Hey everyone, I didn’t really know where to turn with this information, but I figured this subreddit would be a good start.
I know that at first glance, you would probably think that I needed to post this in some type of meteorological subreddit, but once you’ve read what I’ve experienced, you’ll understand that this is far more complex than what my fellow storm chaser friends can help me comprehend. Maybe someone in this group can help provide me with some much needed answers. Either way, I’ve got to get this off my chest. I just need someone to hear me… And believe me.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved storms. My love of storms started from a very young age. I experienced my first tornado when I was seven.
“Jamie, come on, we need to get into the basement!” my younger brother shrieked, clutching our toy pomeranian within his trembling arms, tiny, peg-like feet kicking in protest as she yipped.
I waved him on, my face glued to the tree limbs scattered across the yard and the leaves plastered to the sliding glass door that led out to our backyard. I was mesmerized.
“Jamie!” he called out again, his voice a sharp protest over the sounds of the howling storm.
“Stop being such a baby!” I hollered as I rolled my eyes.
I watched as his big blue eyes watered, bottom lip jutting out. He was completely petrified. The polar opposite of me. My mother shook her head, shooting me a glare before she took one of his hands into hers and dragged him towards the stairs.
“Don’t be so hard on him,” she yelled, her brows furrowed. “Nathan?” My father turned towards her, his face no longer plastered to the window beside me. “Please don’t stay up here too long.” Her eyes were pleading, but her voice was steady and controlled. Even in the midst of chaos, my mother was always the picture of patience. The calm in the storm.
Fair warning, what I’m about to tell you is going to make me seem like I’ve completely lost my head, but I’m telling you right now, I witnessed this with my own eyes, and it most certainly happened. I’m a storm chaser, and today, the clouds fell from the sky. Well, correction, I thought they were clouds… But for the sake of what I’m about to tell you, that’s what they’re going to be called for now. Just bear with me. I know that you’re probably wondering if I caught this crazy phenomenon on camera, but… Well, let me just explain what happened. It will make more sense that way.
Without going into too much detail about where I live, it’s probably important to note that I reside in the South… In tornado alley. Now, what made this storm strange, is that in my specific area, tornadoes ramp up the most in April (291 tornadoes on average), and although late fall and winter tornadoes are not uncommon, this one was particularly bizarre.
I haven’t mentioned it to anyone except for one of my closest friends, but I know by the look on his face that he thinks maybe I had a moment of delusion, or psychosis, or perhaps something else entirely, but I know what I saw. And I know it was… Supernatural. This wasn’t just some mere storm. This is something I’ll never forget for as long as I live.
So here it goes: within my friend group of other storm chasing friends, I had quickly become known as the one who “danced with danger.” I’d successfully chased some of the most life- threatening storms in my area, so I figured this one would be no different. In true Southern fashion, chasing storms is a lot like bull riding. You never know what you’re dealing with until you grab that sucker by the horns.
This was one of those instances. Nothing could have prepared me for the nightmarish encounter that awaited me that afternoon. When I hopped into my van to go chasing that storm, the last thing I’d expected was to get stranded in the middle of it.
“Jamie, you gonna be alright out there, man?”
The concern in my friend’s voice made me chuckle. “Listen, I’m sure this beast isn’t anything I can’t handle! I’m fully prepared to tackle it head-on.”
I heard the phone crackle before he responded. “I don’t doubt that you’re fully prepared, but this one’s supposed to be real bad. I really think you need to-”
Bryan’s voice cut out before he could finish his sentence. I sighed and tossed my phone over in my passenger seat. Stupid dead zone. As the storm approached, the atmosphere noticeably shifted. Hail rained down with a fury, pelting my windshield and beating against the sides of the van… But the winds were far worse.
Large gusts pushed and shoved against the vehicle with phantom-like hands as I fought to keep it on the road. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles whitened as I drove closer. This part was always my favorite. The buildup. The anticipation. The danger. It was almost like an adrenaline rush for me, and this storm was definitely my next fix. No matter what, I was hell-bent on capturing its true nature on camera. I just had a feeling about this one.
I worked methodically between keeping an eye on the road, keeping an eye to the sky, and keeping an eye on my doppler radar. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these, red is typically a target moving away from the radar, while green is applied to targets moving towards the radar. And right now? It was glaringly green. I’d struck gold.
When I finally came to a stop on the side of the road, a darkness enveloped me. As I positioned my storm-chasing van, my cameras recording, my radar equipment started to pulsate like a heartbeat.
“Gotcha,” I whispered aloud, excitement evident in my tone. This one was going to be massive.
But that’s when the impossible happened. The clouds, once swirling masses of gray and white, began to descend from the heavens. I cocked my head to the side, examining the sky with complete and utter horror. No longer fixed on the radar, my eyes widened. These weren’t ordinary clouds. My heart pounded with terror when what appeared to be clouds descended closer and closer, quickly revealing something else entirely.
Ethereal and grotesque winged beasts fell from the sky in droves, their once-glorious wings now tattered and charred. My breath caught in my throat as I watched those celestial beings plummet from the sky, their faces twisted in agony and despair. A gasp caught in my throat as I watched them land all around the van, their bodies twisted and mangled, writhing on the ground. My radio cut in and out, the sound full of static. I couldn’t help but freeze when I made out the words of a familiar church hymn. I hadn’t heard it in ages, but it quickly sparked a memory.
“Mama, what’s he going on about up there?” My little khaki clad legs swung from the church pew as I twisted the string from the hymn book around my pointer finger.
“Shhh, whisper,” my mother chastised, shaking her head disapprovingly. “He’s talking about fallen angels.”
“But I don’t understand-”
“Jamie, just listen.”
With a sigh, I tucked my legs under me and wiggled up on my knees so I could see the preacher better. Mr. Jenkins always sat in front of me, and I couldn’t ever see past his shiny bald head unless I moved a little to the right and adjusted my seating position.
The preacher was a tall, lanky man, and his hair was all salt and pepper. He had an unusually deep voice, but it was calm and warm, nothing like the “fire and brimstone” preacher my mom said she grew up with.
“Then, war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.”
I cocked my head quizzically at his words before I looked over at my mother again, lightly tapping her on the shoulder and whispering into her ear, “Who is the dragon?”
“Satan. He’s about to tell you that, though. Just listen.” As she turned back towards the preacher, I pondered this for a moment before I did the same.
“But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”
The words formed on my tongue before my lips could even comprehend what I was uttering.
“Fallen angels.”
Something deeply rooted within me knew I should flee, but morbid curiosity held me captive. I continued to film, unable to tear my eyes away from the grotesque spectacle before me. There had to be at least a dozen that I’d counted so far. Until the thirteenth fell right on the hood of my van. The metal made a horrible crunching sound as its body dented it, the windshield shattering as one of its monstrously large wings protruded straight through it. A terrified scream left my lips as charred feathers flew across my lap, the very tip of the wing brushing against the collar of my shirt.
My breathing stilled then. A breath caught in my throat as I peered at the being in front of me. Despite being horribly deformed from the fall, her legs twisted and bent at weird angles, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Pale blue eyes stared up at the sky, tears streaking down her porcelain cheeks. Long blonde hair encircled her head in a halo of waves, cascading down around shoulders that were matted with blood.
With widened eyes, I watched as her chest slowly rose and fell. Her lips parted and brows scrunched as she choked on blood the color of rubies. She was breathing. She was still alive.
“Father!” she cried out, her voice a strangled sort of sound. “Why have you forsaken me?”
With a click, I hurriedly unlatched my seatbelt and made a move to shove open the van door.
“Jamie.”
I froze, my hand still on the door handle. My frightened gaze traveled over towards the voice coming from the woman who was still splayed on the hood of my van. Her head had suddenly turned, those hauntingly blue eyes now fixed on me.
“H-How do you know my-”
“Come here.” Her voice called to me, soft and smooth, dripping from her lips like golden honey. It was the most melodic sound I’d ever heard.
My hand slowly released the door handle, reaching out towards her instead. Her outstretched hand was bloodied and raw, but her eyes were reassuring.
“I won’t hurt you,” her words promised.
With shaky hands, my fingertips trembled the moment hers intertwined within my own. And then, I screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed. The amount of pain that radiated throughout my entire body felt like being dropped into a pit of fire, the flames licking my skin and burning at the flesh. Desperate cries left my lips as I tried to pull away, but she clung onto me with a vice-like grip. The only thing that cut through my agonizing wails was her voice, clear as a bell in my ear.
“Jamie…” she hissed, eyes glowing unnaturally bright as her hands gripped mine so hard that her nails bit into the tender flesh. “Do you believe in God?” she questioned, the words gritted out between clenched teeth.
My lips trembled as I cried, the pain almost becoming too much to bear. I shook my head and pleaded with her instead. “Please…” I croaked, my words coming out in between strangled breaths. “Please let go.”
“Answer me,” she demanded, blood pouring from her nose and seeping into the tattered skin of her cheek. It was as if she was transforming before my eyes, her body changing into that of something hideously frightening.
“Yes…” I managed to sputter out. “Yes, I believe.”
A dark chuckle fell from her lips, her body quaking as blood sputtered up from her throat, imitating a geyser. The flesh along her scalp wriggled and writhed. Her once beautiful blonde hair broke free and blew away in the breeze like a tumbleweed. Large blisters popped and exploded across her torso, a cottage cheese-like substance bubbling up and oozing across her body as she wasted away in front of me.
“You silly human,” she spat. “You believe in a God that dooms my soul to this kind of torment?”
My brows furrowed as I choked back another round of screams, the pain I felt transforming into ice cold water, so cold that it was as if I was burning all over again. Like I was being plunged beneath the surface of a polar cap in the dead of the winter. It was so cold that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream.
“Please…” I begged. “Please stop this.”
And then, before I even realized what I was doing, I felt my lips form the words.
The words I’d said countless times before dinner. The words I mumbled sleepily when my mother tucked me into bed at night. The words I muttered under my breath just before my very last exam in college. And the words I cried when I helped lower my mother’s body into six feet of rich, muddied Earth.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven-”
“Stop!” she screamed, her body now melting into a thick sludge and sliding off of the hood of my car like melted caramel.
“Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” My voice shook as I fought past the pain, clinging to the words instead of focusing on the fear that was racing through my system and spiraling out of control.
“NO!” she screeched, the lower half of her torso now completely gone.
“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation.” My shouting grew louder as her fingertips slowly slipped from my own, the pain from before dampening into a dull throb.
“Jamie…” she pleaded, her eyes slowly melting out of her sockets like an over-easy egg.
Nausea stirred within me as I clenched my eyes shut and continued on. “But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever-”
“He’ll turn his back on you too!” I heard her cry before her fingertips slowly released mine.
When I eventually pried open my eyes, one last word fell from my lips as I leaned back against my seat, cradling my hand against my chest.
“Amen.”
When I finally got the nerve to step out of my van, I was increasingly confused. There were no signs of the angel on my hood or the others on the ground. The only thing that lay in their wake was a large pile of dust, but even that was being swept away in the wind.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” I whispered under my breath.
As I staggered back towards my car, I searched high and low for my camera. I just needed some type of confirmation of what I’d seen play out before my very eyes. But when I finally found it, catapulted into the back of my van under the passenger side seat, there was nothing but scraps and pieces of it. I scrambled around in hopes of finding the SD card, but that was nowhere in sight. Every last speck of hope that I had in trying to prove that this actually happened was crushed. No one would believe me.
And then my phone rang.
“Bryan?” I croaked, as I leaned back against the driver’s side seat, still gaping at the giant hole in the windshield.
“Jamie, are you alright? That storm stirred up all kinds of stuff. It’s a complete mess. I don’t think I’ve seen one this bad in…”
As Bryan droned on, I couldn’t help but notice something. A singular white feather, slightly singed, sat on the dash of my car. Glass was scattered all around it, but my fingers couldn’t help reaching out towards it almost of their own accord.
“Jamie?” Bryan questioned. “You still there, man?”
“I, um…” As I stumbled over my words, the feather clutched between trembling fingertips, I finally managed to mumble out, “Bryan… Do you believe in God?”
“Well…” I heard him pause and then say, “I suppose so. I mean, there’s got to be something out there bigger than us, right?”
Nodding my head, more to myself than him, my eyes suddenly dropped down to my hand, the feather falling from my grasp and floating down into my lap. Five angry, red, crescent-like shapes were burned into my flesh. This was real. This was real. This was real.
With a shaky breath, I clutched the phone to my ear and breathed out a frightening realization. “Bryan, I… I always thought Heaven was in the sky. But now… I’m not so sure.”