“I was in college living on the 2nd floor of an off campus apartment. I had a very strange dream and woke up to see a bright light from the window. I walked over to the window and looked down onto the parking lot. In between two cars directly below our window was a swirling gold orb about two feet in diameter just hovering in place. I woke my roommate up to see it as well and we watched it for a while. The next morning, we checked that very spot, looking for some sort of logical explanation but there was nothing at all.”

Context: The informant, 61, grew up in western Washington, where she also went to college as a young adult. This experience is one she has referenced multiple times as anecdotal evidence that the supernatural may exist.

Interpretation: Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, a popular setting for folk tales and legends, may have primed the informant to sooner attribute this strange experience to the supernatural rather than an explainable phenomenon. Additionally, that two people experienced this together likely strengthened a shared belief that what they saw was both real and out of the ordinary. To assign an explanation to this event, however vague and supernatural, may have mitigated anxieties about facing the unknown alone.