Your True Tales
July 2004 – Page 27

Man on Fire
by Kenneth Greene

In the mid-1970s I was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and had the opportunity to be stationed overseas in the East Anglia section of England. It was there in 1979 that I experienced my paranormal incident.

At the time, six of us had moved off base and rented a three-story holiday flat in a small coastal town named Thorpeness. The building where the flat was located was called the "Headlands." The first floor of our flat consisted of a bathroom, kitchen, dining and living rooms. The second and third floors each had three bedrooms. We would occasionally have all-night parties there and would invite our squadron cohorts from base, as well as some of the local girls. Not of all of my housemates were partiers. One such fellow was an extremely religious person who was a member of the base bible club and various other religious organizations. We would always give him advance notice of our parties and he would respectfully make arrangements to go elsewhere for the night.

One night during a party, one of our female British guests had wandered upstairs unbeknownst to the rest of us. You can imagine our surprise when we heard a blood-curdling scream emanating from the top floor. The guys who ran upstairs to find out what happened reported they found her in one of the bedrooms lying on the floor unconscious. She was brought back downstairs and revived. She was able to tell us she had been curious about the set-up of the flat and was looking around to satisfy her curiosity. She glanced inside one of the bedrooms and saw the image of a man, she described as a religious figure, hanging from one of the rafters with his body on fire. We checked the room and found no evidence of fire, smoke, or anything like that, but the incident really put a serious damper on the party. This girl was the daughter of a local physic. That fact in itself gave more credibility to her report of seeing the apparition. I specifically remember the party immediately ended and the rest of the night was spent in the living room with the others, as some of us were too upset (or frightened) to stay in the flat alone.

The following day, we told our religious roommate what happened the night before. He informed us the flat must have been infested with evil and he preceded to conduct an impromptu exorcism. Everyone was gathered into a circle and joined hands. Our housemate recited a religious prayer and then put tap water in a bowl and blessed the water. He went around the flat and sprinkled the entranceway to every room with this water and gave a command for the evil spirit inside to leave the premises. Later that night, after having gone to bed, I "awoke" to see a figure in front of me I would say was not human. When I say I "awoke," I awoke in the context that my body was a shell and I was trapped inside it – I could not speak, move any of my limbs, or open my eyes. I was "seeing" this thing inside of me, if that makes sense. This being had no facial features I could discern, only a large bell shaped head, minus a neck, that melded directly onto the body. I remember the sensation of a hand tightly gripping my throat and the thing "talking" to me. It kept repeating the following comment: “Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me…” The voice was filled with hatred and I perceived the grip on my throat was not to injure or kill, but to stress a point. I was able to end this contact by asking Jesus Christ for help. My exact words were, “Jesus Christ, please help me.”

I know there is a medical anomaly referred to as sleep paralysis, where one experiences a phenomenon called the "Old Hag" Syndrome. This is what may have happened to me, but I find that explanation rather strange, as I never experienced sleep paralysis prior to or after my incident in 1979. Medical research has shown that people who are infected by sleep paralysis have a tendency to experience more than one incident. Secondly, I was "talked" to by this being and the "conversation" was relative to the exorcism performed earlier that day. Most importantly though is this fact: a couple of years ago I was watching an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries." This particular episode featured a segment about a building located in the mid-west United States that was habituated by a malevolent specter. The producers of the show were able to recreate an image of the specter based on eyewitness accounts and the image depicted is exactly what I "saw" in 1979.

I am still in contact with some of my former housemates and we all vividly remember the events at that party over 25 years ago. The hair still stands on the back of my neck whenever I think of my encounter that night. I apologize to anyone who may take offense to the religious references documented in this incident. It is not my intent to glorify religion, only reference it as it related to the story.

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