Here begins what I figure may become a long discussion.  For whatever reason, I have had more paranormal experiences than I can possibly count or remember. I know that sounds ridiculous, and  you may already be thinking that this poster must be schizophrenic. Not the case. I appear to be completely sane. I have also had psychological tests done (at about 8 year intervals) just to be absolutely sure I am not making things up, or imagining things, or some other crazy explanation, but the tests have always come out balanced and normal.  So that is that.

There is no way I can sit here and go through all the things I have seen. There are a few instances that stand out for various reasons, so I thought I would pick the paranormal event that was the most verifiable instance in my life. This happened when I was 15. And the best part is that my cousin Todd was with me, and saw the whole thing himself as well. Every couple years I will call him and ask, "Did we really see what we thought we saw?" His answer is always yes, so I could not have imagined it.

Todd and I were visiting my relatives in New Mexico with our families. Lots of people in the adobe house. We were on the Navaho reservation land in the four-corners region, and near Chaco Canyon. Its a very sacred place, and its freaking gorgeous. The rain comes in torents, and the storms are electrifying. And this night, maybe a week or two into our summer long stay, Todd and I had locked ourselves in a room with a huge window to watch a night time lightning storm. We turned off all the lights, sat in the window and talked as we watched the storm in the dark. There was a dead tree about 10 feet from the window in the front of the house. It looked a little odd,  an evergreen that had lost all its needles. It whipped in the wind, constantly swaying, and was light enough that every time lightning hit, this tree lit up white. It was the easiest thing to see, since the next tree was probably a mile away beyond the wild horse pastures out the window. So we just sat there, watching this tree as the sky blinked.

After about two hours, a huge bolt of lightning lit up the dark sky, and we both instantly started screaming from what we saw out the window. We scrambled for the door in the dark trying to get out of the room. Being unfamiliar with the house, we fell over furniture grabbing toward the sliver of light under the door on the far wall screaming the whole way.  Once we got out of that room I honestly can't remember what we told the relatives, who must have heard us. But once we got to our beds, we discussed what we had seen.

Todd said that when the lightning hit, he was looking at the tree, and saw a gallows over the tree that had a rope, and a tall gold robot looking thing was standing by the rope. I then related to him that what I saw was a gallows over the tree with a rope hanging, but by the rope was a short silver robot-looking being standing there. We mutually suspected that there must be some other structure out front by the window that looks kinda like these things we saw, and we would check in the morning.

So the next day, we went out front to find that tree we had watched for two hours or so.

No tree. No stump. Nothing. There was no tree at all. Baffled, I went to my uncle and asked him if he had chopped down the dead pine tree from the front lawn. He laughed at me. "There's never been a tree there," he said.  There was nothing in the front lawn at all, it was completely clear. No fences, no light posts, no nothing — and this is in rural New Mexico… there was nothing standing anywhere for miles.

So what the hell was that? I have no freaking clue. A ghost tree? A hallucination for 2 straight hours? The gallows part didn't even matter anymore, we had been watching that dead tree half the night. There was no question IT was there. This is the kind of thing that makes you think you are just crazy. But we both saw it.

So that's one experience.