I like this story and I thank you for bringing it to us. I know first hand how irritating "the treatment" can be here and other places. I've been guilty of dishing it out myself. Some people, though, want to read weird stories for the entertainment value, but don't want to have to deal with the possibility that they might have actually happened. That's what creepy pasta is for. Most members here have more to them than that, of course, and just want to make sure they are not being tricked into believing some yarn. I understand that insecurity, and try to avoid manifesting it myself.
I have no problem believing Frank experienced what he said he did. I don't need a tidy, "rational explanation" and so I usually manage to avoid crossing the line from skepticism to rationalization. At least I try to. The latter looks foolish to people who experienced the events and know they were not mistaken. Another thing people lose sight of far too often is the simple reality that a story like this can't be proven in any definitive way, let alone on an online forum decades after the events. Seeking such proof is a fool's errand. I know for sure that Weird Shit happens because a surprising amount of it has happened to me. Fortunately, I have a very sensible world view that allows me to avoid the false assumption that the distribution of Weird Shit has to be random. There is no reason it has to be any more random than the distribution of snowfall, or parakeets. I have heard about quite a lot of Weird Shit happening to people I know and trust, as well as a lot of well attested stories from others of high character.
If Frank made this up for some reason, or if you did, and I'm tricked by it, then so what? It proves nothing, disproves nothing. Some people do such things to convince themselves they are clever, or whatever, and that's sad. I'm not going to let those losers cause me to judge all such stories unfairly. Frank's narrative is internally consistent, and I don't see any red flags waving at me. For others, the "magical" aspects are just too weird, and therefore cannot possibly be true. We all have our triggers.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with us.