Strange Happenings in the Basement

[catketch23]

Hello All,

A rather strange set of experiences occured in our home a few weeks back. Our house (near Windsor, Ontario) was built by my father back in 1957. Though somewhat unusual for this locale, the type of construction is common in Germany (My parents emmigrated from there about 1951), being of stuccoed concrete block construction, having 2 floors and a mostly-finished basement. It was in the middle of the afternoon, I had just descended the stairs into the basement, turned 180 degrees to my right to then continue through the laundry room into the mechanical room where my electronics shop/office is. Just as I finished making the turn, a greyish/brownish fuzzy blob about the size of a cat or large rabbit literally streaked at floor level from the front of the washing machine on the left to (through?) the front of a cabinet-on-wheels that I had built as moveable storage under the stairs. I estimate the distance to be about 2 meters, and the total time of this event was much less than a second. The room was very well lit, with 3 twin-tube 4 foot fluorescent fixtures directly over and flanking the "sighting". I didn't notice any other effects such as sounds, air movements or temperature changes. I didn't even know for certain if I had really seen this or not, but kept thinking about it on and off for a couple of hours.
My wife, Sharon was working on the computer (on the main, or first floor) when I approached her later in the day. I told her that "I think I saw a ghost or something down in the basement earlier today.", followed by a description of what I had seen. She said "Your kidding, right?", and then proceeded to tell me that she had been folding clothes in the room immediatedly to the left of the landing of the basement stairs, and saw a fast moving greyish/brownish shape out of the corner of her eye. This happened somewhat after my experience, as she was not in that room at the time.
Just as an aside, our orange cat's food and water dishes are at the bottom of the basement stairs. Whenever he goes down them, he always looks around to his immediate right upon reaching the bottom, without fail.
Have any of you ever had an experience like this? All I can say is, "very strange, indeed."
Sincerely, Patrick H.

 

[Guest]

Just as an aside, our orange cat's food and water dishes are at the bottom of the basement stairs. Whenever he goes down them, he always looks around to his immediate right upon reaching the bottom, without fail.
Have any of you ever had an experience like this? All I can say is, "very strange, indeed."

I had a friend, whose father was a philosophy professor at the University I attended in Ohio (Kent State). The professor was mildly schizophrenic, but could live a normal life around that. Sometimes he would forget to take his medication, and in those cases he could see brown forms crouching in the corners. To him they looked like gargoyls or little demons.

The thing is the cats would always sniff around the very places were he saw these things, independently of him.

You might call this an encounter with "high strangness" and part of the zoo of entities available in folklore that may have a basis in fact. I don't think it is a "ghost", but something indegenous to another level of reality, which certain states of perception can access. Maybe this other level has to do with the electromagnetic spectrum extending beyond our normal state of perception. There is apparently more to "life" than organic matter, and cats have been known to possess sensitivities in percieving "beyond the veil". Why else would witches use them as "familiars"?

 

[tschai]

Hello all-

Just to pose a question-have all possibilities of this "entity" being an ordinary animal-say a squirrel or other type of rodent been eliminated?

Squirrels can move very fast-and the little devils can get into places you would not imagine-and they LOVE cat food. One of our neighbors had a pair of Newfoundlands they left outdoors a good deal of the time-and a washtub size bowl of dry dogfood. My wife and I laughed at the antics of the squirrels as they "snitched" bits of food right from under the dogs noses. A quick glimpse of a squirrel streaking for cover might look like a "furry blob"

Your cat would not neccessarily react to a squirrel if it has become used to the little thief snatching his /her food-cats can be awfully complacent (I own one such-she is VERY lazy at times)-but if the intruder is a rat, a cat might be apprehensive-rats can be very dangerous and will defend themselves vigourously against foes many times their size-and a cat would be intimidated rather than wanting to catch it-hence the cat "checking" to see if the coast is clear before approaching the food bowl. Rats also can gain entry through many places that you might not think about-like a pet door-or if you prop a door open whilst carrying things in or out of the house-the little monsters will sneak in when you are not looking. They are quite crafty and very stealthy.

We had a bat in the basement of a house we lived in-and did not know it was there. The house was a "century" house in Northern Ohio and the basement was kind of creepy-but I had a work area down there and the laundry was there.

One night I was down there working on something-and kept seeing this "shadow" moving around-like a moth or something was flitting around the light bulb. This had happened before and had turned out to be a moth-but another time it was a huge wasp-so I kept watching -and did not see anything-when suddenly this "shadow" came streaking right at me!

They probably heard me scream for several blocks away! I crouched down to defend myself from this "entity" when it came into the light-and I saw it was just a little house bat.

If you have already determined your "visitor" is not a squirrel or rat / rodent or some other critter then I guess you have a UFO-Unidentified Furry Object (Sorry I could not resist!)

Hope you get a handle on this strange creature.

 

[Stones]

In response to your cat always looking to the right upon reaching the bottom of the steps and this gentlemen seeing entities in the corners of rooms, I too have witnessed similar behavior.
A friend whose roommates participated in not-so-legal smoking habits owned a cat. Whenever this activity was underway, the cat would immediately walk to specific corner of the apartment and growl and hiss at it as if there was something there. They thought it was funny but it always seemed a bit too strange to me. Were doorways being opened? Hmmm..

 

[David]

Had an accident when I was very young when going down an external concrete steps of an old outbuilding, the family dog was with me as usual, we were out exploring and when leaving this building half way down the steps, the dog ran down past me in a hurry pushing me off the edge of the steps (no railing), I could have been killed but my shoe got caught in a steel spike on the way down preventing my head from being split open on the concrete yard below, though I still ended up with stitches, I could never figure out what got into the dog to act as he did.

Only recently I entered the same building with a cat in my arms and she started growling, so we left, she didn’t like it there one bit, spooookey.

You know the cat can end up getting stoned, poor cat, It might be the case the cat is man best friend in times of treat from the unseen maybe, mind you they can be very protective if their provider is threatened, I remember seeing a documentary of sorts where a cat attacked an intruder while going upstairs towards where her friend slept, she apparently didn’t care about the TV being carted off, only when the life of her owner was in danger, mind you I wonder what the cat would have done if the intruder started carting off the fridge. :)