Paranormal Passenger

I had concluded my investigation, and the owner—let’s call her Mary—and I walked to the driveway. My car was parked on the left side of the driveway, and Mary’s SUV was parked on the right, with the front of both cars facing the house. As she went to the passenger side of her vehicle to get a piece of paper to write down her email address, I opened my passenger door. I put my large case of equipment on the seat and gave the door a shove to close it.

Suddenly, from inside my car, came a loud, but muffled sound of a woman crying out! My brain had a split second of disconnect, and I tried to grab the door, thinking that someone was yelling because I was about to close her arm or leg in the door. The door slammed shut, and reality slammed against my brain—there wasn’t anyone in my car! Yet the voice was so loud, so insistent, so terribly close!

My head was reeling and I staggered backwards. It was like all my neurons were firing at once, trying to make some sense out of what had just happened. This was no computer-enhanced, faint, fuzzy whispering EVP on a scratchy cassette tape. This was a clear, loud voice within two or three feet of my face!

Could there be any logical explanation? My mind raced to find one.

The tape recorders! That must be it, one of the tape recorders had somehow turned itself on. I pulled open the car door, yanked the zipper on the case and tossed equipment aside searching for the tape recorder I had used on the investigation. It was not on. My heart and head were pounding. Wait, I thought, I had brought another tape recorder, and even though I hadn’t used it, perhaps it held the answer. I pulled it out of a side compartment, but found that it, too, was not on.

Standing there with a silent tape recorder in each hand, staring at them in disbelief, I fought with the idea that I had only imagined the voice. But no, it was definitely not my imagination. With no more than thirty seconds passing from hearing the voice to standing there with the tape recorders, I thought to call out to Mary.

"Did you hear that?" I shouted.

"Yes, you mean the woman’s voice? Where did it come from?" she replied from about twenty-five feet away, on the far side of the large SUV.

"From inside my car," I stated, the stress in my voice clearly evident...