The Case of Shadow Ridge

This file was compiled by Alva Keel through witness interviews and observations conducted by SQ.

      Mr. Callan and I became involved in the case of Shadow Ridge while in West Glen, Virginia, looking for the famous anomalous light phenomena that appears in the woods there often. The popular term for this type of phenomena is "ghost lights;" orbs of terrain-based illumination that appear out of nowhere and float about specific areas, sometimes seeming to possess intelligence (some people claim to have been pursued by them). Theories abound as to what causes them, including the spirits of the dead, geological factors, and the misinterpretation of mundane objects (such as car headlights).
      While waiting for the ghost lights to make an appearance, Mr. Callan and I were questioned by a local police officer about our purpose for being there. He had also heard of the anomalous lights, and informed us that something very exciting had been going on in a neighboring city, Shadow Valley, Virginia; it seems two local children, Renata and Gus Jacobson, had taken a shortcut home from school and run into what they called "a ghost." They saw a man in the woods, holding an old fashioned gun, and dressed in the grey uniform of a Confederate soldier from the American Civil War (AKA "The War Between the States"). He was transparent, like a stereotypical ghost. We immediately headed over to Shadow Valley to speak with these children. Their mother, Ms. Jennifer Jacobson, allowed us to interview them, but cautioned that the children had been afraid and unable to sleep since they had seen the "ghost." While attempting to comfort Gus, Mr. Callan tied his shoe, only to find that the child had a bit of blood on this shoe. We decided it would be a very good idea to track the shortcut these children had taken; if someone was out there bleeding, they may need help.
      When Mr. Callan and I entered the woods, it was still light out. But shortly thereafter, it became quite dark. We have no frame of reference to tell how long we were actually out there; Mr. Callan and I quickly became lost. The reason for this is that the trees actually appeared to rearrange themselves. There was no way to discern where we had been and where we were going. Luckily for us, two teenagers drove up on all terrain vehicles, and pointed the way out of the woods to Mr. Callan and I; the only problem was, they had pointed out a highway that had not been there only minutes before.
      Across this highway, we found a Circle Mart, where one of the teenager's boyfriends was employed. He enthusiastically showed us the phenomena of aisle three - in this aisle, after patiently waiting for some time, we began hearing the phantom sounds of horses we could not see, followed by the voices of men. I recorded some of these noises myself. The young man who worked for the Circle Mart then announced over the store's public address system, "Clean up on aisle three!" One of the phantom voices replied to this, "Show yourself!" We even felt the rush of wind as a man rode by on a horse, but we could not see the man nor the horse.
      The theory that formed for Mr. Callan and I after these experiences is that Shadow Valley was experiencing a timeslip. A timeslip occurs when two time periods bleed into each other in the same location. This is why we became lost in the woods - Mr. Callan and I had been walking through those woods as they were in the 1860s. Once the teenagers drove up on the ATV's, we had slipped back into the woods in the year 2003; the highway did not exist in the 1800s, but it did exist in 2003, which is why it suddenly appeared for us. This also explains why the trees seemed to change location and appearance. Over the years, they obviously had. Usually we cannot see into other time periods - this is why time moves ahead sequentially, to avoid the chaos the people of Shadow Valley were experiencing. When a timeslip occurs, it is much as when one spills water onto a newspaper. While the pages remain wet, one can see through to the other pages. This makes the words difficult to read. The pages dry, and the newspaper is readable once again. A timeslip functions in much the same way. Things that we see from other time periods come through indistinctly, like words in a wet newspaper.
      The timeslip could have been caused by the substantial amount of quartz in the hills surrounding the valley in which the town had been built. It may only require a small amount of additional energy, like the unusual spell of humidity the area was experiencing, to trigger a temporal anomaly - to make the past visible in the present. Humidity does store a latent negative electrical charge.
      At this time, Ms. Jennifer Jacobson called Mr. Callan and insisted that he come back to her house to comfort her children. The kids still remained frightened from their encounter, and unable to sleep. Mr. Callan went alone, and was eventually convinced to take the children back to the shortcut, with Ms. Jacobson, to show them that there was "nothing to be afraid of." Unfortunately, the trail proved to be more dangerous than we could fathom, as Mr. Callan was shot in the shoulder while on this expedition.
      First, to his surprise, Mr. Callan stepped in a puddle full of blood. Ms. Jacobson and her children were quite a bit ahead of him on the trail, so they did not notice. The next thing Mr. Callan knew, he saw a man dressed in Union blues for a split second; this man shot him.
      My theory on what happened here is that the Union soldier was about to shoot a man of the Confederacy. The timeslip reversed the Confederate soldier with Mr. Callan long enough for him to be shot, and then switched the two men back to where they belonged. Ms. Jacobson rushed to his side, called 9-1-1, then took her children to the highway to flag down the ambulance when it arrived. While Mr. Callan lay there waiting, the timeslip happened again, this time bleeding the two time periods into the same space at the same time. He saw a Civil War battle taking place only yards from him, and then a Confederate soldier bent over him to check on his condition. This soldier asked, "Are you an angel?" and then querried something about his wife and child that could not be made out. The timeslip significantly distorted the soldier's voice. He reached out and touched Mr. Callan's bullet wound, causing him such pain that he lost consciousness.
      Interestingly, the bullet taken from Mr. Callan's body proved to be 140 years old. He felt that this soldier needed something, and that in order to make the timeslip end, we were going to have to give this man what he wanted. The weather was beginning to cool down, which could prove to be the end of our window of opportunity.
      We soon headed to the Shadow Valley Historical Society to find information on this soldier. Mr. Callan had been coherent enough to notice the buttons on his coat, which could be traced back to a battallion of infantrymen who fought a minor skirmish over a forgotten ridge that had no bearing on the outcome of the War. There were no survivors. Mr. Callan was shown vintage photographs of the men in this battallion; he recognized one, whose name was Henry Tucker. From there, we were able to read Mr. Tucker's journals, on hand at the Historical Society, where he spoke of seeing "the angel" that took a bullet for him (Mr. Callan), and how he had seen such strange things that could not be explained. Henry Tucker had even drawn pictures of the things he had witnessed. We recognized one object as the light post outside the Circle Mart - it had an odd shape. Apparently, Mr. Tucker could see into our time, as well. In his journals, Mr. Tucker wrote that his spirit would never rest until he knew if his wife, Isabella, and his son, William, had survived a typhoid epidemic; this is what he needed to know, in order for us to completely end this timeslip.
      Upon heading to the Livingston Hall of Records to find these accords, we were stopped in the road by an entire battallion of ghostly soldiers crossing before us. I surmised that the magnetic fields from faults in the earth were helping this timeslip become stronger; we were going to have to quiet the spirit of Henry Tucker, and do it fast. The records for April, 1865, revealed that Mrs. Tucker had survived, and given birth to their son, who grew up to work for a local newspaper, and hence raised three children of his own. Somehow, we had to tell Mr. Tucker these facts.
      Our solution was to make a recording of Mr. Callan announcing to Henry Tucker that his wife and son lived on. We set up a large speaker to broadcast this message, and did so, hoping it would get through to this faraway time. Within minutes, scores of ghost lights, surrounding one large orb, appeared over the woods in the distance. They hovered for several minutes before floating up into the sky, where they disappeared en masse. Afterward, the timeslip definitely seemed to be over; no more ghost sightings have since been reported. It appears that Henry Tucker heard our message. We hope his spirit rests now, wherever he is.
      This case is closed.

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