Note: I wrote this shortly after we got home. This happened on Wednesday night.
I'd like to preface by saying that I got home about an hour ago and this actually happened. I never have paranormal encounters and genuinely try to approach everything with a questioning mind.
My partner and I like to hike at a local park late at night. It’s a historic park in PA about 3,500 acres in size that spans over into the MD and DE borders. One of the trails allows you to cross through all three states. The entire park is mostly dense woods with a creek running through. Usually we park near an old church with a revolutionary war cemetery that is famous for a grave known as the "Ticking tomb." I've been to every corner of this park, day or night. We usually hike a short loop that is roughly a half mile in length. We’ve walked this trail literally thousands of times and never once felt anything strange.
But tonight was different. We made a spontaneous decision to go on a night hike and left the house at about 10:45pm. I decided to take the narrow dirt road to our usual parking spot, rather than driving a mile up the road to a paved access road like we normally do. About half-way down the ragged dirt and gravel road as we rounded a corner, an animal dashed across the road in the path of our headlights. I’ve never seen anything like this animal, and I’ve never seen an animal that size in this area that I couldn’t immediately identify. It’s size was somewhere between a dog and a human and it moved so quickly it almost looked like it flew. A literal black blur with some hazy details and bright silver eyes. My partner also saw it. I’m generally a skeptic, so I just wrote it off, and we both just kind of explained it away. We made it to our parking spot and pretty much resolved not to talk about it and continue on as usual. Immediately when we got out onto the trail, we noticed the frogs and cicadas were extremely loud, louder than I’ve ever heard them at night around here. As we progressed down the trail, it felt like we had to talk over the cicadas. We sort of quietly yet frantically attempted at lightening the mood with conversation.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, about a hundred meters down the trail my partner had begun to hear what he thought were extremely distant voices. I also noticed that the cicadas got progressively quieter the further we got down the trail. We made it about a quarter mile before a sudden, louder sound felt like it cut through the space between my ears. It was something like a glitching microphone or megaphone way off in the distance. My partner pointed out to me later that there was nothing for the echo to bounce off of in that area. The moment we heard that sound I stopped immediately and asked if he heard it, too. Not only had he heard it, but he was convincing himself that he was hallucinating the sounds the entire time until I finally acknowledged it. Without discussion we both immediately turned around and started walking at a fast pace back to the car. I felt like it was a bad idea to run, but we had to leave right away. We hoofed it back to the car with the feeling that something was following us all the way to the entrance.
When we finally got back into the car and started driving, the feeling of urgency didn’t go away. We made it all the way down the main road to our first turn and I felt a moment of complete confusion. As I slowed to the turn, my partner asked me, “Do you not know where you are right now? Because neither do I.” We have literally driven this road THOUSANDS of times. I made a split second decision to turn right, which was thankfully the right choice. The next road went along the perimeter of the park and parallel with the trail we were hiking. There was tons of fog, which hadn’t been there on our way in. We spent maybe 20 minutes at the park. Just as we made our way past the area that we had turned around, another animal darted across the road in front of our headlights. It looked exactly like the one we saw on our way in - Only closer and in more detail. It had silver eyes and what looked like ears or horns. It was still insanely fast and either a blur or a wraith. I don’t know how else to describe it. I get this really weird feeling when I think about it or talk about it. The feeling started when I saw it run across the road the second time. I feel like it’s because I acknowledged that, whatever that thing was, I couldn’t explain it. I feel an almost burning sensation in my sinuses, my eyes water, and I get a strange tingling in the back of my skull. Like I said before, I’m usually a skeptic when it comes to this kind of stuff.. But this experience has left me rattled.
I made a quick gestural sketch of what I saw on my notepad while it was still fresh in my mind. I might sit down and try to draw it in more detail later. For those of you that are curious, this is what it looked like.
submitted by /u/lastditchlena
[link] [comments]Note: I wrote this shortly after we got home. This happened on Wednesday night. I'd like to preface by saying that I got home about an hour ago and this actually happened. I never have paranormal encounters and genuinely try to approach everything with a questioning mind. My partner and I like to hike at a local park late at night. It’s a historic park in PA about 3,500 acres in size that spans over into the MD and DE borders. One of the trails allows you to cross through all three states. The entire park is mostly dense woods with a creek running through. Usually we park near an old church with a revolutionary war cemetery that is famous for a grave known as the "Ticking tomb." I've been to every corner of this park, day or night. We usually hike a short loop that is roughly a half mile in length. We’ve walked this trail literally thousands of times and never once felt anything strange. But tonight was different. We made a spontaneous decision to go on a night hike and left the house at about 10:45pm. I decided to take the narrow dirt road to our usual parking spot, rather than driving a mile up the road to a paved access road like we normally do. About half-way down the ragged dirt and gravel road as we rounded a corner, an animal dashed across the road in the path of our headlights. I’ve never seen anything like this animal, and I’ve never seen an animal that size in this area that I couldn’t immediately identify. It’s size was somewhere between a dog and a human and it moved so quickly it almost looked like it flew. A literal black blur with some hazy details and bright silver eyes. My partner also saw it. I’m generally a skeptic, so I just wrote it off, and we both just kind of explained it away. We made it to our parking spot and pretty much resolved not to talk about it and continue on as usual. Immediately when we got out onto the trail, we noticed the frogs and cicadas were extremely loud, louder than I’ve ever heard them at night around here. As we progressed down the trail, it felt like we had to talk over the cicadas. We sort of quietly yet frantically attempted at lightening the mood with conversation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, about a hundred meters down the trail my partner had begun to hear what he thought were extremely distant voices. I also noticed that the cicadas got progressively quieter the further we got down the trail. We made it about a quarter mile before a sudden, louder sound felt like it cut through the space between my ears. It was something like a glitching microphone or megaphone way off in the distance. My partner pointed out to me later that there was nothing for the echo to bounce off of in that area. The moment we heard that sound I stopped immediately and asked if he heard it, too. Not only had he heard it, but he was convincing himself that he was hallucinating the sounds the entire time until I finally acknowledged it. Without discussion we both immediately turned around and started walking at a fast pace back to the car. I felt like it was a bad idea to run, but we had to leave right away. We hoofed it back to the car with the feeling that something was following us all the way to the entrance. When we finally got back into the car and started driving, the feeling of urgency didn’t go away. We made it all the way down the main road to our first turn and I felt a moment of complete confusion. As I slowed to the turn, my partner asked me, “Do you not know where you are right now? Because neither do I.” We have literally driven this road THOUSANDS of times. I made a split second decision to turn right, which was thankfully the right choice. The next road went along the perimeter of the park and parallel with the trail we were hiking. There was tons of fog, which hadn’t been there on our way in. We spent maybe 20 minutes at the park. Just as we made our way past the area that we had turned around, another animal darted across the road in front of our headlights. It looked exactly like the one we saw on our way in - Only closer and in more detail. It had silver eyes and what looked like ears or horns. It was still insanely fast and either a blur or a wraith. I don’t know how else to describe it. I get this really weird feeling when I think about it or talk about it. The feeling started when I saw it run across the road the second time. I feel like it’s because I acknowledged that, whatever that thing was, I couldn’t explain it. I feel an almost burning sensation in my sinuses, my eyes water, and I get a strange tingling in the back of my skull. Like I said before, I’m usually a skeptic when it comes to this kind of stuff.. But this experience has left me rattled. I made a quick gestural sketch of what I saw on my notepad while it was still fresh in my mind. I might sit down and try to draw it in more detail later. For those of you that are curious, this is what it looked like. submitted by /u/lastditchlena [link] [comments]
