Spooky Stories From Jimmy

On September 18th 2023, I interviewed Jimmy of the project “Spooky Appalachia.” We discussed Appalachian folklore monsters, rural living, folk practices, the recent 2023 Mothman Festival, and our respective video and website projects. The full interview is available on the Appalachian Oddity YouTube channel and is linked below.

The part of the interview that I want to focus on for this article is the stories, experiences, and potential encounters that Jimmy shared with me when asked about such things.

Childhood UFO Sighting:

In elementary school, when he was in the 4th grade, roughly 10-years-old and around 1998, Jimmy was playing on the playground swings. He lived in the New River Valley of Virginia, a land enveloped by mountainous surroundings. When he looked off to one mountain he claims to have spotted something out of the ordinary. It was reportedly a round shiny sphere hovering near the mountains which reflected the light of the sun. Jimmy quickly got one of his friends to look at it, but he didn’t know what it was.

Soon the whole class was staring skyward amazed by the mysterious object. Two or three teachers came out to look at it, with one running over with binoculars. The students and the teachers all looked at the strange object through the binoculars but no one knew what it could be. The sphere never moved or made sound the whole time it was hovering there.

“What always got me was that the teachers were really confused by it,” said Jimmy.

At the end of the day, when Jimmy was getting on the bus, he looked back towards the mountain by the playground to see that the mystery object was gone, disappearing from human sight and destined to become merely a bizarre memory of childhood youth. 

This experience either sparked a new interest in the young boy’s mind or nurtured an already growing curiosity in the subject of the unexplained. It brought him to further pursue knowledge of the paranormal and anomalous phenomena by seeking out more material on the ever intriguing topic.

Jimmy’s grandfather loved to watch the now classic television show “Unsolved Mysteries” which sometimes featured reported UFO encounters and paranormal tales that piqued Jimmy’s interest. Jimmy was soon checking out a hoard of paranormal books from the school library and reading up on beloved subjects like Nessie and Bigfoot. Soon he learned that such mysteries were closer than he thought, as he became aware of the legendary Flatwoods Monster and The Mothman, both of nearby West Virginia.

At an early age, a path was carved out for a lifelong interest or hobby in exploring strange mysteries, collecting odd stories, and simply enjoying that which is deemed bizarre and unexplained. Sometimes it takes an odd experience to drive on that kind of interest and sometimes it only takes a good book. It’s a tale all too common among researchers such as myself who also spent their fair share of time in school library thumbing through those old folklore books of monsters and oddities. Such experiences are often separated by time and region but united in a common interest, a shared goal or pursuit.

The books that I read may have been different ones, but the pull towards folklore and the paranormal was the same. As long as there are objects in the sky that can’t be identified, there will be spectators and there will be fascinated readers of such material including curious folks like Jimmy.

Mistaken Sasquatch and Haunted Living:

The same year of his UFO sighting, Jimmy had another interesting experience involving a case of mistaken identity. Jimmy lived with his grandparents and one day, while exploring the wilderness with his dog, he happened upon something laying in the woods. It appeared to be a large brown hairy animal of some kind. Jimmy only saw the backside of the creature and couldn’t identify what it was.

It began to move as if it was getting up, causing Jimmy to scream and run back to the house with his dog following trustfully behind him. He stayed in the house that day and didn’t go back outside. He concluded that what he saw must’ve been a legendary bigfoot or sasquatch because Brown Bears are not typical to the region of Virginia. Only later did he find out that even Black Bears could have brownish fur, which made him realize that he must’ve been mistaken. Jimmy told me that the creature he saw was not a sasquatch but most likely a Black Bear with brownish fur and he counts himself lucky that it didn’t get up and attack him.

Also at a young age, Jimmy reportedly had a dream featuring his aunt, only to wake up to find his dad on the phone about his aunt being rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. His father would joke that young Jimmy had Extrasensory Perception or ESP. Being the skeptical-minded fellow he is, Jimmy naturally thinks this likely came about from overhearing things in his sleep which influenced his dreams.

Much later in life, when Jimmy and his college friends were living in a town house formerly owned by his grandparents, the place got the reputation for being haunted. Things would randomly go missing, disembodied footsteps would be heard in the night and the garage basement door which served as an entrance to the home would inexplicably lock. The knob of the large 9ft tall back gate would mysteriously turn accompanied by loud knocking noises. While living in the house Jimmy also had an episode of sleep paralysis.

After falling asleep on the couch watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, he supposedly awoke or became half-awake to see a tall shadowy figure with yellow eyes and a top hat looming in the doorway while he laid paralyzed. The dark figure stood staring at Jimmy with its sinister yellow eyes until he was able to snap out of it and regain the ability to move.

At the time he reportedly hadn’t heard of “Shadow People” or “The Hatman” of paranormal culture. Jimmy said that he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming. This is common with sleep paralysis which often involves vivid dreams taking place within the room of the sleeping subject. 

In a disturbing coincidence, both neighbors on either side of the town house reportedly died while the trio were living there. 

In Jimmy’s former house, his great grandmother lived with them before passing away. Much later one of Jimmy’s sisters, who was sick at the time, went out to get a prescription filled and left his other sister sleeping alone. On the radio she heard the announcement that a bank robbery had taken place. She realized that she had left the door unlocked and rushed home in a panic, only to discover that the door was already locked, and to be greeted by the smell of her great grandmother’s perfume near the door.

2020 Possible Woman In White:

One cold and rainy early morning in early April of 2020, Jimmy was driving to the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia to reboot the Museum’s server which had gone down. It was still dark outside and there wasn’t a single other car on the road due to the COVID lockdown. Jimmy had been working from home previously but was called in for this emergency. He was stopped at a red spotlight across from Bisset Park along the New River. The whole area was flat and you could see the nothingness for a long distance.

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he reportedly witnessed something strange. It was a woman in a paper-thin white dress walking down the street into the park. Jimmy said she was wearing an odd tiara or crown made of leaves.

“Well that’s weird,” thought Jimmy.

He marveled at the idea that this person was out in the middle of the lockdown in the cold and rain at around 6am, with no mask, no jacket, no umbrella and no flashlight while wearing this peculiar outfit. The light at the stoplight turned green. He watched as the woman walked into the park and mysteriously vanished. He could reportedly see further ahead where she was walking but there was no trace of her.

With flatland all around and no cars to pick her up, he was left wondering where she could’ve gone to. Only when he kept driving did he realize that he should’ve gotten out his cellphone and recorded it to capture the strange moment and perhaps even the inexplicable disappearance.

The Albino Deer:

On July 19th 2022, Jimmy saw and photographed a rare albino deer. White deer have a great spiritual significance in mythology, folklore, and literature. The meaning depends on your outlook and beliefs.

“It’s kind of crazy, I’ve lived in wooded areas my whole life and that was the first time I’ve ever seen that,” Jimmy said on Discord.

Saint Eustace and Saint Hubert both had legends associated with them seeing a white deer with a cross between its antlers. You might recognize the imagery from a bottle of Jägermeister which has the deer and the glowing cross on the label.

Jimmy had been having problems with his thyroid and throat surgery was necessary which would also determine if he had thyroid cancer. On the morning of July 29th 2022, Jimmy saw the albino deer again on his way into surgery.

Like a mystical or otherworldly creature, the stark white animal stood out against the green grass of the Virginia landscape. This beautiful happenstance of nature seemed to take on the form of a personalized message.

The surgery went well and Jimmy didn’t have thyroid cancer. He was left to speculate if this white deer could indeed have been something of a spiritual sign or sorts. Perhaps we could simply say that significance is in the eye of the beholder.

Listen To The Full Audio Interview Here: