Welcome to our last Halloween edition of Dear Steve.

So let's see. Let's have a scurry around in the mailbag and see what we can find for you today.

Dear Steve, my story is about a weekend I spent at a friend's cottage on her farm.

It's near bigger in Scotland and well off the

main road. Behind the cottage is just fields down to the river. My husband was with me but went away

overnight to visit his elderly mother. I was with two of our Irish wolfhounds, Abbey and Bentley.

The cottage had an entrance hall,

to the right was the bathroom, ahead the kitchen, and from the kitchen a door to the left took you to a bedroom and the lounge. There was a window at each end of this long room,

two single beds to the left, and a couple of armchairs to the right.

My friend's 14-year-old daughter, Catherine, asked to stay with me that night, and we settled

down to read, in bed, with a wolfhound up beside us on each bed. Around midnight, I said to

Catherine that it was time to sleep, as we'd need to be up early.

I turned the lamp off and close my eyes.

Within minutes, I could see what I first thought was lightning flashing in the kitchen,

but not in the bedroom.

I watched for a minute and realised this was not lightning. Both dogs were standing on our beds,

heads tilting side to side listening to a strange wall-wall noise that matched the flashing light.

Our bedroom glowed with the strange green light. I thought maybe it was poachers, but then suddenly a bar of

brilliant white light came in through the window and started to scan the room. It went up the wall

over the ceiling, down behind us. As it came over us, I put my hand into it, and it disappeared

in the brightness.

I kept thinking to myself, what the hell is this?

...