by Donald Weatherby
Gleanings from the myriad of UFO and paranormal books impart to us thousands of anecdotal accounts and while these anecdotes are singular in nature, they yet share common threads of being both inexplicable but yet believable in nature due to the sincerity in their retelling. Thusly I proceed, in as much as the motivation for the relation of my anecdote rests solely on my wish to recount it. I have arrived at no possible explanation for my late night experience and consequently am quite curious to hear from others who have had similar ones, so I can amass a larger database. While more than twenty years have passed since this occurred, I trust that, when you have weighed my remembered perceptions, perhaps you would agree that the probability of them all pointing toward random coincidence is nearly null.
The event took place, as I recall, in 1971, the year before I graduated from high school. Two friends and myself were driving to an Indian pow-wow in Linesville, Pennsylvania, which is a short hop from Lake Pymatuning. It was perhaps 10:30 or 11:00 PM and while still in Ohio, that we pulled off an exit of I-80. We had taken this exit, because according to our map, we could then turn left (north) onto a smaller road (which was probably Route 7) and proceed hence forth to the lake.
Things turned oddly confusing as soon as we got off the exit. The exit was not a clover-leaf, therefore we did not get "turned around." As we rolled to the stop sign at the end of the exit, we saw green direction signs pointing to our right, indicating the names of towns that we thought should be on our left. We sat at the stop sign for several minutes and checked our map again, for we could not believe that the direction we should possibly want to take should be to the right, hence south. (We, of course had previously been traveling east on I-80.) None-the-less, trusting to the signs, never having taken the route before, we turned right, heading 180 degrees opposite the direction we thought we should go. We were hoping the signs were correct and that perhaps took some round-about route to arrive where they indicated. Little did we know what would be waiting for us that direction.
We drove several miles south and then for some reason, turned right (west). I believe the reason was hunger, as none of us had eaten before we left Columbus. I do not recollect why we thought that food might be procured by taking that second turn, whether we saw another sign or what. My friend Ray was driving and maybe I don't account in my memory for this second turn, due to the possibility that the driver had made the decision based on something he had seen. It may be noted, that a driver normally pays stricter attention to signs, etc., than the occupants who may be other-wise involved in conversation. The confusion at the freeway exit may have caused it correspondingly to be etched because of the juxtaposition of signs made it a memorable event to us passengers. But enough philosophy; on with the meat of the experience. So, now, we had just made a right turn heading west and had not proceeded more than half a mile when an enveloping darkness overtook us.
The quality of this darkness is something I shall always remember. The darkness had a certain richness to it, a seeming thickness almost, as if we had driven dead into a tunnel of chocolate pudding, from which no light could escape. Where it had been a dark night before, this was normal, but what we had driven into was absolute darkness. I have been spelunking before and therefore know the total darkness which is inherent in caverns wherein no light can pervade to their rocky depths. The darkness which surrounded us on that lonely two lane country road was different yet, it had a FEELING to it. "What feeling?" you will ask. Well as close as I can parley my feeling to you, would be for you to imagine yourself driving down a country road then all of a sudden find yourself floating in the vastness of space. Yet this was a void where not even the meager light of stars invaded. This incident was so unusual, that, as memory serves, we all became immediately silent. It was as if we were anticipating something going to happen, but not having the foggiest idea what. So there we sat, literally on the edge of our chairs.
I cannot determine how long we were in this state...this I find odd in and of itself. I do not know if it was a long time or short time...time seemed to have little relevance there. I do however, remember implicitly our departure from this dark "zone." Old lamp-post street lights began appearing on each side of us until we had passed many of them. Of the odd things that we saw next, I can not tell who of us was the first to draw attention, save that eventually we all became aware that things were not quite right in this little town. It seems to me, that the first odd thing we saw was the movie theater, around which stood groups of teenagers. The notable perceptions were that they were all wearing dress that was for the late 1950's and the movie that was showing was "The Blob." We all turned to our left as we drove past slowly, not believing what we were seeing.
As we watched the teenagers in front of the theater, we noticed that they were looking and pointing at us and, furthermore, were wearing astonished looks on their faces. Next we noticed cars from the same earlier time period, the big round ones, but they looked brand new. At this point we were trying to look in all directions at once. By this time Ray began discussing what we were seeing, wondering out loud if it would really be wise to stop there for dinner. Then we saw the police car. It must have been parked, for I don't recall there was anyone in it. It was a typical 1950's police car, with the red bubble lights on top. That did it...we were out'a there!
I remember leaving the city much more quickly than we had entered it. Also, just as we passed the last of the street lamps, we again entered that same pool of enigmatic darkness. The next I remember was heading north again on Route 7 (we must have turned left) and passing the signs at the exit which were still pointing the wrong way. We slowed to look at them and they appeared to have been in the ground for quite some time. It was late when we arrived at Lake Pymatuning, just how late I do not know.
I am sure I can predict what the skeptics will say. They will say that we forgot the freeway we were on and instead of I-80 we were on some road north of there and when we got off, those old towns WOULD have been south instead of north of us. Sorry! They will also say that we had entered a town that was having an antique car show and that the reshowing of "The Blob" was a coincidence. Not so! Just not so! There was that remarkable darkness, the likes of which I have never encountered before or since. And there was that feeling that something was terribly wrong about all this. The feeling that we were not in the right place for us, that if we had not left that little town quickly, we might never have. We were scared.