Storyteller / Guest (5:30)
This story of mine started in Philadelphia in 2017. I was in art school at the time, and I moved to South Philly in a house. I was renting a room for my senior year. Just getting to know the roommates. These were guys I never lived with before. I didn't meet, didn't know them. They just kind of had like a vacancy. And it was a cheap room for rent. I was, you know, a poor college student. It was like a particularly warm February, and the house I was in had like a rooftop deck. We were on the roof of the house, sitting in lawn chairs, drinking with roommates, just, you know, shooting the shit. Off to the distance, I see, like, an orange ball of light that I almost describe as fire, kind of like an orange orb in the sky. It was probably like two, three city blocks away. It had to be the size of almost kind of like a Car, like a small car. It was quite high up, so it didn't look like it was coming from a chimney or like a burning building. The second I noticed it, that's when it looked like it flamed out. I wouldn't necessarily think anything of it. It was just really strange. I just thought maybe it was, you know, a trick of the sunlight or even a fire from a building. But again, it was too high to look like it would be something that would carry up that way. It didn't look like it was any type of like balloon. It was during the day, so there was like no fireworks or I think anything that someone would create this them. I looked at it, I thought it was weird. I didn't say anything because, like, I didn't know these guys too, too well. I only lived there like about a month and a half and I didn't want to like, be like, what the hell was that? That night I went to bed as normal. Around 2:30. I woke up in an extremely strange way. I woke up like I landed on my bed, my hands tucked under my chest, kind of like face first. Like I planted onto my bed. Like I was physically dropped on my bed and I jolted awake. Almost as if you were like as a kid running and jumping onto your bed and landing on your stomach with your hands tucked in your chest. Just literally felt like I was dropped on my bed. I like sprung awake and it was extremely strange. I had a squeaky mattress at the time. Poor college kid. So the mattress was squeaking as if it was like ricocheting off the weight of me landing on it. I jolt it up. Very extremely groggy and shocked. I don't to my knowledge, sleepwalk or move around in my sleep. Wasn't like that sensation where you're about to fall asleep and your body jerks a little bit. It wasn't that sensation. It was much more intense and more physical. I would say it felt almost like I smashed into the bed and then had to like push myself back up. So it wasn't just kind of like a flinch or a quick jolt of the body. It was like a physical full body sensation of being imprinted into the bed and then bounced off. Super strange. And I just went back to bed. The next morning, I'm getting ready for school. My roommates at the time, they were all working, so we were up at the same time. Because I'd get to school at 8:30, they would have to get to work. My roommate Sean, who I shared a wall with, was like, did anyone hear, like that crazy noise last night, it sounded like a bomb went off in the city. And the other two guys who lived on the bottom floor were like, no, I didn't. I kind of also was like, oh, no, I didn't mention that. I was like, oh, I might have jumped onto my bed. My assumption that I might have just like jumped onto my bed and like hit the wall or something. He was like, oh, it was weird. He's like, I just didn't know what it was. Didn't sound like thunder. There was no storms. I leave for school and I'm walking to school. The college I went to was the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It's a really old art school. It's actually the oldest art school in America. It's a two building school. One is this old historic museum. And I had classes in that building. As I was walking around that day, like, weird electrical things started happening. I'd walk under a light, it would turn off or a light would flicker and I'd walk under it and then it would stop. This is strange, but it's an old building. This type of stuff didn't normally happen to me. I didn't really register it as I was walking home. It was, you know, dark in the city and as I'd walk under streetlights, the same thing started happening. They would like flicker or they would turn off or they would turn on if they were already off. And that's when I was like, okay, this is a little strange. This happened enough now in enough spaces where, like, this is really strange. I go home, you know, eat dinner, just hang out for a bit later that night. I take showers at night, so, you know, I'm getting ready for a shower and, you know, looking in the mirror and I notice these dots on my back in like a weird geometric pattern. It's like two on top of each other, then one, then another two, then a one. And they kind of start near my spine and move to the side. And as they move they kind of fade. It's not like I felt a sensation back there and that's why I was looking. I just happened to stumble upon them. They weren't raised, they didn't itch, they weren't indented. They were just red dots, like flat red dots. And I was like, okay, that's really strange because they're in a pattern. I don't have like back acne or anything like that. There wasn't really like an explanation for the pattern. And in art school, we're standing all day in painting classes, so it's not like I was sitting down and something could have imprinted on my back or something like that. I was like, huh, that's really, really weird. Didn't really think anything of it. Didn't think it was too much of a concern to like go to a doctor or anything because there was no pain. So you know, I took my shower and I went back to bed. Throughout the next couple of days, the light stuff was still happening, but it started to fade. And every day that passed, the dots on my back were getting less and less. You know, I had some friends look at it and they were like, oh, that's really strange. We like tried googling it but we couldn't find anything. Those fade and then eventually the light stuff stops and I kind of forget about it a little bit. I was like, oh, that's just a weird story. It was like a couple weeks later I went home for Easter. So I'm in my childhood bedroom and I wake up the same way again. Boom. Like it feels like I landed on the bed this time I was like, okay, this is really strange. Like this is the second time this phenomenon has happened. I'm not in my Philly place, I'm in my parents house. This is really weird. I was just kind of a little freaked out, went back to bed. And then the next morning checked in and there were dots again on my back, but in a different position. This time they were smaller. And then like this time I believe they were to like the left but again still in that same pattern. The two, the one, the two. And then they would fade. So that again was super strange. I remember telling my mom about it and I was like, this is the second time these dots came up and she's like, oh, maybe you need to go to the doctor. She was like, they're flat on your back. But this time like these electrical phenomena happened again. I'd walk by the tv, the TV would turn off. I would go outside with the dog. And then the lights on the patio started flickering. Now it's happening at my parents house and their house isn't that old. It was built in like the 90s I believe. So I was like, okay, this is really strange. And you know, it's kind of started to freak my parents out. That night we would hear like doors starting to slam. We were on the second floor and like the first floor had the kitchen and we were hearing doors slamming and we were like, okay, now we're all really spooked out because this was really kind of creepy. I grew up in this house, there was never, like, a haunting or any type of paranormal activity. Eventually, like, just like before, the dots faded and that phenomena stopped. This time it faded a lot quicker because the dots were smaller and more faint. The second time, I believe it only lasted, like, one or two days. And by the time, like, Easter was over and I went back to school on that following Tuesday, it was, like, kind of done. I haven't woken up this way before. Those dots have never reappeared on my back. I do check a lot. This has been almost 10 years, but I will still check sometimes. Occasionally a streetlight will turn out as I drive under it, or something like that will happen. I think that's more up to chance now. But every time it happens, the friends that know this story or the people that know me that know this story are always like, ooh, it's the. It's the aliens. The second time it happened, I really kind of went on Reddit and was in a community and being like, what is this? What's happening? A lot of people pointed to aliens because of the electrical phenomena and the dots, and they were like, oh, people had similar dots and this and that. And I remember finding, like, a really, like, crappy website. Like, it looked like it was. It was made in, like, the 90s. It was just like, text, white text on a black background with images. Someone had a very similar dot pattern on their back. It wasn't quite like mine, but it was a similar geometric shape. And they were claiming aliens. Do I believe it? Maybe. I do think aliens exist. I don't know if they're, like, actively abducting people or what, but, yeah, I don't have any other explanation for it. Out of all the paranormal or fanciful things out there, I do think aliens are the most plausible. I've heard other abduction stories and people, like, losing time and being misplaced. I don't have those. But again, this was happening when I was asleep. You know, I might not have the same lost time or the same grogginess or waking up in a different room or waking up with different clothes on. It was kind of terrifying to think of. Like, oh, what did they do? Especially if there was these dots on my back. Like, what were they doing there? Was it an injection? Was it, like, surgery? Who knows? Like, what did they take? What did they put in? Mixed emotions, for sure. Like, exciting in the sense of, like, oh, that's really interesting because it happened to me, but also quite terrifying because I have no idea if it is true what they'd done or what happened. Or what was going on.
