I have four authentic stories.
1. When my great grandma Hurst was a young girl, her father died. Later, when she was a young woman, her mother died. On the day after the funeral, she claims she saw a fire ball descend from high in the sky, down about halfway to the horizon. Then, another fireball rose from the sky, met its partner, and both rose and disappeared against the heavens. Of course this was late 19th century Alabama, the olden days, when this kind of thing was quite common.
2. Several years ago, my sister, a rational middle aged school teacher, was having a restless night, unable to sleep very well. After dozing off, she woke up to see our grandpa Hurst standing at the foot of her bed. Strangely, he had passed away some 25 years prior to that. He stood, smiled, and disappeared. (Hursts must be especially "ghostly".)
3. About 8 years ago, a good friend of ours passed away after a long illness. He had been like a second father to my wife and she was very sad. A few nights after the funeral, while we layed in bed, we saw a bright red glow on our window shade. That window faces the back of our house, there are no streets or houses nearby, and we have no reason to suspect anyone was back there. The light lingered and glowed for some time, then rose from the window shade, up the wall (!), then disappeared.
4. I have a habit of listening to the radio before falling asleep. In early 1995, I was listening to CBS radio news at the top of the hour, about 9:00 pm. When the news ended, there was a long spot of dead air. Suddenly, an announcer's voice came on the air and simply said, "In January, you'll go blind." There was more dead air. Then the regular program came back on "in progress."
My eyesight has gotten poor over the years, but I can still see. Each January, however, I'm very careful about my eyes.
That's nothing. In 1984 while waiting for a Presidential speech from Ronald Reagan, I heard a guy on the radio say: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
Of course, that legislation never surfaced, much less the bombing. I'm still waiting on that. ;-)
My daddy used to yell that to me all the time. Luckily, I stopped when I got to the point that I just needed glasses.
Dude. It was CBS. You have nothing to worry about.
1) The ghost ship north of Nantucket harbor. Over the years I've seen an image of a old sailing ship, like a brigantine, in the same area north of the channel opening in Nantucket harbor. It was always just the rigging, never the hull and the sails were never set. Every time I've seen I was in a boat north of Eel point, or about 5 miles to the west of the harbor. I've thought it could be refraction or something but there's nothing on that bearing from that vantage point until maybe Iceland, 2,500 miles away. The strangest thing was the color of the rigging. It was not just black but pitch black, like holes in the sky. Even though it was always in broad daylight there was no reflection or light at all coming off the rigging. I saw it probably 6 times and each time was from the same area/vantage point and under similar weather, lighting conditions.
2) When I was about 13 I was riding my bike down the street we lived on to downtown to get an icecream sandwich after getting out of school. It was my afternoon routine, particularly in the early fall. The day was a warm, pleasant afternoon. I knew I had to apply the bike's brake just past our house to stop before going into the T intersection at the bottom of the road. The next house down from ours was a creepy 1850s 2-story square concrete house. I think it was part of a business because I never saw anyone come in or out of it and rarely saw lights and there was a printing press behind it. Just as I passed our house and was infront of the creepy house there was a terrific blow to the middle of my back. It was so hard my face almost hit the handlebar of my bike. I looked back but no one was on the street. My bike didn't stop until it had gone across the T intersection and hit the curb on the far side. My back hurt and I was so alarmed I ran straight back to my house. There still wasn't anyone on the street. I ran into the bathroom and pulled up my shirt and turned to look at my back. To no surprise there was a big, red (left) hand print fingers and all, in the middle of my back. To this day I have sustained several injuries in that area including a painful and disabling long-term injury. It was an evil hand to be sure.
Wow, your g-g-grandma and g-g-grandpa were there the night "Stars Fell on Alabama!"
*We lived our little drama ...*
Wooo, I had folks there then, too - and they never mentioned it! It must be the great Alabama fireball cover-up. Goodness gracious.