Stephen’s parents, Geoffrey and Irene, experienced an incident with obvious memory tampering.
They were alone in the Sonora house on a winter’s night in 1988. They were sleeping at opposite ends of the house, about 75 feet away from each other. Irene was asleep on the living room couch. She woke up about 6 a.m. On the coffee table she saw a black and red knit sweater that she had made many years before. It wasn’t a garment she still possessed. It seemed to be shimmering. Then the sweater rose into the air and hung for a moment “facing” her, before it flew up through the ceiling.
Then right after that, she saw a basket-like structure that resembled a giant artichoke come down through the ceiling and descend to the floor, then it opened up and a bunch of small, 4- or 5-foot-tall Chinese people jumped out. They were garbed like Chinese show performers. They started silently dancing on the living room carpet and were beckoning her to come join them.
She looked to another side of the room and saw a miniature elephant-like creature about 4 feet tall. It was also silently dancing, or clomping around. Then the elephant and the people all jumped back into their basket and it ascended up out of the ceiling. She looked down at the carpeting and saw dozens of foot impressions in the carpet and extra large prints where the elephant had been.
She got up and went to find her husband.
At the same time Geoffrey woke to the sound of Chinese chimes being rung vigorously and loudly. He got up to see if his chimes were being blown by a heavy wind, and might need to be taken down. When he looked through the window he couldn’t see anything blowing around. He even stepped outside, but there was no wind, and he had no explanation for the sound.
Then Irene fetched him to come see the prints in the living room carpet and they shared their experiences.
They had to catch a bus that morning for a trip to Lake Tahoe. On the bus they discovered it was Chinese New Year; the Year of the Dragon.
