Three Strange Ones

                   Three Strange Ones



It had to be sometime in the winter of ‘69-’70 or thereabouts.  I’d gotten out of the Air Force late in ’69 and had moved back home with my parents and brothers.  I moved back home not because I didn’t want an apartment and a life of my own, really.  It was just convenient, a comfortable place to settle for a bit while I figured out what was what, where I wanted to go and how I wanted to proceed with my life.  And it really was nice being back with the family again in my old room after living in a barracks for four years.

Sometime during the cold part of that year there was a movie that came out which everyone was talking about.  From all the buzz going around it sounded like a good one, so one night I headed on down to the movie theater.  It was an evening show and it was dark when we got there and, of course, dark after we left.  I say we because my dad accompanied me to this particular movie.  Mom wasn’t interested, if I remember correctly, so dad had chimed in and said he’d kinda like to go too.  I was glad for the company, to be honest, so we headed on down to see the show.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the movie “Easy Rider” or not, but it was quite a movie for its day.  Two motorcycle riders from Los Angeles traveling to New Orleans in search of America.  Peter Fonda played the part of Wyatt and rode the lean chopper with the ape-hangers and the red, white and blue American flag gas tank.  He also had a matching helmet with the American flag motif and a leather jacket with an American flag on the back.  Quite a patriotic look you might say.

Remember that jacket.

His partner, Billy, was played by Dennis Hopper, pre-“Apocalypse Now” days, riding the other chopper with the short straight handlebars and wearing a fringed-leather buckskin jacket and kind of a floppy cowboy hat.  Now these two guys were definitely counter-culture for the time.  Hippies, perhaps you might call them.  On their way across America they encounter bigotry and hatred from the small towns they rode through.  The residents hated and feared their non-conformity.  They did drugs, spent a little time in a redneck jail and picked up a liberal alcoholic lawyer, played by Jack Nicholson, who joined them on their way to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  A terrible fate awaited one of them on a back Dixie road that would lead you to the conclusion that death is the only real freedom.

It was an emotional roller-coaster ride for my dad and I.  The movie was great and the music was mostly ’68 rock – Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild”, The Byrds “Wasn’t Born to Follow”, Jimi Hendrix “If 6 was 9” and a number of other great ones.  We were totally satisfied with the movie as we walked out among the last group of moviegoers.  Our car was parked across the street from the movie entrance and facing it.  We got into the car and sat for a few minutes, probably talking about how cool the show was and more than likely smoking a cigarette while we chatted.  Just as we were about to start the car’s engine and head on home we noticed a figure coming out of the closed movie theater’s front door.  All was dark except for a couple streetlights casting some rather dim light on the sidewalk.  The figure walked up the sidewalk from our right to our left, and when he was past us a bit we noticed he was wearing a leather jacket.  With an American flag sewed on the back of it.  He turned the corner after a few moments and was gone.

Dad and I looked at each other.  We’d both seen the figure and his outerwear.  We’d both seen the American flag. 

We’d not seen the person in the theater.

Could it have been…? 



In the years 2001 through 2014 I worked for a county water department in their computer room.  I watched the computer that monitored the water system, made sure the chlorine was adequate and that all the necessary water was available for the customers and safe to drink.  I also answered the trouble phone and dispatched crews to fix water and sewer problems.  I worked second shift, 4 o’clock to midnight.  Some nights I had company and a second operator worked along with me.  On Thursdays and Fridays, however, I worked alone.  The rest of the county employees all left at 4:30 and then it was just lil’ ol’ me for the rest of the night.

Early in that decade-and-a-half I worked there, one of the midnight shift operators, a lady, lost her husband in a gruesome motorcycle accident.  It was a terrible time for her.  Most of the county came to the gentleman’s funeral and the lady was quite devastated as could naturally be expected.  During her mourning period she heard about a place that made custom teddy bears that were supposed to help with the grieving process.  They were called therapeutic teddy bears and could be dressed like the person who had passed away.  My lady friend’s husband had worked at an auto parts store, so she had the bear dressed in the easily-identifiable vest that all the auto supply guys wore.  It was actually kind of cute.

She brought this bear in to show all of us other employees one evening and left it there until she picked it back up the next night.

Remember that bear.

The office I worked in had a number of cubicles and a large amount of maps hanging on the walls depicting various parts of the water and sewer systems in the county.  This office also was known to occasionally make odd noises during the nighttime hours.  We all knew it was just the building expanding and contracting as the night ebbed and flowed and generally paid little heed to it.

The night the bear sat in the desk behind me was one of the noisy nights.  Much more so than normal.  I was alone that night, most of the lights were out in the room I worked in and, to be honest with you, the doggoned bear was creeping me out a bit.  More than a bit, actually.  As the night progressed, the thumps, cracks, bangs and other noises were much more prevalent and noticeable than “normal”.  The maps hanging on the walls rustled and rattled much more than “normal”. 

Just as if someone was walking past them quickly.

And the feeling of a presence was disturbingly real.

I recall sitting in my chair with my back to the room and listening.  I was aware, perhaps, of an otherness nearby, but was also sure it was not malevolent, not evil in any way. 

Just a presence somewhere behind my back. 

I recall distinctly saying aloud that I knew the lady’s husband’s spirit was surely there and that it was welcome to stay for a while but this was not its time or its place.  I continued to read my novel, an activity that we were allowed to do during quiet times at night, and did my best to ignore the maps rustling and the bumps that were there that night.

And continued to feel the presence of…?

The next day I compassionately told the lady to take her cute little teddy bear home with her.  I needed no more company from it or her late husband.

Of course it was probably just the air handler making gusts that rattled the maps and it was probably just the brick building settling a bit more than usual that night.

Perhaps…



In 1969 I was stationed at Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone.  I was an Air Weather Observer and split my work between the Base Operations Building down on the base and up in the control tower.  The tower was manned 24/7 by at least one aircraft controller and always one weather observer. 

One dark midnight shift I was working in the tower, drinking coffee, quietly chatting with the controller and keeping an eye on the darkness around us when the radio crackled and a voice from the GCA radar operator was heard.  His job was to watch the skies on his radar screen from his building down near the runway and to help approaching aircraft line up with the runway and to land safely.  GCA stands for Ground Control Approach.

“Tower this is GCA.  Do you have any inbound traffic?”

The controller double-checked his schedule, making sure that the only traffic inbound wasn’t due for many hours, picked up the mike and responded, “Negative.  Nothing at this time.”

GCA said, “I have three targets about two miles west of the base heading southbound.  Can you confirm?”

The controller and I stepped out on the catwalk that circled the whole tower and scanned to the west, me with my bare eyes and him with binoculars.  It was dark, quiet and there was nothing to see.  We watched for several minutes and listened closely.

Back in the tower the controller told GCA that we had seen nothing.

GCA said, “The targets have now turned left and are crossing the approach area of the runway within a half mile.”

We again exited the tower and scanned the dark skies, concentrating to the south.  Still nothing.

And there never was anything to see that night.  No lights, no aircraft noises, nothing. 

Not even any birds.

Sure, it could have been a Panamanian army flight going around the base which we’d not been notified about.  It had happened before.  Rarely, but it had happened.  But three targets?  And noiseless? 

It could have been that.  Maybe…



So what am I trying to accomplish recounting to you these three stories, gentle reader?  To make you believe in ghosts?  To describe a UFO encounter?  To insinuate that a movie actor had walked out of the screen and left the movie theater through the front door?

Of course not.  Or am I?

In any case, stories like these do demonstrate that there is a LOT more going on “out there” than can easily be explained.  A LOT more.  And that our neat and tidy universe probably isn’t so neat and isn’t so tidy.

Sleep well tonight, my friends.