Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

Frank Grandison. - Paul Williams photo

Frank 'Tony' Grandison is a man of science. He believes in the physical, not the unseen. Thus, to him there was no God, even though he was brought up in the Presbyterian Church. He led a normal life, and spent some years residing in England, from where he made many journeys to Jamaica and back.

At the beginning of one of the journeys back, something very strange and 'mysterious' happened to this native of Pleasant Valley, Clarendon. That something, it turned out, was the beginning of a series of inexplicable contacts with the metaphysical. You might find what he said he saw and heard disturbing, if not scary.

Frank: "On reaching the door (of a British Airways 747 aircraft), I saw a stewardess who asked me for my boarding pass. She directed me to my seat, which was a seat in the aisle in economy class. On reaching this seat, I felt a feeling not to sit on this seat. Then my body felt cold and numb and began to tremble."

That was Thursday, December 30, 1982, about 2:30 p.m., at the Norman Manley International Airport, when for some unexplained reasons he reluctantly boarded the flight.

Overwhelmed

He was now overwhelmed by the numbness and felt as if he had two bodies - a trembling physical one, and another made of light, both standing on the floor of the aircraft. Then, the body made of light levitated one foot off the floor and stood inside his physical body.

Frank: "Then I heard a loud voice, which sounded like a man's voice, who spoke English without an accent. This voice came from the roof of the aircraft, to my right about six feet from where I stood. Then, these words I heard: 'I am the Lord your God who created you and gave you life.Say after me, please, Lord, do not allow me to sit on this seat'." He looked up at the roof of the aeroplane and saw a frosty white circle about one foot in diameter. Within the circle, he saw an image of a man dressed in white robes.

But Frank did not believe in God, so he refused to repeat what he heard. A feeling of doom and death gripped him, and so he repeated the words. Suddenly, the shadow of a man appeared behind his seat, and kicked the back of the seat with his right leg. The seat back flew into the air, and the base fell forward to the floor, as the bolts that affixed it to the floor of the aircraft were all broken.

A steward who was standing beside him fetched an engineer who, having seen the damage, went to get the captain. When the captain saw the uprooted seat, he stood up and said to Frank, "Sir, there is no way these bolts can break; they are not made to be broken!" Frank was then reassigned to a different section, and given a drink of bitter lemon, at his request, which was all he had for the entire journey to London.

Loud voice above his bed

That trip ended, but his run-ins with the bizarre continued on Tuesday, January 4, 1983. He was asleep in his Chelsea, London, home when he heard a loud voice above his bed. It sounded like the voice he heard in the aircraft, saying, "I am the Lord your God who created you and gave you life. Satan is in this room. Ask him to leave."

He jumped up and sat on the bed with both feet on the floor. His body felt cold and numb, and he began to tremble. Next, he saw a streak of light coming into his third-floor bedroom from between the window frame and the wall. It looked like a flat oblong object, moving slowly along the wall. This light had now spread from roof to floor and lit up his bed, while the rest of the room was in darkness.

"Is the brightest I had ever seen, about 10,000 times brighter than the light of the sun. Yet, I could look at it without it having any effect on my eyes and I felt no heat from this light, only coolness," he claimed.

He thought to himself, "My God, I am dead." A voice said, "Pinch yourself. If you can feel it, you are not dead." He pinched his left hand. The voice asked, "Did you feel this pinch?" Frank said, "Yes! My God, I am mad."

The voice said, "Look outside to see if anything is different from the way you left them before you went to bed." He did, and everything was intact.

He returned to the bedroom, and said, "Satan, please leave this room." A large black bat appeared from the darkness, slowly moved to the closed door and went through it.

Then the voice asked, "Would you like to return to normal?" Frank said yes. The voiced ordered, "Turn on the bedroom light." Frank did, and the very bright light disappeared. And so did the coldness, numbness and trembling. It was 4:30 a.m.

The following morning, about 10 o'clock, he went to practise golf. He suddenly felt as if a man with great powers were looking at him from over a dividing wooden fence.

Light flashing

He dropped the golf club, ran for about 20 yards, and jumped over the fence, which was about three feet high. He saw a tree about 20 feet tall with leaves only at the top. A light was flashing among the leaves. It slowly descended the trunk.

As this light descended, Frank felt an overwhelming aura emanating from it, "as if it could destroy this world and beyond". But, he was not afraid. It took the light about one minute to stretch from among the leaves on to the ground. "Then," he said, "I saw a man appear within this light at the bottom, about six inches off the ground. He was dressed in a white robe and he was black. Then these words he spoke, 'I am Jesus Christ'."

He walked to within two feet of the light, knelt and prayed. He asked, "Are you this Jesus Christ whom I heard my mother speaking about?" The man said yes. Frank got up and walked away. He stopped about five feet from the tree and turned around to see whether the light and the man were gone. They weren't. Frank beseeched him by saying, "If you are this Jesus Christ, come from within this light and let me see you."

He replied, "If you see me, you shall surely go blind." Frank said, "I do not mind going blind once I see you." He was blinded instantly in one eye. For three days he could not see from this eye, but did not seek medical attention.

When his vision returned, he went back to look at the tree. As he slowly walked along the woods, thinking very hard about the strange occurrences, he happened upon an open space between two trees. He stopped at one of the trees and said, "If you are a God who is speaking with me, who broke the bolts in the aircraft, and whom I saw within the light by this tree which I just came from, give me a sign."

Then he heard a flapping sound like that made by the wings of a bird, coming from within the tree in front of him, and up into the air. He fell to the ground crying, believing he was mad, because to him, there was no God.

He drove to a hospital in Balham, south-west London, and asked to see a doctor. "I asked him if he had time to listen; he said yes ... I began telling him about my experiences. When I was finished, I asked him if I was mad. He said no, but I should go home and read my Bible."

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com