A Night At Lake Overholser

Anyone familiar with Lake Overholser, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma will be able to recount two familiar beliefs. First, it is a "party spot," replete with lots of boating and drinking, and second, it is immersed in alleged hauntings.

Approximately 20 years ago, some friends and I were out late on a weekend night. Of the six of us, four were drinking and two, including "Gary" (designated driver) and I (I'm not a drinker), were sober. Of the four drinking, we later found out, after his untimely death, one (I'll call "Bob") was a manic-depressive, possibly bi-polar.

Bob, whenever drinking, had a habit of drinking too much, and would go into certain rants regarding his displeasure with life and his desire to "end it all." On this particular night, approximately 10 - 11PM at the Southeast corner of the lake, "Bob" was all ready pretty-much drunk, and starting his diatribes when he leaped out of the van and made a beeline for the dam, which spans the lake. The other tipsy friends made a game of it at this point and went chasing after him, leaving behind the two sober people in the party, "Gary" and me. Please understand, it was a bitterly frigid night outside, and all the windows in the van were rolled-up, with the engine running and the heat blasting. I am a smoker, but my friend "Gary," has severe asthma, so for respect for him I was not smoking in the van. Gary was in the front passenger seat turned facing backward toward me, and I was in the middle half-bench seat, on the "aisle" facing him. We were joking about how "Bob" always made a fool of himself when he got drunk, as by this time, you could hear him yelling loudly, from the dam, for "all the dead soldiers (he wanted to be in the Army) to come and take him away." After ten or so minutes of listening to him carry on, "Gary" and I remarked to each other, coincidentally at the exact same time, "wouldn't it be screwed up if he actually called up a ghost?" At that exact moment, from the REAR to the FRONT of the van (against the rush of the heated air), a perfect cylinder, approximately one to one-and-one-half feet in diameter, rushed between "Gary" and me. The cylinder was perfectly formed (hard edges) and lasted about (what seemed) five to ten seconds (or a slow-motion lifetime). It was colder than anything I'd felt before or since. Given the look on "Gary's" face, and what I believe to be the look on mine, it hit us both simultaneously, him on his chest, shoulder, and right arm, and me on my upper back, shoulder, and right arm. Granted, I am not a physics expert, so this cylinder of air could have been some sort of vortex caused by the closed environment, etc., but I would swear I have never felt nor experienced anything like this ever in my life.
We freaked out, and screamed for the other to get back to the van immediately, and we left, still visibly shaken.

That next year, "Gary" moved to West Virginia.
Approximately five years ago, "Bob" was found dead in his apartment.

Over all those years I came to doubt my experience at Lake Overholser, until "Gary," still in West Virginia, hunted down my phone number, and we talked and reminisced about our recently departed friend "Bob." Oddly enough, after two or so hours of talking, we, again coincidentally, mentioned at the same time, "remember that night at Lake Overholser?...," and then got quiet. We were relieved to know that our memories weren't made up, and in fact were as clear as what we experienced that cold fall night some twenty years ago.

Thank You for reading.