James’ jaw dropped, but nothing came out. “Uh…,” followed with a grunt and a quivering gulp.

After the spellbound pause, he finally snapped out of it and leaped off the couch. He quickly ran over to the door to see where the man went. Their two dogs were huddled up against the door, sound asleep. He had to heave the door open to get them out of the way. Once on the front porch, he found there was no one to be seen. The night was pitch black; it was pointless to set foot out of the house.

After James came back inside, my sister started wailing in hysterics, shivering in panic, on the verge going into shock. James tried to calm her down, though he wasn’t in much better condition. Needless to say, neither was expecting to receive a backstage pass to the universe in their living room that evening.

After some time, they finally began to recount the incident. For one thing, the soldier’s uniform was perfectly dry, and his shoes were brightly polished, not having a speck of mud on them. Mississippi mud has a reputation–there’s even a BEER named after it! (Serious, it comes in a jug). It’s practically impossible to walk in, much less completely avoid during a storm. Then there was the fact that he walked through a door that was blocked by two sleeping dogs. Who in the world was that? Perhaps a better question might be what was that?

The fact that my sister recounts crying in hysterics is noteworthy to me; she happens to be one of the most fearless people I know, even to her own detriment at times.

Sharon and James talked about this episode for days. The strangest part about the whole ordeal is the way the man behaved. He acted as if he was fully aware that some sort of cosmic mistake had been made, and he actually seemed a bit embarrassed about it. Ghostly encounters typically include a being caught up in its own time frame, not aware enough to take stock of its out-of-place surroundings. Such ghost stories are a dime a dozen. Ghosts are always doing something, such as a mother searching for her child, or perhaps the reenactment of a brutal tragedy. They are usually absorbed with whatever they were consumed with in life, and oblivious about their ghostly circumstances. This was completely different. This scenario seemed more like, “Oopse, we overshot our mark; wrong time. Sorry people–excuse me! Everything’s cool. You never saw me.”

In my opinion, this event has all the elements of a literal angelic encounter, except for the fact that a mistake appeared to have been made. For example, the Bible says in Hebrews 13:2 that angels sometimes come to Earth in disguise.

Hebrews 13:2

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Perhaps in this case, it was the angel that was caught unawares, when he realized he blew his cover! Who knows, maybe he came to change the tide of the entire Civil War, but much to his dismay, he accidentally set his coordinates about 120 years too late! “Clyde, I can’t believe what you just did!” the other angel reprimanded him upon returning to his angelic vehicle hovering outside.

Perhaps after he left my sister’s house, he fixed his coordinates and changed history as we know it?

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