Have you ever felt you experienced the presence of an angel? If so, did it happen more than once? Was it at the same location? Such are the personal events I am about to relate to you. There were two such events, happening at approximately the same location in a small township of Long Beach Island, NJ, U.S.A.
Just as with the paranormal, I don't feel the Creator allows for direct contact as we would know it. Sorry, no ghosts speaking to us through pseudo-scientific electronic devices, or appearing to us in abandoned buildings or dark rooms after sunset. If it happens at all, it does subtly, here and gone before our feeble human senses having a chance to comprehend what was just experienced from superior, supernatural intent . Only after careful reflection at a later time does analysis allow for a realization of details of the unexplainable occurrence.
Event #1: when I was 12-years-old, I was invited to stay with my friend at a beachfront hotel with his dad, an avid surf fisherman. My friend's dad would be fishing at the surf line (allowable in early morning hours or after 5pm when beach swimming was ended). We, of course, would occupy ourselves with all sorts of activities such as beachcombing, throwing a ball, frisbee, building sand castles against an incoming tide, etc.
This one particular evening, a little after 5pm and while there was still daylight left in the long summer day, we went swimming in the hotel pool, after which we just hung out poolside. An older man, approximately in his mid to late sixties in age, entered the pool in the shallow end, calmly wading from the shallow end toward the deeper end, which was 8-feet in depth. He was the only person in the pool. My friend and I were the only others around the pool area. The man proceeded to calmly walk toward the deep end until he was submerged in the deepest part. We watched as if mesmerized for some reason. He was under the surface, moving about calmly with slow arm movements as if keeping his balance underwater.
At this time, without seeing her approach through the pool fence gate (if indeed she did enter that way), a woman approximately the same age as the man in the water walked up to the pool edge, looked in the water at the man and turned to us and calmly said three words... "he cannot swim." We replied to the woman that he didn't look like he was struggling at all, but rather just holding his breath and looking around underwater. She repeated the words, "he cannot swim." My friend and I dove under the water and approached the man. He still was calm but had a dazed look on his face, not reacting to our presence next to him. We both grabbed an arm and guided him to the surface and pool ladder at the deep end. He was limp with his eyes open. He felt extremely heavy to us. There was no way we were going to lift him out of the pool. To our surprise, there was the sudden presence of an emergency response ambulance team who came up to the side of the pool, pulled the man out from our grasp and began resuscitation efforts on the pool deck. Who the heck had called for the emergency response, that had taken them time to travel and arrive just as we pulled the man to the pool ladder? We were the only ones around! Who the heck could have known the man was drowning other than us... and the strange woman! There was no commotion to draw the attention of others as events unfolded. The woman was now nowhere to be found. The man was put into the ambulance and taken off to the hospital.
The local newspaper ran an article the next morning about how the man survived due to the efforts of my friend and I in addition to emergency services that responded to the call. What call??? There was no mention of the woman in the article. It was as if she didn't even exist!
Event #2: This happened approximately 5 years later. There was an ocean observation pavilion next to the same location as the hotel I had previously stayed at with my friend and his dad years prior. My female friend and I had taken a late afternoon walk (around 6pm before sunset) and decided to enjoy the cool ocean breezes looking out at the ocean from the pavilion seating available there. We didn't see this woman approach until she was seating herself next to my friend, with me on my friend's other side. The grey-haired woman appeared to be like the woman at the pool, approximately in her mid-sixties. Somehow a conversation started up by the lady, drifting in topic toward God, religion, etc. She was commenting on the beauty of looking out over the ocean. My friend, who didn't believe in God, said so to the lady. The lady persisted politely and calmly in talking about God and how my friend should entertain the possibility of God's existence based simply on the example of awesome beauty that was in plain view before her. The lady's persistence on the topic was making my friend increasingly uncomfortable, to the point that I interjected on her behalf to cease her conversation, that it was unwelcome and harassing to my friend. The lady immediately ceased speaking. I focused on my friend, put my arm around her to calm her as she was visibly upset by this encounter. This occupied my attention for approximately five seconds before I looked up and the woman was no longer sitting next to us, neither was she anywhere to be seen.
We had not noticed her stand up and walk away. Nor did she have time to proceed down the approximately 50-foot walkway leading up to the pavilion, nor in the equally large vehicle parking lot. There were no vehicles in the parking lot. We looked at each other, astonished at how the woman escaped our sight so quickly. We both agreed we had witnessed something unexplainable.
Could the woman have been an angel? Could she have been the same one as I had experience years before in that same approximate location? There are innumerable possible ideas for who these two mysterious, vanishing women were. They run the gamut from kind, old lady ghosts stuck in a location, loved ones coming back to give a message, angels, etc.
All I can ascertain for certain was that she was there to help, it wasn't the dark of night, an abandoned building, nor was there ever a foreboding feeling about her presence... whoever or whatever she was!
- MoonJoey
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