The Blackness

Name: David Starcke
email: a-dstarc@microsoft.com
Type: Ghost
Location of the Occurrence: Outside of Birmingham, AL
Title: The Blackness
Anonymous: No

A Ghost Story

What I am about to share with you is a huge part of who I am today. This incident was greatly responsible for my current religious views and I tend to think that it was for this purpose that I was allowed to experience this event.

I was about 13 or 14 at this time and living outside of Birmingham, AL. It was a summer night, about 10:00pm and I was in my bedroom trying to get some sleep. It was dark in my room except the faint light coming from the stereo dial as I was listening to some music as I tried to drift off to sleep. There was one more source of light streaming in through my 2-3 inch opened door, it was coming from the living room down the hall but it was very little as you can picture.

Well I laid there listening when all of a sudden the music ceased. I opened my eyes and turned to the tuner dial to see if the little red stereo light was still on, it was. I reached with my right hand to the dial on the left side of my bed and was just about to touch it when I saw the blackness around my bed. I hesitated as I glanced over to my right to look at my door. I was frightened by what I saw, or didn't see as the case truly was.

I could only see the door from about 2-3 ft above the floor. Below that was indescribably black, just...black. It was like a fog or something, I didn't know how else to register it. And it was rising. I watched as this utterly thick black thing rose ever quickly up my door as if it was filling my room. I sat straight up in bed and looked back toward the stereo just in time to see the light from the dial disappear behind this shroud of blackness.

I was terrified by this point not knowing what to do. Within a second or two I watched as the left and right sides of the blackness met directly above my bed. I was instantly thrown back onto my bed on my back. I was being completely crushed by this force. A thought went through my head, heart attack. ( I was a bit of a hypochondriac. ) I could not breath nor call for help. I could see nothing and as hard as I tried to struggle I was bound so I could not so much as move an eyelid, let alone any limbs.

Suddenly I heard myself think a solitary thought, it was clear almost as if I had yelled it, "God, help me". At that instant, the fog split right down the middle and I was released.

I sat quickly up in bed trying to catch my breath. I had no idea how long I had been held down. I looked to my right and saw all of my door again. I could hear the music coming from my left.

Then it came again. This time it was much faster. I had no time to do anything. I was slammed down again. I felt as if an infinite amount of weight was just crushing my body. I thought I was going to die. But I remembered what I had done the first time, and I screamed with all my might in my head, "God, help me". Again the blackness broke, and I leaped out of my bed and hurdled myself through my door.

I did not sleep in my room for two weeks after that and for the next three years until I left home there was not a single night I slept in that room without a bible being physically on my bed. I will never forget that night.

I am certain that it prepared me to recognize something when this something appeared in my life seven years later. This something was a man named Joseph Smith. I read his account of what happened to him at the age of fourteen in the year 1832 in the middle of a clearing of some woods. His description of the blackness was too accurate to be false. I knew from an intimate level this man's tale was true. This man went on to establish one of the most powerful religious groups in this country, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The "Mormons". I went on to become one. To the extent that I was able to recognize his testimony of what happened in the clearing, I am eternally grateful.

David Starcke
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