The Event:

I can only guess at the date of what follows. I was around 8 or 9 years old which would put the date around 1963. My parents (and by default, my sister and I) were avid church goers. We attended the Riverwood Church of Christ (in Nashville) until I was in my mid-teens and that's where this takes place. The church is mid-size for reference seating 750 people on a good attendance day. More often than not we went whenever the doors were open. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Weds nights not to mention vacation bible school in the summer. While the rest of my family seemed to love every minute they spent with the church crowd, I hated it with a passion from day one until my last. I simply didn't fit in nor like the "concept" of going to church although I certainly understand why some do. .. but I digress.

It was just like any another Sunday morning service. We were seated perhaps 8 rows from the front on the left hand side of the church. My father was seated to my left, my mother was to my right, and my sister on the other side of my mom. It must have been a beautiful day outside as sun was streaming through the stained-glass windows. I remember sitting there dreading the hour ahead.  It was just before the sermon as the church was being led in song. I even remember what they were singing.. "How Great Thou Art." My mother and father had a lovely voices and on this day I was getting it in full parental stereo.. I had my song book in my lap, but I never sang.

In the middle of the chorus... "...then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee..."... the congregation's words started to slow down so much so that I looked up. It was as if somebody turned the power off on a turntable and the needle slowed to a stop mid-song. Immediately I looked around the auditorium. Everyone was frozen.. Mouths open.. no sound.. No movement. I turned to my father.. He was looking ahead and to the stage with his mouth open.. I shook him.. He didn't move.. I turned to my mother.. I shook her..  What was happening?  My heart was racing. I was scared.

Conclusions and Observations Drawn:..

After much thought over these many years I have come to some inescapable conclusions.. Using the principle of Occam's razor ( ie..that all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one,) the only logical deduction I can make is that these "stick people" were from another dimension or parallel universe and for a few minutes.. they overlapped with ours.  They could not have been time travelers from our own planet as they weren't like us. I would also assume they weren't aliens from another world for the simple reason that if a technologically advanced civilization traveled light years to get here, the odds that they'd be playing hide and seek rather than exploring or observing or anal probing or conquering us are slim.

While they had some human traits.. eyes.. legs.. arms.. fingers... they clearly were not humanoid. They didn't suffer from the same gravitational or spatial laws that we humans do. They moved faster than anything I'd ever seen except for perhaps a humming bird's wings.  With a spindly little, stick-like body with seemingly no musculature, their speed would seem impossible. My theory?.. Some sort of on-demand mental teleportation. They think where they wanted to go then a second or two later.. they were there.

That being said,  they breathed our air..They see like we see. They laughed and smiled like humans, except their laughter had a musical quality to it.. The sound was beautiful. During my short time among them I didn't hear any of them utter a single word... When the first being saw me and then turned to his (or her) friends,  it must have communicated telepathically what he or she had just seen (ie.. me) and EXACTLY where I was located in the auditorium as they all turned and looked directly at me simultaneously. This shows mental abilities far beyond our species.