Case #9991012
Statement of Jason Stone, regarding a strange flight he took. Original statement given October 12th, 1999.
I’m not a fan of flying. A lot of people aren’t, they don’t like the whole process, they don’t like the people, some people are afraid of planes--for me, it’s a little bit of all of those things. I hate how long it takes, and I’m not the most sociable person on the planet, and being that high up in the air… it just rubs me the wrong way. Being trapped inside a plane with all those people, and being the kind of person that watches YouTube videos or TV shows about plane crashes, among other disasters…
… Yeah, I’m basically setting myself up for an anxiety attack every time I need to fly somewhere.
I still… do it. Or. I used to. Since the last flight I took, I’m not really… I don’t know if it’ll happen again, but I’d much rather avoid it if possible.
But. Yeah. I hate flying, but I still do it when I need to, which is why I’m here, talking to you guys in the first place.
The entire flight felt off from the beginning. From security to the gate, I was on edge--more than usual. I mean, I’ve always been a kind of anxious dude, but this was like--this was worse than its ever been. I felt like I was being looked at, my skin was crawling, it was an all-around terrible time. I basically sat by the gate with my carry-on clutched to my chest and my headphones on while I waited, watching to see what was watching me.
… I never saw anything looking at me.
I don’t remember the faces of any of the people in the airport. Which wouldn’t be… that odd, since there are so many people in airports and you meet so many people in your day to day life, but--but I don’t remember being able to properly focus on anyone at the time, either. I want to just attribute it to my own anxiety distracting me too much, but… I was watching the people around me like an overly-paranoid hawk.
I boarded the plane without issue. I sat down by the window and waited for take-off. They went through all the safety videos and instructions and stuff, and then--
It was only after take-off that I realized that feeling was still there. That skin-crawling feeling, that itch on the inside of my skin, the sense that something was wrong. It--I wrote it off as anxiety, told myself it was nothing, but it just felt different. I almost felt nauseous, but… not, at the same time. It was nausea but it felt good, almost. It was then that I noticed.
Every single person on the plane was breathing in unison.
The nausea got worse--or, or better, maybe? I’m not sure how to describe it. I felt sick but it didn’t feel wrong. Every single thing on that plane was breathing in unison, too slow, too steady, too… inhuman. It felt like something mocking the process of breathing. There was a full… almost forty-five seconds between each inhale and exhale, and each one lasted so much longer than any regular inhale or exhale would.
I realized my… my own breathing was slowing to match it. The nausea lessened as I did. But--breathing in time with whatever was on that plane hurt. I wasn’t getting enough air, and my chest began to ache pretty quickly. I’ve never been good at holding my breath.
It didn’t even strike me as scary until I realized the edges of my vision were going dark. I tried to take a deep breath, tried to bring myself back to normal, but I… couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
That’s when I started panicking, which--well, I was already kind of panicking before, but now it was the visible panic, the loud panic, not the quiet well-hidden panic of someone with anxiety, but the panic of someone who was pretty sure they were about to die.
Everything on that plane turned to look at me, and I think I honestly stopped breathing entirely.
And then they exhaled, and I inhaled, and felt like I was going to vomit. I started to hyperventilate, and everyone on that plane stopped looking at me, and everything was still breathing in time with each other and I couldn’t escape, because we were thousands of miles up in the air.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of that flight. I’m just glad I did--I don’t want to know what would’ve happened had I passed out.
I got off the plane, picked up my luggage, and all but ran to meet my sister, who was picking me up. I haven’t taken a plane ride since. I swear to God, sometimes, when I’m out--sometimes I’ll still struggle to breathe, and when I do, everything around me--
It all just looks at me.
FOLLOW-UP NOTES
Unfortunately, as seems to be the case with most statements we upload, Mr. Stone was unavailable for a follow-up interview, and couldn’t be reached by any of the Archival staff.
I’m not sure what’s more concerning here--the events he goes over in the main part of the statement, or the fact that the effects seemed to last even after he’d gotten past the worst of it.
Either way, I don’t really... have hope for Mr. Stone’s survival after he gave his statement, since his sister Danielle claimed he disappeared in late March of 2003 and hasn’t been seen since, so. Another dead end.
No airline or specific flight was mentioned in the statement, which would’ve been at least a little useful, but it’s another dead end. I don’t think there’s much else we can do.