Odd Shadows & Snapping Sounds

Months ago I declared that, in time, Heron House would be “haunted.” Not by ghosts so much as dimensional things that slip into a reality that will be more flexible around where I live due to my semi-regular visits from aliens. Their technology seems to create side-effects that produce poltergeist-like phenomena.

Maybe it’s all started sooner than expected?

I’m not sure, but in the last week or so, I’ve begun to notice small, cat-sized, shadowy shapes moving around sometimes in the house. I attribute it to my close-up eyesight getting worse (requiring stronger reading glasses) and my brain just interpreting what it can’t “get” as somehow cats, because most weird things that move around me in my life ARE cats slinking in and out of sight.

Last night, I was alone in the house with just the cats, as Cat was off to a gaming party and I was just too exhausted to join her. I kept swearing I saw some shadowy amorphous shapes around 3 feet long by a foot wide just going around corners or what have you. A couple of times, I looked straight on at something see-through that obviously moved as I watched. Was it floaters in my eyes? Was it the glasses I wore causing reflections? (I still get startled by that effect sometimes.) Couldn’t tell for sure, so I shrugged it off.

Then, last night, something odd happened that went beyond those shadows.

I kept hearing a strange, snapping type of noise– like the sound of a breaker switch being thrown. That loud “THWACK” kind of sound that could be a small bundle of metal rods being struck against maybe plastic. “SMACK!“ I heard it several times and looked over and tilted my head. I figured “cats” because that’s what weird sounds are almost 100% of the time, let alone in a household with 4 of them!

But then I saw all 4 cats were with me in the room, waiting semi-patiently to be fed. Hmmmm! As I realized this, the snapping noises continued. Quite bizarre.

I was doing laundry. Was it something in the dryer smacking around? The sounds were clearly coming from the top of the stairs to the rec room, right by the laundry room. I got up to investigate. The sounds stopped as soon as I moved a few feet towards the source of sound. That alone made me wonder more. Still, I went and checked and couldn’t figure it out, and while I was looking, no more snaps.

So I checked the dryer, got my clothes out, folded them and put them away in silence, then turned off the breaker to the dryer. (We’re extra cautious with it due to some issues we had checked by an electrician.) I sat down and went back to watching a show.

The snaps started up again. This time I sat and listened and moved my head around from my chair. Definitely upstairs. I got up again, and managed to get about 10 feet before they stopped that time. I was able to discern that the sounds were popping up from different locations upstairs in the rec room. How can such an obvious, very specific sound MOVE from one area to another like that? Then it stopped after I had taken a few steps.

NOW I was suspicious!

All told, the snapping noises went off 5 times at least during the evening– and stopped once I got up to investigate, but would continue for up to 10 minutes non-stop if I remained in my chair. It seemed clear the noises were intelligently responding to my movement towards them.

Cat came home from her game and things went quiet, and I didn’t even mention it. I rather prefer to have people independently notice what I do, so I know it’s not just me.

I didn’t have to wait long. I got 2 witnesses the very next day!

This evening, Cat and Tess and I were all hanging out in the rec room in the gaming area having ourselves a Roomie Meet. We went over several issues, and I got a chance to explain my worries about Tess avoiding confrontation and making situations worse. We were just finishing up when…

Cat suddenly interrupted me, saying, “What was that thing by the wood stove?” We asked her what she meant.

She kept staring and said, “I thought it was a cat at first, but it was a shadow. There was obvious movement. It crawled down off the small wood pile to the floor. I was looking right at it.”

We all tried to make the shadow she saw, but the angle of light was wrong for it. And the cats were all accounted for.

That’s when I made a confession. I had been seeing weird, cat-sized shadows for a few days at least and was wondering if it was my eyes or something. Just as I said this, some loud SNAP, SMACK, THWACK noises started going off downstairs in the keeping area (which is where I was last night when I heard the noises in the rec room!)

“Oh,” I said, “and last night I started hearing these snapping sounds– only then I heard them up here.”

We all looked at each other. Then we got up to go find the sounds. They stopped after we went a few feet. We looked, found nothing, and returned to our seats. And I told them about the sounds I’d been hearing.

AND they started up a second time! This time we all three got up and started checking more thoroughly. The laundry room was silent, the sounds were coming from the kitchen or keeping area next to it FOR SURE. Then Cat said she saw another shadow on the gas fireplace in the keeping room. It was just before sunset, so there was daylight around. It wasn’t a dark, scary thing going on. We heard a couple more sounds as we entered the area– it sounded like it was from the corner tower room. AND it was coming from different areas of it, just as the night before but upstairs. An odd sound that moved around?

HUH?!?!

Cat checked the electric tea kettle, which makes a “snick” sound when the auto heater goes off. It was off. We checked the fireplace and nothing was amiss there. We quickly ran out of “rational explanations.”

There were no more snapping noises after that. But now everyone was alerted that there was something odd going on. I looked at my roomies and said, “I told you this is a thing for me. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon! It took a  year and half for anything to get freaky at the Ghost Lake house, aside from my bed vibrating and thumping.”

Here we go again–? At Spiral’s End: What’s Left After the Paradigm Shatters is the personal paranormal blog of a woman that follows not only current odd events in her life, but recounts incidents from her past, including lifelong alien abductions, encounters with ghosts and other spiritual beings, and premonitions from either waking visions or dreams. She reacts and speculates about the deeper meaning behind these incidents and wonders– what is the ultimate reality or intelligence behind it all?