The first paranormal experience I can remember was when I was five years old. I was laying in my bed, trying to go to sleep, when I heard a rustling noise across the room. I shared a bedroom with my younger sister at the time. I assumed it was just her shifting around in her bed to get comfortable, so she could fall asleep, until I heard her lightly snoring. At that moment a cold, clammy feeling flooded through my body. The air in the room became heavy and I was frozen with fear.
When I was five, my family moved from Arizona to Pennsylvania. My life up until that point was full of playing outside in the sunshine, flying kites, and swimming in our neighbor’s pool. The only thing I can remember being afraid of were the bugs, spiders, and snakes. Around the same time that we moved, I had my first paranormal experience. I had always suffered from insomnia. If you ask my mother, she’s convinced that I never slept. She will tell you that she would put me to bed awake and I would be awake when she came in to get me in the morning.
Growing up I shared a room with my younger sister. We had always shared a room, so this was nothing new for us. We were used to each other’s nightly noises and movements. As I was laying there, I heard the rustling again. I tried to convince myself that it was our family dog, Kizzy, moving around in our room. She would often make nightly “patrols” to check the house. But something about this was different than I had ever heard before. It was almost like the rustling sound was something going through a bag, searching for something. As the rustling continued, I slowly pulled the blankets down so I could see.
With the blankets down to the bridge of my nose, I could now see a creature crouched down next to the head of my sister’s bed. This being had greyish, white skin that reflected the moonlight. Whatever it was looking through that was causing the rustling sound was within the confines of the black robes it wore. Looking back on it now, these were wispy cloaks that seemed almost more like smoke than fabric. They almost seemed to have a “mind” of their own. There was no breeze in my room, but these clothes undulated of their own accord. Almost as if they were a part of the being itself instead of something it wore to cover its body. Its fingers were long and bony.
In that moment, I’m not sure if I made a noise that drew attention to me or if somehow it just knew that I was awake and looking at it. Either way, the being’s head snapped my direction and, as soon as I could blink, he was over me. He stood next to my bed, staring down at me. His face was indifferent. There was no sneer or teeth baring. Nothing that would usually be portrayed on a movie or TV show in this moment. It was almost as if it was curious about me and wanted to see what I was all about. However, at five years old, this was absolutely terrifying.
I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe, more from fear than from anything the being was doing. I was afraid to move. I couldn’t even think. Then, as soon as it started, it was over. As cliché as it sounds, in the “blink of an eye”, it was morning and the figure was gone. I was convinced it was a nightmare. I can remember telling my mom about it at breakfast and she sort of brushed it off as a dream. A few years later I saw a picture of Dracula on TV. It was the first time ever that I remember seeing a picture of this “being”. I very quickly realized that this was the closest image to the creature I had seen at that point in my life. Now after having a bit more experience in life, I would say that it’s probably closer to Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies.
This was quite possibly the beginning of my interest in the paranormal. I feel like I had always been interested, but this really spurned me on in trying to find out what had happened to me. As I grew up, I started reading everything I could get my hands on regarding the supernatural. I was glad to find that I wasn’t the only one who had experienced things. However, now I wanted to know why. And that is where my first steps into the paranormal started. By asking “why?”
Heather is a lead team investigator with Penns Ghost Paranormal - A Reading/Berks County Based paranormal Research and Investigation Team.
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