| This happened when I was in the fourth grade. It was very early Christmas morning, well into the dark of the morning, but not yet time to get up and open presents - probably 4am - 5am. I don’t remember why I was awake, but who knows - I was a kid at Christmas! My bed was situated in such a way that it was in line with the bedroom doorway; while I was laying in bed, I could see directly out the door and into the hallway. At the end of the hallway, to the right of the bedroom doorway, is a large full-length mirror on the wall. The hallway continues past the bedroom door until it opens up into the living room.
Early on that morning, I heard what sounded like someone very slowly walking down the hall with heavy chains around their feet (or somehow dragging them)! I heard this chain dragging noise start where the mirror is, go past the open bedroom door, and continue on down the hall until it faded at the end of the hallway. I even experienced the Doppler Effect as it went past my room (becoming louder in relation to how close it was). I watched out my bedroom door the entire time and saw absolutely nothing as this sound moved past! A strange odor filled the air during this time... it was the smell of the electric knife we owned and used for carving turkey and the like. It had an odd electrical smell when it was running. Why this smell should be present at a time like that is beyond me!
I laid there for the longest time afterward, trying to think of something to justify what I had just been through, but I couldn’t come up with a logical explanation. I still can't. The funny thing about it is, it wasn’t until many years later that I watched Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on television and saw the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ portrayed wrapped in heavy chains and padlocks. It rather startled me!
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