Personal experience of a policeman…

This is one of the most intriguing personal paranormal experiences I have ever come across… every so often I go back and reread it just to reassure myself that I’m not miss remembering it…


    “About twelve years ago my marriage was in serious trouble. My wife and I had tried everything to make it work and in desperation, as a couple, we even went for a Tarot reading. My reading gave a bright outlook but my wife had one which the reader said was not so positive and she didn't want to know the outcome.

At this time I was working at Erdington police station just outside Birmingham. I had joined the police from the army and I consider myself to be well grounded and pragmatic. The Tarot reading was not my idea and not the sort of thing I had any interest in, but I was prepared to try anything that my wife suggested in order to save the relationship.

I often patrolled the Lyndhurst estate, which is a council owned housing estate on the border between Erdington and Sutton Coldfield. It consists of numerous low rise maisonettes, seven tower blocks, community facilities and a recreation ground.

A few weeks later after the Tarot reading I was on my own, patrolling the estate. It was late in the afternoon when I saw a man walking towards me on the opposite side of the road. The man had shoulder length, dark hair and was wearing a leather jacket. I would guess his age at anywhere between 50-60 years old and his skin tone and dark hair gave him an appearance similar to a native American.

I crossed over the road and we acknowledged each other. It was certainly not a case of wanting to carry out a stop check or anything like that. If anything he had more the look of a potential victim than an offender.

The man told me that he had a message for me and he had information that I was looking for. He made a reference to the Tarot reading, which I thought was incredible because I had never met this man before in my life. At no point did he give me his name but he invited me to come and speak with him at his home and gave me his address.  We made arrangements for me to go visit when I was on an afternoon shift.

A week or so later I went to the address he gave me, it was a large house on the Chester Road near to the railway station, which was sub divided into bedsits.

The guy had a room in the attic and I went inside sat in an armchair while he made me a cup of tea. He spoke to me about opening a door, which would give me information and if I chose to do that then there would be no going back. The man was a warm and sensitive person and although it seems strange to anyone hearing this story, at no point did I feel any alarm although I did notice there was a pentagram drawn on the floor which was partly concealed by a rug. I decided that I didn't want to take things regarding the information further. We shook hands and I left.

Several months later, I was by now in a new relationship. I had split up from my wife, but with the divorce proceedings in the background, it could have an impact on my mood. I was sitting in a hotel bar in Stratford-upon-Avon with my new partner, who I loved dearly, and I eventually married. We were having a stupid argument, a really pointless fall out about something trivial, when the double fire doors burst open with a mighty bang. There was no reason for this in terms of the wind or anyone messing about and it certainly shook me up. It immediately stopped the stupid argument but it also started to play on my mind.

Maybe I was putting two and two together and making five but I decided to go back and speak with the guy who lived on the Chester Road when I was next back on duty. I walked up to the house and stepped into the foyer but when I was inside I was stunned to find that the layout was different and door to the room in the attic didn't exist. I was in the exact same house and it had not been renovated but the door was not there.

I have spoken about these events to very few people because it raises so many questions, questions I have asked myself many times but to which I can still find no answer.”

These things can't happen, but they do, don't they. It's a little like Jung and his secretary's famous encounter with the mosaics, one of Christ calming the sea, (which we discussed previously) that didn't actually exist  I've never had anything like that but one experience in particularly still bugs the hell out of me, because it was just so weird. 

I was at the beginning of an extremely difficult project and I was at my wits end trying to make the right decision on how to proceed. One day a young man appeared (this was outside on a street) and put a card in my hand and said there you go, that's who you need to help you, give him a call.

I made contact and he turned out to be an absolute expert on what I needed to do and I was able to get over the problem and eventually complete the job. This was just an ordinary young man and I didn't even pay much attention to how he looked (in detail) but the man who came to help me had no idea who he (the young man) was and wanted to know how I'd got hold of this card with his name on it which he was not in the habit of handing out. 

The young man couldn't have known that I was in need of any help, and I just can't fathom why he would just turn up like that ?

He never came back and I never saw him again and I really wanted to thank him, even give him a nice tip.

These things can't happen, but they do, don't they. It's a little like Jung and his secretary's famous encounter with the mosaics, one of Christ calming the sea, (which we discussed previously) that didn't actually exist  I've never had anything like that but one experience in particularly still bugs the hell out of me, because it was just so weird. 

I was at the beginning of an extremely difficult project and I was at my wits end trying to make the right decision on how to proceed. One day a young man appeared (this was outside on a street) and put a card in my hand and said there you go, that's who you need to help you, give him a call.

I made contact and he turned out to be an absolute expert on what I needed to do and I was able to get over the problem and eventually complete the job. This was just an ordinary young man and I didn't even pay much attention to how he looked (in detail) but the man who came to help me had no idea who he (the young man) was and wanted to know how I'd got hold of this card with his name on it which he was not in the habit of handing out. 

The young man couldn't have known that I was in need of any help, and I just can't fathom why he would just turn up like that ?

He never came back and I never saw him again and I really wanted to thank him, even give him a nice tip.

The policeman’s experience could have a bit of the ‘time slip’ to it, like Jung’s Ravenna experience. But I note that the policeman’s experience is not completely out of context, the guy in the leather jacket mentions a real prior event in the policeman’s past… the tarot reading. Also the experience is discontinuous, as the policeman goes back to work… and only visits the leather jacket guy at his home on another day.

I’m also intrigued by the offer to open a door, and the warning that goes with it. It’s almost like the offer of a contract, as if the leather jacket guy is following some sort of rule. It almost seems like leather jacket guy is attempting to recruit the policeman. The presence of a partially hidden pentagram on the floor of the bed sit is also weird.

I’m also assuming that the policeman does return to the correct house on Chester road for his second attempted visit. As the missing attic bedsit door elevates the significance of the experience.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re living in something analogous to North Korea, and like the average North Korean peasant that is ignorant of the larger world, whether we too are also ignorant of an even larger existence beyond our knowledge which we are intentionally kept ignorant of… for some reason.

The policeman’s experience could have a bit of the ‘time slip’ to it, like Jung’s Ravenna experience. But I note that the policeman’s experience is not completely out of context, the guy in the leather jacket mentions a real prior event in the policeman’s past… the tarot reading. Also the experience is discontinuous, as the policeman goes back to work… and only visits the leather jacket guy at his home on another day.

I’m also intrigued by the offer to open a door, and the warning that goes with it. It’s almost like the offer of a contract, as if the leather jacket guy is following some sort of rule. It almost seems like leather jacket guy is attempting to recruit the policeman. The presence of a partially hidden pentagram on the floor of the bed sit is also weird.

I’m also assuming that the policeman does return to the correct house on Chester road for his second attempted visit. As the missing attic bedsit door elevates the significance of the experience.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re living in something analogous to North Korea, and like the average North Korean peasant that is ignorant of the larger world, whether we too are also ignorant of an even larger existence beyond our knowledge which we are intentionally kept ignorant of… for some reason.

I’ve never come across any other experience anything like this… where someone is apparently being recruited, but rejects the approach, and then goes on to publish their story.

I wonder why there are no other similar experiences? Is it that most who are approached accept, and then what… as it’s stated that once the door is opened, there is no going back? One trades ones ignorance for knowledge… and rather like the Garden of Eden tale… there is no going back…?

It’s one of those super interesting experiences, where one would like to get more information… I mean the details of the conversation at the leather jacket guys bedsit - as narrated by the author - is so brief, as to surely have missed a great deal of conversation.

Are their people now among us, who have been shown, and opened the door…

I felt I was opening some type of door on that day in 2007, at least I said to my partner, that I felt “I had slammed the door shut in terror” later on that evening… when John Green appeared in our bedroom…

This is an old post that I'm replying to, it aroused my curiosity. The paragraph I've quoted below apparently refers to something you described more fully elsewhere but I cant seem to locate the original account.

I felt I was opening some type of door on that day in 2007, at least I said to my partner, that I felt “I had slammed the door shut in terror” later on that evening… when John Green appeared in our bedroom…

This is an old post that I'm replying to, it aroused my curiosity. The paragraph I've quoted below apparently refers to something you described more fully elsewhere but I cant seem to locate the original account.

I'd forgotten that I had written up and posted this policeman's story before....!

and you are absolutely right Typoz... this door the stranger mentions to the policeman... does feel something like the door I describe as slamming shut... and I have wondered about this... I had this week written on another blog about the same experience...

I and a friend have found a way to produce an effect which we we have found fairly convincing whilst driving. This suggests that normal experimental methods, where you want something to happen, or have a target, are destined to fail because these methods preclude the very mechanism we want to expose. The after-effect of my first and longest period of success (driving for a full 90 odd minutes practicing it), was so terrifying, that I ‘metaphorically’ slammed that door shut.

This was the experience...

On the evening of Tuesday 11th September 2007, whilst living in a brand new 3rd floor flat, at Stockton-upon-Tees in the UK, I awoke in the dark in the middle of the night, to see a full colour, moving image of an unknown 45-55 y/o black male from the shoulders up.

He wore a broad brimmed green hat made of a shiny, almost wet looking green material, the same material covered his shoulders, and was fitted around his kneck a little like a cape. The image was in absolutely exquisite detail and incredible brilliant colour, as if the sun was shining on him (rather like an actor picked out by a spotlight on a darkened stage). More real than real, I could see every hair on the back of his head.

The image lasted for more than a few seconds, and started with the back of the males head towards me, then slowly he turned his head round towards me, until he was staring right at me.

I kept looking away from him, in the hope he would just disappear! Moving my eyes left, away from the spot where the full colour 'moving' image had formed, I clearly retained a faded after-image on my retina, which was the same shape as the original image I had seen (similar to the after-image you see when you look away from a bright TV screen in a darkened room). What is strange, is that I could also see some type of 'fixed' area in my peripheral vision, this was in the position of the original full colour image, and did not move about, when I moved my eyes left.

When I moved my focus back to the 'fixed' area, effectively overlapping it with the faded image, the original image jumped back into brilliant full colour. I was able to move my eyes left and right several times, to verify this effect, before the image finally faded away.

I initially dismissed the idea of it being an apparition/ghost, because the building was brand new, and at the time I was a complete skeptic on ghosts. However my partner did some research and discovered, that our building had been designed and positioned to mimic the exact appearance of a much older original listed building on the site, a tannery, on the corner of Norton Green. I was able to find an original photograph of the tannery at the local library, complete with crane hoist doors on each level, which have been recreated in the new building.

We both did some further investigation to find old photo's of tannery workers, to see if we could match the garb of the guy in my vision. We were able to find one photograph of a tannery worker who had leather gear right up to his neck, perhaps used to protect him whilst carrying wet hides over his shoulder? So we believe the green shiny material was probably leather.

We were also able to find a record of the baptism of an adult black male in the local Church at Norton during the 1700's, which proved that there were black males living and presumably working in the area when the tannery was established. Ironically this particular guy had chosen the name of 'John Green'.

I remain open minded as to whether my experience was just a hypnopompic hallucination, or whether it was an apparition. However, despite the 'hallucination' label these experiences have been given, I've seen no particularly satisfying explanation as to why the fully formed, full colour, type hypnopompic experience, is also overwhelmingly of people or animals, and very very rarely of inanimate everyday objects.

I'm also unconvinced by the traditional explanation that this was a 'spirit'. I prefer to think that I was picking-up, what somebody else was seeing in the past. That I was in effect, seeing through the viewer/broadcasters eyes.