The Specter of the Watchers

When Mark first moved out of his parents house in Washington County he still did not want to go far. So when he found the old apartment house in Union Township he was relieved, it was both close to work and to his family.

It was a small one bedroom flat in a house that was almost two centuries old. Even the doorways seemed small to the large framed wrestler. But it would do for the year that he worked hard to save for college. The rent was cheap and the location ideal.

But between work and traveling home he spent little time in the little flat. It was even a rarity that he would even sleep there, for he either crashed at a friends house after a party or slept in his old comfortable bed at home after spending the evening with his family.

But one night something happened that would make Mark never want to spend another night alone in that apartment again.

During a long winter night he was awoken around 2Am by some unnatural feeling.

It felt like he was being watched.

He had never felt that in this house before, and there had never been any supernatural happenings.

But that night as he woke from his slumber his eyes began to focus at the foot of his bed.

That was when he saw the black figure.

It was tall and ominous, this shadow from the depths of they abyss that hung there at the foot of his bed. Even though it was the middle of a moonless night the dark figure was clearly visible as it moved closer to the end of the bed.

And then there were the eyes. Bright glowing red spheres of fire. Mark had heard stories of creatures with glowing red eyes before and he always thought them as totally ridiculous. A trick of the light shining on the iris of some unknown animal he had always though. But there was no other light in his room that night to reflect off the eyes of the being looming over him menacingly. No the iridescence came from within as if the eyes spewed forth the fire from hell itself.

It stopped right at the footboard and with a unearthly rasping voice the creature rattled off one word.

“Enoch”

After the demonic voice issued forth from unseen lips the thing simply vanished as if it were but a cloud if dissipating smoke.

Mark did not know whether he should run or hide. He just lay there staring at the doorway to his bedroom where the ethereal being once stood.

He was alone. And he was perplexed. He had no idea what Enoch was.

Later that week he visited some friends in Erie who were students at a Catholic College there. He went to one of the priest on campus and told him of this frightening tale. And he asked about Enoch.

The priest told him that Enoch was a Biblical character from the book of Genesis but also it was the name of a heretical ancient book of forbidden knowledge that was considered as Scripture by some of the ancients but proved too heretical to be included into the Bible by Church Council.

That was the only thing Mark knew of the book of Enoch when he told me this story a few weeks ago. I filled him in on the rest, and to any of you who know of the book of Enoch it is quite interesting that a ‘dark shadow being’ would grumble the name before it disappeared into the inky darkness.

The book of Enoch is what Biblical scholars call a part of the Psuedepigrapha. Books written in the New Testament era that claim to be written by important people from what we call the Old Testament. Most of them date from the first two centuries of the Christian Era.

The book of Enoch is a complied work, the first part called The Book of the Watchers which is dated to about 300BC and the later part of the book the Book of Parables was written some 400 to 500 years later.

The Book of Watchers is an expansion the Old Testament Text of Genesis 6:1-5

“Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive[a] with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Many people in the paranormal arena know this passage well. The word translated “giants” here is the Hebrew word Nephilim which has a root that could translate it not only as ‘giants’ but as ‘Fallen ones’.

Many modern Ufologists and followers of the “Chariots of the God’s” theory consider the Nephalim as an ancient hybrid race and quote this text as Biblical evidence of ancient alien visitation to earth and intermingling of races which produced a hybrid race. Some believe the race is still here and account for many UFO sightings.

But traditionally Biblical Scholars and Early Christian Theologians saw the Nephilim quite differently. They took the term “fallen one’s” quite literally. These were offspring of the sons of God (Angels) and human females. They were an unholy abomination that was the result of lustful actions of fallen angels. They died in the great flood and their spirits still haunt the earth. To the Early Church Fathers these damned souls of abomination were the beings behind many encounters with ghosts or spirits. This belief is still popular in many Christian churches today but it ceased to be a mainstream belief of the church at the dawning of the last century.

The Book of Watchers chronicles in detail the fallen angels lust and the results of their actions. While followers of the ‘Ancient Astronaut’ theory claim this book describes details an ancient encounter with an alien race that helped man advance culturally and scientifically, demonologist view this as an insight into the nature of certain entities. Some malevolent entities are not as powerful as others, and seem to follow some sort of hierarchy. Traditionally many of these lesser entities were considered to be Nephalim. Not as powerful as Demonic beings, but still a dark spirit of evil that could infest a location or possess an individual. Indeed many clergymen of the past saw these as the primary source of possession, for these evil disembodied beings desire intently to once again have a body of their won.

Mark knew none of this.

But once he found out the real connection to the entity that said the word and the topic of the book he was once again shaken.

And he told me of another story that happened to his friends in Erie. A demonic infestation of an off campus housing that required a call to the Vatican and an Exorcists intervention.

This story also had a dark shadowy figure with red glowing eyes. You can read that story on my blog  HERE

What haunted Mark that cold dark night? And why did it give him the name Enoch?

Was it a Nephilim mourning that it no longer had a physical body?

Or a warning of the future?