Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Hit by Lightning Multiple Times or Was It Something Else?


Chris Holly's Paranormal World - A friend of mine told me a story about her father. She told me that during his life he had been hit by lightning numerous times yet lived to not only tell about them but was never seriously hurt. He also had lost time experiences and a strange confrontation with a blue orb. He lived through all of these experiences yet refused to find anything odd about them living instead in a secure denial.

My friend along with other family members knew something was very strange about the events that her father encountered . They tried over the years to get him to report or at least discuss them with those who may be able to explain what may be causing or going on concerning his encounters. My friends father was adamant about this subject and would not let anyone discuss his experiences outside of the family.

The family knew he was having experiences other people were not having but simply could not get the man to accept his situation. He would go to great lengths to find reasons why the things happening to him were perfectly normal.

The events in this man's life started when he was 15 years old. He was working on a construction barge located in the Atlantic Ocean during the 1930's. He was a water boy/laborer on a work crew that was working on a project off of Long Beach New York.

The crew would be brought out by boat to a large floating barge where they would work until the end of the day when the boat would return to bring them back to the dock at Long Beach on the coast of Long Island.

During one work day the boy was late finishing his routine and the boat that returned the men to shore left early. The man, then a boy, became stranded on the barge. He was alone , he was 15 years old and a bit nervous knowing they would not send another boat out to the barge until morning.

He was able to take cover in a small cabin on the barge and knew he would have to make the best of the ordeal until the next day. He found a canvas and made a sleeping area inside the small cabin to stay until morning.

That is all he remembers of his night alone on the barge. He recalls it was a clear night when he locked away in the small cabin but nothing more until he was being poked by the returning work crew early the next day.

When the work crew returned they found the boy half naked wearing only his work pants. He was confused and looked rather dazed. His shirt and jacket were found on the barge with his shoes. The clothes were burned and torn. His chest was bright red and he his hair smelled really bad, like sulfur.

The returning work crew questioned the boy to what had happened to him the night before. The only thing he could tell them was that he must have been hit by lightning . He thought he recalled a large bright light while laying in the cabin however he was not sure how he lost his clothes and shoes out on the barge while laying inside the cabin.

The work crew looked around the barge for signs that he may have been hit by a lightning strike but found nothing usual besides the condition of the boy.

He recalled seeing a huge white flash the night before while laying on his make shift bed in the little cabin . That was all he could remember until the next day when the men arrived to the barge and woke him up. His back and chest hurt like a slight sun burn where he seemed to have a light rash but that seemed to go away during the day.

He remained dazed for the remainder of the day and complained of a headache. The men who worked on the barge found the entire scenario with the boy odd but blamed it on his behavior while alone on the barge and did not think much more about it. After all he was 15 years old.

The man remembers feeling sick for about two weeks after the incident. His parents blamed it on catching cold while being on the barge at night. The boy was convinced he had been hit by lightning even if it had been a clear night without any sign of a storm that night. Without a reasonable explanation or any interest by the adults around him the boys strange night on the barge was forgotten.


My friends father simply explains this strange night as the night he was first hit by lightning. Everyone who hears the story thinks it odd to be hit while under cover to the extent his clothes were knocked off . They also realize he may have removed them once hit and that he may have been in shock. The one fact everyone agrees on is that what happened on that barge to this man when he was 15 years old remains a mystery.

My friends father continued to have odd events occur to him with a similar event happening when he was 21 years old in 1938.

He was walking home alone late one night around midnight in Jamaica, Queens, New York along a quiet dark side street on a Saturday night in the summer.

He recalls it was a clear lovely summers night. He had been out on a date and was on his way home from his girlfriends house when once again he saw a huge flash of pure light come at him.

He recalls the light came from nowhere in a large arrow shaped ray. It hit him directly in his chest. He was lifted in to the air and then blacked out. When he woke up he found he was laying on the ground about a block away from where he had been when the flash of light hit him.

His shirt and pants were ripped and burned to the point he was nearly naked. His shoes were nowhere to be found. He had a terrible headache and red rash circling his entire neck completely around his head. His pocket watch was missing and his hair on one side of his head around his ear looked as if it had been shaved or burned to the point of looking like a crew cut on that side of his head.

He managed to find his way home barefoot and frightened. When he finally made it to his home he was stunned to find it was after 3 in the morning. He realized he must have been knocked out and laying on the ground for about three hours.

The next day the man and his two brothers went back to see if there were signs of a lightning strike and to look for his watch and shoes. They found no signs of lightning striking the area or any of his possessions.

The family was concerned as it had been a beautiful clear night that night making a lightning strike highly unlikely. The man was insistent that was what occurred and would not consider any other possibilities. He was not burned in any way. The only complaint he had was of a terrible headache that lasted about two weeks.

His mother insisted that he see the family doctor. The doctor could not find any visible sign of being hit by lightning. The doctor also told the family that anything powerful enough to carry him a block away, destroy his clothes and knock him out for three hours would have left some type of marks or burns.

The man insisted there was nothing funny going on and he has simply once again hit by stray lightning.

My friends father continued his life having other odd experiences along the way. He married and had a family leading a normal life in most all ways.

The man encountered other odd happenings along his life besides his experiences with the so called lightning events. He also had a few lost time events that he would explain away as falling asleep while driving. If he was sleep driving it was an incredible feat as he would drive a few hundred miles sound asleep to find himself waking up in his car hours and miles away from his original destination.

The strangest event my friend told me about was her father's encounter with what he referred to as ball lightning.

This event occurred in the 1970's. My friend did not remember the exact year but knows she was in her mid 20's when her father told her of this event.

Her father and mother were sitting in their backyard eating lunch at the large family wooden picnic table that sat under one of the yards big shade trees. The couple sat talking while enjoying their lunch when a ball of blue light the size of large truck tire entered the yard. At first the ball of light hovered adjacent from the couple sitting at the picnic table on the opposite side of the yard. The couple sat in awe looking at this thing for a few seconds until it began to circle the yard.

The large orb of light circled the yard much like a ball swirls around inside of a roulette wheel. As it continued to circle the couple snapped to their senses and became frightened. The man told his wife to get under the big wooden picnic table.

He looked for something to defend them with and grabbed a yard shovel leaning against the tree. The man got a good grip on the shovel and steadied himself against the table ready to hack away at the light if it approached the table that now had his wife hiding underneath it.

He watched in amazement as this ball of bright neon blue light continued to circle the yard. He tried to figure out what it could be and once again came to the conclusion it was some type of odd ball lightning.

The sky was crystal clear, there was not one cloud in the blue summer sky however he could not think of what else this thing could be.

The ball of light began to slow its pace which gave the man hope it would soon dissipate or lose its energy and disappear.

Instead the ball slowed to a stop, hovered in the corner of the yard before changing direction to head straight at the man, his wife and that big old wooden picnic table.

The man now knew something was really wrong as he never heard of lightning standing still or changing direction.

He leveled his balance to ready for a fight and held his shovel like a bat getting ready to swing as this blue ball of light hurdled towards him. He watched in horror making ready to swing as this thing aimed straight at him. He bent at the waist knowing his first swing better be a good one. The ball of light came at him and just before impact the man threw his body into the swing and hit the orb of light just before it was able to impact him.

My friend's mother still under the table was shaking and crying as she watched this thing coming towards her husband. She watched him make ready and take his swing at the thing as it rushed at them. She heard the shovel make contact with the orb and heard a explosion accompanied by a large flash of blinding white blue light.

Her husband had smashed the orb of blue light as hard as he could hitting it dead center with the shovel. It exploded in a loud crack that hurt their ears. The thing broke apart into millions of blue sparks somewhat like a display of fireworks.

The sparks flew all over the yard. The man pulled his wife from under the table to start a run towards the house. As they ran to the back door of their home they watched at the far end of their yard as this thing collected what looked like the tail of a comet . The pieces that were shattered all over the yard by the smack with the shovel were pulling together in what looked like a comet heading away from them and their yard.

They watched as the thing took off in to the sky at an incredible speed until it was gone.

My friend talked to her father after this event and tried to convince him that something strange had been following him during his entire life with odd events and strange encounters that simply could not have been constant lightning strikes.

My friends father passed away about ten years ago. My friend was never able to get her father to talk about these events without becoming upset and annoyed. The family felt it best not to press him on something he found so upsetting. The family knew something very odd was going on with their father but to this day have no idea what it could have been.

I talked about this man and his life experiences with a few people I thought may have some ideas what could have been causing his odd encounters.

One idea was that this man may have some extraordinary connection with the electricity around him or even the plasma in our universe. He may attract energy like a lightning rod. I was also asked if he was located near any electric poles or large transformers or high tension wire centers during his events?

Since he never seemed to suffer any obvious physical harm the idea any human could endure that many hits by lightning seemed somewhat impossible.

I questioned my friend concerning the locations of her father's events. She told me that the first one was in out in the Ocean on a barge so no wires were involved there. The other encounters were not near any type of high tension wires that she knew of.. The orb incident happened in the back of her parents home that was about 1000 feet away from the street where the normal residential utility poles are located.

I knew that this man had other encounters besides the ones I have written about and questioned my friend about those events as well.

The other events with flashes of light occurred to her father while on vacation in Florida on the gulf coast as well as during a day spent on South Hampton Beach, New York. The last lightning strike type encounter happened to him on an island in the South Pacific during his military service.

All the encounter were exactly the same with the man going about his day when without warning he was hit by a huge explosion of light. He was always found a distance away from the strike with his clothing missing. He was always disoriented with a horrible headache that lasted for days.

The one encounter that was not like the others was with the blue orb he did battle with in his yard. The man refused to discuss this event as it was the one that upset the man the most. It was not like the others as it seemed to have intelligence as well as seemed to want to do harm to the couple.

I have no idea what was happening to this man. I have no clue why he had these strange things happen to him during his life.

His experiences could have been caused by some type of abnormal relationship with energy . It is possible he was a rod for energy and attracted lightning. I would feel more comfortable considering that possibility if the events occurred when there was some sort of storm going on at the time they occurred. In the case of this man each event happened on beautiful clear days or nights. I understand that strange lightning can develop at any time and that he may have had a relationship to it that the rest of us do not.

I have to admit that it has crossed my mind that this man was a victim of abduction during his life. The fact that he was never harmed by any encounter in a way people usually are during lightning strikes is odd. So is the fact he had his clothing blown off of him in the intensity of the hit. Of course the lost time involved in the man's experiences rings a loud alarm bell in my mind. I also find his lack of memory a fact that leans me towards abduction possibilities.

I know this man refused to believe any idea other than the one he came up with for his strange happenings. He really wanted to believe he was hit over and over during his life by lightning. Maybe he was. I have no idea what happened to him but do know you cannot fight lightning with a shovel or watch it hover and decide to change course to attack you!

I have to wonder how many other people out there have had similar events happen to them or a family member and go along thinking it was just a normal day with a little lightning hit along the way?

How many of us out there are encountering the unknown with strange events and never mentioning it?

It is obvious that many things happen out there that never are reported by people all over the world. I want to remind all of my readers to be careful out there and always pay attention to your surroundings. If you think something is wrong follow your instincts and protect yourself. You never know when it will be your day to pick up a shovel, or find a way to face off with something you find completely unknown!

Thanks to Chris Holly at Chris Holly's Paranormal World
Copyright © 2008-2010 Chris Holly - All Rights Reserved
chrishollyufo@yahoo.com


NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by guest authors are not necessarily shared by me. Please direct inquiries to the specific writer...Lon