Here's Me

Hello!

My name is Heike (yep that's my real first name). I'm female, 50 years old, married but no children. I live in rural Oklahoma, USA, with my husband, 3 dogs, 3 horses, and an assortment of chickens, Muscovy ducks, and geese. I work for a nonprofit agency doing computer data entry.

I have a longstanding interest in the paranormal, UFO's, Fortean phenomena, cryptozoology, etc. but it's just fascination, curiosity, and lots of reading of books on the subject as well as internet sites.

I have had one UFO sighting as a child, one inexplicable encounter with 'something' as an adult, and an ex-husband who told me that he personally had seen non-human remains at a US military facility. He had his problems but I never caught him being dishonest so I tend to believe him.

My adult incident is detailed here: paranormal.about.com...
and I know it's quite bizarre and makes no logical sense, but that's what happened.

I don't believe everything, but I try not to disbelieve anything just because it doesn't fit my particular perception of reality, and because I am an honest person I tend to perceive others as honest and err on the side of belief when there is doubt.

I'm trying to be a survivalist on the level of striving for self-sufficiency, and although I'm not even close to being there I'm closer to it than some people and I'm still headed that direction. I have a nonspecific feeling that something big and bad will happen fairly soon and I'm trying to prepare for it as best I can while still surviving today.

Hi Heike and welcome

Welcome aboard, Heike! I can see you're gonna fit in just fine. As you can see there is always a spot for everyone on ATS.

Look forward to seeing you around the boards!

ms

Welcome to ATS.

Heya Heike, welcome to the forum. I read your story and appreciate what I feel is honest intent.

reply to post by BS_Slayer


Carefully noncommittal as you promised me no coal-raking? LOL

If you have questions or comments go ahead and post them, I'm sure I've heard worse. Even my own Dad thinks a big dog jumped the fence and entered my house through the open back door; he ignores the anomalous parts of the story like the temperature change or perhaps thinks I made those parts up.

Hello Heike

Welcome to the boards

Heike, your story as I mentioned is at least in my opinion feasible. Not so much that I believe it was an alien, but that your representation is respectable. It was a good story and you write well. The only anomaly that I would question is how you got such a detailed look at a creature when it was moving so fast? Here you wrote: "A large black furry or hairy animal was just leaping over the four-foot-tall fence, and I remember distinctly that it cleared the fence without touching it. It then bounded down the sidewalk and quickly disappeared past the first of the brick buildings behind us."

So far that is not so descriptive, but here is where either your memory is possibly adding details, or a hoax is possible (not accusing, just making sure you check your memory well): "It was very heavy bodied, had small rounded ears, and reminded me of a black bear cub more than anything else. I only saw it from behind and a sort of 3/4 side/back view as it raced off down the street, but it had a heavy, squat body like a bear and a very rounded rump with no visible tail. The legs seemed shorter and stockier in proportion to the body than a dog's would be, and its overall shape was totally uncharacteristic of even the heaviest bodied large cat such as a jaguar. The head also was low in front of the body, not held higher than the shoulders like a dog's is, and if there was a neck it was very short. It ran in the manner of putting both forefeet out and then bringing both hind feet up to meet the forefeet, and then springing out with the forefeet again."

Now granted, the description is not flamboyantly elaborate, but you have to admit, you made it sound like it took off extremely quickly and you did make some fairly detailed observations. I'm not saying it is impossible, just giving you my take.

It still sounds very much like a cat to me, especially if it managed to get to the top of the 66" fridge. Felines can definitely reach high distances if they are hungry, or terrified. As for the temperature, I don't know what might account for that. Even in ghost stories I never understood what temperature has to do with ghosts.
That said, I don't feel your making it up at least, and that's all I ever ask for. I have never seen any evidence of any kind to believe in trans-dimensional beings, so if not an alien and not that, then perhaps a normal animal that is alien to your environment, even though you checked on the zoo, and private owners. What do you think it was?

Hello Heike, I hope you have a nice stay.


I'm off now to read your story.

reply to post by Heike


welcoem aboard.

dont get lost in the muck...

reply to post by BS_Slayer


Well, that wasn't so bad. Those are the type of questions I would have likely had myself if responding to someone else's experience. And by the way, yes my original comment in Dan's thread was knowingly a bit tongue-in-cheek. The chocolate chip cookies somehow make the whole incident seem a bit silly, even to me, but I can only relate what happened, and the fact that the plate of cookies went from the top of the fridge to the floor without breaking is one of the (to me) more important anomalies of the encounter.

This incident made a very strong impression on me, and I remember a feeling of excitement rather than fear. I might have reacted differently had the animal not run away from me, but, as trite as the statement is, it seemed more afraid of me than I was of it.

The more detailed description of the animal comes from answering questions asked of me by others I have verbally told my story to, and some are details I didn't even realize that I had noticed until asked specific questions. For example the ears .. when someone first asked if it had perked up ears like a Shepherd dog or hanging ears like a hound dog, I had to close my eyes and review the mental scene, and then realized that the ears were small and rounded like a bear's. To this day I can close my eyes and 'see' the animal running away from me, like a scene from a movie.

The animal jumped the fence fairly close to the porch, and had to traverse most of the length of the yard, a distance of at least 150 feet or so, before it disappeared behind the buildings, and on the way it passed under a fairly bright street light. If it was a cat, it must have had its tail cut off at some point, as I can't think of any large cat that doesn't have a long tail. Also, as I said, not even a jaguar has quite the roly-poly build that this animal did.

My personal theory is that it is something that came through a portal, from something like another dimension, and the temperature drop was a result of the energy used to create the portal sucking the energy (heat) out of the air around it. I also think this was a random event, just an 'accident' of sorts. The animal accidentally walked through a doorway, found itself in my kitchen, and was then attracted by the smell of the fresh cookies. I understand your point about no evidence for trans-dimensional beings, but it's just the only theory that makes any sense to me and explains most of the anomalous features of the incident.

I really don't have issues with the (concept) of multi-dimensional beings, its just that quantum physics is a strange science and its hard to imagine anything capable of crossing over, let alone an animal-like creature.
It actually reminds me of a story an old friend of mine told me in my early 20s.

Him and his brother were only kids and had been chased out of the cellar by something that was jet black, smooth skinned, walked on its knuckles and had no head or legs. Similar to a monster cartoon I cant think of at the moment. In any event, I made fun of him until his brother completely backed him up when I brought it up later. I'd have told him he was full of S&(^ if only I didn't know him to be a stand up guy. Dual hallucination? Carbon monoxide? who knows, but they definitely believed it.

I think an overactive imagination is a powerful thing, but for all we know, you could be right.

[edit on 10-7-2008 by BS_Slayer]

Thanks for the link to your story.
From your description of the animal I would guess at it being a black bear. They run just the same as you said this animal did too.

Running black bear

I'm still wondering about the kitchen temperature.

reply to post by Jibbs


Yes, that is VERY close to what I saw and definitely matches the way it ran.

The idea of it being a 'real' black bear, or black bear cub, leaves me with 3 unanswerable questions:

1. How did it get in the middle of downtown Tulsa without anyone else noticing it?
2. How did it get the plate of cookies down without breaking the plate?
3. What caused the temperature drop?

Welcome to ATS! That is definitely a wierd story. I can't really think of anything that would explain that, I've never had any wierd experiences that I can think of, and that sort of thing isn't generally what i think about much out of ATS-kind of stuff, but it is definitely hard to explain. Anyway, I hoope you like it here, it's an awesome website.

1. How did it get in the middle of downtown Tulsa without anyone else noticing it?

Maybe it was seen, just not reported?

2. How did it get the plate of cookies down without breaking the plate?

Bears are very clever animals and soon learn new tricks.

HERE

3. What caused the temperature drop?

I have no idea?

Hi Heike and welcome to ATS. Sounds like just the place for you so enjoy yourself, thanks for sharing your story. Stop by BTS sometime if you need to relax, find a good joke or rant. It's a great place to get the know the other members.

Rush

Heike, I want you to know that you I am in deed your friend, and because I must still retain my role as a smartass, I give to you, with the upmost respect and lighthearted of intentions, actual footage of your creature.

((((Clicky))))

Dear BS,

How sweet of you to post a clip of yourself and refer to yourself as 'my creature'!! I'm all teary eyed here... If I weren't already married ...

Ok, just kidding, but I had to post some kind of cleverish comeback because I am a smartaleck too.

If I had half the charm of that little feller, I'd be damned proud!