Speaker 1: Welcome to Midweek Mysteries, and thank you for being here.
I'm your host, Nick Ryan. Today's first Midweek Mystery comes
to us from Dollin. Dollin's story is called Shadow Santa.
Dollan says, Hello, Nick, I have really enjoyed listening to
your podcast over the last few months. The story I
have to share comes from something that happened when I
was about ten or eleven years old. We were getting
close to Christmas time, and I remember how excited I
was for the holiday to arrive. One night, however, I
did my normal nightly routine and got myself ready for bed.
I fell asleep, and a couple hours later, I woke
up to the feeling of being watched. I sat up
up and realized that my door was slightly cracked open,
which is bizarre because I always had my door shut
when I sleep because my door led to a big,
empty hallway. I didn't like to have staring at me
while I slept. I got out of bed and started
walking over to my door to close it when I
realized that there truly was a figure standing in my
doorway watching me. It was about six and a half
feet tall and had a large, broad appearance. Confused and
also terrified, I stared at it for a few seconds
to make sure I wasn't seeing things. My first thought,
after my terror washed away, was that it was Santa Claus. Yes,
I believed in Santa still at this time. I mean,
after all, he does watch over you to make sure
you're being nice and not knotty. So I started walking
closer to it, and as soon as I reached the door,
the figure backed away. I opened my door to see
the figure at the end of the hallway. After standing
there for a few few seconds, he started sprinting toward
me with his hands stretched out as if he was
going to tackle me. As soon as he reached me,
I screamed and grabbed a shoe that was by my
bed and threw it in the direction of the figure.
My parents heard me screaming and turned all the lights on,
and just like that, the figure was gone. My father
asked what was wrong, and so I relaid my experience
to him. He told me everything was fine and to
go back to bed. Still terrified, I climbed back into
my sheets and stared at my closed door until my
eyes grew heavy enough that I fell asleep. When I
woke up. I had convinced myself that it was a dream.
But when I opened the door again, I saw the
shoe that I had thrown sitting right against my door.
I didn't see where I threw it the night before,
but I know it was farther than where it was
sitting currently. My heart dropped into my stomach and I
suddenly felt as though I was being watched again. I
ran to my parents room and woke them up. I
asked them if they put my shoe against my door,
and they said they had no idea where my shoe
even was. I am an only child with no pets.
I told my parents what happened, and they told me
that I must have been sleepwalking. However, I have never
had a history of sleepwalking. Ever. I know what I
saw that night, and the memory of it still haunts
me to this day. Thanks for your podcast and keep
up the great work. I look forward to your next
one dollin our next midweek mystery comes from Ronnie. Ronnie's
story is called Uophone Counters in Scotland. Ronnie says, Hi,
I love your show. I've been binging on it during
the lockdown. It has caused me to write down many
events from my life and reassess them. On speaking to
my sister to get her permission for this submission, we
realized that we have had many, many in counters with
the paranormal. It starts with my dad before my sister
and I were born, and my dad spent several years
service in the Royal Air Force. During that time, he
was stationed in the remote far north of Scotland. He
was a fireman and most of the emergencies they responded
to were crashes, et cetera. He would teasingly hint at
having seen UFOs and them being present at these serious crashes.
One in particular in nineteen sixty seven, when several airmen
died in an accident, not that UFOs had caused the accidents,
but almost that they were being observed. This particular crash
really stayed with him. He was only eighteen and it
would turn out to be the worst he had attended
for loss of life, and he knew some of the men.
He as a young aircraft man, would sometimes look after
the children of senior officers on the base and he
knew two of the men on board well, and I
remember being taken to visit their graves, but when it
came to UFOs he would always stop short and say
he couldn't tell us more as he had signed the
Official Secrets Act. It was all very exciting, as he
was quite the story teller, and we would hang on
every word. One story he did tell us about happened
when we were little. He was a truck driver by then,
having left the Royal Air Force. He was delivering all
over Scotland, and one lovely summer's day he stopped in
a remote area to have his launch. It was a
beautiful cliff top overlooking the sea. The sky was clear
and there was no one around. As he sat there
enjoying his sandwiches, he saw something silver appear from one
horizon and travel to the other incredibly quick. It was
something moving more quickly than this man that has lived
on an Air Force base had ever seen anything travel before.
It actually spooked him. He thought, what in the name
of all that is holy was that? And then as
quickly as it disappeared, it was back hanging in the
air towards the horizon. He got back in his truck
straight away and headed off to his next destination. A
little shaken as he went along, he couldn't stop thinking
about what he had seen and decided it was not
man made. It was no prototype he had ever seen
or heard of, and he had always maintained a keen
interest in aviation. Traveling through this deserted rural area, he
started to hear a whirling sound. Being in the middle
of nowhere, he knew that any mechanical problem could be
a pretty big deal. He stopped, but the noise continued.
He checked the mirrors and looked around, but there was nothing.
No one around in a pine lined road in rural Scotland.
Very odd. With his hand on the cab door, he
checked his window mirror again and saw a tall figure
moving quickly up the side of his truck. He started
the engine and took off at full speed. It shocked him,
it really did. He was still shaken when he got home.
The biggest animal in the wilds of Scotland that you'll
find is a stag, but he said it had definitely
been humanoid and with a weird gait. The second half
of my story is about an experience my sister and
I had. We lived in a small town called East Kilbride.
Those of your listeners interested in UFOs should look the
town up, as it has had a lot of sightings.
My sister was home from university for Christmas and we
decided to go visit a mutual friend across town. As
we were going to have a drink. We walked on
the clear, frosty night. We stayed a few hours and
then headed off. We stopped off to pick up some
food to take home, and due to this slight detour,
we walked home away we usually avoid up a steep
grassy hill and then along the side of a quiet road.
This part of town is very quiet and with great
expanses of sky. In the daylight, you can see north
toward Ben Lamond and Trossex's National Park. Over the years,
I have seen several shooting stars here and as a
child we watched a Space shuttle fly over the town
as a thank you for the work that was done
in a local factory which contributed to the craft in
some way. My sister, now a full fledged scientist, has
always been keen on astronomy. The sky was clear on
this frosty evening and there were many stars out. Looking up,
I remarked to my sister, is that Venus? As I
could see a very bright star. Looking up, she casually remarked, no,
it's in the wrong place, And as we trudged on
trying to get home in the cold, she looked up
again and said, actually, what is that? So we stopped
and looked at it. It was very bright, a different
kind of light than a star or planet. As we
looked at it and looked at each other in turn,
it moved. It's moving a helicopter, I said, really staring now,
because it seemed to rotate or shift shape. It was
clearly now a triangle with a very bright light on
each corner. It was slowly rotating. Now I am always
very impressed with people that can tell how big something is,
people that can calculate scale. Against this ink black star
sprinkled winter sky. It was going to be difficult to
work out anything like that, But as it seemed to
be getting closer, all I can say is that I
was struck by its density, and that made it appear massive.
We were standing in shock, trying to desperately use logic
to work out what this was. We kept walking, not
wanting to make a strange situation worse. It was still
slowly rotating when from one of the corners another light emerged.
It flew out from the corner, but not too far.
Then another and another, until there were around eight emerging
from all three corners. And then it became clear that
these lights were also triangles, with a light at each corner.
Size wise, each of them were about one fiftieth the
size of the original object. There was no noise, and
the only thing I could hear was our breathing. The
smaller objects were all flying around the bigger object, going
a bit away, than returning to fly around the larger object.
We realized we were following them eyes skyward. We were
walking towards an even more secluded area. We give ourselves
a shake. Realizing we were less than five minutes from
home and that Dad was home. Maybe we could take
him out and show him. We hurried home, all overwhelmed
by what we saw. We realized we could still see
the objects all the way home, maybe a sign of
the altitude they were at. We got in and ran
to our dad, telling him all about it. He went
into the sitting room, and turning out the light, he
peered out the window. The lights were still clearly visible
with the smaller triangles around the large danse object. He
then went into our garden to get a better look. Excited,
we looked at our dad, wondering what he'd do. He
looked at us, walked back in, shut and locked the door,
walked into the living room and shut the blinds. He said,
best we just leave that alone. Best not to chase
these things. And then, unbelievably cold, scared, excited, and in
reverence to our dad, we just left it and settled
down to eat. We have spoken of it many times,
but why didn't we report it? Why did Dad react
like that? What was it? My dad has passed on now,
so we can't ask him, but I know at that
time we saw how serious he thought it was, that
this man that had hinted about seeing or being around
strange goings on, and of course the earlier event I described.
We just thought that if he didn't want to know,
then neither did we. People may think that it sounds
like drones, but they were bigger than any drone I
have ever seen, and this was either nineteen ninety nine
or nineteen ninety eight. I have more stories I can share.
I am particularly interested in the hat man. I'd never
heard of him before. However, I have many experiences of
thanks Ronnie. As we come to the end of this
edition of Midweek Mysteries, I'd like to say thank you
to all of you for tuning in and supporting the podcast,
and a special thank you to Dolin and Ronnie for
writing in and sharing their experiences with all of us.
If you or someone that you know has witnessed something
unexplainable and you'd like to have your story shared on
the podcast, please contact me at Paranormal Mysteries Podcast at
gmail dot com or visit Paranormal Mysteries podcast dot com
and click on the tell your Story link. Please remember,
no matter how insignificant or outlandish you believe your experience
may seem, I'd like to hear about it from all
of us at the Paranormal Mysteries Podcast. Thank you so
much for listening, and please remember, don't wait for the
unknown to come to you. Get out there and find it.