I have slept with a light on in my house since 1981. This was my first ever (that I noticed) supernatural/paranormal experience. I had a very disturbing encounter with a tall, dark, cloaked figure which floated out of my closet in the middle of the night.

The accordion closet doors open without the help of human hands. No squealing of the wheels in the beat up old track. No getting stuck in that one spot you'd usually have to fight to get it past. No movement of air in the room. The tall dark figure slowly floats out of the closet and across the room toward the bed. It happens relatively quickly, but it feels like hours. It gets there without making a whisper of a sound. You are frozen. Paralyzed. Everything except your eyes, that is. You can’t move. You can’t speak. You can barely breathe. You certainly can’t scream like you want to or punch your husband who’s sleeping peacefully next to you so he can wake you up from this horrible nightmare that is happening while you're awake. All you can do is watch and pray that the tall, dark, faceless figure who is now at the foot of your bed reaching its cloaked arm toward you, doesn’t touch you. You can’t bear to watch. That’s when you close your eyes and plead in your mind… Please don’t touch me… please don’t touch me… I will die if you touch me... You pray harder than you’ve ever prayed in your life that when you open your eyes it will be gone.

And when you do find the courage to look, and the nightmare is over, you know you will never forget it. Ever! And the next time, a couple of weeks later, when it sends its little minions, while your husband is up late in the other room drafting plans for work, and the hallway light is barely seeping through the door, which is almost closed, they still float out of the closet and come towards you. You know it will do you no good to try and cry out, or attempt to jump off your bed and run out of the room. So this time you close your eyes right away and begin to pray and plead to God that they are gone when you open your eyes. And they are. Thank you Lord!

And the door stays open and the light stays on for the next thirty-four years because deep down inside, you have convinced yourself that when it’s on, nothing can come out of that closet. And you remember when you woke up in the middle of the night in darkness because the light bulb had burned out, and you know from that point on there will always be two lights on. One for back up. Just in case. And a flashlight on the nightstand… and in the kitchen… and in your bag… because the power does go out now and then…and you know… that for the rest of your life… the lights will stay on.

Years pass, and you hardly think about it, because the light is always on--unless it isn’t.  The funny thing is, thirty four years after the incident, you meet someone who turns your life upside down and suddenly, you're right in the middle of a paranormal reality you only see in movies. You know, those things that go bump in the night? (The house is just settling, right?)  This will be my story. It is Real. It is Paranormal. It is My Real Paranormal Life.