As part of our series on new Communion Letters, “John from PA” writes: I was eight years old in 1957 and grew up in a rural suburb of Pittsburgh , PA. My parents were strict Christians.

There was an undeveloped lot behind the house and wooded, with brush and berry bushes, trees, etc. It was about one block by two blocks long with a dirt-gravel road all the way around the perimeter. Further past the far dirt road was even an deeper a bigger wooded area.

After school one day about 4 pm, I thought I heard a voice, sounding like my older brother or maybe a neighbor friend calling me from there (across the first dirt road). I was told not to go in the woods without my older brother or a friend with me.

But, you know, I went anyway. Well, I no sooner got into the woods through the thick berry bushes the first 20-25 feet or so, and came face to face with a somewhat taller and maybe a little older kid (I thought at the time).

He/she was gray or pale in color, kind of translucent, and naked, but without any sex organs. He had a big head and skinny body, through which I could kind of see the opaque density of his bones. I thought he was just a kid I hadn’t seen before and might have been a little deformed. He had very huge dark eyes.

I came to a stop of my own will, but soon realized I was frozen in place and could not move. I asked him, “Who are you” He conveyed to me (his lips didn’t move) not to speak, just to think. He conveyed a name, which I’m still trying to remember. And he pointed to the moon, which at the time was about 2/3s full in a blue afternoon sky. I conveyed the moon’ He called it another name ,but conveyed yes, moon. The back side ‘around the other side’ is where he was from. I looked in his deep dark eyes, which wrinkled somewhat underneath when he showed approval.

Next, he had what I thought was a skinny stick in his hand (at that time to me, it looked like a burnt pine branch, with burnt needles or barbs on it). He conveyed, ‘Can I touch you’ I couldn’t move and wanted to badly. I thought he would just reach out and tap me or touch me with his stick.

He conveyed, ‘Close your eyes,’ and I did. It felt like a feather going up my right nostril and my eyes watered a little. Then he conveyed, ‘Open your eyes and look up to the moon,’ where he had pointed before. Only he was pointing in a different location and the moon was there (in a different location from a few seconds ago).

As I watched, the sun zoomed across the sky (like in time lapse photography), only at the time there wasn’t such a thing, or at least I’d never seen it.) I thought it was a magic trick of some kind, since I was a fan of magic and had seen it on TV a few times.

The sky grew dark as the 2/3s moon glowed as it moved across the sky, then it became daylight again. He conveyed to me that I could go with him to the moon, that ‘I was lucky and had a choice’ or that I could stay with my parents. Of course I conveyed to him, ‘that I wanted to be with my parents.’

I could hear my mother calling me in the background and then my dad and older brother calling me, but I was instructed not to try to answer. Then some bushes began to move and he conveyed to me, ‘Step aside and be very quiet and don’t breathe.’

When I did this, several people walked right past me and him, just like we weren’t there, and he again instructed me not to try and call them or touch them in anyway, since it would be dangerous to my life. One of those people was my brother and the others I didn’t know at the time (but later found out must have been the police).

He conveyed to me a lot of information, including that the sun would burn out in my life time or burn up planet earth (I don’t recall which), but that they would be watching over me all the time. I conveyed that I was tired and needed to sit down, but he conveyed, ‘NO, you have strong legsuse them.’

He also conveyed that his leader/superior was in the woods beyond the second dirt road, and he asked me if I ever had heard of Lucifer. I didn’t recognize the name. He conveyed, ‘Have you ever heard of Satan’ I conveyed ‘yes.’ His big dark eyes crinkled a little. He again asked me if I wanted to go with him. I conveyed ‘NO!’

After a bit of time and when the sky was bright again, he turned and walked away and conveyed that I was free, but that I would be a lonely person and different from others for the rest of my life. I watched him walk away, but it was more of a glide or float, down a hill.

I ran to tell my brother what had happened, but then I wasn’t sure I should tell. When I got to the house, my mother greeted me with open arms and crying asking, “Where have you been all this time”

I said, “Mom, I just went down to the woods, because I thought I heard someone calling my name. I need to sit down, my legs hurt bad.”

My dad was mad as hell and said, “Do you know how long you have been missing”

I said, “About 20 minutes or so.”

Everyone went crazy at that point, Dad said, “20 minutes! You’ve been missing for almost two days! We called the school, they hadn’t seen you, then we called the police.”

It then dawned on me something was very wrong. I didn’t know what to say. They questioned me for some time, then my father asked me what the guy looked like. I said, “A skinny pale older kid” then I said something about the meeting, I think it was the part about the sun moving across the sky.

My father looked shocked and said, “You must have met the Holy Ghost,” and smiled at me.

I said, “I’m notsureif that was him or not.”

A few years ago, I had a head cold and was blowing my nose, when a silver metal slug came out with a little blood. Since I’ve been a mechanic for much of my life, I thought it might have been an object from working on the underside of cars. I threw it away, not realizing its meaning.

NOTE: This Insight, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.