§315

‘I was asleep, lying on my left side. I slept on a mattress, without legs or box spring, which means it was more or less on the floor. While sleeping, I heard small noises in the room, the sounds began to wake me slightly from dreaming. While still deeply in a state of rest and drowsiness, I observed the sounds, and it slowly became clear that the sounds were not random, and were not animal-like; they were careful and deliberate. I listened for a long time, remaining perfectly still, which was easy because I had been so deep in sleep. It should be noted that I had two cats, but I knew them well, and they were not allowed in the part of the house [where] I had a bedroom. There had never been rats in the house, and the sounds were too loud to be made by even several mice working together. Obviously the thing to rule out is one of my cats. My memory of this event is dim now, but I know the me of over a decade ago would have been adamant that it was no cat that he saw. Eventually, while deliberately frozen and motionless, I became very, very awake. The room was almost completely dark; there were phosphorescent paints softly glowing (I collected phosphorescent items at the time) and possibly a night light somewhere, though I can’t remember that for certain now. I was lying with my eyes closed and trying to breathe as I would if asleep. But I was very acutely awake by this time. I was focusing all of my attention on detecting sound. At some point I became aware of motion, and shortly after, an overwhelming sensation that something was coming close to me. It was now directly in front of me. Something tells me I once had a memory that I heard it breathing, but I can’t vouch for that now. But I did, very carefully, very, very slowly, open my eyes in the faintest way. I have quite long eyelashes; I used to play a game with friends to determine how much I could open my eyes from the shut position without them being able to tell I could see or if my eyes were even open. I opened my eyes as little and as gently as I could while still being able to see. This is what I remember, or remember remembering: Standing in front of me, almost directly in front of my face, was what can only be described as a little man. He was squat, and probably about a foot or a foot and a half in height, and had a head that was sort of football-shaped (American football); his head looked kind of like the head on the Lemonheads candy box. His mouth was very wide, traversing most of his face. He was wearing some type of overalls. I obviously don’t really know the gender. He just struck me as a male, but who knows. I was terrified and overwhelmed, and was probably in a state of panic; I knew the creature was paying attention to me, and was almost certainly inspecting me. But it wasn’t apparent to me whether or not the creature actually knew for certain I was awake and looking at him, and I had successfully not moved in any way as far as I could tell. The only thing I could think of to do was slowly close my eyes all the way again and desperately hope to fall back asleep. I did eventually return to sleep, perhaps from exhaustion? I don’t know. In closing, I should add that while I was terrified, I wasn’t inclined to hurt the creature, and I wasn’t certain it meant to hurt me, though it did not in any way seem friendly, and it even seemed vaguely wicked. I was probably just as frightened that something I would do would make it disappear; as bewildering and frightening as the incident was, I’m sure that I was also aware of the extremity of it. If I saw a living dinosaur or a Sasquatch, or a Unicorn or some other incredible creature, doing anything to endanger it or make it run away would be the last thing I’d be inclined to do. I’d probably freeze, just as I did that night. This was the only time I saw this creature, or anything like it. But I’ve submitted a very similar story told to me by my grandmother in the b) section [third-person accounts]. That story was told to me at minimum a year before the incident described here, and probably much longer before.’ ‘One foot to one-and-a-foot-half high, squat, wearing overalls, head the shape of an American football (or the Lemonheads candy mascot). Wide mouth.’ ‘I don’t know what it was that I met, or remember meeting at least. It could have been some other type of being; but there were no technological artifacts that might suggest a spaceship-oriented culture, and I don’t know what it could have been a ghost of, other than some species or race that died long before humans as we know them populated that piece of land. Obviously what I saw was no gauzy-winged Victorian fantasy. But the fair folk purportedly come in many shapes and sizes, and in any case, when being considered as a pair with a story my grandmother told, which has more classical elements of stories of faeries, it seems appropriate to consider my encounter applicable to this realm more than another. In truth, I don’t know.’ ‘If they exist, I imagine they are another race or species. They may have prevailed before mankind came into dominance, or they may be extraterrestrials. Or we may be, while they are the natives. Or, possibly, they could be inhabitants of another dimension, who have chosen, for reasons that are opaque to humanity, to visit our dimension at this location from time to time.’ ‘I am an extremely logical and rational person. But, I am agnostic. I maintain a conscious ambivalence about those things which science cannot comment on or has not commented on, which, absurdly, does include the fair folk, or elves, or inhabitants of Faerie, or whatever other terms or names or words folklore has used. I do want Faerie, or The Fair Folk, to exist, it is true, but moreover I have always had a sense that there_is_something_there. Maybe any of the above entered origins are true, or maybe something else. But as someone who has tracked and deduced things many times (I build things and repair them), I know that *dis*believing in something almost certainly will mean you will never find it. Even research scientists often work from hunches. I’d rather follow a bad lead than fail to experience something profound. Also, I read the short bio of the Fairy Investigation Society over at the Fortean Times blog, and it sounded cool and romantic, if a bit silly and also unavoidably ill-fated.’