portals to the unknown

it was a beautiful late morning in May when I decided to take my daily walk around the Butter Tub Marsh walking trail, I hadn't long been out of hospital from a minor surgery so my walking was slow but steady.

When I first enterd the gate into the trail, I met a woman in her late sixtys or early seventys and wearing a pink cardigan sweater, beige mid-thigh pants; she was holding a book. She had gray hair and strange, gray eyes. Although I smiled at her she did not acknowledge me as she seemed to be searching for someone or something.

I continued my walk and turned the first curve in the path. In the distance I saw two ladies turn the upcoming corner and head toward me. Stopping now and then I took the time to admire the surrounings of the narrow stip of path that was between two bodies of water with brush, and reeds growing up to the edge of the path. The park is actually a bird sancuary with cranes, ducks, geese and many other protected birds congregating there, allowing the walker many attractions to admire.

I also watched the two women coming toward me. The lady in the front was tall and slender, wearing a dark blue jacket with beige mid-thigh pants; gray hair tied back in a pony tail and gray eyes that seemed to look right through me. The second lady was farther behind wearing the same colours but she was more on the plump side. As she ran she began to flounder as though she were going to fall. I looked to the tall lady to get her attention but she had gone too far from me; looking back I watched the other lady stumble and stager toward my left side of the path and go into the water. I turnd again to call the first lady but she had disappeared. Turning back to the lady who was obviously in trouble to find she was no longer in view.

I hurried as fast as I could with pain from my surgery, up to where the lady had gone into the waters' edge; there was no one there. I moved up and down the area where she should have fallen into the water, but there was no indication of anyone being there. I couldn't figure out where she had gone; I should have seen her splashing in the water by the path, but, nothing. I then turned around and began to walk back toward where I had walked from and there, about two hundred feet in front of me was the first lady I saw; the lady in the pink sweater, standing by the edge of the path and pushing the bushes bach and forth with her hands. I thought to myself, " It's too soon for berries!" She then parted the bushes and stepped in and disappeared. I knew this couldn't be possible because she would be stepping into water that could be up to her knees or more. I made it up to that spot and looked into the bushes; she wasn't there. There was nothing there but bushes, reeds and water; nothing else.

Slowly I reached out to put my hand into the spot she had disappeared into but I became so frightened. What if I put my hand into a portal and it pulled me into it. Would I ever be able to return to my world?

The next day I took a friend with me and headed back to the marsh to share my experiences and point out the exact spots the ladies had stepped into. She searched the two areas over and over but there was no sign of anyone falling into the waters' edge and drowning. There was no blue coat bobbing on the water, no bodies. I guss I frightened her or perhaps she believes I am losing my mind, I don't know. We went back the second day and searched the areas again but there was nothing, I ran it over and over in my mind without the slightest changes to indicate I was halusinating, but nothing changed. It all came to one conclusion; I saw what I saw and it scared the begeezes out of me.

In my mind I have gone over and over the experience and tried to come up with a good explanation but only come back to the belief of portals.

I do remember the eyes on these two women I was close to. They were a metalic gray that appeard to shine as does stainless steel when the sun shines on it. Their skin was pale, no like skin that has been in the sun but like people who never get out of the house.

The lady who was stumbling around was too far away for me to see her eys or face but she had dark, shoulder length hair.

I realize that they fell into some sort of portal, but my earthly mind just wants to know, where did they go?

I contacted a parnormal organization in the city and they suggested that perhaps this is a ghost memory of people who have died in the park. I laugh at that because they were no ghosts, but real flesh and blood. Well, I believe they were flesh and blood. I tried emailing other organizations in regard to aliens, monsters, bigfoots; anyone who would be willing to talk to me about what I saw, but no one replies to my email. It is a haunting memory that lives in my mind like a night mare.

I have never been back to Butter Tub Marsh, where the geese, ducks, loones, swans, and many other foul can live safely away from hunters; where painted turtles hatch and grow freely in a place of tranquility and beauty. After my experience I have to ask myself; is it really a place where one can sit and feel the peace and contentment of nature or is it a regular stop off for beings from another demention who constantly use the area for recreation away from their world that is perhaps destroyed by beings' error. Should we be afraid or should we welcome these persons whom we will never know but may pass daily on our walk in the park.