Encounters of Other Kinds: 2 Scary Stories

It’s that time of year again or if you just love horror like me, it’s just time to try and get scared again. Anyways the two stories I’m going to share are historical fiction and should only be taken as entertainment. Also, stick around for some bonus information after the stories. 

Story 1 

To begin, the year was 2003 around late summer, August maybe. I was around thirteen years old and that day, there was a power outage. No one knew the severity at the time but we thought it’d blow over in a few hours so my mother allowed me to go over to my friend’s house. For some added context, my dad was at work in the city at the time, and given the blackout, he wouldn’t be home until the next day. 

Anyways my friend had no power either and given there were no street lights, his parents agreed to give me a ride back home. When we pulled up to my house, I noticed my neighbor was smoking a cigarette in his house. He was a very weird man. He was unemployed, overweight, had a horrible five o’clock shadow and he was balding but I hold my tongue because there’s more to it. So as I slept in my bed, the heat was exhausting and without the power, I couldn’t use my fan or the air conditioner. 

Here’s when I made the mistake of opening my window for a few hours, I wake up to a noise. It’s dark and  I’m scared, I call out for my mom but as she enters with a flashlight, she spots our neighbor in the corner of the room with some of our items. My mom and I let out a scream as he lunged for the window but she attempted to stop him. The night’s silence is broken by our screams. My neighbor comes out and sees my neighbor continue to mumble and give off these zombie-like groans. I lay helplessly under my covers. A police car that was stationed in the area comes racing down the street but the man doesn’t stop. 

Eventually, they detain him and check up on us. The man was arrested as a result of breaking in, assault, robbery but most notably being on so many drugs. The most horrifying thing is that he had one of our huge kitchen knives in his pocket. I hope that goes as a reminder to everyone considering that lifestyle and I’m thankful for the police officers who were there that night. And I hope everyone finds a way to stay safe during a crisis and doesn’t take advantage of it. Another scary fact is that out of the whole street, possibly only one or two people bothered to see what was going on, safe to say we moved shortly after. 

Story 2

Now, this next story may sound odd but my grandfather helped the astronauts who quarantined for three weeks after they landed back on Earth from Apollo 11. Just for some context the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 return from moon missions were quarantined in case of dangerous lunar microorganisms. Now my grandfather helped monitor the conditions of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. After a while in the quarantine, my grandfather recalled that he overheard them starting to talk about weird noises they heard. This became obvious as one who mentioned it “slipped up” because another astronaut called for the paranoid one to “shut your mouth” as my grandfather approached. To their surprise, the next day President Richard Nixon visited the astronauts outside their Mobile Quarantine Facility soldiers stood by but my grandfather was skeptical.

 After the visit, Nixon spoke to my grandfather and his colleagues as they went over the conditions of the scientists. Nixon also reminded them to keep things on a “need to know basis.” Anyways my grandfather passed a few years ago and this is just one story he tells me but to some degree, he remained brief. 

These noises, I questioned on what or how one of them described them to which my grandfather responded “they said it was like a whistle then a sudden static noise hear and there.” 

He added that the sound was always constant on the dark side of the moon and they were even able to pick up some voice that didn’t speak an earthly language, the voice didn’t even sound human. But that’s all I got as it became creeper out given I was a kid at the time. But as Elon Musk continues to launch his rockets, I wonder what exactly else is out there. 

A reminder that these stories are historical fiction means they depict actual historical events but some obvious aspects are fake. And if you think the quarantine of the astronauts is fake, it’d probably come as a surprise that it’s not. However I cannot just give some scary stories without mentioning where to find more so with the caution of real and possibly graphic world events, you can be sure that Mr. Nightmare, Mort (both channels), and Martin Animations are just a few YouTube that delivers some good horror story content. 

As said before, some contain real-world situations which are warned of before the video starts and some are just spooky involving ghosts or cultural folklore. Anyways this is the season and if you haven’t already quarantined, I recommend these channels for their scary content. Also, it helps to find an accountable and funny YouTube reacting to these videos which is how I began to watch my spooktacular content.