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The Green Hand....

MercuryCrest

The Severed Head of a Great Old One.
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Mar 24, 2003
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This is one I've been sitting on for a very long time. It sounds so bizarre that I haven't bothered to share it with the world at large.

Here goes:

When I was 8 or 9, I had gone to my grandma and grandpa's farm way out in the country to spend a few days with them and one of my cousins.

Yes, it was Halloween night, but I've been over every aspect and can't see how this was a "trick" of some sort.

So my cousin and I are playing "Ghostbusters", running around between the kitchen and the office, pretending to bust ghosts, as it were.

At the point I find myself in the dining room, my cousin is behind me in the kitchen and my grandma and grandpa are in their respective chairs to my left, watching the news.

I look across the living room into a dark(-ish) hallway and see a vertical bar of white light, maybe two or three feet tall, hanging in mid-air. I watched as a large, adult hand extended from the light, palm open and facing away from me, clench into a fist, then retract into the light again.

The hand itself was green, covered with coarse black hairs (very much like someone with German or Hungarian descent) and, apart from the hue, looked entirely normal.

As for the "light bar", it didn't "disappear" in front of me...it just wasn't there any more.

I've worked up a drawing of the farmhouse with relevant points labeled, so I'm going to see about uploading that and linking back to this post....

Some salient points:
-It was evening, perhaps around 8-9 o'clock.
-There were only the four of us there.
-This place is out in the boonies.
-We'd experienced some lesser phenomena here, but nothing this substantial.

EDIT: Let's see if I've got this-here interwebz thingy figured out:
REHe0FN.jpg



Success!!!

EDIT2: Added "salient points".
 
Wow, that's brilliant! :D

So what were the other phenomena? Did anything else happen afterwards? Did the family discuss the weirdness?

Inquiring minds need to know. ;)
 
I've shared this experience with very few people, as it's just so weird.

I did read about The Green Children of Woolpit shortly afterwards and felt the tiniest bit better.

As for other strangeness, the cousins and I talked about all sorts of things in that place.

-There were two statues of scotty dogs. We'd swear that they'd move about on their own, like someone rotated them to face the opposite way on occasion.
-There was a lamp which for some reason freaked us all out. It was some abstract blown glass thing and it just felt "weird".
-The basement used to freak us out, but I think that's just because we were kids and it was "spooky".

Then there's this bit, which is just damned odd....

A few years ago I talked to my cousin (same one in the OP) to compare notes on something I remembered.

In the attic, there was a walk-in closet. As you walked in, I had the most distinct memory of there being a second door on the right-hand side which led to a fairly large room.

Since the attic space we kids were familiar with was about half of the farmhouse, it's entirely possible that there could have been a room there. Thing is, there's no evidence of it. Nothing. Just a distinct memory from childhood.

I recall once rapping on the wall where I thought the door should be and it sounded a bit "hollow", but that could have been my imagination at the time.

When I brought this up with my cousin, I made sure not to ask any leading questions. I believe I just asked if there was anything else odd about the attic that he remembered. That's when he mentioned "the room" to me.

Our notes (what little we could remember) matched up.

No one else has brought up "the room". I'm not sure if we ever mentioned it to the adults.

5szCQyI.jpg


EDIT: Added pretty picture.
 
The question is how did you react to this at the time? And does anyone else remember your reaction.

No offence whatsoever but going on the balance of probabilities it's much more likely to be the result of a child's imagination and something of an embellish memory. Something which most of us have experienced, in fact there's a thread about it somewhere here.
 
How did I react? I froze, stock still. I had no real-world reference for what I was seeing. The whole thing took just a few seconds.

Afterward, I retreated behind me to the kitchen and whispered what had happened to my cousin.

Both grandparents were watching the news at the time. They have utterly no interest in this sort of stuff. I'd wager that if Bigfoot himself walked up to them and gave them his card, they'd be completely oblivious.

As for the memory, this has been fresh in my mind since very moment it happened. Every single detail.
 
I'm sure you know that when I say the following I'm not being critical in any way just offering what I think is a more likely explanation.

I can't imagine a child seeing something like that and not running straight to the nearest adult. Whether they were responsive to this sort of thing or not is unlikely to come into it, because I don't believe that a kid would consider that they'd just want the safety of the adults. It'd be a hard wired reaction.

As you said you were playing Ghostbusters, then something totally bizarre happened, something that should have terrified you and sent you running. Instead of this you seem to have taken pretty much in the context of the game you were playing. You may remember it clearly but again this is the nature of memory, it's not terribly reliable. Especially not from childhood. Personally lots of my most vivid childhood memories have been shown to be more or less wildly out.
 
I liken my reaction to what happens many times to people when they witness something "Fortean", for lack of a better word.

We've got a thread somewhere about how the reactions of people are anything but normal.

Honestly though, I would never have said a word of this to my grandparents anyways. They would have been pissed that I interrupted the news and would have dismissed it immediately.
 
Sorry I accidentally posted that message in two parts by mistake.
 
No problem, I shall respond to the second half here.

While yes, we were playing Ghostbusters, there's a significant difference between pretending to see something and actually seeing something completely other.

Yes, I had an active imagination, but I could always very readily discern fact from fantasy. I never "saw" my flights of fancy. Things were purely in the mind's eye.

This was something completely unrelated to our playing. It was after I told my cousin that I decided I had had enough playing for the night.

That's how it affected me.

While I'm aware of memory being fallible, I've played this scenario over in my head many, many times since it happened.

I guess we can agree to disagree because I'm absolutely confident in what I saw.
 
On a sort of related note; when I was about 10 or 11 back in the mid 80's I was being driven across our local common, it was New Year's Eve and around 20:00. I looked out of the car window and running along the sky line was a gigantic cat at least the size of a horse.

I can still see it now, did I really see it? Personally I'm sure not. As you rightly say though that's just my take on things.
 
Actually, oldrover, it seems perfectly credible to me that a child might see something like this and, even if terrified, not run to the nearest adult. I wouldn't have. Because adults are no good with things like that and talking about things - putting them into words - makes them realer, but adults don't always see things and always tell you you're imagining it without even checking.

The thing one person can't imagine is someone else's daily routine. And if there's one thing studying Forteana should prove to us early on, it's that the infinite universe is not limited by our finite brains' capacity to understand or envision it.
 
PeniG I soon learned not to tell adults of anything different happening. They would either a: Give a stupid answer
b: Say I imagined it
c:Insinuate that I was odd e.g. reciting" There are fairies at the bottom of my garden"
 
I agree with Oldrover that it has to be more likely the result of childhood imagination, but more likely doesn't mean definitely. I disagree that a child would run straight to an adult. As a kid, I think my first instinct on experiencing anything so odd would be to keep looking to see what it did. I don't think I would have dared take my eyes from it. I certainly wouldn't have dared move unless it became immediately threatening.
 
Absolutely. Also, in my own experience telling an adult was usually a no-no because their default response was disbelief, whatever I was saying.

Even an ordinary comment like 'I'm hungry!' would be met with 'You can't be, you only had your dinner an hour ago!' So I'd never have tried to tell my parents about anything even remotely weird as I'd expect not to be believed from the start.

I'd be trying to convince them that it was true, failing miserably and then being punished for making things up. Easier to keep quiet. (We've heard all about that process in another contex, sadly.)

Besides which, adults just don't want to hear things like that from children. It's too scary. ;)
 
Did your grandpa or cousin react can you recall? Given they're both within light of sight of "the green hand" ? (by reckoning with your drawing)

In paranormal terms "a bar of light" has been reported before.

And I've read a report of "an pff colour hand" being seen as well.
 
Time for me to weigh in again....

I can't explain more vociferously how I would have been rebuked had I said something. (Nothing physical, but general disbelief suffices here.)

No one else "reacted" to what I saw. My cousin was otherwise occupied, narrating what he was doing in response to the "ghost" in grandpa's office (this was purely imagination on his part, as he has admitted).

I can't impress upon you how "into" the news my grandfolks were, given that they were farmers in the midwest and relatively old at the time.

Isis177 gave a pretty good run-down of what I could expect, had I said something.

I would like to say that I studied what was happening, but I was honestly frozen in place, just witnessing the thing. I did pay attention after-the-fact, but at the time I was too young to understand exactly what had transpired.

Mooksta, I'd love to hear more about the "bar of light" phenomena, as I've heard it mentioned in passing in a few stories, but nothing concrete, as I recall.

I'd also like to know of this "pff" color hand you mentioned (assuming 'pff' is code for 'off'....)
 
Great story.

One thought/question. Are the cabinets in front of the guest room glass fronted? I'm wondering about the possibility of a distorted reflection from the TV, to the mirror behind your grandparents, perhaps even involving the mirror opposite the cabinets. Would be strange not to have noticed such a thing before but two kids running around the house may have caused a door or mirror to move slightly and pick up and or distort a TV image.
 
MercuryCrest said:
Mooksta, I'd love to hear more about the "bar of light" phenomena, as I've heard it mentioned in passing in a few stories, but nothing concrete, as I recall.

I'd also like to know of this "pff" color hand you mentioned (assuming 'pff' is code for 'off'....)

Apologies...stubby fingers.

The "pff"..."off colour hand" appeared around a door handle witnessed by two people entering a known haunted site. I'm going to see The Covenanter Prison in Edinburgh as I've read quite a bit about it. Let me see if I can dig out the reference. Possibly in Ron Halliday's "Haunted Scotland".

And the "bar of light" was used as a description by a Beefeater in the Tower of London (IIRC) floating in mid-air although that one may have been horizontal.

And I'd have to look for other entities appearing from bars of light but on the fly I'm pretty sure I've read stories of that ilk.
 
Peni G etc, as I've said believe that this didn't happen the way that MercuryCrest remembers, which as this is a discussion I hope they won't mind my saying. Of course I wasn't there, but there are a few aspects that I feel I can be fairly sure of.

If a child is terrified it won't rationalise it'll seek safety, and what 8-9 year old wouldn't be afraid of seeing that. A disbelieving adult is a lot more favourable than a disembodied hand appearing in front of you.

Again, I'd say that the reaction seems to be far more in keeping with the game they were playing.
 
Is the house still there? It'd be interesting to see if there is actually an unknown room in the attic.

P.S. What part of the Midwest. I spent a good amount of time at my grandparent's farmhouse in the midwest myself.
 
Thanks for that, Mooksta. Love to hear more if you run across the respective tales.

Tunn11, glad you asked. No, these were all wood with a very dark stain. In fact, I specifically added the mirrors in the drawing to try to work out in my head if there was any chance of a reflection or something. I can't stress enough how "solid" this looked.

The house is still there, last I checked, but it is no longer in the family. (And I've actually had a falling out with that side of the family as I don't consider myself to be "Christian".)

EDIT: Clarification.
 
MercuryCrest said:
Thanks for that, Mooksta. Love to hear more if you run across the respective tales.

Wasn't a "bar" of light it was a cylinder and seen as James wrote about only 8 months ago HERE you'd think I'd paid attention.

Will have to go through my Scottish paranormal books to find the off colour hand. As I recall, two female witnesses approach a door of a monument in Edinburgh and a green, grey hand emerges from the other side and grabs the handle. They check behind the door and no ones there. I can't remember if it was The Covenator's Prison or MacKenzie's Tomb or indeed Edinburgh Castle though the city is correct.

Maybe Gordon would know?

And a quick Google of "creature emerging from light" gave me this link on P1

“The dirty yellow expanding light seemed to be positioned just above the ground…`It’s a tunnel, not just a light.’ Mike whispered (as he looked through binoculars). `Jesus Christ.’ Mike said hoarsely. `Something is in the tunnel!’…`Oh my God,’ Mike said suddenly, thoroughly frightened. `There is a black creature climbing out. I see his head.’” At that point, he witnessed a Bigfoot-like creature emerge.
 
Thanks for that, I'll have a look at the links when I get home.

As for the light: it's entirely possible that I was seeing a very thin cylinder, but because it was self-illuminating, I could only see it as a "bar".

Best guess would be that it was maybe 1/4" to 1/2" wide from my perspective.

Something else I should add: I don't have a recollection of the light actually illuminating the hallway, but that's a detail that I guess I didn't pay attention to at the time.
 
It's almost a pity the hand didn't offer a gesture, like a thumbs up or something. Probably best it didn't give you the middle finger salute. Phantom hands are something I've read about occasionally over the years, so they have a precedent. The scary bit is wondering what they belong to. Are you familiar with the old TV show The Incredible Hulk, as a matter of interest?
 
I never really enjoyed The Incredible Hulk. I was aware of it, however.

A take on this that I've always wondered about (esp. if anyone remembers the show "Sliders"): What if this were a scientist from another dimension (with green skin) who thought he invented a device that could connect different dimensions? As a test, might'n he reach his arm through in a grabbing motion to see if it comes back with anything?
 
MercuryCrest said:
I never really enjoyed The Incredible Hulk. I was aware of it, however.

:shock: The Incredible Hulk was grand!

MercuryCrest said:
A take on this that I've always wondered about (esp. if anyone remembers the show "Sliders"): What if this were a scientist from another dimension (with green skin) who thought he invented a device that could connect different dimensions? As a test, might'n he reach his arm through in a grabbing motion to see if it comes back with anything?

Brave scientist! Perhaps it was a green ape thing that came across an apparent bar of light in its alien jungle and was trying to grab it, only to find its hand passing through it, unaware it was appearing on our world. That doesn't help explain whence came the trans-dimensional bar of light.
 
As an aside, there's a column by Jenny Randles in the latest FT which goes into the possible causes of seeing "impossible" things you would find intriguing, MC.
 
MercuryCrest said:
What if this were a scientist from another dimension ..?

PeteByrdie said:
Perhaps it was a green ape thing that came across an apparent bar of light in its alien jungle ...

Or perhaps..at this moment, 3 dimensions to the right, green fingers are opening a thread on a message board called "Bar of Light: Greenham High Street...Please Help!"

Another baffled near human...green in colour.
 
Mooksta, love your comment just above. ;)

MercuryCrest, I for one would be much quicker to accept your memory as being accurate. One has to respect the stance of believing children have a way of embellishing their outer-fringe experiences, while at the same time it's a different matter altogether when a level-headed, perceptive and intelligent person is certain that what he/she saw was a real physical manifestation of sorts.

I think that having my own Fortean experience at a younger age (an apparent water-nymph trying to lure me into a pond with it's graceful singing) is what makes me more percipient to whether people are holding onto a childhood fantasy-turned-reality, or if someone is recalling an actual physical encounter with something they can't explain. Real people coming forward with real stories is why we have Fortean events in the first place, and I think at times it's rather easy to feel confident that "there must be SOME logical explanation" when sometimes the real answer isn't a slipped memory or trick of the light, but maybe a shred of etheric energy that our current understandings and patterns of logic won't acknowledge for a few hundred more years.
 
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