh, I guess we all kinda settled down and went back asleep. It turned out being, I think it was three o’clock, 2:45 to 3:00, when this happened. And uh, for four days before that, you get pretty much a lot of hunters on this hill, and uh, we would wake up at 4:00, or 4:15 in the camp. We made breakfast for ourselves, and had a really good camp. But the only way to really get to this area also, it’s real remote, you gotta have four-wheel drive trucks, raised, and you had chains on all four tires. And you’re in four-wheel drive low, going up all these roads. And it’s pretty, it’s pretty nasty stuff. Um, the first year we did it, I could not believe we were driving up these roads. Your tires are sitting on all these ruts, otherwise you’d slide off the hills, you know, down little mountains and stuff. So it was crazy, and I still think of that.

ME: Thank you, it must have been the most intense thing you’ve ever heard.

A.B.: You’re welcome. You know, I was thinking of those owls, some of those owls make crazy sounds. But um, uh, this, those lack the, like I was telling you about those lions, when those lions roar there is a certain depth and guttural presence, and hairs stand up on your body. You’re just like, holy, what the heck was that. You know, you start rationalizing, I know it wasn’t this, it couldn’t have been that, and so on. I’ve never heard anything of the power of what we’ve heard, but you hear some of these things, like screams and stuff, and well maybe it’s close, but nothing like that.

ME: All right, thank you for those details.

A.B.: You’re welcome. This testimony recalls a possible near-encounter of a Bigfoot or Sasquatch type of beast, which was only heard, but the sounds were indeed felt that night by two or three witnesses. The sounds happened twice, and sounded completely unlike anything he had ever heard before.

 

A.B. goes on to describe the screams in painstaking detail, right down to the location of the hunting trip and all it’s context before that night, at some point between 2:45 to 3:00 AM. I think this experience is one of the most terrifying things that could happen to somebody. There is a genuine sense of doom, and dread that results from that. I have never heard what he described, but I believe that he heard something. Whether it was a Bigfoot type of wild animal, is unknown. The memories of the screams survive the trip, and even long after that, around four or five years later, the hunting trip is still mentioned along with the horrific sounds in the dark, Colorado mountains.

Halloween in the Great Depression

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Halloween in Rural Tennessee during the Great Depression: M.H. Well, they tell us this during Halloween, and you wouldn’t go out on Halloween because there’s some guy riding this horse, and his head’s been cut off, and he’s still alive, and there would be blood squirting out his throat. He had us scared to death, so we wouldn’t go out on Halloween night. Of course, we were little kids, but we were in before dark. ME: I’m familiar with that story from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which was written by Washington Irving. It’s uh, a popular story about Halloween, and it’s exactly as you said, a headless horsemen would at night ride around. M.H.: Yeah. Well actually we wouldn’t do much during Halloween. Sometimes, uh, the older ones would be more likely to go out and turn over an outhouse. You know, our toilets were outhouses. Sometimes, they would go to someones house, and take apart a buggy, disassemble it, and put it on the very top of a barn. So, things like that, but that was very rare. ME: So, a horse carriage? Or a wagon? M.H.: Well, not a wagon, that’s too heavy. You know, a small carriage, a two-seater, that’s what they used. This was the Great Depression, in the ‘30s, ’35 or somewhere like that. But one thing about it, was we always had food because we raised it, and we traded it. We didn’t have a penny to our name, but we managed to live.

 

M.H. recalls her experiences concerning Halloween, and the events that went along with it. In those days, of the Great Depression, Halloween was very much unlike what is conventionally observed by most Americans today. It was also still in it’s early stages of being embraced by the country as a whole, although M.H.’s family included some Irish immigrant backgrounds, which implies that the original context may very well have been relevant by the way of that heritage.

I tend not to do much for Halloween these days, although growing up, I would don costumes, usually simple ones, and costumes that did not imply anything too frightening. I did not dress up as paranormal beings, but more along the lines of a soldier, a cowboy, Batman, or some other thing. What I do remember, is that me and my family went to a church Harvest Festival, which purposefully deemphasizes the paranormal elements associated with Halloween, such as ghosts, witches, vampires, and others. In more recent years, my taste in costumes has consisted of merely adding on a hat to my head, from my  felt hat collection, a hobby of mine.

 

For further reference: Irving, Washington. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Vol. X, Part 2. Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1917; Bartleby.com, 2000. <www.bartleby.com>.