It was the summer of 1975. I was 10 years
old then, soon to be 11. My girlfriend Sandy had invited Claudette and Serene (sisters)
and myself to spend the night in a tent in her backyard.
Sandy also had a swimming pool which we played in that evening after we had set up
our sleeping bags in the tent. As always we tied the rubber dinghy to the stairs in the
swimming pool when we finished our swim.
It was still light enough to see clearly
as we changed into our pyjamas in the tent. I wore a nightie which buttoned up in front. Sandy had shown us the pretty picture on her new
pyjamas which we all admired. Because of Sandy’s dog, Lady, who was 14 years old,
there was a strict rule to keep the gate shut at all times. We all loved Lady and
understood it could be dangerous for the dog if we ever left the gate open, so we had
always respected that rule. That night, as usual, Lady slept inside the house.
After getting dressed we all came outside
the tent to hang our bathing suits and towels on the clothesline. We were standing outside
the tent talking when Serene pointed towards the gate and said in an alarmed voice
"There's a man standing by the gate!" We all turned and looked towards the gate. There was no man there anymore. One of us then said, "The gate is open!"
which we all noticed. Serene said again, "I saw a man standing there, I did."
Strangely we all just turned around and went inside the tent and laid down. Then Serene
said, "I think it might have been a dog that I saw." With that we went to sleep.
It is so odd that we were unconcerned that there was a man
standing there and the gate was open. That
simply wasn't normal behaviour for us. We
were typical 10 and 11 year old girls. Normally
we would have run into the house to tell Sandy's Parents there is some weirdo watching us. It would have given us quite a scare normally, but
this wasn't a normal evening.
The next morning when we awoke, Sandy stood up and said, "My
Pyjamas are inside out!" Instinctively I looked down and I discovered my nightie was
also inside out. I remembered buttoning up my nightie the night before and I thought, 'how
is it possible for me to button up my nightie while it is inside out, especially without
realizing it?' "Mine is inside out too!" I said.
Sandy said, "I know I put my Pyjamas on properly last night. Remember me
showing you guys the picture on it?" Claudette's and Serene's clothes were not inside
out though. Sandy and I were shocked and confused looking at each other in disbelief. "What happened? How on earth did our clothes get inside out?"
we wondered. Claudette was annoyed. "Come
on you guys, knock it off. I woke up in the
middle of the night and you weren't here. 1 know you're joking around." "What?! You woke up and we weren't here!? Are you SERIOUS!?" Claudette told us she woke
up and the porch light was on and we were gone, so she figured we must have gone into the
house to use the bathroom. By this time Sandy
and I were looking at each other with our mouths hanging open and our eyes popping out,
and at the same time laughing. We were a little hysterical.
We went outside and found the
rubber dinghy floating freely in the pool. Sandy's and my bathing suits and towels were
wet, but Claudette's and Serene's were dry. The gate was now closed. All these
observations Sandy and I were making were just causing Claudette and Serene to become more
fed up with what they thought was some silly charade we were putting on for them. We tried
unsuccessfully to convince them that it was no joke.
Sandy and I became frustrated from begging them to believe us and we just shook our
heads and laughed at our ridiculous situation. (To this day Claudette and Serene still
don't believe that we didn't try to set the whole thing up.)
Between the two of us we carefully went over everything that had
happened the night before, step by step. (This is why I still remember such details as
buttoning up my nightie, etc.)
We finally concluded that the man Serene saw hypnotized us into
going for a swim in our sleep. We could think of no other explanation. Since then whenever
Sandy and I have bumped into each other we always say "Remember that time.... ?
Wasn't that weird?!"
Just
recently my husband John had read 'Transformation' and we were discussing the Aliens and
peoples' experiences with them. The subject of that night when four of us slept in a tent
came up. I always knew that whole evening was quite peculiar, but for the first time it
dawned on me just how strange it was. And especially strange that we went to bed
unconcerned after Serene said she saw a man standing by the gate and we had all noticed
the gate was open. It was also the first time I even considered that possibly we had been
abducted. Who knows what really happened? Maybe we just got caught in an episode of 'The
Twilight Zone'
