Confrontation with the Unknown.

Living in Southern California during the Regan administration, although the "gas crisis" was well and truly over, we continued to cue for hours at gas stations to fill our tanks - 1983 was a strange year.

Married a 'child bride', she 19 and I the ripe old age of 25. Looking back can describe this relationship like a "Mills and Boon" novel -young- what more can be said?

In 1983, my job required me to travel to London for a month of training. We had just recently moved into a new apatment complex, clean, minimalist and exactly to our liking. We moved our secondhand furniture in and it truly felt like home.


My month in London was productive and had a great time leaving my 'child bride' back in LA., to keep the home fires burning.

Upon my return something had changed. Cathy had lost alot of weight that she could not afford to lose. The apartment smelled musty like it hadn't been dusted and there was also a terrible smell like amonia, that seemed to permeate the place.

Cathy was glad to see me but her childhood cat of 17 years had just died. Possibly the reason for the weight loss, maybe.

During the next two weeks she would hold me in bed like her life depended on my presence...needy, maybe but strange, too.

Life between us seemed now to get back to normal: Cathy had gained a little weight and the smells had disappeared.

Then it happend.

It was the spring of 1983, a warm night but comfortable.

A hard day at work, we fell asleep without any problems.

I remember distinctly the digital cloak reading 3:00 am, to find my wife and I pushing something heavy from our chests...looking at the end of the bed was this orb of fire.

Perhaps a metre in length and width, it pulsated heat and feelings almost beyond description.

It felt as if my mind was being infiltrated by an unknown force, images of my wife's dead cat being hung and tortured.

We held each other in pure fear, watching this ball of fire move vertically then horizonatally to finally, after a few miniutes, move slowly to 'its left and gently move through the wall.

Needless to say, sleep was impossible, thus we made tea and compared notes.

Interestingly, during the experience, we 'saw' the same images of her (dead) poor cat being hung and tortured.

This entity has never returned.

In 2000, I returned to California to see friends and family. Cathy had just re-married a good guy and all was right with the world. But then I mentioned the experience to Cathy in front of her new husband: she turned a shade of white and green, looked me straight in the eyes and said,

"Never mention that experience again, ok?"

I never have until now.

One of the great lines in Hamlet:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than dreamt up in your philosophy."

Shakespeare

"Hamlet, Act 1 scene 5.

This is one of those experiences I never ever forget...

And life goes on.