We moved into the house we live in today when I was less than five years old. I was, according to all my friends and family that were around back then, one of those kids who never learned how to lie until i was a teenager (and now i can do it as fluently as telling the truth ). About two months after moving into the house, it was now full-force winter with over a foot of snow on the ground, my dad took me out to play in the snow while my mom video taped it. About 15 minutes into it, I started just staring off toward the side of our yard, where a small line of trees seperates us from our neighbor's yard. I spent a full minute watching that patch of trees, moving my eyes, and eventually my whole head, down the line of young maple trees. My dad had been talking to me the entire time, asking what I was looking at, my mom put the camera down and ran down to see what was going on. I just kept looking at the trees, following something that, even looking back at the video, obviously wasn't there. My dad finally picked me up, turned me around, and asked me what I was looking at. I just said "I wanted to see where he was going." My dad looked at my mom, who asked "Where who went?" I said "That man with the gun, he looks like hes lost. I wanna see what hes looking for." At this point my mom turned the camera off completely and carried me into the house while my dad (who had served in the Army's 82nd Airbourne Division, clearly concerned when i mentioned a man with a gun) went over to our neighbors yard, obviously looking for some escaped serial killer or something similar... All the time my mom was inside talking with me about what I thought I saw. I apperently told her that it was just a man with a beard, a blue coat, and long gun in his hand. He just walked slowly along the edge of our yard, weaving between the trees as he went. (these obviously were not my exact words but this part was off the camera so I'm just going with the story I'v been hearing for the past 13 years or so...) My dad came back in saying no one could have been out there.

A few weeks passed and one day, while my dad was at work, I started going through some of his old army books, a common enough hobby of mine at the time. He had pictures of soldiers from WWI through to Desert Storm, but not really much of anytihng before that (still look at those ones today too, good books). My mom had been clearing boxes of my dad's stuff, handing me more of the books. When one of them was handed to me, a timeline of Infamous American Battles, I immediately said "Thats him!"

My parents had not really been thinking about the little incident out in the snow at all since it had happened, they figured it was a one time thing (which it was) and thought little of it afterwords. When I announced that the man on the cover of the book, a reinactor (spelling?) a musket and a blue over coat, was "the man" my mom was not sure what I was talking about. It took a few minutes before she realized what I meant...

By now you've most likely figured out that the person who I claimed to have seen was a Union soldier from the American Civil War... What is important about this is that, regardless of the fact that my family has a long military history, I knew of little of it aside from what I saw in the books about WWI and WWII that my dad showed me. I had never actually seen anything about the Civil War before this. I, apperently couldn't have made it up since I had nothing to go on for reference as to what he would look like (ironically, the man on the cover of this book does not have a beard, I apperently just saw the gun and coat and that was enough). My dad had deteremined that day that there was no way anyone could have actually been there either, so it was either a ghost, or I was just insane as a small child........ Im not ready to rule out either one at this point....

It wasnt until years later that I found out my great uncle actually is a Civil War Reinactor, though he often has to play a Confederate for one reason or another. The whole thing seems very ironic... The point however is that, of the people who read this, only a quarter will say they believe me and mean it. Half will say I'm making it up or just simply full of it... (Can you blame them?) And the other quarter will believe me, but side with the Half to make themselves look more sane than I do..... Make your choise now...

Ironically enough, after reading that last bit, of the half that don't believe me, most will now say they believe me simply to prove my math wrong...........