From The Mailbag: Readers Relate Unusual Experiences During Blackout

By Michael H. Brown

Was there something moving spiritually during last week's blackout? Our viewers relate dramatic accounts that would seem to so indicate. We offer them for your discernment.

Writes Grace Pietrosanti, who with Lucy Diana owns Sacred Heart Catholic Goods in Westchester County, New York: "We had a miracle at our store. One of the ladies who works at our store, Joanne Niece, was talking to a customer at the counter when the lights went out. There is a beautiful statue of Our Lady Of Fatima behind the counter that we have had there since we opened our store six years ago. My husband had originally installed track lighting through out the store and over the counter is a strip of track lighting. When the lights went out the one light facing the statue of Our Lady of Fatima and another light facing the counter both stayed on! Joanne and the customer didn't understand it at first, but soon realized that there had been a blackout through out most of the East Coast.

"The whole place was in darkness, our shopping center does not have a generator, and the unbelievable thing is that the lights stayed on for about two hours, just the time we close the store! There is no explanation for this; my husband tried to think of everything but there is nothing he can come up with. I believe it is a miracle from Our Lady (Our Lady is showing us that she will be visible during the darkness). I wanted to let you know of this miracle that occurred."

Indeed, they were not emergency lights that were on, and the entire rest of the neighborhood was out, as was the nearby City of New York. Moreover, the light shining on the counter was shining on a Bible.

Writes another viewer:

"I live in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in Canada and wish to relate to you some interesting experiences that occurred to me before and during the blackout. On Thursday morning I took my usual morning train (my train route runs close to the shores of Lake Ontario), and while sitting in my seat and leaning against the window with eyes shut, I felt, somehow, something move and opened my eyes and saw a fly. It looked like a mosquito in both size and physique, but it definitely wasn't. Kind of unusual looking. Black body and skinny black legs with clear wings. I then noticed a couple more - drew my head away from the window and noticed about 20, looked at the lighting above the window and saw at least 30 -- stared at the ceiling and saw more -- looked at the seating across and saw the same number on their lights and ceiling.  I looked the length and breathe of the car and they were everywhere.  Hundreds of flies dotted the lights and ceiling of the train car.  Funny enough, they were only perched on the windows, lights and ceiling. It reminded me of something biblical -- like a plague of locust or something. Other people started noticing and commenting. It was the oddest scene I have ever witnessed. What made it even more peculiar, was the stillness. Absolute stillness. The frightening sound of nothing. The flies didn't fly. They just remained dead still - perched where they were. The only movement I noticed was a slow, slow, slow, deliberate flutter of an occasional wing. It was so like a scene from the X-Files or the Hitchcock movie The Birds. To add to the weirdness, I had on my lap apple and cherry strudel for a charity lunch and, to my surprise, they ignored it completely!  I could never possibly put into words how freaky, creepy, spooky, weird this all was.  What immediately came into my mind was something bad is going to happen to us.  This is an omen.  We're being punished for the gay marriages that my country initiated.  When we departed the train (with more speed, I might add, than usual), we noticed the other cars had the flies too, if not of the same multitudes as ours. 

"When I arrived at my firm, I immediately told my co-workers.  I mentioned repeatedly about this being a bad omen, how it reminded me of something biblical and being afraid something terrible would happen.  Having suffered through the SARS problem, we here are more willing to believe in bad signs then before.  I remembered how two years ago (almost the same anniversary date, would you believe?) when a freak plague of small insects descended on downtown Toronto one evening causing havoc.  A few weeks later, September 11th happened.

"I e-mailed my friends this story and received a reply from one who took a later train at an earlier stop on the same route. While she was standing in the waiting cubicle, a man pointed out to her all the flies covering the windows and ceilings. What freaked her out was the stillness -- they were alive, but they didn't move.  She said it gave her the creeps!

"As you know, at around 4:15 the blackout occurred." 

And another named Pat Lagor writes: "Dear Michael and Lisa, I was happy to read this morning that you only lost power for a short period of time. You were among the first whom I thought about when the incident occurred and certainly were in my prayers. 

"What I would like to share with you is something that I observed on national TV early yesterday morning when some of the lights came back on Broadway (I think it was somewhere in or near Times Square area). CNBC and NBC, which I had been switching back and forth on, had cameras focused on a marquis which flashed on in bright red lights the word 'Virgin.' I don't know whether this was a store or the airlines office; but there it was, of all the lights that had just been restored on that side of the street, the cameras had focused on that particular flashing sign.  Here it was August 15th [Feast of the Annunciation], and the U.S. and whatever affiliates throughout the world had a bright, bold sign before their very eyes. 

"This said so much to me, and I wonder how many others it effected. Hundreds of people had to have seen it on the streets, as that is where many had to sleep the night before. To me, this was a very powerful sign.  Your comments are not necessary, as I know you have a lot of messages to read.  I would be interested though, if anyone else had some "special" kind of spiritual experiences as the result of this 'blackout.'"

On related prophetic matters, we hear from a viewer who feels he has had a number of mystical experiences and says:

"Another startling bit of guidance I got was two years ago when I was walking around Palo Alto on a business trip. I got the exact same sensation I had in the World Trade Center two years before the attack.  I knew something horrible was going to happen at that location - it was so startling that I recorded it in my diary, and was worried that it was demonic in nature, that I was picking up on the kind of yucky principalities around Wall Street that were interfering with my ability to conduct my daily business in N.Y.C. Fortunately, I moved before the attack, but I knew something severe was coming, particularly from the Middle East. I even asked some other people I know who are sensitive to such things. A concurrence of events beyond my control basically "pushed" me out of N.Y.C.

"Anyway, I got the same sensation in Palo Alto, so severe I actually stopped in my tracks and asked what in fact was going to happen. A bad earthquake? A terrorist attack? A nuclear bomb? My guidance was that all kinds of horrible genetic engineering is taking place there and that it would be dramatically halted. Perhaps you've heard likewise from another source."

Stay tuned...