Episode 186: Strange Wilderness Campfire

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[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_02] Odd Trails ist ein wirkliches Paranormal-Podcast Wenn du eine Geschichte hast, schreib es an stories.oddtrails.com Spaß mit dem Show!

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_01] Forget facts. Forget logic.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_02] Forget everything that seems real. You just...

[00:00:33] Trust. Believe.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_02] Hi everyone, and welcome to a special compilation

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_02] episode of Odd Trails. This week I put together a collection of some of the strangest, creepiest, and fascinating tales from the wilderness. Just in time for camping season. Coincidentally, Brandon is up at a cabin in the woods as we speak. Let's just hope that he doesn't encounter any fairies, Bigfoot, evil spirits, or any other baddies that we're going to hear about on this episode. For now, enjoy the show.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to tell you about something that happened to me during the summer. I swear that it scared the hell out of me, so hold on tight because it's going to be a bit long. This summer I decided to go camping alone in an isolated forest. I know, it's not the best idea for someone who easily imagines things, but I needed to be by myself and to unwind away from the world.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_02] I found a spot on a wild camping app that looked perfect. Quiet, far from everything, with a beautiful view and no noisy neighbors. Basically, paradise to escape from daily stress. I arrived there late in the afternoon. I set up my tent, prepared a campfire, and settled in for the evening. The sun was slowly setting, and the forest was beginning to plunge into darkness. It was really quiet.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02] Far too quiet. There wasn't any sound, not even the singing of birds. I found it a little weird. But I figured maybe it was just the serenity of nature. After eating, I sat around the fire and watched the flames just to relax. That's when I started hearing strange noises. At first, there were creaking sounds as if someone or something had been walking between the trees.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_02] I figured it was probably animals, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. But as the night progressed, the noises became more persistent. Regular creaking sounds, almost like footsteps, but they seemed to circle around the camp. I tried to turn my flashlight on, but the battery was almost dead. I figured maybe it was another camper or hiker who got lost, though. So I decided I was going to check it out.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_02] I wasn't going to spend the night wondering what it was. I went a little deeper into the woods with my flashlight. The further I went, the weirder the atmosphere became. The trees seemed to close in around me, and the ground was strangely muddy. I felt like someone or something was following me, but every time I turned around, there was nothing. Just darkness. Suddenly, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_02] A blurry silhouette between the trees. I couldn't make out any details, but it was clearly a human form, barely visible in the darkness. My heart started racing, and I started to quickly turn around. I didn't want to see if the figure moved or not. I returned to my tent as quickly as possible. When I arrived at my camp, I noticed something even creepier, though. My tent had been undone.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_02] The ropes were untied, and the sleeping bag was scattered. I felt extremely vulnerable. I stayed up all night, lying in my sleeping bag, listening to every noise, every crack. The next morning, I quickly gathered my things and left as fast as I could. I don't know what happened that night. Maybe it was just my sleep. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, or maybe I stumbled upon something more sinister. Either way,

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02] I'll never go camping in that forest again. If anyone has a similar story or knows what could be causing these noises, I'm interested. I'll see you later, and be careful where you camp.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01] I'm from Paraguay, and this story is about an experience I had while at camp as a teenager. I attended a religious school at the time, and every year we would go to this sort of spiritual getaway, which was a camp situated in an open field next to a small river and forested mountain area. The whole area is beautiful, but something about the vibe is just off.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01] It almost seems lost in time, maybe due to how old and dated some of the nearby infrastructure is. I don't know. But because of this, the place has been shrouded in mystery and horror stories. It doesn't help that the whole town once burnt to the ground, during a very gruesome war in the 1800s that nearly wiped my country off the map. So here's what happened.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01] It was my last year in school, so therefore also my last year at camp. After a very long day of hiking out in the forest, my entire class was dead tired. So after dinner and a short gathering at the campfire, we went off to bed. There were only six of us boys in the entire class, so we had a whole dorm building to ourselves. We were in a long hall that was lined with bunk beds on each side of the room.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01] It could have fit at least 40 people. We all decided to sleep on the top bunks. Three of us slept in beds next to each other, and the other three slept directly across from us. It was about midnight, and we were just lying there, talking, joking, and laughing in the dark. I eventually fell asleep, but suddenly woke up at what I assume was between 2 and 3 a.m.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01] I lifted my head up from the pillow and made eye contact with my best friend. He was sleeping in the bunk in front of me, but at this point was also raising his head. Then, he motioned to our classmate sleeping in the bunk next to him, nodding in his direction. I looked over and saw the silhouette of my classmate. He was just standing there, staring at his bed.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01] I thought it was hilarious, but I laughed quietly and tried signaling to my friend that we should prank him or something. But, before we could do anything, we both saw him crouch down to the floor. Confused, I tried to get a better look, and then noticed that our classmate was actually in bed, fully asleep and under the covers.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_01] My friend and I looked at each other wide-eyed, practically at the same time. We pulled our blankets over our heads and desperately tried to fall asleep, which we somehow managed to do. The next morning, I went straight to my friend, and before I could even finish asking if he saw what I saw, he just interrupted me with a yes. He told me exactly what he saw, and explained it exactly as I just did.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_01] We approached this classmate and told him everything that happened, but of course, he thought we were just joking around. However, my friend and I both vividly remember that event to this day. Still talking about it every now and then, almost eight years after it happened. It'd be one thing if I was the only person to have seen whatever this was, but the fact that my friend saw the exact same thing still gives me the chills.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_02] An ex-girlfriend and I were late getting to Tate's Hell State Forest in Florida back in May 2021. It was around 11pm, dark out, and we were driving down an unimproved road for about 30 minutes. We then followed the GPS down a very narrow trail. I was driving a mid-sized truck, and the branches on either side of the truck were constantly scraping.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_02] As we were driving slowly due to the ruts and puddles, we saw something emerge from the left-hand side of the trail. It crossed, stopped, looked back at the truck, and then disappeared into the woods on the right-hand side of the trail. The whole encounter lasted maybe four to five seconds. It was on two legs. It was so out of place because of the location.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02] It was 40 minutes outside civilization and improved roads. Also, the conditions were so bad, and it was late. I can't begin to describe the marsh-like conditions that we were driving through for this bipedal thing to just traverse with such ease. Its arms swung as it walked, its eyes reflected the headlights, and its body stood powerfully tall.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02] The details of its skin or fur are a bit harder to describe due to the sprinkling rain and the 15-foot distance. However, it had very dark skin or fur. The biggest part of the story is definitely the fact that we were on the wrong trail. We got stuck on the trail just a few yards from where we saw this thing, and as I fearfully got out of the truck to dig my tires out, nothing happened to us.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_02] I was exposed out of my element, wet, knee-deep in mud, and alone outside the truck. I struggled for 30 minutes, and could have easily been harmed or approached. However, nothing ever happened. But Tow Truck rescued us at 2am, and we gladly booked the hotel room for the night as we were extremely scared. The locals laughed it off. However, you know what you are seeing when it's right in front of you.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01] I live in Michigan, where hunting and fishing are a part of everyday life for a lot of people, myself included. I've been a very active outdoorsman, hunter, fisher, and just a general walk-in-the-woodser for a large majority of my 26 years. There are very few situations out in the woods that I'm uncomfortable with, but this is definitely one of them. It was mid-August,

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01] which is when most people begin to scout new hunting spots before the October deer season. I had started to take a look at some public hunting land online, and eventually found an area I wanted to go check out. Cell phone and GPS service is usually non-existent when going into these places, so I mapped out where I would go beforehand. There were a few distinctive landmarks that would make it easy to find my way out there.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01] Follow the river to the first clearing, then face west and walk until you hit the pine tree line. Simple enough. I get to the parking area, check my cell phone, which has no service, load up my backpack with water and survival supplies for worst-case scenarios, and then head out. I go down into the valley, across the creek, up the hill on the other side, then find the river

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01] and begin following it. I walked the river for approximately 20 minutes, sticking tight to it so as to not lose my way. This is where it gets weird. After 20 minutes of sticking tight to the river, I feel like it's taking longer than expected to get to the first clearing. I pull out my phone on the off-chance-I-have signal and can check my location. No signal.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_01] I check the time and it's 4.12pm. I put my phone back in my pocket, look up and suddenly, I'm no longer standing by the river. I'm standing somewhere I've never seen before, and the river is nowhere in sight. I'm staring at a no trespassing private property sign. I'm immediately unnerved. I check the phone again. Still 4.12pm.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01] I'm trying to remain as calm as possible because I have no clue what just happened. I try to locate the sun to figure out where I am. I know the river is to the east. I should head in that direction. I'm panicking in my head at this point, thinking to myself, what happened? There's no way I walked that far off course. I was standing at the river. How did I get here?

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01] I eventually find my way back to the river and make the decision to continue on my walk to scout the area. I found the area I wanted to scout and made it back to my truck afterwards without issue. I still can't shake that feeling though. What happened out there? Once I got back home, I looked up the area on Google Earth. I find the bend on the river I stopped at, so I drop a pin and begin to search

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01] for where I ended up standing. It was 600 yards away. I had somehow wound up over a quarter mile away in the blink of an eye. No time had passed. As if someone or something had picked me up and dropped me at a new location. No explanation, but that feeling is inescapable even as I type this.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_02] Before going into anything, I have to say this. I do not affiliate to any religion or cult. My belief is that all life is to be respected and all life forms possess an energy that one should be considerate of. Two years ago, my boyfriend and I decided to go camping on Easter morning. The weather was unusually warm and sunny, so why not spend it outdoors? We packed our stuff, got our dogs in the car, and set to the road.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_02] It was very spontaneous, so we didn't really plan where we were going to set up camp. Just a general direction, up in a national park in Europe. The forest was breathtaking. We drove up a dirt road along some small river for about an hour. It was a rough ride, and we couldn't find any spots as on our left was a rock wall and on our right was the river valley. To this day, I say the place presented itself to us.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02] I was frustrated that we were wasting light and demanded that we stop at the next turn. We got out to stretch our legs, took the dogs out, and noticed that they kept going down to the river. We followed them and found the most beautiful clearing under a riverbank right at a shallow bend of the river. We had a clear view, up and down the river, but otherwise, you would have no idea that we were there. It was hidden away from the road.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_02] It felt like home. We found an old stone hearth that had a beach sapling growing on it. I replanted the sapling somewhere safe before making the fire. My grandfather taught me from a young age to respect the forest. Before the meal, I made a small gift to the forest with some tea. It just felt right. The day passed nicely, and as the sun went down, it got very cold very fast. At some point,

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_02] we put out the fire and went into the tent for warmth. One thing that will always stay with me from this outing is the pure darkness. It was so dark, I had to check with my fingers if my eyes were closed or not. I had never experienced anything like that, and I hope I won't anytime soon. It was deeply unsettling. During the night, I could barely sleep. The sound of the river was incessant yet low, like a constant buzz. What kept me awake though,

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02] were the strange sounds around the tent. But I do understand that nature has a lot of sounds. More than once, I heard something brushing on the tent, like somebody would trace their hand down on it. It would go top to bottom on the left, then on the right, then behind me, and then all over. I told myself that it was leaves or bugs falling from the trees. The next part is what really freaked me out. I started hearing muffled voices,

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02] sometimes paired with the brushing, other times on their own. There were a few voices, all obnoxiously happy. I could hear loud laughter, singing, and people talking loudly. I couldn't understand a word, but their happiness just felt off. It felt menacing at times. At the time, I felt watched, like something was towering over us and counting my breaths. I felt like I needed to cower or hide.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02] I barely moved all night, and this just kept going on. Close to the morning, it seemed to quiet down, and I was able to sleep for about an hour. I woke up at first light, and I was so relieved that it was day again. I felt it in my bones. I felt as if a pressure had been lifted off of me. I felt liberated. At that point, I didn't mention anything to my boyfriend about the voices. I wasn't concerned that he would call me crazy, but I felt this urge to keep quiet,

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02] like I shouldn't speak about it there. The rest of the morning went quietly. Just before getting the last bags, I stopped just to hear the clearing, and I said thank you for having us, to the forest. It felt like the right thing to do. Not a second after, a bird started singing in front of us, like it was answering me, I whistled back, and it sang back to me. I kept this going for a few more times. By the time we were loading in the car,

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_02] the canopy above us was full of singing birds. It didn't feel natural in any way. The birds were all huddled around us, like sending us off. It felt like a goodbye. I can't put into words, but it felt so melancholic. Hurt, even. For a moment, I felt like I was leaving home. Not for home. Once we left the woods behind, both of us relaxed.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_02] I wasn't even aware that I was so tensed up. I asked my boyfriend how he felt about the experience. He said he heard the brushing too, and a few voices once or twice. He confessed that he too felt very uneasy during the night, and that the bird thing was very peculiar. I don't know what all of those things were, but I know I felt a presence with us all the time. I felt watched. I tried to reason it,

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_02] but somehow the memories about it feel off.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_01] While listening to episode 61 with Timothy Renner, I had to stop and write this down. I was hit hard when I heard of children being beckoned away from their parents by entities. I grew up and still live in Northern California, in Bigfoot country. My father worked as a logger out in the Willow Creek area. I used to go to work with him, and I would sit in his truck with toys and snacks.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01] He also gave me very firm directions not to leave the truck for any reason. Under no circumstances was I to leave. I did have a whistle around my neck, in case something went wrong, and the sound of a distant chainsaw to let me know what direction my dad had gone. I must have been around six or seven when this happened. I was playing by the truck when I heard a grunting noise

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_01] and saw what I thought was a large, brown bear moving from tree to tree. Except it was just a blurry, brown figure I saw move from the corner of my eye. I felt the overwhelming need to follow it. I don't remember how long I thought about following whatever this thing was, but I knew it would be dangerous for me to leave the truck area. My dad's voice was in the back of my head,

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_01] him telling me multiple times about the dangers of falling trees and needing to stay put. This thing kept moving from tree to tree in some weird game of tag or hide-and-seek. I apparently started to follow it, and next thing I know, I hear my name loudly being called from behind me. I turned around and saw my dad close by, running up to me.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_01] I don't remember hearing the chainsaw stop or hearing him run. I do remember the look on his face and him telling me to never follow anything in the woods. He grabbed my hand and took me back to his work site to collect his equipment, and we left right afterwards. Years later, he told me he had an overwhelming feeling to stop work to check on me. He came back

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01] and saw me intensely watching the woods in the opposite direction of where he was working. He panicked when he saw me walking away. He didn't see what I saw, but sensed something wasn't right. He was yelling my name as he ran after me, and I eventually snapped out of it, startled, breaking whatever trance I was in. Neither of us are sure about what exactly happened,

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01] but something told him to get us out of the woods that day, and he has always trusted his intuition since.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02] I live a little ways out in the woods, on a small dirt road with a few neighbors who also live on that small street. It's a quiet place. We all know each other, and get along decently. Given that we host these little bonfires sometimes, and invite the neighbors around to grill and have a few drinks, we often discuss things that we've seen lately in our little patch of the forest. A group of lovely deer, a mischievous raccoon,

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_02] or the odd wandering bear are all often topics of conversation. However, inevitably, we often end up on the subject of a mutual experience most of us have had with unexplainable phenomena happening around our homes. It's no secret that my woods tend to make people a bit uneasy. It's dark and quiet. This tends to make people tense. I'm not any different.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_02] I don't go outside in the dark if I don't have to, and I get scared at times when an animal makes a ruckus. There are some things, though, I just can't contribute to animals. To start, I have to go all the way back to when I was 13, when I first moved onto this property. I often felt like I was being watched at night. I was terrified to sleep without the lights on. I tried my best to ignore it,

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02] but I was honestly terrified to be outside at night, or here alone. For my 14th birthday, I decided to face my fears so that I could pitch a tent outside and quote-unquote camp in the yard. I would do this with a few friends. One of them left us in the middle of the night because they were so anxious. Another left in the morning after barely sleeping all night. The last friend stayed a couple of extra days,

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02] but was creeped out the entire time. She claimed to have briefly seen the apparition of a pale woman with dark hair standing in our yard and felt something touch her at night. She was truly terrified, and I could tell. When I tapped on her shoulder, she startled very easily. She almost hit me out of fright. This was very abnormal for her.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02] I spoke to my uncle who lives next door about the woman that she saw, and to my surprise, he claimed to have seen the same apparition. He said he saw it multiple times. He wasn't even surprised when we brought it up. I moved out not long after this, but recently moved back. Since returning as an adult, I've heard several stories from my family and neighbors about weird phenomena like this.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_02] My uncle has seen the lady, but also shadow figures, and has heard some unnatural noises coming from the woods at night. As a man who has lived out there for over 40 years, he's very familiar with the usual sounds that animals and nature make, and he didn't think any of these sounds were natural. His wife has also seen shadow figures and weird masses of black energy.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_02] She claimed to have been pushed over by an unseen force after witnessing one of these black masses of energy. She hasn't gone outside at night since. My grandmother claimed to have been chased by a shadow entity several years ago on this property while walking back from my uncle's. I stopped at her front door, and I watched while she cried and called my aunt and uncle for help. Understandably, they said no

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02] and told her to light some sage. A couple of neighbors have claimed to have seen similar shadow figures as well as the apparition of the lady on occasion. I still feel watched, and I regularly cleanse my house to keep whatever is out there as far from my home as possible. A good friend of mine, when I first moved back in, called me with concerns over a dream that she had. This was before she had ever seen

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02] or set foot on my property. She described my house and property perfectly and described seeing the same pale woman that multiple people have now seen. I was understandably shaken considering she hadn't been to my home at the time and hadn't really discussed the weird happenings with her. She spent the night one time and refuses to do it again. My street is very creepy,

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_02] but I have come to accept that something more is here. With all of these shared experiences, I can't deny that something is out there. It's been a long time and it seems to make itself known to anyone who spends enough time here.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01] This morning, my best friend and I took our children and dogs to the woods for some fresh air. We live in the southern part of England. It's a wooded area we have both been to often. But this time, right off the bat, there was an unfamiliar atmosphere in the air. Both dogs seemed on edge, my dog more so, often whimpering and barking, which is unlike her.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01] My four-year-old daughter stayed glued to my side the entire walk, while my friend's twins ran ahead of us. There are two paths into the woods, a high path and a low path. Below the low path, there is a valley. As we walked along the low path, the twins decided to climb the steep slope to reach the top path, something they have done many times. My friend's dog joined them.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01] While at the top of the slope, the twins said they heard some pigs. This isn't uncommon, as there are pigs that roam the woods often. Within seconds, the twins had vanished, completely out of sight. This is not typical of her children. They are adventurous, but had never left our eyesight before. My friend frantically shouted for them,

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_01] but we couldn't see or hear them at all. My friend, in a panic, attempted to climb the slope to no avail. Deep in the valley below us, we heard a dog screaming in pain. It sounded like a dog had gotten itself trapped in a snare of some sort. My friend stopped her attempt at climbing the hill, and started shouting for her dog. The screaming of the dog became more intense.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01] So much so, my friend then attempted to climb down the hill onto the valley, to help what we thought could have been her dog. In the corner of my eye, I saw some movement. It was her dog walking towards us, from the direction that her twins were last seen. As soon as we saw her dog, the screaming in the valley stopped dead. A woman then appeared on the top of the slope,

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_01] and shouted to us that the twins were making their way back down the path, toward the beginning of the woods. We shouted thank you to the lady, and my friend told me she would run ahead to find the twins. We both looked up to where the lady was standing, and she was gone. We both looked around to see where the lady may have gone, but couldn't see her.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01] Then, from the direction she was standing only moments prior, approximately fifty deer ran straight past us into the valley below, into the direction of where the dog was screaming. My friend then ran ahead to find her twins, leaving me with both of our dogs and my four-year-old. As I continued my walk toward the beginning of the woods, I heard rustling among the foliage in the valley next to me.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_01] I looked down and saw five deer running past me, in the direction of the other large group of deer. I then heard a strange noise in the valley, but very close to me. It sounded like a person was making the sounds of an old ringing telephone. I stopped and looked into the trees, but couldn't see anything. As I turned away to continue my walk,

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_01] the same sound started again, and stopped the moment I looked over. At this point, both dogs were behaving extremely nervous, and continuously checking behind us, as I was trying to pull them forward. I can't explain why, but I just knew my daughter wasn't safe. Whatever was happening in those woods, whoever it was or whatever it was, was trying to separate us all.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_01] I ignored the sound and continued walking towards the start of the woods as quickly as I could, while dragging my daughter and the dogs. As I walked around the corner, I saw my friend, who had found her twins. The twins both looked very pale in the face, and said they were very scared. They had told us that they began to sing in the woods, because when they stood still,

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01] they could hear twigs and leaves breaking around them. They said they came across a lady, with a face they recognized, but her face was really shiny, and she told them to walk down the path. They said they recognized the lady from their school. I feel the need to add that both myself and my friend would recognize anyone from that school. Neither of us recognized the lady we saw.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01] They also said they could hear us shouting for them, and that they shouted back, but we couldn't hear them. Each of us heard all the other sounds, and we all saw the lady. We had the immense feeling that we were all being separated. But none of us can explain what happened, or why it happened. We have been searching for answers, and the only suggestion is something called panic in the woods,

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01] which apparently is a common phenomenon, where people feel sudden anxiety and unease while in wooded areas, often with the urge to run. But we all saw, heard, and experienced the same thing. Thanks for reading. Any thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_02] I live in southern Georgia, about an hour outside of Savannah. For reference, the area I used to live in, when this event took place, was straight up country, far apart from neighbors and fields for miles. The most I usually see is deer, or rabbits out here, so it's uncommon for me to see anything weirder than that. Anyways, this time was different. I was driving home after dropping off my girlfriend for a shift later in the day.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_02] This was the time of year when it got dark at around 5.30pm. Since she worked about 40 minutes away from where we lived, I got back to the house at around 6.30 or 7pm. It was pitch black, and as I pulled down the long dirt road that leads to the farmhouse, I see something dart across the path. I slammed on my brakes, thinking it was a deer, but it was too small to be a deer. It looked to be running the way a human would run,

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_02] if they were to run on all fours. So strange. I shrugged it off at the time, and continued down the path towards the house, when it happened again. This time I turned off the road, into a patch of grass that I normally park in, a little ways from the house. When my car turned and the headlights followed, there it was, illuminated in the amber lights of my car. It was hunched over. It looked to be holding something in its mouth. It had a very hollow face,

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_02] with round and dark eyes that looked like buttons. There were these ears or horns, going down either side of its face framing it. It was terribly skinny, with its bones showing. Its back legs looked like a dog's, but had human-like arms and front legs, I guess. I do not know how tall it was, as I never got out of the car until it was completely gone, but it was nearly halfway up my front bumper,

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_02] hunched over. I didn't know what to do. I froze there, not even stopping to put the car in park or anything. The creature also froze, staring at me for what felt like forever, until, eventually, it ran off into the woods, next to the house. I immediately put the car in park, and shut it off. I contemplated investigating a little, but I chose to stay alive instead. I ran straight for the house, and sketched out what I saw,

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_02] then called my girlfriend to try and explain. I sent her the picture that I did, and she agreed that it was creepy, and didn't want to stay there that night. But we did anyway. Just made sure to double-check all of the doors. I don't know if it was some kind of goblin or other cryptid that's been identified, but I've researched and haven't really found anything quite like what I saw. We have since dubbed the creature Buttons for its dark round eyes,

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_02] but feel free to name away.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_01] I was on a semester abroad in the UK in the spring of 2018. The university had put up most of the foreign students in a newish apartment building just off campus. I had a tiny studio apartment. I could touch both walls at the same time if I stretched. There was a floor-to-ceiling window right at the foot of the bed. This will come back later, just setting the stage right now. I had been on spring break,

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_01] backpacking in Scotland with my friend. Let's call him Dave. We found ourselves in a small city in the north. While exploring around the town, we kept noticing a strange wooded hill in the distance, rising out of the middle of a neighborhood. The hill was separate from the mountains farther away, causing it to really stand out. We gradually made our way towards it, winding through the maze of suburban-style streets.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_01] We eventually found a wrought iron fence and followed it to a gate. A sign read, Tomnahirik Hill Cemetery. Surrounded by modern-looking houses was this old graveyard that encircled the lone hill. We meandered around, sticking to the paved pathways. Dave was an avid photographer and routinely stopped to take pictures of the headstones that dated back to the 1500s.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_01] The dates appeared to get older the closer we got to the hill. Another thing about Dave is that he liked to adventure. If he saw a break in a tree line, he would tromp right on through, looking for trails and paths. It turns out this hill had quite a few of these narrow dirt trails. I had a bit of an uneasy feeling. We were the only living people in the cemetery,

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_01] as it had been raining on and off all day. Dave convinced me to follow one of these trails up the hill. As soon as we crossed the tree line, we discovered the hill was incredibly steep, but wooden stairs had been built intermittently along the way. At the top of the hill, the cemetery layout was very different and strange. Three straight grassy paths, edged by headstones that sat three deep.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01] Dave had stopped to photograph more headstones. Most of the ones up here were unique compared to the more normal ones around the base of the hill. Arches, stone trees, pillars, etc. I was a good fifty feet ahead of Dave as he stopped to inspect his camera. The rain had paused and it was mostly quiet. Just the sounds of birds chirping overhead. I paused to glance back at where Dave was.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01] As I looked forward again and took one step, I very clearly heard a woman's voice whisper loudly into my left ear, Liam. My name. Goosebumps ran across my body. It was said as if someone was trying to get my attention, but not wanting Dave to hear. I froze for a moment, my ears pricked up, waiting for another voice.

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_01] I slowly turned to my left, but found no one. Looking behind me again, I saw Dave, still standing way back, looking through the photos on his camera. I managed to keep myself calm as we wandered to the end of the row and made our way back to the middle of the hill. I kept my ears strained the entire time, waiting for another voice, but heard nothing.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01] At the center of the hill was a small dirt parking lot. A dirt road had been cut into the side of the hill, opposite the side we had climbed up. We decided to take the road down. I hadn't mentioned anything to Dave until we were halfway down the hill. I heard a voice up there. Dave just chuckled. He is a massive skeptic. I swear I heard a woman's voice say my name in my left ear.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_01] As these words left my mouth, a huge flock of crows took off from the trees above us, cawing very loudly, startling us both. We walked a bit faster after that. Later that night, Dave had asked me to repeat the story while we were sitting at the bar in a pub. After I recounted what I had heard and how it had made me feel, the bartender gave a knowing laugh.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_01] You know they call that place a fairy fortress, right? He said in a strong Scottish accent. Dave and I looked at each other. I was obviously more freaked out than he was. Fast forward one week to the day. I hadn't really thought much about the voice after that, getting back into classes and whatnot. I was back in my tiny studio apartment in Lincoln, England. I felt like I had woken up, but I couldn't move.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_01] I had only ever heard about sleep paralysis, but had never experienced it before. I knew my eyes were shut, but I could clearly see light coming through the window at the foot of my bed. A shadowy figure materialized in the light. It didn't have any features that I could see. It slowly walked over to the right side of my bed, which should have been impossible, as the bed was literally built against the wall.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_01] The figure sat down at the edge of the bed, and I definitely felt the bed shift under its weight. In my memory, it had a head like a Dementor from the Harry Potter movies. Eyeless, noseless, earless, just a round hole in place of a mouth. Up to this point, I hadn't felt freaked out or anything. More curious.

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_01] Thinking back, I realized that this is not the reaction any normal person should have. I suddenly realized the orientation of my body. I was weirdly twisted. My legs were splayed out in such a way that my left foot was on the right side of the bed, and vice versa, but my upper body was facing upwards towards the ceiling. My hands were folded over my left hip. I couldn't or wouldn't move.

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_01] I say I wouldn't because I felt I was rationalizing my paralysis as not wanting to startle this shadow figure, in case it might hurt me. Again, I didn't feel freaked out, but I somehow knew this thing could potentially harm me. I digress. The figure was sitting at the edge of my bed that should have been a wall. It was facing me, looking at me, even with its lack of eyes.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_01] Very slowly, it placed one of its hands on top of my folded hands and leaned in. Slowly. Slowly. To my left ear. It was cheek to cheek with me. The panic burst through. Thoughts flashed through my mind. This isn't normal. This shouldn't be happening. This is not natural. I began to hyperventilate through my clenched teeth, making a kind of hissing sound over and over.

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_01] The shadow figure jumped like I had startled it, and it quickly got off of me and backed away from my bed, fading into darkness. As soon as it was out of sight, my eyes shot open and I discovered my face was less than an inch from the wall. I was still in the strange, twisted position. It was around 3 in the morning, and needless to say, I did not sleep for the rest of the night.

[00:49:06] [SPEAKER_01] I'm not sure if this is related, but it is my only other experience with sleep paralysis. I was back home in the US. It was exactly one month to the day after my first sleep paralysis episode. I woke up to a dark room and quickly became aware of a figure standing over me, darker than the darkness of the room. I immediately started panicking, but was unable to move.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_01] This figure just stood completely still and looked like a person completely covered by a black bed sheet. Suddenly, the lamp clipped to my headboard clicked on, and the figure instantly vanished with the light. I realized I was the one who turned on the lamp, but definitely didn't feel my arm raise over my head to do it. I've had a few paranormal experiences while growing up, but have grown more skeptical as I get older.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_01] I consider myself a skeptical believer. These three experiences happened in such a short amount of time that I can't help but connect them. I can't explain why, but I feel that the second figure was a sign that I got away from something I can't really comprehend. Strangely though, I do wish I could return to that cemetery and see if I have any more experiences.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_02] Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed these stories about the wild wilderness. It's fairly well known at this point, if you're a regular listener, that camping and being deep in the woods just isn't my thing. My only experiences have been pretty terrible experiences. And I watched the Evil Dead at a very young age. Like, way too young, actually. I think that that's probably the thing that scared me the most about the woods. Particularly the trees.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_02] And if you know, you know. But it's not just me. Forests have been natural havens for supernatural stories for years. All kinds of fables and legends. And there's just something mysterious and ancient about them, I guess. Maybe it's the fear of the unknown. The isolation. I don't know. Whatever the case. While the wilderness is a magnificent and beautiful part of life, it can also be one of the creepiest,

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_02] as proven by this collection of Odd Trails stories. So, thanks again for listening. The credits for this week's stories are contained in the show notes. If you have a story to share, make sure you send it to stories at oddtrails.com to hear it on the show. And sign up for our Patreon if you want to get ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bitrate for the best listening experience. You can do that at patreon.com forward slash odd trails. Finally, be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_02] like Let's Not Meet and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com We'll see you guys next week. Everybody stay safe. Oh yeah, and peace out, I guess.

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_01] Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, Daph. Bye.