{"id":14248,"date":"2026-04-19T10:17:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14248"},"modified":"2026-04-19T10:55:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T16:55:29","slug":"when-a-blanket-is-as-weird-as-bigfoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14248","title":{"rendered":"When a Blanket Is as Weird as Bigfoot"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"
A traditional Hudson’s Bay blanket in “Queen Anne” colors.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Encounters with the paranormal \u2014 the Other, as some say \u2014 can change people, Some have a “UFO” encounter and are never the same, often psychologically damaged. Some encounter Bigfoot or other cryptids and are sort of afraid of the dark ever after. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, one Bigfoot experiencer whom I interviewed had created a sort of shrine to his encounter in his home: photos, drawings, newspaper clippings, etc. It struck me as a kind of “material religion” thing.

This experience of mine is much less awesome. It involves bedding \u2014 wool blankets. Just fabric, no critters. But it was still weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got this Hudson’s Bay “point blanket” from my mother in the 1990s. The “points,” the thin black lines, identified the blanket’s size when folded on a shelf in the trading post or the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s later department stores<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It not only spoke of tradition, but it was damn fine blanket that went on the bed every October — until October 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year I went to the bathroom cupboard where sheets and blankets are stored. There sat a zippered plastic blanket-storage bag. I could see the off-white wool of the folded blanket within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pulled it down, unzipped it, and took out a off-white heavy wool blanket. It was not my Hudson’s Bay blanket though, but another one \u2014 creamy-white with two thin blue stripes up the middle. I had never seen it before, that I could recollect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hudson’s Bay blanket was gone. I have never found it. The replacement blanket is on the bed now, although the time to take it off is rapidly approaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The “other” blanket. Where did it come from?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the second winter with the “replacement” blanket, which is a fine blanket, but not the right one. The house wights, or whoever, have not chosen to switch them back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do I blame the house wights? They go mainly for shiny objects, although there was that one episode involving a book<\/a>. This feels different. It feels like life was a train running down one track, and someone switched it onto another parallel track. I look around, and it all seems the same: Same wife, same house, same dog, same Jeep, and so on and on.

(Maybe in the Hudson’s Bay blanket timeline, the house burned in a forest fire or some other bad thing happened. But how would I know?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a little bit like the UFO experiencers, I am shaken at some level. It’s like something told me, “You’re not really in control as much as you think you are.” And what do you do with that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Encounters with the paranormal \u2014 the Other, as some say \u2014 can change people, Some have a “UFO” encounter and are never the same, often psychologically damaged. Some encounter Bigfoot or other cryptids and are sort of afraid of the dark ever after. On the other hand, one Bigfoot experiencer whom I interviewed had created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[477,227,22],"class_list":["post-14248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bigfoot","tag-paranormal","tag-weirdness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3HO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13108,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13108","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":0},"title":"Power Couples of the Paranormal","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I know that I have sampled only a few of the many, many paranormal, occult, Pagan, and esoteric podcasts and video channels out there. (Feel free to add your faves in the comments.) But when\u00a0 you look at podcasts done by people who are partners in real life, I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Appalachia\"","block_context":{"text":"Appalachia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=appalachia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/DANA-GOD-HELMET-HELLIER-KENTUCKY.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/DANA-GOD-HELMET-HELLIER-KENTUCKY.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/DANA-GOD-HELMET-HELLIER-KENTUCKY.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4392,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4392","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":1},"title":"Europe’s Oldest Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"At Forging the Sampo, a link to a short documentary video on the revived Pagan religion of the Mari people of the former Soviet Union. (Wikipedia entry on Mari-El.) Massive sacrificial feasts, accordions, sacred oaks and groves, priests in tall woolen hats, even a sort of Bigfoot reference \u2014 what's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Europe\"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=europe"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2190,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2190","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":2},"title":"Can You Prove that Witches Exist in Canada?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to prove that witches exist\u2014along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny. OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between \"anthropological witchcraft\" and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft. But still. Of course, if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13659,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13659","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":3},"title":"‘Lodge Tales’ Is a Native American Paranormal Podcast","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"My overall favorite paranormal podcast is Timothy Renner's Strange Familiars, which now has logged 465 episodes. Its style is low-key. Usually people discuss their experiences with \"the Other\" in conversation with the host. Sometimes he and a friend or two take a late-night walk on the Appalachian Trail or another\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"cryptids\"","block_context":{"text":"cryptids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=cryptids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/lodge-tales.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/lodge-tales.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/lodge-tales.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/lodge-tales.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6341,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6341","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":4},"title":"More Confirmation about Bigfoot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I read this article in the Colorado Springs Independent and a paragraph jumped out at me: She learned about her [Nepalese] people\u2019s animistic prayer traditions, and had shamans explain to her that yeti aren\u2019t the silly abominable snowmen of cartoon legend, but actually shape-shifters and guardians of the mountains. At\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1628,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1628","url_meta":{"origin":14248,"position":5},"title":"Fate Magazine Headed for the Other Side","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am preparing myself for life without Fate magazine. Since 1948, the\u00a0 digest-sized monthly\u2014later a bi-monthly\u2014has been a reliable (at least in the publishing sense) source for ghost stories, UFO reports, speculative archaeology, Fortean news, and other manifestations of the weird and unexpected. All viewpoints were welcomed, so articles often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14248"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14257,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14248\/revisions\/14257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}