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The Opague Man

West Islip, early 1980s
by John Leita

Also listed on www.lioddities.com

Even though I was a kid when the following story happened to me, let me assure you I remember the event well. I also have my feet firmly grounded in reality, whatever that is. A lot of this type activity seemed to happen to me when I was a child, and the story you are about to hear is the last sighting of a spirit I have experienced.

It took place one fall while sitting in a neighbor’s backyard clubhouse with the girl that lived next door. We were making mud pies when suddenly I got the chills. It wasn’t the kind of chills one gets from the cold though, but a little more like an emotional vibe. The neighbor girl asked me to go outside and across the yard to fetch a bucket. I was scared and refused at first. Finally I reluctantly agreed, as she was very loud and whiney. I ran as fast as my young legs would take me to and from the bucket. “I made it”, I thought silently to myself. Just then I had an urge to look out the back window of the clubhouse.

That’s when I saw it. From the metal tool shed in my yard next door emerged an opaque man. I could see him and what he was wearing and also the fence behind him. He was a white man of average height. He looked straight the whole time, which was perpendicular to me. I was relieved he wasn’t looking at me or that he even noticed me. He kept walking forward. Eventually he walked through the chain link fence separating the properties. I was froze, my jaw locked wide open. He had a swirl of black clouds circling around him as he made his way forward. They were less opaque than him. Outside the black things were two white domed shaped thing bobbing up and down, also moving around him. This kept up for about ten to fifteen seconds when they all went into my neighbor’s wooden tool shed. Nothing emerged from the other end. I asked the neighbor girl what she saw. Her description didn’t quite match mine, but she also didn’t have as good a view out the window as me.

I know this story sounds too incredible, but I swear to you it is what I have witnessed. I don’t know what the hell this was that I saw. My mother later told me what was in that spot when she was a little girl some 30 years prior. When she first moved there in the early fifties the area was still mostly woods. Well, all except that spot. Instead it was a patch of sand with a boat on it. Mind you this was not near a beach by any means.