I’m a 24 year old male now, but this story takes place when I was about 14 years old.
Growing up I lived in a neighborhood on the edge of a small desert town in Southern California.
Running along the west side of this town is a huge winding canyon with a small river running
through it, and as a kid, me and my friends spent a lot of time running and exploring
throughout it.
Directly across the street from the house I lived in at the time, is some type of electrical
station.
Just to the right of that was an old field.
This old field is at the top of the river bottom, and then levels of more old fields
after that, like huge curved steps leading down to the bottom.
By fields I mean that they were once used for agricultural purposes, but at this point
they were basically just huge overgrown dirt lots.
Well one night, a group of at least 6 of us decided to go camp overnight down in the dirt
lots and just told our parents that we were staying at a friend’s house.
We just planned on having a fire, playing some guitar and drinking a couple of beers.
Like I mentioned before, there are multiple levels here and the hills in between each
level are pretty steep, but there is a dirt road that runs along the side and goes all
the way down to the bottom.
The road starts right next to the entrance gate of the electrical station, which is only
a couple of hundred feet from the street and has a bright light illuminating the area around
it.
Let’s just call it the entrance light.
So we walked down a couple of levels and set up at the bottom of the second to last hill,
not too far from the dirt road.
We get a fire going, play some music, and start having a pretty cool time.
We were being pretty loud though, and had a pretty big fire going, so every once in
a while one of us would run up the steep hill behind us to take a look around and make sure
that the fire wasn’t getting too big.
At some point I walked off to take a leak, and on the way back I decided to make a quick
run up the hill to make sure the coast was clear.
I take a quick scan around and see something moving around up by the top of the road, which
I can only see because of the entrance light behind whatever it was.
I back up and move down the hill a bit so only my head is peeking over.
I try to signal down to the guys but no one is paying attention.
When I look back up, my eyes adjust more and I see what looks like the silhouette of a
man, not walking back and forth, but walking in circle….
A tight circle...
My first thought was, maybe they’re on the phone?
But then I see both arms swinging at their sides.
I don’t know exactly what time it was, but I remember that it was pretty late.
What the hell was this person doing out here in the middle of the night by themselves...
Walking in circles?
I can hear the guys behind me still laughing and talking.
I turn back and see my friend Paul heading up the hill to see what I was doing.
I signaled for him to keep low and pointed up at the person.
Not long after, all of our heads were lined up peeking over the top of the hill.
We were all giggling and whispering to each other trying to figure out what the hell this
person was doing.
The longer we watched though, and the more we paid attention, the creepier it got.
Something about the way they moved was just…. unnatural.
We start breaking back into whispered conversation when the person stops, turns, and faces our
direction.
The moon was out that night, but we were a few hundred yards away and in the dark so
I was sure that they couldn’t see or hear us, but it felt like they could, like they
were looking right at us.
I took a glance back and saw that the fire had died down some so I know it wasn’t that.
Then all of a sudden they start walking.
NOT down the dirt road next to them, but down the rough steep hill in front of them.
Out of the light, out of sight, directly towards us.
We all flipped out and went flailing down the hill.
We got to the bottom and started grabbing our stuff and kicking out the fire.
The only place to really go or hide, was further down in the river bottom, or to a large tree
a little further down the road surrounded by thick bushes.
I grabbed my guitar and started running towards the tree which was maybe a hundred yards away.
Not even half way there I look over and, about 30 feet away I see, a tent floating across
the field next to me…… because someone decided that they were going to bring the
whole damn tent with us to hide.
It was actually pretty hilarious.
You couldn't see their legs or anything, just this big ass tent still put together, bounding
across a damn field.
Anyways, all of us, including the impressively sturdy tent, made it to the tree.
Me thinking that the person would be coming straight down the hills and not down the road,
I went around and hid on the far side between some bushes.
A minute or two passes and we quiet down.
Then we start to hear very clear, heavy footsteps, getting closer, but from the road.
Me and my buddy Larry are right next to the road, only a couple of small bushes separating
us.
We sat there with our pocket knives out, just in case, and the steps continued getting closer.
I want to mention, that at this point, I wasn’t exactly shitting myself.
It was really creepy but it was more just this bizarre thing that was happening.
What happens next though, I still can’t explain, and this is what still freaks me
out about this night.
The footsteps were loud and they were getting really close.
They make their way towards the end of the bushes, right next to me of course, and they
stop.
They were maybe 5 feet away from us.
Me and Larry look at each other like in complete confusion.
We just sit there, holding our knives, listening and waiting.
After a few minutes of silence, I can’t stand it anymore.
As slowly and quietly as possible I stand up and peak out onto the road, FULLY expecting
to see someone standing there, but I don’t see anything.
I walk out of the bushes and out onto the road.
There was absolutely nothing there.
It was so quiet out there that whoever this was could not have gone in any direction or
really moved at all without us hearing it, but there I stood, and there was nothing.
They just vanished.
I called everyone out and we just stood there on the road, confused
Eventually we all left, because we definitely weren't going to stay there.
We all ended up crashing at my house that night.
One of the strangest and creepiest experiences i've ever had.
I live in Columbia, Missouri.
I'm 25 now, but this event took place when I was 17 and still in high school.
My family used to own roughly 60 acres south-ish of Columbia that backed right up to the Missouri
River.
When you stood at the highest point at the rear of the property, you could see the river
snaking through the bottoms.
It was a sight, one I miss.
In my high school years before we sold the property in 2011 when I had since left for
college, I would routinely drive to the property on weekends and camp in the back field in
the bed of my truck.
Our property was surrounded by native buriel mounds, however there weren't any directly
on our property.
What we did have was a small cemetary set back a bit in the trees towards the rear of
the property.
I was sitting in the bed of my truck one particular fall evening that I had chosen to head down
and camp.
I had brush hogged a large clearing in the field I was sitting in the weekend before.
I was enjoying my sweet tea and silence of the rural Missouri countryside when on the
opposite side of the clearing that was up against the woods, close to the small cemetary
we had, I noticed a figure.
The moon was not bright on this night, and I couldn't tell what exactly this thing was,
however I knew it wasn't any wild animal I had ever seen or that is native to central
Missouri.
It looked somewhat human, but definitely wasn't.
It moved slow and awkwardly and had weird angular looking limbs.
The only thing I could clearly see was its eyes when it stopped and looked at me.
My God, I had never seen anything like it to that point in my young life, or since.
They weren't glowing per-se, but I could see them clearly as if this thing wanted me to
fear it just by looking at its eyes.
We were locked in for about 3 seconds when it made an awful screaming type noise.
The closest I can relate it to is what I would imagine gravel in a garbage disposal would
sound like.
That's when I decided it was time to get out of dodge and go home to sleep.
It never advanced towards me or threatened me, but when it looked at me a feeling of
dread I've never matched again washed in.
The purest form of dread you can imagine.
Once I had clammered my way into the truck and started driving out, I saw it turn around
and skulk back into the woods towards the small cemetary previously mentioned.
I have no idea what I actually saw, but the only thing I can think of is a skin walker
considering the native buriel mounds and cemetary.
That explanation doesn't make much sense either since skinwalkers are generally entities seen
in the southwest USA, not central Missouri river bluffs.
If anyone has an idea what it may be other than that, I'd welcome input.
The Osage and Missouria tribes are the ones that inhabited this area of Missouri just
for general information.
Concluding my story, as I mentioned previously we sold the property in 2011 so I can't go
back to provide any more details that may be relevent.
I never camped on the property again and whenever I did go back to brush hog or help the neighbor
bale the hay, I always felt a bit of dread in that back field.
Been holding off on sharing this because I'm still kind of shaken from it.
My family has always been hunters and usually stick to the same places when it comes to
said hunts.
My great grandfather took my grandfather, grandfather took mom, mom took me.
It was always a good time going.
This last year during the deer and bear hunts we went to San Juan Elk Ridge in southern
utah just like every other year.
It's a really beautiful area next to a native American resurvation and another area called
Beef Basin.
Stupid name right?
So we sent up our canvas wall tent, we being Grandad mom and i, and get camp all cozy and
livable.
At around 3:30 pm my grandpa and I went for a hike to see what we could find.
With bears in the area both of us always had guns on us.
We had been here many times before and both of us know where we were at all times.
But this hike felt different, like that stereotypical "someone's watching me" feeling.
I could tell it wasn't just me cause my fearless 67 year old grandad was gripping his rifle
a little tighter than usual.
That's when I heard the whispers.
Not loud enough to understand what they were saying but loud enough to hear.
They seemed to be coming from just ahead of us in a small clearing of trees.
As we came into the clearing the whispers stopped, but we saw one of the biggest bucks
we have ever seen right by the oposite tree line.
So being the hunter I was, I raise my gun and aim for his heart.
Bam.
First shot misses.
The deer doesn't even flinch.
I can hear my grandpa whispering to shoot again.
Bam.
Second shot hits dead on.
Through my scope I can see I hit him and see blood pour from the wound.
But the deer doesn't drop.
Instead he turns and looks at us for a few seconds before calmly walking into the woods.
"What the fuck" I hear my grandpa say.
Good to know I'm not crazy and that he saw that Shit too.
We go over to where he was and there is no blood on the ground at all even after we saw
the deer bleeding.
At that point it was almost dark so we decided to go back to camp to talk about this imortal
ass deer.
About halfway back we hear the whispers again, but louder this time.
It's obviously a man but we still can't make anything out.
We get to camp okay and sit in the tent to tell my mom what had happened.
She was pretty scared and thought we should go home, which was a Shit idea considering
we were 8 hours South of where we lived.
So we decide to move camp the next day and settle in for bed.
I wake up in the middle of the night to heavy footsteps outside the tent.
You could tell whatever it was was on 2 legs and very big.
The full moon was out so when whatever it was gets to the front of the tent I see the
siloette of something at least 8 feet tall, thin as a tree branch, with 2 long arms and
huge scragly antlers.
I see its long arm reach to the front flap and then 3 long, grey fingers start opening
the door.
I'm scared shitless and can't move due to fear.
The flap opens enough to see the things face peeking in.
It's eyes were like a cats, glowing slightly green.
But out of nowhere it stops and just stares at me.
I'm sure it knew I was awake and scared out of my wits but it closes the flap and walks
back the way it came.
That's when I passed out from fear.
I woke up the next morning to my grandad and mom making breakfast and I tell them about
what I saw.
Then my grandpa goes on to explain that what he thinks I saw was a skinwalker.
I'm not sure if this is accurate, so excuse me if i'm wrong but this is what he told me.
He said they are pretty much corrupt native shamen that can shapeshift and cast spells
which would explain the deer not droppi g after being shot, or possibly a wendigo which
are monsters that people turn in to after eating other humans.
I honestly think it was a wendigo.
After I got home that week I read online about an old mine that collapsed in the early 1900s
that blocked people in that was a few miles away from where we were.
Im sure that being locked in a mine would make your buddies look pretty tasty....
Either way that was the scariest Shit I've ever seen In my life
I've never been a person to think that skinwalkers are real, until one week ago.
Last week I went camping with my mom, and we were in Strawberry Arizona . We were going
to be camping for the weekend starting Friday night to Sunday afternoon.
We arived at about 6 o'clock and it was already dark.
My mom started a small fire and we got working on putting up our tents.
We got that done about 30 minutes later.
We had our dinner, some smores and went to bed.
I woke up at 10, as I needed to go pee, so I got out a flashlight and went out to pee.
A few moments later, I started walking back to my tent and I heard something scratching
on what I assumed was wood.
I stopped and looked arround, there was nothing there.
I jogged back to my tent and got in.
Within a few moments after I got into my tent, I heard the scratching again, it was closer
now, way closer, after a minute or 2 it went away.
I fell asleep 15 minutes later.
I was awoken to a loud screech.
It sounded like it was within 20 feet of us, I didn't dare go out there with whatever that
thing was.
I was still half asleep and I turned on my flashlight in the tent and pointed it to the
walls of the tent.
Big mistake.
It was attracted to my light and walked to it.
I saw it's silhouette come into view, it was a large figure, everything about it seemed
human at first, then I notoced the 'fingers'.
They had what looked to be like claws instead, the height of it was larger than any person
I had ever seen, its legs were not human like either...
they looked like they belonged to a goat.
It started scratching on my tent, making holes in it.
I saw a part of the tall figure, it's legs were, as I described before, goat like.
I was paralyzed.
The thing scratched my leg while trying to get into my tent.
I kicked it.
To my suprise it didn't scratch me again whenever i did this.
Then, the creature started to shrink (this is the best way I can describe it) and it
was what appeared to be a wolf, it got on its back legs and ran.
I s**t you not it ran on its back legs.
I got a first aid kit out of my bag and wrapped my leg.
The cut wasnt too deep, but it was bleeding pretty good.
I got out of my tent and went into my mom's tent, she was awake and as frightened as i
was..
Within 15 minutes, everything was in the car and we got out of there.
It was probably 3 in the morning whenever this happened and we got home at about 5 in
the morning.
Lets just say that I am not going camping again for a while.
The user who sent me this story sent me a picture of the wound on their leg, but I don't
think YouTube would allow me to show it, as there's a lot of blood.
So unfortunately I can't show you guys.