The WOODS

Back in 2008:

I live in a small town in California. Some of you may have heard of it.... Folsom. I live in an apartment complex that is near wildlife and what we call the wetlands. So behind the building I live in, there is a patch of woods, and a huge pond like area for the ducks and such. One night my two older siblings and myself decided it was the perfect night to take out telescope and look at the moon and stars. We also brought the camcorder. The reason we brought the camcorder was because it has night vision and where we live there are time we see strange objects in the sky and like to record it and investigate it further. Anyway, that's another story...

We started walking down the pedestrian trail, that's in between the wooded area and the way to the apartments. We found the spot we wanted and set up our equipment on one of the hills so we could see things clearly. Now I was very sick at the time and I couldn't climb up the hill, so I decided to stay on the trail while my siblings we're taking video footage and looking to see if they could get a good shot of the moon with our telescope. We only had brought one flashlight and it wasn't a very powerful one. I decided to go get the bigger more brighter flashlight for my siblings so they could see where they were going since it was darker up on the hill than where I was. I walk back to the apartment and grab the flashlight.

Walking back I didn't turn the flashlight on just yet because I still had lighting from the apartment complex area. I wasn't quite to the trail yet. Once I got to the trail I turned the flashlight on so I could see where I was going.

Once I started walking further onto the trail and I got this sudden feeling that I wanted to run, but of course I ignored it thinking it was just my imagination. So I kept walking, sort of playing with the flashlight out of boredom.

All of sudden I saw what looked like the figure of a man, but white and see through floating in the woods. It was very fast, not even a few seconds. I ignored it, thinking that if I played it cool and acted like I didn't see anything, whatever it was wouldn't sense my fear. I was wrong.

I started hearing what sounded like someone running toward me from the woods. Branches being snapped, and what sounded like someone walking on rocks. Right when I turned to look to the left of me, one of the bushes moved and I screamed.

My brother and sister were at the other end of the trail, which was quite a walk from where I was and they heard my screams. I ran like I never ran before. I am not an athletic person, but I ran like I was trying for an Olympic gold medal. I mean, I never knew I could run like that. I got to my siblings in less than 15 seconds. I am so not even kidding you.

Now this is the interesting part. YES, there's more....

As I was at the other end experiencing whatever it was that was happening, my siblings heard the same sounds I had heard at the other end. I only know this because when I told them what I heard and what happened, they said they heard the same exact thing. Strange right?

Knowing I was scared, they came down from the hill. Here we're thinking, okay we'll just move to another location and everything will be fine. So we walked further down the trail and set up everything, AGAIN. Even though I was still a little rattled.

About five minutes later, my brother hears what sounds like someone taking two pieces of ply wood and smacking them together. Only it was faint and far away. My sister and I are talking and giggling and I am just about calmed down when my brother yells: "Shhhhhh, listen!" We stop and walk up behind my brother, well I did anyway and we listen. All of a sudden we hear it, and I asked my brother; "What is that?" He said he didn't know. So here I am grabbing onto his arm for dear life. I didn't know if it was a person being stupid or an animal. I just knew I was scared. Well the sounds kept getting closer and louder. I'm freaking out but trying not to show too that I have fear. Again thinking I am clever and I'm going to make this thing think I'm not scared. Because I've always been told to never show fear.

Well then we hear the snapping branches and all that noise we heard before again, to the left of us. The other sounds were coming from the right of us. Then in front of us, we hear what sounds like someone walking in the woods. Finally behind us, at the time there was a vacant apartment, it sounded like there was a fireplace going on. All the sounds were coming from all around us and getting closer and louder. Finally, my brother could see I was scared out of my wits. He grabbed the equipment and told us to book it to the apartment. Of course, we didn't go the same way we came, we went to the area with light and I basically ran back to the apartment.

Here is the even more creepier part of the story....

The next morning, my brother and I decided to go investigate into the wooded area itself thinking that maybe a homeless person was living back there and trying to scare us. The summer before the security guard had found a tarp made into a tent, and found evidence of someone living back there. Since it was day time, I wasn't afraid to go back there.

Here we are, you know, trying to use the logic approach. We get ourselves ready and head to the trail. We get to the woods and are ready to venture in, when we notice there is water filled up to about my hip level, I'm 5'4". We can't walk in there. Apparently, since we had just had some rain, we had a storm the week before, the water was still in there. Now you tell me, if it was a person or an animal, how come when we heard all that noise, we didn't hear any water swooshing sounds? You know like when you're walking around or swimming in a pool. I know one thing, I don't go there at night anymore. Whatever it was, I know it wasn't a human or an animal. Honestly, I don't want to find out what it was either.

I'll post more experiences soon. Thanks for reading.