In the summer of 1981 I was 12 and living in a suburb outside of Chicago. During this time there was a plethora of paranormal activity going on around me. It started with the sighting of a black line in the sky that could be seen only from a certain place in the cul-de-sac where I lived. It may seem strange to see a black line in the sky at night and it was, you may wonder how this is possible. Well, Chicago is heavy with humidity and cloud cover in the summer and the ambient light from the city made the sky a constant sunset pink. In sharp contrast to the pink sky, my friend and I went on a walk one evening and noticed this strange black line cutting into the night sky. At first I wasn't sure if we were seeing things or if it was some kind of odd weather phenomena but the next night I went walking again and saw it there. Over the course of several weeks I gathered as many witnesses as I could and brought them to the sight. Everyone saw it but no one could figure out what was causing it. Finally, my mother decided to report it to the local air force base about 15 miles away, thinking it was some sort of odd natural phenomena.
During this same summer other strange things happened. One of which was the appearance of a ridiculously large moth that nested on my bedroom window every night. It came back at the same time and stayed no matter how many rocks were thrown at it or whether the light in my room was on or off. Nothing I did could scare it away. But besides its enormous size, something more akin to a small bird than a normal moth, was its strangely fetal/humanoid face and red glowing eyes. I thought I was going crazy and again made sure to show this weird creature to anyone who was willing to look at it. My mother threw rocks at it from the balcony below, my brother and friends all witnessed this thing, but again it came nightly and was glued to the same place every evening on my window screen.
Other bizarre events began occurring. My friend and I went walking toward a park one evening and heard what can only be described as a hoarse demonic sounding voice breathing heavy near us. We both screamed and ran back to my house. This was only the beginning. I began hearing this demonic sounding voice on the phone often telling me what the person was about to say. I would respond at first thinking it was some sort of phone interference and the person would tell me they hadn't said what I'd responded to but merely thought it. While I thought that was sort of odd it wasn't until my friends began hearing this same weird voice over the phone while we were talking (as adolescent girls do way too much) that I got worried that whatever this thing was, it was real, not just in my head. At first I had worried I was going crazy but once other people experienced the phenomena along with me I realized it wasn't just in my head.
The phone phenomena escalated to such a degree that the line would go dead and all you could hear was this weird thing breathing or laughing demonically. Luckily I didn't hear the laughing a friend of mine informed me of that. During this time other people's conversations would bleed through the lines. I wasn't sure if the phone phenomena was some kind of wiring problem or what but it continued until.... well I'll get to that later.
During this same period I began having dreams of whole days before they happened, often not knowing the difference between what I had dreamt the night before. An example of this was a friend had asked me to sleep over one night. I agreed. Earlier that day she had called me before I went to a theme park with my friends. I left early around eight in the morning. I remembered the conversation with my girlfriend in vivid detail although I was half-asleep when she called. She told me about how another friend had slept over, how that girl's sister had picked up the friend and a dream she had had that night. So when I went over to my girlfriend's house that night she began to tell me all the same details she had informed me of over the phone early that morning. When I stopped her she said, "I didn't call you. We didn't wake until noon. You were gone by then." I got a chill when she told me that and then proceeded to tell her the rest of the details of her day, still not believing she hadn't called me. She confirmed everything I said but insisted that it was impossible.
It only got more frightening as time went on that summer. I had "dreams" that someone was in my room, trying to pull me out of my body. I became terrified at night, afraid these beings would come back which they did whenever I fell asleep. I began picking up the phone before it rang with a "Hello, Kelly" or Margaret or whatever before they spoke, they would get spooked and ask me how I had known they were calling when the phone hadn't rung. I would insist it had and then they would confront me with but "How did you know it was me? I didn't say anything." For that I had no answer. It got so bad that I felt like I was out of synch with time itself, that's the only way to explain the feeling. It was as if I was walking in some other dimension all the time that mimicked the one everyone else was living in. I became increasingly terrified, threw every rosary I could find over my bed's headboard. I constantly prayed for peace of mind for whatever was stalking me to leave me alone but this only seemed to make it worse! I wondered if I was becoming schizophrenic because I couldn't go anywhere without having bizarre exchanges even with strangers, answering questions they didn't ask or telling them things that they hadn't told me about. It was like my mind had become a broken radio, picking up every random signal and I had no control over it anymore.
All during this time the black line was viewable in the night sky from this one specific place near my home and the creepy small-bird sized moth with the fetal looking face was at my window every night. At first I would keep my shades drawn thinking it was attracted to my bedroom light but it became clear, that no matter how long I kept the shade drawn, I could feel the little freak watching me and I would lift the shade and see its weird red eyes staring back at me.
Throughout that summer I became increasingly paranoid, unable to sleep and the bizarre phenomena escalated to a fevered pitch. Finally, a friend told me she knew of a girl who had had similar strange psychic phenomena happen to her and we decided to call her and get some advice on how to deal with it. Because I was too afraid to be by myself I hadn't taken a shower in days, so I told my friend to call the girl while I took a quick shower and when I came out I would talk to the girl. While in the shower I got a very bad feeling, moments later my friend pounded on the bathroom door. I told her to come in. With shampoo still in my hair, I toweled off and asked her what had happened. She explained, "I called Izzy and I heard her mother answered. She was playing piano in the background when her mother called her to the phone. She said hello and then the line went dead. I heard weird breathing and no matter what I did I couldn't get the line back to call her again."
I knew if I hung up the phone the line would clear and sure enough it did. She called Izzy back and Izzy claimed she had never received the first call. My friend's face went white as I watched her talk to Izzy. Once that was resolved she handed me the phone to talk to Izzy but being a kid herself she had no illumination to reveal about the strange phenomena, only sympathy.
I got so angry that day at whatever this entity or phenomena was that I yelled into the air for it to leave me alone and back off. Odd thing was, it abated. The residual psychic effects were there for about a year afterward, but the moth and the line disappeared after that. I've researched black lines and found nothing. When I was older I met an occultist who I told about the strange phenomena and he told me it sounded very much like the moth man. I had no idea about the moth man but later he gave me the book when I was in my late twenties. Still, there was nothing about a black line and my moth was not six feet tall. So I still have no idea what this was. If anyone has had anything similar to this happen please let me know. I'm still trying to figure it out all these years later.
