Mata’s Eyes

(Feature Story: Human Interest)

(This was one of the articles I wrote for my writing class, [under human interes stories] back in college at Brigham Young University-Hawaii)

A line in his patriarchal blessing it says that he will be blessed with extra ability to hear and see things that other people can’t. Indeed, he sees, feels, hears and even smells roaming spirits and wandering ghosts!

ICS Communication student, Filipino Nephi Mata, 26 from New York said that he started experiencing unusual and quite scary things when he was eight years old. His first encounter with such creepiness was a night when he was peeing outside an old bungalow house.

“As I was peeing, I felt there’s one set of eyes looking at me by my right side,” he related. “Then all of a sudden, when I looked, a sharp, flaming eyes zoomed right in front of me.”

Frightened as a little boy, he immediately zipped up and ran. “And my pees’ all over the place,” he added with a big laugh.
Those sharp, red pair of eyes appeared and shocked him at two separate times. From then on, extraordinary things happened to him, countless times.

Staying in Hawaii for almost three years now, in and off BYU-Hawaii campus, Mata likewise had infinite encounters and experiences with the tagged, “the unseen.”

It was Fall 2002 when he first arrived at BYUH. His first home here was in Hale 6, room 207E. It was around 3 a.m., staying up late finishing his school works, as he related. Exhausted, he fell asleep. As he recalled, few minutes later while trying to catch his sleep, he felt something odd. “I felt like there’s someone behind me, by my bed, standing and watching over me, staring at me,” he said. “I was so scared to turn around and look to check it out.” Then he finally turned around and looked.

“I saw a big, hairy Polynesian man, with brown skin, with no face,” he recalled. “[He’s] dressed up with traditional Polynesian costume.” In his shock, according to him, he instantly turned the other way, faced the wall on his sides and started praying. He tried very hard to go to sleep. Because he’s trembling with fear, he can’t. He then tried to ignore the figure he saw and continued on his prayers.

In his exhaustion, he fell asleep again. Recalling that after about 15-20 minutes he woke up with the same feeling. “There’s a figure and I knew it was the same person, but it’s not on my side anymore,” he stated. “It’s at the end of my bed, close to the window.” Mata confirming to himself if he was just dreaming or not, looked around and turned to his alarm clock; it was blinking and flashing the exact time. As he remembered, it was around 3:30 a.m. He looked outside, saw, and heard the leaves rustling with the blowing of the wind. The figure, as he described standing by the window was blocking the post light that shines through and inside Mata’s side of the room.

“I’m not just dreaming,” he confirmed. “I’m awake.”

On the second time the faceless figure appeared to him, he again did the routine of praying in his fear and curving his body trembling. He again, tried so hard to fall asleep. Once more, few minutes later, he woke up. “I woke up smelling something nasty,” said Mata. He noted, it was not the little trashcan he had in the room, as he first thought. He described it to be like the smell of the earth. Lying on his back and opening his eyes, looking straight to the ceiling, he again saw, for the third time, the uninvited guest, this time standing behind his headboard, looking down at him.

But the last and worst thing he could ever thought of, happened. Not only did this faceless figure appear to him, frightening him to death, but as Mata related, there was physical contact and actual struggle. Clearly recalling it he said, “I felt his right arm reaching over my bed, grabbing my shoulder and my neck.” Mata at that moment was reassured that the man’s figure was hairy by nature. “I felt his hair as he grabs my neck.”

“And his left arm was going towards my other shoulder thrusting my shoulder down and my head at the same time while his right arm is pulling me up against the head board chocking me,” he related. “I was chocking and I was screaming and screaming.”

The faceless Polynesian man, as Mata storied was actually banging Mata’s head as he bangs the walls struggling. The manly figure was just quiet and looked relaxed.

Again, Mata confirmed, “I heard myself, I was awake. I was sure.”
He wondered how his Korean roommate didn’t get to hear or feel anything at the time he was screaming and struggling. He was tightly and peacefully asleep. Good for him.

Then as he was struggling, as he said, eventually he decided to quite relax. “And he kept on gripping my neck, but I still fought back but in a very calm way.” Mata recounted. He did a more of a spiritual fight than a physical struggle. “Then all of a sudden, he’s gone.”
Grabbing his pillow and sheets, he rushed to his friend’s room, two doors down, knocked frantically. Leaving his surprised friend, who responded on his call, Mata went straight to the floor and laid there. He was up the whole night — shaking.

This was just one of the freakiest nights of his life knowing how many times he had experience such. But shock, trembling and fear, of course did not leave him every time he’s faced with these scary experiences. These came in a series in Mata’s life. He noted that every place he moved to, there will always be these types of hair-raising, true-to-life experiences.

“I’m so used to it,” he said.

Whether people believe in ghosts or not, Mata is certain on the things he saw, felt, heard and even for the strange things he smelled. Those and more haunting experiences with different kinds of spirits, be it good or bad, to him communicate something. When he hears voices and sounds, whether he understands the language or not, he feels that the wandering spirits are trying to reach him, trying to tell him something. Whatever the message they have is unknown, even to Mata.

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