Encounters with the Unknown
Distorted Apparitions
by: Stan Morrison
I’ve always been intrigued by an anomaly among apparitions where a seeming “distortion” is happening to their appearance or manifestation. This anomaly could be due to human issues from a projecting human agent, such as esteem issues or inclinations to be self-biased and self-critical. That is, observers are projecting these internal factors onto (or with) an apparition, distorting the phenomenon. (1)
There is a particular “haunted house” story that was on an episode of the television show Unsolved Mysteries where a distorted apparition was observed. It happened in New Mexico and the witness was a teenage boy. The location of the haunting was a hotel and the witness had been working there over the summer, while out of school. He was running the vacuum cleaner in the bar at the location when he sensed a presence sitting at the bar, and could hear an odd ringing sound. He switched off the vacuum. He gradually looked up and saw the ghost. He described the apparition as a younger boy wearing late 19th century clothing. The ghost was sitting forward on a barstool and was rotating a finger around the lip of a glass. It was this action that was making the odd sound.
However, most notable was this ghost’s face. It was all distorted in a bizarre way that was very creepy to the observer. It scared him so badly that he left the bar in a panic, and didn’t return to the hotel for the rest of the summer.
A few years ago, I was doing some landscaping at my mother-in-law’s house (mowing the lawn) when I personally observed a possible “distorted apparition.” While my wife and mother-in-law were away doing errands, I observed for two (2) seconds an apparition of a known deceased individual while I was standing in the backyard. The apparition appeared standing and looking at me through the livingroom sliding glass door. It was clear that the apparition was of the aforementioned person based on photographs I have seen. The female specter appeared, from her expression, to be very, very angry at me. Then it was gone.
When one reviews histories of apparitional appearances, the documentation is replete with ghosts that appeared oddly angry (in a visual sense) where it could be a sort of “distortion.” I observed many years ago, a frightening entity that seemed to be obscenely distorted; distorted in the sense that it’s “being” appeared composed of a perverted sense of itself and maybe perversion relating to its previous “existence.”
The experience I had was what is known as a “hagging” experience. From my own experience, the entity oppresses or engulfs one, as it is positioned on your chest. I could hardly breath. The “thing” was also strangling me at the same time. There was a sense of no oxygen or air. When I shook this thing off, I leaped off the couch on which I had been sleeping. I went into the livingroom where I soon after met my brother. I told him what I’d experienced and he said he had seen it too. He said he saw the entity earlier, standing in his bedroom doorway and when it later assaulted him. It seemed as if it came out of the wall to my right when it attacked me. We also had a cat mysteriously die the night of the encounters.
From the above experience, I have to say I personally concluded some (maybe even most) of these events are spiritual in nature. Notwithstanding, one cannot rule out that such a phenomenon is not a psychical distortion. I suppose overall one could conclude that – in this Universe – nothing is perfect in our perception; distortion is always going to be a psychic/spiritual presence as long as our ontological selves are present.
Footnote:
1). If we are indeed positive and negative beings, our natural tendency would be to be a positive person. There would be a continual struggle to maintain this. Therefore, it would be a natural response to suffer from self-criticism and self-biasness (self-policing). The result could be, during a projection or permanent discharge, a “distortion” of the manifestation. This could apply to all sorts of psi, including apparitions. Distorted apparitions may ultimately shine light on the nature of Good and Evil, positive and negative, both internally and externally. One just has to hope, however, that what is being observed is not people (including little children) in a permanent state of hell or damnation. These appearances seem to suggest that. Could such a state be due to some kind of accident of nature?
