The Ghost Photographer

by Julie Rieger

  After the menu discussion, everyone is swilling down bottles of wine and carrying on multiple conversations. Somewhere between the soup course and the main course, the hostess decides to take control of her dinner party. She has a very commanding presence; each word is thoughtful and well placed among all the other words she chooses. She tells us the stories behind her beautiful antique dinner table and all the eclectic glasses, dishes, and napkin holders (all exquisite, by the way).

  Then without any preamble she says: “Well everyone, Julie is writing a book about ghosts.” Then she turns her head and looks over her left shoulder at me. “Julie, why don’t you tell us about it?”

  I have no problem telling my story about my ghost photography; then I pause, look around the table, and say, “And, well”—slight stutter—“I also have a photo of a gray alien.”

  A brief silence washes over the table. Finally a guest named Natalie—who appears to be half shit-faced—drops her fork and says, “Okay, okay, I’m gonna say this: I’ve never said this in my life to anyone, but I’m going to do it now, and you’re not going to believe this.”

  I’m thinking, Okay, sister, move it along, land the damn plane.

  “When I was in my late teens, me and two of my friends saw”—long pause—“a spaceship.”

  Boom. There it is. Took her a while and a couple of vodkas to get that on the table.

  “I have never, ever talked about this to anyone outside of those friends who also saw it,” she adds. “We thought people would think we’re crazy.”

  Well, she’s right. People do.

  I say, “Natalie, may I offer you an explanation?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Well, try to think about it this way: We live in a multidimensional world. No one really argues with the idea of three dimensions. But sometimes we can enter into another dimension or something from another dimension can sneak into ours. One that isn’t familiar to us. Sometimes we feel it and sometimes, like you did, we see it. I’ve seen some crazy shit with my own eyes. Isn’t it possible there are other species or entities that can exist in another dimension? I do think so. And I think that’s what you experienced.”

  While I’m talking, I’m looking out of the corner of my eye at our hostess. Her head is tilted just slightly to the right like when I’m talking to Homer and he has no idea what I’m saying. I think her head tilt is directed at her friend. She’s probably wondering why this is the first time she ever heard of her spaceship sighting. In fact, it wasn’t until I mentioned Mr. Gray that Cubby’s mom, whom I’ve known almost my entire life, came out with her own spaceship-sighting story. Once people are in a safe space, they reveal all kinds of experiences they otherwise have kept to themselves.

  “You’re not crazy, and you’re not the only one,” I tell Natalie. “I have a picture that some might call proof. Think about how a camera takes pictures: They work by capturing depth and dimension. Your eyes can do the same thing.”

  Natalie looks around, then says: “Yeah, I’m not crazy.”

  The gray alien, however, is not my only brush with extraterrestrial life. Another one has my head spinning for months.

  On July 20, 2014, at 10:44 p.m. PST (everything on my iPhone is date-stamped, which I love), I discover a photo of a creature that I call “little fucker” for months because he’s one of a kind—a mystery. I discover him the same way as Mr. Gray: I’m reviewing photos taken in my backyard filled with sage and palo santo smoke when I see a picture of an entity with a block-shaped alien head, no fingers, a squiggly smile, and slanty, deep-set eyes. The following letter and numbers are very clearly delineated on it: C32. No other little ghost pal ever came to me with a message or a code.

  I’m completely intrigued, so like any other red-blooded human, I take to Google to see what C32 means. What is this creature trying to tell me? The secrets to the universe? The cure for cancer? That would be magnificent.

  C32 first leads me to the library code of a book called The Collected Works of Abraham Cowley. I find the used book on a website and a week later it is mine. I never crack it open, though—it’s dense and looks incredibly boring—but I do a little research about the old fellow Cowley. Turns out he was born in 1618 and died in 1667. He was an English metaphysical poet (what are the odds of that?) and was once considered the greatest poet of the age. I still haven’t read the entire book, by the way. I am blessed with the attention span of a gnat. His lovely book makes a sturdy prop for my phurba, though.

  Anyhow, a few months later I dig deeper online and go from Abraham Cowley to a whole litany of things that relate to C32. Here’s what my friend Google told me about what the acronyms C32, C 32, or C-32 may refer to:

  C-32 highway (Spain): a primary highway in Catalonia

  Boeing C-32: a version of the Boeing 757

  Caspar C 32: a 1928 German agricultural aircraft

  Citroën C32: a van

  Douglas C-32: a military designation of the Douglas DC-2

  HMS C32: a British C class submarine

  New South Wales C32 class locomotive: an Australian railway locomotive

  Nissan Laurel C32: a model of automobile

  Socket C32: a server processor socket by AMD

  Bill C-32 (40th Canadian Parliament, 3rd Session): a proposed bill that would amend the Copyright Act of Canada

  Cancer of the larynx, Internal Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10)

  King’s Gambit, Encyclopedia of Chess Openings

  Caldwell 32: NGC 4631, the Whale Galaxy

  Hmmm . . . I went through them all, wondering what this creature might want me to know. Do I have larynx cancer? Should I go to Spain or Australia, several modes of transportation are indicated. Do I need to take up chess? Am I a messenger? Is it?

  Crap, it seems like a hard game—does this have anything to do with me at all? Why would a tiny ghost be visiting a lesbian ghost photographer in Sherman Oaks, anyhow?

  After a while it hits me: The majority of the C32 acronyms have something to do with a mode of transportation: highway, airplane, van, submarine, locomotive—even a processor socket (which, let’s face it, is a sort of mode of transportation for electricity). And that’s when the very last entry really stands out: Caldwell 32: NCG 4631, the Whale Galaxy.

  Okay, are all roads (and vehicles) leading to the Whale Galaxy? And if so, what the fuck is the Whale Galaxy? Surely not some planetary ocean where real orcas live.

  Turns out the “Whale Galaxy” is actually a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. (Sounds like a nice Italian restaurant.) According to Wikipedia, this galaxy contains a central starburst that’s the site of “intense star formation.” So many supernovas have exploded in the center of this galaxy that “they are blowing gas out of the plane of the galaxy.” This has created a “superwind” that has “produced a giant, diffuse corona of hot, X-ray-emitting gas around the whole galaxy.”

  Holy supernova. I’m now quite convinced that that little fucker is an alien. Seeing ghosts is mind-blowing enough, and taking photos of these guys is insane, but an alien ghost? I’m speechless.

  I’ll never know in my lifetime what invisible ecosystem is truly home to extraterrestrials, but I continue to open my doors of perception. But maybe in the end I opened those doors a little too wide, because I’m about to discover that in addition to angels and other blessed entities, unfriendly spirit predators roam our beloved human invisible ecosystem.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Deep, Dark Debbie Downer of the Universe

  Now clear your minds. It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning. Don’t give it any help; it knows too much already.

  —TANGINA BARRONS, POLTERGEIST

  Some people call him the Devil, Lucifer, or Satan. Others call him the Antichrist or the Son of Perdition. I just call him Ron. (My apologies to the Rons of the world. Most of you are probably really nice guys.)

  Let me explain.

  Alex and I are hav
ing dinner one night. Actually, I don’t think we eat much, but we sure do drink a lot. We like to drink together. (I never said that our relationship is healthy.) Before we get too hammered, Alex tells me about a “condition” that he’s been dealing with his entire life. “I have this thing called sleep paralysis,” he says.

  “Uh, what’s that?”

  Alex shares what’s he’s read and learned about this condition. “It’s kinda weird,” he says. “I’m sleeping and it’s like I wake up and can’t move my body at all, like something dark and dense is pressing down on my body. It’s scary as hell. I can be in that state for at least thirty minutes. And it’s crazy—I’ve started reading stories about other people with sleep paralysis, and get this: We all see the same thing—a guy with a hat.”

  “A guy with a hat?” I look at him with my eyes at half-mast because I’ve had two cocktails by this point, not because I don’t believe him. In fact, I’m paying more attention now.

  “Yeah, can you believe it? What a coincidence, right?” he says.

  That’s no coincidence, you dipshit, I think.

  He continues: “Did you know that Wes Craven, the guy who created Nightmare on Elm Street, has sleep paralysis and based Freddy Kruger on the man with a hat? I mean, the guy I see doesn’t exactly look like him—he’s just a dark shadow that wears a hat and a long coat—but isn’t that cool? You know Freddy Kruger?”

  No, that’s not cool, you dipshit, I think again. “Totally cool,” I say. “It’s actually fascinating. I immediately see an image of Freddy Kruger and understand the fear you must feel.”

  “You know, I’ve been seeing this guy since I was nine years old, and I’m still afraid of him,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m in that state of sleep paralysis, I yell for help from Dawn. She says that I’m barely even whispering, even though it feels like I’m screaming. It’s not a dream, either. My brain is literally awake.”

  Until then I’d never heard of this strange sleep condition, but clearly Alex needs help, so I put together a protection pouch filled with black tourmaline and a protection prayer and give it to him with a handwritten set of simple instructions that read: “Put these on your bedside table and take them with you when you travel. Love, Julie.”

  A few months go by and Alex gives me the occasional sleep paralysis report. So far so good, until he says one night on the phone, “You’re not going to believe this. I’m in Seattle and forgot to bring my rock. Then I had a visitor last night: the hat guy. That’s what I get for forgetting my rock.”

  I give him another piece of black tourmaline the next time I see him—a “roadie,” just for travel. In the meantime, I share the story of Alex and his sleep paralysis with Ima, who directs me to an author named Heidi Hollis. Hollis wrote a book called The Hat Man: The True Stories of Evil Encounters that describes this sleep-stalking guy with a hat who menaces people, even when they’re awake. She also describes a guy who saw the hat man and asked him his name. The hat man’s response was, “They call me Scratch.”

  Scratch, according to the Bible, is a stand-in for the devil who transforms into a serpent, crawls into the abode of Adam and Eve, and lies to them by flattering them away from their allegiance to God. Later, he scratches their names from the Registry of Life. From that time on he’s known as “Old Scratch,” which, according to Wikipedia, “is a name of the devil, chiefly in southern US English. The name likely continues Middle English scrat, the name of a demon or goblin, derived from Old Norse skratte.”

  Okay, now I’m even more curious about the “hat guy,” aka “Scratch.” So I dig further into the subject and discover that sleep paralysis—and the appearance of a hat guy, an old hag, or “shadow people”—has been documented for centuries. And no one, it seems, has researched the phenomenon more extensively in our day than Dr. David Hufford, a professor and director at the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine and author of The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions.

  Hufford has a website dedicated to the subject called, naturally, sleepparalysisworld.com. It documents from a scientific and paranormal perspective the experiences of people who describe “a presence of a supernatural malevolent being” that immobilizes them during sleep. This “being” or “shadow person” shares certain characteristics in cultures all over the world. Get a load of Hufford’s list of those shared traits:

  Malelike, though gender is not obvious.

  Could be female in nature, but no race.

  Usually very tall.

  Usually seen in a trench coat/cloak, or old-fashioned overcoat.

  The “hat shadow man” usually has a big hat.

  3-D in shape or opaque.

  No eyes, though occasionally red eyes have been reported.

  Fast, almost like lightning speed.

  Usually very silent.

  Seems to have mass.

  Seems to be able to defy common laws of physics (e.g., can move through walls).

  Can look spiritlike/demonic.

  When I say people all over the world experience sleep paralysis, that’s an understatement. “They have been called angels, demons, incubi, werewolves, hags, ghosts, fairies, djinns, aliens and more,” author Kat Duff writes in The Secret Life of Sleep. In Scandinavian cultures, sleep paralysis is thought to be “caused by a mare, a supernatural creature” that sits on people’s chests while they’re sleeping. In Africa, this creature is referred to as “the Devil on your back.” In the southern United States, it’s an entity engaged in nocturnal “witch riding.” In China, it’s “a ghost pressing on body,” and in Sardinia this spirit/demon wears seven red caps. In Mexico, it’s considered the spirit of a dead person, and in Brazil, it’s a freaky old hag who lives on people’s rooftops waiting to step on their chests and pin them down while they’re asleep. It’s a “shaman of the black” in Mongolia and Shaitan, or simply “Satan,” in Urdu.

  You get the picture: This shadow presence is a world traveler with unlimited frequent flyer miles and access to the cockpit of everyone’s psyche. Instead of going the biblical route and calling this mystery force the Devil, how about we cast a wider net and just call it the deep, dark Debbie Downer of the universe?

  Duff’s book, by the way, is a brilliant exploration of the landscape of sleep. In her reflections on sleep paralysis, she tells us that Charles Dickens (a big-time insomniac) gave the ghost of Marley in A Christmas Carol all the telltale features of a sleep paralysis visitation, and he also evoked it in The Adventures of Oliver Twist. (Dickens was interested in the paranormal and an early member of the Ghost Club, a British organization founded in 1862 dedicated to paranormal investigation. The club still meets every month in London.)

  While Duff offers scientific theories for this “sensed presence,” quoting neurologists and neuropsychiatrists, she herself concludes that all the brain research “does not prove that disembodied spirits do not exist, just as the fact that dream intrusion into waking life can produce the sensations of being crushed does not prove that menacing visitations could not occur at the edges of sleep. . . . Perhaps these beings, if we can call them that, are always around, but we are only able to sense their presence when we are slipping between states of consciousness. Maybe they coalesce or come into being under the extraordinary conditions of near sleep.”

  Maybe indeed.

  Hufford goes even further, writing: “Scientists are open to the possibility of other dimensions out there. The majority of [sleep paralysis] sufferers support theories about dimensions and believe that Shadow People have either found a way to enter into our dimension or have accidentally slipped into ‘our side.’ ”

  Hmmm, maybe “Shadow People” aren’t the only ones who’ve “found a way to enter into our dimension.”

  So now I am truly fascinated by this subject and call Alex to share what I learned from all this research. “Hey, Alex,” I say. “So you know that guy with a hat who scares the shit out of
you during sleep paralysis? Well, he’s a deep, dark Debbie Downer of the universe.”

  “He’s what?” Alex replies.

  There’s a long pause because Alex can’t speak—so I do. I explain what I’ve learned about this dark spirit and, in total warrior mode, suggest that we get rid of this fucker. “Here’s what you do,” I say. “The next time that son of a bitch shows up, invoke God or Saint Michael. You choose what greater power you want to invoke, but bring one of them in. And while you’re at it, protect your son. Every night stand over his crib and recite the Lord’s Prayer or your own protection prayer. Do it with commitment and conviction. It’s your job to protect him.”

  “Wow, okay, I will,” Alex replies. He’s quiet for a moment, then adds: “But I kinda want to see him again now that I know who he is. What if you see him now?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. He’s not invited. Trust me on this.” I say this very matter-of-factly (and very bossy).

  Around six months go by, during which time I encounter a bunch of other people who have sleep paralysis: friends and colleagues, daughters of associates. It’s like being pregnant and suddenly seeing strollers all over the place where before you saw none. Like Alex, all of these people need protection and spiritual rituals.

  Then one day out of the blue Alex calls me from New York. “So . . .” Long pause. “I experienced sleep paralysis again.”

  “Oh no, you did? What happened?”

  “This time was different. I saw a guy, but it wasn’t the hat man. This guy didn’t have a hat, but he spoke to me. Actually, he laughed first, then spoke to me.”

  “Well, let’s call him the hatless man now,” I add, thinking I’m being funny. “What did he say?” I’m dying to know and, of course, I’m thinking he called himself Scratch. But what comes out of Alex’s mouth is the last thing on earth I thought I would hear.