509 | 6 Most DISTURBING Things Ever Seen in West Virginia

Hey beautiful people, go to eeriecast.com/books. And you can get my beautiful hardcover books for less than $16 each right now. That's eeriecast.com/books. They're gorgeous, full of hard work, and brimming with scary stories and folklore. Thank you. Hey all you mountain mamas, today's episode features a bunch of West Virginia horror stories. This was for some reason that was highly requested, so buckle up Buttercup. Because this episode features haunted bear claws, moon shine aliens, and much much more. Send me your scary stories at darkstories.org so I can narrate them. Support the show by becoming a member at eeriecast.com/plus, where you can get access to members only content. And follow and review unexplained encounters on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to help us grow. I appreciate it. Now let's begin. Now I believe in the sheep's watch. From Joanna. I want to set the record straight about what happened to me that summer, mostly because when I told people, I've heard them throw around all kinds of theories about my mental state or accuse me of making up a story for attention. I know how ridiculous this is going to sound. I mean just look at the title. But I also know what I saw. I'm writing this as plainly as I can and the hope that maybe someone else out there has experienced the same thing. Or at least won't dismiss me out of hand. I spent June through early August in a secluded cabin overlooking the Cannesville River in West Virginia. It belonged to a professor, who on the side apparently had an interest in cryptosuology. I'm sure she wouldn't mind me naming her, but for now I'll call her Dr. Moss. She specialized in Appalachian folklore and had dedicated a significant portion of her free time to investigating sightings of lesser-known cryptids. One of her interests happened to be the sheep's watch, which to be honest I always found more amusing than frightening. Sounded like a goofy local legend, a giant woolly creature wandering through the woods, nothing more than a campfire stories or a joke. Dr. Moss hired me as a house sitter and caretaker while she traveled to a conference in Canada, followed by a few weeks of field research in Alaska. She was going to be gone for about two months. My responsibilities included keeping the cabin in good shape, watering her plants, feeding her cat, and this was the part that peaked my curiosity, cataloging some files on alleged sightings of local cryptids. She had an entire wall of old plaster casts, newspaper clippings, and interview transcripts. My job was to go through those documents, sort them by region and date, and type up a basic spreadsheet she could reference later. It sounded easy enough, and I'd get paid more than I ever would, waiting tables back in town. The cabin was cozy. It had one bedroom, a kitchen that doubled as a living room, and a little loft space where Dr. Moss stored her books and souvenirs. Outside there was a thick belt of trees, mostly oaks and maples, leading downhill toward the river. On clear mornings, I could step onto the back deck and see the water glinting through gaps in the canopy. Most evenings, it was just me, some crickets, an old ceiling fan, and a laptop. The cat, an old ginger tabby, spent a lot of time napping under the couch or meowing for her food. Nothing felt ominous, or off for the first couple of weeks. The first odd occurrence was the scratching. I heard it late one night when I was typing up a transcript. Sounded like claws running along the exterior wall near the base of the cabin. Any sane person would think it was a raccoon or possum or tree. The area is thick with wildlife, and the professor had a few metal trash cans near the side of the house. I made a mental note to invest in better securing the lids. Nothing else about it seemed remarkable, until the following morning. I went outside, and I found deep gouges in the wood. Four parallel lines, each one a good two or three feet long, etched into the side of the cabin. I'd seen animal scratches before, and these didn't look typical. They were too high off the ground for a raccoon, so my mind landed on black bear. I tried not to dwell on it anymore. I filled the scratches with putty, and I resolved to be more cautious, just in case a bear was prowling somewhere nearby. A few nights later I was reading a 1970s-era newspaper article, Dr. Moss had clipped about a farmer who claimed to see an enormous, sheep-faced monster on his property. I began to hear movement on the porch. A kind of slow, methodical pacing, like something stepping carefully across the wooden boards. I turned off the light in the living room, thinking maybe I could peer through the window without scaring it away. The porch light was off as well, so I couldn't see a thing. I stood there in the dark for a full minute, listening to this heavy stepping. Then it stopped. The next second, there was a sharp thump against the porch door, like a shoulder or large head but it against it. My heart leapt into my throat. I backed away, fumbling for my phone, and turned on the light. By the time I opened the door, there was nothing there, just wrestling leaves. But on the porch, there were long, coarse strands of white hair caught on the edges of a rocking chair. It was thick and wiry. Not at all I catfurr the hair you'd find on a dog. I collected it in a small plastic bag. Suddenly all those plaster casts of clove and footprints in the living room took on a new significance. I pushed the thought aside, telling myself it could be a stray sheep or goat from a nearby farm. Although I wasn't sure if anyone kept livestock in that immediate area. The next morning I drove into town to grab some supplies. I ran into a neighbor and told them about hearing an animal outside. She said that black bears sometimes passed through, but that I should watch out for feral dogs as well. I didn't mention the white fur or the scratch marks. I didn't want to sound paranoid, but I asked if anyone around here raised sheep or goats. She shook her head, said not in the last decade, and joked. Unless you ran into the sheep's watch. A few days later I had my next close call. I'd gone outside just before dusk to bring in a laundry rack from the back deck. As I rounded the corner, I caught sight of something big moving through the trees. It was white or maybe light gray, at least as tall as a person, maybe taller. My brain immediately jumped to. "Oh, that's a guy in a hoodie," or "maybe that's one big stray dog." But the shape disappeared into the brush too quickly. I couldn't be sure. What struck me was how silently it moved though. No snapping twigs or heavy footfalls from there. Just a blur of white fur. If it was fur. And then it was gone. Last night I locked the doors and windows, leaving a few extra lights on. The cat curled up on my lap while I tried to watch a movie. But every creek in that old cabin made me jump. Around midnight I heard a low growling, or maybe something more like a bleeding grunt. I muted the TV, holding my breath. When it came again, it sounded like a cross between a sheep's bleed and the bear's moan. I'd never heard anything like it. Even the cat was scared, first standing on end. She jumped off my lap and ran under the couch. After a minute of digging around, I grabbed the professor's heavy flashlight and crept toward the door. But a voice in my head told me not to open it. Instead I switched off the living room light and peered through a slit in the windows curtain. I only got a partial view, but what I saw was enough to make me doubt my own senses. At the edge of the tree line, about 20 feet from the cabin, stood a bulky figure. It was covered in thick white fur, and it seemed to be hunched over, like it was trying to sniff the ground. I saw large, cloven hooves instead of feet. Definitely not a bear. The arms hung long at the sides, ending in claws or maybe nails. For a second, I saw its face tilt off toward the window. It had this elongated snout, like a sheep or goat, but the eyes looked too far forward to be those of a typical grazing animal. They were dark. almost carnivorous. I must have gasped or moved, because the creature suddenly jerked its head right in my direction. God, I could have died then, just from the panic. We locked eyes, I froze. The thing opened its mouth, and I swear there were teeth in there that looked sharp. Not the flat teeth of a normal herbivore. Then came this throaty snarl that quickly turned into another bleeding guttural sound. And when it happened, a column of misty breath shot from its mouth, reminded me of an exhaling bull in the middle of winter. I nearly fell backward, but I did drop the flashlight. By the time I scrambled to look again, it was gone, and I spent the rest of that night huddled in the bedroom, lights off with the cap by my side. Every so often I thought I heard branches snapping. I kept imagining something smashing through the window, clawing at the door. But it never came closer. And if it did, I was too paralyzed to notice, or just moved with that much silence. The following morning I found prints in the mud near the back deck. They had a cloven shape, but bigger than my hand. They were spaced far enough away that it looked too legged. I tried to make sense of it. Could be a hoax. Maybe I was misreading the tracks. Maybe I'd completely miss seeing what I saw last night. But my gut told me otherwise. My first impulse was to pack up and leave, but I felt responsible for the place. And part of me was curious. I had trouble accepting that I might really be dealing with a sheep's watch. But I also didn't know what else could match that description. One evening, with nervous hands, I set up a motion sensor camera at the edge of the porch. I figured if the creature did come back, I could hand off some evidence to Dr. Moss. Sometime after three in the morning, I woke to the sound of the cat hissing. From the bedroom window, I saw that the porch light was triggered. Something was moving out there. I grabbed my phone, opened the bedroom door crack, and peered out. The camera was knocked over. It's small LED light blinking uselessly. That big creature was on the porch, sniffing the trash cans. I saw its matted fur and patches of mud clinging to its torso. Its posture was stooped, almost human-like in the shoulders, but distinctly animal in the legs. I couldn't see a face from that angle. But I watched it tip over a trash can, like it weighed nothing. Then it stopped, jerked upright, and inhaled sharply, smelling the air. I thought, surely it knew I was watching it. In a blur, it jumped off the porch and crashed into the woods. Trees shaking as it barreled past. When I finally gathered the courage to step outside, I found the trash can dented, and the motion sensor camera and pieces on the ground. That was it for me. I packed up, emailed Dr. Moss and apologized, telling her I had to leave early because of a family emergency. I felt a bit guilty, but I also felt sure I couldn't last another night alone, with something like that roaming around. It wasn't just the fear of seeing it again. I couldn't handle the constant anxiety. It could come at any moment, and it didn't seem to care how close it got. By the end of it, I'd left two weeks earlier than planned. I haven't been back, although Dr. Moss told me she understood, and said I was welcome back any time. She returned to the cabin in August, claimed she found new sets of footprints, even teased me about letting the sheepie have run of the place. She said she believed me. Of course she did, given her field of study, but that it rarely shows aggression, unless it feels threatened. I wish I had her sense of detachment. Like it was just another research specimen. To me it felt too real, too big, too off-putting to be anything but dangerous. That's everything I remember. I don't care if people think I'm exaggerating. I know what I heard, what I saw, and what I felt in my gut. The environment around that ridge is thick with stories, at least one of them in my opinion, isn't just a story. If anyone else out there has experienced something similar near the Connoir River, those strange footprints or strange bleeding sounds, then at least I won't feel alone in this. I'm not going to go back there anytime soon. Hey there, Darkness prevails here, founder of Eriecast, my little network of scary shows. I appreciate you listening to our scary content, but did you know you can support us? Get ad-free feeds of your favorite shows, get a 20% discount code to the Eriecast store, and unlock access to members-only audiobooks all at the same time. Just go to eriecast.com/plus and become a member today. It's cheap and really helps us out. That's eriecast.com/plus. Thank you. The Bear Paw from Anonymous It started with my great-grandfather's bear paw back in 1953, and now it's sitting in my garage because nobody else in the family will take it. My great-grandfather, Dale, shot this massive black bear up near Blackwater Falls. The thing was supposedly over 400 pounds, which is huge for West Virginia bears. He had it properly preserved and mounted on this nice wooden plaque. It became kind of a family heirloom, passing down through the generations. That's when the weird stuff started happening. First was Dale himself. About three months after he got the paw mounted, he started complaining about scratching sounds in his walls at night. He lived alone in this little house outside of Thomas, and at first he thought it was just raccoons. But it kept getting louder, and he swore it sounded like claws on wood. Then he started finding these deep scratches on his bedroom door in the morning. My grandfather told me Dale would call him in the middle of the night, totally freaked out, saying he could hear heavy breathing outside his window and smell wet fur. This went on for weeks, until one morning. They found Dale's front door wide open. There were these massive paw prints in the mud, leading up to his porch. Way too big for a normal bear. Dale had died in his sleep that night. The doctor said it was a heart attack. The bear paw went to my grandfather, Jim, next. He didn't believe any of the stories about Dale. Said the old man was just losing it near the end. But then his dog started acting weird. They'd bark at nothing in the corner of the room where he hung the paw. Sometimes they'd just sit there and growl at it all night. Jim started having these dreams about being chased through the woods by something big. He'd wake up with his heart racing, and swear he could smell wet fur in his bedroom. This went on for about two years, until he got into this freak accident. He was driving home from work on Route 32, and his truck went off the road. When they found him, he said something huge and black had run out in front of him. The weird thing was, it was the middle of summer. No bears should have been that active. After that, Jim gave the paw to my dad, saying he didn't want it anymore. Dad hung it in his workshop, and things were okay for a few months. Then he started finding his tools all messed up in the morning, even though he always organized them carefully at night. He'd find these scratches on his workbench, and sometimes the paw would be in a slightly different position on the wall. The really strange part was when he started seeing this big, black shape moving around our yard at night. We lived kind of out in the country, so wildlife wasn't unusual, but this was different. It was way too big for a normal bear, and it would stand up and look right in our windows sometimes. Dad would grab his gun and run outside, but it would always be gone. One night, Dad woke up to this loud crash from his workshop. He went out to check and found everything thrown around like a tornado hit it. The bear paw was on the floor, and there were these wet paw prints leading from it to the door. They were huge, about twice the size of the mounted paw. Dad just left everything there and came back in the house. The next day, he packed up the paw and gave it to my older brother, Mark. Said he was done with it. Mark just laughed it off. He lived in town and thought all these stories were just our family being superstitious. He hung it in his living room as a conversation piece. About a week later, his neighbor's dog started going crazy every night, barking at his house. Then Mark started having these dreams, just like Grandpa Jim did, about being chased through the woods. He'd wake up all sweaty and swear he could hear heavy breathing outside his bedroom window on the second floor. It got worse when he started finding muddy paw prints on his front porch every morning. Big ones. He set up a security camera, but it would always go static around 3am, right when his motion lights would trigger. Nothing ever showed up on the footage. The last straw for Mark was when he came home from work and found his front door wide open. The bear paw had fallen off the wall, and there were deep scratches all over his hardwood floor, leading from where it fell to the door. He called me that night and said I had to take it. So now it's been in my garage for the past 8 months. I didn't want to bring it in the house after everything that happened. But weird stuff started pretty much right away. First it was just small things, tools getting moved around, strange scratches showing up on my car door. Then the noises started. Every night around 3am, I hear this scraping sound from the garage. There's this deep, huffing noise, like a big animal breathing. My dog won't go near the garage anymore. He just stands at the door and winds. I've tried giving the paw away a few times. Drove it out to my cousin's place in Elkins, but he wouldn't take it. Tried donating it to a local museum, but they said they didn't accept personal artifacts. Nobody in the family wants anything to do with it. Last week I went out to check the garage after hearing some loud bangs. The paw had fallen off its plaque, and it was oddly wet. I picked it up to mount it again, and noticed the claws seemed longer and sharper than before. When I touched them, they were warm. That night I woke up to my dog barking like crazy. Looking out my bedroom window, I saw this massive black shape in my backyard. It was on all fours, but still taller than my fence. It stood up on two legs, and must have been at least 9 feet tall. It turned and looked right at me with these glowing eyes, then dropped back down and ran into the woods. I found huge paw prints in my yard the next morning, along with deep claw marks on my garage door. The prints led right up to where I keep the bear paw mounted. I don't know what to do with this thing anymore. Can't seem to get rid of it. Can't destroy it. I tried burning it once, the flames just wouldn't catch, and definitely can't live with it much longer. Something followed this paw home from those woods back in '53, and it's still angry about it. My daughter's getting married next month, and there's this family tradition of passing down heirlooms at weddings. Someone keeps joking that she should take the bear paw. I laugh it off, but honestly, I'm terrified she might actually want it. This thing's caused enough trouble in our family. I'm thinking of driving up to blackwater falls and leaving it somewhere in the woods. Maybe whatever's attached to it will finally let it rest. Just hope whatever curse or spirit, or whatever this is, doesn't follow me back home. Those scratches on my garage door are getting deeper every night, and that big black shape in my yard is getting braver. Last night, it walked right up to my back door, and stood there for an hour, just breathing and scratching at the wall. I'm starting to understand why Great Grandpa Dale's heart gave out. "Mothman Returns." From "Yeah," I said it. I used to think the "Mothman Legends" were just "Quirky West Virginia Folklore," an excuse for a small town to host a weird festival. That changed the summer I worked at a little "Mothman Museum" and point pleasant. I was between jobs and needed something to pay the rent, and the museum's owner offered me a short-term position, cataloging artifacts and helping mine the front desk. Sounded easy. Plus I'd always liked local legends. The place was pretty cool. Picture a storefront turned exhibit space with glass cases of newspaper clippings, old Polaroids, and battered mannequins dressed as 1960s reporters or local townspeople. A few times a week, we'd get tourists from out of state, drawn in by curiosity. Sometimes they'd buy t-shirts or pick up pamphlets about the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse, and the original "Mothman" sightings. I would explain the story so often. I practically had a script. In the mid-1960s, residents reported sightings of a large winged creature with glowing red eyes. Some believed it was ecripted, others thought it was an omen of disaster. Usually, that satisfied them, and they would head out to see the mothman statue down the street. A while later, we started to get strange phone calls after closing. The phone would ring once, and if I picked it up, I'd hear static, maybe faint clicking. Once I swear I heard a voice whisper something like "He's here." Before the line went dead. I told the owner, and he shrugged it off his cranks or board teens. But it happened three nights in a row, always close to eleven. It stopped for a few days after that, so I tried to forget about it. One afternoon, we had an elderly local man come in. He claimed he had seen the mothman near the old TNT area north of town the previous night. I kept a polite smile, but privately I doubted him. He seemed anxious, though, kept looking over his shoulder. He told me he'd heard a screech and saw red eyes in the tree tops before it took off. I jotted some notes, mostly out of courtesy. Some old timers may occasionally conjure up stories to keep the legend alive. It was part of their culture, after all. I nodded and got back to work. A couple of nights later, I was staying late. The owner had left around six, trusting me to lock up at around eight. I was in the back office doing some organizing when I heard the front door rattle. I got up and poked my head out, but no one was there. Then right as I stepped out from behind the counter, the phone rang. It was the same static-laced sound. I had hinsed up and felt my heart pound. I said, "Hello?" It was just static for a moment. But then I heard a faint whisper. It was hard to make out, but I heard eyes or trees, then the line went dead. I set the phone down. It was getting dark out. I turned off the interior lights and peered through the glass. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was being watched. I tried to calm myself down. I pulled myself it was just prank collars, like the owner said. A creepy museum about a creepy event made us perfect targets. Still I double checked that the door was locked. Later on I turned off the rest of the lights and stepped out. The next afternoon, a tourist came in with a shaky voice, claiming to have seen a big winged figure near the riverfront. I started to wonder if something was really going on. A week or so passed by without incident after that. One storm evening though, the phone call started again. The phone rang three times after closing. At each time I answered, it was just static. Maybe breathing. Finally at around 10.30, I left the phone off the hook, refusing to be harassed anymore. Suddenly, the power went out. Everything went black. The only light came from the storm outside. Spratic flashes of lightning, lighting up the exhibits. I grabbed my phone and turned up the brightness to maximum. The flashlight on the back was cracked and didn't work anymore. I think some water got in it. As I pressed my back against a nearby wall, I kept looking around. It was hard not to feel scared in a situation like that. In a building like that. But at some point, I closed my eyes and opened them again. And I saw two red orbs in the middle of the room ahead of me. Like big red eyes glowing and looking at me. I screamed and ended up hitting my head on the wall behind me. I guess the screen caused me to throw my head back. When I looked ahead again, the room was empty. I was alone. And just like that, the power came back on. I locked up the museum and raced home. I didn't go back to the museum, and I didn't pick up their calls when they tried to reach me to see why I didn't come in anymore. I don't know what to think about. about all this. But I want your opinion. Is Mothman still alive? Is he some sort of spectral thing? Or is this the ghost of Mothman? Or maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's all a set of coincidences, and I was just too cowardly to hang in there. The Graften Monster Lives From Melton I never expected my family's annual fishing trip on the Tigard River near Graften to turn into anything worth talking about. But one year our routine trip turned rather eerie. My brothers and I have fished these waters every year since our dad passed away, partly to keep his memory alive, and partly to maintain a tradition that's as old as our childhood. I'm the youngest of the three, about to turn 30, while Devon is in his mid 30s, and Josh just turned 40 last month. Despite our different life paths, Josh works construction, Devon manages a small town auto shop, and I do contract IT. We come together each spring, load up the trucks, and drive off to our favorite spot upstream from Graften. This year started like any other. A week's worth of jokes in our group chat about who'd catch the largest fish, a friendly dispute over which brand of lures to bring, and a final scramble to coordinate arrival times. We met on a Thursday afternoon to give ourselves an extra day off. Devon showed up first, as usual, because he's the most punctual. Josh rolled in about an hour later, blaming traffic. I arrived last, having spent the early morning finalizing a freelance project. Despite that delay, everyone was in good spirits, especially as we unpacked the rods, coolers, tents, and camping chairs. The plan was straightforward. Fish all day, camp overnight, and share some quiet evenings under the bars. Dad used to bring us here because it wasn't heavily trafficked, and the water was typically calm. The area had grown a bit overgrown in the last few years, but that never stopped us. After parking our vehicles just off a dirt access road, we hiked about half a mile down toward a clearing near the riverbank. Walking down the path, I noticed something off. It was really quiet. No birds or anything. Devon mentioned it too, but Josh just said, "Spring weather can make wildlife act weird sometimes." Once we reached the clearing, we got to work setting up our small campsite. Nothing fancy, two tents for the three of us, a folding table, and a spot to safely build a fire. We still remembered Dad's lessons on checking for overhead branches and clearing away dry leaves to prevent accidents. Everything about the place looked familiar, except for subtle changes in the river's shape. What used to be a gravel bank was now more of a muddy slope, likely from recent flooding. As evening approached, we decided to wet some lines before it got too dark. Josh wanted to try a new spinner bait he'd picked up, while Devon and I stuck to more basic lures. The fishing was slow, but we caught a couple of small bass and a channel cat that we tossed back. Around dusk, we noticed a half-eaten fish carcass further along the bank. I thought it might be a raccoon's leftovers, but Devon pointed out the size of the bite marks, too large for typical scavengers. We let it go, figuring maybe a black bear had come through. We sat around a small fire for dinner, and talked about Dad's old truck, who needed which home repairs, and how time seemed to speed by, now that we're older. There was a splash downstream just after we'd finished eating, loud enough that all three of us stopped talking. Josh walked closer to the sound, flashlight in hand, but said it was probably just a beaver slapping its tail. We joked that maybe the graft and monster had come to visit, referencing the old local legend we'd heard about his kids. By midnight, we went to bed, planning to fish at first light. I woke before dawn to Devon cursing outside the tent. He was standing there, staring at our cooler, which had a cracked lid that looked like it had been pried upward. All the leftover bait was gone, and deep gouges ran along the top edge as if something with considerable strength had pulled at it. Josh insisted we must have had a bear come through camp, but the footprints near the cooler were odd, wide and almost human, but not quite. We talked about it for a bit, then buried the damaged cooler under some branches so it wouldn't attract more wildlife. The rest of the morning was ordinary enough. We cast our lines in a few different spots, caught a couple small panfish and enjoyed decent weather. Around lunchtime, Devon wandered upstream to try a deeper hole he remembered from years ago. Josh and I stayed put, hoping for catfish. When Devon came back, he looked really shaken up. He said he'd found more of those big footprints in some fresh mud, and there was this terrible smell he couldn't describe. Josh, being the oldest, tried to calm us down. He said footprints can look weird in mud, and swampy areas sometimes smell bad, but we kept coming back to those prints near our cooler. Eventually we got back to fishing, though we didn't catch much. By late afternoon, I realized something was still off. We hadn't heard any animals at all. No deer, no birds, nothing except the wind in the trees. We decided to pack it in for the day and went back to camp to make dinner. While we were getting the fire going, we heard this grinding sound past the trees, like something heavy moving over rocks. We pointed our flashlights that way, but only saw bushes and smoke trees. We went back to cooking, but I could tell everyone was on edge. During dinner, Devon suddenly jumped up because something made a loud thump behind the tents. We ran over and found this big rock stuck in the ground, like it had been thrown there. We shined our lights around and yelled to see if anyone was messing with us, but nobody answered. That's when it really hit us, how far we were from everything. We all agreed to keep watch. The night was dead quiet, and none of us wanted to go in the tents. Devon asked if we should just leave, but Josh said walking through the dark woods might be worse if something was out there. About an hour later, a branch crashed right into our camp and scattered the fire everywhere. We had to stomp out the embers. That's when we heard it, heavy footsteps about 20 yards away to our right. It wasn't moving like any animal I know, just slow heavy steps. When we pointed our lights that way, we saw this pale thing behind the trees. It had this wide body broad shoulders, really low hanging arms, and basically no neck. It stayed there just long enough for us to see how big it was, then moved back into the dark. For the next hour we kept hearing movement in the bushes, like it was walking circles around us, testing us. We finally decided we couldn't take it anymore. We grabbed our rods, IDs and phones, leaving the rest behind. Josh led the way back to our vehicles. I was in the middle, and Devon took the rear. I've never been so scared walking through woods before. Every little snap of a twig made me jump. When we were about halfway there, we passed this shallow ditch. In the moonlight, I saw this huge shape jump right across it and land on the other side, barely making a sound except when it hit the ground. We all stopped and pointed our lights, but it was already gone behind the trees. That got us moving even faster. We practically ran the rest of the way, burst out into the parking area, and got to our vehicles. Our headlights didn't show anything in the trees. We waited a few minutes, then drove out to the main highway before anyone said anything. We stopped at a convenience store to try to process what happened. I'd never seen Josh and Devon look so rattled, and they're usually pretty tough guys. We tried to make sense of everything. The footprints are torn up cooler, the rocks being thrown, and that massive pale thing that moved so fast. None of us could explain it. We got a motel room that night and left the next morning. I stopped at a local bait shop for coffee, and asked the old guy working there if anyone had seen anything weird upstream lately. He just shrugged and said people have been talking about the "graphed" and "monster" forever. That was all he said. I drove home thinking about everything that happened, still trying to make it make sense. We haven't really talked about an expert's trip yet, and I don't think any of us wants to go back to that spot. Devons talking about finding somewhere else to fish, and Josh just changes the subject when it comes up. I'm definitely not going back to that part of the tiger any time soon. Something unexplainable chased us away from a place we've loved for years, and now I can't help but wonder what else might be out there in the woods that nobody wants to talk about. The Girl on the Swing. From Sleepy and Creepy. I had a temp overnight security job at a certain old amusement park in West Virginia. This amusement park was locally famous for allegedly being haunted. It was something that I can't say I believed or didn't believe in particular. I guess I just didn't think about it. My job was straightforward. Watch over the grounds for three nights while a small production crew filmed a local documentary about the park's history. They planned to leave their equipment set up, and someone needed to keep an eye on it, so trespassers wouldn't steal anything. My first evening I arrived right before dusk, meeting the film crew and watching them wrap up for the day. There were two camera operators, a director, and a sound tech, working on interviews and scenic B-roll. They seemed focused, not spooked or creeped out. There were some jokes thrown about, like not wanting to be here after dark, and feeling sorry for me because I had to. At around nine I was on my own. I did a quick patrol of the property. It was basically a large overgrown clearing dotted with a few rusting rides. The remains of a Ferris wheel, some swings, and other attractions that have slowly decayed since the park closed decades ago. Trees and weeds have swallowed much of it. There's a long stagnant pond off to one side, covered with green algae. It was quiet out there, safe for the frogs, croaking, and crickets. That first night, the only odd thing I noticed was how the winds seemed to rattle through the Ferris wheel in a way that almost sounded like children's laughter. I had a battery-powered lantern with me. I did another patrol around midnight. Nothing was a miss. I turned in early, sleeping in a small RV the crew had arranged for me. At the time I felt silly for being on edge at all, but the stories of the park's tragic past kept coming to my mind. You see there were rumors about accidents on the rides, possible native American burial grounds underneath, and other grim tales. A lot of it was just the typical cliched horror stuff. The following night, the crew filmed past sunset, so I wandered around, staying out of their shots. One of the camera operators complained about battery issues and random audio interference. I even dropped a little bit. Eventually they finished and left around 10. I didn't really thank much of it. They did mention that it was worse around the carousel, so I made a mental note to check that area later. And around 11 I did. I went over to the carousel. It's basically just the round platform left, with rotting boards and a few bent metal poles where the painted horses used to mount. The place was illuminated only by the moon and my lantern. I did a slow circle of the platform, looking out over the boards. Eventually I heard something. I swear it sounded like a carnival tune. It was soft enough I couldn't tell if it was a real melody or the wind. I turned off the lantern just for a moment, and I listened closely there in the dark. It was faint, but it was there. Carnival-like music, but it liked the lowest possible volume. Eventually it faded away. I shook my head. Either that was some paranormal crap, or some sort of radio signal was messing with my head if that's even possible. On the third night, everything changed. The crew left earlier than usual, just after sundown. They'd gotten enough footage. I was instructed to keep watch one last time. They would be returning in the morning to pack up. The earlier part of the night was peaceful. I took a little walk around nine, noting how the Ferris wheel silhouette looked almost like a skeleton in a way. I stayed in the RV until about midnight. That's when I heard something else that made my blood run cold. The distinct sound of a carousel organ, clearer than before. Like it was echoing through the park at full volume. This time it wasn't faint or wind-like. It was like an actual functioning carousel with spinning somewhere in those weeds. It was sudden enough to make me jump. There was no functioning equipment here, except for the film crews. The place had been abandoned for decades, like I said. I grabbed my lantern and headed out. Someone was possibly trespassing, messing with something, playing music that sounded similar to a carnival. As soon as I stepped out, the music stopped, and in instant. Everything was dark and silent and still. I shook my head, and I went to take a walk anyway. I made it to a spot where there were some old swings. These battered metal poles with chain seats still attached. I noticed movement. In the moonlight, I could see one of the swings swaying gently, as if someone had just leapt off. The others were all motionless. I swung the torch around, looking over the area. That's when I had the scariest sighting of my life. There was a small figure standing near the clearing, next to a rusted popcorn stand. It looked like a young girl, maybe just seven or eight years old, wearing a faded dress. Her hair was dark, and her head was slightly bowed, so I couldn't see her face clearly. Now at that point I wasn't suspecting anything out of the ordinary. My first instinct was to call out to her. "Hey, are you okay? Do you need some help?" I thought maybe she was a lost kid or some local child sneaking around. She didn't move. I walked closer, shining her with my lantern. The ground was muddy in some spots, and she appeared to be barefoot. But then I noticed something. There were no footprints at all around her. She stood on the dirt, yet I didn't see a single track, while my own footsteps were leaving clear impressions. I spoke again, despite how wrong this whole situation felt. "Hello? Are you lost?" She lifted her face to look at me, and for a moment I saw pale features, wide eyes reflecting the moonlight, and then she vanished, just flickered out of sight. She didn't walk away, and I hadn't blinked. She just disappeared. I shook my head, uttered a curse, something like "F" this, and practically sprinted back to the RV. "Not 20 minutes later," I heard a noise at the door, like a gentle knock. I hesitated to go back out there to look out, but I did anyway. There was no one there, of course. But on the ground, there was a single, small, wet footprint that I swear was the size of a child's foot. Great. So, it wouldn't leave footprints in the dirt. It would just leave footprints for me. As soon as the sun rose, I packed up my things and waited for the crew in my car. I felt safer in there for some reason. When they got back, I told them about the music and the little girl, expecting to get laughed at, but they looked amazed, saying that they've heard people speak about hearing a little girl's voice near the swings. One of them even mentioned an infamous legend, conjecture about the park's past, involving a young girl on that same swing ride. Well, I left after that, collected my pay, of course, and never went back. I have no idea if any of their footage caught audio of the carousel music, or if the camera may have picked up an unexplained shape. The documentary team seemed serious about finishing their project. Heck, they even seemed more excited after my story. So maybe the story will come out in their film one day. All I know is that I experienced something there that I don't think I'll ever be able to explain. People can dismiss it as old amusement park lore, but I heard that music clear as day. I saw that little girl who left no footprints until she was outside the door. Whatever haunts that West Virginia amusement park, whether it's a restless spirit or a demon of some sort that likes to mess with people, it's real enough to scare me off for good. I'm glad it was a short job. If I had to stay there any longer, I probably would have quit." Missing Time in Mason County From Anonymous Back in 2006 in high school, my friend Bobby told me this story. It came back to the forefront of my mind due to all the recent UFO stuff in the headlines. Now Bobby was a country kid, who liked hunting, fishing, and occasionally helping his uncle make moon shine up in the hills. It happened in the summer before our senior year. Bobby had been helping his uncle mic with a shine run, which meant hauling supplies up to the still site and bringing back finished product. They had the spot way back in Mason County, probably about eight miles from the Ohio River as the crow flies. Bobby said they drove his uncle's beat up Ford pickup as far as they could on these old logging roads. Then they had to hike the last mile or so with their supplies. It was around 8pm when they started to walk in. The still was hidden in this little hollow between two hills, and they'd been using that spot for probably three generations. According to Bobby, everything was normal at first. They got to the still site around nine, and his uncle started checking on some mash that had been fermenting. Bobby was supposed to keep watch, which mostly meant looking out for game wardens or nosy hunters. Around 1030, Bobby noticed the crickets and frogs going quiet all at once. If you've spent any amount of time in the woods after dark, you know how weird that can be. He said he was sitting on this big fallen oak, and he felt all the hair on his arms stand straight up, like before a lightning storm. Then he saw the first light. He thought it was a spotlight from a game wardens truck, but it was coming from above the tree line. It was this bright blue white light that moved way too smooth to be a helicopter. Bobby said it swept across the hollow real slow, like it was looking for something. He ran back to tell his uncle, but before he could say a word, they both saw three more lights join the first one. They were completely silent. No engine noise, no whoosh, nothing. Just these lights doing a weird dance in the sky above the hollow. His uncle in a panic started a cuss kicking dirt over their fire. They were both pretty freaked out, but they also didn't want to leave their equipment behind. That was when Bobby said he saw something moving in the trees. He told me it looked about four feet tall, real skinny, with arms that hung down past its knees. The thing was sort of gray white like a mushroom. He only saw it for a second in the dim light, but he swore it turned and looked right at him with huge black eyes. Bobby yelled then and grabbed a stick. His uncle had a 38 revolver and pulled it out. They heard a rustling sound from three or four different directions at once, like multiple some things, moving through the woods around them. The lights overhead got brighter, and this weird humming sound started. That Bobby said made his teeth hurt. That's the last thing he remembered clearly. The next part is all confused. He said he remembered snippets like someone switching a TV channel too fast. He saw his uncle frozen in place with the revolver half raised. He remembers a bright light right overhead. He had this image of several of those skinny gray things standing in a circle around their still. The next clear memory he had was waking up face down in the leaves. His uncle was about twenty feet away, just starting to stir. The still was completely cold, which takes hours to happen. Bobby checked his cell phone then, and said 4.47am. They'd lost about six hours. They looked around the site, found some weird stuff. Their moonshine equipment was all there, but the mash barrel was completely empty. Not spilled, more like someone had cleaned it out. They found these circular patches where the grass looked burned, about three feet across. Bobby said the weirdest thing was this perfect line of dead plants running between two trees. Mike something had killed everything it passed over. His uncle's revolver was still in his hand, but he said it felt hot, like it had been sitting in the sun all day, even though it was early morning. When they checked all six rounds were still in it, but the bullets had turned this weird green color. They got out of there pretty quick. On the walk back they found more of those dead plant lines, and Bobby swore he kept seeing movement at the corner of his vision. His uncle's truck was right where they left it, but the battery was completely dead. They had to hike another two miles to get to a gas station, then called for help. My friend said the weirdest part came later, about a week later. He went to show me a weird mark he found on his arm, looked like three dots in a triangle shape. But when he rolled up his sleeve it was gone. His uncle had found the same mark behind his ear the day after, but his disappeared too. They decided never to go back to that still sight. Bobby's uncle started doing his moonshine and closer to home after that. He told me they tried to go back once in the day time to get their stuff, but they just couldn't find the hollow. He swore they walked the same route they always did, but the place was simply gone. Like the landscape itself had been changed. When Bobby told me all this in school, I thought maybe they just got drunk on their own stuff and imagined it. But Bobby didn't even drink back then, and he was dead serious about the whole thing. I remember him showing me his uncle's bullets that had turned green. I held one in my hand. It felt weird, almost like it was very subtly and lowly vibrating. I ran into Bobby's uncle at the grocery store a few years back. He's not much of a talker, but when I brought up that night, he just shook his head and said, "If you think we're all alone in this universe, you've got another thing coming." Then he walked away. Bobby moved to Columbus after graduation. Last I heard he was working construction up there. He doesn't come back to Mason County much, and he's definitely a bit more wary about going into the woods after dark. So what do you think? Moon Shine or Aliens? As for me, I think West Virginia is a beautiful and haunting place. A lot of local legends there that might make your head spin. Give you nightmares when you try to sleep at night. But as long as you let that country road take you home, everything's gonna be alright. Good night. That brings us to the end of this episode of unexplained encounters. I'm your host, Darkness prevails, and you can find me on Exet, Dark prevails. Help us grow by following and reviewing unexplained encounters on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And consider becoming a member at eeriecast.com/plus, where you can get access to exclusive members-only content. In fact, I just uploaded a member's only narration I made about a YouTube vlogging channel and skinwalkers. It's nearly half an hour long and fully produced with sound effects and custom music. Before I go, be sure to send me your scary stories of the unexplained at darkstories.org. Thank you. Until next time, stay safe out there and stay creepy. Because this world is a strange one.