URECAT -> Home

Cette page en français

URECAT - UFO Related Entities Catalog

1978, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA, A WOMAN:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

Ghost hunter Roy Bauer told about a case of haunted house in Wostorey, Winnipeg, 1978. After noting "strange" phenomena such as the feelings of being watched, occasional "cool breezes", the dog hiding under the bed for no reason or afraid of a certain area of the basement, the housewife reported a birdlike fluttering sound, dishes rammed, and lights going on an off by themselves.

Eventually one night she observed a ball of light hovering in the back hallway and as she was frightened and she did not tell anyone of the experience. Later that evening, she and her husband were talking together in bed when the woman was suddenly aware of a "monklike" hooded figure about six feet tall and only three feet from the bed, a white form with no visible face and standing motionless by the bedside with its arms at its sides for three or four minutes.

The woman said nothing to her husband then, but talked about it the next day and he "grudgingly admitted he had seen it too".

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. cr1:] CHRIS RUTKOWSKI:

Chris Rutkowsi indicates that a case of haunting investigated by paranormal researcher Roy Bauer, occurred to Mrs. C, who lived with her husband and son in a seventy-five-year-old Wostorey house in Winnipeg.

They moved in in 1978 and within a month began noticing unusual things; Mrs. C began to get feelings that she was being watched, and occasionally felt "cool breezes" and their dog would sometimes act "strangely" and hide under the bed for no reason. The dog also seemed to be afraid of going near a particular area in the basement.

On other occasions, Mrs. C heard a birdlike fluttering sound, dishes rammed, and lights went on and off by themselves.

One night she observed a ball of light hovering in the back hallway. She was frightened and she did not tell anyone of the experience. Later that evening, she and her husband were talking together in bed when an "apparition" appeared.

She said she was suddenly aware of a "monklike" hooded figure about six feet tall and only three feet from the bed. It was a white form with no visible face and just stood motionless by the bedside with its arms at its sides for three or four minutes, during which time Mrs. C did not say a word to her husband.

The next day, she mentioned it to him, and he grudgingly admitted he had seen it too, but was uncomfortable in mentioning it.

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Albert Rosales indicates in his catalogue that in Winnipeg, British Columbia, Canada, in 1978, at night, during a period were many strange phenomena including "cool breezes" bird-like fluttering sounds, lights going on and off by themselves, the main witness, Mrs C, saw one night a ball of light hovering in the back hallway. Later that evening Mrs C was suddenly aware of a "monk-like" hooded figure about 6 ft tall and only three ft from the bed. The white form had no visible face, and simply stood by the bedside with its arms at its sides. It stood motionless for 4 minutes, during which time Mrs C did not say a word to her husband. The next morning he grudgingly admitted he had seen it too.

Albert Rosales indicates that the source is "Chris Rutkowski, Abductions and Aliens What's really going on?"

Points to consider:

In his book - which I urge you to read - , Chris Rutkowski produced many examples he personally investigated, case of all kinds relating to the alleged alien abductions.

This case, that he did not investigate but heard of his friend ghost hunter and paranormal phenomena investigator Roy Bauer, is not published as an example of alien abduction but to illustrate his view that the border between what is called "alien abduction" and what is called "haunting" is sometimes thin.

The problem here is the thin documentation, of second hand, which makes it possible to wonder whether the woman did not dream or fantasize or maybe was the victim of an experience of hypnagogic hallucination in her sleep.

Indeed, whereas it is said the husband also saw the entity, the latter did not seem to upset him at all during the alleged experience of his wife, which is somewhat odd. And, it is absolutely not known if the statement of the husband was checked; it might have been what the wife claimed, perhaps she simply insisted so much on the matter that her husband "grudingly" told he saw the entity too, simply not to oppose a perhaps a bit fantasy-prone wife.

One cannot exclude that the entity was really an extraterrestrial entity; a "ghost of a monk" would be an interpretation strongly at odds with the scientific corpus; which does not give place to the notion of "ghosts", people who would "come back" after death in more or less etheral forms. But until proof of the opposite is offered, there is no particular reason to interpret the story as visit of an extraterrestrial entity, even less an "extraterrestrial abduction", when the experience actually rather evokes a hypnagogic hallucination not understood as such. It is especially the apparent lack of investigating such a possible explanation that constitute one frequent common feature between alleged "alien abductions" and alein nocturnal visits of "ghosts".

I provide a few references among dozens about the topic of hypnagogic hallucination and sleep paralysis:

• "The Old Hag phenomenon as sleep paralysis: a biocultural interpretation", paper by R.C. Ness, in Cultural and Medical Psychiatry, vol. 2 #1, pp 15-39, March 1978.
• "Lucid Dreaming: The Paradox of Consciousness During Sleep", book by Celia Green and Charles McCreery, Routledge publisher, U-K., 1994.
• "Wrestling With Ghosts: A Personal And Scientific Account Of Sleep Paralysis", book by Jorge Conesa Sevilla, Xlibris Corporation publishers, U-K., 2004.
• "Hallucinations and pathological visual perceptions in Maupassant's fantastical short stories - a neurological approach", by L.C. Alvaro, in Journal of the History of Neuroscience, vol 14, #2, pp 100-115, June 2005.
• "Effects of hypnagogic imagery on the event-related potential to external tone stimuli", paper by N. Michida, M. Hayashi, T. Hori, in Sleep, Vol. 28 #7, pp 813-818, July 2005.
• "Sleep and Society: Ventures into the (Un)Known", book by Simon A. Williams, Routledge publisher, 2005.
• "Mental representation of space: Insights from an oblique distribution of hallucinations", paper by T.A Girard, D.L. Martius, J.A. Cheyne in Neuropsychologia, vol. 45 #6, pp 1257-1269, 2007.
• "Parasomnias", paper by D.T. Plante, J.W. Winkelman, in The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Vol. 29 #4, pp 969-987, December 2006.
• "Paranoid delusions and threatening hallucinations: A prospective study of sleep paralysis experiences", paper preview by J.A. Cheyne, T.A. Girard, scheduled in Consciousness and Cognition for April 2007.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Possible hypnagogic hallucination. Insufficient data.

Sources references:

* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.

• [---] * Roy Bauer.
• [cr1] * "Abductions and Aliens - What's Really Going On?", book by Chris Rutkowski, Dundurn publishers, Canada, page 109, 1999.
• [ar1] * "1978 Humanoid Reports", compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2007, at www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1978.shtml

Document history:

Authoring

Changes history

Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on December 6, 2008