Horrifying Search and Rescue Stories | "Im a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service.."

Just to State a couple things before this starts these entries are all written by the same person there will be a transition on screen between each story I wasn't sure where else to post these stories so I figured I'd share them here I've been a search and rescue officer for a few years now and along the way I've seen some things that I think you guys will be interested in I have a pretty good track record for Finding missing people most of the time they just wander off the path or slip down a small cliff

and they can't find their way back the majority of them have heard the old stay where you are thing and they don't wander off but I've had two cases where that didn't happen both bother me a lot and I use them as motivation to search even harder on the missing person's cases I get called on the first was a little boy who was out berry picking with his parents he and His sister were together and both of them went missing around the same time their parents lost side of them for a few seconds and in

that time both the kids apparently wandered off when their parents couldn't find them they called us and we came out to search the area we found the daughter pretty quickly and when we asked her where her brother was she told us that he'd been taken away by the bear man she said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet that He wanted to play with her brother for a while and that's the last she saw of her brother he was riding on the shoulders of the bare man and seemed calm of course our

first thought was abduction but we never found a trace of another human being in the area the little girl was also insistent that he wasn't a normal man but that he was tall and covered in hair like a bear and that he had a weird face we searched the area for weeks it was one of the longest Calls I've ever been on but we never found a single trace of that kid the other was a young woman who was out hiking with her mom and Grandpa according to the mother her daughter had climbed up a

tree to get a better view of the forest and she'd never come back down they waited at the base of the tree for hours calling her name before they called for help again we searched everywhere and we never found a trace of her I have no idea where she could have Possibly gone because neither her mother or Grandpa saw her come down [Music] a few times I've been out on my own searching with a canine and they've tried to lead me straight up Cliffs not Hills not even Rock faces straight sheer Cliffs with no possible

handholds it's always baffling and in those cases we usually find the person on the other side of the cliff or miles away from where the Kine had led us I'm sure There's an explanation but it's sort of strange one particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body a 9-year-old girl fell down in embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base it was a complete freak accident but I'll never forget the sound her mother made when we told her what happened she saw the body bag being loaded into an ambulance and she

let out the most haunting heartbroken whale I've ever heard it was like her whole life Was crashing down around around her and a part of her had died with her daughter I heard from another search and rescue officer that she killed herself a few weeks after it happened she couldn't live with the loss of her daughter I was teamed up with another search and rescue officer because we'd received multiple reports of bears in the area we were looking for a guy who hadn't come home from a climbing trip when he was supposed to and we

ended up Having to do some serious climbing to get to where we figured he'd be we found him trapped in a small crevice with a broken leg it was not pleasant he'd been there for almost 2 days and his leg was very obviously infected we were able to get him into a chopper and I heard from one of the EMTs that the guy was absolutely inconsolable he kept talking about how he'd been doing fine and when he'd gotten to the top a man had been there he said the guy had no climbing Equipment and he

was wearing a parka and ski pants he walked up to the guy and when the guy turned around he said he had no face it was just blank he freaked out and ended up trying to get off the mountain too fast which is why he'd Fallen he said he could hear the guy all night climbing down the mountain and letting out the most horrible muffled screams that story bothered the hell out of me I'm glad I wasn't there to hear it one of the scariest things I've ever Had happen to me involved the search for

a young woman who'd gotten separated from her hiking group we were out until late at night because the dogs had picked up her scent when we found her she was curled up under a large rotted log she was missing her shoes and her backpack and she was clearly in shock she did didn't have any injuries and we were able to get her to walk with us back to the base along the way she kept looking behind us and asking why that Big man with black eyes was following us we couldn't see anyone so we just

rode it off as some weird symptom of shock but the closer we got to the base the more agitated this woman got she kept asking me to tell him to stop making faces at her at one point she stopped and turned around and started yelling into the forest saying that she wanted him to leave her alone she said she wasn't going to go with him and she wouldn't give us to him we finally got Her to keep moving but we started hearing these weird noises coming from all around us it was almost like coughing but

more rhythmic and deeper it was almost insect like I I don't know how to describe it when we were within sight of Bas the woman turns to me and her eyes are about as wide as I can imagine a human being can open them she touches my shoulder and says he says to tell you to speed up he doesn't like looking at the scar on your neck I have A very small scar on the base of my neck but it's mostly hidden under my collar and I have no idea how this woman saw it right

after she says it I hear that weird coughing right in my ear and I just about jumped out of my skin I hustled her to Ops trying not to show how freaked out I was but I have to say I was really happy when we left that area that night all right this is the last one I'll tell for now and it's probably the Weirdest story I have now I don't know if this is true in every search and rescue unit but in mine it's sort of an unspoken regular thing we run into you can

try asking about it with other search and rescue officers but even if they know what you're talking about they probably won't say anything about it we've been told not to talk about it by our superiors and at this point we've all gotten so used to it that it doesn't even seem weird anymore on just about Every case where we're really far into the Wilderness I'm talking 30 or 40 miles at some point we'll find a staircase in the middle of the woods it's almost like if you took the stairs in your house cut them out

and put them in the forest I asked about it the first time I saw some and the other officer just told me not to worry about it and that it was normal everyone I asked said the same thing I wanted to go check them out but I was told very seriously that I Should never go near any of them I just sort of ignore them now when I run into them because it happens so frequently I have a lot more stories and I suppose if anyone's interested I'll tell some of them tomorrow if anyone has

any theories about the stairs or if you've seen them too let me know so I logged back on tonight and was blown away by The Staggering amount of interest that seems to have generated first off I'll address a few things that You guys have brought up there's been an overwhelming amount of people mentioning the similarity between some of my stories and those of David pides I assure you I'm not trying to rip him off in any way I've got nothing but respect for the guy he's actually what inspired me to write this because I can

verify a lot of the things that he talks about we do have a lot of these strange missing persons cases and most of the time they aren't solved either that or we find Them in places they have no business being in I personally haven't been on many calls like that but I'll share a few that I've seen and a story my friend told me that relates to this there was a lot of feedback about the stairs so I'll touch on that briefly here and I'll also include a story they come in a variety of shapes

sizes Styles and conditions some are pretty dilapidated just ruins but others are brand new I saw one set that looked like they came from a Lighthouse they were metal and spiral almost old-fashioned the stairs don't go up infinitely or farther than I can see but some sets are taller than others like I said before just imagine the stairs in your house as if someone cut and pasted them in the middle of nowhere I don't have any pictures personally it's never really occurred to me to try again after the first time and I don't really feel

like risking my job over it but I'll try again in the future I can't Really promise anything a few people expressed confusion about the guy who ran into the man with no face just to clarify when the climber ascended and reached the top of this Peak he saw another man in a parka and ski pants this was the man with no face sorry about the confusing wording of that story I'll try to avoid that in the future all right now on to the new [Music] stories as far as missing persons go I'd Say about half

the calls I get are related to that the others are rescue calls people who fall down Cliffs and hurt themselves get injured by fire you wouldn't believe how often this happens mostly drunk kids get bitten or stung by animals or insects we're a tight team and we have veterans who are excellent at finding signs of lost people that's what makes these cases where we never find any trace of them so frustrating one in particular was upsetting for all Of us because we did find a trace of them but it just led to more questions than

answers an older man had been hiking alone on a wellestablished trail but his wife called to say that he hadn't come home when he should have apparently he had a history of seizures and she was worried that he hadn't taken his medication and had suffered one out on the trail before you ask I have no idea why he thought it was okay to go out alone or why she didn't go with him I don't ask about that kind of thing because past a certain point it really doesn't matter someone is missing and it's my job

to to find them we went out in our standard search formation and it wasn't long before one of our vets found signs that the guy had gone off the trail we grouped up and followed him spreading out in a fan to make sure we were covering as much ground as possible suddenly a call comes over the radio telling us to all head back to the vets Location and we have to come right away because this usually means the missing person is injured and we need a full team to help get them to safety we meet

back up and the vet is just standing at the base of the tree with his hands on the side of his head I ask my buddy what's going on and he points up into the branches of the tree I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing but there's a walking stick dangling from a branch at least 30 ft off the ground the Little strap thing on the handle has been looped around the branch and it's just hanging there there's no way the guy could have tossed it up that far and we don't see any signs

that he's still in the area we call up into the tree but it's obvious no one's in it we're all just sort of left scratching our heads we keep searching for the guy but we never find him we even bring our canines out but they lose his scent long before the tree eventually the search is called Off because there are other calls we have to attend to and past a certain point there's not much we can do the guy's wife called us every day for months asking if we'd found her husband and it was heartbreaking

to hear her get more and more hopeless each time I'm not sure why this call in particular was so upsetting but I think it was just the sheer improbability of it that and the questions that were raised how the hell did this guy's cane end up there did Someone kill him and toss that up there as some weird trophy we did our best to find him but it was almost like a taunt we still talk about that one from time to time missing kids are the most heartbreaking doesn't matter what the circumstances they go missing

under it's never easy and we always always dread the ones that we find deceased it's not common but it does happen David pides talks a lot about kids search and rescue Teams find in places that they shouldn't be or couldn't be I can honestly say I've heard about this kind of thing happening more than I've seen it but I'll share one of the ones that I think about a lot that I witness personally a mother and her three kids were out for a picnic in an area of the park that has a small Lake one

is six one is five and the other is about three she's watching them all really closely and according to her she never lets them out of her sight At any time she never saw anyone else in the area either which is important she packs their stuff up and they start to head back to the parking area now this lake is only about 2 mies into the woods and it's on a very clearly established Trail it's almost impossible to get lost from the parking area to it unless you're deliberately going off the path like an imbecile

her kids are walking in front of her when she hears what sounds like someone coming up the path behind Her she turns around and in the 4 or so seconds she's not out looking her 5-year-old son vanishes she figures he's stepped off the trail to go pee or something and she asks her two other kids where he went they both tell her that a big man with a scary face came out of the woods next to them took the kid's hand and led him into the woods the two remaining kids don't seem upset in fact

she says later that it seems like they've been drugged they're sort Of Spacey and fuzzy so of course she freaks out starts frantically looking around the area for her kid she's screaming his name and she says at one point she thinks she heard him answer her now obviously she can't go blindly running into the woods she's got the other two kids so she calls the police and sends us out immediately we respond and we start the search for him over the course of this search which spans miles we never find a single trace of the

kid The canines can't pick up any scent we don't find any clothing or broken bushes or literally anything that would signify a child being out there of course there's suspicion about the mother for a while but it's pretty clear that she's completely destroyed by the whole thing we look for this kid for weeks with a lot of volunteer help but eventually the search Peters out and we had to move on the volunteers keep searching though and one day we get a call on the radio Letting us know that a body has been found and needs

to be recovered they tell us the location and none of us can believe it we figure it has to be a different kid but we go out there about 15 mi from the site where he vanished and sure enough we find the body of the kid we've been looking for I have been trying to figure out how this kid got where he did ever since we found him and I've never come up with an answer a volunteer just happened to be in the Area because he figured he might as well look in places no one

else would think to on the off chance the body had been dumped he comes to the base of a tall rocky slope and halfway up he sees something he looks through his binoculars and sure enough it's the body of a little boy stuffed in a little opening in The Rock he recognizes the color of the kid shirt so he knows right away that it's the missing boy that's when he calls it in and we're dispatched It took us almost an hour to get his body down and none of us could believe what we were seeing

Not only was this kid 15 mil from where he'd started there was no possible way he could have gotten up there on his own this slope is treacherous and it's hard for even us to climb on it with our climbing gear a 5-year-old boy had no way of getting up there of that I'm certain not only that but the kid doesn't have a scratch on him his shoes are gone but his feet Aren't damaged or dirty so it wasn't as if an animal dragged him up there and from what I can tell he hasn't been

dead that long he'd been out there over a month by that point and it looked like he'd only been dead for at most a day or two the whole thing was unbelievably strange and was one of the most disconcerting calls I've ever been on we found out later that the coroner determined the kid had died from exposure he'd frozen to death probably Late at night 2 days before we found him there were no suspects and no answers to date it's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen one of my first jobs as a trainee

was a search op for a 4-year-old kid that had gotten separated from his mom this was one of those cases where we knew we were going to find him because the dogs were on a strong scent Trail and we saw clear signs that he was in the area we ended up finding him in a Berry patch about half a mile from where he'd been last seen the kid wasn't even aware that he'd wandered off that far one of the Vets brought him back which I was glad for because I'm not really good with kids and

I find it hard to talk to them and keep them company as my trainer and I are headed back she decides to take me on a detour to show me one of the hot spots where we tend to find missing people it's a natural dip in the land near a popular Trail and people Will usually move downhill because it's easier we hike out there it's a few miles away and we get there in about an hour or so as we're walking around the area and she's pointing out places she's found people in the past I

see something in the distance now this area we're in is about 8 mes from the main parking area though there's back roads you can take to get closer if you don't want to hike that far but we're on state protected land which means there can't Be any kind of commercial or residential development out here the most you'll ever see is a fire tower or makeshift shelter that homeless people think they can get away with building but I can see from here that whatever this thing is has straight edges and if there's one thing you learn

quickly it's that nature rarely makes straight lines I pointed out but she doesn't say anything she just hangs back and lets me Wander over and check it out I get within about 20 Ft of it and all the hair on the back of my neck stands up up it's a staircase in the middle of the [ __ ] Woods in the proper context it would literally be the most benign thing ever it's just a normal staircase with beige carpet and about 10 steps tall but instead of it being in a house where it obviously should

be it's out here in the middle of the woods the sides aren't carpeted obviously and I could see the wood it's made of it's almost like a video game Glitch where the house has failed to load completely and the stairs are the only thing visible I stand there and it's like my brain is working overtime to try to make sense of what I'm seeing my trainer comes and stands next to me and she just stands there casually looking at it as if it's the least interesting thing in the world I ask her what the [

__ ] this thing is doing here and she just Chuckles get used to it rookie you're going to see a lot of them She says I start to move closer but she grabs my arm hard I'm wouldn't do that she says her voice is casual but her grip is tight and I just stand there looking at her you're going to see them all the time but don't go near them don't touch them don't go up them just ignore them I start to ask her about it but something in the way she's looking at me tells

me that it's best if I don't we end up moving on and the subject doesn't come up again for the rest of my Training she was right though I'd say about every fifth call I go on I I end up running across a set of stairs sometimes they're relatively close to the path maybe within 2 or 3 miles sometimes they're 20 30 mes out literally in the middle of nowhere and I only find them during the broadest searches or training weekends they're usually in good condition but sometimes it looks like they've been out there forever

all different kinds all Different sizes the biggest I ever saw looked like they came out of a turn of the Century mansion and we're at least 10 ft wide with steps leading up at least 15 or 20 ft I've tried talking about it with people but they just give me the same response my trainer did it's normal don't worry about it they're not a big deal but don't go close to them or up them when trainees ask me about it now I give them the same response I don't really know what else to tell them

I'm really hoping someday I get a better answer but it hasn't happened yet this is another one that was less spooky and More Sad a young man went missing late in winter when realistically no one should be going that far out onto the trails we close a lot of them but some remain open year round unless there's a shitload of snow we didn't opt for him but we had about 6 ft of snow on the ground it it was an unusually heavy snow year and we knew it Wasn't likely that we'd find him until spring

when the thaw came sure enough when the first big thaw came a hiker reported a body a little ways off the main trail we found him at the base of a tree and a pile of melted snow I knew right away what had happened and it scared the living [ __ ] out of me most of you who ski or snowboard or spend any amount of time on a mountain will probably have guessed too when snow falls it doesn't collect as thick in the Areas beneath the branches it happens most with fur trees because they

have a sort of closed umbrella shape so what you end up with is a space around the base of a tree that's filled with a mixture of loose powdery snow air and branches they're called tree Wells and they're not immediately obvious if you don't know what you're looking for we put up signs in the Welcome Center big ones letting people know how dangerous they are but every year that we get an Unusual amount of snow at least one person doesn't read them or doesn't take the warning seriously and we find out about it in the

spring my best guess is that this young man was hiking and got tired or maybe a cramp from walking in the deep snow he went to go sit at the base of a tree not knowing that there was a tree well and fell in he got stuck with his feet up and the surrounding snow caved in around him unable to free himself he suffocated it's called snow Immersion Suffocation and it doesn't usually happen except in really deep snow but if you get stuck in a weird position like this guy did even 6 ft of snow

can be lethal what scared me the most was imagining how he must have struggled upside down and the freezing cold he didn't die quickly the snow would have formed a dense heavy pile on top of him and it would have been literally impossible to get out as it got harder to breathe he would have Known what was happening I can't even imagine what he was thinking in his last moments a lot of my less outdoorsy friends want to know if I've ever seen the Goatman while I've been out on calls unfortunately or I guess fortunately

I've never had anything quite like that happen I guess the closest was the whole blackeyed man thing but I didn't see anything however there was one call where I had something kind of similar happen but I'm not sure I'm willing to Chalk it up to the Goatman we'd gotten a report that an older woman had fainted along one of the trails and needed assistance getting back down to the main area we hike up to where she's at and her husband is just beside him self he runs well I guess more jogs to us and tells

us that he was a little ways off the trail looking at something when his wife starts screaming behind him he runs back to her and she's passed out on the trail we get her on the backboard and as We're getting her down to the Welcome Center she comes to and starts screaming again I calm her down and ask what happened I can't remember Verbatim what she said but essentially what happened was she had been waiting for her husband when she started hearing this really weird sound she said it sounded sort of like a cat but

it was off somehow and she couldn't quite figure out why she went a little ahead to try and hear it better and it sounded like it was coming Closer she said the closer it got the more uneasy she was until she finally figured out what was wrong I do remember this next part because it was so weird that I don't think I could ever forget it if I tried it wasn't a cat it was a man saying the word meow over and over but it wasn't a man it couldn't have been because I've never heard

a man make his voice buzz like that I thought my hearing aid was going out but it wasn't I adjusted it and it still sounded all Buzzy it was awful he was coming closer but I couldn't see him and the closer he got the more scared I was and the last thing I remember was the shape coming out of the trees I guess that's when I fainted now after she said this obviously I'm a little perplexed as to why a guy would be out in the [ __ ] Woods chanting meow at people so once

we get down the mountain I tell my Superior that I'm going to go search the area to see if I can find anything he gives me The goahead and I grab a radio and Hike Back To Where She fainted I don't see anyone so I keep going out about a mile more and when I head back I go off the trail to see if I can figure out where she saw him coming from it's almost sunset by this point and I don't have any desire to be out at night alone so I just sort of

ride it off and make a mental note to check it out again tomorrow but as I'm headed back I start to hear something in the distance I stop And I call out for anyone in the immediate area to identify themselves the sound didn't come closer or get louder but it sounded exactly like a man saying meow and this really odd monotone as comical as it may sound it was almost like that guy on South Park with the electro Lings Ned I go off the trail in the direction I think it's coming from but I never

seem to get closer it's almost like it's coming from all directions eventually it just sort of Fades out and I ended up going back to the W Welcome Center I didn't get any further reports like that and even though I went back to that area I never heard that exact sound again I suppose it could have been some stupid kid out there [ __ ] with people but even I have to admit it was weird since it seems like all of you would like to hear more tomorrow I'll write as much stories as I can

and I'll include my friend's stories and I'll see if I can get a hold Of a few more people who might have interesting things to talk about [Music] well once again you guys have blown me away with your staggering amount of responses to my stories there's no way I can respond to each of you individually so I'm just going to address some common things again and then I'll move on to the stories I'm going to write as much as I can think of in addition to my friend stories and I will probably not Update again

until I get a chance to answer some questions that I have myself for my superiors all right so the common questions I found you all had no I'm not comfortable talking about where exactly I work unfortunately in all reality some of the things I've mentioned here could get me in a lot of trouble or fired so it's best if I don't discuss too much I will say that I'm in the United States and in an area that is comprised of a great deal of wilderness we're talking Hundreds of miles of thick forest with a mountain

range and a few Lakes there is still a great amount of interest in the stairs and luckily for you guys my friend has a story that I think you'll all be very interested in I'll go into that more at the end of this update as for whether or not I have ever thought of asking my superiors about them I have but again I don't want to risk my job however one of my former superiors no longer works as a search and rescue Officer and it's possible that he may be willing to talk to me about

it I'll be speaking to him later in the week and I will let you all know what comes of that as far as advice on becoming a search and rescue officer goes I think the best advice I can give you is to contact your local forest service office and see if they offer any training courses or what the qualifications are I've been doing this for years and I started out as a volunteer helping on search and rescue Operations it's a great job despite the occasional tragic situations and I wouldn't want to do anything else all

right let's move on to the stories now the first happened on a case that I went on right after I got out of training and I was still pretty new to everything before I took this job I was a volunteer so I had a basic idea of what to expect but on those calls you're mostly dealing with finding lost people after vets have found signs of them as a Search and rescue officer you go out for all kinds of cases from animal bites to heart attacks this case got called in early in the morning from

a young couple who were up on one of the trails that goes by the lake the husband was completely hysterical and we couldn't really figure out what was going on we could hear the woman screaming in the background and he was begging us to come up there right away when we get there we see him holding his wife and she's got Something in her arms she's screaming these awful almost animall likee screams and he's sobbing he sees us and he screams at us to go help them and to please get an ambulance up there now

obviously we can't just drive an ambulance up the walking path so we ask him if his wife needs help or if she can walk on her own he's still hysterical but he manages to tell us that it's not his wife that needs help I go over while one of the Vets tries to calm him down And I ask his wife what's going on she's rocking back and forth holding something and just shrieking over and over again I crouch down and see that whatever she's holding is covering her with blood that's when I notice the sling

on her front and my heart sinks I ask her to tell me what's going on and I sort of pry her arms gently open so I can see what she's holding it's her baby obviously dead his head is caved in on one side and he's covered in scratches Now I've seen dead bodies before but something about this whole situation just hit me really hard I have to take a second to compose myself and I get up to go get one of the other vets who's standing by I tell him that it's a dead kid and

he sort of just Pats my shoulder and tells me that he'll deal with it it took us over an hour to get this woman to let us see her kid every time we try to take him from her she flips out and tells us we can't have him and that He'll be okay if we just leave her alone and let her help him but eventually one of the Vets manages to calm her down and she gives us the body we took it back to the med area but when the EMT showed up they told us

that there was never any hope of saving the kid he had died instantly from the trauma to his head I was good buddies with one of the nurses who met them at the hospital hospital and she told me later what had happened turns out the couple had been walking With the baby in the sling and they stopped because the kid was fussing the dad takes the kid and is holding him looking out over this little goalie by the path the mom comes to stand next to him but she ends up stepping on a loose patch

of soil and she trips she falls into the dad who drops the kid who ends up falling about 20 ft down this little goalie onto the rocks at the bottom the dad climbed down and recovered the kid but he'd Fallen right on his head and Was dead by the time they got there the baby was only about 15 months old it was a total freak accident a series of events that coalesced into the worst possible outcome probably one of the more awful calls I've been on I haven't seen a lot of animal bites in my

time as a search and rescue officer mostly because there aren't that many animals that come around the area while there are bears in the area they tend to stay pretty far away from people And sightings are highly unusual most of the animals you'll see are the small ones like coyotes raccoons or skunks what we do see frequently though are moose and let me tell you moose are nasty [ __ ] they'll chase after or anything for any reason and God help you if you get in between a female and its baby one of the more

amusing calls was a guy who'd gotten chased down by an absolutely massive male moose and was stuck up in a tree took us almost an Hour to get him down and when he was finally on Solid Ground again he looks at me and says godamn them [ __ ] is Big up close I guess that's not really a scary story but we still laugh about that one [Music] I honestly don't know how I had forgotten this story but it is by far the scariest thing that's happened to me I guess maybe I've tried so long

to forget about it that it just didn't come To mind right away as someone who spends literally all of their time in the woods you don't ever want to let yourself get scared of being alone or out in the middle of nowhere that's why when you have experiences like this you tend to just forget about them and move on this is to date the only thing that's ever made me seriously consider if this job is the right one for me I don't really like talking about it much but I'll do the best I can to

remember it all as I Recall this took place right at the end of spring it was a typical Lost Child call a 4-year-old girl had wandered away from her family's campsite and had been missing for about 2 hours her parents were completely despondent and told us what most parents do my kid would never wander away she's so good about staying close she's never done anything like this before we assure the parents that we'll do everything we can to find her and we spread out in standard search Formation I was partnered with one of my good

buddies and we were sort of casually holding a conversation while we hiked I know it sounds callous but you you do sort of become desensitized when you've done this long enough it becomes the norm and I think to a certain extent you have to learn to desensitize yourself in order to work this job we search for a good 2 hours going well beyond where we think she'd be and we come out of a small Valley when Something makes us both stop in unison we freeze and look at each other and there's almost a sensation like

a plane depressurizing my ears pop and I have this odd sensation of having dropped about 10 ft I start to ask my buddy if he felt that but before I can we hear the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life it's almost like a freight train passing directly by us but it's coming from every direction at once including above and below us he screamed something At me but I can't hear him over this deafening Roar understandably freaked out we look all around us trying to find the source of the sound but neither of us

sees anything of course my first thought is a landslide but we're not near any Cliffs and even if we were it would have hit us by now the sound goes on and on and we're trying to yell to each other but even standing close together we can't hear anything but this sound then as suddenly as it started it Stops like someone flipped a switch and cut it off we stand there for a second perfectly still and slowly normal sounds of the woods come back he asked me what the [ __ ] just happened but I

just kind of shrug and we stand there looking at each other for a minute I get on the radio and ask if anyone had just heard the end of the [ __ ] world but no one else hears it even though we're all within shouting distance of each other my buddy and I just sort of shrug It off and keep going about an hour later we all check up on the radios and no one has found the little girl most of the time we won't search when it gets dark but because we don't have any

kind of lead on her a few of us decide to keep going including me and my buddy we keep close together and we're calling out for her every couple of minutes at this point I'm hoping Beyond hope that we find her because while I may not like kids the idea of them being out all Alone in the dark is awful the woods can be intimidating to kids in the daylight at night well it's a whole different beast but we're not seeing any signs of her or getting any responses and around midnight we decide to turn

around and head back to the Rendevous point we are about halfway back when my buddy stops and shines his light to the right of us into a really thick Deadfall or a group of dead trees I ask him if he's heard a response but he just tells me to be Quiet for a second and listen I do and in the distance I I can hear what sounds like a kid crying we both call the girl's name and listen for any kind of response but it's just really really faint crying we head in the direction of

this Deadfall and go around it calling her name over and over as we get closer to the crying I start getting this weird feeling in my gut and I tell my buddy that something isn't right he tells me that he feels the same way but we can't Figure out what it is we stop where we are and call the girl's name again and at the same time we both figure it out the crying is on a loop it's the same little hitching SOB then whale then quiet hiccup repeated over and over it's exactly the same

every time and without saying another word we both take off running it's the only time I've ever lost my composure like that but something about it was just so incredibly wrong and neither of us Wanted to stay out there anymore when we get back to the rendevu we ask if anyone else has heard anything strange but no one else knew what we were talking about I know it sounds sort of antil climatic but that call [ __ ] me up for a long time as for the little girl we never found a trace of her

we keep an eye out for her and all the other people who we've never found but frankly I doubt we'll ever find anything of all the missing person's Calls I've gone out on only a handful have ever resulted in complete disappearance meaning no trace of the person and no body was ever found but sometimes finding a body just leads to more questions than answers here's a list of some of the bodies we found that have become become infamous in our team a teenage boy whose remains were recovered almost a year after he vanished we found

the top of his skull two finger bones and his camera almost 40 mi from where he was last seen the camera sadly was destroyed the pelvis of an older man who had vanished a month earlier that was all we found the lower jaw and right foot of a 2-year-old boy on the highest peak of a bridge in the southern part of the park the body of a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome almost 20 M from where she'd vanished she had died of exposure 3 weeks after going missing and all of her clothes were intact except

for her shoes and Jacket there were berries and cooked meat in her stomach when they did the autopsy the coroner said it appeared as if someone had been taking care of her there were no suspects ever identified the frozen body body of a one-year-old baby found a week after Vanishing in the hollow trunk of a tree 10 miles from where he was last seen there was fresh milk found in his stomach but his tongue was gone a single vertebrae and right kneecap of a 3-year-old girl found in The snow almost 20 mil from the campground

her family had been at the previous summer now on to a couple of the stories that my friend told me [Music] I mentioned to him that you were all interested in the stairs and you're in luck he's had a closer encounter with them though he doesn't have an explanation for them he does have a bit more experience with them than I do my buddy has been a search and rescue Officer for about 7 years he started when he was a junior in college and he had a very similar experience when he first encountered the stairs

his trainer told him almost the same thing mine did which was to never go near touch or go up them for the first year he did just that but apparently his curiosity got the better of him and on one call he broke away from the line and he went to go check a set of them out he said they were about 10 mi from the path where a Teenage girl had vanished and the dogs were following Ascent he was on his own own lagging behind the main group when he saw a set of stairs to

his left they looked like they were from a new house because the carpeting was pristine and white he said that as he got closer he didn't feel any different or hear any weird noises he was expecting something to happen like bleeding from his ears or collapsing but he got right up next to them and didn't feel anything the only Thing he said that was odd was that there was absolutely no debris on the steps no dirt leaves dust anything and there didn't appear to be any signs of animal or insect activity in the immediate area

which he found strange it was less like things were avoiding them and more like they just happen to be in a relatively Barren part of the forest he touched the stairs and didn't feel anything except that sort of sticky feeling you get from new carpet making Sure his radio was on he slowly climbed the stairs he said it was terrifying because the way they'd been stigmatized he wasn't really sure what was going to happen to him he joked around that half of him expected to be teleported to some other dimension and the other half was

watching for a UFO to come swooping down but he got to the top with little event and he stood there looking around but he said the longer he stood on the top step the more he felt like he was doing Something very very wrong he described it as the feeling you would get if you were in part of a government building you had no business being in as if someone was going to come and arrest you or shoot you in the back of the head at any second he tried to brush it off but the

feeling got stronger and stronger and that's when he realized he couldn't hear anything anymore the sounds of the forest were gone and he couldn't hear his own breathing it was like some kind Of weird awful tontis but more oppressive he climbed back down and rejoined the search and didn't mention what he'd done but he said the weirdest part came after his trainer was waiting back at the welcome center after the search ended for the day and he cornered my buddy before he could leave he said his trainer had this look of intense anger and he

asked what was wrong you went up them didn't you my buddy said it wasn't phrased as a question He then asked how his trainer knew the trainer just shook his head because we didn't find her the dogs lost her scent my buddy asked what that had to do with anything the trainer asked how long he'd been on the stairs and my buddy said no more than a minute the trainer gave him this really awful almost dead eyed look and told him that if he ever went up another set of stairs again he would be fired

immediately the trainer walked away and I guess he's never answered any Of the questions my buddy has asked him about it [Music] since my buddy has been involved in a lot of missing persons cases where there's never been a trace of them found I mentioned David pides and my buddy said he can confirm that those stories are for the most part accurate he said that most of the time if the person isn't found right away they're either never found or they're found weeks Months or years later and in places they can't possibly have gotten to

one story he told me really stood out that involved a 5-year-old boy with a severe mental disability the little boy vanished from a picnic area in the late fall in addition to the mental disability he was also physically handicapped and his parents explained over and over that he simply could not have vanished it was impossible someone had to have taken him my buddy said they Searched for this kid for weeks going miles out of the accepted range but it was like he'd never been there the dogs couldn't pick up his scent anywhere not even in

the picnic area where he'd apparently vanished from suspicion fell on the parents but it was pretty clear that they were devastated and hadn't done anything Sinister to their kid the the search was concluded about a month later and my buddy said everyone had pretty much forgotten about it by later In the winter he was out on a training op in the snow on one of the higher Peaks when he came across something in the snow he said he saw it from far away at first and when he got closer he realized it was a shirt

Frozen and sticking part way out of the powder he recognized it as belonging to the kid because it had a distinctive pattern about 20 yard away he found the kid's body laying partially buried in the snow my buddy said there was no way the kid Had been dead for any more than a few days even though he'd been missing for almost 3 months the kid was curled around something and when my buddy brushed off the snow to see what it was he said he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing it was a big chunk

of ice that had been carved crudely to look sort of like a person the kid was holding it so tight that it had frost written his chest in hands which my buddy could tell even with the Decay That had taken place he radioed the rest of the crew and they took the body off the mountain now he recapped all of this for me and to put it simply there was no way this kid could have survived for almost 3 months on his own or have gotten to this peak there was no physical way this child

could have walked almost 50 mil and ended up on the top of a godamn mountain to top it off there was nothing in the kid's stomach or colon nothing not even water it was Like my buddy said the kid had been taken off the face of the Earth put in suspended animation and dropped on this mountain months later only to die of exposure he's never really gotten over that [Music] one the last story I'll share from him was one that took place relatively recently only a few months ago they were out doing a Recon for

mountain lions because there had been several reports Of sightings in the last couple of days one of our jobs is to scout the areas where these animals are seen to ensure that if they are in that area we can warn people and close off the trails he was out on his own in a very heavily forested part of the park toward dusk when he heard what sounded like a woman screaming in the distance now as most of you know when a mountain line screams it sounds almost exactly like a woman being brutally murdered it's unsettling

but Far from abnormal my buddy radioed back and let Ops know what he had heard and that he was going to keep going to see if he could figure out where its territory started he heard the mountain lion scream a couple more times always from the same spot and determin the approximate area of the mountain lon's territory he was about to head back when he heard another scream this time only within a few yards of him of course he freaks out and starts Heading back at a much faster Pace because the last thing he wants

is to run into a goddamn mountain line and get mauled to death as he got back on the path and started heading back the screaming followed him and he broke into a jog when he was about a mile from Ops the screaming stopped and he turned around to see if it was following him it was almost Night by this point but he sat in the distance just before the path rounded a corner he could see what Looked like a male figure he called out to them warning them that the path was closed and that he

needed to come back to the Welcome Center the figure just stood there and my buddy started to walk over when he was about 10 yard away the figure took as he described an impossibly long step toward him and let out the same scream my buddy had been hearing my buddy didn't even say anything he just turned and sprinted back to Ops never looking behind him by The time he got back the screaming had moved back into the woods he didn't mention it to anyone else just said that there was a mountain line in the area

and that they would need to close the path until the animal could be located and moved I'm going to end this entry here I'm going to be heading out on a yearly training op tomorrow morning so I'll be gone until early next week I'll be meeting with a lot of former trainers and buddies who work in other areas of The park and I'll be asking around about any stories they'd like to share once I'm back from this op I'll continue to share [Music] them hey guys I'm back from my training op and I have a

lot of really really interesting stories to share with you I've got enough that I'm going to break them into two parts this being the first I'd love to put them all in one entry but I just haven't had the chance to Write them all down yet I didn't have anything too crazy happen while I was out there but we did have one incident with a rookie that I found relevant I'll assign each batch of stories to the person who told them to me let's start with KD KD is a vet who's been a search and

rescue officer for about 15 years she specializes in high elevation Mountain rescues and is widely con considered one of the best in her field she was one of the more enthusiastic Storytellers and since we were together a fair amount during exercises she ended up telling me about four that really stuck with me the first one she told me in response to me asking about her most traumatic calls she shook her head and told me that really bad calls happen more frequently on the mountain since the potential for nasty accidents is higher about 5 years ago

one of the parks she worked at had a string of disappearances it was a bad year she Said one of the worst on record as far as weather went they were getting about a foot of new snow every couple of days and there were a few Avalanches that killed some climbers they warned people about staying on the mapped areas but of course there's always those who don't listen in one particular nasty case an entire family got wiped out because the father decided he knew better than the officials and he took them into an area that

wasn't safe they were Snowshoe and As best as KD can figure they'd walked into a shelf of snow that looked solid but actually wasn't it gave way and this family went ass over tea kettle almost 300 ft down a slope they landed on the rocks at the bottom and the parents died instantly one of the kids did as well but the other two survived one had a broken leg and fractured ribs the other was almost unharmed except for some bruising and dis sprained ankle the uninjured child left his sibling behind And set out to find

help KD said that the kid didn't make it more than half a mile before the storm overtook him the kid stopped to try to get warm or maybe just some rest and ended up freezing to death they ended up finding the family with the help of some witnesses who saw them heading out into the Wilderness and she was the one to find the kid that had frozen to death looking for help she said it had started to snow just enough to obscure longdistance Vision but not Enough to make searching impossible she saw a figure sitting

in the snow up ahead and she got to it as quickly as possible she described in detail how as she got closer she realized first that it was a child second that they were deceased and third that they had Frozen in one of the most pitiful positions she's ever found the corpse in the kid was sitting upright with his knees tucked up against his chest his arms were curled around them and his head was Tucked up in his coat when she moved the coat to look at his face she saw that he had died crying

his face was twisted and the tears were frozen on his cheeks she said it was painfully obvious that the kid was terrified when he succumbed to hypothermia and as a mother it broke her heart she told me repeatedly that she hopes the father is burning in hell as we speak the other traumatic story she told me that stood out in my mind was one That happened when she was a rookie her team got a report of an experienced climber who hadn't come home the previous day his wife was convinced that something bad had happened because

he'd never failed to come home on time they went out looking for him and had to climb what sounded like some very technically challenging parts of the mountain they got to a relatively flat area and KD started seeing blood in the snow she followed the trail and as she Went she started seeing little bits of tissue she wasn't sure exactly what body part it had come from but the farther she followed it the more there was she follows this Blood and Tissue Trail to a sheltered area under a cliff face and she finds the climber

she said there was so much blood more than she'd everever seen before he was lying face down one arm stretched in front of him as if he died crawling she looks closer and sees that he's been partially disemboweled Which is where the tissue she'd seen had come from the guy has an ice pick tucked into a hip holster and it's covered in blood of course they'll never be sure exactly what happened but she said as best as she can figure this is what went down the guy had been attempting to climb up to the next

area and had been using his ice axe to ascend he'd probably hit a loose patch and had fallen on the way down or possibly when he landed he got impaled by the axe and It had disemboweled him he drug himself along tearing pieces of himself out as he went and died under the Cliff face she isn't terribly bothered by Gore but but I guess a few of the guys who came to help her remove the body threw up when they turned him over and a good portion of his intestine Spilled [Music] Out I mentioned to

her that I was interested in hearing about any experiences she had with people Completely disappearing her eyes light up and she leans in close to me want to hear a real doozy she asks she tells me about how when she first started there was a case that got a lot of attention in the media a family had been out berry picking in an area of the forest very close to the entrance of the park they had two little boys both under the age of five and at some point during the day one of them vanishes

there's an absolutely massive search and they find Absolutely nothing it's another one of those cases where it's like the kid was never there in the first place the dogs just sit down and don't pick up on anything no trace of the kid is found the search goes on for about 2 months but is eventually called off fast forward to 6 months later the family comes back to place flowers at a memorial that's been set up for the kid they bring their other son while they're placing the flowers they lose sight of The kid for about

3 seconds and in that span of time he vanishes into thin air now obviously the the parents are Beyond devastated it's awful enough to lose one child but to lose two is beyond Imagining the search is huge one of the largest in State history there are about 300 volunteers combing every inch of this park looking for the kid but again there's no trace of him the search goes on for about a week with people looking miles from the part of the park he Vanished from and then almost two 2 weeks later a volunteer about 15

mi from the designated search area radios in that he's found the kid they assume that the kid was dead but the volunteer says he's not only alive but he's in good shape too KD and her team go out to recover the kid and when they get there she can't believe that this is the same kid that's been missing his clothes are clean there's no dirt on him anywhere and he doesn't appear traumatized the Volunteer said says he found the kid sitting on a log playing with a little twig bundle that's bound together with some old

rope KD asks him where he's been and who he was with for 2 weeks and the kid tells her that he's been with the fuzzy man now KD firmly believes in Bigfoot so she gets all excited and asks what he means by fuzzy was he hairy but the kid says no he wasn't hairy he was a f fuzzy man and he describes a man that's blurry like when you close your Eyes but not all the way closed he says the man came out of the trees and took the kid with him deep into the woods

the kid says he slept in a hollow tree and the fuzzy man gave him berries to eat KD asks if the man was mean if he scared the kid and the kid says no he wasn't scary but I didn't like how he didn't have eyes KD says they the kid back to headquarters and a cop takes him into town to talk to him more about what happened she's friends with the cop that Talked to him and she said the kid described being kept in this tree by the fuzzy man and given berries whenever he was

hungry he was allowed to wander around in a very specific clearing but when he tried to go further the fuzzy man would get mad and yell real loud even though he didn't have a mouth when the kid got scared at night the fuzzy man made Made It Go brighter and gave him the twig bundle he said the fuzzy man was going to keep him but he had to Let him go because the kid wasn't the right kind he either can't or won't elaborate more on that the cops are just sort of left scratching their heads

and the search for his brother is renewed with no results the kid has no idea where his brother might be and they never find him the last story that KD told me was of something that happened to her when she got separated from her training group when she was a rookie they were learning The basics of high elevation baying on a well- mapped side of a mountain and she had to use the bathroom she went off about 50 yards from the group during a meal break and did her business I'll tell the rest exactly as

she told it to me so I go to take a piss and once I'm done I start going back to the group but I've only gotten about 5 ft when I realized that I have no idea where I am and this wasn't a oh I got turned around lost I mean I literally had no [ __ ] Clue where I was if you'd ask me I don't even think I'd be able to tell you what state we were in it was sort of how I imagine people with amnesia feel you know you are completely lost

and you have no idea what to do so I stood there for a while just trying to figure out where the [ __ ] I was and what I was supposed to do but the longer I stand there the more confused and turned around I get so I started walking as I recall I just picked a random Direction And went for it and as I'm walking it's just getting worse and worse to the point where I have no concept of why I'm on the mountain in the first place I'm just trudging through the snow and

then I start hearing this voice it's kind of inside my head almost like if a frog could talk all low and croaky and it's been telling me over and over it's okay it's okay you just need to find something to eat find something to eat and you'll be okay just keep walking and Find something to eat so I start looking around for anything that I can eat and I swear to God I've never felt that hungry in my whole life it was bottomless and I think I'd have eaten just about anything you put in front

of me right then I had no concept of time so I had no idea how long I'd been out there when I hear an actual voice coming toward me I go toward it and see one of the other search and rescue officers and he looks [ __ ] terrified he's running toward me Asking if I'm okay and what the hell I'm doing out here and the scary thing was as he's running toward me I kind of see myself reaching out into my belt for my hunting knife I'm not even really thinking about what I'm doing

but what I am thinking is that I have to eat if I don't eat eat I'll never be okay again so I just have to eat he sees me doing that and he backs off right away he yells at me to put my knife away and that he's not going to hurt me and That's what kind of snaps me back all of a sudden I know exactly where I am and I put the knife away I run to him and ask him how long I've been gone for thinking he'll tell me I've been gone for

about half an hour or so but he tells me I've been gone for two [ __ ] days I've gone over two two peaks and ended up almost on the other side of the mountain and if I'd kept going I would have ended up wandering into about 300 Mi of wilderness they would have never found Me he can't believe I'm not dead and of course I don't know what the [ __ ] to think to me no time has passed at all I don't say anything I just go back with him to a Rendevous point

and I'm taken back to HQ to be airlifted to the hospital when I get there they do all kinds of tests and try to figure out what happened as best as they can guess I had some kind of weird Fugue state which is kind of like Amnesia or a weird seizure that knocked my brain out of Whack but the truth is that we don't really know it's never happened again but I'll tell you ever since then I never go out there alone people rag on me for making them come with me when I have to

leave the group but I just tell him that listening to me piss in the snow is better than losing me for two [ __ ] days on a freezing Mountain the next person I talked to was ew a former trainer who now works as an EMT he still comes to Ops like this to Help out but doesn't work fulltime for us anymore he specialized in finding lost kids he just seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to knowing where they'd gone he's a legend among the senior vets but he gets embarrassed if you

compliment him on his work he sat down with me at dinner one evening and we ended up swapping stories most of them were just casual but when we got on the subject of our more weirder calls I mentioned that I had a buddy who had Went up a set of stairs he got kind of quiet and asked me if I'd heard of a little boy who disappeared from his Park a few years back I hadn't so he told me this story they were out looking for this 11-year-old boy Joey who had gone missing near a

river of course the first thought was that he'd fallen in and drowned but when they brought dogs out they LED search and rescue officers away from the river and up into a very densely forested area when we do Searches for people we search in a grid pattern and we search every box of the grid and Incredibly thoroughly what ew's team noticed right away was that a very strange pattern was emerging dog in alternating boxes were picking up Joey's scent but losing it when they overlapped with another box if you think of a checkerboard Joey's scent

was being picked up in random black squares but never in red this of course didn't make any sense because how could this kid Bounce from area to area without leaving a scent in each box he passed ew and his partner pass into a new box of the grid and ew notices a set of stairs about 50 yard away he tells his partner that they need to go check near it but his partner flat out refuses he tells ew that he's made it a point to never go near any stairs he sees and that while it

may be routine he's not to pretend that it's normal he tells ew that he'll wait in sight while ew checks ew says that he Was irritated but he felt for the guy and he didn't push him on the subject he started speaking speaking I walked over to the stairs they were small kind of like stairs into a basement I don't really feel strongly one way or the other about them the stairs I mean so I wasn't scared or anything I guess I'm like everyone else and I just prefer not to think about them too much

anyway I went over and I could see that there was something lying on the bottom step sort Of curled up my heart sinks because of course you always hope for the best and we were confident that we'd find this kid alive because he'd only been missing for a few hours but I knew right away that it was him and that he was dead he was curled up in a little ball on the step holding his stomach it looked like he'd been in horrible pain when he died but I didn't see any blood except some on

his lips and Chin I radioed in that I'd found him and we got his body back To command that poor family God they were devast stated the parents couldn't understand how he'd been dead cuz he'd only been gone for such a short amount of time and on top of that we didn't have any obvious cause of death which made it worse I figured he'd probably eaten something poisonous since he was holding his stomach when I found him but I didn't want to guess it's hard enough to hear that your kid is dead let alone some

stupid search and rescue guy Guessing about what happened they took him away and I went home and tried not to think about it I I hate finding dead kids man I loved this job but it's one of the reasons I left I've got two daughters and the thought of losing them that way just he choked up a little bit here I'm not great with emotional stuff like that and it's always sort of awkward to see a grown man cry so I didn't really know what to do he pulled himself together eventually though and He kept

going we don't always hear back from the corners about cause of death it's not really our job to know I guess and sometimes if they think it's foul play they won't tell us because of the legal [ __ ] but I've got a friend who works for the sheriff's department and he'll usually pass along any interesting info I ask about in this case though I actually got a call from him about a week later he asked me if I remember the kid and of course I do and he says some Seriously weird [ __ ]

is going on he tells me ew man you're going to think I'm crazy but the coroner has no idea what happened to this kid he's never seen anything like it my friend goes on to tell me that when the coroner opened the kid up he couldn't even believe what he was seeing the kid's organs were like swiss cheese quarter sized holes were punched clean through just about every single organ this kid had aside from his heart and lungs but his colon his Stomach his kidneys and even one of his test stles were full of holes

my friend said the coroner described it as if someone had taken a hole puncher and punched holes out of everything they were so neat but the kid didn't have a scratch on him no entry or Exit Wounds the closest anyone there had ever seen like it was a guy who'd filled himself full of Buckshot a year or so back while cleaning his rifle no one had a clue what possibly could have caused it my Friend asked me if I'd ever heard of anything like it or if we'd had similar cases in the past but I'd

never even heard of something like that and I told him that I wasn't going to be of any help to him as far as I know the coroner determined the cause of death as something like massive internal bleeding but no one knows what really happened I've never been able to forget that kid I have nightmares about it sometimes I used to love it out here but that case And a couple others just sort of ruined it for me dinner was over so we started to clean up and go back to our cabins before we went

our separate ways he put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me really close he tells me that there's been bad things out here things that don't care if we have families or lives or that we can think and feel he tells me to be careful and walks away I didn't have a chance to talk with him again but that story stuck with me By pure coincidence I got to talk to another vet PB who's been in the search and rescue field for years we were partnered on a grid sweep during a training exercise

and we were chatting casually about how we liked the job what kinds of things we'd seen and stuff like that at one point we passed an old set of stairs though these were probably an old fire lookout given the area that we were in I sort of casually mentioned that I was curious about the stairs and That I wished I knew more about them he got kind of quiet and looked like he wanted to tell me something but wasn't sure if he should finally he told me to turn my radio off obviously this is something

we are never ever supposed to do but I did it and he did the same about 7 years ago he tells me he was out on a call with a rookie they were in an area of the park that's had a lot of strange reports and events disappearances stories about lights in The forest odd noises things like that the rookie was totally spooked kept going on and on about things in the woods according to PB the guy wouldn't stop talking about the Goatman just on and on Goatman this and Goatman that finally I told him

that there was plenty else to be afraid out here that was very real and that he'd better get over this thing with the Goatman the rookie wanted to know what kinds of things I was talking about and I just told them to Shut up and walk we crested a little Ridge and there was a staircase about 10 yard ahead the rookie stops dead in his tracks and just stands there looking at them I tell him see that's something you should be afraid of the rookie asked me what the hell these things are doing out here

and for some reason and I just open up and tell him the truth or what I've been told is the truth I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for doing what I did and I could get in a lot of Trouble for repeating it to you but you're a nice kid and I want you to stop looking into this please just quit while you're ahead so I'll tell you what I know under the condition that you never breathe a word of this to the subs I told him I wouldn't say a word and

he doubled checks that our radios are off he began when I first started out we were a little less tight lipped about them and other things that happen out here we warned people before they were Even hired that there was weird [ __ ] going on I guess the forest service was tired of having such a massive turnover rate and they wanted more people to know what they were getting into so they started having people sign these agreements that they wouldn't go to the media about what they were going to see the f F didn't

want to scare people away so the last thing they needed were spooked rookies running off to the media with stories of ghosts and haunted Stairs but eventually they found that the agreements weren't necessary people not only didn't want to talk about what they saw they wouldn't talk about it at all a few times media tried to talk to people when kids or hikers would disappear and no one would say a word I can't really explain it I guess we just don't really want to admit anything is wrong this is our job to be out in

the woods every single day we don't need to be spooked and the best Way to avoid that is to pretend like everything's okay so I'll tell you everything I can think of and after that I'm done talking about it for good and I expect you not to bring it up around me ever the stairs have been out here for as long as the Parks have existed we have records going back decades describing them sometimes people go up them and nothing happens other times look I really don't like talking about this but sometimes really bad [

__ ] Happens I saw one guy get his hand sliced clean off when he got to the top step he reached out to touch a tree branch and it happened so fast one second his hand was there and the next it was gone completely clean off off we couldn't find his hand and the guy almost died another time a woman touched one of the stairs and a blood vessel in her brain exploded literally exploded like like a water balloon she sort of stumbled down And came over to me and all she got out was I

think something is wrong with me she dropped like a sack of flower dead before she hit the ground I'll never forget the way the blood leaked into the side of her eye before she died I watched it turn red I watched it happen and there wasn't a single thing I could do to help we warn people not to go anywhere near them but there's always at least one idiot that does and even if nothing happens to them something bad Always happens kids go missing as we're on their Trail someone dies the next day cut in

half in a completely safe area of the park I don't know why but something bad always happens I don't know exactly why they're out here but it doesn't matter they're here and if we were smart we'd tell our new officers exactly what they're capable of we were both quiet for a little while I was afraid to talk because I wasn't even sure if he was done he looked like he wanted to say Something else finally he spoke up again have you ever noticed how you can't find the same ones twice I nodded expecting him to

continue but he just stayed quiet walking alongside me and eventually he started a story about the biggest deer he'd ever seen in the park I didn't bring up the subject again and I didn't press him for any more stories he dropped out of the op the next day apparently he left before the sun came up he said he was sick none of us have Heard from him since he left I'm going to stop here for the time being I'll try and post the next part in the next coming days but with it being the end

of summer things are pretty busy here writing all of this out really awakened the Curiosity in me that I didn't know I had I apologize for the short update this time around things have gotten a little crazy around here and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update going forward and while I only have a Couple of stories to share with you on this update I'll be interested to see what you all think a firefighter who was helping us at the training op told me about a call he went on supposedly to help

rescue a kid from an absolutely massive tree he said they didn't give him details just that they needed him to come out and help because they lacked the proper equipment he'd been called out specifically because this thing was so huge that the search and rescue Officers didn't feel safe climbing it it he had been a tree trimmer before joining the vfd so it was easy enough for him to grab his old equipment and come help out he was let out about 2 miles and the team stopped at one of the biggest trees in the area

and pointed up he laughed and asked the op Captain how the kid had gotten up there he made a joke about the old Cat in a tree thing but the captain just shook his head and told him to get up there and get the kid Down he said he knew something was up but he didn't push it he said that as he climbed this tree he started wondering if they were playing a prank on him there was no way this kid should have been able to climb this [ __ ] thing it was massive at

the base but about halfway up it started tapering and I almost had to turn back a few times because I really didn't think it was going to hold me but he said he kept going and when he was just about at the Top he saw a flash of blue in the branches I saw the kid's shirt sort of caught in a branch and I called out to him and told him to come near me if he could but he didn't say anything I kept moving calling the kid's name and telling him not to be scared

that I was there to help him by the time I got to him I knew he wasn't going to answer me I found him or what was left of him cradled in the fork of a branch and the fact that he was up there was sheer luck If he'd Fallen any other way he'd have come Crashing Down it wouldn't have mattered though because this kid was dead long before he ended up in that tree I don't know who put him up there or how or why but it was [ __ ] sick kids intestines had

popped out of his mouth and were hanging in the branches it was like some sick [ __ ] Christmas tree the way they were draped all over everything I got a better look and saw that they'd even popped out of his ass His guts were hanging out the bottom of his pants his eyes were gone I assumed shoved out from whatever Force caused him to [ __ ] pop like a stress ball you ever seen a body that's been floating in water for a long time how their tongues kind of swell up and stick out

his was like that I remember because there were flies crawling all over it I think I must have gone into shock because man I just pushed that kid down with a stick I broke off a branch just Kind of poked him until he fell I don't know why I did that I almost lost my job because of it but man the thought of hauling that kid down over my shoulder the whole way Gathering his guts up and coiling them around me like ropes so they wouldn't get snagged I just couldn't do it I've seen a

lot of dead kids more than I'd ever admit I've seen a kid who hid in a full bathtub during a house fire boiled him alive turned him into literal soup but this I don't know What did this but the thought of touching that kid's body made me feel like I was going to lose my mind I heard him hit the ground and I figured everyone would freak out but they knew he was dead when they sent me up there they didn't say anything but they didn't shout or freak out or anything I got to the

bottom and I started to get up into the captain's face asking him who he thought he was sending me up there when they knew damn D well that kid was dead But he just told me it was none of my concern and thanked me for getting the evidence down I remember he said that I remember it specifically because it was so weird to hear it phrased that way the evidence like he wasn't even a [ __ ] person like he never been a little kid who got lost and had something [ __ ] unspeakable happened

to him the captain had a crew lead me back out of the woods but he and two others stayed behind and I thought that was pretty weird why Wouldn't they have had me help get the kid out I tried asking but the guys leading me out just told me that they couldn't discuss an open case I asked him what he thought had happened to the kid and he got really pensive and thought about it for a bit I would have said a crash injury based on how his guts came out like that but with those

injuries you see massive contusions Under the Skin obvious trauma this wasn't like that it was almost like that Kid got caught in a big vacuum and had his guts sucked out but even then there was no trauma none at all it bothers me man it bothers the hell out of me one of the Vets at the training op reads these kind of stories online and he recognized my stories he knows me pretty well and we've swapped stories before he asked if he could share something he's noticed about the stairs and some thoughts he had he

said I'm really glad you decided to share these I Think it's important that people be aware of what's out there especially since the forest service is doing such a good job at covering it all up I asked him what he meant what do you mean what do I mean the lack of any kind of media attention no coverage of missing kids or bodies found miles from where they got lost in the first place David pides hit this right on the head the fs is doing everything they can to keep people coming here even if it

isn't safe I mean To be fair it's not like these things happen every day but the numbers add up and it's worth looking into especially the stairs I was surprised you didn't mention the flipped ones I didn't know what he was talking about I couldn't remember him ever talking about something like that he seemed somewhat incredulous he said dude I can't believe you've been on this long without seeing them no one told you about them I Shrugged and asked him to elaborate well There's the normal stairs the ones that pop up when you're out of

ways I know you know about them but sometimes I've run across the ones that are flipped upside down I guess it would be like if you had a dollhouse and the stairs were a separate piece now take that flip it upside down so the top step is stuck in the dirt and put it out in the woods there like that I don't see them as often but they're odd to say the least makes me think of footage taken after a Tornado when houses are all blown apart and random things are left standing like chimneys and

garden walls those ones freak me out more than the normal ones because I can't really write those off as easily I don't scare very easily like most of us who work out here but that idea stuck with me and it bothers me I'm going to try and find out more about them he also mentioned how many people were bothered by the guy with no face he got really excited and told me he'd seen Something similar he said I was out on a training exercise a few years ago I was camped out inside my tent and

I heard someone walking around outside of camp we're told not to wander far which you know so I wondered if maybe it was a rookie who'd gotten up to pee and couldn't find his way back remember that guy in our group a few years back who almost fell off a damn Mountain well I'm paranoid about that happening again so I got up to see what was going on I went To the edge of camp and I called to whoever it was and told them that camp was this way but they kept going back out into

the woods so I went after them I know it was stupid but I was half asleep and I just really didn't want to have to deal with some idiot getting hurt I followed this thing on a dead straight course for about a mile and then it stopped on the edge of a little river I could see the outline of it because the water was reflecting the Moon and it looked just like an ordinary guy he had a pack on and it looked like he was facing me I asked if he was okay if he needed

help and he coed his head like he didn't understand me I always have my pocketknife on me and it's got a little thumb light attached to it so I turned that on and lit up his chest you know so I wouldn't blind him he was breathing slow and deep so I wondered if maybe he was sleepwalking I went closer and asked him again if he was okay I Moved the light up and something didn't seem right so I stopped he kept breathing in the these really slow deep breaths and I sort of figured out gradually

that that's what was bothering me it was like he was pretending to breathe but not actually doing it his breaths were too even and deep and all of his movements were exaggerated like his shoulders going up and his chest moving I told him to identify himself and he made this muffled noise I moved The light up and I [ __ ] you not this guy had no face just smooth skin I freaked out and I sort of fumbled my light but I saw him moved toward me but he didn't actually move I don't know how

to explain it but one second he was at the edge of the river and the next he was 5 ft from me I never looked away or blinked but it was like he moved so fast my brain couldn't keep up I tripped and fell on my ass and I could see this line open up on his throat it stretched up to His ears and his head tilted back and he smiled at me with his throat there wasn't any blood just this gaping dark hole and I swear he smiled at me with his gash in his

throat I got up and I ran as fast as I could back to Camp I couldn't hear him following me but I felt like he was always right behind me even though when I looked back I couldn't see him I calmed down when I got back to Camp the fire was still going and I guess that pack mentality of Being with other people made me stop and breathe a little I waited by the fire to see if he'd follow me there but I didn't hear anything else for a few hours so I went back to

bed I know it sounds weird but the whole thing was just so surreal that it was almost like I immediately wrote it off as my [Music] imagination we were telling ghost stories one night before bed just to scare each other and poke fun at whoever Got creeped out most of the time it's the rookies but one woman told a story that actually managed to get under my skin a little bit and I know the same could be said about the others she said it was true but then again every ghost story told around a campfire

is true somehow though I don't think she was making it up it had that ring of truth that only really traumatizing events happen have she said that when she was a kid she and her friend used to go out in The woods behind her house a lot she lived in northern Maine where there's a lot of dense unpopulated National Forest she said the woods up there aren't like they are here they're so thick in places that the trees block out the sun almost completely she and her friend grew up there so they weren't scared of

being out there alone but they did always maintain a sense of caution in certain areas she said it was never really talked about but they always knew not to Go more than a mile or two beyond their homes the adults never said why but it was an unspoken rule that no one ventured out that far she and her friend made up stories about bears as big as houses that lived out there and they used to scare each other by hiding and making growling noises while the others searched for them she said one summer there was

a series of awful storms that blew down a lot of trees and even set one part of the forest a few miles Behind her house on fire fire Crews got it under control but she said some of them came back not quite the same she started speaking apparently it was like they'd been to war you could tell who'd really gotten scared because they had the same look on their faces I think it's called shell shock my friend and I said they were like walking dead people they didn't smile or say anything if you went up

to them and most of them left town as soon as everything was over I Asked my parents about it but they said they didn't know what I was talking about once everyone was told the woods were safe again my friend and I decided to try and Hike out to where the fire had been we didn't tell our parents where we were going and it was pretty exciting to think that we were disobeying them like that we hiked out about 2 mies or so and we started seeing burnt trees and stuff I remember remember my friend

got really upset Because we found the skeleton of a deer curled up under a tree and I practically had to drag her away she wanted to bury it but I didn't want her touching it because its antlers were weird I can't remember why I just remember thinking that there was something wrong with them and I didn't want either of us going near it the farther we went the more burnt everything got eventually there were no standing trees and it was like being on another Planet almost nothing Green just brown and black everywhere we were standing

there looking at it all and we both heard something shouting in the distance I panicked because I thought it was my dad and that he was going to tell me I was grounded my friend broke off and went to go hide under a big rock because she said she didn't want to be caught out here her parents had forbidden her to come out in the woods at all and she lied and told them we were going to go see a movie I Followed her and we kept listening I could hear this voice getting closer and

I realized they were calling for help I thought maybe it was some hiker who'd gotten lost and needed directions back to town that used to happen all the time so I was used to helping people out I heard him following my voice so I kept calling out until I saw him running in the distance he got closer and I could see that his face was all red I told my friend to give me her pack because she Had a first aid kit she made this noise like she was grossed out and she asked if I

saw his face I told her to shut up and I jogged up to meet him I stopped about halfway and when he stopped in front of me I could see that his nose and lips and part of his forehead were all gone it was like they'd been sliced clean off he was bleeding bad and I saw that the knees of his pants were red too I took a step back but I was too scared to move much and he grabbed my shoulders It felt like I got a shock and he jerked back he started babbling

and I couldn't tell what he was saying except that he kept asking how long he'd been gone for he asked me where his unit was but I just shook my head he looked me over and saw my Walkman and he screamed he just kept babbling and touching his face and I realized he wasn't wearing the right clothing he had some kind of weird gray cloth jacket and almost formal pants on and the jacket had these weird buttons And red borders on it I kept shaking my head and I told him I couldn't understand what he

was saying I went to open the first aid kid but he just screamed again and said the only thing I could really understand don't touch me you'll make me go back there after that he ran off and I could hear him screaming the whole time when I couldn't hear him anymore I turned around and my friend was crying I just turned around and started walking back toward town she Asked me over and over what had happened and who that was but I didn't say anything when we got home I told her I didn't want to

play in the woods with her anymore we are still friends but we don't talk about that guy not ever I'll update as soon as I'm able to again guys I appreciate the continued support hey guys so it's been way too long since I posted an update and I'm sorry about that so these next few stories are going to be told a little Differently since these next stories are going to be in chronological order I'll no longer need to use the transition on screen to go to the next story I'll do my best to tie them

into each other as much as I can so it doesn't doesn't skip around too much when I started out as a rookie no one had told me a lot about the job in terms of weird things that could happen I'm assuming this was to prevent me from freaking out and abandoning the park but a few months Into my service a friend and I were drunk at a party and he opened up a bit he said yeah it can get a little crazy out there I guess I think the worst are the ones where people die

when they just shouldn't you know or when we find them dead like 10 minutes after someone says they saw them last they were fine when I passed them on the Switchback I swear that sort of [ __ ] like take this guy who I found one spring out on a really popular Trail someone comes into the VC Freaking out about some guy who's lying in the middle of the path in this giant pool of blood so we run out there and we find this guy is dead as a doornail which he absolutely should be because

the back of his head is like mashed potatoes the skull is decimated brains are leaking out like custard filling and this guy's old so you figure yeah he probably fell and hit his head old people fall all the time it's no big deal except that this area where he fell Doesn't have any big rocks there's not even any stumps or big branches and on top of that there's no blood trail so he clearly died where he dropped now that's when you turn to murder but there were people just out of line of sight with the

guy if someone came up behind him and murdered him there's no way someone wouldn't have heard and again even if someone had there would be a Blood Trail splatter all over the place but everyone on the scene said it looked exactly like He'd fallen and smashed his head on a rock so what the [ __ ] did he hit his head on and then there was this lady I found in a different Park about 5 years ago back when I was Upstate we found her in the middle of a stand of big junipers curled around

the trunk like she was hugging it we pick her up to move her and a [ __ ] waterfall comes out of her mouth splashes all over my shoes her clothes are dry and her hair is dry but the amount of water in her lungs and Stomach was phenomenal unreal man yeah the coroner's report says the cause of death was drowning her lungs were completely full of water even though we're in the middle of of the high desert and there isn't a body of water for Miles no puddles no nothing no signs of anyone else

being out there I mean yeah it's possible they were murdered but why go out of the way to do it like that why not just stab him and be done with it I don't know it just sits weird With me and that was his story now of course that freaked me out a little but we were wasted and I guess I sort of rote it off as a fluke I also assumed there was exaggeration there since you know we were wasted now I don't like talking about this next case very much it was an awful

one that I've done my best to forget about but of course that's easier said than done this happened about 6 months after the conversation with my friend at the bar And up until that point I hadn't had a lot of really weird [ __ ] go down a few things here and there and and of course the stairs but it's amazingly easy to get used to stuff like that when it's treated as if it's normal this case was a little different a guy with Down syndrome in his 20s went missing after his family lost sight

of him on a major path that was odd in and of itself because this guy never left his mom's side she was absolutely convinced he'd Been kidnapped and unfortunately a ranger who isn't with the park anymore in Ed that no one was going to kidnap someone well with that kind of disability not very tactful to say the least we wasted a lot of time trying to calm her down enough to get information about him and then we put out an official missing person's call because of the urgency of the situation him being mostly unable to

function alone we had local police come in and help us we Didn't find him the first night which was heartbreaking none of us wanted to think of him being alone out there we assumed he just kept wandering and was staying ahead of us we brought out helicopters the next day and they spotted him in a little canyon I helped bring him back up but he was in bad shape and I think we all knew he wasn't going to make it he'd fallen and broken his spine and couldn't feel his lower half he'd also broken both

his legs one At the femur and he'd lost a lot of blood he was confused used and scared while he was alone so he'd probably exacerbated the injuries by dragging himself and moving around I know it sounds awful but while I was riding in the copter with him I asked him why he'd wandered off I just wanted something to tell his mother to let her know it wasn't her fault because he was fading fast and I didn't think she'd get to ask him herself he was crying and he said Something about how the little sad

boy had wanted him to come play he said the little boy wanted to trade so he could go home then he closed his eyes and when he woke up again he was in the canyon I'm not sure that's exactly what he said but it was what I thought the gist of it was he just kept crying asking where his mommy was and I held his hand and tried my best to keep him Cal it was cold out there he kept saying that it was cold out there my legs were frozen it was Cold out there

it's cold in me he was getting even weaker so he eventually stopped talking and he closed his eyes for a while then when we were about 5 minutes from the hospital he looked right at me with these big tears running down his face and he said mama won't see me no more love Mama wish she was here and he closed his eyes and he just never woke up it was horrible and I don't like talking about it that case was one of the first ones that really Rattled me badly because of how badly it affected

me I reached out to a senior Ranger who ended up helping me through it as time went on and we got to know each other better he ended up sharing one of his own stories with me it was disturbing but it helped to know that I wasn't the only one affected by things going going on out there he started his story I think this must have happened before you got here because I think if it had happened while you were here You'd have remembered it I know it didn't end up on the news for some

reason but I think most people who've been here long enough know about it the park sold off a portion of land to a Logging company and it was a really controversial thing but it wasn't that large or old of a plot and it was right after the recession so we needed cash back anyway they were selling this plot of land and we get a call that we need to Get our supervisors out right away I don't know why but they ended up sending me and a few other guys along with the heads I guess for

power in numbers to see what was up we got there and all these guys are crowded around a tree that they've just cut down they're all pissed off and freaking out and the foran comes over and says he wants to know what we think we're up to what the hell y'all think this is some kind of sick joke you've got a lot of [ __ ] Nerve pulling this [ __ ] we bought this land fair and square well we don't know what the hell he's talking about so he brings us over to this fallen

tree and points at it he tells us that they cut it down and it was just like this and they'll be damned if they put it there the inside of the tree was all rotted in Hollow in one spot and when they'd cut it down it had exposed that chamber and inside of it was a hand like a perfectly severed hand and looks like it's Actually fused with the inside of the tree well now we think they're pulling a joke so we tell them that we don't like being [ __ ] with and we start

to leave but they tell us that they've already called the cops and they'll go right to the media if we don't stick around well that of course gets the head's attention so they stick around and talk to the police about it everyone is denying that they put the hand in there and besides how would anyone one have ever done it It's clearly a real hand but it's not mummified or skeletal it's brand new probably not even a day old and it is definitely fused with the wood you can see that it's coming right out of

it the loggers insist that they didn't put it there somehow this fresh human hand ended up fused to the inside of this living tree the cops have them cut up that section of the tree into a movable chunk then they take the hand away and the area is closed off there was a Pretty big investigation but I know they didn't get any answers now it's become this Legend and as far as I know we haven't sold any more property for logging as you all know I went to a training seminar recently and I heard some

amazing and horrible things there one of the guys I talked to while I was there told me a story when we were all around the campfire one night we were both pretty drunk you'll see a pattern here and we were Swapping stories he told me this one me and another guy were out on a field search because some campers reported screaming noises at night so we head out there to look for whatever [ __ ] mountain lion has wandered into the area and I'm pissed we've had three of them show up in the camping areas

that year alone and I'm getting tired as hell of constantly having to deal with them plus I just don't like them anyway they're a pain in the ass and they're loud and They scared the [ __ ] out of me [ __ ] cats pieces of [ __ ] I'm groaning about it to the guy I'm with and he thinks it's a real [ __ ] riot so we're seeing all these broken branches and what looks like dens and we're pretty sure we know where this thing is I call in and they tell me to

confirm if possible which you know just means they want you to step in a big pile of [ __ ] and use that as proof I'm not seeing any though so I basically just tell him to shove it I'm done we Know that damn thing's out there somewhere even if I'm not stepping in its [ __ ] or inside its mouth or whatever guy I'm with wanders off to take a piss or whatever and I stay behind watching this little Burrow under a tree to see if maybe a fox or something is living under it

cuz I love foxes man they're cute as hell but anyway I'm watching this tree and I start hearing branches crackling and it's coming from the direction my partner went opposite of Now I've got my pistol but you and I both know that's not going to do [ __ ] against the cat I [ __ ] it and holler for my partner to get his dumb ass back here but he's too far and he can't hear me I stand up and get my sights on where this thing is approaching and I [ __ ] you not

man I just about pissed myself this guy is coming towards me and he's back flipping through the [ __ ] Woods like instead of walking he's doing these crazy [ __ ] back flips and I swear to God he cleared every [ __ ] login bush in his path it was like he knew right where he was going I yell at the guy to stop where he is and that I'm pointing a gun at him but he keeps coming and I just kind of lost it I shot at the ground in front of him and

it was a dumb [ __ ] thing to do but man I didn't want this guy anywhere near me when I fired he was about 50 yards from me and as soon as the gun goes off he whirls around and goes off back flipping into The [ __ ] woods again my partner hears my gun go off and runs back and asks what's up and I tell him there's some [ __ ] weirdo out here hopped up on God knows what and we need to get the hell out of Dodge I let the cops know

what happened and I didn't get in any trouble for firing but man I don't know what that [ __ ] was on but I've never seen anything like that before [ __ ] was absolutely [ __ ] crazy I think we can agree that there's stuff going on out Here in the woods and while I'm not going to spout off about what it could be or offer any theories what I want people to take away from all of this is is that it's so damn important to be safe when you're out there I know a

lot of you think you're Invincible but the fact is you can die out there or be hurt or go missing it's easier than you'd ever imagine I apologize for this relatively short update guys I'll do my absolute best to continue as soon as Possible one of the topics that I get asked about a lot here and in real life involve things like the rake the windigo and other Legends I can't honestly say that I know a lot about any of them but based on some light reading I did I can say that I've heard stories

that seem to be Loosely related to them you've heard the old adage that Legends like that come from somewhere and I'm sure that's true but as you all know I do try to take things with a grain of salt after All you have to out here it's sort of like working in a hospital I'd imagine you could spend all day thinking about how many people have died there and how there are probably ghosts or whatever you want to call them all over the place but it doesn't do you any good it just makes it harder

to do your job I think a lot of us feel that way and that's why we try to go about our work like everything is fine once you get paranoid there's not really any going back and a Lot of cadets quit because of it my Park especially seems to have a high turnover rate because the cadets graduate and get so freaked out about everything and they can't seem to let it go you have to learn to internalize things and shut off I've talked to KD a bit about her experience because I wanted to know what

she thought about the windigo she didn't really have anything in particular to say about it aside from that she didn't want to think about it that much but she Told me a friend of hers had something similar happen I contacted the this person H over Skype and they agreed to talk to me a bit they're aware of my work here and they're fine with me posting the story exactly as they wrote it so here it goes I grew up in Central Oregon and there's a reservation called Warm Springs about 2 or so hours from where

I lived I only mention that because a lot of people in my area have friends there and a lot of the land in That area belongs to that tribe when I was a kid we used to go camping up there not on the res of course but in that area and I met a lot of kids who grew up there I got to know one kid really well his name was Nolan and we ended up hanging out a lot when our families were in the area our folks got to know each other so we'd all

get in touch and camp out around the same time we'd camp for about 2 weeks so we were out there for a long time I then asked him if he camped In an RV yeah my dad had one so I guess it wasn't really camping but we'd take our tents and stuff and set them up out away from the camp most nights I didn't like sleeping in there because I like being outside we then talked on Skype a bit about camping so anyway sorry one year Nolan and I were out there I think we must

have been like 12 or so we wanted to go out and camp near the river because we wanted to try night fishing I think we must have been about a third of A mile from the main Camp Far Enough away that we couldn't hear or see anyone else I remember that specifically we were messing around most of the day I don't really remember much of it but we ended up building a fire at some point and I was really impressed because he had this Flint or something that he used to start it I'd never seen

anyone do that before so I thought it was pretty cool I got him to teach me how to do it and we lit some stuff on fire which Which looking back was really stupid because it was the middle of [ __ ] summer and if I remember right the fire warning was either at yellow or orange but thankfully we didn't start anything major and when it got dark we sat around and talked about whatever it is 12-year-olds talk about I don't really remember what I do remember is that at some point he looked over my

shoulder at the river and asked me if I could see something the way our camp was set up we Were about 10 ft from the river and we were at the widest point so it was probably about 20 ft to the other bank it gets hot up there in the summer but the water is still cold which is important I look over my shoulder and I could see something waiting into the river on the other side from where we were it looked like a deer but we couldn't really tell because of the fire I got

up to look closer and I saw a pair of antlers so I figured it was a buck But I thought it was weird that it was waiting into the water and it was definitely heading for us I asked Nolan what he thought we should do he's looking at the fire with this weird expression and he tells me to sit down and shut up so I do because I'd never seen him act that way before he's Whispering at me to ignore it and to just keep talking like we were but I couldn't think of anything to

say he was saying something about an episode of Some show but I could hear the deer coming through the water so I wasn't really paying any P attention and I kept trying to see over his shoulder but every time I did he'd sort of hit me on the arm and make me look at him I wasn't really scared I remember I was just sort of confused but then I hear the deer come out of the water and I could kind of make out what it looked like and I realized it wasn't a deer because whatever

it was was walking on two legs I started to get up I was super freaked out but Nolan just yanked me back down and talked louder about this television show and I could tell he was just as scared as I was probably even more he leaned in and poked the fire with a stick and he whispered that whatever I do I can't speak to it I could see it come closer and it stood right behind Nolan's back I was about ready to pee my pants and I think I'd probably have run if I'd been alone

but I didn't want to Leave Nolan so I kept sitting really still and sneaking glances at it it wasn't that tall tall but the way it carried itself was just wrong like its Center of balance was really screwed up or something I can't really describe it but it was kind of like it kept shifting too far forward it just stood there behind Nolan for a really long time and eventually Nolan ran out of things to say and we just kind of sat there for a second the fire was making noise but I Thought I could

hear this thing talking in a really low voice I couldn't hear what it was saying and I leaned forward a tiny little bit and I actually did pee my pants when it leaned forward too I couldn't see its face but I saw its eyes they were cloudy and milky and if you want to know what they looked like find that scene from Lord of the Rings where Frodo Falls in that Lake and all the dead people are floating towards him that's what its eyes looked like so all I saw were these two white eyes floating

above Nolan's head and the really vague shape of the antlers coming out of its head I don't know what my face looked like but at exactly the same time Nolan and I [ __ ] booked it out of there and we ran non-stop until we got back to the main Camp my pants were soaked with piss so I took them off as we were running and I threw them into the bushes we both stopped when we were in front of my Dad's RV and we couldn't see anything chasing us so we stood there and caught

our breath I asked him what that that thing was but he said he didn't know he said his grandpa had only warned him that if anything ever came up to him when he was out in the desert he was never ever supposed to talk to it or listen to anything it had to say I wanted to know if he'd heard it talking to and he said that the only thing he'd been able to understand was help you I Think we ended up sleeping in the RV with my parents and the next night we went back

out and didn't see anything that does remind me in a lot of ways of the windigo Legend there's a phrase used to describe it that I think fits it perfectly which is that the windigo is the spirit of the Lonely places I know sometimes when I'm out in the Wilds where I know there's no one around me for miles and miles I get this weird kind of craving that I can't really Explain I don't know if it happens to anyone else but it's this desire to consume it's not like I crave anything in particular but

more of this weird distracting hunger that comes from every part of my gut I also wanted to find out more about the faceless man if I was able to and found a few similar things I asked around my circle of friends and one of them said when he was out doing repairs at a park in his area he saw something kind of like that we were Having dinner in town five of us including myself this guy he was repainting an information booth and heard a man ask him for her directions to the nearest campsite he

didn't turn around because he was up on a ladder but he informed the man that there weren't any campsites nearby but that if he headed down the road about 4 miles he'd find one at another Park he asked if he could be of any other help but the man said no and thanked him my friend said He kept painting but he was listening and never heard the man leave he said the second he came up and talked to me the hairs on my neck stood up but I wasn't sure why I just had this really

uneasy feeling about the whole thing and I wanted to finish painting and get out of there I figured maybe part of it was that I couldn't turn around to look at him but something just felt off there was also this weird smell floating around before the guy even talked to me Kind of like old period blood I had looked around to see what was causing it but I didn't find anything so I waited for the guy to walk away but I didn't hear him leave which made me think he was just standing there and watching

me so I asked again if I could do anything for him and he didn't answer I knew he was there though because I hadn't heard him leave so I did this awkward turn on the ladder to look down and see what he was doing now I admit it could have just Been my brain [ __ ] up but I swear to you Russ for a split second when I turned around that [ __ ] didn't have a face like he had no face it was almost concaved and totally smooth I just about had a [

__ ] heart attack because I couldn't even wrap my brain around what I was seeing I think I started to say something but there was this kind of Pop inside my head and suddenly he was just a normal looking guy I must have looked weird because he asked me if I was okay And I was just like yeah I'm fine he asked about the campsite again and I point to where he has to go and he's like I'm not from around here can you help me get there now this is when I know something is

really up because there's no way this guy got out here and didn't know where he was and for that matter there's no car around so how'd he get here in the first place I said I was sorry but that I couldn't take him anywhere in a company vehicle and he's Like please I really don't know where I am can you come with me and help me get there so now I'm seriously weirded out and I start wondering if this is some kind of Ambush or whatever I told him I could call him a taxi to

come out and take him where he wants to go and I pull out my phone and he just goes no and walks away really quickly but he doesn't walk out of the park he walks back into the [ __ ] trees and I got right in my truck and start to get out of there [ __ ] The paint or whatever I looked in my mirror to see where he was as I was leaving and he was standing right at that tree line again I don't know how he got there so fast but this time

I know that [ __ ] didn't have a face he was just watching me leave and right before I turned turned the corner he took a big step into the trees and kind of dissolved I guess maybe it was just dark so he Blended in but it felt more like he just melted away interestingly right After this guy finished his story someone else piped up with another one but with a slightly different twist he started speaking you know actually I had something sort of weird like that happened a while back I was out doing some

trail scouting and I was out in the middle of nowhere figuring out where we were going to have this trail run through I hadn't seen anyone else for probably a good 2 hours so I wasn't really paying attention to where I was Going I was just looking at the ground for the most part then out of nowhere I crested this little Hill and almost ran into this guy he was older probably in his 60s and I started to apologize to him for running into him and then I noticed his face and I probably looked like

a complete douchebag because I stopped in just stared at him it took me a second to figure out what was wrong but this guy's face was huge I know that sounds weird but that's the only way I Can describe it his head wasn't big or anything it was normal but the amount of space his face took up was just way too much like if you took someone's face and enlarged it all by about two times he doesn't say anything he just kind of looks at me and I backed up and was kind of stuttering and

saying I was sorry and then I went around him and [ __ ] got out of there and did what I needed to do the whole time I kept looking behind me because I was so freaked out that he'd Pop up behind me or something I know it sounds ridiculous but I swear to you it was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen I switched the topic to the stairs a little later and there was a definite shift in enthusiasm no one spoke up at first there's a real stigma around discussing them even when

we're away from work but I broke BR the ice with a story of my own and the guy who told the story about the faceless man told this One although very quietly couple years ago I was camping with my girlfriend and we're out about 2 mil from the road at this site I know we went to bed that night but we couldn't sleep because and then someone interjected a funny comment and we were dangerously close to going off on another subject but I got us back on track yeah real funny you [ __ ] no

it was because we kept hearing that grinding noise my brother used to grind his teeth in his sleep and it kind of Reminds me of that my girlfriend was freaking out because I just kept telling her to ignore it because I've heard it before and you just have to ignore it it goes away eventually you guys know what I mean we all knew what he meant So eventually I got her to go to sleep but I woke up probably about 2 hours later because something was just off I rolled over and she wasn't there and

I kind of freaked out because he thought for a second and then he took a very long Drink anyway I ran out of the tent calling her name but I didn't have to go far she was standing at the edge of the camp looking at something in the trees and I could see she was really pale the fire was low but bright enough to see her anyway so I ran up to see what was going on and she was dead asleep but her eyes were open she had this real spaced out look you know so

I put my arm around her to lead her back but she wouldn't move she just said really quietly Something like I have to go now Eddie I have to go it's here and then I was like you're just sleepwalking come back to bed but she wouldn't budge she just kept standing there and saying that she had to go and I looked where she was looking and there was a [ __ ] staircase right there about 15 yards away gray one concrete and she started to walk toward it but I yanked her back and that woke

her up she looked at me like I was [ __ ] out of my mind and she asked me What the [ __ ] she was doing out of the tent I didn't tell her anything I just told her she was sleepwalking the grinding was gone so she just went back to the tent with me and fell asleep again I don't know I don't like thinking about it you know we all knew you guys remember that kid with uh I can't remember what it was some kind of brain [ __ ] up not not downs

but something like it someone else brought up well I got to read the report he gave when they found Him a week after he went missing and it was [ __ ] up beyond belief I mean you have to take it with a grain of salt because who knows what that kid actually thinks is real but some of this stuff I don't think he could have made up like what well first of all he talked about the stairs he said he'd been watching his dad build a fire and the stairs came up to him and

he had to go up them or something bad would happen the cops couldn't really understand what he was Talking about after that but he just kept saying like the campfire over and over and he kept mentioning sounds but he couldn't say what sounds just that it was loud and he covered his ears so he couldn't hear them but the thing I remember most is that they asked him where exactly he had gone and he just said he was right there he kept pointing at himself and they said they thought that meant that he thought he'd

never left he said He wasn't scared because the stairs were there and he said they talk to him but not like people talk like I said it was really convoluted and hard to understand and I have a feeling the cops didn't take most of it down they ended up just saying that the kid had some kind of Amnesia or Fugue and that they didn't think Foul Play was involved doesn't really explain why he came back a week later perfectly fine without a speck of dirt on him and well fed but hey what The cops say

goes and that was the end of his story there's still a lot of questions I want to answer I'll continue to ask around and find whatever I can the next update should be soon this will be my final update for now things have deteriorated here to a degree that I didn't foresee I didn't know how much writing about the things that are happening here would affect every single part of my life and maybe that was stupid of me maybe I should Have considered it more seriously but honestly I just thought I was writing about a

few things that a few people would want to hear I didn't think it would get this much attention people ask me about the stairs now it doesn't happen every day but when it does happen I never really know what to say my bosses know someone is talking about them and I'm sure that if they know the higher ups know and I can tell you that they aren't happy about it I've been Formally told that I am not to speak a word about them to anyone anymore which is part of the reason this has to be

my final update I can't risk my job for this as much as it's been wonderful to get a lot of these things off my mind I still do love my work and I need to be out here if anything my being aware of what's really going on is enough reason to stick it out I may not be able to tell people that they're out there but but if I see them I can direct traffic Away to somewhere safer because of the amount of attention the stories have gotten I've heard a lot of Stories being swapped

back and forth I've heard so many that I can't even remember most of them the ones I do remember are the ones I wish I could forget one story that's made the rounds here was about a young woman who had disappeared Upstate initially everyone assumed she was a runaway she didn't come from a great home life and so it wasn't really any Kind of surprise that she'd choose to cut and run but people started coming forward saying that they'd seen her around the park shortly before she vanished so some of the Rangers in the area

were sent out to make sure she hadn't hung herself or something on any of the back Trails it took them a while but they did find her well not all of her just half of her tongue and a quarter of the lower jaw very clean cuts from what I heard they've never found The rest of her so so many stories about children so many of them going missing and turning up in caves wedged in between impossibly tight spaces so many of them found on mountain peaks or at the bottom of sheer goalies missing shoes missing

socks or found with both in perfect condition despite them being miles and miles away from where they vanished so many stories of blackeyed people wandering around the woods and calling out in the night mimicking the Sound of running water or a bobcat screaming one man in particular goes to every news station that he thinks will listen to him and tells the same story he was deer hunting had camped out in a very remote area and woke up because something was scraping against his tent he thought it was a raccoon or a fox until the thing

pressed its face against the door of the tent at which point he could very clearly make out a human nose and mouth he kicked at it but it leaped Back and was gone by the time he opened the P flap gun at his side he fired two warning shots and when the sound had faded he heard a snap behind him a man was standing at the edge of the campsite this man was not wearing any clothing but he also didn't possess any kind of human flesh as the hunter described it the man was made of

some kind of amalgamation of raw meat and hair as if someone had scooped up roadkill and molded it into some vague shape of a man The face was lumpy and only a rough approximation of a human face the thing opened its lopsided mouth and from it came the sound of the gun the hunter had fired it did this twice before mimicking the sound of the tent zipper and fleeing Into the Night a young couple out for a hike in the Rocky areas of my Park reported to me yesterday that they had seen something strange out

on a peak I'm very familiar with they were taking turns looking through a pair of Binoculars when the man noticed a hiker climbing up a very steep part of the cliff f face he watched the man scale the slope and it didn't occur to him until the incident was over that this person had no climbing gear when the climber reached the top of the peak which was about 5 mies away they turned and faced the young man he said whoever or whatever this person was was looking right at them the climber waved in an exaggerated

manner before snapping in Half at the waist sideways and leaping off of the peak the young man didn't see where the clock CL landed I sent them on their way with assurances that I'd go check it out I lied I won't be turning in a report because there are 10 others exactly like it the climber is well known in that area I don't question it anymore there are so many things I won't ever be able to understand about my job and it would take me years to relate all of the things I've heard in the

last few Months when I feel my job isn't in Jeopardy I will come come back it may be in a different format but I will come back thank you all for sticking by my side and enjoying the things I've talked about if you go out into the woods I encourage you to be safe bring water food Survival equipment let people know where you're going and when you'll be back don't go on Uncharted paths unless you know exactly what you're doing and above all don't touch them don't look at Them don't go up [Music] [Music] them

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