Ghost Story: Believe It or Not

Sharing Stories

October 30, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

George's diamond ring was a clue

...by Katherine Rozek

Ghost Story: Believe It or Not

It was the summer of 1946. The War was over, so the economy was changing from making weapons of war to civilian products of peace.
My father, who was involved with the aviation industry, got a job with the FAA (Federal Aviation Agency) on the West Coast, so we moved from Kansas to Los Angeles. It had always been my dream to live by the ocean and, even though I was just 13 years old, to go to UCLA.

We had only been in Los Angeles a few days and were still living with relatives when I was rousted out of bed one morning and told to get dressed, that we were going to see George Krebs, an old pilot friend of my father’s. George was back from the Far East and living in LA with his family.

As a child, I thought of George as one of my favorite people. He was very kind to me and that was special because kindness was in short supply in our household. But the problem that day was that I had the worst stomachache I’d ever had in my life. However, somehow, I managed to get dressed, get in the car, and go on the drive to George’s home.

It was a beautiful home, and they were as charming as ever. As I was sitting in their living room with two families talking all around me, I suddenly felt I was not there at all but looking down on them from a corner of the ceiling. I could see myself below, sitting there in my blue dress, looking quite normal.

The scene changed to a barren desert. Somewhere with a plane flying above. I could see the position of the sun. It was about two pm in the afternoon. There was nothing else.

All of a sudden, the plane blew apart into a shower of metal pieces. An object in the sand caught my eye as it was emphasized by the sun. It was George’s diamond ring that he’d had made especially for him in India. He had just been showing it to us in his living room. I somehow knew that George was piloting that plane and that he was going to die. At that point, I seemed to snap back into my body as if nothing was wrong.

Everything was normal until George got up and walked across the room. I saw a mist around him as he walked down a solitary path and away from us. Again, back to normal and all of us were still in his living room.
It was three months later that George’s plane blew to pieces over the Mojave Desert in California. It was on a hot day at about 2:15 in the afternoon. The FAA has never, to my knowledge, found out what happened. I wonder if anyone found that diamond ring or if it is still buried in the sand.

Postscript: In the 1970s, UCLA put on a program concerning strange experiences such as mine. It seems that there are more of them than we think. I remember one in particular that was similar to mine.

The fellow who was the president of an Insurance Company talked about his out of body experience which was preceded by the worst stomachache he’d ever had.

That caught my attention. The only thing I can connect between mind and stomach is what I’ve read in ancient Chinese literature which goes into detail on the subject and attempts to prove the connection. I have also read that some doctors are aware of this out-of-the-body experience. They know the patient is on the table going through an operation, but when the same patient comes out of the anesthetic, they report in great detail about the operation or other activities going on in the rest of the hospital at the same time. The doctors usually blame it on the anesthetic.

Who knows?

Katherine Rozek, Seattle dweller, graced the Greenwood Senior Center Writing Group with me, Ariele Huff. She gave me several good stories to share, including another Ghost Story coming up soon.

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