When I talk about people that disappear in the Philippines, I'm talking about something different from what I was talking about when I wrote "How to Disappear or Vanish without a Trace in the Philippines". The words and phrases "disappear" and "in the Philippines" are the only things the articles have in common.


No More Jack Hunter Stuff

I'm actually thankful that I stopped dreaming about Jack Hunter and stopped receiving any email from someone claiming to be Jack Hunter. I think the last dream was at least 3 weeks ago.

Dealing with paranormal things usually doesn't bother me. It's starting to bother me. In the coming days, I'm going to be focusing on some of the folklore in the Philippines and explain why I think it's not all folklore.

People that Disappear in the Philippines

It's unnerving when something strange happens once. Imagine how unnerving it is when it happens twice. I'm going to mention the second strange occurrence.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the street in front of my house, walking toward a local sari-sari store, tindahan (Tagalog for store), mini-store or whatever you want to call it. It's nothing more than a small shack where the owner resells products bought at the regular market, broken down into smaller portions. Anyway, I was walking toward this store when I spotted my wife's cousin, Julius (who happens to live with my mother-in-law in our compound) walking in the same direction at about 50 meters in front of me.

I was a mere 10 meters away when he passed the store and turned right onto another small road. Not more than 5 seconds later, I turned onto the same road and he was nowhere to be seen! I have some friends that live on the left side of the road and their front gate was locked. The other people that live on the left and right sides of the road have fences surrounding their property and the gates face the main street. At the end of the road, there are bushes and a trail that leads to where other people live. It's basically a dead end for anything but people who walk or stray animals.

There is absolutely no way that Julius could have made it to that trail before I turned onto the road, even if he sprinted. There were no openings on the left or right sides of the road for him to enter someone else's property either. The question I asked myself was "Why is he avoiding me?" There is no animosity or anything between us.

Well, I turned around and headed back to my compound, downhill to my mother-in-law's house. It only took a couple of minutes to get there. When I arrived, I spotted Julius sleeping on the floor in her living room (people do that here, you know). I waited until he woke up and asked him why he had avoided me earlier and he was clueless as to what I was talking about.

So, who was that disappearing person?

I have absolutely no idea. It couldn't have been Julius. He was fast asleep when I returned and he would have been out of breath had he been the person who ran away from me fast enough to get back to my mother-in-law's house. The person looked like Julius, walked like Julius and probably smelled like Julius, but I never got THAT close.

This is the second time something like this has happened to me. Unless there's a whole bunch of doppelgangers running around, I can't explain it. I've been told about this happening to other people, but I never believed it. Until recently, that is, because it has happened to me.

The paranormal epicenter?

I'm starting to believe that a lot of the folklore that people talk about here in the Philippines is more fact than fiction. There are just too many strange things going on all the time.

I've come to believe that the Far East, and particularly the orient, is the paranormal epicenter of the world. It doesn't matter which country you visit in this area, be it the Philippines, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc., you will hear some amazing stories if you take the time to listen.

I'm listening.