The One Where Fox Mulder Jumped Out And Said "Boo!"

Allow me to preface this post with six little words:

I'm not making this stuff up.

Ahem. Now then. This past Saturday night, amidst my stuffy nose and hacking cough, I went on an investigation. I was one of three investigators signed up to go and didn't feel right dropping out. Plus? I hadn't been ghost hunting in over a month. I was in need of a fix.

Guys? Seriously? I'm ready for just about anything when it comes to investigating the paranormal. I've had a few unexplainable things happen to me that have made my hairs stand on end, my heart race, and my voice utter, What in the frak was that?!? Paranormal things. Ghostly things. Never client things. Until now.

My fellow investigators and I spent five hours in the middle of an X-Files episode. The client is convinced that UFOs and aliens are visiting his neighborhood and his home in particular. He's seen the UFO. He has a picture of a 3-finger hand print on the dust of his bookshelf.*

And he is freaked the frak out.

John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies, Disneyland of the Gods, and Our Haunted Planet posits that UFO/extra-terrestrial sightings and paranormal/psychic experiences are linked and are basically the same thing.** He feels that if there's an uptick in UFO sightings? Then ghost activity is probably skyrocketing as well. And vice versa. And if that's the case, then a paranormal investigative group should be digging into UFO cases as much as ghost cases.

Is this client truly being visited by extra-terrestrials (or ultra-terrestrials, for that matter)? I don't know. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary occurred during our investigation, but it was clear that this gentleman, a very level-headed, intelligent, retired military officer, is absolutely convinced that he's in the middle of, and a subject of, a secret alien genetic collection field trip.

And how do we help him? Whether we believe him or not, whether we believe in E.T.s or U.T.s or UFOs, we can't just discount him based on his beliefs versus ours. Regardless of any of that, what he's feeling is valid. The events he has described to us may not have actually happened, but his sleep-deprived eyes, his loaded firearms, and his paranoia are happening right now.

And that worries me.

* Saw it. It's a freaky photo. Seriously.
** Now, before I get comments that scream, OMFG! You believe that crackpot about anything?!? let me just say that a few of Mr. Keel's ideas are noteworthy. His descriptions of what happened in Point Pleasant, WV in the late 1960s? Dead on. But, I agree that some of his ideas are a bit out there.