Strange snarls and growls

It was getting late, probably around 11:30pm. My wife had just finished with the computer and had come into the kitchen where I had just entered myself, having brought the dogs in after their night walk. I had taken a seat at the kitchen table and my wife was standing beside the kitchen sink spreading blackberry jelly on a piece of bread. Suddenly, from the direction of the dining room we heard this snarling growling commotion. I started to yell at my dogs, assuming they were the reason for the commotion. It wasn't my dogs; They were still in the kitchen with us. The older dog was beside my chair and the younger one was laying partly under the kitchen table. They both started, their ears up, but neither followed through and the snarls in the dining room were over. The whole episode had to have been well under a minute in length. But if it wasn't our dogs, what made the racket? It definitely sounded like my little female when she goes after our male for being too forward. But both of our dogs were in the kitchen with us. There definitely were no other dogs in the house. Dog noises from other than our own dogs seem to occur from time to time here. It would just satisfy a curiosity itch if I could figure out how they come about.

Bicycler or what?????

I had an odd experience last evening. I had my two dogs out for exercise and necessities. We were standing in the rear of the driveway that runs between by residence and the old balloon frame house on the western side that I use for storage. The driveway is narrow between the two structures. From where I was standing I could see a portion of the street that runs in front of our house. This street is a historic portion of the Old National Road. Coming into view was a bicycle ridden by a lean boy in his early teens. My dogs started, preparing to bark, when the boy and the bicycle simply disappeared. The bicycle had not crossed in front of my house. It simply disappeared. My dogs obviously saw it too. They reacted but it passed so quickly that their reaction turned to confusion or puzzlement. It threw me for a moment and I would have thought I halluscinated it if the dogs hadn't reacted to it. There was no fade out, the figure simply disappeared. It was a standard bike like we all rode in the 1940's and 50's. The boy was dressed in long sleeved shirt and regular pants. Who knows?????

Curtain half jumped off window

This may be perfectly explainable. This occurred at the old store that my wife and I run in a small Ohio village. We have been in this store for about three years. There is one rather high up the wall window that looks into an old office that we presently use as a layaway room. On the outside of the building the ground slopes uphill so the window is well positioned for anyone snooping around. So one of the first jobs I had was placing a curtain over that window. The curtain was fastened in place using the standard curtain rods and hooks. The curtain was solidly in place and as it is rather high (on the inside)it has not been bothered by anyone in three years. Customers could not reach this curtain without at least a step stool, not that they would even want to. Last Monday I was coming out of a portioned off work area that is adjacent to the rear salesroom and my wife was returning from getting some item from the backroom. A noise startled us both and we looked up at that window just as the curtain jumped a couple of inches into the air and the right hand side of it slumped toward the floor. We both jumped. At the time there were no customers in the store. We both remarked about the curtain jumping into the air before it fell. I moved some merchandise from beneath the window and got the stores folding ladder and went up to replace the curtain. Everything was intact. I used the curtain hooks to replace the curtain back over the rod. The hooks are not tight so the curtain could be slid open or shut. Of course we keep it shut. As to what made that curtain jump off the rod, I have no idea.

Sudden breaking glass

This one may be perfectly explainable. I was in the Den with the younger dog watching TV. My wife was at the computer in the library. The Library opens into the Den on the north side and the doorway was open between the two rooms. Our older dog was in the rocking chair in the library against the eastern wall. We have an air conditioner in the library which is against the eastern wall just in back of the rocker. All of a sudden we get a loud crash of glass. My wife turns toward the noise and sees the gray dog get down from the rocker and run to her; obviously scared. I came in out of the Den to ask what happened? My wife replied she didn't know but it sounded like someone had thrown a rock through the library window (the library windows are very narrow and tall. There are two of them roughly 9 ft. apart.) I checked out the library windows and they were still intact. I even went outside and around to those windows but everything was ok. I came back into the Library quite perplexed because I ,too, heard the crashing glass. Then, looking away from the window and toward our glassed in bookcase I found the cause of the crash, but no reason for it. On the south wall of the Library are 6 built-in book shelves that run from the floor to the ceiling. The bottom part (about 30 inches) are actually cupboards for storage with heavy wood doors. The rest of the shelves have glass paned doors. The weather here has been very hot and damp so we have left the doors on the shelves ajar to ward off mold or mildew (Which works pretty good with the air conditioner running). Upon inspecting the doors to the shelves I spotted one with half of the pane of glass missing. I hadn't seen the broken glass before because it was laying on a shelf that runs at just the top of the lower cupboards. The glass had only fallen five or six inches. How in blazes had it made so much noise? Also why had only half of the glass pane fallen? If the pane of glass was loose; wouldn't you have thought the entire pane would have gave away, not just the lower half? I think its rather strange. Anyway I have to get new glass cut to fit. That's a 22 by 12 inch pane. There are 8 of these panes in each door, some of the glass appears to be original (1857) glass but the pane that shattered looks to be modern.

Little black dog reappears.

I was in the bathroom, at the sink, when I again observed a small black dog which I immediately thought was my younger dog, come into the bathroom and trot toward the far wall. I may have blinked, but I didn't see it disappear, but it did. My dog, we call "Shadow" was definitely downstairs at the time. I definitely saw this small, fuzzy, black dog for several seconds. I'm getting old; perhaps it was a hallucination. I'd hate to think so. This is the second such episode. We did observe a small white with brown spots dog when we first moved here and for several years thereafter but was a jack Russell type and hasn't made an appearance in some time. I'm just reporting the episode. I have no answers.

White shirt skirts acoss aisle.

Today at my wife's store in Byesville, Ohio, I definitely observed a strange sight. It was early afternoon and a group of customers had just left. I was standing at the checkout station and my wife, facing me, was relating a story one of the customers had told her. Suddenly, across on the other side of the store I distinctly observed a white, long sleeved dress shirt move like it had someone in it down the far aisle toward the forward part of the store. I was startled but managed to say, What's that?" to my wife who had her back to the aisle. By the time she turned to look the form was gone. Telling her what I saw, she replied, "That sort of thing happens frequently. Maybe that sort of thing happens to her frequently but it startled me and I can't say it happens to me frequently. If I recall correctly, and I did see what ever it was for several seconds, it appeared to be a long sleeved, white, dress shirt. But I cannot say that it looked "solid" but on reflection I'd say it was a bit transparent. It moved quickly and was filled out, like someone was in it though no one could be seen. "Chalk it up to this old store being over 100 years old" was my wife's take on the episode. There are no windows on that side of the store. The only window on the side I was on, is a window in the entrance door and it is pretty much blocked by a large "open" sign. There are two windows in the rear of the store on the cash register side but they are heavily obscured and a wall separates them from the front half of the store. No rear windows until you enter the backroom and that door is kept closed. I do not know what I saw. I only know what it looked like.

Digging and Scratching noises

Last night we turned in about 11:30 pm. My wife went to her bedroom in the east wing of the house (She has a leg problem which requires frequent monitoring) and the two dogs and I went to the master bedroom. The dogs and I romped and played for about 30 minutes to tire them out good (I'm usually the one who is tired out). We all settled in for the night. The older dog took a position at the foot of the bed, made three turns and flopped down. He rarely stays there more than an hour or so, after which he jumps down and goes to his regular bed on the floor next to the heat registers. The younger dog takes her place about midway on the bed and pretty much stays there unless thunder is heard or the night turns cold when she moves toward the head of the bed. Last night I had just about dozed off when I was awakened by frantic digging and scratching noises. Dogs digging the covers is a definite no-no and I thought I had them broken of the habit. Because the sounds came from toward the foot of the bed I naturally thought it was the older dog digging up the covers. I yelled at him to stop. Looking toward the foot of the bed I could see him lying there looking at me as if to say "Stop what?" He was not digging and the younger dog, much closer to me was sleeping through it all. So neither dog were reacting to the digging noises. That is strange. I turned on the light beside of the bed and the digging sounds immediately stopped. The phantom digger has dug me awake before. There is never any sign of the digger or the dug. The dogs seem to ignore the sound though it is rather loud (if you have a dog who digs the carpet or blankets you know what I mean). I really don't think mice would dig that loud. If we have rats I'm not aware of it and besides I think the dogs would react to a rat. So what causes these sounds in the middle of the night? Another old house mystery.