Alright, this post is going to contain visuals that some of you might find comical, but here goes anyway... and feel free to call me a nut at the end of it, because right now I'm wondering about that myself.
Last night I'm grudgingly mowing the lawn, the wind is blowing and it's kind of dry. You know the deal, covered in sweat, grass all stuck to you and itchy... so I wrap it up and head for the shower. It's dark by the time I get inside and get to the shower.
Lead in:
At this time, we are all home... there are my two teenage boys, the wife, the dog, and myself.
The bathroom for our master bedroom has an entrance from the main bedroom AND into the back hallway, and the doorway to the basement stairs is right next to the bathroom door in this halllway area. Our basement is finished, carpeted etc and I have a home office down there, lots of firearms, all sorts of fragile and expensive stuff, all things the two teenage boys aren't allowed to be around without supervision. There's expensive stuff and dangerous stuff down there, so they are banned from the area. In the back room of the basement is the laundry/furnace/network gear... the utility area, and I had some laundry down there that hadn't been put away yet.
I get out of the shower and realized I didn't get the clothes that I wanted from the basement, so I decide I'm going to have to do the naked dash around the corner to the basement to retrieve them. So I peek around the corner to see if the coast is clear and it is, then I make the turn to go down the basement stairs, and that's when I see a shadow move across the floor at the bottom of the basement stairs, no real shape, just a shadow that moved across the visual area I could see (looking down the stairs is sort of like a tunnel). Also, the lights aren't supposed to be on down there, and they are. I naturally assume one of the boys has ignored the rule (again) and went down there goofing around, plus I'm naked so I don't want to run down there... so I call out "who is in the basement". I see the shadow again, this time it goes the other direction. Now I'm pissed because one of them is down there, knows he's not supposed to be down there, and is now ignoring my call-out.
That is the moment when the younger one answers me... from his bedroom (upstairs). Then the other one answers me, he is in the upstairs computer lounge area. Then the wife hollers from the den and asks me what all the hubub is about. I ask where the dog is, and the older one answers "in here with me".
So now, my brain switches modes. I grab a weapon from the bedroom (still freekin naked, by the way), and head for the basement. A very thorough search turns up... nothing. I spent a little time down there watching TV after that, and still heard and saw absolutely nothing, I even searched the place again.
I don't get it. I don't know how to explain it. The only other way out of that basement is through the escape windows in the utility area, and I know that didn't happen. I don't know what the heck I saw. I don't partake in mind-altering substances, and I wasn't even drinking.
I'm writing this long and silly story because I'm really uneasy about what I saw and the complete lack of a logical explanation. I don't believe in "ghosts" or anything of the sort, but it's making me question my reality now. I've seen very strange and unexplained things in my life, but there was always an open-ended list of possibilities that could potentially explain them. This one... not so much.
I know it wasn't a visual artifact, because the shadow was defined separately from the surrounding... in other words, not everything went darker, it was there and it moved in front of the light... twice.. in opposite directions.
Am I freekin nuts?
I'm left pretty uneasy about the whole thing and can't stop thinking about it.