Encounters with the Unknown—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, October 2024
Encounters with the Unexplained
Demons or Aliens?
by: Brent Raynes
"I had my first encounter experience around 1979-'80 with three hideous, short stocky, completely black creatures that came into the bedroom, in single file," Dan Chaney of Alabama shared. "They had bulging veins all over their heads and they stunk to high heaven and looked wet. The one in front came right up to my face and stared at me while I was horrified to see it had sharp pointed teeth both top and bottom of its mouth which was pulled back at both corners like it was grinning, leering right in my face. I blacked out to later find myself on a cold metal table in a misty atmosphere (I knew I was no longer at home in bed) surrounded by other beings. I kept yelling to myself 'wake up, wake up!...but I AM awake already!'
"I exploded out of utter fear, swinging and kicking and they somehow knocked me out, likely to get me under control. When I came to again, I was still on the table, and only one of these beings was down at the foot of the table. It was turned sideways, and I had full yet groggy control of myself and struggled to come towards the being. It was somehow talking to me, and I was fascinated because it spoke to me in my head, and it had no visible mouth! It let me get right up to its face as I went side to side looking for a mouth. Then it 'chuckled', probably because I couldn't figure out how it was talking to me without a mouth! Suddenly I blacked out again, and as I was coming to I was floating on my back, through our apartment and felt a strong 'force' in my solar plexus that caused me to draw my knees up to my stomach, only to have 'something' grab hold of my ankles very firmly, pulling my legs back straight. This was repeated a few times, all the while I'm seeing the walls, ceiling, fireplace, etc., as I'm being floated back to bed. I somehow knew there was a being at my feet and behind my head. I still struggled and then blacked out again. then waking up again, freezing and terrified about the 'dream' I just had. I was probably 11-12ish at the time. I was new to church/Christianity at that time too and believed that the hideous, clawed fanged repulsive sinister beings were demons coming to take my soul to hell. Later my mother said 'Oh my lord, I had the most god-awful dream'...but she refused to talk about it.
"I kept that religious type of mentality for a very long time before discarding it," Dan added. "I do not think they are demons in the biblical sense at all. That's archaic thinking, but just like humans there are some beings who do not have our best interests at heart, and nobody can stop them."
Dan's story reminds me of one told to me by Aileen Garoutte, the former founder and director of Washington state's UFO Contact Center International, an alien abductee support program that ran from 1981 until it was discontinued in 1995, Aileen came upon a case involving a young sailor stationed at the Naval Yards in Bremerton, Washington. The man had been locked up in the brig there, he said on account of his "drinking," which he explained had been caused by his trying to forget what had happened to him. He had phoned Aileen and her former husband Dan Edwards after reading an article about their UFO interests in the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper. He visited them and shared details of his childhood encounter that happened while he and a cousin were playing at a dump site in Pennsylvania. A craft flew over and in the windows he could see strange beings. He was terrified thinking that it was the devil!"
Dan Edwards tried regressing him with hypnosis to help the young man better recall his experience. "Afterwards we showed him drawings done by different experiencers," Aileen explained. "He found a drawing like the aliens he had seen. He started to cry and said, 'All this time I thought I was crazy, and now I see others have seen what I did.' That was the biggest relief to him. I just took him in my arms and held him. That day I was so proud and happy that we had brought the realization to him so he would know it was not the devil after him and he was not crazy."
