Basically just wanted to put this here since Twitter feeds are so ephemeral.

Snapped this last Friday when I got home from work. I’m no gardener at all, so this poor rosebush has been left to fend for itself until I can find a decent landscaper next Spring. One can only admire its stubborn opportunism, though, getting in that one last bloom just a week before Christmas. (First frost was later that night).

Our typical blizzard season around here is January-March, but by this time in December, there would usually would have been a few minor storms, and there’d be snow cover on the gardens and sidewalks.This bush is normally bare by mid November, but the New England coast has been unseasonably warm this year (and, so far, mercifully quiet).

It wasn’t until I looked at the picture above on a bigger screen to post it (for its own sake) that I noticed the ‘fuzz’ around the window framing. Which brings me to this photo:

I had taken this picture a few days before, on the 13th.  I’ve been working through large piles of crap in my half-finished attic area, sending a load of junk off with the haulers every couple of months or so. While setting up the picture, I saw that the sleeping bag near the bottom of the frame was obscuring the cat, so I reached down to move it out of frame (mostly). So at this point I’m standing, knees slightly bent, and I’d just tossed the bag out of the way as I was pressing the “shutter” on the phone (oh how I miss real buttons…)

Just as I did so, I distinctly saw… something. Something that appeared to fly out of one of the boxes under the sleeping bag, then upwards, right in front of me, and then shot up quickly, through the ceiling.

The most curious thing is that it flew literally right in front of me. Less than 6-8 inches from my face. And it was real: It was about 4-6 feet wide so I could see it distinctly around the edges of the phone, almost filling my peripheral vision. Not just on the screen. I’m also reasonably sure it’s not a flash artifact, since this happened right before the flash went off. My first thought was that it was just a cloud of dust I’d kicked up by moving the sleeping bag, but I once it was at eye level, I quickly realized that it was made of light. Bright light of a clear, distinct color: A brilliant white/cyan, with touches of violet around the edges. The edges seemed to move and wave more than the white part did, to the extent I could tell (having only seen the thing for a split second).

Luckily I was lucid enough to snap another photo ASAP:

Forgive my weak photography (and terrible early 1960s vinyl/asbestos flooring, that’s getting covered up with something nicer once this gets all cleared out).  Gizz’s eyes still have that certain feline glow, as in the previous photo, but any other “orb” or flash artifacts are completely absent from this one.

The cat saw it too, BTW. His head and eyes had followed it up to the ceiling, then looked back down at me, so here I am capturing that startled “WTF was THAT!? did YOU see that!?” look most cat owners would recognize.

I’ve never seen ball lightning, but this doesn’t seem to fit the descriptions I’ve read. It was unseasonably warm on that day, too, with a slight on and off drizzle, but no storm or electrical activity. It was too damp that day for static electricity. And, it did fly less than a foot in front of my face. I’d have expected to feel the static, and smell ozone afterwards… but none of that manifested. Only by sight, and only the light. (Fun fact: I have two EE degrees. I’ve fried enough circuits in my younger days to know what electricity ‘smells’ like. I’m reasonably certain this wasn’t electrical in nature).

I didn’t get any malevolent feel. It almost felt like stumbling onto a mouse or something, just some little thing had been hiding in the box that got startled and GTFO when I moved the sleeping bag to the side. However, I don’t much like uninvited guests in my house (of either kind), so I salted the room, lit some incense, and did a few other things I won’t get into here… but I’ve neither seen nor felt anything up there since that Sunday.

Now back to Friday: I snapped the Roses picture because I saw untimely roses on Dec 18th, and knew they would die that night. I didn’t notice the fuzz around the first-floor window until I uploaded it to post it for its own sake, and saw it on a bigger screen.  In this case, I saw nothing out of the ordinary in real time. But I’m wondering now if “it” just kind of politely left my parts of the house, and started hanging out outside and/or downstairs (I don’t live down there myself, it’s rented out… and I’m not quite crazy enough to ask the tenants if they’ve seen anything “ghosty” down there. The neighbors think I’m eccentric enough).

I’m half tempted to leave it an offering or something (which isn’t generally a thing I do). It’s welcome to hang out on my tiny little plot of land as long as it doesn’t hurt anything. I just don’t want it in my living space. Still deciding on what to do. (And am open to suggestions!).

BTW: The wind has just starting whipping up as I was typing this.  So much for the quiet Atlantic.

Happy Solstice, Kids…

-mjl

PS: Just to be clear: I have no idea what this phenomenon is/was, and cannot even begin to pretend to know. And these photos are unredacted (straight from the built-in iPhone 6S camera, through email, then up to wordpress. No filters or compression applied).