This story was relayed to me by a friend and coworker named Steve. He has no interest in the supernatural or paranormal, his only passions being, in fact, technology and baseball. However, he unwillingly found himself on the end of what he is certain was a ghostly encounter. Steve lives in Fair Lawn, NJ in a three-bedroom home with his two sons and daughter, and this particular story took place around 2005.



The first inkling that Steve and his family were not alone in the house happened later one night after his wife went to bed and his children were asleep. He was sitting on the couch in his living room watching television when his TV suddenly went off. Thinking there was a problem with the cable box, he grabbed the remote and turned it back on. Within minutes it shut off again.



When it happened a third time, he unplugged the TV and box to reset everything. Back then you were supposed to leave boxes unplugged for at least 30 seconds to make sure it reset correctly, so he quickly ran to the bathroom. He came back to a strange scene. The TV was now on with static snow on the screen—but it was still unplugged. After staring at it dumbfounded for a few seconds it went off again and stayed off.



The next unexplainable occurrence happened a couple of weeks later. It was again evening, and again all children were in bed. Steve was sitting in his recliner and his wife was on the couch doing paperwork for work. All of a sudden, he felt a hand grab his shoulder from behind as if someone were reaching over the back of the recliner. Thinking that one of his kids had gotten out of bed and needed something, he turned around only to see nobody. Perplexed, he asked his wife if she had just seen one of the kids downstairs, but she hadn’t. Still startled, he went upstairs to peek in on his kids and saw that they were all still tucked in.



Not long after that, he was in his youngest son’s room reading a bedtime story. His son was four-years-old at the time and this particular story was about friendship. His son said that he had a friend named Jimmy whom he liked to play with. Thinking that he was a friend at daycare, Steve asked him if he played with Jimmy there. His son responded that he played with Jimmy in his room. Believing that his son had his first imaginary friend, Steve turned off the light and said good night.



A couple of days later they were again reading a bedtime story together. The subject of Jimmy came up again and Steve asked if he was having fun with his little friend. “Jimmy’s not little, Daddy, he’s big,” he answered. “He’s right over there,” and he pointed to the doorway to his room. Even though that was slightly unnerving, Steve simply thought that his son was imagining an adult friend and didn’t think much about it further.



One subsequent day Steve was talking outside with his nextdoor neighbor who had lived in the neighborhood for years. While chatting he brought up that his son now had an imaginary friend whom he named Jimmy but it was a bit weird because he was an older imaginary friend. His neighbor then got a quizzical look on his face as Steve could see the gears turning in his head. His neighbor then informed him that a man named Jimmy had lived in Steve’s house with his parents a couple of owners previous. Jimmy was a Vietnam veteran who sadly got cancer not long after returning from his tour, and he passed away not long after that. The neighbor recalled going to the funeral along with many citizens of town and the whole affair was extraordinarily sad.



The neighbor gave a description of what Jimmy looked like and then Steve asked his son what Jimmy looked like. The only match they could make was that both descriptions included a man with brown hair, but without a picture of Jimmy, which they couldn't find, they weren't able to compare any further.



So was Steve’s son’s Jimmy the same Jimmy who had lived in their house and was still hanging around after his death? Was he also the one who caused the shenanigans with the TV and who had grabbed Steve’s shoulder that one night? If so, why did Jimmy visibly make himself known to Steve's son but to no one else in the house? After a while, his son ceased mentioning Jimmy and now, as a teenager, he doesn't even recall having a friend named Jimmy. Whether this was the spirit of the young man who met an unfortunate early departure from this life or not, one thing Steve is sure of is that, for at least a time, there was something very unusual going on in his home. KJ

MOVING THIS WEEK

Phantoms and Monsters posts will be sporadic this week. Moving Friday...getting last minute stuff done. Thanks...Lon

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Mike in Oregon called in to tell of his MIB sighting:“I'm not much of a believer in Men In Black or anything of that stuff, I'm really not. I'm pretty pragmatic. Today (February 15, 2012), at Starbucks, not only did I run into my Gym Creek buddy which kinda freaked me out. But I'm sitting there. We had a nice little conversation. I was reading a book and I just look over and there's this guy walking out the door of Starbucks. He looks like he's about 6'2. He looks like he's about... I'm only catching this from the profile. I didn't see him head on. 6'2, he looked like he weighed about between 135 and 140 pounds. He had a black coat on that went all the way from his neck down to below his ankles. And he had a black hat on. His skin, you know what mat-white color looks like, right? Really bright mat-white. No gloss, just kind of matted down. I caught him. All I saw was in profile, okay? White! White, like there is no red blood cells. And he had white fuzz on his face. And he wore this black hat, a fedora like out of the 40s or 50s or something like that. (Clyde asks where he saw him) I was in Hillsboro (Oregon). Here's the thing that wiped me out about him. I can remember things pretty well. He went in and bought a cup of coffee. He walked out the door and as he's walking up the street and instead of holding the coffee like normally you would, like in close to your body or something like that, he was holding it out in front of him and it looked like... and honest to god, I'm not lying to you, man, it looked like the coffee was dragging him along. It was the most doggone thing. I've never seen anybody carry a cup of coffee like that. You know, it was just so strange. He obviously was in there buying coffee but I didn't see that part of it.”Source: Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis – February 16, 2012************************************************************