Anything ‘odd’, ‘weird’ or downright ‘menacing’ that has ever happened to me, happened at 3am. Of course there are exceptions. But the majority of the time bad things happen to me at three in the morning, and I know I am not alone.

The Witching Hour, as it is often called, is that time of night when the ghouls, ghosts, gremlins, aliens, demons and shadow folks come out to poke around in our world.

Typically the Witching Hour is any hour after Midnight, but almost every report I’ve read, regarding Hauntings or Abductions has happened at 3 am, and NOT midnight. Maybe it’s a time differential, seeing as the folklore from whence it stems is European in origin.

If you type “Abductions at 3am” into google, you’ll get hundreds of pages on alien abductions alone, not to mention the odd abduction here and there, of cats, dogs and most recently, Kangaroos. Yes…Kangaroos.

What is it about 3am that makes this world so inviting to the uninvited?

My Grandmother once told me, after a particular night hag experience, that 3am was the hour in which the doorways between worlds opened. She found it uncanny that this only occurred on the side of the earth that was blanketed in darkness. I’ve had occasions when rolling over after a particularly bad dream, and looking at the alarm clock---only to realize it was 3am, sent chills up my spine.

Forget about Full moons…never mind Witches dancing nekked at Solstices…if you really want to see something scary, stay up passed 3am, preferably with the lights off, and preferably without company.

There is one experience I will relate, that seems to sum up the probability of 3am being a magnet for monsters.

A cousin of mine, in her early 30’s, and not at all prone to delusions, awoke one night to find her alarm clock blinking on ‘3:00’. The light was an almost blinding blue which was unusual since the clock was usually dimly lit in red. She reached her arm out to turn it around when something cold touched her hand.

She was instantly paralyzed with fear; her hand still hovering by the alarm clock. She didn’t dare move for fear that someone was in her house to kill her, or worse. She turned her eyes slightly to see where the cold touch came from. Hovering over her was a dark form, so black it blocked out the streetlights coming in from the window directly behind it.

She said it was silent but it had an ominous presence that was pressing down on her. She contemplated jumping from the bed and hitting the switch on the bedside lamp, but her legs were paralyzed and she found it hard to move.

She willed herself to move when her cat leaped on her back and hissed at the dark thing. Just then, the alarm clock stopped flashing, the dark thing was gone, and so was the paralysis and when my cousin looked at the clock, the time was ‘3:01’.

I’ve been told to never look into a mirror at 3am, and to this day, even if it’s a quick bathroom trip, I wash my hands while consciously avoiding my reflection in the mirror above the sink. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think, what if I look and my reflection is not my own, or what if it’s laughing at me. I am not going to find out.

I have the feeling that one day, someone brilliant is going to find something articulate to say about this topic, and when they do, I hope they give respect to the fact that the Witching Hour is far older than the Cocktail hour, and thus, shouldn’t be taken lightly.