So, this isnt MY story, but it is one that my aunt was known to tell. This would have been about 1986, because I am about 4 years older than my cousin who is 2 in this tale. This was in rural lower Michigan, and Im not interested in giving more details than that at this time.

It was about autumn, and it was evening. My aunt was in bed reading. From her open bedroom door, she could see the back of my uncle in the easy chair, the television in front of him, and beyond the television was the kitchen where she could see my cousin playing on the floor.

It was a classic ranch style layout, and like I said, it was rural Michigan, but her nearest neighbors were still pretty close as she lived in the middle of a little clump of about four or five houses, I don't remember exactly. There was a rather large thicket...

... of trees behind the houses, I wouldn't call it a forest, but it was a wooded 40 acres. Enough to comfortably hunt deer in, though this is not important to the story, just a bit of detail to help better paint the picture.

As I was saying, she was in her bedroom reading when she was struck by what she described as a 'peculiar sensation', which is a phrase that also kind of stuck with me, because my aunt wasn't what I would call eloquent, and it was an interesting choice of words for her to use.

She said it felt like she was in the middle of a fog. Like smoke, but not smoke. She was looking out of her bedroom door and she could see her husband watching television, and beyond the television she could see her 2 year old playing... but he wasn't alone.

Where just a moment ago he had been playing all by himself, he now appeared to be joined by 2 other children of about the same size, if not a little taller. She was momentarily confused. Something wasnt right about them, but she could not put her finger on it in the moment.

This is when she began to panic because she tried to get up to see who those kids were and she could not move. She tried to yell to my uncle, who should have absolutely been able to see what was going on because it was in his line of sight, but she could not speak.

She was unsure about how long she was laying there for, but she didn't think it was very long at all. She just watched the children with my cousin and he didn't seem at all upset by what was going on, and was clearly interacting with them.

Suddenly, the foggy feeling dissipated and she snapped out of bed, yelling as she ran toward the kitchen. My uncle later said he shot out of the chair because my aunt was yelling that they were going to take him (my cousin) and he ran outside while she was scooping him up.

To be clear, there were no other children. She did not see them after the fogginess lifted, and my uncle never saw anything like that, though he also later said he even didn't remember what he was watching on television before he ran outside.

As he was running outside with my aunt behind him, baby in arms, they were actually met by the neighbors who had been standing in their backyards looking back out over the wooded 40 acres where there was some kind of 'light' coming through the trees.

It had been bright enough and big enough that no one was interested in going in to see what it was, and it had been there long enough to have not only been noticed, but also watched for a while before the neighbors decided to come get my uncle and aunt to check it out too.

As they were meeting everyone outside, the light in the wooded 40 began to dim and then it went away. The consensus was that it kind of dimmed out as it went up, but no one saw anything actually come over the treeline.

No one saw anyone come or go from the woods, no kids, nothing like that, but everyone was freaked that it seemed they had been watching it for as long as they were, because NONE of them thought it had been more than a few minutes, though when they checked it had been an hour.

And that's it. There is no conclusion to this story. Just a bit of weirdness for you to enjoy. This is a true story in that it is as presented, and I do not believe my aunt, uncle, and their neighbors were lying about it.

Also: Later, my aunt would go on to describe the children as wearing white or gray clothing and having very pale skin, thin blonde hair, and dark eyes. They never looked her way or acknowledged her in any way.

She is ready to accept the idea that it was sleep paralysis, but can't reconcile the bit about the neighbors and the light in the woods.

Like I said, no conclusions, just a bit of a spooky story for Halloween.