By: Webmaster
This experience was one of the first I had, which made me seriously
rethink my world view. The thing that sticks in my mind is how real it seemed...there
was nothing eerie or surreal about it.
I was at a meeting of the Miles City Historic Preservation Commission. The meetings are held
in the back room, at a conference table. I was sitting on the east side of the table, and from
my position I could see the doorway of the bathroom, which was built in an old elevator shaft.
The wall between the conference area and the rest of the office is an openwork metal lattice, to allow
a clear view of the entire office.
As I sat in the meeting, my attention was caught by a sudden flash of black out of the corner
of my right eye. I looked over to see a man come walking out of the bathroom. He was quite tall and
skinny, wearing a black suit. He was balding on top, but had his white hair fairly long on the
sides. He looked completely solid. As I watched, he crossed the room, and vanished behind a filing cabinet.
The entire sighting lasted about three seconds.
I was really shocked, since the meeting was taking place after business hours and the door had a bell above
it, so we would have heard anyone come in. I looked at the other people at the meeting, and
the historic preservation officer was watching me watching it, although she didn't
see the man herself. When I asked who the
man was coming from the bathroom, she searched the office but no one was there. Later she told me the
bathroom had been built in the old elevator shaft that was the means of taking bodies to the
basement for embalming, during the days of Plimpton's funeral parlor. As well, the place behind
the filing cabinet where he disappeared used to be a doorway that connected the groundfloor
businesses in this building.
I've since seen a picture of H.C. Plimpton, and he's not the man I saw, but I wonder if this
was a residual haunting, of an assistant coming up from the embalming suite.
As a note, the historic preservation officer has never had any experiences in the office.