GIANT BOOMERANG OVER NEW JERSEY
By Doug Kimball
What started out as a typical grandmother /granddaughter bonding evening kicks off with a scare from above.
Roughly 14 years ago Denise Gentile had just picked up her granddaughter, Kristin Masker, and the pair were on their way home to enjoy each others company.
The two were traveling east on Interstate 80 in New Jersey around 8:30 p.m., everything was going fine, no traffic, and it was a fairly clear night. Then Gentile spotted something in the sky. It looked to be “a huge boomerang, a fat boomerang, about the size of a football field,” Gentile says. It made no noise, was flying fairly close to the ground, she continued.
Her granddaughter also saw the object.
“She pointed out what she thought was a plane that was flying low. We continued to look at it and it was definitely not a plane it was in the shape of a boomerang and much bigger than a plane,” Masker says adding that it had “a large number of lights on it.”
The object followed them the rest of their trip on I-80, but didn’t stop there. It continued to follow them down Saddle River Road in Fairlawn, N.J. Gentile pulls her car in the driveway, object still over head.
“It was right over the house,” Gentile says, as the two stay in the car afraid to get out. After a while they make their way into the garage and head inside. “There was no noise, just over the house and still no noise,” Gentile explains, “We were both scared.”
“We looked out the back window and we could still see it, flying low and it seemed to be circling,” Masker says, “It was absolutely not a plane or helicopter or anything we had ever seen.”
The two stay by the back door and watch the flying object until is quietly leaves. Gentile still wonders why she didn’t grab a camera, or call her neighbor. It was late when they arrived home so the two were the only ones there. Later on when she asked her neighbors if they had seen anything strange they all replied that hadn’t seen anything too out of the ordinary, but weren’t looking for anything ether.
People started to think we were crazy and would laugh at us, Gentile says “But we know what we saw.”
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UNEXPECTED RESIDENTS
By Rob O’Doherty
After finally yanking out the sold sign from the worm-infested dirt on Mulberry street, Tyler Hamblen and his roommates Justin and Derrick were pumped to spend their first night in the soon to be partied in college house. Everything was to be expected as far as the first night in a new house goes. After unpacking, eating, and having a few beers, the roommates decided to call the first night quits and head to bed. Around 2:30 a.m. Tyler awoke to the sound of his blender going off.
“At first I thought it was morning and someone was just making a smoothie or something, but after I had realized the time and the constant noise of it blending for a good minute, I decided to go see who was using it,” Tyler said. “The noise grew as I stumbled down the stairs and as soon as I was about 10 feet away from the kitchen, it shut off. I walked into the kitchen to realize the blender wasn’t even plugged in.”
Tyler knew what he heard but with it being so late and with no other roommates up to hear anything unusual going on, he went back to bed. The next morning, Rob and Justin told Tyler that they too had heard the blender going off, but thought that it was just one of their roommates using it. Tyler couldn’t explain what had happened the night before, but it was apparent that something out of the ordinary was going on.
Curious, Tyler started doing some research on the former residents of the house. Other college students had told Tyler that they too had experienced strange things in the kitchen area. Whether it was a blender going off, the stove turning on by itself, or cupboards wide open. Strange things still happen in the kitchen area, but Tyler and his roommates try not to believe too much into it, he says they tend to sleep better at night without worrying about it.
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THE FURNITURE MOVES
By Jesse Shipp
After a long school week, finally done, it’s time to relax and have some fun. Like most high school students on a weekend, they head over to a friend’s house to stay the night, play video games, watch movies and play on the internet, among other things, much like how Stephanie McDonald did that winter evening. Like most people, Stephanie wasn’t expecting to see moving furniture.
Four years ago, when Stephanie was a sophomore at St. Dominic High School, went to her best friend’s house to have a girl’s night with Jessica Fangrow, the oldest, her sisters Brittney, 10, and Sierra Fangrow, who is 3, and their mom, Mrs. Frangrow. It was a cool Friday evening and everything was normal, for the most part. As it got later into the night, the girls decided to watch the movie “Constantine,” before they went to bed. One by one everybody went to sleep, starting with Jessica’s sisters and then their mom. As Mrs. Fangrow was strolling to her room, told Stephanie and Jessica to turn off the living room ceiling light and fan off before they go to sleep. A couple hour roll past, Jessica and Stephanie finally decide to get to sleep. Jessica, not being tall enough to reach the chain that dangles from the fan, she rolls the computer chair from the computer, a few feet away, under the ceiling fan and light. Jessica pulls the chain; it sways back and forth, hitting the light, making a clanging sound. Jessica rolls the chair back under the computer desk and hits the hay, along with Stephanie, on the cool living room floor.
The next morning, while everyone was doing their daily morning rituals, Jessica and Stephanie noticed that the computer chair was under the ceiling fan and light, they were both on.
“Jessica’s sisters didn’t do it, they sleep in the same room and their door creeks loud enough for their mom to hear and wake up, the mom didn’t do it either... jess and I stayed in the same room and neither of us got up in the night either...” Stephanie said.
Mrs. Fangrow makes her way into the living room and saw the same scene as her daughter and Stephanie see.
“We didn’t realize what had happened at first because we all thought someone else did it,” Stephanie said.
Mrs. Fangrow was upset, she yelled at and interrogated all the girls, and everyone pled their innocence. After the questioning, the girls realized that none of them could have done it.
“... We kinda freaked out after that...” Stephanie said.
The Fangrow family has reported that similar things like this have happened before, so after everyone was questioned everyone assumed it’s a ghost. They have looked into people who can contact spirits, but nothing has transpired.
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THE CAR IN THE CEMETERY
By Melissa Morkus
Numerous reports have been made over the years about paranormal activity happening in cemeteries. Seeing apparitions, orbs or hearing voices are common things that people experience in these particular locations.
Brian Wiemann, 22, has first hand had one of these paranormal experiences. One night Brian and two friends decided to head to the Blue Springs Cemetery located in Blue Springs, Mo. With them they brought a video camera to record any paranormal findings.
As Brain and his friends walked for a few minutes through the graveyard, they came across three tombstones places closely together. As they were about to read what was on the tombstones they were suddenly startled by a red vintage car, estimated to be made in the 1950s.
“I couldn’t hear a sound until the car pulled up right next to us,” Brian said.
Shocked by the sudden appearance of the vehicle, Brain and the two other males ran back to their car, still with the video camera capturing footage. Later that night, Brian looked through the video they captured and found something they had not noticed once before. Three orbs, very clear and noticeable, were visible in the footage they captured when they approached the three tombstones. The three orbs also appeared to follow Brian and his friends as they ran to their car.
Brian wanted to copy the tape for evidence of his paranormal experience, but the second time of viewing the tape, no footage was found.
“Everything had been cleared without any reasonable explanation,” Brian said.
Some consider ghosts to be a figment of the imagination; something fictional. But with so many reports and sightings of unexplainable findings, such as Brian’s, it’s hard not to at least consider the paranormal not being so abnormal after all.
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BEWARE THE LOST SPIRIT UPSTAIRS
By Kiley Swopes
Every summer, Mia and her cousins would visit her aunt’s farm in Iowa and look more into the haunted property that the house was built on.
Their investigations always started out in the barn and for some reason the horses that were kept in the barn always freaked out.
Every time they walk into the barn they can tell something is there with them. They have seen shadow people, white mists and glaring eyes. But, the barn is not the scariest part of the property.
Mia refuses to sleep in the guest bedroom unless someone else sleeps in there with her. The room has what the family calls a crawl space.
“It is a door that is raised about three feet off the ground and if you open it and look in, you feel lost in the darkness,” Mia said.
So they decided to spend the week in the room.
“My aunt told us that if we didn’t bother Michael he would not bother us,” Mia said. “I asked her who Michael was and she said she that he was the lost spirit that lived upstairs.”
Shortly after they fell asleep they felt breathing on their necks. The breaths then became light touches and those touches became heavier to the point where Mia woke up with bruises all over her torso.
The next night one of the cousins, Sarah was choking in her sleep. She had handprints on her neck. Mia told her aunt that Michael was mean but she would not believe her.
One night Mia’s aunt decided that an Ouija board would be a good idea. Mia was scared out of her mind as they sat around the kitchen table. No matter what they were not allowed to break the circle, which is kind of hard when, a kitchen knife flew out of a block of wood and missed her by mere inches.
They ended the board but Mia thinks the portal never closed. Every time she goes back there is always something bad that happens to someone in that house.
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FOOTSTEPS IN THE APARTMENT
By Joel Epley
At this point the footsteps and muffled conversations had become annoying.
Cole McKinely, 23, had decided to stay in Columbia for the summer and get a job. He had just moved into the Grindstone Canyon Apartments in Columbia, Mo. For the past few weeks Cole had been hearing squeaking footsteps and the faint vibrations of conversations taking place in the apartment above his.
“I could mainly hear it above my kitchen and living room,” Cole said. “It never really bothered me until I stayed up late to finish a paper for my summer class.”
Cole waited until the next morning to go upstairs and say something to his upstairs neighbors. As he walked outside he was greeted with an attractive women holding a box full of random items.
“I had it all planned out in my head what I was going to say and her looks kind of made me forget,” he said.
Assuming it was her making all the noise these past few weeks, he asked if she was moving out and if she needed help.
“She kind of looked at me weird and said ‘can you take this upstairs for me?’” Cole said. “I carried this box full of weird books I’d never even heard of and asked how she knew the people upstairs. That’s when I got the ‘GO AWAY CREEPO’ look.”
Cole pretended like he had somewhere to be and said a friendly goodbye, getting an awkward one in return.
Two weeks later on the first of the month, Cole was dropping off his rent money and he decided to ask about the people living above him. His landlord said that two students (boyfriend/girlfriend) sharing the apartment had left after graduation mid-May and this new girl Kelly had just moved June 12th.
“My heart dropped and I asked him if he was sure that the previous couple had been out of there that early,” Cole said. “He was sure so I asked if he knew anything about them now, like if anything had happened to them recently but he didn’t know anything.”
The squeaky footsteps and conversations upstairs continued throughout the summer, but there was a new tenant after all.
“Dude, I still don’t know what I was hearing but it weirded me out a little bit,” he said.
He hasn’t said a word to the attractive girl living above him or asked if anything paranormal was happening upstairs for fear of coming off even weirder. They pretend not to notice each other when crossing paths.
“She seems kind of stuck up,” he says. “If there is something up there, let her deal with it,” he laughs.
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THE STRANGE TOWN OF FREEMAN, Mo.
By Ashley Hartford
Calling all paranormal believers and skeptics of the subject: willing to test your views? Take a trip to Freeman, Mo. Previously known as Morristown during the Civil War battle, Freeman occupies roughly 500 people, at least in the human form. Add up all the apparitions, voices captured on tape and sites of mysterious activity and you’ll be surprised at how lively it is near this neck of the woods.
If you happen to drive in by Gravity Hill, you’ll experience a ride no theme park can offer. According to Northwest Journalism major Kylie Guier, if you park your car at the bottom and put it in neutral, it will travel back up the hill.
“Last time we got up to 30 mph,” Kylie says.
Locals believe a bus crashed on the railroad tracks leaving behind the ghosts of children to push the cars, but Guier isn’t so sure.
“Personally I think it’s just a freak thing.” Kylie admits, “It works every time.”
Putting Gravity Hill to the test may save you a couple bucks on gas, but unless the site tests for magnetic interference before slapping a ghost tale on the record, you can let the experience speak for itself.
Once you enter Freeman, however, you might not be able to explain the paranormal so easily.
Just a few houses down from Guier’s residence rests a lonely house that realtors had quite some trouble selling.
“It’s haunted by an old woman my grandma knew,” Kylie says. “She would throw phones at the men who came to look at the house.”
Kylie wanted to witness the house with her own eyes, so she and her mother contacted a family friend: the realtor.
“You could feel someone there as soon as you walked in,” Kylie says. “It would be super hot out and then freezing when you walked [through the door].”
This isn’t the only experience the mother and daughter have shared. Let me introduce you to a little boy they like to call, “Timmy.” Timmy has been spotted in the rearview mirror by Mrs. Guier, as well as playing outside, in the basement, the living room and Kylie’s brother’s room; and he is noted for being mischievous.
“Once he tugged on my ponytail,” Kylie says.
Kylie isn’t spooked by these experiences, but sometimes feels annoyed when he turns the faucets on or turns the volume all the way up on the TV and then just shuts it off.
But like any pesky brother, Kylie laughs, “[we] talk about him like he’s part of the family.
Timmy seems to be enjoying himself as well. One day Kylie’s sister and a friend were laughing and recording themselves, but when they played back the tape they picked up an unfamiliar voice.
“He was laughing with them and said, ‘this is fun,’” Kylie shares.
At first Kylie wasn’t sure of the boy the family kept seeing, recalling only quick flashes recognizing his hair. About a month ago, however, she witnessed a detailed view.
After asking her brother to shut the TV off, Kylie spotted the legs of the boy in the reflection.
“I saw the old style Capri type pants with the stockings that boys would wear,” Kylie says, “and the old shoes with buckles.”
Kylie has no problem taking about the paranormal, finding most experiences to be playful. She notes that since moving in the house a few years ago, her mother and her have become extremely interested in supernatural shows.
“I’ve learned a lot about it,” Kylie admits, but the dark side scares her.
“People that play around with the occult and do not know what they are doing freak me out.”
Kylie Guier is a journalism major at Northwest Missouri State University.
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