This is the first part in our series that takes a look at strange and mysterious stories from sports.
Paranormal experiences like hauntings and alien abductions don’t only happen to outdoorsmen and recovering meth addicts. Paranormal experiences also happen to famous athletes in the world of sports.
Just ask Sam Darnold. He sees ghosts all the time right before taking a sack.
Here are three strange and mysterious sports stories from the paranormal.
Paranormal Sports Stories: Volume 1
OKC Thunder’s Boeing 757 hits a UFO mid-flight
In 2017, as the OKC Thunder were flying home on a Boeing 757-200 from Minneapolis, the plane hit a mysterious object.
The impact completely inverted the nose of the plane, leading many to speculate about what could have caused so much damage that high in the air.
Delta Airlines later released a statement claiming that they most likely hit a bird while on descent into Chicago.
But could a single bird really have caused that degree of damage to the reenforced nose of a 747?
Aaron Rodgers’ UFO experience
During a discussion with Pete Holmes on his podcast You Made it Weird, Aaron Rodgers told a story about the time he saw a UFO.
In his own words, this is what he experienced in 2005:
“It was a large orange, left-to-right-moving object. Because of the overcast nature of the night and the snow, you couldn’t make out…it was behind the clouds we were seeing, but it was definitively large, moving from left to right…It was me, Steve, and his brother that saw it. And it goes out of sight and we look at each other and go, ‘What in the f— was that?’
…Now, if you know anything about UFO sightings or you’ve done research, you know that a lot of times two things are connected to UFO sightings. One is the presence of fighter jets. And two, there’s a lot of sightings around nuclear power plants. So to tie it all together, the alarm we heard from 30 miles out was a nuclear power plant that had an alarm that went off.”
A Ghost saves Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s life
In 2004, Dale Earnhardt Jr. barely escaped death by quickly exiting his flame-engulfed car. But that’s not the whole story.
After the fire was put out, Dale Jr. demanded to thank the man who pulled him out of danger. His crew told him that there was no one there. He was so convinced that someone had pulled him out that the driver of the 88 car asked to see the video, which confirmed he was alone.
Dale Jr. believes that his father, who died years earlier in another racing accident, pulled him from the burning wreckage.
“I don’t have an explanation for it other than when I got into the infield care center, I had my PR man by the collar, screaming at him to find the guy that pulled me out of the car. He was like, ‘Nobody helped you get out.’ And I was like, ‘That’s strange, because I swear somebody had me underneath my arms and was carrying me out of the car. I mean, I swear to God.”
More sports, ghosts and the paranormal
NEXT! Check out Roddy Piper, Allen Iverson and more in Volume 2
Volume 2 – Volume 3 – Volume 4 – Volume 5
