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Top-5-Bingeable-SCARY-STORIES-FOREST-HOR · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, we have a really cool video for you guys.
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Speaker 1: It'll be a collection of four stories that are all
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Speaker 1: fan favorites and they all share a theme camping horror stories.
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Speaker 2: These stories have all been totally re.
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Speaker 1: Edited, so even if you've seen them before, it's going
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Speaker 1: to feel new and improved. That was the whole point
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Speaker 1: of doing this. We wanted this to feel like a
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Speaker 1: brand new viewing experience. But before we get into those stories,
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Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
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Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you've come to the right
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Speaker 1: place because that's all we do, and we upload once
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Speaker 1: a week. So if that's of interest to you, please
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Speaker 1: offer to refill the like buttons cure eg machine, but
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Speaker 1: instead of using water, go ahead and take all the
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Speaker 1: water from inside of those baggies that contain fresh mozzarella
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Speaker 1: cheese and just dump that gross gray water in there. Also,
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Speaker 1: please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications
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Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. In April of twenty twenty,
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Speaker 1: a seventeen year old named Sam, who was an appot outdoorsman,
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Speaker 1: decided to go on a one night hike in the
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Speaker 1: Superstition Mountains in Arizona. The mountain's name has a bunch
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Speaker 1: of supposed origins, but the one that's generally accepted is
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Speaker 1: people are afraid of the Superstition Mountains because of all
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Speaker 1: the mysterious deaths that have occurred there, and so because
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Speaker 1: people would avoid these mountains in fear of mysterious death,
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Speaker 1: it became these Superstitious Mountains. But Sam was not superstitious
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Speaker 1: and regularly came out here to go hiking, in particular
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Speaker 1: on this eight mile loop that went through a canyon.
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Speaker 1: And so this one night overnight he planned on doing
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Speaker 1: was going to be on that eight mile loop where
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Speaker 1: he'd do four miles in camp out and then four
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Speaker 1: miles back, and he planned to do it with a friend,
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Speaker 1: but his friend at the last minute canceled, and so
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Speaker 1: Sam teetered on not even doing it, but ultimately decided, Okay,
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Speaker 1: I'll just do it by myself because I'm very familiar
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Speaker 1: with this area. On the day he was supposed to
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Speaker 1: go do that hike, he had planned on getting there
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Speaker 1: early in the day to have maximum lighting, but due
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Speaker 1: to some unforeseen circumstances and traffic and bad road conditions.
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Speaker 2: He didn't get to the trailhead until five forty five
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Speaker 2: pm that night.
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Speaker 1: Sam knew it was a bad idea to start this
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Speaker 1: hike so late because he was going to run out
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Speaker 1: of daylight. He probably was not going to make it
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Speaker 1: four miles to the point where he planned on camping out.
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Speaker 1: But he figured with his good health and fitness, he
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Speaker 1: could probably quickly make his way to the two or
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Speaker 1: even three mile mark, and there were some suitable campsites there,
2:30
Speaker 1: and so he decided he would kind of risk it
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Speaker 1: and just try to go as fast as he could
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Speaker 1: and use the daylight he had to reach a suitable campsite,
2:37
Speaker 1: but he wasn't able to move as fast as he
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Speaker 1: thought he could, and soon the sun was down and
2:42
Speaker 1: it's totally dark, and he's got his flashlight, but that
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Speaker 1: only is able to shine like ten feet in front
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Speaker 1: of him.
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Speaker 2: And then at one point he nearly.
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Speaker 1: Falls off of this rock, and he knows had he fallen,
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Speaker 1: he would have gotten really badly hurt.
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Speaker 2: And he's fifteen.
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Speaker 1: Miles away from the nearest help, and he's in a
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Speaker 1: bad cell phone service area, and the odes getting out
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Speaker 1: here are treacherous. No one knows exactly where he is,
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Speaker 1: and it dawns on him that you've made a pretty
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Speaker 1: bad choice and you should stop right now and make
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Speaker 1: camp here and not.
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Speaker 2: Try to risk it any further.
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Speaker 1: And so as it happened, where he was, there was
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Speaker 1: this forest right nearby, and he could see there was
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Speaker 1: a clearing about thirty feet off the path when he
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Speaker 1: shined his light, and so he walked into that clearing
3:20
Speaker 1: and he found it was a great spot to make camp.
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Speaker 1: And in fact, on the edge of this clearing was
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Speaker 1: the remnants of a fire pit. It was very old,
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Speaker 1: but it at least showed someone had camped out right here,
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Speaker 1: and they seemed to have made it just fine. So
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Speaker 1: suddenly he was feeling pretty smart, and he felt pretty
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Speaker 1: good about where he was staying for the night.
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Speaker 2: Now. Sam intentionally did not bring a tent.
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Speaker 1: He liked to sleep on a sleeping pad with a
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Speaker 1: sleeping bag over that, and then he would string up
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Speaker 1: a tarp over the top of him in case it rained.
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Speaker 1: And since this clearing was surrounded by a bunch of
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Speaker 1: pine trees, he was able to string up his tarp
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Speaker 1: over the top and it was perfect, and pretty soon
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Speaker 1: he had a fire going, and then he cracked open
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Speaker 1: a can of beans, and he began eating his dinner,
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Speaker 1: and as he was eating, he started to get a
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Speaker 1: sense that something was off.
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Speaker 2: Something was not right.
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Speaker 1: He began scanning the tree line as if he was
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Speaker 1: going to find something out of the ordinary, but his
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Speaker 1: visibility was incredibly limited because he was sitting right up
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Speaker 1: against a fire, and if you've ever sat next to
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Speaker 1: a fire in a dark forest, your visibility is like
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Speaker 1: five feet in a circle around the fire. You really
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Speaker 1: cannot see beyond that. And his vision was also limited
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Speaker 1: by all the pine trees that encircled his clearing, so
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Speaker 1: he really could only see what was immediately around him,
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Speaker 1: nothing else. And he starts thinking, that's got to be it.
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Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just nervous because I have no visibility. But
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Speaker 1: as he's rationalizing this kind of bad gut feeling, a
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Speaker 1: rock the size of a marble comes soaring into the
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Speaker 1: campsite and lands at his feet, and he looks down
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Speaker 1: at the rock, and immediately he connects that to that
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Speaker 1: sense of dread he had, and he's looking around a
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Speaker 1: little more aggressively now, but again his vision is very,
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Speaker 1: very limited, and so for the next fifteen minutes, Sam
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Speaker 1: is really aggressively scanning the tree line and listening really intently,
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Speaker 1: and he doesn't hear anything. He doesn't see any more,
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Speaker 1: rocks get thrown, and so he begins to wrap and
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Speaker 1: convince himself that there's nothing wrong here.
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Speaker 2: That feeling I have, oh, don't worry about that.
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Speaker 1: He starts telling himself, you know, I must have kicked
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Speaker 1: a rock, that's what it is, or maybe a rock
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Speaker 1: fell off a tree. But either way, it's something totally explainable,
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Speaker 1: and you get nothing to worry about.
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Speaker 2: And after a little while he.
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Speaker 1: Convinced himself and he got into a sleeping bag under
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Speaker 1: his tarp and he went to sleep. A couple of
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Speaker 1: hours later, Sam wakes up and he has that same
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Speaker 1: sense of dread and now it's back with a vengeance,
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Speaker 1: and he can't hear anything, he can't see anything, but
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Speaker 1: he's definitely feeling like something is wrong. And at that moment,
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Speaker 1: as he's listening really intently and looking really carefully, he
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Speaker 1: hears the sound of rustling leaves. It sounds like someone
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Speaker 1: walking through leaves about thirty or forty meters away from
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Speaker 1: his campsite, and initially he can't tell if this person
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Speaker 1: or animal is walking towards his campsite or away. But
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Speaker 1: over the next thirty seconds or so, the sounds start
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Speaker 1: to fade, and he convinces himself that okay, they've laughed
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Speaker 1: and everything's fine, but just in case, he wanted to
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Speaker 1: grab his flashlight and shine it in that direction. And
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Speaker 1: so he reaches next to him where he had left
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Speaker 1: it when he had gone to bed a couple hours earlier,
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Speaker 1: and he can't find his flashlight. He's looking around for
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Speaker 1: it and he can't find it, and he's like, man,
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Speaker 1: that's weird. I had it right here, right next to
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Speaker 1: my body, and it's not here anymore. And that's when
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Speaker 1: the alarm bells start going off in his head, because
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Speaker 1: the only way this flashlight.
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Speaker 2: Moves is if he moved it, and if it's not here,
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Speaker 2: how did it move?
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Speaker 1: And so he jumps out of his sleeping bag, he
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Speaker 1: ducks out from under the tarp, and he's looking around
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Speaker 1: on the ground in the immediate vicinity of where he
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Speaker 1: was sleeping to find this flashlight. And as he's looking
6:27
Speaker 1: out of the corner of his eye, he sees some
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Speaker 1: light and he turns his head and in the same
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Speaker 1: direction that he had heard those footsteps, those rustling leaves.
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Speaker 1: When he was still laying down, he sees his flashlight
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Speaker 1: laying on the ground about ten meters away, which means
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Speaker 1: someone or something had been less than a foot away
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Speaker 1: from him to get this flashlight that was right next
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Speaker 1: to him while he was fast asleep and totally helpless,
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Speaker 1: then had moved it all the way over there. And
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Speaker 1: immediately Sam thinks to himself, that's a trap. They are
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Speaker 1: trying to lure me away from my campsite. Suddenly, he
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Speaker 1: felt so scared he wanted to vomit, but he knew
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Speaker 1: in order to survive this situation, he needed to keep
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Speaker 1: his wits about him. So he puts his boots on
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Speaker 1: and he grabs his knife, and he knows he's not
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Speaker 1: leaving this campsite. In fact, he's gonna build the biggest
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Speaker 1: fire he can. He's gonna stoke that fire as big
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Speaker 1: as he can get it, and he's not gonna go
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Speaker 1: anywhere near that flashlight. For the next several hours, Sam
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Speaker 1: just stood in the middle of his campsite holding his knife,
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Speaker 1: preparing to confront whatever the heck is out in the woods.
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Speaker 1: And over those several hours, he would hear footsteps approach
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Speaker 1: his campsite, turn around and leave. Every time the fire
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Speaker 1: got lower, he noticed they would come closer and closer
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Speaker 1: and closer, and when he would stoke the fire, they
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Speaker 1: wouldn't come as close. But at about three am, he
7:44
Speaker 1: ran out of firewood, so unless he went into the
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Speaker 1: woods to get more, he'd be out. And he's certainly
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Speaker 1: not going into the woods. That's the whole point is
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Speaker 1: to avoid the woods where this thing is. And so
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Speaker 1: as the fire died down, Sam prepared himself mentally for
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Speaker 1: whatever happened next, because he knew that with that fire
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Speaker 1: are gone, this thing was comfortable coming all the way in,
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Speaker 1: coming all the way up right next to him to
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Speaker 1: get the flashlight. And so finally he hears the footsteps approaching.
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Speaker 1: And before this the closest they had come was maybe
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Speaker 1: about fifteen meters away. They were far enough away it
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Speaker 1: didn't feel intimate. It was terrifying, but he had some distance.
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Speaker 1: This time, they walk right up to about three meters away,
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Speaker 1: but they intentionally come behind the thickest group of trees,
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Speaker 1: so he can't see them. And it's still dark outside
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Speaker 1: and he's in that bubble of light near the fire,
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Speaker 1: so he's blind to whatever's on the other side of
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Speaker 1: those trees, but he knows they're there, and they've stopped.
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Speaker 1: And for two hours, this poor kid is standing in
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Speaker 1: the middle of this campsite, facing in the direction of
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Speaker 1: whatever is behind the trees. Probably his imagination is going
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Speaker 1: crazy at this point with what could be behind those trees,
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Speaker 1: just waiting for whatever happened next. But ultimately the only
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Speaker 1: thing that would happen is the sun would eventually come up,
8:56
Speaker 1: and right before it actually popped over the horizon, this
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Speaker 1: thing on the other side finally moved, it turned around
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Speaker 1: and ran away, and it did not come back. And
9:06
Speaker 1: so when the sun finally did come up, Sam didn't
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Speaker 1: just charge out of there because he's still thinking there
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Speaker 1: could be a trap. He waited until it was totally
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Speaker 1: full sunlight, and then he packed up everything he had
9:15
Speaker 1: and he practically sprinted back to the parking lot back
9:19
Speaker 1: into his car, and he drove NonStop for twenty miles
9:22
Speaker 1: until he got to a gas station where he could
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Speaker 1: park and collect himself. And when he got there, he
9:27
Speaker 1: got out of his car and he went in and
9:29
Speaker 1: he got a drink, and when he came out, he
9:31
Speaker 1: noticed someone had written something on the dust on the
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Speaker 1: back window of his car, and he walks over and
9:36
Speaker 1: it just says sleep well, question mark. Sam is confident
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Speaker 1: whoever was stalking him at his campsite is the same
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Speaker 1: person or group of people that wrote this message on
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Speaker 1: his car, and now Sam just wonders what would have
9:48
Speaker 1: happened if I retrieved that flashlight. In nineteen eighty two,
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Speaker 1: a very outdoorsy teenage girl and boy who had recently
10:04
Speaker 1: started dating decided to go camping in Maine. Around one
10:08
Speaker 1: am on the first night they were there, the girl
10:10
Speaker 1: wakes up because she has to go to the bathroom
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Speaker 1: and she's about to unzip her tent when she stops
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Speaker 1: because she hears some strange noises coming from outside their tent.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't that loud, but it sounded distinctly like something
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Speaker 1: was digging in the ground. But she really had to go,
10:25
Speaker 1: and she figured, you know what, it's probably just some
10:26
Speaker 1: small animal or something. And so she begins to unzip
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Speaker 1: the tent and there's a little bit of moonlight that night,
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Speaker 1: and there was a clearing outside of their tent, so
10:34
Speaker 1: the moonlight's pouring through, so she has plenty of illumination,
10:37
Speaker 1: and so she looks through this tiny hole, and she
10:39
Speaker 1: can't believe what she sees. It is a grown woman
10:42
Speaker 1: squatting down about two or three feet away from their tent.
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Speaker 1: Her back is to them, so she can't see that
10:48
Speaker 1: she's looking through the tent and she's feverishly digging into
10:51
Speaker 1: the ground in front of her. The girl literally falls
10:54
Speaker 1: backwards into her tent. She's so startled by what she sees,
10:57
Speaker 1: and she lands on her boyfriend, who immediately gets up
10:59
Speaker 1: and he's like, what's going on? And she goes sh
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Speaker 1: and she points at the little hole where she'd unzipped
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Speaker 1: the tent and she goes look. The boy is confused,
11:08
Speaker 1: but he can tell his girlfriend is very serious, so
11:10
Speaker 1: he sits up quietly and he looks through the little
11:13
Speaker 1: opening in the door and he sees the digging woman.
11:16
Speaker 1: The boy recoils and looks at his girlfriend and he's like,
11:19
Speaker 1: what is going on out there? He takes a flashlight
11:22
Speaker 1: and she's telling him, don't do it, and he opens
11:24
Speaker 1: up the tent a little bit more and he aims
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Speaker 1: his flashlight directly on this woman, and this gets her attention,
11:29
Speaker 1: and she stops digging, and she stands up slowly, and
11:32
Speaker 1: she turns around and faces them, and she's got no expression,
11:36
Speaker 1: she's not giving them any indication why she's there. She's
11:39
Speaker 1: not acting aggressive, she's not acting scared. She's just completely neutral.
11:43
Speaker 1: And she stands there staring at them for quite a
11:45
Speaker 1: while before turning around and just walking away from their campsite.
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Speaker 1: And after a little while, when they were pretty certain
11:51
Speaker 1: she was gone, they open their tent all the way.
11:53
Speaker 1: They go outside, they kind of scan around with their flashlights,
11:56
Speaker 1: and she's nowhere to be found, and they go to
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Speaker 1: where she was digging, and it's just the weird four
12:00
Speaker 1: inch deep hole in the ground. There's no rhyme or
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Speaker 1: reason to why she was doing that, And so after
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Speaker 1: sitting there wondering what they should do, they settled on, well, tomorrow,
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Speaker 1: we'll tell the park rangers that she was here and
12:10
Speaker 1: maybe they'll do something about it. And so, feeling pretty
12:13
Speaker 1: confident that this woman's not going to come back, they
12:15
Speaker 1: both go back into the tent. They zip it shut,
12:18
Speaker 1: they get in their sleeping bags, and they're about to
12:20
Speaker 1: go to sleep when they hear someone running towards their
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Speaker 1: campsite and they know it's this woman. They immediately unzit
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Speaker 1: the tent and they look out and now the woman's
12:28
Speaker 1: not digging anymore. She's rummaging through some of their stuff
12:32
Speaker 1: that's outside of their tent. And the way she's doing
12:34
Speaker 1: it they described as monkey like. She'd pick something up,
12:37
Speaker 1: look at it, and throw it over her head. She'd
12:39
Speaker 1: pick the next thing up, throw it over her head,
12:41
Speaker 1: back and forth, just throwing things behind her. And so
12:44
Speaker 1: the boy gets out and he shines a light on
12:46
Speaker 1: her and goes, you need to leave, and she doesn't react.
12:49
Speaker 1: She just keeps flipping through all their stuff until he
12:52
Speaker 1: gets pretty forceful and says you need to leave right now.
12:54
Speaker 1: And at that point she kind of stops and looks
12:56
Speaker 1: at him like, huh, what are you doing here? And
12:58
Speaker 1: then she gets up, turns herud and walks away. Now
13:01
Speaker 1: the couple really doesn't know what to do, because she's
13:03
Speaker 1: clearly willing to come back after being confronted. But they
13:06
Speaker 1: stayed outside their tent for about fifteen more minutes, shining
13:09
Speaker 1: their light and making lots of noise and treating her
13:12
Speaker 1: like she's an animal, and they're just trying to scare
13:14
Speaker 1: her away from the campsite. And after a little bit
13:17
Speaker 1: of time, they thought, okay, there's no way she comes
13:19
Speaker 1: back now, because you know, we were pretty aggressive with
13:21
Speaker 1: her this time, and she seemed to really get it.
13:23
Speaker 2: They both do go back in the tent, and as
13:26
Speaker 2: soon as they zip it shut.
13:28
Speaker 1: They hear her come running straight back to the site,
13:30
Speaker 1: like she was literally waiting in the wings for when
13:33
Speaker 1: they went back in the tent. And this time she
13:35
Speaker 1: runs back to the hole in the ground and she's
13:38
Speaker 1: just feverishly digging into the ground as fast as she can.
13:41
Speaker 1: And this time they come out of their tent and
13:43
Speaker 1: they're mad and they are screaming at this woman to
13:46
Speaker 1: get the f out of here, what are you doing?
13:48
Speaker 1: And this seems to kind of frighten the woman who
13:51
Speaker 1: gets up and she looks at them, like, why are
13:52
Speaker 1: you yelling at me? And she runs away, and it
13:55
Speaker 1: looked almost animalistic the way she was running away, like
13:57
Speaker 1: she was feral. The boy and the girl are totally
14:00
Speaker 1: shaken up at this point. It's about one thirty in
14:02
Speaker 1: the morning, and this woman just keeps coming back to
14:04
Speaker 1: their site and they don't know what to do about it.
14:06
Speaker 2: So they turn on some.
14:07
Speaker 1: Lanterns and they turn on their flashlights, and they decide
14:09
Speaker 1: we're just gonna stay outside until the morning. That way,
14:12
Speaker 1: we know she doesn't come back and doesn't steal anything
14:14
Speaker 1: from us. But by about three thirty in the morning,
14:17
Speaker 1: they've been outside for two hours, they're getting.
14:19
Speaker 2: Cold, they're super tired.
14:20
Speaker 1: The woman's nowhere to be found, and so they finally say,
14:24
Speaker 1: you want to go back in and get some sleep.
14:26
Speaker 1: I think this time she's really gone. They get back
14:28
Speaker 1: in their sleeping bags and they go to sleep. They
14:30
Speaker 1: don't hear her again. The next morning, when they get
14:32
Speaker 1: up and they unzip their tent, they look outside and
14:35
Speaker 1: all of their stuff has been thrown all over the campsite,
14:39
Speaker 1: and the hole in the ground that the woman had
14:41
Speaker 1: dug that was previously about four or six inches deep
14:43
Speaker 1: is now well over a foot deep. And they realize
14:46
Speaker 1: this woman must have been lurking in the shadows in
14:48
Speaker 1: the woods, watching them from one thirty to three thirty
14:52
Speaker 1: in the morning, that whole time they were out there,
14:54
Speaker 1: kind of warding her off. She was just waiting, just
14:57
Speaker 1: watching them the whole time in the shadows, and as
14:59
Speaker 1: soon as they she went into their tent, she must
15:01
Speaker 1: have given it a little bit of time, but then
15:03
Speaker 1: she ran right back over and she ransacked their site.
15:06
Speaker 2: But the strangest thing was.
15:08
Speaker 1: After they looked through all of the stuff she had
15:10
Speaker 1: chucked around, nothing was missing, and there was some pretty
15:13
Speaker 1: expensive stuff that was laying out that she could have
15:15
Speaker 1: taken but didn't. After they picked up their site, they
15:17
Speaker 1: went to the park ranger and they told them about
15:19
Speaker 1: what had happened. But the ranger has no idea.
15:22
Speaker 2: What to make of it. He's never heard of such
15:24
Speaker 2: a thing, and so the couple just.
15:25
Speaker 1: Leaves that day because they're not about to spend another
15:28
Speaker 1: night here. And to this day, they have no idea
15:30
Speaker 1: why this woman was running onto their site and digging
15:33
Speaker 1: into the ground and rummaging through their stuff. It was
15:35
Speaker 1: like she was just a wild animal. In the early
15:49
Speaker 1: two thousands, a teenager named Evan and his father would
15:52
Speaker 1: regularly go hunting in the Georgia backcountry. When Evan turned fourteen,
15:56
Speaker 1: his father befriended a very wealthy landowner in Georgia who
16:00
Speaker 1: offered them access to one of his best private hunting areas,
16:03
Speaker 1: and just a couple of days later, on October fifth,
16:05
Speaker 1: Eban and his father would take him up on the offer.
16:07
Speaker 1: They woke up super early and they drove out to
16:09
Speaker 1: the edge of this property that was actually fenced in,
16:12
Speaker 1: and they went to a main gate where they had
16:14
Speaker 1: the combo.
16:14
Speaker 2: That this guy had given them.
16:16
Speaker 1: They punched in the combo, opened up the gate, drove in,
16:18
Speaker 1: shut the gate, locked it, and then continued down the
16:21
Speaker 1: access road. They followed this road for about two miles
16:23
Speaker 1: where it came to a stop right outside of this
16:26
Speaker 1: huge forest. They parked their truck, they got out, they
16:28
Speaker 1: put on their gear, and in the pre morning darkness,
16:31
Speaker 1: began hiking into the woods. Even though they were there
16:33
Speaker 1: primarily to hunt, Eban and his father secretly enjoyed just
16:37
Speaker 1: hiking around the woods and camping out, and any chance
16:40
Speaker 1: they got to extend their hunting trips they would even
16:43
Speaker 1: if the hunting wasn't good. And so since they spent
16:45
Speaker 1: a ton of time in the woods together, they noticed
16:48
Speaker 1: almost immediately when they walked into this particular forest that
16:52
Speaker 1: something was off. There's no birds, there's no animals, silence,
16:56
Speaker 1: it's just totally silent. The only sounds they heard that
16:58
Speaker 1: were not them was a single plane that passed overhead.
17:02
Speaker 1: Although they found this very odd, they figured, you know what,
17:04
Speaker 1: this is a private property. Not a lot of people
17:06
Speaker 1: are out here. I'm sure as soon as we showed up,
17:09
Speaker 1: the animals were aware of us.
17:10
Speaker 2: And they've scattered.
17:11
Speaker 1: They finally make it out to the hunting stand that
17:13
Speaker 1: the owner had told them about. They get all settled in,
17:16
Speaker 1: they're getting ready to see some animals, and all day
17:19
Speaker 1: long they don't see a single animal. They don't hear
17:22
Speaker 1: a single animal. In fact, again it is just completely silent. Frustrated,
17:26
Speaker 1: they began packing up their stuff, making their way down
17:29
Speaker 1: off the stand, and they started looking for a place
17:31
Speaker 1: to make camp for the night, and Evans's father suggested, well, hey,
17:35
Speaker 1: you know, there's obviously nothing over here.
17:36
Speaker 2: It's been quiet all day.
17:37
Speaker 1: Why don't we walk deeper into the woods a little
17:40
Speaker 1: ways set up camp there so tomorrow we have a
17:42
Speaker 1: better chance of seeing some animals. So they hiked for
17:44
Speaker 1: about an hour farther away from where they parked their truck,
17:47
Speaker 1: and they reached this clearing which is perfect for setting
17:50
Speaker 1: up their camp, and so they set up their tent
17:52
Speaker 1: and Evans's father says, hey, you know, we still got
17:54
Speaker 1: some daylight.
17:54
Speaker 2: Do you want to go try our luck and see
17:55
Speaker 2: if we can see some animals out here? Now? Evan's like, yeah,
17:58
Speaker 2: why not?
17:59
Speaker 1: So they hike a little bit away from their campsite
18:01
Speaker 1: and they set up their blind and once again they
18:04
Speaker 1: don't see any animals. It's totally quiet, and so they
18:06
Speaker 1: turn around and they start heading back. As soon as
18:09
Speaker 1: they could see their campsite, which really was just their tent,
18:12
Speaker 1: they noticed that their tent was now collapsed, and evans
18:16
Speaker 1: father turns to him and says, oh, it must have
18:18
Speaker 1: been the wind. And Evans says, no, it couldn't have
18:21
Speaker 1: been the wind, because all day today we have been
18:23
Speaker 1: commenting on how quiet it is and how the fact
18:26
Speaker 1: that there's no weather, no wind, no anything is heightening
18:30
Speaker 1: the fact that it's completely silent.
18:32
Speaker 2: So it could not have been wind.
18:34
Speaker 1: So Evans's father is like, well, when you set the
18:36
Speaker 1: tent up, did you not put the posts into the eyelets?
18:39
Speaker 1: Did you not build it correctly? And Evan's like, no,
18:41
Speaker 1: I've made that tent like a thousand times. I know
18:43
Speaker 1: it was set up correctly. They walk into their campsite
18:46
Speaker 1: and they look down at their tent and they're really
18:48
Speaker 1: confused at what they see. The two rods that go
18:51
Speaker 1: in an X over the top of the tent, that
18:53
Speaker 1: thread through nylon loops and then anchor at four different
18:56
Speaker 1: points on the base of the tent.
18:57
Speaker 2: Well. They had been.
18:58
Speaker 1: Removed from the four corner. And if you know how
19:01
Speaker 1: a tent works, it works on tension. And once you
19:04
Speaker 1: have a rod anchored and two points, it doesn't just
19:07
Speaker 1: pop out. It's anchored at two sides. It's actually difficult
19:11
Speaker 1: to remove each anchor. Once one is out, the other
19:13
Speaker 1: comes out easily. But basically the rod would need to
19:16
Speaker 1: break in order for it to come out of those
19:19
Speaker 1: anchor points, or someone.
19:20
Speaker 2: Would have to come over and remove it.
19:23
Speaker 1: And they didn't remove them, and none of the rods
19:25
Speaker 1: were broken, which leaves them with either they failed to
19:28
Speaker 1: set up their tent even though they had distinct and
19:31
Speaker 1: clear memories of setting it up and double checking it
19:34
Speaker 1: was set up because they put gear inside of it,
19:36
Speaker 1: or someone came over to their campsite while they were
19:39
Speaker 1: gone and undid the four corners. They decide, you know what,
19:42
Speaker 1: it can't be some stranger coming over here, because we're
19:46
Speaker 1: the only ones with the gate combo.
19:48
Speaker 2: This is private property and no one could have been here.
19:51
Speaker 1: And why would they do that if they came to
19:53
Speaker 1: our campsite, why would they randomly collapse our tent and
19:55
Speaker 1: then vanish so it had to be us. We must
19:58
Speaker 1: have not made the tent. Well, they didn't really believe
20:01
Speaker 1: that they had not made their tent. They convinced themselves
20:05
Speaker 1: that that's what happened, because the alternative was just too
20:08
Speaker 1: bizarre and frankly terrifying to consider. So they build their
20:11
Speaker 1: tent and they make a little fire, and they stay
20:13
Speaker 1: up for a little while chatting before being tired and saying, okay,
20:16
Speaker 1: let's just go to bed.
20:17
Speaker 2: They extinguish the buyer, they get in the tent, and
20:19
Speaker 2: they both fall asleep.
20:20
Speaker 1: A couple hours later, Evan wakes up suddenly and he's
20:23
Speaker 1: not sure if he's dreaming or not, but he thinks
20:25
Speaker 1: he hears someone laughing a couple hundred meters behind their
20:28
Speaker 1: tent off in the woods. Evan instinctively turns to make
20:31
Speaker 1: sure his dad is stile in the tent with him,
20:33
Speaker 1: and he is, and then Evan starts listening really intently
20:36
Speaker 1: to what's happening outside, and all they can hear is silence,
20:40
Speaker 1: like it's been since they got in the woods.
20:42
Speaker 2: He doesn't hear any more laughter, and.
20:44
Speaker 1: So he says, Okay, I must have just been dreaming
20:46
Speaker 1: and there wasn't any laughter out there, and eventually Evan
20:48
Speaker 1: goes back to sleep a little while later, Evan wakes
20:51
Speaker 1: up suddenly again, except this time his dad is already
20:54
Speaker 1: awake and looking around anxiously, and Evan sits up and
20:57
Speaker 1: goes what's going on? And his dad goes sh and
21:00
Speaker 1: he goes, can you hear that? And Eben listens, and
21:03
Speaker 1: to his horror, he hears laughing. He wasn't dreaming before.
21:07
Speaker 1: Evan also realizes the laughter is not coming from the
21:09
Speaker 1: same area he heard it. It's now coming from the
21:12
Speaker 1: opposite direction and it's a lot closer to them. Eben
21:15
Speaker 1: very quietly and carefully explains to his dad that he
21:18
Speaker 1: actually heard this laughter a couple hours earlier, and Evan's
21:21
Speaker 1: father turns to Evan and says, before we came out here,
21:24
Speaker 1: I asked the owner should we expect any other hunters
21:27
Speaker 1: or campers or anybody nearby? And the owner said, this
21:30
Speaker 1: is private property and it's fenced in. There is no
21:33
Speaker 1: one there but you guys. After this revelation, they both
21:36
Speaker 1: turn their attention back to just listening because they're hoping
21:39
Speaker 1: this is just going to stop, and whatever this is
21:42
Speaker 1: is just gonna leave. But it doesn't leave. They hear
21:44
Speaker 1: footsteps running towards them from way off in the forest,
21:48
Speaker 1: and it's so quiet, it's really easy to hear these footsteps,
21:52
Speaker 1: and whatever this is is charging towards them, and then
21:55
Speaker 1: it comes to a complete stop right at the edge
21:57
Speaker 1: of their clearing.
21:58
Speaker 2: At this point, Eben is now rabbing onto his father.
22:01
Speaker 1: Evans's father is holding onto his rifle and he's getting
22:03
Speaker 1: ready to open the tent to confront whatever is out there.
22:06
Speaker 1: And right before he grabs the zipper, and this thing,
22:08
Speaker 1: this person, whatever it is, starts laughing again, and it's
22:11
Speaker 1: practically right on top of them. It's so loud they
22:14
Speaker 1: can hear it clear as day, right there right outside
22:17
Speaker 1: their tent. And Ebens's father takes a deep breath, he
22:19
Speaker 1: grabs the zipper, and as soon as he begins moving
22:22
Speaker 1: in the sound the zipper maid causes the laughter to stop.
22:25
Speaker 1: They don't hear footsteps, so they know probably something still
22:28
Speaker 1: out there, but the laughter stops like it's recognized that
22:32
Speaker 1: they're making noise. They're right there there, they are there
22:34
Speaker 1: in the tent. Evans's father freezes with his hand on
22:37
Speaker 1: the zipper, and he's debating whether he should go outside
22:40
Speaker 1: or not, and before he can even make that decision,
22:43
Speaker 1: whatever this thing is turns around and runs back.
22:46
Speaker 2: Into the woods and it's just gone.
22:47
Speaker 1: And for several minutes they just sit like that in
22:49
Speaker 1: total silence, praying that whatever this is is gone for good.
22:53
Speaker 1: And after several minutes, when they don't hear anything, there's
22:55
Speaker 1: no more laughing, there's no more running. Ebens's father re
22:58
Speaker 1: zips up the tent, puts his hand back down, and
23:00
Speaker 1: they both left just sitting there thinking what the heck
23:03
Speaker 1: just happened. Evan and his father would stay up all
23:05
Speaker 1: night and they would barely speak because whatever this thing
23:08
Speaker 1: was had heard them when they moved the zipper, and
23:11
Speaker 1: so they were really afraid of making any sound, even
23:14
Speaker 1: little sounds, because it's so quiet. Sound travels really far,
23:19
Speaker 1: and they don't know who or what is out there,
23:21
Speaker 1: and so in silence, holding their guns, they're just waiting
23:24
Speaker 1: for the sun to come up, and as soon as
23:26
Speaker 1: it did, they were up and out of there, literally
23:28
Speaker 1: running out of the forest, checking over their shoulder the
23:31
Speaker 1: whole time, all the way back to their truck. And
23:33
Speaker 1: so to this day they have no idea who or
23:36
Speaker 1: what the heck was running around out there, and they
23:38
Speaker 1: told the owner of the property about it, and the owner.
23:41
Speaker 2: Just said, it's not possible.
23:42
Speaker 1: We have a totally gated in private piece of property
23:44
Speaker 1: and there are cameras watching the only entrance, and you
23:48
Speaker 1: are the only ones that went in or out over
23:50
Speaker 1: that time period, and prior to that we monitor this property, nobody.
23:54
Speaker 2: Else was in there.
24:05
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, a twenty five year old Wall Street
24:08
Speaker 1: banker named Matt was camping near Mount Rainier in Washington State.
24:12
Speaker 1: His job was so hectic that in the rare times
24:14
Speaker 1: he got a chance to he would disappear into the
24:16
Speaker 1: wilderness for a few days to clear his head. Despite
24:19
Speaker 1: living in one of the biggest cities in the world,
24:21
Speaker 1: Matt was actually a very competent outdoorsman, and so for
24:24
Speaker 1: this trip he decided he would stay way off any trail,
24:28
Speaker 1: deep in the back country in random locations. On the
24:31
Speaker 1: first night, he found a nice clearing in the trees,
24:33
Speaker 1: and so he set.
24:34
Speaker 2: Up his campsite there. He ate some food over his.
24:36
Speaker 1: Fire, He pitched his tent, climbed inside, and within a
24:39
Speaker 1: few minutes he was fast asleep. Several hours later, Matt
24:42
Speaker 1: woke up to some strange sounds coming from outside of
24:44
Speaker 1: his tent.
24:45
Speaker 2: It sounded like a couple of animals, or maybe one animal.
24:48
Speaker 1: Moving around right outside. And so after a while of
24:51
Speaker 1: just hearing this constant sound, he rolled over and he
24:54
Speaker 1: barely unzipped his tent flap just to look out and
24:57
Speaker 1: see if he could see whatever animal it was, and
25:00
Speaker 1: he saw shocked him. There was a man sitting in
25:03
Speaker 1: front of his fire pit. There's no fire in his
25:05
Speaker 1: fire pit, and the guy was just sitting there with
25:07
Speaker 1: his hands on his knees, looking straight down, and periodically
25:10
Speaker 1: he would just kick his feet in the ashes of
25:12
Speaker 1: the fire pit. And Matt didn't even know what to do,
25:15
Speaker 1: so he's just looking at him through this little tiny
25:17
Speaker 1: gap in his tent, and this man all of a
25:19
Speaker 1: sudden looks up directly at Matt and makes eye contact
25:22
Speaker 1: with him, and the guy's eyes go wide and he
25:25
Speaker 1: stands up, turns around and runs away from Matt's campsite.
25:28
Speaker 1: Matt has no idea how to react to this, and
25:31
Speaker 1: so he just quickly unzips his tent, jumps outside, and
25:34
Speaker 1: shines his light into the forest, looking for the sky.
25:37
Speaker 1: He's thinking to himself, who is this guy? I am
25:39
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere? In the backcountry of Washington State.
25:43
Speaker 1: How long was he sitting outside there for?
25:45
Speaker 2: What does he want?
25:46
Speaker 1: And so as Matt is trying to make sense of
25:48
Speaker 1: this totally weird thing, he's thinking, Okay, I'm gonna look
25:52
Speaker 1: out and I'm gonna see his flashlight somewhere, or I'm
25:54
Speaker 1: gonna see his campsite, you know, maybe he's set up nearby,
25:57
Speaker 1: and he's looking around into the total darkness, looking to
26:00
Speaker 1: all the trees, any light source anywhere out there he
26:03
Speaker 1: would see, and there's not one. There's no fire, there's
26:06
Speaker 1: no flashlight, there is nothing. And so eventually Matt goes
26:09
Speaker 1: back inside of his tent, he zips it up, and
26:12
Speaker 1: he's just left kind of dumbfound it. He can't understand
26:16
Speaker 1: how some person was just sitting outside of his tent
26:18
Speaker 1: for no apparent reason and then vanished into the forest
26:21
Speaker 1: without even turning on a flashlight. And so, after a
26:24
Speaker 1: very restless night, finally the sun came up again and
26:28
Speaker 1: Matt was very relieved. He stepped outside, and after a
26:31
Speaker 1: little bit of time now from this strange incident, Matt
26:34
Speaker 1: started to tell himself that all that was is some
26:37
Speaker 1: guy happened to set up his campsite nearby. It is possible,
26:40
Speaker 1: albeit rare because we're in the back country, and maybe
26:43
Speaker 1: he was just intoxicated and he wandered over here, and
26:46
Speaker 1: you know, stranger things have happened, so that's probably all
26:49
Speaker 1: it was, and so Matt felt like there was nothing
26:51
Speaker 1: to worry about. He packed up his campsite and he
26:53
Speaker 1: began hiking into the forest. Matt didn't have a planned route. Instead,
26:57
Speaker 1: he had a map and a compass, and he began
26:59
Speaker 1: just kind of wandering in the forest, kind of exploring
27:01
Speaker 1: wherever he wanted to go. And over the next two
27:04
Speaker 1: days he covered at least ten maybe fifteen miles in
27:08
Speaker 1: kind of random zigzag directions. He found a nice clearing
27:11
Speaker 1: and he set up another campsite. That night, he set
27:14
Speaker 1: up a fire and he was eating some food near
27:15
Speaker 1: his fire, and then as he's sitting there, he hears
27:18
Speaker 1: rustling coming from behind him, and he's pretty sure it's
27:20
Speaker 1: an animal, so he turns around and he doesn't see anything,
27:23
Speaker 1: and he goes back to eating his food. And then
27:25
Speaker 1: a little while later he hears some more rustling behind him,
27:28
Speaker 1: and this time he can't really just write it off. Clearly,
27:30
Speaker 1: there is something behind him. That's moving around, and so
27:32
Speaker 1: he stood up, turned around and remained motionless and just listened,
27:36
Speaker 1: expecting to see maybe a deer come out of the woods.
27:39
Speaker 1: But instead he hears a man's voice come out of
27:41
Speaker 1: the darkness that says.
27:43
Speaker 2: Do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon? And
27:45
Speaker 2: Matt's heart starts racing.
27:47
Speaker 1: He knows that even though he can't see him, it
27:49
Speaker 1: has to be the same guy he saw two days ago, because.
27:52
Speaker 2: They are in the middle of nowhere. He hasn't seen
27:55
Speaker 2: any other hikers or.
27:56
Speaker 1: Campers or anyone, and clearly this guy has the ability
27:59
Speaker 1: to sneak up on him, And so he's thinking, what
28:02
Speaker 1: does this guy want? I just spent the past two
28:05
Speaker 1: days hiking in random directions for fifteen miles and he
28:09
Speaker 1: must have followed me. And so Matt, not knowing what
28:12
Speaker 1: else to do, just says, I don't know where Bell's
28:14
Speaker 1: Canyon is, And then there's silence, and Matt one part
28:18
Speaker 1: of him is thinking, I hope this guy does not
28:20
Speaker 1: come into the light.
28:20
Speaker 2: I hope he just goes away. The other part of.
28:23
Speaker 1: Him is thinking, well, you know, maybe this is a
28:25
Speaker 1: different person that is lost and they're looking for this
28:28
Speaker 1: place called Bell's Canyon and they'll come into the light.
28:30
Speaker 1: It'll be a big relief. I'll send them on their
28:32
Speaker 1: merry way and everything will be fine. But as Matt
28:35
Speaker 1: is having this wishful thinking, the voice from the shadows
28:38
Speaker 1: does not come any closer, but instead ask the same
28:41
Speaker 1: question a bit more forcefully this.
28:43
Speaker 3: Time, do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon?
28:45
Speaker 3: This time Matt did not respond. Now he was scared.
28:48
Speaker 3: This is not some friendly hiker looking for directions. There's
28:51
Speaker 3: something wrong.
28:52
Speaker 1: And so Matt, knowing he's all alone out here, he
28:54
Speaker 1: knew he had to do something to try to take
28:57
Speaker 1: control of this situation, and so he took a deep breath,
29:00
Speaker 1: he reached down and grabbed his flashlight, and in one
29:02
Speaker 1: swift motion, he lifted his light up and shined it
29:05
Speaker 1: in the direction of this guy's voice. And what he
29:07
Speaker 1: saw was this guy from two days ago, looking out
29:11
Speaker 1: from behind a tree, right in Matt's direction. He was
29:13
Speaker 1: hiding from him, and when the light hit him, the
29:15
Speaker 1: man barked at Matt to aim it away, and Matt
29:18
Speaker 1: kind of instinctively lowered his light, But now he was
29:21
Speaker 1: too scared to raise it again. And now he knows
29:24
Speaker 1: it's the same guy. This guy has been following me
29:28
Speaker 1: for two days. And so for several minutes Matt just
29:31
Speaker 1: stood there, absolutely terrified, and this guy, he just stayed
29:35
Speaker 1: out there.
29:35
Speaker 2: Matt didn't hear move, it was just a complete standstill.
29:38
Speaker 1: And then the silence was broken yet again by this voice,
29:42
Speaker 1: except somehow he had moved even closer to Matt, and
29:46
Speaker 1: when he came through, asking the same.
29:48
Speaker 2: Question, do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon?
29:50
Speaker 1: His voice was so close to Matt that Matt got
29:53
Speaker 1: scared and raised his light up, and the man was
29:55
Speaker 1: standing just a few feet away from him, and this
29:58
Speaker 1: time the man's eyes got wide they did the first
30:00
Speaker 1: time they saw Matt, and he turned around and he
30:03
Speaker 1: ran into.
30:03
Speaker 2: The forest again.
30:04
Speaker 1: Matt, not knowing any better, just began running after him.
30:07
Speaker 1: But he only ran for about thirty seconds before he
30:10
Speaker 1: realized the terrain out here is so rough. He's gonna fall,
30:13
Speaker 1: get hurt, he's gonna get lost, and this guy's already
30:16
Speaker 1: long gone. He somehow managed to run immediately so far away,
30:20
Speaker 1: And so Matt just goes back to his campsite and
30:22
Speaker 1: he's thinking to himself, what do I do? I have
30:25
Speaker 1: no cell phone service. I'm at least three days away
30:28
Speaker 1: from my car, and I'm in the middle of nowhere.
30:31
Speaker 1: No one even knows where I am because I didn't charte.
30:33
Speaker 1: A course, I didn't tell anyone where I was gonna be.
30:35
Speaker 1: And so Matt just grabbed his knife and stood in
30:38
Speaker 1: the middle of the campsite and for hours and hours
30:41
Speaker 1: he just kept looking around, expecting this guy to just
30:43
Speaker 1: show up again or start speaking to him from somewhere
30:46
Speaker 1: out in the darkness. It was absolutely horrifying. Finally, by
30:50
Speaker 1: about three in the morning, Matt was so tired that
30:54
Speaker 1: he had to go to sleep. He hadn't heard this
30:56
Speaker 1: guy again, he didn't see him again, and he figured,
30:58
Speaker 1: I need a little bit of sleep because tomorrow he's
31:01
Speaker 1: going to pack up his campsite and begin this epic
31:03
Speaker 1: journey back to his car. So he climbed in his
31:05
Speaker 1: tent and he had a very restless next couple of hours.
31:08
Speaker 2: And then the sun came up.
31:10
Speaker 1: Matt jumped out of his tent, packed up his stuff,
31:12
Speaker 1: and began practically running in the direction of his car.
31:15
Speaker 1: All day, as he was hiking, Matt kept looking over
31:18
Speaker 1: his shoulder expecting to see this guy because clearly he
31:21
Speaker 1: had followed him for multiple days over fifteen miles, and
31:24
Speaker 1: so the likelihood that he's still following him was really high,
31:28
Speaker 1: and so all day Matt just felt like he was
31:30
Speaker 1: being watched.
31:30
Speaker 2: He was totally terrified.
31:32
Speaker 1: And then the sun started to go down and Matt
31:34
Speaker 1: knew he would have to camp out again, and so
31:36
Speaker 1: he found a clearing in the trees. He set up
31:39
Speaker 1: his campsite, and he was so tired from running basically
31:43
Speaker 1: all day and being so mentally exhausted from this experience
31:46
Speaker 1: that he just got in his tent and fell asleep
31:49
Speaker 1: very quickly. But several hours later he woke up to
31:51
Speaker 1: the sound of somebody walking around his tent, and he
31:54
Speaker 1: knew it had to be this guy. He's still in
31:57
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere, he's not even close to the
31:59
Speaker 1: parking lot yet, and so this guy is still following him.
32:02
Speaker 1: And so Matt sat up in his tent, he clutched
32:04
Speaker 1: his knife, and for hours and hours and hours all night,
32:08
Speaker 1: this guy just walked around his campsite, and then around
32:11
Speaker 1: four or five in the morning, he scampered off.
32:13
Speaker 2: When the sun finally.
32:14
Speaker 1: Came up, Matt leaped out of his tent, packed up
32:17
Speaker 1: his stuff, and literally just began running in the direction
32:20
Speaker 1: of his car, hoping that maybe he could get there
32:22
Speaker 1: before needing to camp out one more night. And so
32:25
Speaker 1: all day as he moved, he's looking over his shoulder,
32:27
Speaker 1: knowing this guy is following him.
32:29
Speaker 2: At this point, it's not even a question. He's somewhere
32:32
Speaker 2: in the forest, but he could never see him. And unfortunately,
32:35
Speaker 2: as the sun was setting, he knew he was not
32:37
Speaker 2: going to be able to make it to his car.
32:39
Speaker 2: He was just too far away, and so at some.
32:41
Speaker 1: Point, when it got too dark to keep moving, he
32:43
Speaker 1: had to find a clearing and set up his tent again,
32:46
Speaker 1: and so Matt climbed the side of his tent, he
32:47
Speaker 1: zipped it up behind him, he grabbed his knife, and
32:50
Speaker 1: he sat there expecting to hear this guy come walking around.
32:53
Speaker 1: But after several hours, he didn't hear him, and Matt
32:56
Speaker 1: started to wonder, maybe this guy has left me alone finally,
32:59
Speaker 1: maybe he's not following me anymore. And so Matt, who
33:02
Speaker 1: was totally exhausted, laid down to go to sleep. And
33:05
Speaker 1: then as he's laying there, from somewhere out in.
33:07
Speaker 3: The woods, do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon?
33:09
Speaker 3: Matt immediately sat up.
33:10
Speaker 1: His heart began racing so fast that he actually was
33:13
Speaker 1: concerned he might have a heart attack, and he didn't.
33:15
Speaker 2: Know what to do.
33:16
Speaker 1: He didn't know what to say, so he just sat
33:17
Speaker 1: there holding his knife. And then this guy began running
33:21
Speaker 1: past his campsite, making animal sounds, and he would stop
33:24
Speaker 1: periodically and moan and grunt, and he'd kick up leaves,
33:27
Speaker 1: and then he'd run past his campsite again, over and
33:30
Speaker 1: over and over again, until the sun finally came up
33:33
Speaker 1: and this guy scampered off back into the woods. Matt
33:36
Speaker 1: didn't waste any time. He left out of his tent,
33:38
Speaker 1: packed his stuff up, and ran all the way back
33:41
Speaker 1: to his car. When he finally got inside of his car,
33:44
Speaker 1: shut the door and locked it. He cried tears of joy.
33:47
Speaker 1: He was so unbelievably relieved, and he peeled out of
33:50
Speaker 1: the parking lot. He got to a nearby hotel. He
33:53
Speaker 1: finally got cell phone reception, and he considered calling the
33:56
Speaker 1: police about the sky, but he thought, you know what,
33:58
Speaker 1: am I gonna tell them?
33:59
Speaker 2: He didn't a crime.
34:00
Speaker 1: He was just terrifying, and so he decided not to
34:03
Speaker 1: call the police. He finally flew back to New York
34:05
Speaker 1: and he just had to accept that there was some
34:08
Speaker 1: strange guy out in the wilderness of Washington State who
34:11
Speaker 1: was able to hunt him over three days and thirty
34:14
Speaker 1: miles in rugged terrain without the use of a flashlight,
34:18
Speaker 1: without any gear, and all he ever said to.
34:20
Speaker 2: Matt was do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon? Wait,
34:27
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere. We actually have a bonus story for you.
34:30
Speaker 1: This final story has quickly become one of the classics
34:33
Speaker 1: on this channel. It's a story about a forest in
34:36
Speaker 1: Connecticut that is actually illegal to enter, basically because of
34:41
Speaker 1: maybe paranormal activity out there. We don't know, but it
34:45
Speaker 1: is actually illegal to go into this forest. There's a
34:48
Speaker 1: whole crazy story around it. I actually told the story
34:51
Speaker 1: on a livestream recently about Dudley Town, and so we
34:54
Speaker 1: went ahead and took that footage. We edited it, made
34:56
Speaker 1: it really pretty, and now you get to watch it
34:58
Speaker 1: in case you didn't see it live Enjoy. In the
35:06
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen oh six, there was this couple, doctor
35:09
Speaker 1: William Clark and his wife Harriet, and they were up
35:12
Speaker 1: in northwestern Connecticut and they're driving along this winding country
35:15
Speaker 1: road in a place called Lichfield, County and as they're
35:18
Speaker 1: driving along, I mean it's so scenic and beautiful with
35:21
Speaker 1: rolling hills and green everywhere. And what they were doing
35:25
Speaker 1: is they were looking for a location in this area
35:28
Speaker 1: that could serve as a location for their second home.
35:31
Speaker 1: So doctor Clark was an oncologist and they lived back
35:34
Speaker 1: in New York City, where he and his wife lived
35:37
Speaker 1: kind of a fabulous life. You know, he was super successful.
35:40
Speaker 1: He was not only an oncologist, he was a big
35:42
Speaker 1: time professor as well, and so they lived this amazing
35:46
Speaker 1: life in New York.
35:47
Speaker 4: But you know, their.
35:48
Speaker 1: Lives were really hectic. You know, New York City is
35:51
Speaker 1: a hectic place. Add in the fact that they were
35:53
Speaker 1: very social people, always going out and going to functions
35:55
Speaker 1: and this and that, and so they had some extra
35:58
Speaker 1: money and they wanted to you know, buy or build
36:01
Speaker 1: a second home that would kind of serve as their
36:03
Speaker 1: retreat away from the city. And after I guess looking
36:08
Speaker 1: all around the country, they found Lichfield County.
36:11
Speaker 4: Was kind of like the opposite of New York City.
36:13
Speaker 1: I mean, very few people were living there at the time,
36:15
Speaker 1: and again, it's this beautiful, scenic place and so it
36:18
Speaker 1: just seemed kind of like the perfect spot. So again
36:21
Speaker 1: doctor Clark and Harriet, they're just driving along beautiful day
36:25
Speaker 1: and they eventually in Litchfield County, they eventually reached this
36:28
Speaker 1: beautiful red wood covered bridge and they go over it
36:31
Speaker 1: and when they get to the other side, their field
36:33
Speaker 1: of view opened up because there weren't as many trees
36:35
Speaker 1: right on the other side of this bridge, and they
36:38
Speaker 1: suddenly had this view up into the right, maybe you know,
36:41
Speaker 1: half a mile away or something of this weirdly shaded forest.
36:46
Speaker 1: Now you got to remember that basically everywhere they're looking,
36:49
Speaker 1: there's trees everywhere. I mean, it's very densely forested everywhere.
36:52
Speaker 1: But there was just this one kind of rise at
36:54
Speaker 1: a pretty big hill, a prominent hill that was really dark,
36:59
Speaker 1: like totally shaped, and it was because there's two mountains
37:01
Speaker 1: or two hills on either side of it, almost creating
37:04
Speaker 1: like a valley, and so it just looked like, wow,
37:06
Speaker 1: that's a very shaded forest. And as you'll see, it's
37:09
Speaker 1: actually called the Dark Entry Forest in part because of
37:12
Speaker 1: how shaded it is. And so they've just come out
37:15
Speaker 1: of this bridge and they're seeing this area up on
37:17
Speaker 1: this hill. There's no buildings, nothing, it's just trees and
37:20
Speaker 1: there's just there was just something immediately about it that
37:23
Speaker 1: really stood out to doctor Clark and his wife, and
37:25
Speaker 1: they noticed that the road they were on there appeared
37:29
Speaker 1: to be like an access road that kind of splintered
37:31
Speaker 1: off the road they were on that appeared to go
37:34
Speaker 1: up into that forest, that the dark endry forest. And
37:37
Speaker 1: so they look at each other and they're like, hey,
37:39
Speaker 1: let's go up there. Maybe that's the place where we
37:41
Speaker 1: can find our spot for our second home. And so
37:45
Speaker 1: they Doctor Clark pulls off the main road, goes on
37:47
Speaker 1: the access road, and he begins making his way up
37:49
Speaker 1: towards this kind of darkened forest area, and really quickly
37:54
Speaker 1: the road itself was very overgrown. You know, at first
37:58
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was releivetively well maintained. But the
38:01
Speaker 1: farther up they went towards this dark forest, the rougher
38:04
Speaker 1: It got to the point where doctor Clark couldn't even
38:06
Speaker 1: drive on it.
38:06
Speaker 4: There's too many potholes and everything.
38:08
Speaker 1: So they end up pulling the car over and parking.
38:12
Speaker 1: And at this point they're actually in a bit of
38:13
Speaker 1: a clearing, and they can actually see up ahead of
38:15
Speaker 1: them where they parked. It looks almost like a an
38:18
Speaker 1: entry point to the forest. The tree line is right
38:20
Speaker 1: in front of them, and there's kind of like a
38:22
Speaker 1: gap in the trees where this rugged road kind of
38:24
Speaker 1: continues into the forest, and they continue walking on foot
38:27
Speaker 1: towards the entry of this forest. Again, it's beautiful, scenic,
38:30
Speaker 1: very sunny, beautiful day. They're super excited and they walk
38:34
Speaker 1: into the shade of the of the forest and right
38:37
Speaker 1: away it's like all the sunlight basically vanishes, but not
38:40
Speaker 1: in a spooky way, kind of like in a they
38:42
Speaker 1: lowered the brightness slightly, and it's very quiet, and you know,
38:46
Speaker 1: the canopy in dark entry forest is known for being
38:49
Speaker 1: really really thick, and so not much light was pushing through,
38:52
Speaker 1: but it created almost like it was like they were
38:54
Speaker 1: walking into a bubble.
38:55
Speaker 2: You know.
38:56
Speaker 1: It's just pure, unadulterated silence and peace. And as they're
39:01
Speaker 1: walking on this road, which quickly becomes mostly like a
39:04
Speaker 1: little path, it doesn't even look like a road at
39:05
Speaker 1: some point, it's just kind of like grass that's been
39:07
Speaker 1: pushed down. Clearly, not many people or anything is coming
39:10
Speaker 1: into this forest, at least not from this direction. And
39:14
Speaker 1: as they're walking along, they're looking around and they're like
39:17
Speaker 1: this place is so beautiful. I mean, it was already beautiful,
39:21
Speaker 1: but this is especially beautiful. Like they walked maybe a
39:25
Speaker 1: couple hundred feet into the forest, and off to their right,
39:27
Speaker 1: it's this apple orchard, untouched. No one's taking these apples.
39:31
Speaker 1: It's just like a wild apple orchard. And there's deer
39:34
Speaker 1: that are just eating the apples off the tree, and
39:36
Speaker 1: they're looking over at doctor Clark and his wife, and
39:38
Speaker 1: they're completely unafraid. They don't see people, so this is
39:42
Speaker 1: not terrifying for them. Deer just eating there at their apples.
39:45
Speaker 1: And then you know, on the other side of the
39:46
Speaker 1: road there's these huge, you know, fields full of flowers
39:49
Speaker 1: that are again, trees are everywhere, but there's all these
39:51
Speaker 1: flowers at the bases of the trees, you know, lilies
39:54
Speaker 1: and roses and yellow bitter tansies or I think that's
39:57
Speaker 1: what they're called.
39:58
Speaker 4: It's all these beautiful flowers.
40:00
Speaker 1: And then at some point, as they walked a little
40:01
Speaker 1: bit farther into the into this dark entry forest, the
40:05
Speaker 1: sunlight that was poking through it was hitting.
40:08
Speaker 4: The ground in such a way that it was actually sparkling.
40:10
Speaker 1: Because this forest was actually on a hillside, and there
40:14
Speaker 1: was this mineral called micah if you're familiar, it's like
40:16
Speaker 1: this little translucent it almost looks like kind of clouded glass.
40:20
Speaker 4: That's actually a.
40:21
Speaker 1: Mineral that comes from the ground and when the sunlight
40:23
Speaker 1: hits it, it kind of looks like it sparkles. And
40:25
Speaker 1: so they're looking around at these wild animals that are
40:28
Speaker 1: unafraid of them, and flowers and there's you know, babbling
40:31
Speaker 1: brooks and streams. I mean, it's like out of a
40:33
Speaker 1: Disney movie. This is like a perfect place. And so
40:37
Speaker 1: by the time the couple came out of dark Entry Forest,
40:40
Speaker 1: this is only you know, like they walked around for
40:42
Speaker 1: maybe an hour or so. By the time they were
40:44
Speaker 1: coming out, they were completely sold that that was going
40:49
Speaker 1: to be where. They went ahead and bought their land
40:52
Speaker 1: to do it, to build a second home. And so
40:55
Speaker 1: they go back to New York City and they put
40:57
Speaker 1: in the paperwork to buy the land and they buy
40:59
Speaker 1: a thousand acres in this forest, which it's ridiculous to
41:03
Speaker 1: imagine just casually buying a thousand acres anywhere, but they did.
41:06
Speaker 1: They bought their thousand acres and as soon as they
41:09
Speaker 1: had it, as soon as it was finalized, doctor Clark
41:12
Speaker 1: began calling around to all these builders, local builders in
41:15
Speaker 1: Connecticut that could help him build his home, and he
41:18
Speaker 1: had no intention of building some humongous home. They bought
41:22
Speaker 1: a huge amount of land, but they only want to
41:23
Speaker 1: build like they only wanted to build a small cabin.
41:26
Speaker 1: But despite the job being relatively simple, and despite doctor
41:31
Speaker 1: Clark offering quite a bit of money to anybody who
41:33
Speaker 1: was willing to go out there and build this for him,
41:36
Speaker 1: none of the builders would do it. They never really
41:38
Speaker 1: gave a straight answer to doctor Clark about why they
41:42
Speaker 1: would not go into Dark Entry Forest. But universally, you know,
41:46
Speaker 1: no one would do it. And so, you know, doctor Clark,
41:50
Speaker 1: he definitely was discouraged by that, but he just kind
41:53
Speaker 1: of chalked it up to, you know, Okay, so obviously
41:55
Speaker 1: it's kind of an isolated place. It's relatively hard to
41:58
Speaker 1: get into Dark Entry Forest, and where they had built
42:01
Speaker 1: bought this land, it was pretty far into the forest,
42:05
Speaker 1: and so he just decided, Okay, it just might not
42:07
Speaker 1: be worth it for them. It's logistically kind of a nightmare.
42:09
Speaker 1: They don't want to do it, and so doctor Clark
42:11
Speaker 1: is undeterred and he decides he will just build the
42:14
Speaker 1: house himself.
42:16
Speaker 4: Doctor Clark. He grew up on a farm in New Jersey.
42:18
Speaker 4: He was a very handy guy.
42:19
Speaker 1: He had built buildings before, so this was something he
42:22
Speaker 1: could do. And so over the next several months, every weekend,
42:27
Speaker 1: doctor Clark would make his way on his own to
42:29
Speaker 1: Dark Entry Forest. And it also was full of owls
42:32
Speaker 1: that were hooting all the time. So there's like this
42:34
Speaker 1: audio side of being in this forest which is really intense,
42:38
Speaker 1: like there's owls hooting constantly. And actually doctor Clark and
42:41
Speaker 1: Harriet thought it was really cute that these owls it
42:44
Speaker 1: seemed like they were almost personally greeting them as they
42:46
Speaker 1: came into the forest. And so doctor Clark every weekend
42:49
Speaker 1: for several months he would go into Dark Entry Forest
42:51
Speaker 1: and be greeted by the owls, and he would go
42:54
Speaker 1: to the land where the thousand acre land. And actually
42:57
Speaker 1: he had identified this one kind of flat spot in
43:00
Speaker 1: the thousand acres that was good for building a home.
43:03
Speaker 1: And so the first thing he did over these several
43:05
Speaker 1: weekends he was out there is he just cut down
43:07
Speaker 1: this massive swath of hemlock trees, just kind of clearing
43:10
Speaker 1: out that flat area, and then he chopped up the trees.
43:13
Speaker 1: He cut down into lumber, and he used that to
43:15
Speaker 1: build a rustic, simple two story cabin. And then after
43:19
Speaker 1: this cabin was built, kind of up on this hill,
43:22
Speaker 1: there happened to be another hill not too far away
43:24
Speaker 1: from the cabin where there was a freshwater spring right
43:27
Speaker 1: at the top. And so, you know, doctor Clark, he
43:29
Speaker 1: went up and laid piping from the freshwater spring down
43:32
Speaker 1: to his cabin, so they had fresh water in the cabin.
43:35
Speaker 1: And then down the hill from where the cabin was
43:38
Speaker 1: constructed was a small brook, and doctor Clark he found
43:42
Speaker 1: himself always going down and just staring into this beautiful
43:44
Speaker 1: brook because there were all these trout because nobody fished
43:47
Speaker 1: out here. This is like an abandoned place. Basically, there's
43:50
Speaker 1: all these trout just swimming around, unencumbered, just leaping out
43:53
Speaker 1: of the water. If they even do that, I don't
43:54
Speaker 1: know if trout do that.
43:55
Speaker 4: I think they do.
43:57
Speaker 1: And so he ended up actually building a swimming pool
43:59
Speaker 1: right next to the brook, specifically so he could sit
44:02
Speaker 1: in the swimming pool and watch the trout. And so
44:06
Speaker 1: by Thanksgiving of that year, so nineteen oh six, by Thanksgiving,
44:10
Speaker 1: the property was done, the cabin had been built, everything
44:12
Speaker 1: was done, and so that holiday season, doctor Clark and
44:16
Speaker 1: Harriet and their whole family would come out and they
44:18
Speaker 1: would spend the holidays, you know, sitting in their pool,
44:21
Speaker 1: watching the trout and just having a wonderful time and
44:24
Speaker 1: really for geez. For many years, every summer and every
44:29
Speaker 1: major holiday, the Clark family would come out to their beautiful,
44:33
Speaker 1: dark entry cabin and they would stay there and it
44:35
Speaker 1: was really perfect. It is until nineteen eighteen. In nineteen eighteen,
44:41
Speaker 1: in the summer, doctor Clark and Harriet were at their
44:44
Speaker 1: cabin and they were having a nice time when doctor
44:47
Speaker 1: Clark got word that he was actually being called back
44:49
Speaker 1: to New York City for an emergency. Remember he's an oncologist,
44:53
Speaker 1: so these things happened, and he was called back, and
44:55
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, you know, Harriet, who normally likely would
44:59
Speaker 1: have joined him and just gone back to New York
45:02
Speaker 1: with him, she decided to stay. I mean, they've been
45:04
Speaker 1: coming here for years by this point, so she probably
45:06
Speaker 1: felt somewhat comfortable, although admittedly she was very unhappy about this.
45:10
Speaker 4: She didn't want to be there alone.
45:11
Speaker 1: But again she decides to stay. But she tells doctor Clark,
45:15
Speaker 1: you know, because she didn't know how long he would
45:17
Speaker 1: actually be in New York and he didn't really know either,
45:19
Speaker 1: but she said, you've got to promise me you'll be
45:21
Speaker 1: back here as soon as you possibly can. And doctor
45:24
Speaker 1: Clark would tell her that, you know, I'll do my best.
45:26
Speaker 1: I should be back here and maybe, you know, a
45:28
Speaker 1: couple of days from now, and I promise you I
45:30
Speaker 1: will come home as soon as I possibly can. And
45:33
Speaker 1: so doctor Clark packs up his things and he and
45:35
Speaker 1: his wife they leave their cabin. They you know, walk
45:37
Speaker 1: their way down the trail, listening to the owls and
45:40
Speaker 1: looking at the micush barkley sparkling on the ground. And
45:43
Speaker 1: they leave the forest and they make their way to
45:46
Speaker 1: a nearby train station, which actually was not that far
45:49
Speaker 1: away from the entry to the forest, and Harriet dropped
45:52
Speaker 1: off her husband and she watched, you know, as he
45:54
Speaker 1: boarded and it began taking off, and he disappeared to
45:57
Speaker 1: go to New York. And doctor Clark he's vanishing, you know,
46:01
Speaker 1: traveling on this train. He's thinking to himself that, okay,
46:04
Speaker 1: I'll be in New York just for a couple of days.
46:05
Speaker 1: I'll be back at no time. Little did he know,
46:09
Speaker 1: over the course of time he was going to be
46:10
Speaker 1: in New York, his wife would endure something that is
46:14
Speaker 1: just truly horrifying. So before I explained to you what
46:19
Speaker 1: happened after doctor Clark left, you need to understand some
46:23
Speaker 1: history about this forest, history that doctor Clark and Harriet
46:28
Speaker 1: did not look into before deciding to purchase these one
46:31
Speaker 1: thousand acres, because had they done the research into this area,
46:35
Speaker 1: they likely would not have bought the land. So there
46:40
Speaker 1: actually used to be a town that was settled in
46:43
Speaker 1: the dark Entry Forest. It was called Dudley Town, and
46:45
Speaker 1: it was settled in the seventeen forties. And at first
46:47
Speaker 1: it was just a couple of families just getting by,
46:52
Speaker 1: but pretty quickly it grew to about thirty families and
46:55
Speaker 1: several structures and houses and the whole nine yards. Like
46:58
Speaker 1: it's a small community inside of this beauty forest. And
47:01
Speaker 1: things were great, you know for a small town. In
47:03
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, things were stable. But starting in at
47:08
Speaker 1: the end of the seventeen hundred, so like in the
47:10
Speaker 1: seventeen nineties, up till about the eighteen hundreds, things started
47:14
Speaker 1: to go really, really badly in Dudley Town. And in fact,
47:18
Speaker 1: because of how badly it went, it earned this It
47:22
Speaker 1: was the conclusion was that Dudley Town had to be
47:25
Speaker 1: cursed and that lore had stuck around, which is actually
47:28
Speaker 1: why those builders refused to do the work for doctor Clark,
47:31
Speaker 1: because they believed it was a cursed place. So this
47:35
Speaker 1: is what led to it being believed to be cursed,
47:37
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you it's pretty creepy. So it started
47:40
Speaker 1: with the Carter family. So the Carter family was a
47:42
Speaker 1: big family inside of Dudley Town, and it was in
47:46
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety seventeen ninety two, there was this cholera epidemic
47:51
Speaker 1: that broke out in this small town and six members
47:55
Speaker 1: of the Carter family died really suddenly from cholera. And
47:59
Speaker 1: the remaining members of the Carter family, which was significant,
48:03
Speaker 1: I think there was a dozen people still left. Might
48:04
Speaker 1: have been a few less than that, but a pretty
48:06
Speaker 1: good chunk of people. They were so grief stricken from
48:08
Speaker 1: the loss that they decided to just abandon literally abandon
48:12
Speaker 1: their house, their houses in Dudley Town and go back
48:15
Speaker 1: to New York City, where they happened to be from
48:17
Speaker 1: as well, same as doctor Clark. But as soon as
48:21
Speaker 1: they got to New York, they were massacred by natives
48:25
Speaker 1: that lived in the area and the only people that
48:27
Speaker 1: survived this massacre were three children, and the three children
48:31
Speaker 1: were kidnapped and never seen again. And so that was
48:34
Speaker 1: the start of bad things happening to people in Dudley Town.
48:37
Speaker 1: The next thing that happened is there was a guy
48:40
Speaker 1: named Hollister. We don't know his last name, but he
48:43
Speaker 1: was He either fell off a roof or he was pushed,
48:46
Speaker 1: we don't really know, but either way he died. But
48:48
Speaker 1: he died on or near another person's home whose name
48:53
Speaker 1: was Tanner. Okay, so Hollister dies, and he dies on
48:57
Speaker 1: or near Tanner's home. And after Hollister died, which again
49:01
Speaker 1: there was shrouded in mystery, Tanner, the owner of the
49:05
Speaker 1: home where this guy died, he began talking obsessively, and
49:08
Speaker 1: it's documented obsessively about strange creatures lurking around the tree
49:14
Speaker 1: line inside of dark, untry forest right around Dudley Town.
49:17
Speaker 1: Every night, that's all he saw. So guy dies and
49:21
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Tanner is noticing all these strange creatures,
49:25
Speaker 1: and he's telling everybody in town that there's something going
49:27
Speaker 1: on here. Nobody believed him, and so slowly Tanner every
49:31
Speaker 1: night he would see whatever he was seeing, and it
49:32
Speaker 1: drove him insane, completely insane, to the point where he
49:36
Speaker 1: couldn't even function, and his wife as his daughter, had
49:38
Speaker 1: to take care of him until he passed away. And
49:41
Speaker 1: as Tanner was losing his mind, his next door neighbor,
49:46
Speaker 1: whose name was Able, began to talk as well about
49:49
Speaker 1: these creatures that were coming to the edge of the
49:51
Speaker 1: tree line surrounding Dudley Town most nights, and just like Tanner,
49:56
Speaker 1: Able as well slowly lost his mind over these creatures
49:59
Speaker 1: because nobody believed him. And then all the way up
50:02
Speaker 1: until like just past the eighteen hundreds, so many people
50:05
Speaker 1: just randomly died in Dudley Town, some from disease for sure,
50:09
Speaker 1: but others they just be found dead. And then many
50:12
Speaker 1: people as well began citing these strange creatures that were
50:15
Speaker 1: lurking all around. By nineteen hundred, the only family that
50:18
Speaker 1: was still alive in Dudley Town was this family called
50:21
Speaker 1: the Brophy's, and it was a fairly big family, and
50:25
Speaker 1: the mother, she suddenly died of cholera. The two sons
50:29
Speaker 1: they were accused of theft in another town and then
50:31
Speaker 1: fled and vanished. And so literally it's down to John Brophy,
50:34
Speaker 1: the actual last person who's living in Dudley Town. And
50:38
Speaker 1: one night he didn't know why. Apparently he didn't know why,
50:41
Speaker 1: but as his cabin burned to the ground, and after
50:43
Speaker 1: his cabin or while his cabin was burning, you know,
50:46
Speaker 1: people were called out. They saw the smoke, they came
50:48
Speaker 1: out to put out this fire. And the last anyone
50:51
Speaker 1: saw of John, who's lost his whole family, he's lost everything,
50:54
Speaker 1: is he just turned and walked deeper into the forest
50:57
Speaker 1: and was never seen again, and no one could find him.
51:00
Speaker 1: And that was the last person who lived in Dudley Town.
51:02
Speaker 1: And that marked the moment that Dudley Town went from
51:05
Speaker 1: you know, still being occupied to being a literal ghost town.
51:08
Speaker 1: And you can actually look up the newspaper article that
51:10
Speaker 1: documented the moment when Dudleytown became a ghost town no
51:13
Speaker 1: one lives there. A few years later is when doctor
51:17
Speaker 1: Clark and Harriet were taking their stroll through Litchfield County
51:20
Speaker 1: and up into dark Henry Forest and saying, wow, this
51:23
Speaker 1: is the place for us, and they saw the ruins
51:25
Speaker 1: of Dudleytown. They walked past the crumbling foundations of these
51:28
Speaker 1: old homes and there was all these remnants of this
51:31
Speaker 1: town that was still there, but much the way they
51:33
Speaker 1: viewed the Owls as being kind of charming, they also
51:37
Speaker 1: viewed this rundown old town that was gone as kind
51:40
Speaker 1: of cute and it made them want to stay there more.
51:42
Speaker 3: So.
51:42
Speaker 1: They were aware of the town but didn't do the research.
51:45
Speaker 1: Apparently Dudley Town was cursed and that is where they
51:47
Speaker 1: bought their land. So fast forward to nineteen eighteen. So
51:53
Speaker 1: doctor Clark he's left for this emergency trip to New York,
51:56
Speaker 1: and it would turn out he was only needed in
51:58
Speaker 1: New York for thirty six It was, you know, as
52:01
Speaker 1: short as he could have expected it to be. So
52:03
Speaker 1: less than two days later, you know, keeping his word
52:05
Speaker 1: to his wife, he's back on a train and he's
52:08
Speaker 1: heading back to that stop where Harriet had dropped him off,
52:10
Speaker 1: near near the dark Entry Forest. And although this was
52:14
Speaker 1: rare that, you know, doctor Clark would leave his wife
52:17
Speaker 1: in the cabin. He expected her to be waiting for
52:20
Speaker 1: him at the train station. They didn't have an exact
52:23
Speaker 1: time that he was going to be there, because it
52:25
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't not entirely planned. But he had said
52:28
Speaker 1: I'll be here in like one or two days Max,
52:30
Speaker 1: and so he just kind of expected his wife to
52:32
Speaker 1: check the schedule and be.
52:32
Speaker 4: At the train platform.
52:34
Speaker 1: But as he's pulling into the station, he sees his
52:36
Speaker 1: wife is not there. Now, this was not some huge
52:39
Speaker 1: cause for concern, but it was enough of a red
52:41
Speaker 1: flag that, as you know, he's pulling into the station,
52:44
Speaker 1: doctor Clark is thinking something feels off, and so he
52:48
Speaker 1: ends up going from the train station and he actually
52:50
Speaker 1: walked the rest of the way.
52:51
Speaker 4: He didn't take a car or anything.
52:52
Speaker 1: He walked to that access road and made his way
52:55
Speaker 1: up to the entry of Dark Entry Forest. And as
52:58
Speaker 1: soon as he walked into the four so daylight out here,
53:01
Speaker 1: he steps into the canopy and it's dark again. And remember,
53:04
Speaker 1: it used to feel so welcoming and wonderful going into
53:06
Speaker 1: that forest. It was so peaceful, But now it has
53:09
Speaker 1: a different feel. He steps into the forest and suddenly
53:11
Speaker 1: it feels threatening. It feels ominous, and the owls that
53:15
Speaker 1: are hooting the whole time he steps in, it didn't
53:17
Speaker 1: feel like they were greeting him. It felt like they
53:19
Speaker 1: were telling him to leave. But he had to find
53:22
Speaker 1: his wife, and he's thinking, she's up at the cabin.
53:24
Speaker 1: That's where we need to go, and so he begins
53:26
Speaker 1: kind of jogging, fast walking. He's getting a little nervous
53:29
Speaker 1: through the forest, and as he's as he's moving through,
53:32
Speaker 1: the sounds of these owls are getting louder and louder
53:35
Speaker 1: and louder and more threatening, until finally, when he gets
53:37
Speaker 1: to the clearing, when he can actually look up and
53:40
Speaker 1: see where he built his cabin up on this hill,
53:42
Speaker 1: it's like a cacophony of noise. It's just constant hooting,
53:46
Speaker 1: almost like it doesn't even sound like hooting, it's just
53:48
Speaker 1: a loud sound that's constant. And so doctor Clark is
53:51
Speaker 1: starting to panic, but he gets even more panicked when
53:54
Speaker 1: he looks up at the cabin. He doesn't see his wife,
53:57
Speaker 1: but he sees the door to the front door to
53:59
Speaker 1: this cabin is lightly ajar, and so doctor Clark he
54:02
Speaker 1: runs the rest of the way up the hill.
54:04
Speaker 4: Owl's hooting the whole time.
54:06
Speaker 1: He gets to the door, and he's terrified. He knows
54:09
Speaker 1: there's something wrong here, but he's still He gets the
54:12
Speaker 1: courage he opens up the front door, and the second
54:15
Speaker 1: he steps into this home, which he has loved and
54:17
Speaker 1: spent years and years in with his family. He steps
54:20
Speaker 1: in and everything is different. Instead of it being peaceful,
54:23
Speaker 1: he now feels this almost high pitched sound like inside
54:26
Speaker 1: of his head for a second, and he's confused, and
54:29
Speaker 1: then he hears what sounds like maniacal laughter coming from
54:32
Speaker 1: the second floor. He doesn't see anybody on the first floor.
54:34
Speaker 1: He thinks it's his wife, and so he charges upstairs.
54:37
Speaker 1: He gets to the landing and he sees the door
54:39
Speaker 1: to his bedroom, where he would expect his wife to
54:41
Speaker 1: be is slightly open, and he can hear this laughter
54:44
Speaker 1: coming from inside of this room, this maniacal, crazy, loud,
54:47
Speaker 1: high pitched laughter, and he's totally panicked. He goes to
54:51
Speaker 1: the door and he opens it up, and there in
54:53
Speaker 1: the back corner of the bedroom is his wife, and
54:56
Speaker 1: she's in the fetal position, and her mouth has been
54:58
Speaker 1: opened as wide as it can go, and to laughter
55:01
Speaker 1: that he's hearing is coming out of her body, but
55:03
Speaker 1: her jaw isn't moving, her chest is heaving, and this
55:06
Speaker 1: maniacal laughter is just coming out of her, and she
55:08
Speaker 1: stares him dead in the eyes. And so doctor Clark,
55:11
Speaker 1: he was so terrified at what he was seeing and
55:13
Speaker 1: all the hooting and all this craziness going on, that
55:15
Speaker 1: he just turned and ran away. We don't know what
55:19
Speaker 1: happened to Harriet Clark over those thirty six hours that
55:22
Speaker 1: her husband was gone, but something happened to her. And
55:25
Speaker 1: when she was taken away from this cabin.
55:28
Speaker 4: The only thing she would say is the strange creatures
55:31
Speaker 4: kept coming back. I kept seeing strange creatures, the same.
55:35
Speaker 1: Thing that all the people in Dudley Town had said
55:38
Speaker 1: that caused them to flee the town. And so we
55:41
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what became of Harriet. There is one
55:43
Speaker 1: account that says she was forever. She went to a
55:46
Speaker 1: mental hospital and stayed there until she passed. Another account
55:49
Speaker 1: says she went back to New York with doctor Clark,
55:52
Speaker 1: where she took her life. But either way, the final
55:55
Speaker 1: thing was she claimed to have seen the strange creatures
55:58
Speaker 1: and lost her mind as well. Following this, So, following
56:01
Speaker 1: the story, Dark Country Forest really took on this unbelievable legend.
56:07
Speaker 1: I mean, people knew about this story, they knew about
56:09
Speaker 1: the legend of the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds, but
56:11
Speaker 1: this felt recent. I mean, this was a documented case
56:14
Speaker 1: of this doctor's wife, and so it spawned a lot
56:17
Speaker 1: of people going into Dark Entry Forest to see what's
56:19
Speaker 1: out there, and lots of people who go into that
56:22
Speaker 1: forest before it became illegal reported feeling phantom hands slapping
56:27
Speaker 1: them on the back and feeling really intense pockets of
56:29
Speaker 1: cold air. And actually the very famous paranormal couple Ed
56:33
Speaker 1: and Lorraine Warren in the nineteen seventies, they went out
56:36
Speaker 1: and ran the special series about what happened in the
56:38
Speaker 1: Dark Entry Forest, and they came out and said absolutely
56:41
Speaker 1: that forest is demonically possessed.
56:47
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
56:48
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's collection of strange, dark and mysterious
56:51
Speaker 1: stories and you're looking for more content like that, remember
56:54
Speaker 1: we have a whole slew of podcasts under the Ballin
56:56
Speaker 1: Studio's umbrella. All these podcasts are amazing, bingeable content and
57:01
Speaker 1: it's available right now for free. All you have to
57:03
Speaker 1: do is go to any podcast platform, look up ball
57:06
Speaker 1: In Studios and boom, there's all our podcasts to choose from.
57:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that's going to do it. Thank you so much
57:11
Speaker 2: for your support. Until next time, see you