SPOILERS: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ TED'S CAVING DIARY.

OK.  Thanks for the explanation.  I was perfectly willing to think it might be real but embellished.  

People actually *do* vanish all the time.  I am a member of a backpacking club that tests gear, and one of our testers vanished between his car and the first camp.  Just *poof*.  Never seen again.

Here's a link:

www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080907/NEWS01/809070303

Shane

Quoted: SPOILERS: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ TED'S CAVING DIARY. OK.  Thanks for the explanation.  I was perfectly willing to think it might be real but embellished.   People actually *do* vanish all the time.  I am a member of a backpacking club that tests gear, and one of our testers vanished between his car and the first camp.  Just *poof*.  Never seen again. Here's a link: www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080907/NEWS01/809070303 Shane

Mountain lion.

Big cats are responsible for a LOT of disappearances in North America, Africa, and southeast Asia.

In Vietnam, tigers were a real concern for patrols. A tiger would just appear from the bushes, crush your neck in its jaws before you had time to react, and drag your corpse into the bush, all within seconds.

Your buddies MIGHT find your rifle or helmet where the tiger ambushed you, but that's usually all.

ETA: I forget his name, and google fails me. One of America's first billionaire's was visiting Yellowstone National Park way back in the day. He was standing on the porch smoking a cigar one night, then stepped off the porch and was never seen again. Just vanished without a trace.

Mountain lion. Big cats are responsible for a LOT of disappearances in North America, Africa, and southeast Asia.

That's what I'm thinking too.  He wasn't a very big guy, and it would have been easy for even a medium cat to take him.

ETA: I forget his name, and google fails me. One of America's first billionaire's was visiting Yellowstone National Park way back in the day. He was standing on the porch smoking a cigar one night, then stepped off the porch and was never seen again. Just vanished without a trace.

I've never heard that one.

Shane

Quoted: Also, I hereby request that the infamous Cow Man story be reposted yet again. I need to actually save that this time.

The Cowman of Copalis Beach

TAG

I love these threads.

Or maybe I hate them... I can't remember. Either way they keep me up at night. Is that good or bad?

Tag...I love these threads!

HH

TAG. I love creepy threads. keep it coming!

here's on that was posted on the Fal Files board a few years ago that I saved:

FALaholic # 16051
Old Post October 14, 2006 18:09   Post #41

Back in the winter of 2001 my youngest son and I were on our way from Boise,Idaho to Medford,Oregon.We had taken a car trailer to his old place in Boise in order to haul his non-running Jeep to his new place in Medford.We hit an area of heavy snow in the southern Cascades around 2:00 a.m.It took 45 minutes or so to get down the mountain.We had,of course been drinking coffee to stay alert.

About 25 miles west of the pass it became obvious that the last few quarts of coffee had to be drained.We stopped at a wide spot in the road near a summer tourist haunt,deserted in winter.There is a gas station and ice cream joint on the west side of the road,closed this time of year,and no town or settlement within 30 miles.This is tall timber country,and unsettled.Across the road is a small parking area for the ice cream joint.It is paved and about 200 ft.wide and 80 ft.deep.I pulled in and as I stepped out with .45 on hip,it occurred to me in a flash that grabbing the 590 Mossy would be good.

As we walked to the far end of the area to be well off the road,the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end.The area directly to our front was open with a depth of 50 yards and a width of 100 yards.The night was clear and cold,8-10 inches of snow on the ground,and with a moon almost full,so we could see quite well.While standing and taking a leak,with son about 15 ft.to my right I saw,as if springing from the earth in front of us across the open area 10 or 12 creatures moving RAPIDLY back and forth in sort of a Thatch weave pattern.These things,not human men,were close to 7 ft.tall,thin,bipedal with long arms,medium length gray fur, and damned fast on their feet.I brought the shotgun up and slid the safety off,as son was drawing his .45.

I don't know if I can adequately explain the overwhelming feeling of menace,but here goes.I had been operating on pure instinct since I had stepped from the pickup,the rotten feeling hit me a split second before the things arrived,the feeling?,instinct?, was that we were prey,and subject to a very bad death,and to be slaughtered and eaten,not a logical process,gut feeling and massively overwhelming.

As they were moving about in front of us,more appeared and mixed among them,all the while running about fast in front of us.Son and I were backing toward the truck,I WOULD NOT present my back to them,and some of them peeled off right and left in an encirclement movement.They were rolling in fast from the sides now,I could smell and feel their presence.We got to the truck loaded on adrenaline and ready to kill,as we both knew we were in grave danger.We piled into the truck,locked doors.I had keys out and ready,as my butt neared the seat, I had the engine lit and trans.in gear and gas pedal mashed in one motion.Adrenaline is great stuff!As we fled,yes fled,something VERY close by let out a ululating scream of rage,and pain.I believe one or more of the group had gotten really close to us in their pursuit and I ran over the foot of one of them,yeah they were that close.We rolled onto the highway and I told son to watch the bed of the pickup as well as the trailer,he already was indexed to the rear with the shotgun.We hauled ass for at least 20 miles before the feeling of grave danger started to abate. The feeling that nailed both of us,as we discussed soon afterward,was one of being prey,and soon to be slaughtered and eaten.I am not easily led,and neither believe or disbelieve all the bigfoot,ghost and werewolf stuff,in fact I am skeptical. Son was speaking with a coworker about 6 months later who had grown up in Prospect,Oregon,about 30 moles south of Union Creek where the incident took place.He asked Jake if he had ever heard of any strange goings-on in the area.Jake went ashy white and pretty much retold the above tale.He says to avoid the place at night.A family friend,a 25 yr.retired cop not given to flights of fancy and an excellent observer, had a tale very similar from a year before.I told my wife of this event of course,she looked at me at the beginning as though I had developed a 3rd eyeball in the center of my forehead.That was from shock,she did believe me,but did not wish to hear any details.She said the tale gave her chills.Me too,as I write this,hair on back of neck and forearms is sticking up.

I have NOT gone back to explore,and would not without a large group of shotgun and flamethrower equipped men with me.
Son and I are both sane,sober persons,and not taken to hysteria.We were wide,VERY wide awake as things transpired.We saw and smelled what was there.As a sidebar neither of us heard footfalls from the creatures.They were silent until i hurt one as we were getting the Hell out of there.

To my knowledge,and I have researched,there is nothing that matches these creatures,unless one considers old legends and folk tales of were creatures. To conclude,I have to fall back on Elmer Keiths famous line,"Hell,I was there"
best regards, Mike M.


edited FalFiler's last name and the paragraph breaks (to reflect how they were originally posted) only.

Quoted: Quoted: Also, I hereby request that the infamous Cow Man story be reposted yet again. I need to actually save that this time. The Cowman of Copalis Beach

You linked to one of those retarded "search" pages that try to sell you stuff.

ETA: Googling it led to the story on a webpage with the same url, but when I click your link it redirects me.

I also can't copy-paste any of the text on the page, which is utterly retarded. I'll see if I can find another website that isn't so weird so I can post the Cow Man story here.

Quoted: Quoted: "Possible spoiler warning" Damn it i just read the entire cave story, i need closure! I have attempted to update this page many times but nobody wants to believe that Ted is alive. Floyd's Tomb is listed as Dewalt's Dig on the map of Freeway Cave. End of Story. What's this all about? SPOILERS: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ TED'S CAVING DIARY.

Actually it sounds like the "1987 Short Story" explanation is a hoax (someone wrote that based on Ted's story, embellished it even more, pre-dated it, and posted it). In reality this was a story written by Ted himself about his real caving experience that he decided to heavily embellish with supernatural creepiness for fun.

Here is a couple posts that I recovered off of a web forum about scary stories. The person on there had quoted it from another forum posting (I'm guessing the original one) but most of the links I'm finding are 404-Not Found.

Well, I guess it’s time I add my two cents to the topic. My name is Ted and I am the author of the story you have been discussing. I am the original author. I created the story on my own and copied no one. I will explain the details of the creation of the story in a moment, but first let me just say — WOW!! I am still thrilled and amazed by all of the discussion that my story has generated. I was unaware of just how far the story had circulated until Yvonne contacted me a few weeks ago. I was aware of how many people had visited MY web site (the angelfire site) because of the counter on the site, and that number has been slowly climbing since I started the site. But I had no idea that two other people had copied the site, with one going so far as adding an “alternate ending” complete with a doctored photo! And I had no idea that the story had been discussed on numerous forums! I want to thank everyone who took the time to read the story. I hope you enjoyed it. It took a long time to write and even though there are a few things I would change, I am happy with how it turned out. The recent events leading up to this post are as follows: I was contacted by my friend Brad (the ‘B’ in my story) a few weeks ago concerning an email he received from Yvonne. He mentioned that Yvonne was seeking the author of the “Caver Ted” story in order to obtain permission to translate it into French. I gave him my approval to pass along my name, email, and phone number to her. Two weeks ago I received an email from Yvonne making the same request, adding that there was a discussion in progress on the NSS web page concerning my story, and whether or not I was the original author. I was floored, as I mentioned above. But I was shocked and REALLY disappointed to learn that credit for writing the story was given to someone else. SO, I’ll take you back to the beginning and run through how the story came about, then I’ll discuss “proof” of authorship belonging to me. . I’ll begin by giving everyone an outline of the creation of my story. Most of the following is what I wrote to Yvonne. Between December 30, 1999 and February 24, 2000 Brad and I worked on a passage in Freeway cave. We made numerous trips, and spent many hours of hard work, before we were finally able to get through the opening and into the new section of cave. During the course of our adventure I kept a caving journal and documented our activities surrounding our attempts to be the first people to enter the new passage. Since we were giving friends and family members updates as we worked, I thought it would be a good idea to put my entire journal on a web page, along with our pictures, then we could simply refer people to the site. The thought then occurred to me: It sure would be fun to embellish the story a little! From there it was a short leap to simply creating a work of fiction based on our experiences. I felt like the Internet was the perfect medium for my idea, so that is what I set out to do. For the next year I worked on the story, off and on. Sometime in April (I think) 2001 I posted the first few pages. After that I added them as if it was happening in real-time. After posting the last installment (May 19) I just kicked back and watched the web page counter to see if anyone was stumbling onto the site. (I found one site recently which confirms these dates: http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultim...5/t/000198.html is a forum dated June ’01, shortly after I posted the site) To summarize the fact vs. fiction discussions about the story, let me just say the parts about the digging and passage through Floyd’s Tomb are, for the most part, true and taken directly out of my caving journal. I intentionally altered a few details of the cave, but as has been mentioned, it still accurately describes Freeway Cave, Floyd’s Tomb, and the passage now known as Gypsum Passage on the map. The supernatural aspects of the story are all pure fabrication. Even the rumbling that both Dale Green and Ralph Powers mentioned exist in the cave did not inspire the story. I simply used them later to add to the mystery! And that is that. Nothing mysterious happened while we worked on the cave. It was just an experience filled with challenge, hard work and lots of satisfaction. The feelings I mentioned while in Floyd’s Tomb were real. That’s what made it so fun to write. When I learned about the discussion on this forum I did some digging and found other sites discussing the story. As I read all of the different comments about the story I was grinning at the variety of opinions expressed. Some people liked it, some thought it long and boring. Some thought it creepy, some thought it was too farfetched. The negative comments didn’t bother me. That’s life! What did bother me, however, was the accusation that I had copied the story. I felt like my integrity was being challenged, and I don’t like that. That may sound silly, since I was completely anonymous, but I still felt that way. Besides, I didn’t like the notion that someone else was taking credit for my work. Although I will not likely, or at least not immediately, post on other forums, I will definitely defend my story on this one, since it involves caves and caving. I would like to begin with most obvious evidence: the cave itself. It is clear to anyone who has been in the cave that the story accurately describes Freeway cave. Even using the map as a guide one can “see” that the description resembles the cave. What are the odds someone could have written such an accurate description without seeing the cave? And not just any cave, but a cave that only came to light as a result of construction, as told in the story? As Dale mentioned the cave was opened in the 70’s, so someone could have been through before 1987. But not the new passage! As Ralph stated, and the pictures show, the story accurately describes the ‘Floyd’s Tomb’ section of the cave, the opening, and the passage beyond (although I did take a few creative liberties there with the description, such as the ‘Blair Witch’ hieroglyphics and the round rock). And Ralph, Dale, or any one of dozens of Utah cavers can testify to the approximate date the passage was opened. Now, did Thomas Lera see all of this in a crystal ball to write about it accurately? Or did someone swipe my work? When the “1987” version surfaced it took all of 15 seconds of reading to recognize it was definitely my story, with a few changes made. I figured I would read it and see if there was some way that I could prove he copied me, but it was difficult. Since 99% of what he wrote was copied verbatim from my story, there was not much to go on, but I did find a few interesting things. Granted, this is little more than circumstantial evidence, but it starts to add up. I’ll try to be brief 1. Isn’t it an incredible coincidence that the story mentions a friend who likes to cave, was injured in a climbing accident, was told he would never walk again, yet managed to beat the odds and through hard work and determination not only walks, but caves, though with some difficulty, AND I HAVE SUCH A FRIEND!?! His name is Brad, his story is true, and both Dale and Ralph can attest to his this. That’s some crystal ball, Lera. 2 The dog we really took in the cave to check out the passage was real (as Ralph mentioned, he died a few years ago). I’ll try to dig up a photo of him in the Tomb. It was a Jack Russell. The Lera version switched it to an Australian Shepard. Hardly a dog to fit in a tight squeeze. See http://www.australianshepherds.org/adult.html 3 On page 15 of the Lera version he mentions the tools we invented and created. TRUE STORY. For part one of evidence I refer you to the photo of Brad: http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/pictures/b.html he is holding the actual tool. For the second part of the evidence I humbly call upon Ralph Powers. On our last trip into the cave we did not take the pipe wrenches that were necessary to dismantle the tool, consequently we left it in the new passage. Ralph, when you mapped the passage did you find the tool? (Also did you find a mini-mag light? I dropped one in the new passage when I went in with my wife a month after it was opened. LOL) Now how did Lera, in 1987, know we were going to make those tools? 4 In the Lera version he used a cordless drill. In the true version I mentioned a De Walt cordless drill. I don’t know who did this , but check out the map of the cave at http://www.nps.gov/tica/RMweb/MapGa...terstateMap.pdf and zoom in on the entrance to the passage. De Walts Dig! I assume this came from Brads conversation with Ralph about the project (Ralph, can you enlighten us?) Doesn’t really prove anything, but it was just something I noticed. ***See my fixed link below*** 5 This may be nit-picky, but Lera omitted one of the tools I mentioned (and that we actually used). He said we used a hammer and chisel, which we did, but failed to mentioned the tool most responsible for us getting through, and that is a bullpin. He may not have known what that is, and to be honest I’m not sure that’s its real name, but I will describe it: it is about 12 inches long and sort of cone shaped. The pointed end is about 1/8” in diameter , and it grows to about 1 ½ “ diameter at the other end, with a mushroom head to smack with a hammer. After we drilled our holes with the masonry bits we would insert the pointed end of the bullpin (which is round like the drill hole) into the hole and hammer on the other end. That would force the rock to expand as the pin was driven in, which broke up the rock. The chisel didn’t work with the drill and would only be used to break off small chunks around the edges. Again, not evidence, but another detail that I noticed. Well, that’s about it. Not the best evidence, but it’s all I have . This post is already way too long. If you made it this far, thanks. And a special thanks to Yvonne for taking the effort to ‘get to the bottom of this’ and for contacting me. Also thanks to Scott McCrea. I am impressed with both of your efforts. It is rare to see people refuse to just accept what is handed to them. If there is anything I can clear up for you, feel free to contact me. I wrote the story, but I’m not seeking fame from it. I never was. If that was the case I would have put my name on it from the beginning. I just want to protect my work from other people who may lay claim to it. Clearly someone read my story, copied it and put another date on it. I wrote it so people would read it and enjoy it. And maybe wonder about it. Even though the story took on a life of its own, I can still make the satisfying proclamation: Mission accomplished! As for Thomas Lera (or anyone who tries to steal my story): May an amorous Hodag in the pinnacle of heat find you in a damp and lonely cave.

The link to the National Parks Services map in the above quoted text is dead. The only live link I have found is to a PDF map of the actual caves. They are apparently right along a highway in Utah. It's a ".gov" link, so I seriously doubt it is a hoax.

www.nps.gov/archive/tica/RMweb/MapGallery/InterstateMap.pdf

I can't find the exact location, but the link above can be cut back to the Timpanogos Cave page on the NPS website. Must be in that area.

www.nps.gov/tica


I spent way too much time finding all this crap. What can I say, I'm a CJ major who is bothered by not having the truth behind everything.

I'm going to keep digging, but I think what I've already posted is a reasonable explanation.




So, now you know the rest of the story...

Got it. Here's the Cow Man story:

My Dad worked in the timber industry his whole life. His Father was a logger, and he grew up in and around the woods. My Dad started his own logging company when he was eighteen, and has owned and operated shake and shingle mills from Oregon clear up to Thorn Bay, Alaska. He is an intelligent man and holds over a dozen patents for various pieces of equipment he has designed and built over the years. He has employed dozens of people over the years, all of them spending extensive time in the wilderness. When I was a boy, I remember hearing bits and pieces of conversations among some of the men at the mill. Although nobody would tell me directly, I understood that something had gone on before I was born, and it involved one of the foremen, ‘Jon’. They weren’t joking around, they were genuinely afraid, and wouldn’t talk about it with a kid. When I was young, my Dad wouldn’t tell me about it because I would often go out into the woods cutting blocks with him on the weekends, and he didn’t want me to be afraid of the woods. While I was speaking with him last weekend, I told him of a couple of strange events that happened to me later in the wilderness, and that reminded me of the hints at a story I heard when I was a boy. After some prodding he told me the following story. In the mid 1960’s, my Dad owned a large roofing product mill in Aberdeen, WA. He had teams of men that would cut the fallen old growth cedar salvage left after a logging operation. He had permits to salvage a large amount of wood in the coastal areas of Grays Harbor County, primarily in the area around Copalis Beach. Several of the men on his cutting crews lived in and around Copalis Beach. His foreman, a man I will call Jon for the story, was a bright, down to earth hard worker. My Dad trusted him with thousands of dollars of vehicles and equipment, as well as the safety of his crews. He was not the kind of man to make up stories. On a Monday morning sometime in July, Jon was several hours late for work. This was highly unusual as he was always there early, getting the saws and trucks ready for the day. My dad said he was visibly shaken up, and when he asked him what was wrong, he asked my Dad to go in the office so the others wouldn’t hear them. They went in and sat down, and Jon simply said “Something destroyed our house this weekend.” My Dad thought he said “someone” broke into the house, and asked Jon if it was someone he knew. Jon said, “You don’t understand, this wasn’t a person. It was a… I don’t know what it was, but it completely trashed the house. The family is going to stay with my brother in Elma for a while.” My dad asked him to explain what had happened. Jon said that when he got home from work Friday evening, his youngest son Tim, who was around four at the time, told him he saw a big “Cowman” walking at the edge of their field that afternoon. He thought the boy meant “Cowboy”, because some of his neighbors wore cowboy hats when they were out in the sun. He asked him if the man was wearing a cowboy hat, and the boy said, “No Daddy, he was a Cowman, furry and stinky like the cows.” He asked his wife if she knew what he was talking about, and she said Tim was playing on the porch that afternoon, when he came running in and said the cow man was stuck on the fence. He was very excited, so she went out to see what he was talking about. She said as she opened the door, she was hit by a horrible smell, like wet dogs and garbage. Tim was pointing across to the field opposite their house and said “He got loose!” She looked where he was gesturing and could see the top strand of barb wire bouncing up and down, as if somebody had just pulled on it really hard and let it go. She didn’t see the “Cowman”, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary except for the smell. She told Tim to come inside to play for rest of the day, she felt uneasy and a little scared. Their older son, Jon Jr. who was twelve at the time, was at a friend’s house and walked home a short while after Tim saw his “Cowman”. He told her somebody had followed him home, walking in the woods off the right side of the road. He never seen who it was, they never left the woods, but he said it had to be a really big man. He would hear large sticks cracking, and the footsteps were very heavy. Once he got to the driveway of their house where the woods stopped at the field where his brother had his sighting, the footsteps stopped and Jon Jr. never saw anything. He was pretty shaken up by the event, and wanted his Dad to go out to the woods and check it out with him. Later that evening, Jon strapped on his .357 and took his older son out into the field to have a look. They first walked to the area where the “Cowman” was supposedly stuck on the fence, and walked down the fence line looking for anything. They came upon a large clump of long, reddish brown hair tangled in the top strand of barbed wire. He tried to pull it off but it was really tangled up, so he pulled out his buck knife and sawed it off. He said the hair was over a foot long, real coarse and stringy. There appeared to be a bit of flesh matted in the clump, and the top wire was pulled loose from one of the posts. Whatever was hung up on the fence was very big. He handed the hair to his son to hold, and they climbed through the fence and walked toward the woods. He said he was looking for any sign of tracks on the ground; the hair kind of looked like it was from a horse’s mane or tail. The ground was a solid grassy field, and there were no hoof prints or any other tracks he could see. The edge of the woods began about ten feet from the fence line, and they entered on a small game trail that deer frequented. It was around eight at night, and in the woods it was getting to be fairly dark. They walked for a ways, and soon began to smell the rotting garbage/wet dog odor his wife reported earlier. Jon said he got the feeling they were being watched, the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. He told his son they should head back before it got dark, and the boy didn’t argue. As they began walking back out, they could hear heavy footsteps off to their left. They stopped, and the footsteps stopped. They walked on nearly to the clearing, and Jon whispered to his son to run like Hell to the house on the count of three. Jon Jr. nodded, and Jon whispered, “One, two…Three!” and gave his son a push in the back to get him started, then spun around and raced off the trail in the opposite direction, toward the footsteps with his gun drawn. Off the trail, the underbrush was dense with ferns and bushes; he had a hard time making headway. But as he got closer, he could hear it moving away from him, deeper into the woods. At this time, he told my Dad that he thought it was a vagrant camping out in the woods and possibly scoping houses out to rob at night. Jon was a big man and capable of taking care of himself in most any situation and he had a large caliber handgun so he wasn’t too worried about confronting a vagrant in the woods. He was a few yards off the trail in deep brush when he heard the movement stop just ahead of him. He stopped to look and listen, and thought he saw movement by a large tree, like someone was trying to hide there. He leveled his gun and said “Come out nice and slow, or I swear to God I’ll come back there and shoot you!” It was silent for a moment, and then he caught movement out the corner of his eye and spun around to his right for a better look. He said it looked like a huge bear moving through the brush, he could only see bits of it through the dense ferns, but it was moving quietly away from the tree on four legs. It was about fifteen feet away from him. At first he thought it was a bear, and then suddenly he saw a huge hairy arm with a human like hand reach out of the brush and grab a small alder tree. The tree was about four inches in diameter, and it grabbed hold about five feet up. He said it happened so fast it was a blur, but the thing pulled itself upright out of the brush by holding the tree. It stood on two legs and turned its upper body to glare at Jon. It was enormous; he couldn’t believe how bulky it was. He said it was well over seven feet tall, and at least half that big through the chest. It was too dark to make out many features, but its eyes seemed to glow a deep red, and he thought he could see teeth, like it was curling its lips back. It stood for just a brief moment, and then lunged ahead, pushing back on the tree with tremendous force. The tree snapped loudly and crashed into the trees around it, getting hung up in the branches and not falling to the ground. It then disappeared into the deep brush with frightening speed, sounding like a bulldozer with no engine sounds. Jon stood there in shock, his gun temporally forgotten, then he realized it was heading toward the house, the way his son had went. He turned and ran to the trail, hoping to gain ground on it and cut it off before it reached the clearing. He hit the trail and ran as fast as he could toward the clearing, all the while hearing the creature thrash through the brush on his side. He burst into the clearing and looked franticly about for his son. Jon Jr. was standing just inside of the fenced field, waiting for his Dad. Jon screamed at him to run to the house, then he saw the thing crash out of the woods about fifty feet to his left. It crossed the ten foot clearing and stepped over the fence in two strides, and was running through the field parallel to his son in a matter of seconds. Jon screamed at his son to run faster, and took aim at the creature. He didn’t fire because he was afraid to hit his son or his house, so he vaulted over the fence and ran in pursuit of them. He could see it angling toward his son, and knew there was no way his boy would make it to the gate before it cut him off. In desperation, he pointed the gun to the ground at his side and fired as he ran, hoping to scare it. It veered more sharply toward his son, and put on an enormous burst of speed. He heard his boy scream as they seemed to collide, he saw the creature dip its shoulder down a little bit and suddenly Jon Jr. was airborne, he flew about ten feet then hit the ground rolling. The creature never paused; it continued to run at an amazing speed in a loop back towards the woods. Once the line of fire was clear, Jon stopped and squeezed off the remaining five rounds at the retreating creature. He was pretty sure all the shots went wild; the creature never made a sound or slowed down, and was soon over the fence and back in the woods. He reached his son, who was shaken up but not physically hurt. He asked his Dad if it was a bear. Apparently, little Jon was so busy running for the house that he didn’t see the creature running after him, he said something big and black suddenly ran into him, and he felt a huge paw hit his bottom and he said he felt like he was falling. Jon pulled his son to his feet and they ran through the gate and into the house locking the door behind him. They were both out of breath and white as ghosts, his wife was screaming at him, demanding to know what the gunshots were for and if they were all right. When he could catch his breath, he told her to make sure the back door was locked, he was going to call the Sheriff. He went to the phone and began to dial the number; this was before 911, then stopped and wondered what exactly he was going to say. He hung up the phone, realizing what an idiot he would look like if he told the Sheriff the boogie man just chased them out of the woods. He told his wife that it was a large animal, possibly a bear. He didn’t know how to begin to tell her their four year old was right, his Cowman was real and it was more frightening than anything he could imagine. He told them all to keep the doors locked, and stay away from the windows. Around ten o’clock that night, both boys were in bed and Jon and his wife sat down to watch the news. They soon heard a loud moaning cry, kind of like the siren on the volunteer fire department. It would stretch out for a long time, and then end with a “whoop whoop” sound. It was coming from the woods opposite the house. His wife asked “What the Hell is that?” Jon answered truthfully; “That is Tim’s Cowman.” He then described to her the full details of what had happened, and she immediately wanted to call the Sheriff. He persuaded her that they would sound crazy, and that he would handle it himself. She reluctantly agreed, and told him she didn’t want either of the kids to go outside until this thing was gone. The howling went on until around midnight, when it got quiet again. Jon wanted to stay up through the night and watch over the house, but he had a long day at work and the excitement earlier had worn him out. They went to bed around one in the morning, and had no further problems that night. They slept in that morning, and the boys were already up and watching cartoons when they got out of bed. The first thing little Jon said was that he had heard the bear rubbing against the house last night. He said he was too scared to get up and tell his parents, and fell back asleep soon after. Then Tim said “The Cowman talks funny.” This stopped Jon cold. He asked his son “When did you talk to the Cowman?” Tim replied “Last night, in my room.” Jon asked: “The Cowman was in your room?” “No Daddy, he’s too big for my room, he talked to my window.” Tim said, and turned back to the cartoons. “What did the Cowman say, Tim?” Jon asked. “He talks funny; I don’t know what he said. He talks like this…OOH AHH AHH OOH!” Tim said, and started making strange monkey like noises. “Did the Cowman try to get in your window?” Jon asked, breaking out in a cold sweat. “He’s too big for that. He made funny faces, he has Lincoln Log teeth!” Tim said with a smile. Jon later learned Tim meant it had square teeth that looked the same size as the small blocks in a Lincoln log set. It apparently spent quite a while “talking” and making faces outside the boy’s window. Tim said it lay down and went to sleep outside, and he could hear it snoring. Jon walked to his younger son’s room, and cautiously peered out the window. No sleeping Cowman. Jon told the boys to get dressed; they were going to go visit their uncle in Elma for the day. After his wife and kids left, he called one of the men from his crew, and asked him to come over. I’ll call him Patrick, he was an ex-State patrolman and my Dad said he was kicked off the force because of his drinking problem. He was a good worker and never got drunk before dark, so Jon figured they would have most of the day to look for this thing. When Patrick arrived, Jon greeted him at the door and said, “Are you up for some hunting?” Seeing how it was not hunting season, Patrick told him he doesn’t poach, and doesn’t even want to know about it if Jon did. Jon told him it wasn’t deer he was after, and went on to explain the previous night’s events. Patrick didn’t really believe him, but could see he was sincere and still shook up. Jon had his pistol and a bolt action 30.06, Patrick had a .38 in his car and Jon loaned him a 12 gauge. They first circled the house looking for any signs of a nocturnal visitor. At the back of the house, there was a spigot for the garden hose, and it always leaked. There was a patch of ground worn bare of grass under it, and it had turned to mud. In the center of the mud, there was a huge, clear imprint of what looked like a bare human foot. Jon said it was at least 18 inches long, and very wide. It was so clear that he got the feeling it was left there on purpose. They found no other prints around the house, and in places in the field and woods where a track could be made, the creature seemed to avoid them. Off to the side of the track in the mud were four straight lines about eight inches long. He said it looked like someone had raked their fingers through the mud. When they circled around the side of the house and got to Tim’s window, they saw what it was for. Above the top of the window, a good seven feet up, were four muddy streaks. And on the window itself were dozens of large, muddy fingerprints. The glass wasn’t cracked or broken, just smeared with mud. By this time Patrick was fast becoming convinced something strange had indeed happened the night before. Before going out into the woods, Jon wanted to feed the families pigs. They had two of them apparently fairly young weighing around 40 pounds each. The pig pen was about a hundred yards away from the house, behind an old barn. As they got closer Jon became concerned because they couldn’t hear them making any noise. Usually they squealed like crazy when they knew food was near at hand, but this morning it was completely silent. They rounded the corner and the pen was empty. No sign of damage or struggle, the pigs were just gone. They searched the barn but found nothing out of place, so they decided to hit the woods and try to kill this thing. They entered on the same trail Jon and Jon had used the day before, Jon showed Patrick the broken fence wire and told him again about the hair. It was a bright summer morning, and Jon was surprised at the difference from the previous evening. The night before had been still and silent, now the woods were alive with birds and small animals. He showed Patrick the broken tree, and they followed the creatures’ trial and found several more trees and large branches twisted and broken. They could see large, faint impressions of footprints where the ground was soft. They followed the deer trail further into the woods, and encountered nothing unusual. By noon they were both getting hungry, so they hiked back to the house for lunch. They spent the rest of the day poking around, but saw nothing more out of the ordinary. Just before dark that night, his wife and kids drove up. He and Patrick were sitting on the porch with the guns, watching the woods. His wife asked if they had seen anything, Jon told her about the footprint and mud on the window. Patrick had retrieved a pint of booze from his car and was well on his way to getting smashed. Jon decided he didn’t want a frightened drunk with a gun around his family, so he suggested that Patrick could go home, nothing was going to happen anyway. Patrick agreed and drove off, and Jon continued to watch the woods. His wife brought out a plate of food and a Coleman lantern and a flashlight. He told her would stay out here and watch the house through the night. Before they went to bed, he went into their bedroom, and with help from his wife, pushed the king sized bed as far from the windows as they could. They agreed that his wife and kids would all sleep in that bed for the night, and he would keep watch around the house. She had grown up hunting and knew how to handle a gun as good as him, so she insisted on keeping the shotgun in the room with them. He agreed after making her promise to ask for a name before shooting anything. If it replied “Jon”, please don’t shoot it. There was a full moon that night, and Jon could see across the field and into the inky dark of the woods. The night air was filled with the sound of thousands of crickets, and the pond behind the house was full of croaking frogs. As the moon rose higher, clumps of weeds in the field began casting sinister shadows, and before long Jon was seeing big hairy creatures sneaking up on him in each of them. He stood up and lit a cigarette, trying to shake the fear and concentrate on the task at hand. As he smoked, he wandered to the end of the porch, and stood looking at the darkened barn. Something was different, but he couldn’t quite place it. The front of the barn facing the house was open, and the moonlight was hitting it from the side, casting the interior in deep shadows. He stood watching the black opening as he finished his smoke, thinking about the missing pigs. He then realized what was wrong. All the crickets and frogs had gone silent. It was as quiet as the inside of a mausoleum at night; he could hear the minute shrill buzz of his own nervous system. As he turned to walk back to his chair, he thought he saw movement in the barn. He looked intently at the opening and could make out nothing, then turned his head a bit to the side and saw what looked like two red eyes hovering about eight feet off the ground. He couldn’t see them if he looked straight at them, but when he averted his eyes a little, they became clearer. They were a deep burning coal red, almost invisible in the dark. Every few seconds they would disappear when the creature blinked. His heart began thudding in his chest, and he waited for it to leave the barn and approach the house. He slowly backed up to his chair, never looking away, and picked up his 30.06. He walked back to the end of the porch and watched and waited. He stood looking at the blinking red eyes for what seemed like hours, and then the eyes blinked out and never came back. He watched intently but could see no movement. He thought for a moment, then grabbed the flashlight and shined it at the barn. The flashlight was too small to penetrate the darkness of the barn from this distance, he had to get closer. He was none too keen about leaving the relative safety of the porch and confronting a glowing eyed monster in his barn, but he was damned if he was going to live in fear in his own house. He left the porch and began slowly working his way toward the barn, taking his time, building his courage up. He got closer and could still see no movement; it had gone further into the dark. He got within 20 feet of the opening, and his flashlight would now penetrate the gloom in the barn. He moved the feeble beam of light over the contents of the barn, an old tractor, and old pickup, boxes and buckets. Too many places for something to hide, even something big. He cautiously walked closer, now shining the flashlight down the barrel of his rifle. He stopped at the entrance and shined the light all over, searching the corners and under the vehicles. He stepped into the barn, every sense straining for sound or movement. He walked around the pickup, tensing for a huge, hairy arm to reach out and grab him at any second. He made his way clear to the rear of the barn without seeing anything, and slowly turned around to leave. He felt both relieved not to have encountered it in the dark barn, and frightened and somewhat confused about where it could have gone. As he was walking out he glanced at the wide stairs leading up into the hayloft and froze. He knew with complete certainty that it had climbed those stairs and was waiting for him to walk out under the hayloft and jump down upon him. He couldn’t move, he was literally frozen in fear. He swore he could here the floorboards softly creak above him as an enormous weight edged stealthily closer to the edge. He stood with his heart pounding in his ears, unable to move or act. Suddenly there was the booming explosion of a shotgun from the house, followed by his wife screaming. His paralysis broke and he bolted out of the barn toward the house, completely forgetting what may have been in the hayloft. As he ran toward the house, he heard an inhuman roar coming from the woods behind the house. It sounded pissed off and in pain. It screamed again and he heard branches breaking as it plowed through the forest, thankfully away from the house. He got to the house and almost knocked down the front door in his hurry to get inside. He ran down the hall to their room and found his family huddled together on the bed, sobbing. One of the widows was blown out, and his wife was still pointing the shotgun at it. When he burst into the room she swung the gun in his direction and screamed, and he hit the floor. He waited for the blast but it didn’t come. He slowly stood up and she had put the gun down and he went to the bed. He asked her what had happened, but she was too shook up to answer just then. Tim started crying: “Why did you shoot the Cowman Mommy, why?” Jon Jr. Had his face buried against her shoulder crying. After they calmed down a bit, he told them to get up and follow him. He led them to the living room, then went out the open front door and looked carefully around. He could see no sign of it, all was quiet again. He told them to come out and get in the car. They ran out in their pajamas and piled in the car; he got in and drove them to his brother’s house in Elma. On the way there, they had calmed down enough to tell him what happened. She said a couple hours after they went to bed, she finally dozed off. She was awakened by Tim talking to someone, and this bizarre clicking chirping sound. Tim wasn’t in the bed; he was standing in front of one of the windows. The moonlight was shining through both windows illuminating the room pretty good, but there was a large shadow, like a tree obscuring the window in front of Tim. She knew there were no trees close enough to cast a shadow, she told to get away from the window. “Mommy, listen! The Cowman can sound like a bird!” Tim said pointing excitedly at the dark figure in the window. “Timmy, get away from the window.” She said, trying to keep her voice quiet. Right after she spoke, the noises from outside changed, it went from a soft chirping, to a strange gibbering, almost like human speech with an occasional pig-like snort thrown in. At this time, little Jon woke up and said “What is that?” rather loudly. This seemed to incite the creature and it hit the side of the house with its fists hard enough for the walls to tremble. At this, Little Jon screamed and Tim yelled “Quiet, you’re going to scare him away!” She yelled at Tim to get away from the window again, and reached up on the headboard and grabbed the shotgun. She got out of the bed and started toward Tim; the creature leaned down and looked straight in the window at her. She screamed and raised the shotgun, afraid to shoot because her son was so close to it. She started foreword to grab Tim, and there was an explosion of breaking glass, and a gigantic hairy arm reached through the window toward her son. She screamed again and fired over Tim’s head, blowing out the rest of the window and hitting the creature with .00 buckshot. It jerked backwards out of the window and disappeared into the dark. A few seconds later she heard it screaming in the woods. “It was trying to get Tim, it was trying to grab my baby!” she started crying again and he comforted her as best he could while driving. They stayed the rest of that night and the following night with his brother’s family. He told his brother about it, but could see he didn’t really believe him. He agreed to ride back to Jon’s house with him early Monday morning before work. They had left the front door open in their haste to leave, and he was afraid animals or vandals would have got into the house. When they arrived, the house looked like a tornado had gone through it. The couch was upside down. They had a large, heavy console TV and it was apparently thrown across the room, lying in a spray of broken glass. The kitchen was trashed, the refrigerator knocked over and food everywhere. The doors to both of the boy’s rooms were left closed, and the rooms were untouched, same as the bathroom. The master bedroom was torn apart, the pillows ripped up and feathers everywhere. The chest of drawers was knocked over and the large mirror smashed. Jon’s brother looked around in awe, and said “You better call the police!” Jon looked at him and said “And tell them what? Bigfoot destroyed my house?” They left and closed the front door this time, and drove to my Dad’s mill in Aberdeen. Jon’s brother waited in the car while Jon went in and told this to my Dad. After he was done, my Dad said, “Well, let’s go have a look at it then.” They drove back out to the house, and Jon showed my Dad the damage. He pulled the clump of hair from his shirt pocket and let my Dad look at it. As they were walking through the house surveying the damage, my Dad pointed out cracks in the ceiling where it had apparently stood up and hit its head. Jon told my Dad that they couldn’t live there anymore, even if the creature was gone, they would always be afraid. Their homeowners insurance wouldn’t cover the damage; the adjuster claimed Jon must have done it in a drunken rage. My Dad helped them find a place in Aberdeen, and gave him a loan for new furniture and stuff. The house was eventually fixed up and sold, and my Dad never heard about another problem there. A few observations about this story; My Dad lost contact with “Jon” and his family in the mid eighties. They moved out of state and my Dad hasn’t heard from them since. His brother died around the same time. Why didn’t they call the cops? Jon had a lot of pride as well as a lot of common sense. He knew he couldn’t logically explain what had happened to the authorities, and he didn’t want the story to get out and have him branded a nutcase. I asked my Dad if they saved the hair, he said Jon never mentioned it again and my Dad never asked him about it. I asked my Dad if he saw the footprint and muddy fingerprints, he said he did. He said it looked like a giant barefoot man had stepped very carefully in the center of the mud. He’s not a tracker, but he said it was the clearest print of any kind he had ever seen. I asked my Dad if the neighbors had heard any of this. He said if they did, none of them ever mentioned it again. I also asked him if he thought it was possible Jon had made it all up. That he HAD trashed his house in a drunken rage, and made up this elaborate cover story. My Dad said Jon and his family were terrified of that place; they didn’t even want to go back and get their clothes. If was just an elaborate story, what did he stand to gain? To profit from a story in any way, you have to share it with people. My Dad and the other folks mentioned in the story are the only ones who ever heard it. Until now, of course. He also said that whatever trashed that house was no man. The TV had to have weighed close to 200 pounds, and it was obviously thrown across the room with great force. He said that even after two days, there was still a wild animal smell in the house. I asked him if thought there may have been two creatures involved, considering the incident in the barn. He said he asked Jon that same question, and was told that Jon felt there was only one, that it lured him into the barn then snuck out the side door to the house. The thing he thought he heard in the hayloft was either his imagination, or some common animal like a raccoon. For whatever reason, this critter seemed focused on their four year old son. Their son was the only one who never showed any fear of it. He seemed to think of it as his friend. And although the sex of the animal was never determined, it was referred to as a male because of the predatory stalking type behavior. That and the conspicuous lack of breasts, or perhaps it was just not as well endowed as the Patterson Film Subject?  Anyhoo, its behavior almost seems indicative of a mother that has lost her little Bigfoot and is looking for a replacement. I rather facetiously asked my Dad if little ‘Timmy’ was a particularly hairy child, perhaps suffering from that rare condition that causes uncontrollable hair growth all over the body. He said ‘Timmy’ was a normal little boy, with normal brown hair on his normal head. I didn’t ask if ‘Timmy’ regularly reeked of rotting garbage and wet dogs, didn’t seem a polite course for the conversation to take.  He told me of other possible Bigfoot encounters he and his crews had in the woods around Grays Harbor. None of them are quite as titillating as the ‘Cowman’ story, but interesting none the less. Perhaps I’ll share them if there is an interest here in them.

Here is Lera's 1987 cave story if anyone wants to read it. It seems that this is in fact a rip off of the early 2000 story written by Ted. Someone just dated it 1987 to make it seem like it was the original.

web.archive.org/web/20050117173007/www.dougaustin.com/tlcaves/pdf/Thefearofdarkness.pdf

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: "Possible spoiler warning" Damn it i just read the entire cave story, i need closure! I have attempted to update this page many times but nobody wants to believe that Ted is alive. Floyd's Tomb is listed as Dewalt's Dig on the map of Freeway Cave. End of Story. What's this all about? SPOILERS: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ TED'S CAVING DIARY. Actually it sounds like the "1987 Short Story" explanation is a hoax (someone wrote that based on Ted's story, embellished it even more, pre-dated it, and posted it). In reality this was a story written by Ted himself about his real caving experience that he decided to heavily embellish with supernatural creepiness for fun. Here is a couple posts that I recovered off of a web forum about scary stories. The person on there had quoted it from another forum posting (I'm guessing the original one) but most of the links I'm finding are 404-Not Found. Well, I guess it’s time I add my two cents to the topic. My name is Ted and I am the author of the story you have been discussing. I am the original author. I created the story on my own and copied no one. I will explain the details of the creation of the story in a moment, but first let me just say — WOW!! I am still thrilled and amazed by all of the discussion that my story has generated. I was unaware of just how far the story had circulated until Yvonne contacted me a few weeks ago. I was aware of how many people had visited MY web site (the angelfire site) because of the counter on the site, and that number has been slowly climbing since I started the site. But I had no idea that two other people had copied the site, with one going so far as adding an “alternate ending” complete with a doctored photo! And I had no idea that the story had been discussed on numerous forums! I want to thank everyone who took the time to read the story. I hope you enjoyed it. It took a long time to write and even though there are a few things I would change, I am happy with how it turned out. The recent events leading up to this post are as follows: I was contacted by my friend Brad (the ‘B’ in my story) a few weeks ago concerning an email he received from Yvonne. He mentioned that Yvonne was seeking the author of the “Caver Ted” story in order to obtain permission to translate it into French. I gave him my approval to pass along my name, email, and phone number to her. Two weeks ago I received an email from Yvonne making the same request, adding that there was a discussion in progress on the NSS web page concerning my story, and whether or not I was the original author. I was floored, as I mentioned above. But I was shocked and REALLY disappointed to learn that credit for writing the story was given to someone else. SO, I’ll take you back to the beginning and run through how the story came about, then I’ll discuss “proof” of authorship belonging to me. . I’ll begin by giving everyone an outline of the creation of my story. Most of the following is what I wrote to Yvonne. Between December 30, 1999 and February 24, 2000 Brad and I worked on a passage in Freeway cave. We made numerous trips, and spent many hours of hard work, before we were finally able to get through the opening and into the new section of cave. During the course of our adventure I kept a caving journal and documented our activities surrounding our attempts to be the first people to enter the new passage. Since we were giving friends and family members updates as we worked, I thought it would be a good idea to put my entire journal on a web page, along with our pictures, then we could simply refer people to the site. The thought then occurred to me: It sure would be fun to embellish the story a little! From there it was a short leap to simply creating a work of fiction based on our experiences. I felt like the Internet was the perfect medium for my idea, so that is what I set out to do. For the next year I worked on the story, off and on. Sometime in April (I think) 2001 I posted the first few pages. After that I added them as if it was happening in real-time. After posting the last installment (May 19) I just kicked back and watched the web page counter to see if anyone was stumbling onto the site. (I found one site recently which confirms these dates: http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultim...5/t/000198.html is a forum dated June ’01, shortly after I posted the site) To summarize the fact vs. fiction discussions about the story, let me just say the parts about the digging and passage through Floyd’s Tomb are, for the most part, true and taken directly out of my caving journal. I intentionally altered a few details of the cave, but as has been mentioned, it still accurately describes Freeway Cave, Floyd’s Tomb, and the passage now known as Gypsum Passage on the map. The supernatural aspects of the story are all pure fabrication. Even the rumbling that both Dale Green and Ralph Powers mentioned exist in the cave did not inspire the story. I simply used them later to add to the mystery! And that is that. Nothing mysterious happened while we worked on the cave. It was just an experience filled with challenge, hard work and lots of satisfaction. The feelings I mentioned while in Floyd’s Tomb were real. That’s what made it so fun to write. When I learned about the discussion on this forum I did some digging and found other sites discussing the story. As I read all of the different comments about the story I was grinning at the variety of opinions expressed. Some people liked it, some thought it long and boring. Some thought it creepy, some thought it was too farfetched. The negative comments didn’t bother me. That’s life! What did bother me, however, was the accusation that I had copied the story. I felt like my integrity was being challenged, and I don’t like that. That may sound silly, since I was completely anonymous, but I still felt that way. Besides, I didn’t like the notion that someone else was taking credit for my work. Although I will not likely, or at least not immediately, post on other forums, I will definitely defend my story on this one, since it involves caves and caving. I would like to begin with most obvious evidence: the cave itself. It is clear to anyone who has been in the cave that the story accurately describes Freeway cave. Even using the map as a guide one can “see” that the description resembles the cave. What are the odds someone could have written such an accurate description without seeing the cave? And not just any cave, but a cave that only came to light as a result of construction, as told in the story? As Dale mentioned the cave was opened in the 70’s, so someone could have been through before 1987. But not the new passage! As Ralph stated, and the pictures show, the story accurately describes the ‘Floyd’s Tomb’ section of the cave, the opening, and the passage beyond (although I did take a few creative liberties there with the description, such as the ‘Blair Witch’ hieroglyphics and the round rock). And Ralph, Dale, or any one of dozens of Utah cavers can testify to the approximate date the passage was opened. Now, did Thomas Lera see all of this in a crystal ball to write about it accurately? Or did someone swipe my work? When the “1987” version surfaced it took all of 15 seconds of reading to recognize it was definitely my story, with a few changes made. I figured I would read it and see if there was some way that I could prove he copied me, but it was difficult. Since 99% of what he wrote was copied verbatim from my story, there was not much to go on, but I did find a few interesting things. Granted, this is little more than circumstantial evidence, but it starts to add up. I’ll try to be brief 1. Isn’t it an incredible coincidence that the story mentions a friend who likes to cave, was injured in a climbing accident, was told he would never walk again, yet managed to beat the odds and through hard work and determination not only walks, but caves, though with some difficulty, AND I HAVE SUCH A FRIEND!?! His name is Brad, his story is true, and both Dale and Ralph can attest to his this. That’s some crystal ball, Lera. 2 The dog we really took in the cave to check out the passage was real (as Ralph mentioned, he died a few years ago). I’ll try to dig up a photo of him in the Tomb. It was a Jack Russell. The Lera version switched it to an Australian Shepard. Hardly a dog to fit in a tight squeeze. See http://www.australianshepherds.org/adult.html 3 On page 15 of the Lera version he mentions the tools we invented and created. TRUE STORY. For part one of evidence I refer you to the photo of Brad: http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/pictures/b.html he is holding the actual tool. For the second part of the evidence I humbly call upon Ralph Powers. On our last trip into the cave we did not take the pipe wrenches that were necessary to dismantle the tool, consequently we left it in the new passage. Ralph, when you mapped the passage did you find the tool? (Also did you find a mini-mag light? I dropped one in the new passage when I went in with my wife a month after it was opened. LOL) Now how did Lera, in 1987, know we were going to make those tools? 4 In the Lera version he used a cordless drill. In the true version I mentioned a De Walt cordless drill. I don’t know who did this , but check out the map of the cave at http://www.nps.gov/tica/RMweb/MapGa...terstateMap.pdf and zoom in on the entrance to the passage. De Walts Dig! I assume this came from Brads conversation with Ralph about the project (Ralph, can you enlighten us?) Doesn’t really prove anything, but it was just something I noticed. ***See my fixed link below*** 5 This may be nit-picky, but Lera omitted one of the tools I mentioned (and that we actually used). He said we used a hammer and chisel, which we did, but failed to mentioned the tool most responsible for us getting through, and that is a bullpin. He may not have known what that is, and to be honest I’m not sure that’s its real name, but I will describe it: it is about 12 inches long and sort of cone shaped. The pointed end is about 1/8” in diameter , and it grows to about 1 ½ “ diameter at the other end, with a mushroom head to smack with a hammer. After we drilled our holes with the masonry bits we would insert the pointed end of the bullpin (which is round like the drill hole) into the hole and hammer on the other end. That would force the rock to expand as the pin was driven in, which broke up the rock. The chisel didn’t work with the drill and would only be used to break off small chunks around the edges. Again, not evidence, but another detail that I noticed. Well, that’s about it. Not the best evidence, but it’s all I have . This post is already way too long. If you made it this far, thanks. And a special thanks to Yvonne for taking the effort to ‘get to the bottom of this’ and for contacting me. Also thanks to Scott McCrea. I am impressed with both of your efforts. It is rare to see people refuse to just accept what is handed to them. If there is anything I can clear up for you, feel free to contact me. I wrote the story, but I’m not seeking fame from it. I never was. If that was the case I would have put my name on it from the beginning. I just want to protect my work from other people who may lay claim to it. Clearly someone read my story, copied it and put another date on it. I wrote it so people would read it and enjoy it. And maybe wonder about it. Even though the story took on a life of its own, I can still make the satisfying proclamation: Mission accomplished! As for Thomas Lera (or anyone who tries to steal my story): May an amorous Hodag in the pinnacle of heat find you in a damp and lonely cave. The link to the National Parks Services map is dead in the above quoted text is dead. The only live link I have found is to a PDF map of the actual caves. They are apparently right along a highway in Utah. It's a ".gov" link, so I seriously doubt it is a hoax. www.nps.gov/archive/tica/RMweb/MapGallery/InterstateMap.pdf I can't find the exact location, but the link above can be cut back to the Timpanogos Cave page on the NPS website. Must be in that area. www.nps.gov/tica I spent way too much time finding all this crap. What can I say, I'm a CJ major who is bothered by not having the truth behind everything. I'm going to keep digging, but I think what I've already posted is a reasonable explanation. So, now you know the rest of the story...

Fascinating. I now dub thee the Sherlock Holmes of Arfcom for such outstanding detective work.

It was pretty obvious the cave in the story was real and the guy had actual caving experience, but all the twists and turns the story takes in real life (this guy claims to have written it, this guy claims he wrote it and that the other guy changed the ending, etc.) are hilarious.

I found the first page of the thread where the author of the story (Ted) posted. Unfortunately the archive doesn't have the page Ted actually posted on, but that text is quoted in my earlier post and I believe it to be accurate. There's a guy named Ralph E. Powers that posts on the first page of the thread (the only archived page), and you will notice he mentions mapping the cave. He IS credited by name on the second page of the National Parks Service map of the cave.

web.archive.org/web/20050502091828/http://www.caves.org/soapbox/printthread.php?t=646


The forum still exists...doesn't seem like a forum you'd find much trolling in.... I'm fairly sure the posters can be trusted. Unfortunately the site doesn't do archiving of it's own so the first page of the thread above is all that can be read. Looking like there was at least 12 pages though. Would be an interesting read.

www.caves.org/grotto/slgrotto/phpbb2/index.php

That's all I've got. It is now quite apparent that there is a ridiculous amount of information to be found on the internet and the answers to most everything can be found with some digging.


Keep the creepy stories coming!!!!

Ted's Caving Diary is really well done.  Highly recommended.

Quoted: Well, this Tony Alamo guy is creeping me out at the moment.

That guys is wacko........I used to date a woman from Fouke.



I called her the "Fouke Monster". Bitch could drink me under the table.......

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Also, I hereby request that the infamous Cow Man story be reposted yet again. I need to actually save that this time. The Cowman of Copalis Beach You linked to one of those retarded "search" pages that try to sell you stuff. ETA: Googling it led to the story on a webpage with the same url, but when I click your link it redirects me. I also can't copy-paste any of the text on the page, which is utterly retarded. I'll see if I can find another website that isn't so weird so I can post the Cow Man story here.

Well, that's weird.
<hauls ass and adds 'm' to url>

Nice Try Coffins used to be built with holes in them, attached to six feet of copper tubing and a bell. The tubing would allow air for victims buried under the mistaken impression they were dead. Harold, the Oakdale gravedigger, upon hearing a bell, went to go see if it was children pretending to be spirits. Sometimes it was also the wind. This time, it wasn't either. A voice from below begged and pleaded to be unburied. "Are you Sarah O'Bannon?" Harold asked. "Yes!" The voice assured. "You were born on September 17, 1827?" "Yes!" "The gravestone here says you died on February 20, 1857." "No, I'm alive, it was a mistake! Dig me up, set me free!" "Sorry about this, ma'am," Harold said, stepping on the bell to silence it and plugging up the copper tube with dirt. "But this is August. Whatever you are down there, you sure as hell ain't alive no more and you ain't comin' up."

When I was 16 I worked in the kitchen at the hospital as an evening manager. At night everyone would leave by 9 except me. Between 9 and 11 I would sweep and mop all the floors. On average I would say about once a week I would hear what sounded like a girl calling my name. And atleast once swear I saw a young girl sitting at one of the tables. I only saw her for a split second, but it was creepy as hell.

Also the kitchen was right across the hall from the morgue. Funny thing is most people had no idea the morgue was right next to it. It was just a plain door with nothing written on it.

It's after dark now.

What, no more stories?

The one I posted about the Fal Filer is a true story (don't know if the guy is still active on that board though.)

It's night now. They're all too scared to read the thread while it's dark and the house is quiet.

MOAR!!!

Quoted: Got it. Here's the Cow Man story:

That's an awesome story.  True or not, it gets my vote for the creepiest ever.



Thanks for sharing it again.

tag

We gotta get some classic creepy in here.

So why not some H.P. Lovecraft, who along with his circle of writer friends, basically started the modern horror genre?

The Colour Out of Space- Creepy as fuck.

At The Mountains of Madness

The Call of Cthulhu

The Music of Erich Zann- A shorter story for those who have the attention span of a goldfish.

Pickman's Model- Another fairly short one. The twist ending is cliche now, but back then it was quite original.

The Whisperer in Darkness- As close as a 1930's sci-fi/horror story is going to get to the Arfcom ideal.

That Cow Man story was creepy. As I read it I started thinking about the dark woods behind my house & nothing but a screen door separating my bedroom from whatever is out there I think I'll put away the 357 I have on my nightstand and replace it with my 44.

Well, to get this thread going again I'll post this.

I wrote this a while ago and is part of a larger story about two modern guys exploring a dangerous and unexplored canyon in the American Southwest when they stumble upon something devious.  There is also a subplot (which partially shows up here) dealing with the main character and his past.

Anyways, here ya go.  Not overly creepy, but hey, creepy enough when you read it in a dark room.  Partially inspired by the Skinwalker thread and my time down in the Southwest.


----------------------------------------------------

A Night In Shadow Canyon

“Bright is the moon high in starlight
Chill in the air cold as steel tonight
We shift call of the wind
Fear in your eyes
It's later than you realized”



“Do you feel like we’re being watched?”  Oscar stopped in the shuffled dust and peered up at the canyon rim as Jim continued on.  The sun sat directly overhead, beaming down into the cramped little canyon, the red sandstone walls acting like conductors, absorbing and spewing heat, seemingly cooking the travelers in a natural oven.
“I always get that feeling when I’m hiking by myself.  When you’re alone and away from human contact your internal persona plays tricks on you.  Don’t worry, you’ll get use to it.”
“Dang, this place gives me the creeps.  It seems unnatural.  Is it always like that when you go hiking?”
“Every time.  Each canyon is strange and mysterious the first time you get down into it.  It’s unsettling, the rock walls rising up so high.  Unsettling.”
Late afternoon slowly turned to evening and the setting sun began to lower behind the canyon walls, casting shadows on the hikers hours before the true sunset.  The hot, stale canyon air soon disappeared thanks to a cooling breeze that quietly whistled along the canyon floor.  Shadows slowly swallowed the eastern wall of the canyon as the sun sank lower with each passing minute, warning Jim of the swiftly oncoming night.  Finding a large and mostly flat spot on the slick rock high above the sandy canyon floor, Jim stopped and called it a night.  Oscar brought up the rear, still sweating from the intense hike under the frying afternoon sun.  A coyote howled nearby, perking Jim’s senses of his surroundings.  He hadn’t heard that long forgotten and to him friendly sound for many years since he moved to Chicago to advance his career.  Oscar, having never been on a long hike in the Southwest, thought the howl eerie and queer.  It was the sound of human absence.  Nearly 100 miles away from another human being or even a sign of human existence, the two men were at the mercy of the desert and the mysteries that lurked in its impenetrable shadows.
“Don’t go wandering out of sight of the camp,” Jim called back to Oscar.  “I don’t want anything happening to either of us.”


Light from the fire flickered on the canyon walls just as it had 1,000 years before in canyons across the desert lands of the Four Corner area.  Two good-sized tents sat on the slick rock, closely straddling the fire.  The companions lounged just inside the tents’ doorways and occasionally threw more sticks and branches to the hungry fire, keeping it alive to warding off the ancient shadows.  Few words had been spoken as the day of hiking slowly sank into the men’s minds, the sights and sounds overloading the hearts of both newbie and veteran hiker alike.  Several coyotes howled nearby, instilling in the men a feeling of primitivism.  The only sounds that broke the silence of the dark canyon was the snapping of burning wood and the now numerous howls of coyotes that seemed to grow ever closer.  
Jim felt uneasy about these most recent howls.  He had heard many similar howls on his earlier hikes throughout the Southwest but never so many at one time in one place.  Jim knew that coyotes with little or no human contact, while curious, will not venture too close to unknown and perhaps dangerous humans.  These howls were different, different in sound and power.  The legends about missing hikers swirled in his head like so many forgotten nightmares.  Oscar’s words broke in upon Jim’s darkening thoughts.
“Jim, this is all new and exciting to me.  A bit unsettling, perhaps.  I’ve never ventured into the wild before and I can’t help but think about what it must have been like here thousands of years ago.  It must have been like this, though without the modern conveniences we have today.  Those people we’re searching for evidence of, they were just like us.  Or we are just like them.  The same mental capacity, the same bodies and the same physical abilities.  The only difference between us and them is time.  If you were to take me and put me back then I would become just as they were.  Makes you wonder why we are here now instead of back then or another time period for that matter.  They probably thought the same thing about their predecessors.”  
Jim nodded as he stared into the dancing flames before him, entranced by the colors and tones leaping into the air, shooting up dying embers of dry twigs.  Oscar continued with his monologue, “That’s one of the great questions of history, I guess.  How and why does time affect humans?  Time brings development, ideas, understanding and new problems all at the same time.  And while the specific developments and problems are different than the past, the struggle for survival stays the same.  Do you think people of the future will search for our ruins just like we’re searching for the Anasazi?”
Jim sat back and stared at the sky, searching for stars and constellations that he learned during his childhood.  The light from the dying fire blanked out all but the brightest stars in the sky.  “No,” Jim said grimly.  “I’m afraid no one in the future will be looking for our ruins.  If we leave any ruins at all it means we failed so miserably that there’ll be no one left to do the searching.”


The fire had completely died out as Jim poured earth over the glowing remains.  A common occurrence in the desert, the temperature dropped quickly once the sun had finished its deathly hot arc across the sky.  Oscar said goodnight and zipped closed the flap door of his tent as Jim wiggled into his tight but warm womblike sleeping bag.  A painful poking sensation on his hip reminded him that he was still carrying the handgun, which he removed from the holster and placed off to the side of the tent, still cocked for quick use if any threat should appear during the night.  
The darkness of the wilderness closed in and Jim sat silently in his tent, succumbing to the depressing and frightening thoughts that had began earlier.  Memories raced through his mind.  A loving face slipping away.  A tight and warm embrace slipping away into nothingness.  A happy childhood suddenly extinguished by tragedy flashed in his mind, unnerving him and pouring on a surge of emotions.  A few tears secreted in his eyes and slowly ran down his stony face before it began to shudder.  Sadness and anger and a feeling of abandonment controlled him, wracking his body and flinging his shoulders uncontrollably back as he silently let his sorrow out, dripping onto the tent floor.  
An arm unconsciously moved up to his head and, though his own, an unfamiliar hand quickly moved through his dark and greasy hair.  Jim’s throat clicked as his lips opened and contorted and his body violently shook.  After several minutes of this physically and emotionally tiring activity he calmed himself down, the tears drying on his down turned face.  The sadness, though now slowly lifting, held onto a part of Jim and made him quietly speak under his breath, lest he wake Oscar.
“Father.”
Dirty hands dried the tears before rapidly shaking his equally dirty hair in an attempt to calm his spirit.  Eventually the upset demon within his soul subsided and he was able to think clearly and prepare himself for bed.  Though he felt childish for his sudden breakdown, relief rushed over him and he was content.  
Zipping closed the tent flap and hoping he had not woken his slumbering partner, Jim noted how dark the canyon was compared to those he had experienced on earlier outings.  “No wonder they call it Shadow Canyon.”


The dream started out far more pleasant than it abruptly ended though it soon faded from memory as he awoke, slipping the bonds of his mind. A gnawing feeling hung over him as the dream progressed, as if he was being watched.  The details of the dream were lost as soon as he opened his eyes, greeted by complete darkness, but the feeling still lingered, stronger now in semi-consciousness than it had been in the dream.  Fear gripped Jim.  Not a primal fear of the dark and the unseen but a certain deathly dread that someone or something unknown to him was intimately watching, stalking him as he peacefully lay in the tent.  Ever so slowly he tipped his head up to peer around the tent, making sure everything was as it should be in an attempt to calm his nerves.  Slowly moving his eyes passed the little window in the opposite wall of the tent, Jim spotted something unnatural.
Only the darkness of the canyon came through the window, that is except for two shining red eyes that pierced the shadows.  The fiery eyes, never blinking nor changing, fixed upon Jim as his face grew from an expression of sleepiness to one of frightened wonder.  Stars visible through the window soon disappeared as the fire in the eyes blazed with the Fury of Hell.  The eyes seemed to come closer, growing larger until they appeared to be in the tent.  Jim was helpless, unable to do anything but stare as the eyes came toward him.  Only the howl of a forlorn coyote momentarily broke the silent terror, sending Jim diving toward his handgun.  By the time he had found it in the darkness and turned back toward the window the Hell Eyes were gone, leaving him alone and wondering if they had merely been part of his lingering dream.  Having pondered the vision and unsuccessfully waited for the thing to return, he laid the gun back in its original position, clamped his eyelids shut and curled up tight in his sleeping bag, hoping what he could not see would not hurt him.  Sleep did not come to Jim for the rest of the night.

You reposted my fog encounter!   I was scared shitless when that happened.

In the scary stuff thread last year there was a supposedly true story that happened to a member here about some creature staring at him while he had to guard tanks or something so he freaked out & ended up getting into one of the tanks to be safe from it.

Does anyone have that story saved or know what Im talking about?

Keep them coming. I'm thoroughly creeped out.

My scout master told me a story once about the time he was stationed in Alaska.  M was a ordanance loader on fighter craft.  They always had several fighters on the line in case the Russians decided to start WWIII.  Their primary mission was to bring down any bombers headed into our airspace.  Since that made their base a prime target for commandos, they had a good perimeter with several checkpoints before you got to the base.  

One of the middle check points was in a wooded area out by itself.  It was basically a shack with no lights next to the road between the outer fence and the inner fence manned by a single guard with a radio.  One night they heard a gunshot go off.  Followed by a long full auto burst. And another.  And another.  And another.  Then single gunshots.  All the guard shacks reported in except this one.  

Out rolls an armed response team ready to fight the invading Rooskis all pumped with adrenaline and armed to the teeth.  At the same time the emergency F16s are tearing down the runway and the flight crews, jolted out of sleep, are prepping and launching every bird they can.  WWIII is here.  Oh shit...

The rescue team gets to the shack and there's no sign of trouble.  Or the guard.  They light up the shack and and see him sitting inside.  His M16 is on the floor, empty and he's surrounded by empty magazines.  There's a .38 in his hand and he's got it pointed at the back of shack pulling the trigger over and over again. You can hear a loud CLICK CLICK, CLICK, CLICK because he's already fired off his last round.  The back of the shack is riddled with bullet holes and he's raging incoherently about "They're coming for me.  They're coming for me."  Nothing was found anywhere nearby

They disarm him and get him back to the base.  After some good meds he calms down enough to get out this story.  He'd been sitting in the shack for a few hours and had heard a noise coming from the back.  He turned around and flipped on his flashlight.  The entire back of the shack had hundreds of small hands poking through it.  Each looked like a small child's, but they didn't have the right number of fingers and they were pitch black.  Not black like a man who has dark skin  but PITCH BLACK.  The demons were coming for him, so he opened up with everything he had.  Needless to say, the doctors locked him up and kept him under observation until they could get him some psychological help.  And they called the fighters back.. . We would all live another day.

The story starts to circulate around and M hears it.  It sounds familiar to him and he tells his commander.  His commander calls the base commander and they send M out the look around.  He walks behind the shack and just nods,   Turns out the guard was a city boy who had never been in the woods before.  Alone in the dark he hadn't recognized the hands reaching for him.  But M, from rural Arkansas, knew what they were.  And the Raccoon prints everywhere behind the shack confirmed it.

Someone must have been feeding them through the wall.   They were used to reaching in and pulling out some treat.  So when that poor, scared city boy turned on his flashlight there was that raccoon hand.  Which looks like a human hand.  Only smaller and with fewer fingers.

It would be funny if it hadn't ended up with a discharged, neurotic airman and hadn't almost started WWIII.

Is this creepy enough for ya?

I'm surfing a paranormal/creepy board and they've got a similar thread going. Most of it is very, very lame, and none are "true" stories of encounters with ghosts or bigfoot, just stuff like that story I posted about the boy with the photo of the girl.

Rather than just posting a link and forcing you to read all that crap, I'll post the good ones.

As a child, I was always quiet, and my conversations with others would always end up awkward. Because of that, I always preferred to be alone growing up. Which probably explains my strange obsession with toys, being as old as I am. They never talk. They just stare. I have to say though, being alone in an apartment full of figurines can be creepy sometimes. However, being with my girl for almost two years, she understands my obsession well, but with this much, she would probably be shocked when she first sees them. That night, she was more than excited to see my house. as we approached the door, she could barely contain her excitement, so without further delay, I swing the front door open. "Make yourself at home." I say to her, "it's kind of messy, but its more comfortable than it l-" her face was in shock, then absolute terror as she started to scream. I tried to calm her, but it just got worse. I was puzzled. is she afraid of my toys? I understand its a bit strange, but is it that horrifying? I take a quick look in my house but theres nothing horrific. I had to calm her down, as the neighbors were starting to come out. With a quick impulse, I quickly drag her in my house as I try to ease her mind. Her screaming just got louder and louder. At this point, I had no choice but to put my hand over her mouth. She watched me in terror with tears rolling down her face. I turned around and they were all staring at me as well. ..... I'm alone again. I placed her doll on the top shelf above all the others I have dated. Her look made me feel depressed, so I made it face the wall until I was able to get over it.

Aren't psychopaths fun?

I live in the UK. A colleague at work heard this from her boyfriend. He works with someone who said that his sister?s friend got the last tube (subway train) home a couple of weeks ago. When she got on there were 5 rows of seats empty but the last row had three people sitting in them. As she was a little afraid, she went and sat opposite these people. She settled down and looked up to see the woman sitting opposite her really staring at her. So she got out her book and started to read but every time she looked up the woman was still staring. The train pulled into the next station and a man got on. He looked up and down the carriage, took a look at her and the people opposite her and came and sat next to her. As the train left the station the man leaned back and said quietly in her ear "If you know what's good for you, you'll get off at the next station with me". She was scared but thought the best idea would be to get off at the next station as he asked as there might be people around. The next stop comes up and she leaves the train with this man. The man says "Thank God, I didn't mean to scare you but I had to get you off that train. I'm a doctor and the woman sitting opposite you was dead and the two men either side were propping her up".

You were out of town for the weekend. When you came back to your apartment, your mailbox was stuffed full. At least 30 letters. Letters with no return address, several of them felt soggy and heavy, as though they were recently wet, or perhaps contained a liquid. All of the letters have your name and address written on them, and many of them had your name scratched all over them in red ink. They don't smell nice, they smell like rotting meat and old garbage and you're reluctant to take them back to your room, but curiosity gets the better of you. You manage to cart them all back to your room, but you dump them in your kitchenette sink because you don't want them smelling up the rest of the apartment. You grab one that doesn't seem damp and isn't covered with writing, and open it up. There's pictures inside. Pictures of people you don't know, with their eyes torn out, teeth missing, unhinged jaws hanging open, throats ripped out. You're horrified and yet you can't help but wonder what's in the rest of the letters. You open more, and more to discover increasingly gruesome photos of dead people. Piles of bodies with limps missing, splayed open corpses on operating tables with their vital organs removed, hanged bodies that have been gutted and bled dry. Some of the soggy letters had blood and other fluids in them. The more letters you open, the more you notice that not all of the people are strangers. Some of them were people you see at work, others people you went to high school with. By the time you get to the last few letters, the pictures are of the mutilated bodies of your close friends and family members. Eventually you reach the last letter. You don't want to know what's in it, but it's not like you have a choice now. You peel the letter open, and it's a picture of yourself. Not dead, eyes intact, no limbs missing. It's a picture of you entering your apartment building earlier that day, shortly before you collected your disgusting letters. You hear the door open.

A man on a business trip registered into an old hotel one night. It was incredibly old and worn-down, but it was inexpensive and only two minutes away from where his meeting would be the next day. As the night clerk handed his key, he said, "Please be quiet as you go down the hall, and whatever you do, don't disturb the room next to you with no number on it." The man agreed since it was only common courtesy and went to his room. As he passed the room with no number on the door, he noticed a draft of cold air coming from under the door. He opened the old-fashioned lock on his room and began settling into the room. Then he got curious. The building had air conditioning, not individual A/C for every room like most hotels had. It was quite comfortable in his room. Why the cold draft from the room next door? And why had the clerk specified that room? There hadn't been any obvious signs that is was occupied, though certainly the occupant could have been asleep. But the room on the other side of his was occupied, as was the room across from his. Why specify that room? He got up and grabbed the bucket for the ice machine. If he was going to let his curiosity get the better of him, he'd better have an excuse in case he got caught. He quietly opened and shut the door to his room and walked down the hall to the door with no number on it. Pretending to tie his shoe lace, he peeked through the old-fashioned keyhole into the room. He could feel the cold air blowing against his eye through the keyhole. It took a second for his eye to focus, but from the light from the hotel sign shining through the curtain, he eventually was able to make out the silhouette of a person sitting on the bed, motionless. Except for the absolute stillness and the slightly strange behavior of sitting on the bed in the dark for no apparent reason, there didn't seem to be anything out of the usual about the room or its occupant. Hearing someone in the hall, he looked down at his shoe and untied it, then tied it back again, looking up as another guest walked to the ice machine. When the person had passed, he looked into the keyhole again. This time, there was no cold air blowing against his eye and he couldn't see anything. There was just a dim, red haze from the hotel sign through the curtain. Disappointed, he stood up and walked to the ice machine in the lobby. As he got ice, however, he noticed the glow from the sign was blue, not red. This puzzled him, but he didn't think anything of it and went back to his room and went to sleep. The next morning, on his way to his meeting, he spotted the night clerk punching out as the day clerk arrived and decided to ask him about the room and its occupant. "Excuse me, I was just wondering about something you said last night. You specifically told me to be quiet and not disturb the room next to me with no number on the door. The other rooms around me were all occupied, so why specify that one?" The clerk yawned and replied, "There was a lady staying in the room about fifty years ago who killed herself in there. Ever since then, everyone we assigned to that room refused to stay in there, saying she'd sit on the bed and stare at them. I don't know anybody who believes in ghosts, but we started losing business because of it so we took the number off the door, keep it locked, and don't let anyone go in any more. We tell people not to disturb the room just because some of the ones who do tell us crazy stories the next morning." The man frowned. "So there's no one in the room?" "That's right. It's been locked up for fifty years and no one goes in there, not even staff. I'm not even sure if we still have the key for that room." "You said guests who stayed in there said she'd sit on the bed and stare at them?" Impatient and slightly annoyed, the clerk nodded. "Yeah, that's right. They said the worst part was the red eyes."

Quoted: In the scary stuff thread last year there was a supposedly true story that happened to a member here about some creature staring at him while he had to guard tanks or something so he freaked out & ended up getting into one of the tanks to be safe from it. Does anyone have that story saved or know what Im talking about?

I remember that one.

Another poster had a story about spending the night in a Bradley and very clearly hearing the one next to his starting up. He scrambled out and it was nothing but dead silence. No engines running, and nobody near the vehicles. He'd climb back inside and start reading or something and hear it start up again. Did it several times, but every time he stuck his head out, no running vehicles and no people. Creeped him out.

Quoted: Quoted: The Photograph One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until school let out. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye. His desk was next to the window, and he turned to look outside. It looked liked a Polaroid photo. When the bell rang, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran quickly, so no one else would get to it first. He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign. She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said "no." He was devastated. When he went home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said "no." It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table, and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward his window, opened it up and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it, it was gone. He never got a good look, but he could have sworn it was the girl in the photo. The next day, he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, "Sorry, no." When his mother came home, he even asked her if she knew her. She said "no." Disappointed, he went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep. Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He started to cross the street when a car came out of nowhere and struck him. He died almost instantly. The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. He noticed a photo in the dead boy's hand and picked it up. He saw a cute girl holding up three fingers. Ok, that was creepy

Yeah that was pretty good.

"The Best Doctor" by Alfred Kubin.

Quoted: Let's get this one under way so folks can read it at three in the morning on Halloween. www.kraproom.com/pacman/aod/gallery/d/5456-1/creepy+thread.jpg Ted's Caving Diary It'll take you about half an hour to read it, but it's well worth it. VERY well done. Also, I hereby request that the infamous Cow Man story be reposted yet again. I need to actually save that this time. ETA: This thread is for ANY creepy or disturbing story you've got. Ghosts, bigfoot, chupacabra, aliens, run-in with an axe murderer, whatever. Just nothing stupid like "one time, I walked in on my mother-in-law naked" or "Hillary Clinton scares me".

Fuck! I read the whole thing and I feel strangely friggin cold, almost shaking

Quoted: Again, special thanks to Dusty for preserving these. Originally posted by RAYWOODROW3RD A break from the Indian stuff and onto the "Jersey Devil..." Not the greatest story but it is my personal "No shit this did happen" one and it scared the crap out of me. Intro: I was always with my Dad in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey hunting or scouting the woods whenever we could since the age of 12. I thought I knew the woods pretty good and was not scared of them at all BUT Pop always told me NEVER go out into the Pines at night and that the locals never did because of what might be "out there".

Game camera captures Jersey Devil stalking a deer.

Quoted: Quoted: Again, special thanks to Dusty for preserving these. Originally posted by RAYWOODROW3RD A break from the Indian stuff and onto the "Jersey Devil..." Not the greatest story but it is my personal "No shit this did happen" one and it scared the crap out of me. Intro: I was always with my Dad in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey hunting or scouting the woods whenever we could since the age of 12. I thought I knew the woods pretty good and was not scared of them at all BUT Pop always told me NEVER go out into the Pines at night and that the locals never did because of what might be "out there". Game camera captures Jersey Devil stalking a deer. img.photobucket.com/albums/v151/gregw45/jd.jpg

You should be ashamed for posting such a terrible photoshop.

Ok folks, I'm going to bed now.

Pleasant dreams, all.

3:35 and now I can't sleep because of this thread, tagged for later. Maybe an extra gun on the nightstand will help

Read this one a while ago, thought I'd share.
----------------------------------------------
I am currently sitting in front of my computer, scared witless. Any moment now I am going to be killed.

Today a friend of mine told me a story.

His aunt had taken care of him since he was a small boy, and she told him last night about how his parents died. He did a very fair imitation of her (I knew them both pretty well):

   “They were doing mission work in some nasty little south american country when a man burst into the mission hospital one night, terrified out of his mind. He told them that his sister had been killed by a Muerto blanco, and that he was certain that it was coming for him next. What is a Muerto blanco? Apparently it was some sort of bogey-man, something like that dumb chupacabra or whatever. They called it the White Death or the White Girl, because it was the soul of someone who hated life so much that they came back in their shrouds to kill those who told of them.

The man had been told about the vengeful spirit by his sister hours before her death. It was a girl with dead, black eyes that wept bile. The thing moved without ever actually moving its legs, and it stalked its victims back to their homes. Now, if you weren’t already aware that this thing was following you, once it got back to your house, it would start knocking on your door…

   * Once for you skin, which she’ll use to patch her own decaying flesh.
   * Twice for your muscle, which she’ll gnash her teeth on between victims.
   * Thrice for your bones, which she’ll make knives to pick her teeth and kill her victims.
   * Four times for your heart, which she’ll wear around her neck.
   * Five times for your teeth, which she’ll polish and keep in a box.
   * Six times for your eyes, which she’ll see the faces of your loved ones through.
   * Seven times for your soul, which she’ll eat whole - you can never pass while you’re in her stomach.

She has to repeat this on any mirror or door between you and her.

You can try to outrun her, but she’s faster than the fastest man. And if you leave your home while she’s knocking on your door, she won’t be so courteous when she catches up to you.

Now the man was certain that this thing had killed his sister, that he had tried to tell the police, but they would not listen. Next he had tried to tell his priest, but the priest turned him away when he saw that the thing was following him now - oh, that’s right, I forgot about that - it can only get you if you tell someone else about it, or you saw it kill someone else. The man, after finishing his tale, stole a car from the mission, and was never seen again.

Apparently his mother and father had immediately called his aunt about this when it happened. They were found in the morning, skinned and dismembered. Their bodies were covered in tiny, child-like handprints.

His aunt was really drunk the night before, and had told him about that. He told me this story early in the morning today at school, before the cops arrived. His aunt had been murdered that night. I called him later that night, and he told me that he was being chased by someone, and now they were knocking on his door. I told him to stop shitting me.

He held the phone away from his face for a minute, and I could hear slow, deliberate knocking. A moment later, I heard the door rip from its hinges and the dying screams of my friend.

Then a little girl’s voice spoke over the line: “WITNESS.” I hung up.

Three minutes ago someone started knocking on my door. She has to knock 28 times on my front door, 28 times on the mirror in the hall, and another 28 times on the door to my bedroom. She’s doing it slowly… I think she wants to scare me some more, let me know that my death is just moments away. I will not run - I couldn’t get to my car in time anyway. She started knocking on my bedroom door a minute ago, she should be done any moment.

Nice knowing you guys, it’s been funjklm,.-

WITNESS

Ive got two and only one good one. But its dark right now. Its about to be daylight. Ive read every story posted or linked so far and im flippin out. Ill post mine tomorrow. One is about livin with my grandmother, the other is the day i thought i was losing my mind. Damn good stuff here. My last ounce of courage will go to the creepy pic thread.

Yeah i just got back from the creepy pic thread. FUCK! THAT! SHIT!

You guys are fucken freakin me out!

Only thing that I would say that was inexplicably frightening happened at my grandfather's farm probably 6 years ago.

My grandfather passed away, and he lived in the middle of nowhere. His farm was honestly more of a field now, because he couldn't really do anything at his age (80 something at the time.) So all that remained was a torn up old barn with chipped off red paint and a horrible roller door that sounded like a cat being killed when it was opened.

At anyrate, I was contemplating buying the house. It was a victorian looking house, well kept all things considered. 2 stories plus a basement. My girlfriend and myself went out there to look around and stay awhile while we decided what we'd do with it.

We drove around there on a Saturday morning, looked around, made sure all the electric and water was fine. I looked into the barn, it was filled with old stuff and a super deep hole I think at one time was a storm shelter. When I closed the door, it made the god awful screech that made your hair stand up on end.

When the sunset, my girl and I retired to the living room and watched a movie and then went to bed. Around midnight or so, my girlfriend woke me up saying she heard something. I sat up a bit, and sure as shit, I heard that awful screech of the barn door. I couldn't get a view of the barn from the upstairs window, so I waited to see if I could hear anything else, which I didn't.

Around 3am, I get shot out of sleep by my girlfriend screaming her flipping head off downstairs, she comes bolting up like a fucking lightening bolt flies into the room, slams the door, screaming incoherently. She said she went to the bathroom, and *something* is downstairs. I grabbed an old Mossberg 500 I'd brought and sat up, now equally terrified. After spending what felt like hours, but really only 15 minutes listening, I didn't hear a thing.

My girlfriend suggested I check it out, which I wasn't particularly fond of doing, but I did know teenagers had used the house at least once since my grandfather passed, so I figured I'd take a looksy.

I went down the stairs and stood on the last one listening, still couldn't hear anything. So I made my way down the narrow hallway towards the kitchen. When I got to the kitchen, I suddenly got a terrible feeling, and that's when I heard some sort of clicking behind me. I turned just in time to see something gigantic in the hallway, I swear it looked 8 foot tall, but the thing was it was so dark I could only make out that it had legs and a head.

Then it fucking charged, or at very least moved aggressively forward. I pulled up the Mossberg, fired once then ran into the dining room and slammed the door. I could hear the fucker coming down the hall, luckily the dining room connected to the other side of the hallway where the stairs were, so I made a mad dash out the other side in time to hear the first door smash open.

I ran up the stairs with speed I'd never before imagined (I'm a big guy,) and tripped in the doorway falling flat on my face in the bedroom, and actually broke my nose. My girlfriend slammed the door behind me. My eyes were watering like a motherfucker from my nose, and I was trembling so bad I could barely stand. I finally got the gusto to shove a dresser in front of the door.

It was dead silent for another hour, until I heard furniture being moved around in the bottom floor, sounded like it was being shoved against the wall. Then, I heard footsteps on the stairs, but they sounded more like someone walking on crutches. They moved in front of the door, at which point I shouted a warning that I was going to shoot through it.

I put another round of 000 buck through the door at chest height and listened.

No sound. Nothing. But the the hole it made was so dark I had to move something in front of it because I was paranoid something was looking back at me.

Next morning, we left and I will never go back. No clue what my shitbag uncles did with the place. I have pictures of the wall I blasted from my uncle who thought it was hilarious, I will post them tomorrow when I get back on my PC.

Was it a monster? Probably not. I suspect it was kids or something, with my imagination playing tricks on me. I lost a lot of my hearing in my right ear from the gun and this event caused my night terrors to return, which had been gone for a long damn time, and typing it out even still makes my blood run cold.

tag!

So, yeah. I had an interesting dream last night.

In it, my roommate woke me up (he's usually up hours before I am when I don't have class) and told me that he was really weirded out because there was nobody else around. The entire campus was totally devoid of people.

I thought he'd inhaled fumes from the janitor's closet or something, but I got up anyway (I was hungry) and, sure enough, we encountered no people on the way to the cafeteria. Which didn't have breakfast set out. Now this was bizarre. We went back to the dorm and it was absolutely silent inside. No one in the security office, no one in the RA office, and nobody walking around in the halls. Dead silence.

So we started calling people we knew on campus on our cell phones. Not one answer. Then we began calling friends and relatives back home. No answers. We went back to our room and I logged into AIM, Skype, etc. and got on Arfcom. No posts are 7:34 AM. I started a new thread about how bizarre it was that nobody was around here and nobody would answer my phone. An hour later, and still nobody else had posted on any of the forums. There were still people logged in, but they obviously weren't at the keyboard.

My roommate then tried his handheld ham radio. Nobody on the airwaves either. Television? Nothing on but static. Same for the radio in my car, except one station playing a commercial on endless loop.

Seriously. Fucking. Creepy. So I retrieved my pistol from my trunk and we drove into town. No people. Anywhere. Cars sitting in the middle of the road, still running, nobody in them.

By this time, I was in full SHTF mode, so I pulled into Wal-Mart and told my roommate to grab a cart; we were going looting. While we were gathering the essentials of survival (food; propane to cook with, etc.), we discussed the weirdness and sheer creepiness of what was going on.

My theory was that everyone else had mysteriously vanished, but we were safe for some reason and the reason we were both there was because we were in the same room when it happened. His theory was that we both got transported to a world that was identical to ours but devoid of people. I pointed out the flaws in that one (if there were no people, then there wouldn't be man-made stuff, and why would there be cars sitting in traffic with the engines running?).

I made sure to grab ammunition while I was in Wal-Mart, but left the guns alone. They were locked in plexi-glas display cases and essentially useless Fudd guns anyway. We threw everything into the car, then I drove to the biggest gun shop in town and started a smash-and-grab, filling up three duffle bags with rifles, shotguns, pistols, and ammunition. My roommate thought I was nuts. There weren't any people, so what did I need a gun for? More importantly, why would I need a small arsenal like that? And better still, if the world returned to normal the next morning, I'd be getting in serious trouble for stealing a shit-load of guns and ammo. I told him to blow it out his ass; this was a seriously fucking BAD situation and I wanted guns.

We went back to campus, ate breakfast, and I loaded up some guns. Despite his talk about not needing a weapon, my roommate was creeped out too, so he took a pistol and stuck it in a holster on his belt. I carried two handguns and a rifle. Then we took his pickup truck back to Wal-Mart to load it up with food and other essentials so we could minimize the amount of traveling around we had to do. I'd pointed out that if things stayed this way, we'd eventually run out of gas or it would go bad, and it was going to be darn hard carrying all that food on foot. Neither of us liked being out in the open either, it felt like we were being watched.

While we were in Wal-Mart, something interrupted our looting by knocking over a display on the other side of the store and making a lot of noise. I nearly shit a brick. We left our carts full of stuff and went to investigate, weapons ready. We found a small display over in electronics that had been knocked over and all the DVD's on it scattered, but no other signs of anything or anyone being there. We called out to anyone who might be inside, but no answer. No sound, except for us. We decided it must be an animal that got inside since the doors opened automatically and there were open entry-ways at the auto-mechanics section and where the guys pushed the shopping carts into the store. Cautiously, we made our way back to where we left the carts full of food and other supplies.

They were facing the opposite direction.

Now thoroughly wigged out, we grabbed the cart's and hauled ass out of the store, ready to shoot anything that moved. We threw everything into the bed of his truck, shoved the carts so they went flying through the parking lot, and took off for the dorm.

It took seemingly forever to get everything upstairs, and obviously we couldn't fit all that shit in our tiny dorm room, but I lifted the master keys from the RA's office (partly because I wanted access to every room in the building, partly because I didn't want anyone- or anything- else to have a key to our room. We dumped most of the stuff in the room across from ours and sat down to have lunch.

While eating, we discussed what had been in Wal-Mart. My roommate was convinced it was an animal. I thought it was a person trying to fuck with us. Unresolved, we let the issue drop while we planned out what we would do in a world apparently devoid of people. I checked Arfcom again; still no new posts. Or views. Or anything, really. Fuck.

We decided to continue gathering supplies while trying to find signs of people like us, operating on the assumption that there HAD to be other people, we just didn't know how to get hold of them and vice-versa.

While out and about, we stopped by the local ham radio store so we could get a rig with decent range and try to contact someone. Neither of us knew anything about that shit, so we just grabbed a bunch of stuff, made sure it all came with manuals, and loaded it into the car.

While doing so, I spotted something gray moving out of the corner of my eye. Whirling around, I saw nothing. It went around the corner of a building, out of sight. I hissed at my roommate that I'd seen something, and he started shouting in that direction, trying to get the attention of any person over there. No response. After a few minutes, he decided I was seeing things because I was so keyed up. I told him to go fuck himself.

We continued grabbing things we'd need to survive (food, gas, different means of communication, etc.), and started back to campus. While unloading all the stuff, I spotted something gray moving at the other end of campus and said so. My roommate looked, saw nothing, and told me to knock it off because I was creeping him out now. We continued unloading things into the lobby and then he started cussing and said that he saw it too. Neither of us knew what it was, but now it knew where we lived. I wanted to get plywood so we could cover over the first floor windows, especially in the lobby, but neither of us wanted to leave since the lobby doors locked electronically and only after 7pm. If we left, the thing or person could get inside and hide somewhere and we'd never know it.

So we got all our stuff inside, grabbed some rope I'd snagged at Wal-Mart, and tied it around the handles to the lobby doors and attached the other end to heavy furniture. It wouldn't stop the glass from being smashed, but it'd slow down and irritate anyone trying to open the doors. We got all our stuff upstairs, barricaded one stairwell, then I handed my roommate a rifle and we cleared the entire building, one room at a time. Satisfied there was nothing there, we barricaded the other stairwell to make it difficult for anyone to get into it. We then finished the job by making the other stairwell completely impassable by shoving desks and other furniture into it until it was completely blocked all the way up to the second floor. I mentioned the skylights in both stairwells and my roommate said it was impossible for anyone to get on the roof, but we barricaded the stairwells on our floor too, just in case.

With that, we settled in for the night and continued trying to get hold of someone, anyone.

Then we heard the noises, like metal blinds rustling in the wind, or someone trying to whistle and doing a terrible job of it. We looked outside, but couldn't see anything. It got dead silent outside when we peeked through the blinds. I surmised that whatever or whoever was out there could see us looking out and told my roommate to turn off the lights. Then I looked out again. Still nothing, and no sound. Not even crickets. After a while of staring though, I saw movement, near the roof of the science building directly across from us. I looked, but couldn't see anything. Then my roommate spotted them.

The eyes.

Red eyes, looking at us from the roof of the science building. Very dim, but obviously luminescent. Looking at it, I was eventually able to discern a humanoid shape, crouched spider-like on the roof. It was looking directly at us. My roommate grabbed a powerful flashlight we'd picked up and shined it at the roof to get a better look at the thing. Nothing was there. He turned it off and the eyes were back, blinking rapidly as if they were watering from the sudden light. Now we were seriously freaking out. It started scaling the wall, head first, toward the ground, slowly and casually.

That's it. I slid on my shooting headphones, told my roommate to cover his ears, and opened the window. Sticking the barrel of the AR-10 we'd "procured" from the sporting goods store against the screen, I yelled "yippee-ki-yay motherfucker!" and did a magazine dump at the eyes. I don't know if I hit it or not, but when we looked, the eyes were gone, the science building had several huge chunks blown out of the brick wall, and our window screen was very, very sorry that it belonged to a pair of frightened and confused college seniors.

That's about the time my phone range and woke me up, so I have no idea where the dream would have gone from there.

Whadda ya think guys, kinda creepy, huh?