Seeing People Who Aren’t There

Offbeat experiences mirror the shadows of our life

I woke up at 3 am, terrified when I saw myself enter the bedroom. What I saw could have been my father, who would have been 105 this month. We look similar. I hoped I had been dreaming and not seeing a ghost.

Sometimes when we dream or look at nature, we see people who are not there. Our imagination takes over and we create a story. Ancient civilizations saw images of people and animals when looking at the stars. We call them constellations, and people still look for them.

We arrived in Moab, Utah, in early November. It was near Arches National Park and we had not visited the park yet. Vacations should also be restful, right? Tell it to the mouse in our rustic apartment who ate through two layers of plastic to get to our cereal.

We never saw the mouse. We saw evidence of its presence. If you can’t be at home, it doesn’t hurt to bring home with you. I stashed over 20 cereal bags in the car trunk.

Although we were indoors, we reacted as if we were camping outside. We treated the mouse like a bear and safeguarded our food in the car. The fridge would have worked to store the food.

The next day, we discovered ground-based “constellations” in Arches National Park. And our imagination treated them as evidence of the presence of people who weren’t there. Here are my stories of those experiences.

Everyone sees The Three Gossips

What do you see when you look at the photograph below? Many people, including those who run the park, see three people gossiping. They have a point.

One was giving a stone-cold assessment of two people she saw cavorting in the bushes.

He could not escape his fate

For those of you as ancient as I am, do you remember the old Flash Gordon movies? In one movie, Clay People could emerge from solid cave walls. For a child, not sure what is real or not, this took a solid hold and buried itself deep in my mind.

The next photo captures an angry Clay Man who could not emerge from the rocks. The earth trapped him for eternity. No one knows why. His silent howl echoes through the park each night.

He mirrors the truth and steals your shadow

No one ever saw the Shadow, although they heard his voice. He fought crime in the 1930s. When I spotted the shadow emerging from the rocks, the Shadow’s refrain echoed in my mind:

Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows.

Had I done anything wrong?

Then, I thought, Isn’t he usually in an urban environment? Why would he be in this pristine place? Why would he show himself? Perhaps he is lightening up.

Normally, you would hear the deep voice of the shadow as you pass a mirror, warning you to be truthful with your New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, as you gaze into the mirror, you see a faint shadow behind you. The Shadow is showing himself. It is enough of a difference to send chills through your being.

Bordering on the paranoid and paranormal, the Shadow has a para-principle:

We all have our quirks and secrets, like singing in the shower or believing we’re superheroes. The Shadow, with his supernatural abilities, knows these secrets. He understands why we say one thing, like complimenting an old lady, while most of our mind is on what’s for supper? And he watching!

The world beyond the normal

There is beauty in our national parks. And within them, you can feel a serene peace. Allow yourself to see beyond what is in front of you. It is wonderful to give free rein to your imagination. Here are two more photos, one from Arches National Park, and the other from Tuscany, Italy.

What do you see in the photo below? A tree, or something not quite human, reaching for the sun?

When I shared my stories with my brother, he shared this photo:

To me, it is a woman, frozen in a tree. What is her story?

Author’s Note

Thanks to Daniel Gambardella and Claire Kurs for their editorial feedback. And thanks to John Gambardella for permission to use his photo.

Links to the author’s Medium articles, including those on satire, psychology, exercise, and health, are on this mind map.

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