Reader Report: More Unexplained Breathing

"I, too, had the 'breathing' experience," reports Brenda in response to my Breathing Demon story. "I rented an old house, around 100 years old, but I just fell in love with it. One night, after I got off the phone with my boyfriend, the breathing started. Inhale...exhale --just as you described. Only it was really loud, and sounded like it was coming from everywhere around me. I never could pinpoint the source. I ended up cowering on the bathroom floor until it stopped. It seemed to go on forever, but in actuality, was probably only a few minutes.

"A few months later on, it did it again. This time it didn't last quite as long as the first time. It was a really strange and scary event. Only one more thing happened that I couldn't explain. One morning, just as it was beginning to get daylight, I heard someone digging with a shovel right outside my living room window. I opened the door to ask my landlord what he was doing digging so early in the morning. The sound immediately stopped, and there was no one out there. Some things you just can't explain, right?"

Right, Brenda. Here's more mysterious breathing:

Reader Report: Red Light in the Woods

"This happened in Georgian Bay, Ontario recently," reports Alex. "One evening, I was feeling adventurous, so I got in my car and headed north on Highway 400. I drove for about an hour and got off on Twelve Mile Bay Road. It was now after 10 p.m., so it was pitch black with no sources of light except my car's headlights and nothing but thick, dark woods on both sides of the road, and I would constantly check both sides to watch out for any animal or to see anything interesting.

"After a few minutes, I turned off onto Galla Lake Rd. I kept observing both sides as I drove, and the road had a slight downward incline into the forest. As I going down the hill, I was looking to the right side and briefly noticed a bright red light in the woods. Just a red light glowing there in the woods. My curiosity overrode my fear, so I stopped and reversed to where I had seen it and saw nothing. Now this road has nothing but woods -- no houses, no external light pollution of any sort, no reflections on my windows, and no people. I still wonder what I saw. What could have produced a red light in the woods?"

Thanks for the report of that mystery, Alex. From the map, it looks like a pretty remote area, but is it possible that there could have been hunters or campers in the woods who might have had a light? I doubt that it was the red reflection of an animal's eyes since your headlights would have had to be pointed directly at them, which they were not. A UFO seems unlikely as the woods look pretty dense with no room for a UFO to set down in. The only other possibilities I can think of are ball lightning or spooklights, sometimes called ghost lights. Here are some other stories of mysterious lights:

Reader Report: Solider's Ghost Came to Say Goodbye

They were far from home and loved ones when they were cut down in their youth by the indiscriminate blade of war. Yet, somehow their spirits move through time and space to bid one last farewell to family. The annals of ghost stories are filled with such experiences. This one is from Brenda:

"My grandmother told me about her aunt who saw the full-body apparition of her son, who was a soldier fighting in World War I," Brenda reports. "She turned to see him standing in the doorway and was overjoyed. She began to chide him a bit for not letting her know he was coming home, but as she spoke to him, he slowly faded away.

"They did not learn for several weeks, as was common in that war, that he had died?in some battle in Europe on?the same day?his mother saw him. Perhaps, when some of us are dying, our desire to reach out to our loved ones is so strong that a piece of us makes it through."

More ghost soldiers: