Longtime Tucsonans can remember when the El Con Mall bustled with customers, back in the early 80’s. Tequila Mockingbird was a popular bar in the El Con center, where local bands like Street Pajama would perform Thursdays through Saturdays. Levy’s and Montgomery Ward’s served as anchor stores within the mall complex. Osco Drug provided mall shoppers with the convenience of picking up prescriptions, toiletries, or other needed items, before they would head home with too many shopping bags in tow.  

Osco appeared to be drugstore like any other in town. Friendly pharmacists filled prescriptions. Cashiers cheerfully rang up customer purchases. The daytime hours in that store rarely raised concern for the employees, except for dreaded trips to the basement. 

When a particular item ran low on the shelves, employees didn’t like to go down into that storage area. Every time an employee found themselves in the basement, they would hear footsteps. It sounded like women’s high heel shoes and they made the sound of click-click-click. The employees never stayed very long down in the basement. They would just grab whatever item they needed and run back upstairs, trying not to look back.

A couple of employees however, did happen to see what they thought looked like a woman, but they convinced themselves that their eyes were playing tricks on them. They all gave the same description of a lady dressed in red. They all agreed that her clothing appeared to be from the 1940′s. Perhaps she had been associated with the El Conquistador Hotel, they thought. Aside from the occasional glimpses they caught of the woman in the basement, they all thought that she was harmless. Daily operations were carried out as usual.

Afterhours activities, when all the customers were gone, were especially tense in the store for the manager and his employees. It was night time when most of the experiences took place. The manager felt uneasy working alone. His office was on the second floor, which looked down on the store aisles below. He would occasionally hear the click-click-click coming toward his office, but the sound would fade before getting too close. One night, though, the sound didn’t fade. The sound came closer and closer  – until it stopped outside his office door. The doorknob began to jiggle. The manager threw the window of his office open, and jumped, landing first on one of the store aisles, then down to the floor. He didn’t bother turning off any of the lights.

Another experience involved two store employees who were performing inventory late at night. The two women worked together in each aisle, each tending to their respective sides of the aisle. Occasionally, the sound of click-click-click could be heard in the distance. After a little while, one of the employees looked toward her colleague to ask a question. She was surpised to see that a lady, dressed in red, was standing directly behind her crouched colleague. The colleague didn’t seem to notice, as she continued to count the items on the shelf. 

The lady in red glared down at the store employee, arms crossed, tapping her fingers on her arms. Desperate to alert her colleague, she barely got out the words: “Come here!”  The crouched colleague rose and started to walk toward her co-worker. When she noticed the look of horror she was headed toward, she looked behind her, and there she saw the lady in red!

The women fled out of the store, they heard the click-click-click sound,  faster and faster behind them, as it followed them toward the door. The women made it into the parking lot, where they fell to their knees and prayed. All the while, at the door, stood the lady in red. The lady in red glared at the horrified women in the parking lot, her arms crossed…and she just stood there, steadily tapping her arms with her fingers…

After Osco was demolished several years ago to make room for the big box stores, there have been no more sightings of that lady in red. At least, not yet…

Dragonfly

I left my house tonight, very excited to have the chance to attend a presentation given by Professor William Everist at the Columbus library. The topic was: “The Paranormal is the Normal Unexplored.” Yes, it’s not your every day “normal” event attended by most of us. There were 60 people expected at the event, which is such a small portion of Tucson’s ever growing population. I almost didn’t make it to the event myself. I forgot to complete my online RSVP and was placed on a waiting list. Less than 2 hours prior to the event, I received an email letting me know that a spot had opened up. I don’t know whose spot I was given and why. I am sure that it was an unusual event which prevented the person whose place I took from attending. Even the manner in which I learned about tonight’s event is unusual in itself.

I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about a tragic event in Toronto. An intoxicated woman was with her boyfriend on a “ghost hunting adventure” on the top of a university building. She fell to her death. Due to her death, I went on a rant in that post, about the motivations of thrill seekers versus the small percentage of the population who are actually interested in the science behind paranormal phenomena. I listed a few of the names of those paranormal research professionals who work right here in Tucson. When I referenced Professor Everist in that post on September 11th, I initially gave him the title of “Doctor‘” because I wasn’t sure if he had completed his doctorate. I looked it up on the trusty Google search engine and found very quickly that not only is he working on his PhD, but Professor Everist was to be speaking tonight. So, when I arrived at Columbus library tonight to hear him speak, I thought about how sad it was that I learned he was speaking, due to the news of the death of a woman who I didn’t even know. Then, I wondered about the various reasons behind the RSVP cancellation of someone else that allowed me to attend. This isn’t the first encounter I have had with Professor Everist, though.

A few years ago, I attended the premier party for Ghost! Magazine at the Z Mansion downtown. I heard about that event through my friend Debe Branning of the MVD Ghostchasers. Debe was asked to attend to promote her book Sleeping With Ghosts!: A Ghost Hunter’s Guide To Arizona’s Haunted Hotels And Inns. So, if it wasn’t for Debe, then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet so many paranormal professionals on that particular night. If it wasn’t for Debe, I wouldn’t have signed up for a Ghost! Magazine subscription. From within the pages of that magazine, I was able to read contributions to the magazine written by Professor Everist. Professor Everist is a member of the scientific community whose goal is to present the scientific side of the paranormal to the general population who have an interest in the paranormal. Though the magazine ceased printing a hard copy of the magazine, you can still read Professor Everist’s articles on the Ghost! Magazine website.

Well, now I have to back up a little bit about why my own RSVP to Professor Everist’s presentation tonight wasn’t submitted on time, and why I was put on that waiting list. There were still a few spots available when I last checked, but things kept coming up. Most notably, yesterday. I went with my dad and my sister to Sonoita on a last minute day trip. I figured that there would still be time to RSVP when I arrived home. While in Sonoita, we stopped by “Bog Hole”, a waterfowl preserve in the San Rafael Valley. There, we didn’t encounter any waterfowl. My dad said it was the first time he had never seen ducks in that bog hole. Instead, we saw plenty of frogs, who quickly hopped for their lives and jumped into the water. A dragonfly flew around us. It wasn’t afraid of us and stayed close by. It was very unusual looking, and I was mesmerized by it. I made my dad take a picture of the dragonfly even, so I have proof that it was there. Stay with me, there’s a point to all of this…

Back to tonight and to Professor Everist. Professor Everist spoke about various topics tonight, focusing mostly on psychic phenomena, ESP and remote viewing. He presented us with an exercise for fun. This exercise consisted of 60 pieces of paper, each folded into quarters, and taped shut. A bowl was passed around that contained these 60 pieces of folded paper. Each paper had a unique image printed inside. Everyone was to select one of those papers, but not open it. Instead, we were to concentrate on our selected paper, and guess the random image that was hidden inside. I kept thinking of a floppy eared dog. It was a rather cute image in my mind. In the next part of the exercise, we had to tell the person next to us what we thought the image was on the paper we selected. So, I told my neighbor that it was a floppy eared dog. After we each shared what we thought was on the paper, it was time to unfold them. Mine was a dragonfly. The man sitting directly in front of me got that floppy eared dog I was picturing in my head. The people around me said that I was probably focusing on the energies of the man in front of me, but not on my own. That’s a possibility, I suppose, that it was a really good guess “by proximity.” The man in front of me let me have the picture of the floppy eared dog. I was a bit disappointed that the dog I was thinking about looked nothing like that image of the dragonfly that I held in my hand.

Then, my thoughts wandered in another direction. I couldn’t help thinking about my image of the dragonfly, coupled with my encounter with the one from yesterday. I brought up my experience to the group, and though I chalked it up to ad hoc reasoning, I did feel that it was worth mentioning. I mean, perhaps the encounter with one yesterday was “a sign” of the experiences to come today. Some members of the group became very excited about my dragonfly revelation, stating that the dragonfly represents transformation. He is the essence of change and the power of light. Dragonflies foreshadow wonderful things to come in one’s life. It is apparently quite the synchronicity that my encounter with the dragonfly yesterday coincided with that image of one on the piece of paper I selected today. Did the dragonfly represent a precognitive episode which actually foreshadowed the dragonfly image I received tonight? Did my encounter with the dragonfly yesterday lead me to purposely select that very image from the bowl? Did it all of it happen just by chance? I don’t know. Professor Everist, despite his wealth of scientific knowledge, does not know. All I know is that this small event makes me wonder. It is one of those things that happens that makes you wish that professionals like Professor Everist are able find answers to seemingly meaningless questions like that; which some of us would very much like to have answered. However, tonight, all I can say in response to those questions is: I don’t know.

One thing is for sure though. I attended tonight’s presentation so I could write about it. However, the image I had in my mind of the article I wanted to write, versus the one I have written, are very different. Instead of relaying an introductory lesson of paranormal phenomena that Professor Everist presented tonight, the article has very much transformed from what I intended it to be. I am relaying to you my experience involving dragonflies, which may or may not be worth mentioning – which could really be nothing more than a coincidence.

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Thank you to Tucson Metaphysics for hosting this fun and interesting event – and much appreciation to Professor William Everist who keeps on looking for those answers!

Google has updated their doodle for the third time in a month. This doodle is the last in a series of UFO themed Google doodles. According to Google’s Official Blog, all of the hoopla over the last couple of weeks was in honor of H.G. Wells, whose 143rd birthday is September 21st.

“Now, we’re finally acknowledging the reason for the doodles with an official nod to Herbert George, who would be 143 years old today.”

Google acknowledged that the mystery was solved by most, after the posting of the second doodle that depicted crop circles.  According to Google’s blog: “Some of you figured out what we were doing, but we weren’t ready to reveal it all just yet.”

I’ve been following this series of doodles with great interest. Here are some of my past posts:

Google’s Unexplained Phenomenon

The Unexplained Phenomenon of 11:11…and Google’s 11:11, too

From The Galaxy of Google, the UFO is Back

Happy 143rd  birthday, H.G. Wells!