‘I was seven years old. It was very early summer (the corn was maybe four feet high), a bright and sunny day in the fields of *** PA. My grandmother was visiting friends. They sent me outside to play. I walked along the railroad tracks adjacent to the house that went through a cornfield. As I walked, I saw up ahead a tiny whirlwind about eighteen inches tall by the side of the tracks. I was fascinated and approached. As I got nearer the whirlwind became a small person. Distinctly remember looking down deeply into his eyes. He was old looking, wrinkled skin, and he wore a green jacket. I had no feelings of fear, just fascination and interest. The next thing I remember I was walking on the tracks heading back toward the house. I heard my grandmother calling me. She said I had been gone for two hours or so. I never mentioned this to anyone except my husband many years later, but I think of it often. I remember his eyes so clearly. I have great reticence to speak of this experience. In looking into it I feel that it does not come from fearing the judgement of others. It’s almost like a block has been put there to keep me from speaking about it. I guess after sixty-six years or so the reticence block has faded. But I wonder if others have felt something similar.’ ‘Old and wrinkled wearing a green jacket.’ Why do you think your experience was a fairy experience, as opposed to a ghost or an alien or an angel or some other type of anomalous experience? ‘Interesting. I just always thought it was a fairy experience. Given my age and the times and my Quaker upbringing, aliens, ghosts or angels were never a possibility.’ What are fairies? ‘Earth bound nature spirits’. ‘Again, I’m really interested in others who have felt great reticence in telling their stories of fairy encounters.’
§852
Pennsylvania, US
1950s
Female: Age 0-10
occasional supernatural experiences
in open land (fields etc)
12 pm-3 pm
many hours
on my own
no special state reported
interested
loss of sense of time, profound silence before the experience, unusually vivid memories of the experience