Stairs In The Woods | CreepCast

(upbeat music) - La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. - Fuck! - Welcome back to Creedcast. - Today we are, we're going down memory lane a bit, aren't we Isaiah? We are going to actually read, I'm a search and rescue officer for the US Forest Service. I have some stories to tell. AKA Stairs of the Woods, which was the first episode we ever did when we were trying to figure out what in the hell the show even was. Oh, baby, oh, baby, I'm excited. - I am pumped, I'm so ready for it. - This is a good first episode to start with. I'm glad you suggested this. - Yeah, yeah. - I remember, which is so funny, I was gonna say this before the podcast, but I remember when we first started this, we started looking at this and you're like, should we just, I don't know, should we just read it? And I was looking through and I'm like, God, I mean, it's so long. Who the fuck was to sit here and have us read this entire thing? And now we have a 12 hour story. - And now we have a 12 hour episode up. So yeah, I think we missed the mark just a little on that. But we never actually set down a red this. And this is such a popular story. And I know people have been recommending that we actually read it again. And I think we need to do it justice for actually doing it because now, I know Isaiah knows the author of this very well. - Yes. - And we, I think it would be good if we actually just read it. We did an actual episode because I think that's our most, no, no, no, no, I think left right games are most, it's one of our most viewed episodes. And it's not even the format of how we do the show. - It's top five and it's me and you being like, yes, kind of a good story. - I think that it's a part I like. - It's so silly looking back at it now and it's so funny. Because our commenters were really letting us down very softly. They were like, yeah, so don't do that. You should just read the stream. - There's a lot of comments for people are like, this is cool at all, but I haven't read it. So I don't know what you're talking about. - And in hindsight, in hindsight, good point. The story is, the episode is very much like, you know, it's kind of crazy in this part. This thing happens. And I think it's actually pretty cool. And it's you being like, yeah, I do think it is cool, actually. It's like such a weird, like there's, I don't know. At the time, you just, you see a weird, 'cause no one's gonna watch this if we just read a story. - Well, I feel that's what I'm saying. - I think before, here we are. - Before it was like, I don't know if the plan, I think was just to talk about the stories, whatever. I don't think that we ever, when we were coming into this, I don't think it was ever us being like, oh, we're gonna read the stories and kind of joke. Like we didn't know what that format was yet. 'Cause I think we were like, well, we don't want to just like, read the story, 'cause then it feels weird to, you know, interject and talk, 'cause no other channel really does that. Usually it's just like, they're narration channels and you're there for the story. And then we just start reading the stories and just like, I don't give a fuck. We're just gonna riff and chat between it. Which is, you know, what ended up being coming the podcast? So it's insane too. Like, we're two years in now. And now we're coming back and we're touching base, which I think we were gonna do this the first year, but then I think with the first tour we did, and other stuff, I think it just didn't line up. And now we're, we ended up doing "Ted the Cave" for the one year. That's what it was. Because that was the actual-- - That's what we talked about before. That's technically the proto-creep cast episode because it was on your channel before we did this. And then we wanted to do this for the two year, but then we had the Halloween tour. So have we missed the two year? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - We're definitely, we're definitely-- - We're celebrating the two year anniversary today. This is our celebration of the year. - It's a round. It was in November, it's our, we're around the same time. Listen. - It's close enough. - Yeah, these things happen, we're celebrating it now. That's all you need to know. And the thing is, it's probably close to the holiday season for everybody when this is coming out. So happy holidays to everybody. And this is our little gift to you. But before we get into it as well, just want to discuss Zoe 101, just kidding. We're not going into that. But I will say, what the hell was that school that they stayed at? Is it a dormitory? Was it a pitotentry? I don't know. Just want to give a quick thank you to all the audio listeners right now who are listening on audio platforms, like Spotify or Apple Podcast and giving us a nice rating there. I appreciate you. And to our beautiful patrons, hello. - Daddy sees you, hello children. - I'm gonna be back soon with the milk, you know. Is that good? Did you like that? - No, I didn't like that, but that's good, I guess. - Okay. And I mean, without further ado, I'm ready to jump right there. - So there actually is further ado because you didn't let me show it out the author. - Oh, there's further ado. Why, why you shot the author? - Yeah, if you don't want me to. - When you shot out the author, can I be in the background very quietly singing a song? - Very quietly. - I'll be very quiet. - So the author of this story, so the author of this story goes on Reddit as search and rescue was, of course, we'll have the account linked in the description. This story was written over 10 years ago and it is one of, if not maybe the most influential story to come out of no sleep. Maybe not, it's top five easily. Stairs in the woods have become a staple of like online internet culture, not only in like the creepypasta scary story space, but just online horror in general. One of my first videos on Wendagoon was me going over this story. So obviously it has a soft spot in my heart. Since then, I've reached out to the author of the story, them and I have become friends. And then come to find out the author of this story has a captioning company called Falweather Studios who does the captioning for the amazing digital circus. And they also do the captioning for my second channel Wendagang. So them and I work together on a regular basis. They're really cool. So it's really cool to not only originally know them from this story that was so inspirational and one of the things that helped me get into the space I am making these videos for you all, but to also know them as a person and to work with them is great. So of course, we'll be a little biased as we tell this story. But for good reason, I think it deserves that. So we'll have the Falweather Studios if he wants an interesting captioning work as well as the Reddit account linked in the description be sure to show them some love. All right, well, it's awesome. Well, let's get into it. I'm a search and rescue officer for the US Forest Service. I have some stories, Gutao. AKA Stairs of the Woods. I'm ready for it, man. I remember this was the, this was a fun one too when we were starting to do it. It has that very, hey, to say it, 'cause it's such a fucking, I guess just like, not liminal space, but just that kind of uncanny thing, things that shouldn't be there. I know that you associated that with like growing up in the Appalachia area where it's like, old houses in the middle of the woods that are broken down. It's just feels uncanny. Nature growing through it and all of a sudden there's like a staircase in the woods from something a while ago. Just kind of cool. Yeah, you come across these old like remnants of stuff, which we'll get more to detail a bit later, but there's been a lot of cases where I've been in the woods and found like old hunting stands or old like, you find a random concrete pad in the middle of nowhere that probably a shed was on at some point but now it's just grown up in the woods, stuff like that. Dead bodies, that homeless guy. That's why I think the story resonated with so many people because they're, okay, actually you know, we're doing the thing again where we describe something without the audience being privy to it. That's why we just read the story. (laughs) I was just saying, you also found that dead body in the woods and you also had that homeless guy with the beans. You are rewriting history and I did not find a dead body. You were looking for a dead body in the woods. You found that dead body in the woods and your dad said, do I tell anybody? And there was also the homeless guy in that house or whatever and your dad said, not to tell anybody about that too, right? I've been, no, I've been looking. I've went looking for dead bodies in the woods multiple times, actually. Why, why multiple times? Because what was the story I talked about in the first episode or whatever where it was a couple that went missing that we knew. Right. And the other was for Hurricane Helene when there was like body recovery in the mountains after the flood and all that. I really like how you said Helene, Hurricane Helene. Yes, very sassy. And also the second time was for Hurricane Helene. Yes, yes, because you're coming at me with the sand. I never found the homeless man. The homeless man was my dad's best friend. And I did that. I mean, I found Hurricane Helene. I found, on that one I found bodies, but it was because the cemetery had been dug up and there were bodies from that out, but they were all bodies, people were aware, were dead. So that wasn't like a casualty recovery thing. That was just like, what are you, is this zombie invasion? Those were bodies of people who were dead. Yeah, I hope. Yeah, because the cemetery got ripped out of the ground. Oh, because of Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Helene. Well, me and daddy went to the cemetery to find some dead bodies. course, that was brought on by Hurricane Helene. I'm not defending you for this one when they when you get the comments or the the tweezers stuff, I've not, I've not said anything. Come on, man. We're buddies. We're having fun. We're searching, we're searching rescue officer. Next, next time I'm going to tweet and be like, no, he did get banned because of the thing he said about it's on. That is what you know, I just got to say I had an emotional reaction to losing a game of badger the othering and I will not apologize. I refuse. Just the same way. All of Twitter immediately made it into a conspiracy about Twitch. And that's why you got banned. I know. I don't know why that happened. Can you tell that? Can you tell them what happened to your mom? My mom was contacted by TMZ for whatever reason because I'm sure it was some fishing website where they thought my mom's number was my number or something. But my mom was like, you know, my mom was like, I just got a text from someone they tied a TV. And I was like, I don't, I was like, do not respond to that. And she just text back. Oops. So good job, but I know TMZ wanted to see why you were banned from Twitch. That's how knowing it got. Next time I'm going to be like, uh, yes, it was because of what you think it was over. And also he made fun of flood victims. You should throw that in there as well. Harry King, Helene. Okay. We're just going to say that it's so sassy. There was definitely, there was definitely, I was like, I don't know if I can flick this wrist, so he said, I mean, he had some sass with it. Little whip. Okay. Whip in the name a bit. Harry King, I'm a search and rescue officer for the you. Okay. Are we getting into this? No. Yes. Yes, we are. The story. Yes, we are. Okay. There. Part one. 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 wonder 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 far. But I've had two cases where that didn't happen. Both bother me a lot. 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 outberry picking with his parents. He and his sister were together and both of them went missing around the same time. Their parents lost sight 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 where her brother was, she told us that he'd been taken away by Bayer Man. She said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet and that he wanted to play with her brother for a while. Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God. Is that so consciously was the bear trap thing because our traumatized nature from the bear man game. The game was rigged from the start. The last she saw her brother. He was riding on the shoulders of the bear man and seemed calm. Of course our first thought was abduction but we never found a trace of another human being in that area. The little girl was also insistent that he wasn't a normal man, that he was tall and covered in hair like a bear and that he had a weird face. We searched that 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 never come back down. They waited at the base of the tree for hours, all in 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 possibly have gone because neither her mother or grandpa saw her come down. I love how each of these little segments feel like their own campfire story. Yeah, without, but I don't know. It sucks you into the point where the idea of it is very creepy, but I'm also just like, huh? If a guy was telling me about this, he's like, yeah, I don't know. A guy got abducted by a circus freak or something like that. We never saw him in a girl climbing a tree and she never came back down. Those are kind of weird. I'd be like, hold up. What? I was like, you know, I was like, how did the parents, how did they go to turn to that where they just like, all right, no, she's not coming down. Let's go. But the concepts, the concepts are really cool, though, you know, like I think, I mean, like the girl climbing up the tree, which you just have to assume is like a never ending thing or like even like she went too high up and now it's like, I don't know, entered a different dimension or something or something grabbed her up there. Yeah, something like that is fucking haunting. But then also just the, which, you know, the creepy pasta thing, it's hard not to just imagine a fucking hairy pedophile in the woods that just abducted a boy. But it could also just be literally like a Sasquatch kind of monster or like even just some kind of creature like living in the woods just took the kid, you know, you were my own now or something. I don't know. Both of them are very fun and you're like, but can I, what happened? Hey, what happened? But you're right. That does, it gives that campfire feel where it's like, you know, well, what happened next in the, your dad who's like definitely not creative, we'll say like, no one knows. You're like, whoa, he's like, yeah, don't ask questions. Well, it's also from the perspective of a search and rescue officer who just like they don't know anything about the lead up. They just know the cases. They just know what a little girl said. Yeah. Or they just saw someone walk up into a tree. So it's like there's so the person narrating on limited information. So your kind of kind of your mind kind of makes inferences off of what little we get. Yeah. A few times I've been out of my own searching with a canine. 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 canine has let 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 nine-year-old girl fell down an embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base. There's a complete freak accident, but I'll never forget the sound or mother made when we told her what had happened. She saw the body bag being loaded into the ambulance and she let out the most haunting heartbroken whale I ever heard. It was like her whole life was crashing down around her. The part of her 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. Also, like details like that that are like tragic, but not explicitly supernatural. Yeah, well, just it can be just how how even just accidents happen on nature and how fucking haunting that can be, which is true. But I do think it's important for the story so far because it definitely leans in to where like there's probably going to be some things that are just of nature. Like things just happen. Yeah, you know, not all of it has to be supernatural. Yeah. I was teamed up with another search and rescue officer because we'd received 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'd 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 two 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 got to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment and he was wearing a park and ski pants. He walked up to the guy 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 these horrible muffled screams. That story bothered the hell out of me, but I wasn't there to hear it. I want to say, I love that being the next story after the girl following, because you're, because you are like, oh, man, it probably wasn't accident, but now it sets a little layer of doubt in your head. Yeah. You know, like that's like, well, maybe there's something up that maybe there's faceless people up on the mountain, whatever that is also a fun thing to an out of season. Basically, skier that's up on the mountain where it's like, okay, well, this guy has definitely just been up here or got like lost like who knows what happened, even that guy, you know, transformed who knows how long to go. It's like, it's like a ghost almost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. One of the scariest things have ever had happened 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 picked up her scent. When we found her, she was curled up under a large, rotted log. She was missing her shoes and pack, and she was clearly in shock. She didn't have any injuries. We were able to get her to walk with us back to base ops. Along the way, she kept looking behind us and asking us why that big man with black eyes was following us. We couldn't see anyone, so we just wrote it off as some weird symptom of shock. With the closer we got to base, 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 wasn't going with him, she said, 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. There's almost insects like, I don't really know how else to describe it. When we were with inside of base ops, the woman turns to me, and her eyes are about as wide as I can imagine, and a human could open them. She touches my shoulder and says, "He says to tell you to speed up. He doesn't like looking at the skull 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 heard that weird coughing right in my ear. And just about jumped out of my skin. I hustled her to ops, trying not to show how freaked out I was, and I have to say I was really happy when we left the area that night. Yeah. The bug man, the insect man is following us through the woods, and then calls out the ear. This is the last one I'll tell, 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. Yep. Here we go. This is it. The Hall of Famer, the big hitter. 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. But just about every case where we're really far into the wilderness, 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, that it was normal. Everyone I asked had the same thing. I wanted to go check them out, but I was told very emphatically that I should never go anywhere near them. I just sort of ignored them now when I run into them because it happened 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. This is part one. End of part one, which worth to mention as well, one, this is 10 years old, 2015, which would you say that was the pinnacle? Because what? Creepypasta started getting written around like 2010, maybe 2011, whatever, but a really 12, I would say around the time of like, it was after Slender Man, Slender Man was I think the kickoff in my mind, and then kind of Creepypasta culture spiraled. So 2015 was when they were people were like, oh, we can write on these and try. Yeah. They don't have to be scary faces. Yeah. I think it's interesting just seeing a post like this because this seems like such a. I mean, I don't know, I mean, I don't know, I wasn't there, but in my mind, it seems like such a new take of like little digestible moments, right? Because it almost feels like it feels like the book when we were younger, the scary stories to tell in the dark, very bite-sized, small things where it's very much just like, I heard about this thing happening, kind of like what you were saying, like a, like a, it's just a ghost story, a campfire story, and it's very, it's just giving you the scary moment, but you know, none of the character stuff with it, but it's just the thing of like, I heard about this thing happening, and it was really scary, and then like another scary moment, and then we move on to the next one. I love these kind of like little digestible appetizer-sized horror, because also, I mean, even like now, the guy, like the woman, the woman who was shocked, hiding under a rotted log, and then now all of a sudden, the bug man is like following her, and you just get that one quote of just her saying like, you know, she said, he says, he says, "They walk faster," and then he gives it, and then she even says the, "Scar on the back of his neck," which it's like, how would she have seen that in the dark, whatever? Just really fun. We start off with, you know, things of very brief and quick, but it seems like as we kept going down, they got a little darker and a little more detailed, which I don't know if you noticed that too, but I thought that was a lot of fun. Yeah, I think I understand why this post blew up so much, because you just read through a bunch of, it has 32,000 uploads, my word. Is that the most on no sleep? No, I think the sex worker one is all done. Top of all time. Yeah, you're right. It's got to be, yes, it's like number 7, 6 or 7, yeah, of all time. It has all these fun ideas that leaves you, again, like a campfire story, it's like, "Oh, what could the bear man be?" But with the insect man be, are these the same things described by two different people? What does an insect cough sound like? Why did he tell her to hurry up? And obviously, the stairs and the woods, I think the stairs and the woods is so effective, because like I said, growing up where I did, it's not uncommon walking through the woods to see abandoned structures, right? So you come across these things and there's normally an explanation. Like the biggest one I remember is old chimneys and fireplaces. Maybe walking through the woods and you come across, you know, structures, yeah, because the entire house was wood except for the stones of the chimney or fireplace. So everything else rotted away or was carried off except for the stones. So you see stuff like that and there's like an explanation. But sometimes you would see something kind of weird. Like I've talked about on the show, I think when I was a kid at a park and saw a door in the middle of the woods with like an old brass handle, and it was just the door, standing up. The piece of the frame had it kind of leaned on a tree, but from a distance, it looks like a floating door. So it's like, that's a bit more weird, you know, why did that get out there? What's the story with that? So I feel like a staircase in the woods hits that right spot of it's clearly weird and wrong, but it's just familiar enough that I can convince myself I've seen it before. Well, it's entering the uncanny valley, which is why I think people find it so fascinating too, is that everyone has experienced, I mean, stairs and to have it be in a place that it's leading to nothing. Get your mind racing that at the top of stairs, there should always be, I mean, something, right? What are you walking towards? So having it be on the middle of nowhere, especially 30, he did, that's another great little detail to 30 to 40 miles. There's no way they're putting a house in the middle. I mean, like, there just doesn't make any sense, right? No, not a two story one at least. Yeah. So having it be that deep into the woods, and then also the way that he describes it too, of take the stairs in your house to where even at points, at least whenever I read it there, I even just pictured like more modern, like a modern staircase and you're like, what? You know, like not even like a really old Victorian kind of, you know, 1800s kind of house or whatever. I'm talking like if it was something that was like, you know, millennial core, fucking gray stairs with the black bars or whatever, like that kind of thing, we were like, what the fuck? You know, which I think makes it even creepier feeling like it, it's not of the time, like it doesn't make any sense that something that new would be out there, which is why it's just you can run with it, which is really cool. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But yeah, part two, part two. Hi, this video is sponsored by our partners at Factor. After all the turkey and stuffing, eating well during the holidays can feel impossible. That's why I use Factor's chef prepped dietitian approved meals to help me keep my eating habits balanced. Have you seen my body? It's working wonders. Factor powers your day, sun up to sundown with nutritious breakfast and on the go lunches and premium dinners. In just two minutes, you can heat, eat and enjoy. Each week you can choose from 65 different menu options. You are sure to find something you like. Oh, I like it. What is that? And now you can go global with your introduction to Asian-inspired meals. 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He's actually what inspired me to write this because I can verify a lot of the things he talks about. We do have a lot of these strange missing persons cases and most of the time they aren't involved. Either that or we find them in places they have no business being. 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. I wonder if that was thrown in as a legal disclaimer. I can't remember how litigious David Pilitis was 10 years ago, but I know he's pretty bad now about stuff. I know the, I just looked it up. So people that who don't know him, David, David Pilitis isn't a, this is what Wikipedia says is an American former police officer who is now an investigator and writer known for his books The Missing 4011, which is basically just like missing reports, I believe. Well, so missing 4011 is the term that gets used now because David Pilitis's books to describe people to go missing in national parks. Right. Because he has a, he has a book called Tribal Bigfoot. So it does seem like a lot of this is missing 401 Canada. It looks like it's all yeah, just like yeah, the woods. Yeah, you're right. So yeah, 4011 is in, is like, in like a police report, like the number for like info or data or whatever. So missing means like people that vanish without a trace. Which I've covered a bunch of the missing 401 stories on the channel like Dennis Martin or cases like that of the thousand the smokies do the, if it's a missing person's case, is it, are these more of like a true crime thing or when Kirk, if I'm kind of polished, but is it, is it, do they lean into that paranormal kind of thing? Because it seems like he's like, so the idea of missing 4011 typically is there's so little information or like it's an unexplainable case, it could be true crime, it could be supernatural. And a lot of, especially David's stuff kind of plays in the middle like, oh, who knows what it could be? Like the Dennis Martin case, and that did a video on was a little boy who was at a camping trip with his dad, his parents up in the Smoky Mountains. And he walked behind a bush to jump out and scare his dad. And his dad walked over to the bush and he was gone. Jesus, they had, they had, I think it was the green braze we're training nearby around Gatlinburg. And they had them come in and search the woods for a month, and they never found him. My God. How the fuck did you sleep at night? I mean, like you see him go on the bush never to, I mean, like with things like that too, my man, God, I mean, like, I mean, my mind was like, God was like a wild cat, God, I'm like, I mean, like who fucking knows? Like, that's insane. Completely silent off the, that's what, that's what, that's how most of the missing formal one stuff is. It's like off the face of the earth, just there one second gone the next. But yeah, so that's where a lot of the stuff is, where I say about the lotigious is, I don't know about now, but for a while, David Politis was real, the lawyery about people using the term missing for one one. And I know, I know some YouTubers, like had that stuff get struck and things like that. So, but these are real, but his, his are real cases though. Correct. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I would, like when I cover missing for one one stuff, they're real cases, you know, right, actual disappearances and stuff like that. But I can see, but I guess what I'm saying is wording. He's like, no, that's my wording. That's my term. I can't, I see what you, I mean, like, I could see people though, seeing that kind of book or that kind of phenomenon. And then of course, using that as inspiration to be like, oh, like, you know, like, almost using that as inspiration for storytelling or something like this story. Exactly. Like this search and rescue. Yeah. But mostly saying that say I wonder if search and rescue officer, like the author was like, this is not stealing David's work. Or if it was in earnest, just like, yeah, like David's work. I mean, good work. The YouTube stuff just annoys me. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel yeah. There's 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 mental 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. It's ever really occurred to me to try again after the first time. I don't really feel like risking my job over it. I'll try again in the future, but I can't really promise anything. A few people express 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 park in ski pants. This was the man with no face. It's hard about the confusing wording of that story. Try to avoid that in the future. I feel like that was pretty clear, but all right. I guess, well, redditors in my right can't really dress a lot of cards. I'm going to have to not give this one an updude. I didn't understand that. Which one was wearing the ski jacket story ruined? You know what, band. 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. We want to 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 well-established 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 doesn't really matter. Someone is missing and it's my job to find them. We went out in a 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, the call comes over the radio telling us all to head back to the vets location and we come right away because this usually means the missing person is injured and we need a full team to help get them out safely. We meet back up and the vet is just standing at the base of a tree with his hands on the sides of his head. I ask my buddy what's going on and points up into the branches of this tree. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing, but there's a walking stick dangling from a branch at least 30 feet off the ground. A 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 have any other 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 a scent long before this tree. Ventually, the search is called off because there are other calls we have to attend to. As a certain point, there's not much we can do. The guy's wife called us every day for months asking if we found her husband. It was heartbreaking to hear her get more and more hopeless each time. I'm not sure why this column particular was so upsetting, but I think it was just the sheer improbability of it. And the questions that were raised, how the hell at this guy's can it ended up there? Someone killed him and tossed that up somewhere trophy. Did our best to find it. It was almost like a taunt. We still talk about that one trip time to time. Man, imagine like again, the campfire thing, it's like, okay, did he go up a staircase and get up there? Yeah, yeah. Something kill him and drag him up there or the staircase is kind of an interesting theory actually. Walking out randomly, walked to the top of the staircase. Yeah, got snagged by something and then yeah, exactly. There's a lot there's so many like, but again, it leaves enough room where all we see is the aftermath. There's always like a extremely like sad and bitter taste of your mouth because these do a good job also by like showing the victim's family, like just that little thing of like she called every day, just heartbreak, you know, brutal. Or alternatively, did the bear man show up and hurled this dude into the sky? Yeah, the bug, the bug man and the bear man just fucking suplexed him to the moon. Missing kids are the most heartbreaking, doesn't matter what circumstances they go missing under. It's never easy and we always, always read the ones we find deceased. It's not common, but it does happen. Good polite as talks a lot about kids, search and rescue teams found in places they shouldn't be or gonna 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. 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 that 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 two miles into the woods and it's on a very clearly established trail. It's almost impossible to get lost getting from the parking area to it unless you're deliberately going off the path like an embecile. Her kids are walking in front of her, but she hears what sounds like someone coming up the path behind her, going on to turns around and in the four or so seconds she's not looking or five-year-old son vanishes. She figures he stepped off the trail to peer something and she asked her other two 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 kids' hand and let him in at the trees. 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 spacing fuzzy. So of course, she freaks out, starts looking frantically in the area for her kid. She's screaming his name and she says at one point she thinks she heard him answer her. Obviously, she can't go blindly running into the woods, she's got the other two kids so she calls the police and they send 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. 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 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 looked for this kid for weeks, with a lot of volunteer help, but eventually search Peter's out and we have to move on. Volunteers keep searching though. And one day, we get a call on the radio, letting us know that the body's 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 miles from the site where he banished, sure enough, we find the body of the kid we've been looking for. I've 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. 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, see something, 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's 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 the kid 15 miles 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 even for us with our climbing gear. Five-year-old boy had no way of getting up there of that absurdant. Not only that, but the kid doesn't have a scratch on him. The shoes are gone, but his feet aren't damaged or dirty, so it wasn't as if an animal dragged him up there. From what we 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 it was one of the most disconcerting calls I've ever been on. We found out later that the corner determined the kid had died from exposure. It froze into death, probably late at night, two days before we found him. There were no suspects, no answers. Date. It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. Jesus. So he was stuffed inside. Do you think he was just trapped? Couldn't get out of the. No, because they mentioned that it's a place of a rock face where a kid couldn't have gone. So it's like the fuzzy man, the man with the scary face or whatever. We're not the fuzzy man. The fuzzy man shows up later. The man with the scary face, like leads him by the hand, and then maybe the kid dies in the woods. So he just shoves his body into a rock crevice, like halfway up a mount side. Jesus. God, to find that, too, would be fucking disgusting, could Lord. It's weird, though. It's like these things where I can't tell if they're leading them to the stairs or if it's like. Because like it doesn't seem like they're being murdered. They're just one of the many things that happens out here. I just. Yeah. I mean, you're probably right. I just don't. In a weird way, it feels like in this unnatural world, all these things are connected. In some. Yeah. I don't know. It's just odd. Yeah. I also. It rides me. A lot of these details remind me of real cases. There was one case. I think this was. It was somewhere in like the P&W, I think Montana, where this. I think he was four. He was with his family. And he was found. He was out camping, and he disappears, and they do have a big hunt for him for two days. And they find him. I'm maybe getting two of them combined in my head. They find him in the middle of like a pond on a tree and he's alive. He's still alive. And they ask him what happened and he's like the cat, a big cat or a kitty or something like that, was with him. And then he was just up in that tree and he couldn't give any more explanation. But he had gotten, I think, 12 miles over the course of a day or so. And there was an episode of Survivor Man, where he tried to recreate the path in the same time frame, and he couldn't do it. Well, if it wasn't for a man, it's like I had it a four-year-old. I feel like people might be like 15 miles isn't that far, 12 miles isn't that far? That's right. You're saying a sheer rock face straight at you. Exactly. It's not like it's just straight path. It's up major. I mean, like you'd have to walk. It would be insane. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Four-year-old though. So the only theory people makes like maybe a cougar carried him all the way to the left and all the top of a tree for some reason. Just stay here. You'll be fine. Yeah. So, you know, weird stuff happens out there. I've heard, dude, so I was camping not long ago and we were out the middle of the woods and I wasn't tent camping. I was just on a bivvy in a tarp. I was curled up in my sleeping bag. This is around, I think, three in the morning, middle of nowhere, underneath the trees, super dark. And I'm going to sleep. And right before I fell asleep, I heard so distinctly a car unlocking. Like someone hit a key fob, a little click, click, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And dude, I shot up and was spitting around 20 miles from any roadway, right? Yeah. And, bro, it messed with me. I was like, what would make that noise? Can you imagine a mountain lion stealing her whip? Yeah. I was like, what is that? - That's a cool cat. - That's a cool mountain lion. That's the coolest thing that ever happened to me. - Yeah, that's a cool cat. - Yeah, 'til it's much cooler. - That was a cool thing to happen to me, exactly. You die frozen out in the middle of nowhere. - Yeah, you know what, almost worth it, almost worth it. - I wanna take a moment to think today's sponsor, Turtle Beach. Thanks don't always age well, like my chair that died, but some things like Turtle Beach age great. When I was 12 years old playing on a Xbox 360, Turtle Beach was the brand to get. And I'm happy to tell you that in 2025, there's still the brand that continues to deliver high quality sound and comfortable functionality. And since they sent me a pair of their still 700's, I haven't taken them off. These are without exaggeration, the best headphones I've ever owned. For one, I always had wired headphones because I didn't like dealing with battery life, but the still 700's have 80 hours of runtime per charge. And honestly, I think it may be a bit longer than that. 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One of my first jobs as a trainee was a search for a four-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 last been seen. Kid wasn't even aware that he'd wondered that far. One of the vets brought him back, which I was glad for because I'm really not 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 eight miles from the main parking area. Though there's back roads you can take to get closer if you don't wanna 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. Most you'll ever see as a fire tower, makeshift shelter that homeless people think they can get away with building. But I could see from here that whatever this thing is, has straight edges. If there's one thing you learn quickly, 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 feet of it and all the hair on the back of my neck stands 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 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 can see the wood it's made of. It's almost like a video game glitch where the house has failed to load completely in the stairs so it's the only thing visible. I stand there. It's like my brain is working over time and trying 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 thing is doing here and she just chuckles. Get used to it, Ricky. You're gonna see a lot of them. I start to move closer, which grabs my arm hard. I wouldn't do that. Her voice is casual, but her grip is tight. And I just stand there looking at her. You're gonna see them all the time, but don't go near them. Don't touch them. Don't go up to 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 end up running across the set of stairs. Sometimes they're relatively close to the path, maybe within two or three miles. Sometimes they're 20, 30 miles out, literally in the middle of nowhere. And I only find them turning the broadcast searches or training weekends. They're usually in good condition, but sometimes it looks like they've been out there for miles. All different kinds, all different sizes. The biggest divers all look like they came out of a turn of the century mansion. And we're at least 10 feet wide, with steps leading up at least 15 or 20 feet. 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 to them. My trainer's asked 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 when it hasn't happened yet. - I feel like by not telling you what would happen if you go up, it would make me go up it. - Yeah, when you'd go up in an immediately get like, particle eviscerated. - Or just so, he's also, it seems like I'm guessing, if I had to guess, it seems like each staircase leads to a different area or something, or it attracts something different, you know what I mean? - Like I doubt all the staircases lead to the same place. - To me, the staircase, which the story never gives you a clear answer. But to me, the staircase almost feels like a lure, you know? - Yeah, it's like, it's just like a little hook dangling there to be like, oh, come on. - Just walking, yeah. - Yeah, 'cause it's like, is there some entity that wants people to cross over to join or to do whatever? And you need to go up. So it's almost like humans go up on these. - Let me ask you this, this is what the image will be to be placed out in the woods. - Let me ask you this. If you were a paranormal entity in the woods, what would be your lure? - Am I like, what would get me personally? Or if I was gonna be, what would I try to get people with? - Yeah, yeah, the ladder. - Mine? - Can I at least say mine? - Go ahead. - Hot dogs, Dan. Okay, I was gonna say women. But I guess that only gets half the population. If it has to be one blanket. - What do you mean that only gets half the population? You could still, you could be a woman in the middle of the woods and anybody's gonna be like, oh, are you okay? I'm over here. Now I'm talking, it needs to be like a random object. - Like, can you imagine walking through the deep, deep woods? - When I said, there's a fucking way. - There's a fucking collision by the way. - I mean, explicitly like a goss, baddie type. - Oh, but I'm saying, I know what you mean. - I know what's going on. - I'm not just saying like the voice of a woman. I'm talking like a big, milky boobies. Okay, all right, I did say this. I'm talking like I get it when the coyotes like, oh, God, I'm in a hum and I was like, yeah, I was popping out there. That's what I was. - Yeah, for sure. - That's what I was saying. - Hit in the table. (buzzer) - Oh, I got a thing. - Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. - You said hot dog stand, right? - Yeah. - I think a hot dog stand's pretty good. That would get me in the middle of the woods. - I mean, can you imagine that you're walking through the woods and I'm a suddenly like a glizzy stand and also it has all the feets and, right, on it. It has all this stuff of like, has relished, has ketchup, mustard. Everything you could want, right? And it smells delightful. That's how I would do it. - Yeah. - Well, so if I'm a smart entity that knows that would look out of place and suspicious, I would do one of those like the little boxes they set up on trails where you can like, it's like emergency supplies with like food and stuff like that, like beef jerky. - See, if I were, you know what's kind of interesting? Like, it's not necessarily as uncanny as the stairs in the woods. But what if you were, let me, what if I evolved yours a little bit? What if it was one of those boxes in neighborhoods and hipster neighborhoods where people leave books? - Yeah. - It's one of those. - Like a book, like a book trade thing. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's one of those. - Yeah. - What is this? That kind of thing. - You're the book main. - Okay, but you're the book main. - Okay, let's, okay, let's, let's phrase it a bit differently. Because it seems that the point of the stairs is you have to walk through them, like you have to go through the portal. So what would you set up to make people walk through an area? - I would have, okay, so you just, you have to, because in my mind, if you take a bullet across the threshold. - Cheers to saying this has to be an actual threshold, you have to cross. Mine would be a slip in slide. And enticing and enticing slip inside and let me tell you, it has all the water features and everything too. Can you imagine trying to not be like, I mean, do you have no one's out here? I could just go on this really quick. I'm not going to ask where the water's coming from or why it's in pristine condition. I would say it's impossible. If no one else is around, you're like, I'm not going to look stupid. It's impossible. Like a fully operational slip inside a tightrope, a tightrope between two trees, like, you know, like one of those things we try to bounce on it. Whoa, it has even has the mat underneath it. Yeah, I think those are two guys. I think I've given two to fairly one. That's weird. Thinking about this, now, like, what would you have to make people walk through? A random staircase is probably the best lure because I feel like I have a natural inclination to walk up it, you know, if it was, what if it was a tightrope where you couldn't see the other end of the, like, you couldn't see what it was tied to. I think I absolutely would not get on that. I think it's walking through the wood. Can't grasp it. I'm not touching it. No way. What about the slip inside? What about the slip inside where you didn't see the end of it? No, I'm not getting on a slip and slide in the middle of the woods. I can't see the end of it. Right. The rest of the way, the water fountain, the water fountain, so we're going on it. Do you want to hike the rest of the way back soaked? I don't think I really mind. I think I probably got kind of dirty with wet socks. You know how much that sucks? Obviously, you don't fucking wear your socks and shoes. You take it off. You go on, you're like, ah, we on your knees and you get back, you put on your dry socks, and you put on your shoes. That's what I would, any normal person would do. I feel like the stairs are the easiest because people just, like, will walk up the stairs and put it there. I am not trying to de-throw the stairs. You asked me what the portal would be. Okay. And you have not said the threshold, but you're the one that originally asked. I said a woman and then I said a big, thick side woman with no, you are adding adjectives. I did not put on this. I'm deciding. I'm deciding woman. Okay. We don't, we emphasize that we don't need to emphasize the age with that, that you were like, but hey, listen, it's not just a voice, fellas. You did say that because you said, no, no, no, no, no. That's because I said that only attracts half and you're like, no, it doesn't if a woman's calling out in the woods. And I clarified, I'm not talking about a woman calling out the woods. I'm talking about you make eye contact and you do the whole coyote like, oh no, and you like run for a second, like Scooby-Doo in place and then take off like, pew, and there's a little cloud of smoke. That's what I'm talking about, not like a help, help me, help. Because if I'm in the woods and I just hear that, I am not, I'm like, you're not going to help. Okay. All right. Realistically. Yeah. Realistically. We are talking about a realistic scenario, we're talking about a realistic setup. Yeah. But then we're talking about a law. Yes. If I'm in the woods and I hear someone yelling help and I go look and it's just a voice that's kind of spatially calling out from somewhere. No. I feel like you would make sure it's not someone that needs help. I feel like you would make sure it's not that needs help. But if it's a, if I get to a patch and I'm like, the noise is coming from right here, but there's no one here. I'm leaving. Well, sure, but I'm saying that you would, it would, because in my mind, at first, it's kind of far away. And then the closer you get the louder it gets to where it keeps luring you in of like, I'm close. I'm very close. But the my time that you are, but by the time that I figure you know that it's not real, I feel like if the thing has gotten you, this is what I would assume, right? Probably. Much of the time I realized I would probably be got. Right. We're asked. If there's any levels on the uncannyness, I agree. I mean, I would be like, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Yes. Exactly. Or if I can be a D. A woman. Yeah. If you see a woman, you got, you got to get all the way up to it before you realize it's my point. Easy. Easy. Exactly. That's my point. No, no, no, no. Easy. You said there, you're like, it's actually a woman. I got to get all the way up to it. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like a loss of life around this, a full blown slip in slide with the arches of like the fountains going on it. I think that you would bypass your normal intuition and I think that you would participate. I think you would definitely. I can't supply. I can't apply the exact same reason into a woman. Okay. All right. Lord, you know, Hurricane Helene, we get it. I understand. I don't like the way you keep saying that. Hurricane Helene is into this scenario and obviously everything I'm saying is in respect to my wife. But I'm saying that's the easiest way to get a guy to walk into the woods with absolutely no credit. You could have said it. You could have said that last thing with more of a fucking lie. I'm credit. I'm saying it was all respect to my wife. Of course. Of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah. I wouldn't fall for it now because I'm a married man. The largest wink ever. Definitely. I. My wife. I'm just saying Hurricane Helene. I'm just saying that I of course would have fall for it because I'm a married man. But if I was to trap a man, that would be the way I trap it. I didn't think that we could at least agree that there would be a lot of easy ways to actually lure humans to the woods. Honestly, dude, put a weird, put a funny looking stick out there. Yeah. What's that? I got to go get that. Yeah. That or if you did a thing, like if you had like a giant, like a big pumpkin out there, right? There's big pumpkin, but it's formed in a way that looks like it has a giant ass where it's kind of funny. You're like, doesn't look like a big butt. Yeah. It's like a big butthole and you're like, look up in it and look at that. But I think people, that would lure people into. Yeah. And then boom. You're, it's too light now. You're in the pocket to mention. Good luck, idiot. Alright, that, that was a good way to burn up in a minute, sorry. 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 did an op for him, but we had about six feet of snow on the ground. Damn. It was an unusually heavy snow year. We knew it wasn't likely that we'd find him until spring when the thought came. Sure enough, when the first big thought came, a hiker reported a body a little ways off the main trail. We found him at the base of a tree in a pile of melted snow. I knew right away what had happened and it scared the living shit out of me. Most of you who ski or snowboarder spend any amount of time on a mountain will probably have guests too. When snow falls, it doesn't collect a stick in the areas beneath the branches. It happens most with fur trees, as they have a sort of closed umbrella shape. So what you end up with is the space around the base of the 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, pick ones, letting people know how dangerous they are. But every year, 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 the 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. He was able to free himself, 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 six feet of snow can be lethal. What scared me the most was imagining how he must have struggled, upside down and freezing cold. He didn't die quickly. Snow would have formed a dense, heavy pile on top of him, and it would have been literally impossible to get out. As I got harder to breathe, he would have known what was happening. I can't even imagine what he was thinking in his last moments. Good fucking lord. Yep. Yeah, that would be, uh, you know what? I'll say it. Not good. Thank you for clarifying that. You're welcome. I'm sure I someone had to. A lot of my less outdoorsy friends want to know if I've ever seen the goat man 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 Black Eyed 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 co-man. We got in a report that an older woman had faded along one of our 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 himself. 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 started screaming behind him. Runs back to her and she's passed out on the trail. We get her on a backboard, and as we're getting her down to the welcome center, she comes to and starts screaming again. I call her down and ask her what happened. I can't remember verbatim what she said, but essentially, what happened was this. She'd been waiting for her husband when he started hearing this really strange sound. She said it sounded sort of like a cat, but it was off somehow. She couldn't quite figure out why. She went a little ahead to try and hear it better, but 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 have forgotten it if I tried. It wasn't a cat, it was a man saying the word meow over and over, just meow, meow, meow, but it wasn't a man, he 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 stills, and it still sounded all buzzy. It was awful, it 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 a shape coming out of the trees, and yes, that's when I fainted. Now, obviously, I'm a little perplexed as to why a guy would be out in the woods chanting meow, meow at people. So once we get down the mountain, I tell my superior that I'm going to go search the area and see if I can find anything. Gifts me to go ahead and I grab her radio and hike back to where she fainted. I don't see anyone, so I keep going 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 middle note to check it out again tomorrow. As I'm headed back, I start to hear something in the distance. I stop, and I call for anyone in the immediate area to identify themselves. It didn't come closer, get louder, but it sounded exactly like it may insane. Yow, yow, and this really odd monotone. As calm goals makes it sound, it was almost like that guy on South Park with the electro-layer Knicks. 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 it up going back to the welcome center. I didn't get any further reports like that. And even though I went back to the area, I never heard that exact sound again. I suppose it could have been some stupid kid out there messing with people, but even I have to admit it was weird. A group of men with like a sexual fetish of being a cat or something is horrifying out there. Then being like just mow, mow. That within itself, that within itself is just fucking horrifying. Let alone it being like a paranormal thing or something weird like that. Just men with like a fetish out in the woods, fucking with people terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I think this is probably the thing I remember most from this story besides the stairs. I think all the time about hearing an animal noise and then realizing it's someone making an animal noise. It's a command. I always imagine that what I'm like reading this, I just kept imagining like a very bad like like an orange morph suit or something like a skin type morph suit like just a shitty outfit the guy has. Yeah. He's a crawling around on all fours. Some big sexual deviant. I like how you don't even put any goat man or supernatural spin on it. It's just a pervert. Well, I mean like, but seriously, how fucking horrifying is that? That would be terrifying this far out, like imagining a guy like, like, like, what are you after? What am I out there? Because then you have to imagine that he walked in there normally. At some point stopped sticking on far out enough here. So he could like, I don't know, role play his like weird fetish thing, packed up his clothes into a bag, whatever put him on a tree. And now he's just like walk around the woods and now when he sees people walk by, he's like able to fuck with him. Nah. Nope. Good. Thank you. I feel like you'd be a good search and rescue officer. That might be one of the nicest things you've ever said. Thank you. You want to do a role play? All right. All right. So you're coming up to me, your search and rescue officer. I'm an, I'm an old woman and I, uh, and my leg is broken. Okay. The first off, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Man, man, hold still. We need to hold on. Don't touch me. Am I by myself here? Don't touch me. Am I by myself here? Do not touch me. Am I? Am I? Okay. I'm by myself. Man, I need to put a split. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. I need to put a split on this. Otherwise, it's going to get worse. The man who's going to come back, he's going to kill us. Please, please, please. Man, I need you to calm down. Who's going to kill us? Who? Hello. Did you hear him? What? Did someone say hello in the bagelies? Did you shout the American slash Spanish accent? What? He's back. He's back. He's back. Okay. Well, I've got, I've got a split on now. I need you to just stay. I know. I think I hear that too, man. I have over here. Whoever is there, identify yourself. Oh, God. He's back. I have brought me food. The food? You've brought food. He's here? What? What? I think I'm looking to that direction. I don't, what is he? I'm having trouble seeing. Describe what you're seeing. So I can tell you if it's him or not. Okay. Well, I'm currently. Hello. I'm right in front of you. I am brought in the food. Okay. Well, since I'm currently in a roleplay scenario, I don't actually see anything. But clearly the person who has a leading objective they're getting to with this voice in accent. And you give me some clues as to what I'm looking at. I am brought to food. I'm going to pass out. Just tell me what he looks like so I can verify him. Okay. He looks, he looks like a door dash. Hi. Hi. Is this. Are you Rebecca? I remember you. Is your name Rebecca? He. Ames. I'm Sarah. I'm looking for Rebecca. I have the food. I think I think you've got. What is he looking like? What is he looking at? He's probably five ten. God, what show does he have on his ever show? He's, he's, he's horizontal. I'm trying to draw the bag. I'm going to need to take a picture. I don't think that I think you've got the wrong address. I'm pretty sure you're here. You know, it's funny because when I entered this scenario, it was over me being a search of rescue officer. I'm having nothing. I'm sure they have a good day. I have to get out of here. I have to do. Wait. He's gone. Yeah. He's gone. He's walking away. You hear the, but you hear the bushes move. What's that? What's that noise? There's bushes over there, I mean, my God. There's bushes moving. I don't see anyone yet. We're going to wait for an indicator so I can have something to work off of that. That noise might be. Are you ready to go? Look at what that is to help us. Ma'am, you're still bleeding. I put this plan on. I'm a search rescue officer here. Here's a tourniquet put in a tourniquet on you. It's going to hurt a lot. It just, there it is. You should go. You should get out of here. We should leave. I should not go randomly walk to a bush. One only has like broken in on the trail. We should leave. Look at the bush. I'm off. I'm walking. I'm over at the bush. I'm standing at the bush. Get out of here. Who are you, bush? Identify yourself. Get out of here. Who is it? I'm, I'm trying, I've been trying to get out of here since we showed up. I don't know why there was a door to ask driver in the middle of a hiking trail. You don't want to help her. Get out of here. Why don't I want to help her? How does he sing? Don't tell her what I just said. Just get, you got to get out of here. Who is, where is she saying? Okay, I'm okay, man. Let's go back to camp. Come on and lift you up. You're on that shoulder and we're walking back to camp. Ow. What? My leg hurts. I'm walking. Ow. Okay. All right. I don't know how long. I don't know how long this is. There he is going on for. to the campaign, do you really participate in that hard? You're not giving me anything. You're just like bushes, you have to go, you have to be, it doesn't matter. I was going to have the guy be naked and he's going to say he just stole, she's wearing my clothes. And then she was going to be wearing his clothes. I walked over. And she actually was, she was Rebecca. Wow. It was going to, I had a whole thing that was waking up and I had ever saw that one coming. You weren't giving, I walked up to the bushes, I spoke. You could have been like, there's a naked man or I'm naked or something like that. You had to go. I'm looking, I'm looking in the bush. What's going on? Because you could have been like, sir, get out of the bush and I was going to say, I can't I'm naked. Why are you playing so coy with me? That's the game, it's, you have to unveil more. I can't just give you everything. Okay. That's the thing. I'm sorry to roll play the way you wanted me to. Well, you never, you never do, especially in the bedroom. So yeah, he's blushing, chat. We both know that's a lie, considering the horrific text messages you send me unprompted. They, can't you see I'm reaching out, I'm trying to get affection from you. Can't you see I'm desperately reaching out for love. This does, this does kind of feel like a cat that's like walks up to you. It starts like, oh, I'm making bread on your pants. That kind of sounds like I came on your pants. That's not what I'm saying. The thing is making biscuits, making biscuits is the term for it. I just made the red on your pants, don't get to that. They're too feral as is. You remember all the, all those like old TikTok, not TikTok, like the old Vine accounts or Tumblr accounts. So just be like YouTube guys, like Markiplier Jacksepticaire, like Dan and Phil and stuff and be edits about how they're secretly in a relationship. I feel like those there was found us because I see those all the time. There was people that said Markiplier and Jacksepticaire were having sex with each other? No, they would just make edits where it looked like the two of them, like with kiss or stuff like that. Like they wanted them to. What I'm saying is those people found us so you don't need to give them that much room. Well, I can tell you right now, Markiplier and Jacksepticaire, those are better looking guys than us, us, us, we don't make love. We make slop. What we make okay. Okay. Okay. Is it, is it, is it, is it, is it if we did the edits, it would be, a mud pit of the spare. Okay. All right. All right. We're searching rescue officer. Okay. All right, so this kind of, oh, it's a little dirty. So this kind of turned into a massive wall of tax and for that, I apologize. I wanted to get to the stories my friend told me and he does have some good ones. So I'll post those tomorrow evening. Also a few more of my own. I think you guys will like, I'm sorry to keep you on suspense again, hopefully the stories here make up for it and help you get through the next 24 hours until I can post again. Edit. Since it seems like all of you would like to hear more tomorrow, I'll write up as many stories as I can and do a massive post. 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. I just wasn't sure how people felt about big, huge walls of tax, but if you're all okay with it, I'll post lots of stories. End of part two. Part three, maybe, maybe we can get into some more role play too. Hello. Part three. I am here for Baydoor Dashboarder. Part three. Well, once again, you guys have blown me away with your staggering amount of responses to my stories. What? What? Just blow. I said, you're like, well, once again, you guys have blown me away with your staggering amount of response. It's just funny. I thought that was silly. Well, I can see you being good at Door Dash too, Isaiah. Okay. Well, I'm not going to answer because that will open up a door for you to want to role play it. So if you were dropping off a Door Dashboarder, if you were dropping off a check for it, right? Drop it down. Take a picture of it. And a person answered to you and they were wearing a kimono. If it looks extremely obese, I mean, huge. Actually, if I was sitting there and I was all bald, hairless, and I was wearing a kimono, a sheer kimono that had like, it was like jade green. And I had a long brown fume and chew at the door. And I was just like, thank you so much. Would you would you engage in conversation with that person? Or would you just leave it and be like, okay, have a good one. I would do it. I would do for every client. Have a good one. All right, first of all, don't refer to your door dash recipients as clients because that's not that's not appropriate. That's that that that seems like, you know, it's not that business cat. It's not that business. What do you want me to call them? The hogs? Customers? Well, yes. If it's a large obese man in a kimono with a brown fume and chew, yes, you can call him a hog. Here's your fried chicken sandwich pig as we should say. Oh, my God. What if he had a katana? What if he was holding a katana? Would you? Hey, man, you want to play for you'll play ghost dance? Hey, man, you have to answer the door dash driver with a weapon. Well, he's he opens the front door because you just left it there and he has a katana. He's like, Hey, man, you will come inside and play store Fox? No, I've got other orders. Sorry. He gripped it with both hands like puts it puts it in like a combat position. I can tell no, sorry, sure, I've got other orders. I can tell the guy that is currently setting up this this scenario really wants me to come inside and play store Fox for some bit. He has set up, but I have a job to do, which is read scary story. So I have a good one. Take care. All right. No problem. I have a good day. God bless. I imagine that he struck a pose like crouching tiger hidden dragon with a sword. Maybe like the two fingers up and he was holding the sword like this, whatever. Yeah, let me sec or said come into play store Fox. I mean, I'd probably fucking go and play star Fox. I mean, I'd be kind of scared. I can't. I can't do it anymore. I'm sorry. No, I'm assuming random tangents. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough. Come in here and get into a little trouble. Now thank you, sir. I still have orders. All right. And there's no more doors. Always open. 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 move on to the stories. I'm going to write as many as I can think of. In addition to my friend's stories, and I will probably not update again until I get a chance to answer some questions that I myself have for my superiors. All right. So common questions I find you all had. 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 just don't discuss them too much. I will say that I'm in the U.S. and in the area that is compromised of a great deal of wilderness. We're talking hundreds of miles of thick forest, with a mountain range and a few lakes. There's still a great amount of interest in the stairs, and luckily for you guys, my friend is a story that I think you all will be interested in. I'll go into them 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'll 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 is to contact your local Forest Service Office and see if they offer in 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, just by the occasional tragic situations, and I wouldn't want to do anything else. All right, so let's move on to the stories. The first habit on a case that I went on right after I got out of training, and 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 your 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 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 for us to come up there right away. When we get there, we see him holding his wife, she's got something in her arms. She's screaming these awful, almost animal-like screams, and he's sobbing. He sees us, and he screams at us to help him. Please get an ambulance up here. 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. Can you hear the dog bark? I scared the shit out of me. I was like, "Oh my god. I got it. I got it. I was like into the story." So there's people at the house working on it right now, and Benny hates company. So I lock him in the bedroom and turn on bird-feeder cameras because he just watches the birds, and he just stays locked in. Stares at him. But when the birds get into fights, he gets really fired up. Oh shit, really? You have the birds start like squawking at each other. He gets in on it. He jumps up and starts barking, so that's what that was. I go over while one of the vets tries to calm him down. I ask the wife what's going on. She's rocking, holding something, just shrieking over and over. 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 hits me hard. I have to take a second to compose myself, and I get up and go get one of the other vets who's standing by. I tell him that it's a dead kid, and he sort of passed my shoulder and tells me he'll deal with it. Took us over an hour to get this woman to let us see her kid. Every time we try to take it from her, she flips out and tells us we can't have him. That will be okay if we just leave her alone and let her help him. Eventually, one of the vets manages to calm her down, and she gives us the body. Took her back to the med area, but when the EMTs showed up, they told us there was never any hope of saving the kid. He died instantly from the trauma to his head. I was good buddies with one of the nurses who met them at the hospital, and she told me later what had happened. There's not the couple I'd been walking with the baby in the sling. They stopped because the kid was fussing. Dad takes the kid and is holding him, looking out over the little gully by the path. The mom comes to stand next to him, she ends up stepping on the loose patch of soil, and she trips. She falls into the dad, who drops the kid, who ends up falling about 20 feet down this little gully onto the rocks at the bottom. Dad climbed down and recovered the kid, but he'd fallen right on his head, and was dead by the time he got there. The baby was only about 15 months old. Total free gaccident, 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 at 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 small ones like coyotes, raccoons, or scunks. What we do see frequently, though, are moose. Let me tell you, moose are nasty guys. I'll chase after anything for any reason. God help you if you get in between a female and its baby. One of the more amusing calls was the guy who got chased down by an absolutely massive male moose and was stuck up 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, God damn, then fuckers is big up close. I guess that's not really a scary story, but we still laugh about that one. God honestly don't know if I just don't know if I'd 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 I 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, right in the middle of nowhere. That's why when you have experiences like this, didn't just forget about them and move on. This is to date, the only thing that's ever made me really 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 at all. As I recall, this took place right at the end of spring. It was a typical lost child call. Four-year-old girl had wandered away from her parents' campsite and had been missing for about two hours. Her parents were completely despondent and told us what most parents do. Like Ed would never wander away, she's so good about staying close. She's never done anything like this before. We assured the parents that would do everything we can to find her and we spread out in a standard search formation. I was partnered with one of my good buddies and we were sort of casually holding conversations while we height. I know it sounds callous, but 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 searched for a good two 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. There's almost a sensation like a plain depressurizing. My ears pop and I have this odd sensation of having dropped about 10 feet. Start to ask my buddy if he felt that or 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 screams something to me, but I can hear him over this definite 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, we 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 the sound. Then, as suddenly as it starts, it stops. Like someone threw a switch and cut it off. We stand there for a second, perfectly still, and slowly the normal sounds of the woods come back. He asked me what just happened. I kind of shrug, and we stand there looking at each other for a minute. I get on the radio and ask if anyone else 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. It's great. It happens, you know, things like that. About an hour later, we all check up on the radios, and no one's found a 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 every couple of minutes. At this point, I'm hoping beyond hope that we find her, because while I may not like kids, any of them being out all alone in the dark is awful. Woods could be intimidating the 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 decided to turn around and head back to the rendezvous point. We're about halfway back when my buddy stops, shines his light to the right of us, into a really thick dead fall, or group of dead trees. I ask him if he's heard a response, he just tells me to be quiet a second and listen. I do, and in the distance, I can hear what sounds like a kid crying. Nope. We both called the girl's name and listened for any kind of response, but it's just this really faint crying. We had in the direction of this dead fall 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 cat, and I tell my buddy that something isn't right. He tells me he feels the same way, but we can't figure out what it is. We stop where we are, call the girl's name again. At the same time, we both figure it out. The crying is on a loop. It's the same little hitching sob, then well, 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 only time I've ever lost my composure like that, but something about it was so incredibly wrong, and neither of us wanted to stay out there anymore. When we got back to the rendezvous, we asked if anyone else had heard anything strange, but no one else knew what we were talking about. No sound sort of anti-glymatic, but that called messed me up for a long time. As for the little girl, we never found a trace of her. We keep an eye out for all the other people who we've never found, but frankly, I doubt we'll ever find anything. I like that one a lot. The idea of figuring out the crying on a loop is terrifying. I don't like that one. Man, that's so effective, though, isn't it? Like realizing that the girl you're going for is like the same thing, like the same little tones over and over. It's almost like the noise they heard, the loud noise was maybe this girl being taken or crossed over, like that's the sound of like a dimensional rift or something, and now whatever entities out here is wearing her face. It's like using her voice as a lure to get more people to come out, but it's bad at it. It's bad at it. Like the stairs in the woods, the memory is not perfect. There's like an offness to it. I love the idea of hearing animal noises and realizing they're human or hearing human noises and realizing they're automated. That's creepy. person's calls I've gone out on, only a handful of ever resulted in the complete disappearance, meaning no trace of the person and nobody ever found. But sometimes finding a body just leads to more questions than answers. Here's some of the bodies we found that had 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 miles from where we was last seen. The camera, sadly, was destroyed. Pelvis of an older man who had vanished a month earlier was all we found. The lowered jaw and right foot of a two-year-old boy on the highest peak of a ridge in the southern part of the park. Body of a 10-year-old girl with down syndrome, almost 20 miles from where she'd vanished. She died of exposure three weeks after going missing, and all of her clothes were intact except for her shoes and jacket. There were berries and cooked to meet in her stomach when they did the autopsy. Corners said it appeared as if someone had been taking care of her. There were no suspects ever identified. Now, that's messed up. That's very, very short. Something out there's been feeding her up until her death, like the boy that was shoved into the rock. It's very odd. It's like, sometimes it feels like things are like taking care of them, like it's not super malicious. Yeah, I don't know. That's fucking creepy. The frozen body of a one-year-old baby, about a week after vanishing in the hollow trunk of a tree 10 miles from the area he was last seen. There was fresh milk found in his stomach, but his tongue was gone. He's stuff like that, right? It's like, they were being taken care of, but there's also like a mutilation associated with it. Yeah. A single vertebra and right kneecap of a three-year-old girl found in the snow almost 20 miles from the campground her family had been at the previous summer. Now, onto a couple of the stories my friend told me. I mentioned that you were all interested in the stairs, and you're in luck. He's had a closer encounter with him. Though he doesn't have any explanation for them, he does have a bit more experience with him than I do. My buddy's been a search-and-rescue officer for about seven 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 send 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 went to go check a set of them out. He said they were about 10 miles from the path where a teenage girl had vanished, and the dogs were following the scent. He was on his own, lagging behind the main group when he saw a set of stairs off 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, they 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. Oh, 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. He 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, slowly climbed the stairs, 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 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. He stood there looking around, but he said, "The longer he stood at the top step, the more he felt like he was doing something very, very wrong." He described it as the feeling you'd get if you were in the part of a government building that you have no business being in, as if someone was going to come in a rescue or shoot you in the back of the head at any second. He tried to brush it off, but the feeling got stronger, stronger, and that's when he realized that he couldn't hear anything anymore. Sounds of the forest were gone, and he couldn't hear his own breathing. It was like some kind of weird, awful tonight, 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, "This trainer had this look of intense anchor, and he asked what was wrong." "You want them, didn't you?" My buddy said it wasn't phrased as a question. He asked how his trainer knew. 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. 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'd be fired immediately. Trainer walked away, and I guess he's ever answered any of the questions my buddy had asked about it since. Now, that's cool. I like the idea that if someone goes up the staircase, someone goes missing. It would just make sense at this point, too, right? Whether you're sitting there. Either the person on the staircase or someone in the woods. I like that. I like that idea. It's like a trade. I mean no likey. My buddy has been involved in a lot of missing person's cases where there's never been a trace of the found. I mentioned David Politis. My buddy said he can confirm that those stories are, for the most part, accurate. He said the most at the time, the person isn't found right away. They're either never found. They're found weeks, months, or years later, places they can't possibly have gone to. That story told me really stood out that involved a five 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. 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 a sin anywhere, not even in the picnic area where he'd apparently vanish from. Spish and fell on the parents, but it was pretty clear that they were devastated and hadn't done anything sinister to their kid. Search was concluded about a month later. My buddy said everyone had pretty much forgotten it by later in the winter. He was out on a training off 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, when he got closer, he realized it was a shirt, frozen and sticking part of the way out of the powder. He recognized it as belonging in the kid because it had a distinct pattern. About 20 yards away, found the kid's body, lying partially buried in the snow. My buddy said there was no way the kid had been dead for more than a few days, even though he'd been missing for almost three months. The kid was curled around something, 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 like a sort of person. The kid was holding it so tight that it had frostbent his chest and hands, which my buddy could tell even with the decay that it had taken place. He radiated 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 both survived for almost three months on his own or have gotten to this peak. There was no physical way this child could have walked almost 50 miles and ended up on the top of the day amount. 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 one. Yeah, I would argue that that's a hard one to get over. It's kind of things. Some would never get over. Is there? Does it seem like there's a correlation with mentally ill people, basically, because this person had a mental disability, there was another one that had a mental disability. Have you noticed that? Yeah, there's a string of people that just, like mentally disabled people seem to be tired. Mentally disabled and children. I think it's the idea that maybe if not being preyed upon easier, they're more trusting to, like, go away with figures like scary face man and stuff like that, almost like praying on innocence or something like that, probably. Yeah, like the innocence of it is what leads them. So the, what was that thing about the, the ice person, it's similar to the no face person on top of the mountain, that there's stuff that, like, there's these featureless figures that look like people but aren't up there. There's some connections you can draw. I like how there's enough hints that you can draw connections between things, but there's never like, oh, this is how it works or this is what it does. Well, yeah, because if you gave that much to them, not only would it lose its mystique but then also it like wouldn't be a, you would, there would be a mystery element anymore. Like the more that we know about it, the less the story has that exciting thrill to it, you know, it's got to, it's got to keep that campfire edge. Hmm, I agree. 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 from outlines because there had been several reports of sightings in the last couple of days. One of our jobs is to scout out the areas where these animals are seen to ensure that if they are in the area, you can warm people and close off those 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 lion screams, it sounds almost exactly like a woman being brutally murdered, unsettling but far from abnormal. My buddy radioed back and let ops know he'd heard one, and that he was going to keep going to see if he could figure out where his territory started. He heard the mountain lion scream a couple more times, always from the same spot, and determined the approximate area of the mountain lion's territory. He was about to head back when he heard another scream, this time, then only a few yards of him. Of course, he freaks out and starts heading back at a much faster pace because his last thing he wants is to run into a damn mountain lion and get mulled 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 set in the distance just before the path rounded to corner, he could see what looked like a male figure. He called out to them, warning them that the paths were closed and that he needed to come back to the welcome center. Faker just stood there, a buddy started to walk over. When he was about ten yards away, Faker took, as he described, an impossibly long step toward him, and let out the same scream my buddy had been hearing. I thought he didn't even say anything, he just turned and sprinted back to ops, never looking behind him. With the time he got back, the screaming had moved back into the woods, and he had mentioned it to anyone else, he just said that there was a mountain line in the area that they would need to close those paths until the animal could be located and moved. Dude, no. Did you have an impossibility for stepping so haunting? I don't know. I don't know why, but it's in your head, you're trying to picture what that looks like, and it's like, what do you mean an impossibly long step, like it's floating as it's stepping almost? That's great, man. The author knows how to, I'm not just glazing them because they're a friend, but man, to put that level of detail, like all the, all these little things that like make the scares play out so well, like the crime was on a loop. It was a person saying to me out an impossibly long step, like these little accents that goes so far. Yeah, the girl on loop, though, is by far the scariest little girl crying out, yeah, that one. Yeah, that one's pretty good. Yeah, that one's fine. Cause it's like you're, you're looking for and you're saying, oh, she's right around here, but then you realize it's a thing that's choosing her voice, yeah, that's, that's solid. That's possibly a long step, though. That's fine. That's fine. I love a nice, uncanny step. You're like, what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It also feels like you can get to you so much quicker. You're like, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No, no, no, no, no. I'm good. Yeah, he's walking, but it's faster than your sprint. We're going to end this story here. Since it's turned into a huge wall of text. We're going to be heading out on a yearly training up tomorrow morning. So I'll be gone until early next week. And I'll be asking around about any stories they'd like to share. I'm so glad you guys have been interested in my stories. Once I'm back from this op, I'll continue to share them. And that is the end of part three. Part four. Four. Hey guys, back from my training up, and I have a lot of really interesting stories to share with you. We got enough that I'm going to break them up into two parts, just being the first. I love to put them all in one entry, but I just haven't had a chance to write them all down yet. I didn't have anything too crazy happened while I was out there, but we did have one incident with the rookie that I found relevant. Since I'm sure you guys have been waiting for these, I'll just get right into the stories. I'll sign each batch of stories to the person who told them to me. Katie. Katie is a vet who's been a search rescue officer for about 15 years. She specializes in high elevation mountain rescues and is widely 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 she told me in response to my 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 five 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 was always those who don't listen. One particularly nasty case, an entire family got wiped out because their father decided he knew better than the officials, and he took them out into an area that wasn't safe. They were snow-shoeing, and as best Katie could figure, they walked onto a shelf of snow that looked solid, but actually wasn't. It gave way, and this family went ass over to the kennel almost three hundred feet 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, safe for some bruising and a sprained ankle. The un-injured child left his sibling behind and set out to help him. Katie said, "The kid didn't make it more than a half mile before his storm overtook him. Kids stopped trying to get warm or maybe just to rest and ended up freezing a death." "Good God." 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 who'd frozen a death looking for help. She said it had started to snow, just enough to obscure long distance vision, but not enough to make searching impossible. She saw a figure setting in the snow up ahead, and she got to it as quickly as possible. She described in detail, as she got closer, she realized first that it was a child, second that they were deceased, third that they had frozen in one of the most pitiful positions she's ever found a 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 into his coat. As she moved the coat to look at his face, she saw that he 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 broke her heart. She told me repeatedly that she hopes the father is burning in hell as we speak. The other traumatic stories 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 something bad had happened, because he 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 Katie 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 had come from, but the further she followed it, or there was. She followed 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 ever seen before. He was lying face down, but 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 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, especially you can figure this is what went down. God had been attempting to climb up to the next area and had been using his ice axe to ascend. He probably had a loose patch and had fallen. On the way down, or possibly when he landed, he got impaled by the axe and disemboweled him. Drag himself along, tearing pieces of himself out as he went, and died under the cliff face. She's inherently bothered by gore, but I guess a few of the guys who came to help her remove the body through up when they turned him over and had a portion of his intestines spilled out. Jesus. I like all the real stories mixed in with the supernatural ones, you know? It almost feels too like the real stories are the ones that I'm more affect. Like the more I'm like, I'm like, God, I always feel like I'm, I'm hitting heavier with the real ones. I think just because it does have such a, I don't know, like it's less fantastical. And you're like, oh, man, that's horrible, that, you know, but it feels fake because it's a bug man or whatever the fuck it is. But other things like God put yourself in that position as fucking horrifying. That could just happen to someone. A lot of things. 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. Wanna hear a real doozy? She tells me about how, when she first started, there's a case that got a lot of attention in the media. A family had been outberry 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 the day, one of them vanishes. There's an absolutely massive search and they find absolutely nothing. It's another 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 two months, which is eventually called off. That's four to six months later. The family comes back to place flowers at a memorial that have 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 three seconds and that span of time he vanishes in a thin air. Now obviously, parents are beyond devastated. It's awful on us for lose one child, but to lose two is beyond imagining. Search is huge. One of the largest in state history. About 300 volunteers coming every inch of the park looking for the kid. 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 vanishes from. And then almost two weeks later, the volunteer almost 15 miles 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, he's in good shape. KD and her team go out to recover the kid and when they get there, she can't believe that this is the kid that's been missing. It's closer clean, no dirt on him anywhere, and he doesn't appear traumatized. Volunteer says he found the kid sitting on the log, playing with a little twig bundle that's bound together with some old rope. KD asked him where he's been, who he was without here for those two weeks. And the kid tells her that he's been with a fuzzy man. Now, KD firmly believes in bigfoot, so she gets all excited and asks what he means by fuzzy. Was he hairy? The kid says no, he wasn't hairy. He was a fuzzy man and he describes the man that's blurry like when you close your eyes, but not all the way closed. He says the man. Oh, so good. Oh man, the fuzzy man and he's like a blur. Oh, that's great. 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 asked if the man was mean. He scared the kid and the kid says no, he wasn't scary, but I didn't like how he didn't have eyes. Oh, yeah, that's normal. That happens out here. KD, KD's just like, mm-hmm, stands up and just starts crying because of the room. I'm going back to the room. Just starts crying. Yeah, what would you mind? Excuse me real quick. Just have to go to the little explorers room. KD says they got the kid back to headquarters and the 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 a very specific clearing, but when he tried to go further, the fuzzy man would get mad, you know, real loud, even though he didn't have a mouth. When the kid got scared at night, the fuzzy man made it go brighter, 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. Okay. You're not the right kind of kid. No, thanks. He either can't or won't elaborate more on that. The cops are just sort of less scratch in their heads. The searchers brothers renewed with no results. KD has no idea where his brother might be. They never find him. Well, you know, it's that kind of thing happens sometimes, I guess. I love the idea of like the fuzzy man how it's a creature with like no eyes, no mouth. And the kid just describes as like a blur like fuzzy. That's so uncanny. And like when it's dark, he would make it grow go brighter, whatever that means. So good. It's very I like the the very child like name that does feel like he would be like, oh, it's like yeah, like a Sasquatch kind of thing or an animal, but no, it's literally a child just describing like basically an aber like an aberration, right? Some kind of like yeah, just like almost weird noise that's like populating in the in the actual physical space. Very odd. It also makes you think like what is this connected to some of the other stuff we've seen? Like, is this connected to the the bug man? Is this connected to the scary face man or the bear man mentioned earlier? Are these all one of the same with these different entities? Again, it gives you enough to ask questions, but not answers. The last word 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, Elaine on a well-maps side of the 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. Once I'm done, I start going back to the group, but I've only gone about five feet when I realize I have no idea where I am. And this wasn't a, oh, I got turned around lost. I mean, I had literally no fucking clue where I was. If you ask me, I don't think I'd be able to tell what state we were in. It was sort of how I imagined people with amnesia feel. You know, you're completely lost and you have no idea what to do. So I stood there for a while. Just trying to figure out where the fuck I was and what I was supposed to do. But the longer I stand there, the more confused and turn around I get. So I started walking. As I recall, I just picked up a random direction and went for it. And as I'm walking, just getting worse and worse at 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, and then I start hearing this voice. It's kind of inside my head, almost. Look at a frog a talk all low and croaky. And it's 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. Eat, eat. So I start looking around for anything I can eat. And I swear to God, I've never felt that hungry my whole life. It was bottomless. I think I'd 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 when I hear an actual voice coming towards me. I go forward and see one of the other search and rescue officers. And he looks fucking terrified. He's running towards 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 to my belt for my hunting knife. I'm not really even thinking about what I'm doing. What I'm thinking is that I have to eat. If I don't 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 doesn't need to put my knife away and he's not going to hurt me. And that kind of snaps me back. All of a sudden, I know exactly where I am. I put the knife away. I run to him and has how long I've been gone. Thinking he'd tell me I've been gone for half an hour or so, but he tells me I've been gone for two fucking days. I've gone over two peaks, ended up almost on the other side of the mountain. And if I'd keep going, I would have ended up wandering into about 300 miles of wilderness. They never found me. He can't believe I'm not dead. And of course, I don't know what the fuck to think. To me, no time has passed at all. I don't say anything. I just go back with him to the rendezvous point and I'm taken to the HQ to be airlifted to the hospital. When I get there, they do all kinds of tests. I try to figure out what happened. As best 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. 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 go leave the group, but I just tell them that listening to the me piss in the snow is better than losing me for two fucking days on a freezing mountain. Do you think that was the fuzzy man too? Could be that almost sounded like a win-to-go in nature. The whole you have to eat something, you have the hunger that consumes you. She just cannibalizes her buddy in the middle of the woods. I think it could be. The idea, though, of having to find something to eat, it's one of the things of putting somebody into a state of like they have no idea what's going on, amnesia, basically, and being like you have to find something to eat. So now they just keep wandering deeper and deeper into the forest. I wonder if they will never find something, but then coming across just the person. If it would have found any kind of animal, they probably would have just ate it raw alive or whatever. Interesting. Compare the hunger, some supernatural sense overwhelms them. Next person I talk to is EW, a former trainer who now works as an EMT. He still comes to ops like this to help out, but doesn't work full-time for us anymore. He's specialized in finding lost kids. He seems to have a sixth sense when it came to knowing where they'd gone. He's a legend among the more senior beds, but he gets embarrassed if he compliments him on his work. He sat down with me at dinner one evening and ended up swapping stories. Most of them were just casual, but when we got on the subject of our weirder calls, I mentioned that I'd had a buddy who'd gone up a set of stairs. Got kind of quiet and asked me if I heard of a little boy who disappeared from the spark a few years back. I hadn't, so he tells me me this story. They were out looking for this 11 year old boy, Joey, who'd gone missing near a river. Morse, 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 to a very densely forested area. When we do searches for people, searching a grid pattern and we search every box of the grid incredibly thoroughly. What he W's team noticed right away was that a very strange pattern was emerging. Dogs and alternating boxes were picking up Joey's scent, but losing it when they overlapped with another box. If you think of it like 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 the kid bounce from area to area without leaving the scent in each place he passed? EW and his partner pass him to a new box of the grid, and EW notices, says Stairs about 50 yards 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 a point never to 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 inside while EW checks. EW says he was irritated, but he fell for the guy and didn't push him on the subject. 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, 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 in the step, holding a stomach. It looked like he'd been horrible pain when he died. I didn't see any blood except someone in his lips and chin. I radiated in that I found him and we got his body back to command. My poor family, they were devastated. Parents could understand how he'd be dead, because 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 just made it worse. I figured he'd probably eaten something poisonous since he was holding a 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 have some stupid search and rescue officer guy guessing about what happened. They took him away and I went home and tried not to think about it. I hate finding dead kids, man. I love this job, but it's just one of those reasons I left. I got two daughters and the thought of losing them that way just. He choked up was not all year. 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. Pulled himself together eventually though and kept going. We'd always hear back from the coroners 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 legal bullshit, but I've got a friend who works for the Sheriff's Department and he usually has passed along any interesting info if I ask in this case, so I actually got a call from him about a week later. He asked if I remember the kid and of course I do and he says some seriously weird shit is going on. He tells me, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but the coroner has no idea what happened to this kid. He's never even 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 kids organs were like Swiss cheese. Quarter size holes were punched clean through just about every single organ that kid had, aside from his heart and lungs, but his colon, his stomach, his kidneys, and even one of his testicles were full of these clean holes. My friend said the coroner described it as someone who had taken a hole punch and punched holes out of everything. They were so neat. But the kid didn't have a scratch on him. No interior exit wounds. The closest anyone there had ever seen like it was a guy who filled himself up with a buckshot a year or so back when he was cleaning his rifle. So no one had to clue what it could possibly have caused this. My friend asked me if I'd ever heard anything like it, or if we'd had any similar cases in the past, but I'd never heard of something like that. I told him I wasn't going to be any help to him. As far as I know, the coroner determined the cause of death is 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 don't let my kids into the woods alone, and when we go together, I never let them out on my side. I used to love it out here, with that case, and a couple others just sort of ruined it for me. It always hours so we started to clean up and go back to our cabins. Or we went our separate ways, but to stand on my shoulder and looked at me really close. It tells me that there's bad things out here. Things that don't care if we have families or lives, or we can think and feel. It tells me to be careful and he walks away. I think he had a chance to talk with him again, but that story stuck with me. I lie. So it's similar to the grid pattern. It says if the kid got dimensionally torn apart, right? Yeah. Like he occupies one space, but then everything kind of shifts over at 50% margins, like everything kind of gets split in half and draws away from itself, including his internal organs. That's a really cool, it's really sick setup. I'll just add that finding just fucking extremely. It's almost alien. It's like I almost like some kind of weird experiment was happening on him. And it's like there's no entry exit. It's almost surgical, I guess is why I keep harping on that. It's like it's an injury pattern you would never see. Also, I have to mention it because I'm that guy. You wouldn't have buck shot out of a rifle. It would be a shotgun. So explain that search and rescue woods. There you go. I'm very smart and it's important. I point that out. It matters. I promise. By pure coincidence, I got to talk to another Pb who's been in search and rescue field for years. We were partnered on a grids we've done a training exercise and we were chatting casually about how we like the job, what kind of things we'd seen and like. At one point, we passed an old set of stairs, though these were probably from an old fire lookout given the area that we were in. Sort of casually mentioned that I was curious about the stairs and then I wish I knew more about them. Got kind of quiet and looked like he wanted to tell me something. I wasn't sure if he should. Finally told me to turn my radio off. Obviously this is something we are never, ever supposed to do, but I did. He did the same. About seven years ago, he tells me he was out on a call with a rookie. They were in the area of the park that had a lot of strange reports and events. Disappearances, stories about lights and the forest, odd noise, things like that. The rookie was totally spooked, kept going on and on about things out in the woods, according to PB. The guy wouldn't stop talking about the go man, just on and on, go man this and go man that. Finally I told him that there was plenty else to be afraid of out there and I was, that was very real and that he better get over this thing with the go man. The rookie wanted to know what kinds of things I was talking about and I was told to shove and walk. Requested a little ridge and there was a staircase about ten yards ahead. The rookie stops deadness tracks and just stands there looking at them. I tell him see, that's something you should be afraid of and the rookie asked me what the hell these things are doing here. For some reason, I just opened 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. Be a nice kid and once you stop looking into this, 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 suits. I told him I wouldn't say a word and he double checks that our radios were off. When I first started out, we were a little less tight-lipped about them and other things that happened on here. We warned people before they were even hired that there was weird shit going on. I guess the forest service was tired of having such a massive turn of a raid and they wanted people to know what they were getting into. So they started having people sign these agreements and they wouldn't go to the media about what they were going to see. The FS didn't want to scare people away. So the last thing they needed were spooked rookies running off to the media with stories of ghost and haunted stairs, but eventually they found out the agreements weren't necessary. People not only didn't want to talk about what they saw, they wouldn't. A few times, media tried to talk to people when the 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. It's our job to be on the woods every single day. We don't need to be spooked. The best way to avoid that is to pretend like everything's okay. So I'll tell you everything I can think of and if 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 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 shit happens. I saw one guy get his hand sliced clean off when he got to the top of the step. He reached out to touch like a tree branch and then it happened so fast. One second it was there and the next it was gone. Completely clean wound. We didn't find his hand. The guy almost died. Another time a woman touched one of the stairs in a blood vessel in her brain exploded. literally exploded like a water bullet. them. She stumbled down and came over to me and all she got out was, "I think something's wrong with me." She dropped like a sack of flour, dead before she hit the ground. I'll never get the way the blood leaked into her eyes. Before she died I watched it turn red, what should happen, and there was a single thing I could do to help. We warned people not to go anywhere near them, but there's always at least one idiot who does. And even if nothing happens to them, something bad always happens. And kids go missing as we're on the trail, so it dies the next day, cut in half, and it completely safe part of the park. And 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're smart, we tell our new officers exactly what they'd be capable of. We're both quiet for a little while. I was afraid to talk because I wasn't sure if he was done. It looked like you wanted to say something else. Finally, he spoke up again. I've never noticed how you can't find the same one's twice. I nodded, expecting him to continue, but he just stayed quiet all kind of alongside me. And eventually he started to story about the biggest year he'd ever seen in the park. Then bring up the subject again, and I didn't press him for any more stories. He dropped out on the op on the next day, apparently he left before the sun came up, so he was sick, and of us 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 coming days, but with that being the end of summer, things are pretty busy here. Thanks for the continued interest, guys. If you're really awake in the curiosity, I mean that I didn't know I had. End of part four. So part five, gosh, it's so good. Part five, I'm noticing has the first not safe or work tag. So that's fun. Yeah, yeah. So I love the stairs. I love the details about like you go up them something weird happens. I like you know, it reminds me of what were they called in Mother Horsesize? The things around the flesh interface. Oh god damn, what are those? The zones. Yeah, the little, yeah, I think there were zones. Incident zones, incident zones. Yeah. These incident zones appear that if something steps into them, like their flesh disappears or like the part of them that touches it evaporates. And in there, it was because they go to feed the interface, but here it's almost like they're just being taken over into a different dimension for some reason. That's what that's what like you walk to the top of the stairs and pieces. All of you are pieces of you just disappear. Don't like that. It's also similar. It's also similar to the flesh interface in that you can just die from coming into contact with it because in there, it talks about kids getting in Mother Horsesize. Kids get tips to their fingers taken off and then they die from it months later like they've been poisoned because they came into contact with it. It's kind of similar to the girls brain just getting a massive aneurysm out of the woods. Yeah. The guy you just hand quite slice clean off is crazy too. Yeah, just reaches out and then boop hang on. It's also kind of interesting too that it makes it seem like every time something bad happens, someone has walked on the stairs, even if it's like not them. Yeah. Well, that's why they lost that kid that night and that veteran came up and said, you went up them didn't you? Just knowing that anytime you go up the stairs, something bad happens. It's pretty cool. Part 5, you ready? Yes, sir. I apologize for the short update, guys. Things got a little crazy around here and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update going forward. I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me while I only have a couple of stories to share with you. I'll be interested to see what you all think. A firefighter who was helping us at the training op told me about a colleague gone on supposedly to help rescue a kid from an absolutely massive tree. He said they didn't give him details, but they needed him to come out and help because they liked the proper equipment. He'd been called out specifically because this thing was so huge that search and rescue officers didn't feel safe trying to climb it. He bit 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 led out about two miles and the team stopped at one of the biggest trees in the area and pointed up. He laughed and asked the yop, "How can the kid have gotten up there?" made some jokes about the old cat and a tree thing that the captain just shook his head, 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 the 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 fucking thing. He was massive at the base, but about halfway up it started tapering. It 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 I 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, cradling the fork of a branch. The fact that he was up there was sheer luck. If he'd fallen any other way, he would 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 fucking sick. Kids and testants had popped out of his mouth and were hanging in the branches. It was like some sick fucking Christmas tree. The way they were draped all over everything. I got a better look and saw that he even popped out of his ass. His guts were hanging out of the bottom of his pants. His eyes were gone. I assumed shoved out from whatever force caused into fucking pop like a stress ball. You've ever seen a body that's been floating in water for a long time? Other tongues kind of swell up and stick out is 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 the kid down with a stick and broke off a branch, just kind of poked him until he fell. I don't know why he did that. Almost lost my job because of that. But, man, the thought of hauling that kid down over my shoulder the whole way, gathering his guts up and calling them around me like roped so they couldn't get snagged. I couldn't do it. I've seen a lot of dead kids more than I never admit. I've seen kids who had hidden the full bathtub during a house fire, boiled them alive, turned them into a literal soup. 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 set me up there. They didn't say anything, but they didn't shout or freak out or anything. I got to the bottom and started to get up in the cat and space asking him who he thought he was sending me up there when they knew Dan Well the kid was dead, but he just told me it was none of my concern. I think we forget the evidence down. I remember he said that. I remember it specifically because it was so weird to hear it phrase that way, the evidence. Like he wasn't even a fucking person. Like he'd never had a little kid who got lost and had something fucking unspeakable happen to him. The captain of the crew led me back out of the woods, but he and two others stayed behind and I thought that was weird. Why wouldn't they have just helped that kid out? I tried to ask him what the guys leading me out just told me they couldn't discuss the in open case. I asked him what he thought happened to the kid and he are really pensive and thought about it for a bit. I would have said a crush 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 the kid got caught in a big vacuum and had his guts sucked down. But even then, there's no trauma, not at all. The bothers remain. The bothers the hell out of me. That's also another. The author keeps doing this, the search and rescue keeps doing this cool thing where they put these improbable scenarios in the middle of the woods and setting, makes it so uncanny like the recording of the, the crime and stuff like that, the loophole crime. But here it's like for this kid to have died that way, he would have had to have been in like a space vacuum. Well, it's like the Swiss cheese holes. Yeah. Yeah. It's like what on earth? Like how did that get here? Yeah. Like I said, it seems like some kind of sick, it seems like some kind of weird experiment or something. Yeah. Kind of like unnatural experiment of some kind or something. Maybe even could have been a thing where people, which this is me just, you know, whatever. When people go up the stairs, maybe that's just a thing of like he was like fucking thrown out. Everything, his organs were sucked out of him. Another time this maybe the kid went up the stairs and literally just like, there was just tons of holes inside of his body. Like it just like a junk like fucking thorn bush or something stuck him, you know. There's so many different, again, there's so many different options of how things could have happened. But there's so, it's the unexplainableness, the oddness of it that it's so peculiar, it's off pudding, you know. One of the events that the training operates, no sleep, he recognized my stories. He knows we pretty well and we've saw up stories before. He asked if he could share something he's noticed about the stairs and some thoughts he's had. 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 get lost. in the first place. David Pilates hid this right on the head. The four services 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 can't remember, I've ever talked about something like that. Seems somewhat incredulous. Dude, I can't believe you've been on this 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 one more out of ways. I know you know about them, but sometimes I run across ones that are flipped upside down. I guess it would be like if you had a dollhouse and the stairs were a separate piece, and I take that, flip it upside down so the top is stuck in the dirt, and put it out in the woods. They're like that. I don't see them often, but they're odd, but they're odd to say the least. Makes me think a footage taken after a tornado. One 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. I can't read this off as easily. I don't scary very easily, like most of us who work out here, but the idea is stuck with me, and it bothers me. Going to try and find out more about them. You also mentioned how many people were bothered by the guy with no face. You got really excited and told me he'd seen something similar. I was out on a training exercise a few years ago. I was camped out in my tent, and I heard someone walking around outside of a camp. We're told not to wander far, but 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 of few years back who almost fell off the dam mountain? Well I'm paranoid about that happening again, so I got to see what was going on, and I went to the edge of camp and I called to whoever it was and told them the camp was this way, but they kept going back out into the woods, so I went after them. I knew I know it was stupid, but it was half asleep, and I just really didn't want to deal with some idiot getting hurt. I felt this thing on a dead straight course for about a mile, but then it stopped in the edge of a little river. I could see the outline of it because the water was reflecting the moon. It looked just like an ordinary guy. It had a pack on and it looked like he was facing me. I asked if he was okay, if he needed help, and he cocked his head like he didn't understand me. I always had my pocket knife on me. It's got a little thumb light attached to it, so I turned that on lit up his chest, so I wouldn't blind him. He was breathing slow and deep, so I wondered if he was sleepwalking. I went closer and asked him again if he was okay, and moved the light up, and something just didn't seem right. So I stopped, kept breathing in real slow, deep breaths, so I 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 were going up in his chest moving. I told him to identify himself, and he made his muffled noise. I moved the light up, and I shit you not. This guy had no face, just smooth skin. I freaked out and I sort of fumbled my light, but I saw him move toward me, but he didn't actually move. I just don't know how to explain it, but one second, he was at the edge of the river, and the next, he was five feet for me. I never looked away or blinked. It was like he moved so fast my brain couldn't keep up. I tripped and fell on my ass, and I could see his, 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, and the fire was still going, and I guess that pack of 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. 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 so surreal that it was almost like I immediately wrote it off as my imagination. I would say the scariest, the scariest record of that is, I love the breathing thing. Like he's breathing in his shoulders. The breathing is so good. Yeah. Creepy. Like he's like he's trying to look like he's breathing. Man, that's so good. It's similar. So similar to the stairs. And similar to like the cry loop, it's like something that isn't human trying to come off as human. And it's like, oh, well, this is what people look like, but they have the face wrong. It's like, oh, well, this is what people breathe like, but it's too exaggerated. And of course, it's like, oh, well, I want to come off as friendly. So I'm going to smile, but it doesn't know where the smile goes. So it puts a gash in the throat. That's so that's so creepy. It's like something wants us to cross over to the other side. So that's again, similar to stairs. It's like, oh, people walk up these. So I'll put this out here. The no face thing. I mean, we see that a lot like the no face, like that. I just, it's just that little thing. Like I almost like, you know, I mean, the smile, it is what it is. Like I'm not like super stoked on that, but I will say like just that breathing thing of like this uncanny breath is just is that's a lot of fun. Also, that's the same guy that definitely takes giant strides. Yeah, well, it gets too close to get it's like they're trying to walk, but they don't know what walking is. So it's like a different. It's like they're doing the same thing in the wrong steps almost. They're trying to get the aspects of it down, but they're bad at it. Man, that's so good. The mimicry's so good. We were telling ghost stories one night before beds to scare each other and poke fun. I do ever got creeped out. Most of the time, it's the ruckus. One woman told a story that actually managed to get under my skin a little bit and I know the same was true for 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 and had that ring of truth that only really traumatizing events 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, and there's a lot of dense, unpopulated, national forest. She said the woods up there aren't like they are here. 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. There's an unspoken rule that no one ventured out that far. She and her friend made up stories about bears because houses lived out there and used to scare each other by hiding and making growling noises while the other search for them. She said in one summer, there's a series of awful storms that blew down a lot of trees. It's at one part of the forest, a few miles behind her house on fire. Fire crews got it under control. She said some of them came back not quite the same. It was like they'd been a 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, went up to them. Most of them left town as soon as everything was over. That's 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. It was pretty exciting to think that we were disobeying them like that. We hiked about two miles or so and we started seeing burnt trees and stuff. I remember my friend got really upset because we found the skeleton of a deer curled up under a tree and I prankly out of 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. Just remember thinking there was something wrong with them. I didn't want either of us going near it. That's so cool. How do you think they were? What a cool little detail. What a cool rate of detail. Maybe like too many points or like they were growing weird or backwards. I like to think that they were like, you know, because they're usually jilted out like branches. They're all curled like very like too smooth and sorely, you know? Yeah, they're all too like to the lines don't move the way deer antlers normally move. Yeah, something like that. Man, that's such a sick little dissimilar to the breathing stuff like that. Just like the antlers on the body were weird. I love those little details. I like how non-shallotly it said or like it's just so candid. It's just like, oh, I didn't want her to touch it because the horns were kind of weird. But it isn't, but it isn't like giving you this big grandiose explanation. It's just more of an afterthought, but that's the thing that just fucking hits you the hardest to like what? Go back. What? Can we go back? Yeah, can we get some clarification on that? She's like, no, no. No, I don't think you will. The farther we went, the more burned 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. We both heard someone 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 hide behind a 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 a movie. I followed her, 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 got lost and needed directions back to town. They 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, she was grossed out, and she asked if I saw his face. It's older 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've been sliced clean off. He was bleeding bad, and I saw 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. 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 was asking how long he'd been gone. He asked me where his unit was, but I just shook my head. He looked me over, and he saw my walkman, and he screamed. He just kept babbling, and touching his face, and I realized he wasn't wearing the right clothing. It's some kind of weird great cloth jacket and all those formal pants on, and the jacket has these weird buttons and red borders on it. I kept shaking my head and told him I couldn't understand what he was saying. I wanted to open the first aid kit when he just screamed again and said that the only thing I could really understand, "Don't touch me! You made 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. Just turned around and started walking back towards him. She asked me over and over what 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're still friends, but we don't talk about that guy. I'll update you guys as soon as I'm able. Appreciate the continued support. The last story being like a Confederate soldier that definitely like either walked up the woods or something like walked at the stairs a long time ago. It's pretty fun too. It seems like you can also see where the injury was because it's his lips, nose, forehead, and knees. So it's like he was stepping in and then the frontal plane made contact. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The idea too, because this idea is that has he just been trapped and avoid for over a hundred years or something? Could be a void, could also, because they talk about time moves. There's been several instances where time gets weird. The girl who thinks she's gone an hour, she's gone two days. The little kids who are that one boy that says was gone a month. When they find him, he's like the same condition, same clothes, not dirty or anything. So maybe you just skip or maybe for this Confederate guy, maybe he did go to some weird pocket dimension for a while and then wind up in Maine in like the 90s. That's so cool. The visual being in a burnt forest and it's foggy and then through the fog comes running a man with a red face. He's bleeding everywhere in a Confederate uniform. That's so terrifying. Yeah, you'd be even more terrifying to you. I don't know why. If it's a guy in a reenactment, they're like, my God, you're from hundreds of years ago. He's like, no, no, I swear to God, I'm done. It's like weird thing. My name's Jason. I work at Big Lots. I'm working in Ron. How's the company doing? I'm showing my job. They're like, oh, as long as I can go to my office at the World Trade Center, I'll be okay. Yeah, exactly. 56 floor, beautiful views. Right, buddy. I should say building it. It's like he's nosing it's going off. He's like, what do you mean? You're in better shape. Trust me. Well, that should be fine. As long as my secondary office at building seven next to the World Trade Center is okay. I don't think anything bad would happen to it. If anything were to happen to the towers, it has its own structural support system. And there would never be a reason it would fall. Meaning, thankfully, all of the CIA and FBI's budget dogs can be kept in one place, safe from attack. If I have my, and I got to say, luckily, I still have an end at the Pentagon. So it'll be okay. As long as they don't hit the East Wing of the Pentagon, which of course, as mentioned, holds records involved. The stars in the woods were just trying to kill specifically this guy. That's like that. That's like that. That's no, yeah, we don't need to. The stairs, the stairs in the woods were built by like George Bush to like cover up. Yeah, George. Yeah. Exactly. All kinds of stairs. George, that's why that's why Dick, that's why Dick Cheney shot that guy in the woods. Exactly. Do you see the staircase? That was an accident. Let's go back. I thought the deer was looking at my stairs. Turns out it was a man in a, in a camo jacket. Oops. Oopsy Daisy. Dick, I just don't know about these stairs, Dick. But if it gets us to the island quicker, it's all connected. The stairs were to kill. The Confederate soldier was the guy Dick Cheney shot in the woods. Yeah. Where am I? Just a random guy in the woods. Sorry, you, you, you startled me. You saw me. Is that the guy's president? Yeah. Yeah. Good, good, good, good, far five. Yeah, good, good, good, good, good. Part six also has a not so, so the not say for work tag was just the guy. It was the boy. Yeah, the boy with the guy's, that's about, that's about whatever, the, which I will say it is nice to have a not say for work tag that is not say for work in a not a child sexual abuse sets that does feel good to have. It feels refreshing. We don't see that a lot. It feels refreshing. No, we do not. We do not. But don't worry, because politics also has one. So we'll see. Well, we'll see if it changes, but normally our stories, they use every letter of that abbreviation. They really leave nothing to the imagination. It is capital all the way through. Yeah, painful. Painful all the way through. All right. I will say too, we've been recording for three hours. This recording has felt like, like brisk. I feel like this has been a lot of fun. I think having all these things be micro, micro doses is like, it keeps re-engaging you in a fun way. So I don't know. A lot of keeps it rolling well. I agree. Which later on, he's definitely adding more information as the parts are progressing, but still. It still feels like these campfire stories, which I think that's like, that's the essence of what makes this such a memorable experience. Yeah. Yeah. It's been way too long since I've posted an update, and I'm sorry about that. There's also been some confusion about the new format and requirements on the board, which I've cleared up. So these next few stories are going to be posted a little differently. We're in chronological order, and I'll do my best to tie them into each other as much as I can, so it doesn't skip around too much. When I started out as a rookie, no one told me about the job in terms of weird things that could happen. I was assuming this was largely to prevent me from freaking out and abandoning the park, but, but a few months into my service, when I was still at rookie, Fred and I were drunk at a party, and he opened up a bit. You can get a little crazy out there, I guess. I think the worst of the ones where people die when they just shouldn't, you know, or when we find them dead like 10 minutes after someone says that they saw them last, they're fine. When I pass them on the switchback, I swear. That's sort of shit. Like, take this guy, 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 blood. So we run out there and we find this guy dead as doornail, which, absolutely, 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 the guy's old, so he figured, yeah, he probably fell in his head. Old people fall at the time. It's no big deal, except at this area where he felt doesn't have any big rocks. There's not even 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 were people just out of out of line of sight with the guy? If someone came up behind and murdered him, there's no way someone would have had someone would have heard. And again, even if someone had, there'd be a blood trail, spot all over place, but every on the scene, said it looked exactly like he'd fallen and smashed his head on a rock. So what the fuck did he hit his head on? And then there was this lady I found in a different park about five years ago. Back when I was upstate, we found her in the middle of a stand or like big junipers curled around the trunk like she was hugging it and we picked her up to move her and a fucking waterfall comes out of her mouth splashing all over my shoes. Her clothes were all dry and her hair is dry. But the amount of water in her lungs and stomach was phenomenal. Unreal man, coroner's report says the cause of death was drowning. Her lungs were completely full of water. This even though we're in the middle 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 would you go out of the way and do it like that? Why not just stab them and be done with it? I don't know. It just sits with me. That woman we found in the desert full of water, little weird. That one is pretty sweet. That one's pretty sweet. The idea of like a woman being found completely dry clone of the tree and you move her and then she just like gushes out water, pretty fucked up. She's not even, yeah, her hair's not like she's completely dry. So I think the implication is that this stuff under like the the stair stuff, the dimensional transport and stuff isn't just on the stairs, it can be other places too, I think. I see. So it's like she drowned, but in the water, her body drifted into this riff that teleported it here. I like, which is like in hindsight very similar to the flesh interface concept, I, there's something I was going to say about the, oh yeah, it's further asked like the unwithout every other death, something about just a little bit off. It also reminds me of a lot of weird like sort of missing 411 cases I read about every now and then where there's a really strange detail like that, like there's this one where a little boy went missing and the only trace they found of him was one of his socks on top of the mountain, like 30 miles away, and it's like, okay, how? Like what happened there, you know, it reminds me of that we're just one detail is unexplainable and it makes the whole thing strange. Right. Now of course that freaks me out a little. We were wasted and I guess I sort of wrote it off as a fluke. Also assume there was exaggeration there since you know, we were wasted. 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 it's easier said than done. This happened about six months after the conversation with my friend at the bar and up until that point I hadn't had a lot of really weird shit go down. A few things here and there 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 went down syndrome in his 20s went missing after his family lost side of him on a major path. This was odd in and of itself because this guy never really left his mom's side. She was absolutely convinced he'd been kidnapped and unfortunately Ranger who isn't with the park anymore insinuated that no one was going to kidnap someone well with that kind of disability. Not very that that would be you as a park ranger, just evil, not evil, just I am who I am. You can't blame a dog for being a dog, you know, you're learning exactly you can't hold it. It's in one's nature to be terrible I am who I am do not try to change me not very tactful to say the least wasted a lot of time trying to call 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 and 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 and of us wanted to think about him being out alone out there we soon we just kept wandering and was staying ahead of us. We brought out hell he's the next day and they spotted him in a little canyon I helped bring him back up but he was in bad shape I think we all knew he wasn't going to make it. He'd fallen and broken his spine. Jesus. He was over half. He'd also broken both his legs one of the femur and he lost a lot of blood. He was confused and scared while he was alone so he'd probably exacerbated the injuries by dragging himself a little ways I know it sounds awful but while I was riding in the copter with him asked him why he'd wandered off just wanted something to tell his mother I don't know it wasn't her fault because he was fading fast and I didn't think she'd 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 and he closed his eyes and when we woke up again he was in the canyon. I'm not sure that's exactly what he said that's what I thought the gist of it was he kept crying asking where his mommy was and I held his hand and tried my best to keep him calm it was cold out there he kept saying that it was cold out there my leg was frozen it was cold out there it's cold in me he was getting even weaker so he eventually stopped talking and closed his eyes for a while then we were about five minutes from the hospital it looks right at me with these big tears running down his face and he said mama won't see me no more love mama wish he was here closed his eyes and he just never woke up it was horrible I like talking about it a case was one of the first ones that really rattled me badly man the little boy wanted to trade so it's like the fuzzy man again like the thing was like I keep the kids bigger not right but that kid wasn't right so he got to go so maybe kids can trade with other people but they have to choose to one was I'm like wondering if the kid was stuck in this place right if he stuck in like this kind of zone and he's like basically trading spots like I wonder if him dying there like I don't know there's just something there like I'm wondering what he would be trading that isn't just his life or his place in the zone you know yeah yeah hmm interesting okay that's a catchy stories are so good okay because of how badly it affected me I reached out to a senior ranger and who ended up helping me through it so I 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 know that I wasn't the only one affected by things going on out here I think this is much of happened before I think this must have happened before like I think this must have happened before you got here because I think it's happened while you were because I think if it happened while you were oh my fucking god oh god my fucking brain fucking idiot brain Jesus Christ what the fuck did I do that was I dropped as a kid my fucking god I think this must have happened before you got here because I think that it happened while you were here you'd have remembered it I know it didn't end up for the officer says all that time when you fucking should I know it I know it didn't end up in the news for some reason I think most people who've been here log enough know about it the park sold off a portion of land a logging company and it was a real controversial thing but it wasn't that large or old of a plot it was right after the recession so we needed the cash bad anyway they were they were filling this plot of land and we got 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 and numbers to see what was up we got there and these guys are crowded around a tree that they've cut just cut down they're all pissed off and freaking out in the form and comes over and says he wants to know what we're what we're up to what the hell y'all think this is some kind of sick joke you've got a lot of you got a lot of fucking nerve hole in this shit we bought this land fired square well we don't know what the hell he was talking about so it brings us over to this fell tree and points at it and tells us that when they cut it down it was just like this and they'll be damned if they put it they put it there inside the tree was all rotten down in hollow in one spot and when they cut it down it exposed that chamber it inside it is a hand like a perfectly severed hand oh that's fun and it looks like it's actually fused inside the tree well now we think they're pulling a joke so we tell them that we don't like being fucked with and we started to leave and they've and they tell us that they've actually called the cops and that they'll go right to the media if we don't stick around well that gets the heads attention so they stick around and talk to the police about it everyone is denied they put the hand of the tree and besides how would anyone have done that it's clearly 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's definitely fused with the wood you can see it's coming right out of it the lagers they insist that they didn't put it there somehow this this fresh human hand ended up fusing inside of this living tree, and the cops have them cut up the sex of tree into a movable chunk, then they take the hand away and the areas closed off. There's a pretty big investigation, but I know they didn't find any answers. Now it's become this legend. As far as I know, we haven't sold any more property for logging. Interesting. I like that. You have like when something that goes mission in the woods shows up somewhere else in the woods. It's interesting to that it doesn't just show up. It like materializes with something else like it becomes a part of something exactly. I think that's a cool feature. Yeah, yeah. As you all know, I went to a training seminar recently and 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're both pretty drunk. We'll see a pattern here. We were swapping stories. You told me this one. Oh, damn it. I fucking brain. I'm telling you, man. I'm like, so I'm like every time I see every time I see the quote to just read. No, I know. Okay. I don't know. I every time I see the quote, I know I'm like, I feel like a like a kid who is like on a baseball team who's like not going to do well. Exactly. So I'm just like kind of like barely sluggishly walking up to play. Holy here we go again. There's no going to disappoint. All right. It's okay, buddy. So this is a slow. Like this one paragraph. This is a slow pitch. Me. Me and another guy were out on the field search because some campers reported screaming noises at night. So we head out there to look for whatever fucking mountain lion has was 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 of hell of constantly having to deal with them. Plus, I just don't like them anyway. They're paying the ass and they're loud. And they scare the shit on me. Fucking cats. Pieces of shit. All right. This guy's right, Marley. I'm grown about it. This is you talking about this guy. This is the easiest read I've ever had. I'm grown about it. Maybe maybe more of a tea ball than a pitch really is. I'm grown about it to the guy I'm with. And he thinks it's a real fucking 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 it and they tell me to call and confirm if possible, which you know just means they want you to step in a big pile of shit and use that as proof. I'm not seeing any though. So I basically just tell them to shove it. I'm done. We know the damn things out here somewhere. Even if I'm not stepping in its shit or inside its mouth or whatever, the 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's living under it. Because I love foxes, man. They're cute as hell. Anyway, I've watched 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 it's not gonna do shit against the cat. I cock it and holler at my partner to get his dumbass back but it's too far and you can't hear me. I stand up and get my sights out where the thing is approaching and I shit you not man. I just about peed myself. This guy is coming towards me and he's back flipping through the fucking woods. Like instead of walking, he's doing these crazy fucking backflips and I swear to God he cleared, he cleared every fucking log and bush in his path. It was like he knew right where he was going. I yelled the guy to stop right where he is and I'm pointing my gun right 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 dumb fucking one 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 rolls around and goes back, back flipping back into the woods and my partner hears my gun go off and runs back and asks what's up and I tell him that there's some fucking 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 any trouble for firing but man I don't know what that motherfucker was on but I've never seen anything like that before. Shit was absolutely but fuck crazy. I want to say too. If there was a gun, can you imagine it? Continue with the back flipping through the forest. That would be the scariest I would have shot him ever see. That is the scariest thing that we have. We've talked about in this podcast so far. Just imagine hearing or just like getting closer. And you just see a guy also can you imagine barely seeing his face because you just make eye contact on them every once in a while because he keeps back. Yeah, exactly. I would have shot him that he's upside down so he's upside down but the face is right side up. Like when you look at him his eyes are where his chin should be. Yeah. Mouth is on his forehead. Man, that's such a creepy visual just and you know he's going fast too. You know this dude's like flipping like a gymnast just show. Gosh, it's terrifying. It's fine. It's like it's so scary. It's funny. Like thinking about that happening to you in the middle of the night. Also, bro, who is even going to believe like you saying that to somebody? Who the fuck is going to believe that? Yeah, the guy just wouldn't stop now flipping. I'd be like, uh-huh, would never. I would never believe that. Of course not because he said it guys back flipping through the woods in the middle of the night coming right at you. But it goes back to the whole thing about the uncannyness of these humanoids that they're trying to mimic human motion and mobility but it all comes off wrong. I think we can agree that there's stuff going out here in the woods. Well, 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 this is that it is so damn important to be safe when you're out there. A lot of you think you're invincible. The fact is that 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 best to continue this series as soon as possible. Thanks for all your continuing support. It means the world to me. End of part six. Horsabbon. Can you imagine that motherfucker back flipping at you and then the guy who's like uncannily like making those long strides towards you as well. I'd be like, what the fuck is going on at these. Just dude and stuff man. I would I would pull the gun on myself. I wouldn't care. I'd be like, man, I'm not I'm not taking prisoners. Something's getting shot here right now. I'm tied right now. It's going to be me. I'm like, man, I'm good. No satisfaction for these guys. Sorry. I mean, part seven. What are the topics I could ask about a lot here and in real life involving things like the rake, the one to go, oh, oh, I mean, way to go the one to go and other related 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't 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 tried to take things with a grain of salt. You have to out here. 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 they're probably ghost or whatever you want to call them all over the place, but it doesn't do you any good. Just makes it harder to do your job. I think a lot of us feel that way and that's why we try to just go back to our work like everything's 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 be 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 K.D. a bit about her experience because I wanted to know what she thought about the one to go. 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. I'd had something similar happen. I contacted this person, H or Skype, and they agreed to talk to me a bit. They're aware of my work here. They're fine with me posting the whole story exactly as they wrote it. Now batting number 10, 100. That's what it feels like. I grew up in central. Now this one, this one, I'm just, I'm trying to find the end of the quotation marks. It's a big one. I, this one might be closer to a curve ball. This is a screw ball. Look at it. 90s or miles of that over to your top left shoulder. I have to persevere. And I have to submit right. This has to be crazy. I'm going to say that this is a, I apologize for anyone listening. This is going to probably be a long strand of hiccups and spasas trying to decipher at the best you can. I sincerely apologize. Okay. I grew up in central Oregon. And there's a reservation called Warm Springs, about two or so hours from where I lived. I only mention that because a lot of people in that, in that, in a lot, 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 be in touch and camp out around the same time. We camp out for about two weeks, so we were out for a long time. I asked him if he camped. it at RV. Yeah, my dad had one. So I guess I wasn't really camping. But we take our tents and stuff and set them up out away from camp most nights. And I didn't like sleeping in there because I because I like being outside. We talked for 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 out about a third of a mile from a main camp far enough away from where we couldn't hear or see anyone else. I remember that. We were messing around most of the day and I don't really remember much about it. But we ended up building a fire at some point and I was really impressed because he was a 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 looking back was really stupid because it was in the middle of fucking summer. And if I remember right, the fire warning was either a 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 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 feet from the river and we were at the we're at the widest point. So it's probably about 20 feet to the other bank. It gets hot up there's in the summer, but that's what that water's still cold, which is important. I looked 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. I saw a pair of antlers, so I figured it was it was a buck. But I thought it was weird. It was waiting into the water. And it definitely was definitely heading for us. But I asked Nolan what he thought we should do. He's looking at the fire. He's looking at the fire with his weird expression as he tells me to sit down and shut up. So I do so. Because I'd never seen him act like that before. He's worse than me to ignore it, just to 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 attention and I kept trying to see it over shoulder. But every time I did, he sort of hit me with his arm and make sure I look to look at him. It wasn't really scared. I remember I was just sort of confused, but then I hear the deer coming up 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. Started to get up. Super freaked out, but Nolan just yanked me back down and talked a louder about this television show. 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 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. It was about ready to pee my pants. And I think I'd probably have to run if it had 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, but the way that it cured itself was wrong. Like its center of balance was screwed up. 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 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. We could hear what it was saying. I leaned forward a tiny bit, and I actually did pee my pants, but I leaned forward too. I couldn't see its face, but I saw its eyes. They were cloudy and milky. If you want to know what it looked like, find that scene from where the rings were for it to fall in that lake, and all the dead people are floating towards them. That's what it looked like. So I saw these two white eyes floating above Nolan's head, and the really big shape of it and antlers coming out of its head. I don't know what my face looked like, but at exactly that same time, Nolan, I fucking booked it out of there. And we ran nonstop until we got back to the main camp. My pants were soaked with piss, so I took them off as we were running and threw them in the bushes. We both stopped once we were in front of Dad's RV, and we couldn't see anything chasing us. So we stood there and caught our breath, and I asked him what the things, what 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 heard anything, if he heard it talking to, and he said that the only thing he'd be 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. It does remind me in a lot of ways of the "Windigo" legend. I was afraid she'd describe it that I think fits perfectly, which is that the "Windigo" is the spirit of the lonely places. I know that sometimes when I'm out in the wind, 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 really can't explain. I don't know what it, I don't know if it happens to anyone else, but it's the desire to consume. It's not like a crave anything, it's not like a crave anything particular, but more of this weird, distracting hunger that comes from every part of my gut. Also warned me. Man, I was so right. I was so right. I was so right with the hunger saying earlier, man. God, your voice scared the shit out of me. This is lost in the sauce there. I also wanted to find out more about these faceless man. If I was able and I found new similar things, I asked around my circles of friends and one of them said he was out doing repairs at a park in his area and he saw something kind of like that. We were having dinner in town. Five of us included myself. This guy, he was repainting in an information booth and heard a man ask for 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 needed, but if he headed down the road about four 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. The second he came up and talked to me, my hair was on my neck stood up. But I wasn't sure why. I just had this really uneasy feeling about the whole thing. I wanted to finish paint and get out of there. My figure maybe part of it was that I couldn't turn around to look at him, but something just fell off. There's also this weird smell floating around even before the guy talked to me, kind of like old period blood. I had looked around to see what was causing it, but 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 of the ladder to look down and see what he was doing. I have to admit, he could have just been my brain fucking up, but I swear to you, Russ, for a split second when I turned around, that fucker didn't have a face. Like he had no face. It was almost concave and totally smooth. And I just about had a fucking hard tack because I couldn't even wrap up my brain, 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 normal looking guy. I must have been looking, I must have looked fucking weird because he asked me if I was okay, and I was just like, Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. He asked about the campsite again. I poined, I poined him where he was supposed to go. And he's like, I'm not from around here. Can you help me get there? Now this is when I was, now this is when I knew there was something really up because and 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 did he get here in the first place? I said, I was sorry, but that I couldn't take him anywhere in the company vehicle. And he's like, you know, 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 started wondering if there was some kind of ambush or whatever. And 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. He just goes, Oh, no, and walks away real quickly. But he doesn't walk out of the park. He just walks back into the fucking trees. And I got right in my fucking truck. And I start to get out of there, fuck the pain or whatever. I looked at my mirror and see where he was. And I was leaving. He just stand right at the tree line again. And I don't know how he got there so fast. But this time, I know that fucker didn't have a face. He was just watching me leave. But right before I turn the corner, he took a big step back 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 with a slightly different twist. You know, actually, I had something sort of weird like that happen 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 though. I hadn't seen anyone else for probably good two 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 I'll know where I crested this hill, this little hill and almost ran into this guy. He was older probably in the 60s. And I started to apologize to him for running into him. and then I noticed his face. I probably looked like a complete douchebag because I stopped and it's just stared at him and it took me a second to figure out what was wrong. With this guy's face was huge. I know that sounds weird, but that's the only way to describe it. His head wasn't bigger or anything. It was normal, but the amount of space in his face was just way too much. Like if you text someone's face and enlarge it all by about two times. He doesn't say nothing. He just kind of looks at me and I backed up and wasn't stuttered and saying I was sorry and I went around him and fucking 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 popped up behind or something. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I sweared to you. It was one of the creepiest things I'd 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. It was real stigma around discussing them, even when we were away from work. I broke the eyes of the story of my own and the guy who told me that who told the story about the faceless man told this one I'll be it very quietly a couple of years ago. I was camped with my girlfriend and we were about two miles from the road at this side. I don't know. We went to bed that night, but we couldn't sleep because someone interjected a funny comment. We dangerously closed to getting off on another subject, and I'll get back on track. Yeah, funny. You fucker. No. It was because we kept here in that grinding noise. My brother used to grind his teeth and sleep, and it kind of reminds me of that. A girlfriend was freaking out, but I just kept telling her to ignore it. I've heard it before. 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 back to sleep. I woke up probably two hours later because something just it's 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 called her name, but I didn't have to go far. She stayed at the edge of the camp, looking at something in the trees, and I could see that 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. She was dead to sleep, 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 that really quietly something like, I have to go now, Eddie. I have to go. It's here. And I was like, you're just sleepwalking. Come back to bed. But she wouldn't budge. She just kept staying there and saying that she had to go. I looked where she was looking. And there was a fucking staircase right about 15 yards away, gray one concrete. She had 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 fucking mind. And she asked what the fuck she was doing out of the tent. And I didn't tell her anything. I just told her she was sleepwalking. Grinding was gone. So she went back to the tent with me and fell asleep again. I don't know. I don't like thinking about that, you know, we all knew. You guys remember the kids with, I can't remember what it was. Some kind of brain fuck up, not downs, but something like that. 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 fucked up beyond belief. I mean, you have to take it with a grain of salt because who knows what kind of kid actually thinks it's real. But some of this stuff, I don't think he could have made it up like what? 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 because he just kept saying that let the campfire it over and over, you know, and he kept mentioning sounds, but he couldn't say what sounds just that it was loud and he covered his ears and he couldn't hear them. But the thing I remember most is that they asked him where exactly he'd gone. And he just said that he was right there. He kept pointing at himself. And they said that they thought that they meant that he thought he'd never left. He said he wasn't scared because the stairs were there. And they said that they talked 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 an leisure, fugue, and they didn't think foul play was involved. It 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 is goes. Still a lot of questions I want to answer. I'll continue to ask around and find out whatever I can. The next update should be soon. Thanks for being so patient. And also find me on Tumblr search and rescue was dot tumblr dot com end of part seven. Congratulations. You did a really good job. Yeah, I remember that whole part, but I forgot it was a part of this series. Oh, interesting. So you remembered that like as a story, but you forgot that it's a part of this. I remembered so distinctly the one about like the window go with the skin walker coming up to them by the campfire and then looking forward to not addressing it. I remember the guy asking for a ride and then walking into the woods. I remember all of that, but I totally forgot his part of the series. I like the idea of these guys sharing stories for like the first time and like they're you could tell that they're all very like nervous to do so. Yeah, but they've got a lot on their chest. Yeah, man, that yeah, I really like the I like the faceless guy walking into the woods. I like how he says the the stairs came up to him like the campfire almost implying that like as the fire grows like this, he watched the stairs materialized out of the ground like he watched an appearance of them happen. Again, there's just so many cool ideas and presentations. And again, there's stuff you can connect like the girl seeing the staircase and like going into a few state with the one search rescue officer who seemed to be in a few state. And then there's the mental illness saying prop it up again, like maybe they're too trusting or like the innocence that's being preyed upon and stuff like that. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of cool places you can draw lines between stuff. Yeah. Well, final part. Final part, let's do it part eight. 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 out here would affect every single part of my life. And maybe that was stupid to me. Maybe I should have considered it more seriously, but honestly, I just thought I was writing about 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 boss is no someone's 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'm not just speaking 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 if I see them, I can wreck traffic away somewhere safer. Because 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 I can't even remember most of them. Once I do remember are the ones that I wish I could forget. One story that's made the rounds here was about a young woman who disappeared upstate. Initially, everyone assumed she was a runaway. She didn't come from a great home life, and so it really wasn't any kind of surprise that she chose to come 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 had a hunger cell for something on any of the back trails. I took them a while, but they did find her. Well, not all of her, just half of her tongue in a quarter of her lower jaw. Very clean cuts for what I heard. They've never found the rest of her. So many stories about children. So many of them going missing and turning up in caves wedged in between impossible tight spaces. So many of them found on mountain peaks, were at the bottom of sheer gullies, missing shoes, missing socks, were found with both in perfect condition, despite them being miles and miles away from where they vanished. So many stories of black eyed people wandering around the woods and calling out in the night, mimicking the sound of running water or bobcat screaming, running water is crazy. Nice and sad. Just sounds like a scream, man. One man in particular goes to every new station he thinks will listen to him and tells the same story. He was deer hunting, 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, leaped back and was gone by the time he opened the tent flap, got on the side. He fired two warning shots, and when the sounds 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 this hunter described it, the man was made of some kind of amalgamation of raw meat and hair. Sick. it's scooped up, wrote, kill, and molded it into the vague shape of a man. That's similar to the ice. Remember the guy that was made of ice? That was like a person. It's like using stuff. 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, it fired. >> That's awesome. >> It did this twice before mimicking the sound of the tin zipper and flaying into the night. That was fucking up. I'm like, cool, I'm leaving. >> It opens its mouth mate. The meat pile makes two gunshot noises and then your tent and then runs off into the darkness. >> Open just mouth and just makes a warning shot. >> It's terrifying. A young couple out for a hike in the rocky areas in my park reported to me yesterday, they had seen something strange out on a pink, 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 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 is about five miles 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 the peak. The young man didn't see where the climber landed. I sent him on their way with the sureances I'd check it out. I lied. I won't be turning into a report because there are 10 others exactly like it. The climber is well known in that area. I don't question it anymore. Is that not so sick? >> I love that. Is that not so cool? The idea of maybe a guy died. He fell over the mountain and died there. It just looks like him. Climbs of the top waves jumps off. That's so good. There's so many things I won't be able to understand about my job. It would take me years to relate all of the things I've heard in the last few months. When I feel like my job isn't in jeopardy, I'll come back. Maybe 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. 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. Above all, don't touch them. Don't look at them. Don't go up them. And that is the end. That is the end of Stairs and the Woods. They have two notes at the end about, again, the Tumblr, Search and Rescue Woods. And then they also said, "I realize I probably should have mentioned this at the beginning of the series as being paused, but the story's going to live on." A book is in the works. The first draft is coming along very nicely. People look out, no sleep. And then I spoke to the author, who's my friend, as mentioned earlier, and they said they're still working on it and there should be an announcement soon. So, D also, Isaiah also got a story that, I don't think it's, I don't think it's linked exactly to Stairs and the Woods. I don't think they ever posted it. Okay, but the guy did, the author did direct us to another story about like Boy Scouts. That we're going to be reading on our Patreon. But we'll just leave it there just because it's not pertaining exactly to the story. But that'll be an extra episode that we'll have up on the Patreon if you'd like to do it. It's, you know, it's crazy though, it's insane that we did have a great first episode. We just didn't read it correctly. You know what I mean? I think like being able to actually sit down and read it again, how fun? Because I know we read it before. And then when you're talking about something in hindsight, it's never as good as just like reading it and then being immersed into it. Because there's so many, you know, we've seen a lot of stories like this too now with like creepy out in the woods, things, when to go, skin walker type stuff. But still, I just, I love this little digestible format of like getting a little spook and then going into the next thing and having like all these different fun flavors that you get to choose from, which is really nice. Don't do me wrong. I love long, continuous stories that have a great payoff or, you know, when they do have a great payoff. But it is nice just having something like this. It's, it's, this was a really fun read through it. I'm glad we read it. Yeah. Yeah. I think some of the details in this story are so good, like the mimicry stuff and like the most and obviously the stairs is like I said earlier, a mainstay of online internet horror from the story that did such a good job with it. It's an incredible story that deserves its flowers and I'm glad it gets them. I really can't wait for a book or something to come out. They had posted after this on the same account a couple of two updates that if I recall right, we're supposed to be parts of the book or like early chapters of the book. Kind of like little sneak peeks. So we'll leave those for you on their account. Again, user search and rescue woods be linked in the description if you want to read those for yourself. But like as they said, more is on the way and we're going to read a little bonus over on the Patreon too. So there's certainly more of this. The author deserves a ton of love there. Again, not only a good friend, but a great writer as you've heard. So please be sure to support him because this is great. This is an OG in the internet horror realm for good reason and also an OG for us because it was the first Greek cast episode. Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to almost get fucking emotional talking about it, but I mean, like two years of doing this guys is such a huge fucking blessing. We had an amazing live charity show. I mean, like what this fandom has become with this podcast has become is insane. Like I never expected something like this to occur, you know, with just a buddy that was just kind of an offhanded idea that I had one day. So it's cool to just kind of see how far it's come. And it's just I don't know. It's awesome. You know, I know that like not every story we read is a fucking banger, but I can always say like you guys supporting the authors and supporting this podcast, making memes, making art, writing your own stories now, very inspiring. And it's just fucking cool to see. We really do have like an amazing fandom. So I appreciate you. Yeah. You guys are fantastic. You have been a blessing every step of the way to allow this podcast to be so successful to enjoy it as much as we have. See just love and support. I never take it for granted. So thank you guys for how good you've been to me. Happy two years, guys. Stay creep. Happy two years. See you in the next one. See you. I have to give an insult to Hunter right now. May we just had a sappy moment. It's hard to be mean. I can do it. I can push through. If I bet he get lured away by metal music and something gross like a giant zit popping or something like that. Yeah. A metal zit. That's what would get him. Yeah. Bye. [Music] That one was my favorite. I remember all that, but I'm so happy.