3 HOURS of TRUE SCARY STORIES | The Lets Read Podcast Episode 063

[Music] so the story is from a friend of mine but I have his permission to post it here he stole him on multiple occasions and I swear to god it's one of the scariest stories I've ever heard in my life it doesn't involve bigfooter ghosts or anything like that it's a story of how reality can be way way scarier than anything like that for the longest time he worked as a trail ranger at a large national park a trail ranger is basically a ranger only with considerably less judicial power he can arrest you or anything but if you're in an illegal blind or hunting stand he had the power to call in actual cops before ripping down whatever unlicensed hide you've constructed so this one time he's accompanying an actual forest ranger in taking down unauthorized hunting cameras and feeders the actual Ranger was an older guy who started to feel unwell towards the early afternoon so he headed back on his own it was like an hour's ride on an ATV and left my buddy to finish up just as he was almost done my friend starts to hear voices coming through the trees it's important to keep in mind that he was way way off the beaten path at this point so it's not like he expected there to be anyone around but it occurs to him that these might be the people putting up the illegal cameras and blinds in the first place he calls out to them demanding to know who they are but the voices just go quiet and there's not a sound to be heard other than the occasional birdsong it's also starting to get dark by that time so he starts heading back towards the trail where his ATV is parked when he finds it and tries to start it up it won't budge that's when he noticed that the ATV battery has been torn out and taken by someone not some prank by the older Ranger someone has actually disabled his means of escape the way he tells it this obviously made him extremely nervous especially since he'd already heard voices in the area he radios back into the ranger station he's based at basically telling them that they needed someone to come pick him up they reply they'll have someone out to him within an hour but when he asks about the older Ranger they tell him he hasn't arrived back yet again this made him really nervous since the Ranger should have easily arrived back by that point he settled down and started a small fire as the Sun went down but before long he heard those same voices again they're not happy at all he said it sounded like they were in the middle of a vicious argument with one guy angry and yelling while the other sounded frightened and apologetic he listens for a minute or two before calling out into the darkness asking if anyone needed help the way he tells it they must have heard him he could hear them so they must have heard them in return but they didn't react like they were too absorbed with their disagreement to answer him my friend then radios back into the ranger station for a progress report they replied saying they were having a little trouble finding the trail he was on but that they wouldn't be much longer the older Ranger however still hadn't arrived back at the station about 5 or 10 more minutes go by wooden my trail Ranger friend begins to hear the same angry voices start up again he decides to walk towards them hoping maybe he can prevent a potential assault and maybe even get his hands on some food and water he walked in their direction but the voices seemed to be getting further away no matter how much he tried to close in on them finally after like 20 minutes of walking he gave up and hiked back to his fire it's about then that he got a radio call and they said the older Ranger guy has been found passed out covered in vomit haven't fallen from his ATV he was being taken to the hospital and that had taken priority over finding my friend I mean that's understandable but my friend is getting kind of frustrated at this point he's out in the woods on his own and it's getting real chilly out then the voices came back he's pretty bored at this point and he's convinced these guys don't want any company so he said he just sat there in the darkness listening to them argue over something he's picking up little phrases here and there when the voices begin to shout things like well it wasn't yours to take or I don't care it's mine stuff like that he says he assumed it was two hunters maybe arguing over a kill but there was a good chance they were blaming each other for the missing equipment that my friend and the Ranger had confiscated he heard the argument get louder as one of the hunters shouted something unintelligible then out of nowhere bang a single gunshot echoes through the woods he immediately doused his fire we ran a couple hundred meters into the trees then hidden the thicket he said he waited there for as long as he could stand it hearing absolutely nothing but his own heavy breathing until he saw the lights of an ATV he told the guy picking him up everything that had happened and they called into the ranger station they had people looking for three hours out there but not a single thing was found by any of the Rangers they came back the next day with State Police and tracker dogs it only took about an hour before a shallow grave was found in it was a long dead corpse of a man who had clearly been shot in the forehead thing was it was a skeleton that had been there for years and years so either the argument he heard just ended with a bang in both parties went home last night or he heard the murder of someone from years ago I don't really believe the last part and to be honest neither does he but it certainly makes for a creepy ending to the story but the really scary part for me is that there's every chance that the gunshot he heard that night was yet another murder and that the body will be found in a similar way by some unwary Ranger like some horrible time loop that'll never end [Music] I've been a hunter for more than 20 years my dad taught me just like my grandpa taught him same as I taught my own son in turn I faced down grizzly bears packs of hungry coyotes even guys I suspected to be cartel tending to illegal grow sites but they're things a man can deal with a can of bear mace a warning shot only once have I come across something I didn't know how to deal with only once have I ever truly been frightened when I hunt I take dogs they're a pair of big old Airedale Terriers good hunting hounds and even better company just from the way they're acting I can tell if there's a bear in the area or if we're still in the trail of that whitetail we've been tracking unfortunately on the day in question they couldn't pick up anything I mean that's not unusual at first it normally takes an hour or two to really get a sense of what's been moving through the area to kind of tune into the forest but we've walked for hours and hours and didn't find so much as a squirrel the woods were eerily quiet that day so reluctantly I doubled back to a creek we passed and sat down to fish the fish however were not so shy and I managed to get one on the hook in record time one of the joys of hunting smaller game is actually being able to eat whatever you've killed right there and then and nothing tastes as good as fresh fried fish so I tie my fishing line off on a tree letting my dinner hang there in the Evening Sun well I get to work building a small cooking fire right there next to the lake it took a little longer than I've had liked thanks to recent summer rains but soon I'd had the tinder crackling with smoke and flame then it was just a case of gutting that fish and tossing it in the pan with some Crisco gutting a fish is easy but it sure ain't glamorous sometimes you pull out a parasite or two that's attached itself to the gills or guts just one or two normally but this thing had a mess of them in its belly it's shimmering insides were black with riding worms it was sick real sick I tossed it on the fire and washed my hands off in the creek I've never seen anything like that to know my years but I wasn't scared disgusted sure but not scared not yet anyway I kicked some dirt on the fire whistled the dogs and began to walk back to the car I decided that I'd make a point of stopping by the park ranger station to tell them about those parasites I'd seen inside the fish only I never made it to the ranger station my dogs a real good boys they know not to make a lot of noise out in the woods lest they scared the game away most I've ever seen them make noises a kind of muted yapping whenever there's a grizzly in the area so when we're about halfway back to my truck one of them lets out this string of loud angry barks my first thought is that it's another person out here with another dog trigger as a friendly boy but he barks up a storm whenever he sees her smells another hound I tell it to hustle up but Aegis keeps on barking for a moment or two before he did the weirdest thing he slinks back towards me tail between his legs whining and yapping like I hadn't seen him since he was a puppy I reached down to pet him and he was shaking like a leaf then out of nowhere he just peed right there on the ground he didn't [ __ ] his leg like he normally does against a tree the poor guy just let loose almost like he didn't mean to that's what got me thinking what is it that had trigger so scared whatever it was it was close enough for him to catch the thing scent big enough to make him freak out like that I had no intention of hanging around to find out what it was I started walking back in the direction of my truck a little faster than before the dogs were bounding back and forth barking into the woods behind us and yelping at me as if to say hurry up old man I kept the wheeling around with my rifle pressed into my shoulder ready to fire at some mama grizzly who decided I was too much of a risk to her babies but nothing came I didn't even hear twig snapping no tree branches swaying whatever it was coming at us was moving totally silently that was around the time I began to smell this real strong scent in the air kind of like cat pee or something only it has this awful rotten tinge to it I don't think I'd run like that since high school I was exhausted when I finally got back to my truck dripping sweat from hauling my nearly 50 year old self across half a mile of woodland the dogs actually tried to scramble over to me to get into the cab once I'd unlocked the door and I may or may not have been speeding down that dirt road before I even closed the door I couldn't take my mind off of the whole drive home and the more I thought about it the more it was obvious that something was terribly wrong with the woods around that area even in the middle of winter when most of the birds and animals move south for warmer pastures the woods are alive with the sounds of nature hammering woodpeckers the occasional high-pitched squeal of an elk the screeching of birds the prey from above they're never ever quiet but that day the woods were completely silent it reminded me of a documentary I'd seen on natural disasters before an earthquake or tsunami all of the animals in an affected area seemed a sense the oncoming danger and flee this has been reported time and time again by the survivors of such events whatever was out there the animals had sensed it just like my dogs had and had scared them like the devil I have no trouble admitting that I was terrified like I said I've been a hunter for more than 20 years and nothing has ever so much as made me jump but something wasn't right about the woods that day something that still makes my skin crawl to think about even to this day I told a few old buddies of mine one time but they just laughed and called it a campfire story some days I really really wish it was let me make something clear I'm not telling any of you my name nor am I telling you where when this all took place why because I still might go to prison for this whatever happened never made the papers no cops ever appeared at my front door looking to ask questions not yet anyway part of me thinks that day might never come but just in case I need to confess so I can at least go on with my life with a semblance of normalcy I honestly don't care if people believe that's or not that people call it at his fake well maybe I really will get away with this I've never been particularly active I'm an indoor sort of guy less trails and rivers more Netflix and Domino's but my wife's family on the other hand are total opposites when I married into the family my size and athleticism became the butt of most of their jokes they wore on me for a while until my wife made a suggestion go hunting with her brother earn a little respect then maybe I'd find Thanksgiving at their place a little less unbearable so I agreed the two-hour drive out into the woods with my brother-in-law was awkward to say the least he's one of those guys who's unable to hold down any kind of conversation that strays from the NFL and light beer however he did seem to perk up once I'd mentioned I'd never fired a gun before through Wiis laughter he told me how it'd be fun seeing the city boy try to handle the recoil of a 30-odd six or whatever that meant but I admit I was kind of excited about the prospect of firing one for the first time after all I put enough time into call of duty I thought he parked the truck then pulled out two big rifle slips from the rear storage inside were two rifles big old things made of wood and iron that were way heavier than I had expected he wasn't wrong about how amusing he'd find it watching me fire one either the recoil made me jump out of my skin and the sights nearly hit me right in the eye thanks to looking into them a little too close but to be honest I didn't care how funny my brother-in-law thought it was I found the whole experience exhilarating I missed my shot on the tree stump he told me to aim at but when I insisted on trying again and again and so I hit the thing he seemed to react exactly how my wife had assumed he would he respected that I didn't just give up soon the conversation flowed a little more freely with considerably less jibs about me being a liberal city boy as he so deftly put it I don't know why I doubted her my wife was right he was her brother after all once he thinks I'm ready we started walking further out into the woods to look for deer he goes through the fundamentals of deer stalking with me had to tread lightly and to stay downwind from your potential quarry I honestly didn't think we'd see anything my brother-in-law told me himself that sometimes luck just wasn't on your side especially for newer hunters like myself but we were wrong we did see something through a dense patch of bushes I saw something poking over the top something symmetrical and pointed I silently got my brother-in-law's attention pointing towards what I'd seen what was clearly a set of deer antlers I expected him to rush into action and shoot the thing through the bush but he just pointed at me frantically indicating that it should be me to take the shot so I did just like he'd shown me I rested the butt of the rifle into my shoulders aligning the front and rear sights in my vision then slowly and gently squeezed the trigger the antlers disappeared and on the other side of the bush something hit the dirt with a thud I'd done it my first kill I could see in his eyes how impressed he was how rare it was for a first time hunter to bag a buck on his first shot let alone his first hunt we rushed through the brush to check out the kill but we couldn't never have been ready for what we were about to see blood and brain were strewed across the dirt and fallen leaves in front of us looking almost right among the dull color of the forest floor and there were antlers all right but they weren't attached to a deer it was a woman completely naked lying in the dirt before us her body was an ashen gray like it had been painted with mud or something the antlers were part of some kind of headdress that lay next to her still warm body my first reaction was to pull out my phone I didn't think I just acted I wasn't thinking about the consequences I was halfway to calling the EMTs when my brother-in-law slapped the phone out of my hand I'm not going to prison because of some dumb hippie he hissed but she didn't look like any hippie I'd ever seen the headdress she'd been wearing had no flowers in it it wasn't at all pretty it was a mess of dead roots and vines with what looked like teeth and rat's tails stitched into it aside from that weird body paint she had on that made her look like a corpse her fingernails were long yellowing and sharp after that is kind of a blur I remember running back to the truck being so out of shape that I stopped the puke against a tree than more running my head was spinning by the time we got back to the truck we said nothing to each other on the drive back we didn't need to it was out to keep our mouth shut or it would be the end of her lives as we knew it when we got back my brother-in-law explained that I'd shot my first deer but it freaked out and ran when I saw the body couldn't handle being a killer he said unknotted playing along that I was too much of a baby to be a hunter and they all believed it the played right into their stereotype of me and no one ever questioned a thing no one thought it was suspicious that we came back earlier or without the deer we killed the butcher for meat my brother-in-law and I barely talked now we see each other on the odd holiday but the conversation never advanced past small talk each of us just tries not to think about it but I do I can't help it I wonder which one of us is going to break first and for me sometimes I worry he thinks I'm going to snap and tell my wife that he'll invite me into the woods for one last hunting trip and I'll never be seen again [Music] I'm a hunter up here in Minnesota in a town not far north of Mill Lacs Lake I have a handful of stories detailing freaky instances that have taken place on hunts here's the first one season in particular I was fairly deep in the woods from a snowmobile trail when I hunt I typically carry my xxx out six knife and pack I feel fairly confident in the woods but this season I had some concern the deer population seemed lower on our property recently and we knew there were wolves around because you find their tracks not to mention being able to hear them howl at night but luckily they typically don't mess with people but as I was scanning for deer tracks in the dirt I found a different set of tracks that stood out to me they looked canine - the nail marks and was a bit wider the paw and it looked like a hundred and fifty pound animal when it clicked that it was a feline track a big one and fairly fresh I knew there were bobcats around but they don't get that big so the next logical step is to assume that there was a cougar in the area I decided to double back so I'm heading back east on the trail when my dad calls and asked me to do a push through the woods towards his stand so I say sure at this point his stand as maybe 500 metres through thick woods from me and I'm concerned about the large predator nearby but I also know that I'm 6 for in about a hundred and ninety pounds before putting on my gear statistically speaking Cougars don't tend to attack healthy adult men so I push forward I get about halfway to the other stand when I get concerned because I lost my marker I stop to regain my bearings and then it hits me something in my gut tells me you're being watched then I noticed how still the woods are deathly quiet then I hear a branch snap behind me maybe 20 meters I study my rifle and scan in the circle but only see trees and brush I wait and it's just way too quiet so I push forward towards my dad stand the whole time I'm hearing something not far behind me that's quietly keeping pace eventually I stopped hearing it and the woods went back to normal with the birds singing and whatnot then I stepped out onto a trail about 40 meters from my dad's stand I suspected it was the Cougar that made the tracks my guess is that it thought I would put up too much of a fight or it caught my dad scent and chose to back off I never did see it but something definitely was following me second story this happened about two years ago now I decided to take my fiancee hiking after one evening in a park was some nice bluffs to climb for a great view if I'm honest I was hoping to see a nice sunset and earned some boyfriend points so I could drink with my buddies on the weekend without complaint you should know that this isn't a particularly safe thing to do at this time of night so I gave her my tactical knife and I carried a 40 caliber pistol we arrived and parked the car before heading up a trail and then about a hundred metres in we spook what I assumed was a deer which halted away from us so quickly that I only saw a flash of tan honestly it scared us pretty good too so now I'm on edge and we round a crest and a hill and I see a black mass to my left and my peripheral vision I unsnapped the retention of my holster and turned to engage what turned out to be nothing but a mound of black dirt so I calm down and we continue on with our nice little evening hike with birds chirping bugs making noise regular forest stuff now for the creepy part once when we were within 20 meters of the halfway point on the trail it starts to feel real eerie almost like we're being watched this time it clicked right away the woods are now dead but I started noticing movement keeping pace with us so I keep us moving towards the top of the hill the high ground which is the halfway point on the trail we reach it and stop so does whatever was following us but the woods are still dead calm and my fiance tells me she thinks we are being followed so we decided to move on and take a shortcut back down the bluff to the paved trail we make it and the woods get back to normal sounds again we considered hiking more but we're a bit too spooked and left the park now whatever was following us I suspect was another cougar it was quiet and we didn't see it and the strangest part is that the stalking noises it did make sounded elevated like it was moving from tree to tree and bit cats have been known to do this story three perhaps the least explainable of them all this one happened around June or July of 2007 I believe I was around 17 years old and much more cocky then but still somewhat knowledgeable of the outdoors my family used to own a cabin in Northwest Wisconsin I basically grew up there in the summer and knew the woods well but at night it was wise to stay in the cabin or lease by the bonfire by the beach because of bears wolves and cougars one of the creepiest things was if you were having a bonfire the tree line was visible from the fire pit sand beach and the nights you always felt like you were being watched from that tree line but during the day the woods always seemed normal not so creepy that is until this incident this happened in broad daylight sometime around noon me my cousin were having an airsoft battle I was in full woodland camo he was not I retreated onto the ATV trail into the woods for a tactical advantage in our battle took us about 200 meters of the trail we had enough at this point to we're standing at the edge of a clearing on the trail talking and he was maybe ten feet from me when I decided to mess with him I shushed him and said we're being watched he froze then I realized the woods were dead quiet and I got spooked and started scanning the treeline and the other edge of the clearing from left to right when I saw it its teeth gave it away it was panting and staring at my cousin I don't expect you to believe me but what I saw was a wolf as big as a black bear at least 300 pounds but it wasn't normal this wolf was on two legs crouching next to a tree with its arms grasping the tree grasping with a clawed hand it had reddish brown fur the next thing I know were both of us sprinting back towards our cabin I look back at the wolf or bear thing which was now in the process of full-on charging us barreling through the brush but for whatever reason has stopped following us as we broke out of the tree line wood struck with me the most was the sheer size the wolf thing had to be nearly seven feet tall when upright and that where it should have had front paws it appeared to have large clawed hands now I'm not sure how to explain it away rationally I have heard wolves will occasionally kind of walk upright but as far as I know they can't sprint on two legs nor do wolves get that big and black bears more waddle on their hind legs I still have no idea to this day exactly what that thing was [Music] I live in the San Jose is Silicon Valley area for most of my life have been an avid hunter ever since my dad and uncle took me along on a trip when I was a kid some of the woodlands out there are some of the last great wilderness areas on the west coast the kind of places where radio or even cell towers won't reach the kind of place that when you're there we truly are disconnected from the modern world so one day I'm out with my buddy in our usual hunting spot which happens to be near a creek now this Creek is home to steelhead trout black trout deer all kinds of red and yellow like frogs all of which are species rapidly approaching the endangered list but when I happened upon the creek I find the thing is bone-dry not even so much of a trickle of water flowing through it all the steelhead trout SAR dead lying there rotting in the sweltering afternoon Sun I start to notice all this plastic and piping at the bottom of the creek where it feeds out so I think okay that's probably just a rancher who needs the water for cattle or something but regardless diverting natural water sources like this is terrible for the land as you probably guess from the mention of all those rare trout just lying there dead I started following the plastic piping about a hundred meters through the trees until I began to see this little canyon in it being fed by the water pipes leeching from the creek nearby or hundreds of marijuana plants there short because it's early in the season maybe only about two or three feet tall so I can easily see these two human figures crouched among the plants while tending to them now I've run across these kinds of operations before they're usually planted by old hippies or small-time gangbangers but these guys had rifles slung across their backs pistols and little hip or leg holsters they even had these big old knives they look like they could be special for skies or something seriously not the usual people I run into it these things the other thing I noticed is the environmental damage these guys are doing most to Wilderness grow sites at least trying to tidy up after themselves especially the hippie types who generally leave nothing but their boot prints but these guys left camp trash strewn everywhere empty plastic bags of fertilizer empty propane tanks all kinds of garbage they're unaware that I'm watching them at this point they're still just working their plants cruising through the grow site towards where I'm stood that was like that ohnot moment or I realized if anything went down here we'd have no help no backup I had my old bolt-action and a buck knife but these guys had ar-15s there's no way I'd last two minutes in a straight-up gunfight with them so we just watch for a few minutes using our deer stocking skills to remain unseen or so we thought crack and there were panic screams and Spanish from the canyon below one second were crouched among the bushes the next my buddy is lying flat he was back at first I had no idea what had happened I thought he might have slipped and fallen but then I saw the blood he'd been shot by an ambush er who had been watching us just as we'd been watching them the bullet passed through both of his thighs completely taking his leg out from under him causing him to pump blood out onto the forest floor it was horrible I had no idea those guys down there who has zoomed were hardened Mexican cartel at this point were on their way up to finish this off I racked around into my hunting rifle and fired it in their general direction then did the same with my buddy's rifle hoping it might deter them for a moment or two I had no first date on me at all I had one back in the truck but that was miles away we had to think fast my buddy was already screaming at me to cut his shirt off to make a pair of improvised tourniquets I did so terrified that it wouldn't be enough to stem the horrendous amounts of blood squirting that of not one but four bullet wounds we managed to stem the bleeding a little but I need to get my buddy help but there's no doubt he'd have bled to death right there on the forest floor but as I mentioned before we're in a wilderness area with very little in the way of radio or cell reception so I couldn't reply on my phone to bring in the EMTs as I ran off back in the direction of my truck I wanted to fight end up running into cartel growers again it was one of the worst feelings of my life go slow and safely and my friend might die move fast and loud those cartel guys might have gotten the drop on me considering it was one of the worst days of my life we were remarkably lucky as it progressed firstly as I'm running sweating and panning like a beast through endless forest I heard some kind of high-pitched whooping sound only this wasn't any kind of animal I'd ever heard before it was human sure enough I walked straight out onto this mountain biking trail with these kids going down it's so fast that they just whizzed right past me without stopping but with breathless cries and waving arms I did manage to catch their attention one of them said their parents were nearby and they'd go get help which I told the others the direction the creek in which to send the EMTs when they arrived secondly one of the worst places to get shot or stabbed as in the mid to upper thigh which is exactly where my buddy took the bullet the reason being is the femoral artery it's one of the biggest blood vessels in the body Nick that in you're dead in minutes that's when I feared the most that the tourniquets had failed that my buddy had died of blood loss mere minutes after I had left to get help thank God that wasn't the case doctors later said that the bullet had traveled through both legs without hitting anything major which makes him one lucky sob if he asked me I heard a group of DEA agents joined the Park Rangers in eradicating the marijuana patch torched it all in one go in a controlled burn but all those chemicals done a number on the soil where the grow site was and that's the real crime if you ask me I still hunt so does my buddy although it took him a little longer than me to get back to it I suppose that's the allure of the forest you never know what you're gonna find on a hunt and you never know when the biggest danger isn't some black bear who doesn't like you too close to her cubs it's your fellow man [Music] one particularly snowy February a few years back I was out shooting birds in my beloved state of Michigan I had my old German Shepherd dog with me jazz who has to be the best bird dog this side of the Great Lakes I took jazz out for a hunt at Harrisville State Park just a few hours north of Detroit he was on one of those extendable leashes at first just in case he got too excited and took off through the forest but I bought a cheap on line and it wasn't a very good one rather than a long strap leash this was more of a cord or thick string good for a smaller dog not so good for a German Shepherd so we're getting pretty deep into the woods when we come across paw prints in the snow I'm no tracker but they look pretty canine so I figured it was a dog or something but the way jazz was barking made me think it might have been a fox foolishly I was encouraging her to find the evil Fox hyping her up with my tone of voice it was dumb because the next thing I know she's pulling on the leash really hard and I can feel the cheap plastic beginning to bend in my grip then the cord just snaps and obviously jazz does what dogs do and just follows her nose through the trees completely ignoring my cries her to stop although she wasn't exactly hard to follow and she made huge bounding tracks in the snow I was obviously extremely anxious that she'd get lost I wouldn't just be heartbroken my parents would literally murder me if I lost her dog there wasn't any undergrowth so I could see him darting around the woods about 60 or so feet in front of me smelling things while ignoring me I'm following him trying to get his attention there were coyotes in the area and I didn't want him finding a den and sticking his head in he eventually darted down a side path an unmarked unofficial trail that ran along the creek I knew it fairly well and had been on it in the summer but this was winter so it might as well have been another country the creek cut through some hills in the path was pretty much along the hilltops the creek had cut but still I followed the dog along the narrow slippery pathways that's when I hit a patch of ice but really should have seen it coming and it was dumb of me to just go running off like that in such hazardous conditions but you must know how it feels thinking you're going to lose a pet I think I'd run through fire just to catch up with that old hound I slipped falling in the frozen dirt so hard it knocked the wind out of me I'm not talking about just from the impact I really did land right on my sternum I had to roll over I was desperate to draw a breath but that's what sent me rolling down that steep hill towards the creek bed I rolled over onto my belly and tried to grab for a root to stop myself from sliding only when I grabbed it I had half a second to realize it wasn't a root it was nothing but a loose twig so I fell all the way down the hill slamming into rocks and tree stumps the whole way down am yelping and cursing but I got a flash of the frozen water in my eyes and began to panic really panic if I was injured and I ended up in that freezing cold water I was a dead man the creek was frozen over but I hit with enough force to break the ice thankfully the water wasn't deep at all in that section I landed when I tried to stand at first my knees buckled and I went to my hands and knees at first I thought my fears were confirmed that I'd broken an ankle or something but I hadn't I was just banged up from the fall pretty much everything but my shoulders and head were submerged in freezing cold water I remember screaming and frustration as I scrambled to my feet and stumbled to a place I could get back up out of the water and jazz at least came down to see what I was screaming about when she got close enough for me to grab her I tied the length of cord from her side of the broken leash to my wrist she wasn't getting away again I'd see to that it was around this time I noticed my pant leg had been ripped open when I fell into the creek and so did my knee I don't know whether it was a sharp rock or something else I landed on still I was bleeding pretty good and soon it started to throb that's when I started the walk back to my car it couldn't have been more than two or three miles but I was completely wet with ice-cold water and February bleeding and walking with a pretty bad limp like I said I'm no expert tracker or anything but I was terrified that a bear or something would smell my blood and chase me down before I got a chance to get to safety worst case scenario was of course playing in my head the whole way back to the car but I got there fueled out of my wet outer layer but I didn't have anything dry to change into I did at least have a first aid kit handy to bandage my leg I had the heater on full blast I put my unfired 22 in the back seat and there was no way I'd be shooting it while it was soaked through best to just head home and see - getting my leg checked out by a nurse but before I moved I sat there for a while on the car shaking from the cold and the realization that it could have gone a whole lot worse [Music] during the Vietnam War the CIA's special Activities Division began to recruit train and lead the indigenous Hmong people and Laos to fight against North Vietnamese army this secret army was organized into various mobile regiments and divisions including various special guerrilla units all of whom were commanded by the United States military though their role was generally kept secrets in the early stages of the conflict they made great sacrifices to help the US and were instrumental in the rescue of downed pilots it said that more than half of all the fighting aged Hmong men and Laos signed up to fight after the war thousands of economic and political refugees resettled in Western countries the Lao Veterans of America and Lao Veterans of America Institutes help to assists in the resettlement of many Laotian and Hmong refugees and asylum seekers in the United States especially former among veterans and their family members who served in the US secret army one of these refugee families was the family of a boy named Choi vang Vieng and his siblings relocated to the United States in 1980 and eventually settled in California vang lived in Sacramento and eventually enlisted in the California National Guard he served six successful years of the California Guard earning a Good Conduct Medal in attaining a marksman class sharpshooter qualification badge vang was 32 when he moved his family out to st. Paul Minnesota by this time he had followed the amoung tradition of becoming his family shaman part of which was actively hunting and spending time in nature this could be why he had chosen to move his family out to a place where the attitude to hunting was much more relaxed st. Paul is just a two-hour drive away from Meteor Wisconsin a wild area of the state in which deer hunting is particularly popular meteor extends over a large sparsely populated area and the land is a mix of public and privately owned elissa Sunday November 21st 2004 when a huntin party of about 15 people were in a cabin on some private land just outside of meteor terry willers one of the owners of the private land left the cabin and saw chai vang sitting in a deer stand wheelers used a handheld radio to ask the people still in the cabin whether or not anyone should be in that stand upon receiving a response in the negative he approached vang and told him to leave the property vang then apologized and started moving south towards a woodland trail the witness had later stated that terry had said he was going to go talk to him to find out who he is why he's there and makes sure he knows that he's on private property and that he's not welcome there I thought this to be interesting so we went to see what it was about to go down a confrontation followed one of the hunting party flipped over the hunting tag on bangs back to get his license number the events after the confrontation are disputed a violent altercation broke out and four of the eight victims were shot in the back three of these four were hit by multiple rounds vang is believed to have fired around 20 bullets from a high-caliber Saiga rifle which was later recovered by police one of the wounded hunters died the next day bringing the toll to six dead and two wounded vang fled the scene on foot and discarded his remaining ammunition later stating that he did not want to shoot anyone else vang eventually came across another hunter riding an ATV who had no affiliation with the victims and this hunter offered to give vang a ride eventually taking him - thanks cabin vang was arrested when he returned to his cabin five hours after the shooting an officer waiting for vang placed him into custody and transported him to the Sawyer County Jail his bail was set at 2.5 million there have been conflicting reports about what may have led to the shootings according to subsequent oral statements by vang one of the local hunters terry willers took the first shot at him and therefore the shootings were in self-defense no shell casing was ever recovered from Willers gun even during the trial another of the hunters admitted to firing a single shot later during the incident when bang noticing that there were survivors fired at him again others testified that no shots were fired before vang started shooting vang stated that race was a factor alleging that during the verbal disputes some of the local hunters yelled out racial slurs at him on the stand hesebeck admitted that Robert croteau had called vang among a whole new group of hunters also admitted that they had told law enforcement that they'd had problems with trespassers in the past specifically citing among hunters who often traveled to Wisconsin from Minnesota to hunt the term mud duck is often used in western Wisconsin to refer to Minnesota residents Willers used this term to describe chai vang when he radioed back to the cabin though the turn does not necessarily have a racial connotation vans defense attorney argued that it did due to the fact that the group did not know at the time that he was from Minnesota during his trial vang told the jury he feared for his life and began firing only after another hunters shot nearly hit him he detailed for the jurors how the other hunters approached him and how he responded by shooting at each one he says he shot two of the victims in the back because they were disrespectful he recounted with clarity how he killed each victim while saying on the stand that he wished it hadn't happened it was his opinion that the three of the hunters deserved to die vang further testified that they deserved to die because he accused me of giving him the finger and tried to cut in front of me to stop me from leaving they also deserve to die because he had had a gun then re-enacted his deeds while on the stand using his hands and arms to imitate the motions of firing a rifle vans lawyers commented that some of his abnormal remarks were due to the language barrier therefore when vang responded affirmatively to the question that the hunters deserved to die his meaning implied that the men contributed to the circumstances that led to their deaths on September 16 2005 chai vang was found guilty of all six charges of first-degree intentional homicide and three charges of attempted homicide by a jury of eight women and four men he was sentenced to six consecutive life terms plus seventy years for for two counts of attempted homicide plus five additional years for each count of homicide in the first degree a sentence of life without parole at the time Wisconsin was one of 12 states in the United States that did not have the death penalty so unlike his victims chai vang would escape a death he may well of richly deserved I was around 16 of the time of this happening firstly I'd like to explain what type of person I am so my actions make a bit of sense I'm an average looking girl a bit overweight which from my country makes me really undesirable for this reason I'm not used to males hitting on me or even considered it a possible assurance back then you can say that I'm usually the man in our group you know the girl that looks after every other friend when they're drinking and if a guy is being rude or harassing someone I'm the one to shut him down I don't know why I took on this role probably because my friends are way too naive and nice well I'm like that to strangers when I'm alone I always try to be helpful to people if they look confused or ask me for directions or anything else on this particular nights I was going home from school my high school is in the city center and I take the bus home since the buses get overcrowded during peak hours and I really hate being between crowds of people I normally wait around 30 minutes to an hour to catch the bus this night I walked to another bus stop around five stops before the one to my schools so I can kill time and take an empty bus it was dark and I was the only one on that stop I usually don't have a problem with going out alone late at night as I don't have the men bad assault mentality drilled into me so I'm just minding my own business when this 45 the 50 year old man comes up to me he is a very friendly face and smile so I don't think anything of it he asked me something and then I realized he's Turkish I tell him I don't understand so he uses basic Bulgarian words he knows and I somehow understand that he's just asking for directions of course I try my best to explain and after I feel like he understood I expect him to just stop talking to me nope he said disturbingly close to me and started talking to me again and Turkish I try to be polite and politely ignore him as best I can while nodding my head with a smile looking at the timetable for some reason this guy starts asking me for my phone number at this moment I realized that this was definitely not only a lost foreigner I tried to shut him down saying I don't have a phone don't ask why I thought that was going to work I finally give in and tell him a random phone number he says something else to me again in Turkish and then the worst thing happens all this time I'm looking at the one minute the bus will be coming him I'm praying for him to please not try to call the number he does and he shows me and asked why my phone isn't ringing my stomach just flipped I tried to think of something fast then I remembered but I have my old Motorola in my bag I usually brought it to school to give it to teachers who collected phones during class also I like playing games on it in 2014 yeah fortunately the battery was dead so I just pretended that this is the reason the call isn't going through I see this guy tried to argue but at this moment the bus comes and I get on I sit on the seat behind the driver as always after 10 minutes I get this weird feeling I don't know what it was but it felt like I was being watched so I look around but since I'm in the front seats I can't exactly see everything luckily our buses have this gigantic mirror on the inside that shows the whole bus I look into that and I can clearly see him he's sitting in the last seat his legs clearly visible and I start to panic I'm still not sure he's following me but I'm also a very cautious person so I can't really ignore this I start checking for him at every stop and he's still there I get paranoid and say forget it and get off the bus the stop was at her local mall and luckily it worked till 10:00 p.m. I decided to go in and if he follows and I'll try to sneak out he follows all right you have to understand that in my town almost nobody goes out after 9:00 p.m. the mall is close to empty a look around thinking of ways to disappear but there's just no way the mall is an open space there are three floors almost empty I'd be easily spotted anywhere now you'll probably say you should have asked the security for help no in Bulgaria we don't do that that literally never even went through my mind the security is just some grandpa that walks around all day they don't actually do work or anything if it were today I might not be as stupid but back then this wasn't even an option in my head and besides the security wasn't even around so I do the most logical thing I can do and I decided to utilize the knowledge I've acquired in the previous week you see the mall had a cool corridor system behind the stores it was completely unmarked by any signs and if you didn't know where you're going you'd probably get lost because it's just endless white corridors that lead to empty rooms for storage or some other stuff well me being an avid anime fan loved going around these corridors and pretending I'm a ninja from Naruto on a mission sixteen-year-olds am i right so I can proudly say that I learned the right path to the back stairway of the mall because I was smart and obsessed with the idea of being a spy I decided to lure this creepy guy into the corridor and then just go out from the back end of the mall I firstly entered H&M and pretended to look around just to see if he was really stalking me he didn't even try to hide he stood outside the store just staring in I get really scared for a second but then I remembered I'm like the best double-oh-seven agent out there so I just continued walking around the mall I finally entered the corridors and at this point I booked it to the staircase at one point I heard the doors open at the top of the staircase and I could see that it was him looking down following me still I ran out and didn't stop running for two bus stops I tried looking back but there was no one so I proudly decided that I'm a hero and went home today being 21 years old I just think about how naive I was back then and how I'd probably be 10 times as scared today as I was back then [Music] I'm a 24 year old female that fell in love with national parks so much so I decided to work full-time at one for three years this experience allowed me to meet some great people but it also welcomes some sketchy individuals this particular story starts with a man that will call Sam Sam was a tall man with the shaved head and glasses he was the kind of co-worker that would always linger awkwardly he made everyone feel uncomfortable but not enough to warrant any concern the only issue that I really noticed was that he seemed like he had a drinking problem he would show up to work still drunk and be sent home somewhat regularly he seemed innocent though in a socially awkward way I only worked with him for a few months before I was transferred to another location and was offered a pay raise a few months after starting the new position I was in the employee break room browsing my newsfeed when I received five messages within a three minute time span I didn't even realize people could type that fast the messages were from Sam something that caught me off guard because I had never spoken him outside of my last position the messages consisted of vague threats regarding my friends and myself he seemed upset to find out that I had gay friends and thought that I was tainted from association I was less upset as his foul perception of me and more angry than he had targeted my friends who were truly lovely people I am bad when it comes to taking the high road and decided to give this man a piece of my mind we weren't friends hardly acquaintances so I didn't feel that his behavior was appropriate and quite frankly I was angry through our exchange the original route context of the messages became obviously threatening he told me that I should die along with my gay friends and then he'd be more than happy to end our misery I was shocked his anger didn't make sense to me and I realized that I wasn't going to reason with this lunatic so I decided to get HR involved we worked within the same company so I thought this would be the best route to prevent any further harassment HR advised me to block contact from him while they investigate but to also alerts authorities in case he decided to act out his threats authorities were involved and didn't seem to faze by the messages that I showed them they almost seemed annoyed that I bothered calling them in the first place I filled out a statement and was told to contact them if anything progressed the next day I woke up to find trash all over my front steps odd but not too strange I actually thought it was a raccoon since I was in the national park then I saw a piece of paper with the words watch your back scribbled onto it I looked around the other neighboring cabins to see if anyone was watching but I didn't see anyone I cleaned up the mess but save the note I wanted to show my sister who live with me when she got back home later that morning I caught her up on the previous night's events she didn't even know Sam because like I said we weren't friends why would I mention them in my personal life I gave her a brief description in case she saw him lurking around and headed to work halfway through my shift I get a phone call from Alexa she sounds shaken when she tells me that a man matching Sam's description came to our cabin and asked about me and where I was she played dumb and pretended to not even know who I was after an awkward silence he said I'll be back to get her later and walked away she said he sounded and acted like he had been heavily drinking and had an intense coldness to him I'm not messing around at this point and I have watched enough crime shows to know that you shouldn't underestimate people so I called the company's security team and asked to have someone check on my sister to be escorted home immediately I'm home within 20 minutes of her phone call she gave security some more information and they were able to find out which cabin he resided in apparently he only lived about a two-minute walk down her street which was really unnerving park rangers are called again and they get more statements from the both of us and decided to pay him a visit they seem to be taking the situation a bit more seriously now that he knows where I live I come back after talking to his roommates it's confirmed that he lives there but hasn't been home since the night before authorities put a word out to keep an eye out for Sam they offer to have a unit keep an eye out on us that night which we gladly accept and we go to bed I wake up to 34 messages from an unknown number it was Sam again he was very angry that I got HR and Rangers involved he said terrible things that I was going to pay for this but I mess with the wrong person and that he was going to end me I email HR and present them screenshots of the messages and texts I demand they resolve this immediately and want to set up a meeting with the director to discuss termination see in national parks when you're hired the company provides cheap housing on-site and when you're fired you have to leave the national park boundary within 24 hours so I thought this would solve the majority of my issues they seem to agree with me and try to locate Sam for a meeting no one has seen him since the first messages began two days prior so the park is on a manhunt the park is huge and it's easy to hide if you don't want to be found thankfully his roommate alerted officials when Sam stumbled home drunk the next day and they were able to speak with him and sober him up enough to take him to the HR building a couple of hours later after the meeting I'm notified that he had been given a first and final write-up and will continue to work and live on my street he apparently gave a sob story about his personal issues and promises to leave me alone I was baffled that even with him threatening to hurt me they weren't going to fire him thankfully the Rangers were equally surprised and so offered to provide surveillance just in case it was quiet for three days I thought it was actually over and started to feel bad for Sam actually I thought maybe he was just going through something and I was just his mental punching bag I suppose I didn't agree with it but I no longer felt as threatened if that makes sense that was until I receive a knock on my door and opened it to find two Rangers wanting to speak with me according to the Rangers and a few people from the HR department Sam's roommates had to call the emergency line when Sam started acting bizarre after the meeting and tried to convince him to lure me to a secluded place so Sam could take care of me thankfully his roommate wasn't a psycho and reported the situation immediately once Sam went to the bathroom rangers were on site within minutes and had restrained Sam in order to search their cabin for evidence they ended up finding a loaded firearm and a note that stated that he was going to end me and then take his own life there was plenty of evidence for a case and he was successfully banned from all national parks new United States I have since moved to a different states and have changed my contact information he has since contacted me once to brag about how much I helped him secure unemployment benefits which I quickly shared with officials according to officials he is restricted to a southern Arizona County due to other crimes that he later committed and I shouldn't worry about him finding me as for HR the director actually had to deal with harassment from Sam after the banning and asked me to testify on her behalf that turned into something more sinister I haven't heard anything since so I'm assuming she found another way to stop his assault I don't understand why he decided to target me we hadn't had very many interactions even at work I have tried to dig through memories to find a single time that I may have invited this kind of behavior but I'm convinced it was due to many factors including his instability and alcoholism up until junior year of high school I flew mostly under the social radar and stuck to my status as a nerd girl but when I was 15 I joined varsity cheer my school's cheerleaders weren't popular by definition but everyone kind of knew who you were because we were on the announcements performed at pep rallies and generally engaged with the students a lot and made a lot of friends that year and some of them happen to be the cool kids for a while I thought this was my long-awaited karma payoff for the years of bullying I'd suffered at their hands I even developed a crush on one of them a crush which the junior cheer captain herself volunteered to help me pursue homecoming is a big deal where I'm from and it began to fantasize about my crush asking me to go with him I'd heard rumors he was planning a dramatic proposal and as homecoming season approached and became more and more sure I would be his date the junior cheer captain who was close with him kept dropping hints that I was right one day at practice she asked me what my favorite candy was and I knew it would be so my crush would know what to give me he can imagine my surprise when after an exhausting theater rehearsal I walked into the parking lot and was confronted by a guy I'd hardly spoken to asking me to be his date my theater friends all applauded assuming I was overjoyed I saw both my parents in the parking lot recording the whole surprise but most importantly the cool kids I'd recently befriended were standing right there behind him egging them on I didn't understand why because he wasn't popular at all in fact he was known to be kind of creepy the junior cheer captain was laughing and encouraging him to give me the box of my favorite candy he was holding she definitely orchestrated the whole thing I didn't really know the guy but I didn't want to humiliate him in front of the coolest kids in school so I faked a smile and rolled with it I promised myself I'd deny him later in private so he wouldn't be embarrassed afterwards when my parents excitedly asked me how I felt about the ordeal I explained how uncomfortable it made me I said that I got super strong creepy vibes from the guy that didn't fly with my parents my mother accused me of having expectations too high and my father demanded to know not for the first time if I was secretly a lesbian I never had a boyfriend or shown much interest in dating to make his case stronger I just become best friends with the only openly gay girl our school has ever seen long story short I knew that if I shut down my date I'd effectively declare war on my parents however I played my dad's protective instinct against him and persuaded him to let me friendzone my date after all he knows how high school boys think right I texted my date that night and explained that I only saw us as friends what would still be happy to go to homecoming with him he was very polite about it although I could tell he was interested in me romantically it seemed we'd reached a deal until the next day at school when one of my cheerleader friends refer to my dates as my boyfriend I corrected her and told her we're just going to homecoming as friends she seemed confused and told me my dates was telling anyone who could listen then I was his girlfriend a few more of my friends approached me with similar comments and I confronted my date about them he denied all involvement and suggested it was just a rumor I reminded him that we were just friends and I had zero romantic interest in him he said he understood I got a call from the junior cheer captain she pretended to be sweet and conspiratorial but I was still annoyed that she led me to believe my crush would asked me to homecoming she began her attempt to persuade me that I was wrong to friendzone my date she said that she'd spent many afternoons planning his proposal with him and she knew he was kind of creepy from afar but he was sweet and caring underneath all that I said if he was such a catch she should date him annoyed she dropped the sweet act she told me that I had to date him because he liked me so much and he'd gone through so much trouble to ask me to homecoming I had to give him a chance because he'd gone out on a limb for me I told her she was wrong and I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do and I owed him nothing I ended up hanging up on her soon after that but that was just the beginning starting the next Monday he would corner me in the hallway and give me a rose he'd held in his teeth he usually did so between my sixths and 7th periods on my path through the hall crossed his I was deeply uncomfortable with this and told him so but he wouldn't stop I took different routes to escape him but the junior cheer captain and her Posse made a point of tracking me down so he could find me elsewhere every time he did this everyone in the area would treat it as a sweet romantic gesture despite my obvious discomfort wouldn't any girl be lucky to have a boy so devoted to her that he gave her a rose every day he was still telling everyone that was his girlfriend the final straw for me was when he walked into a class he wasn't in to find me and give me my daily rose my teacher who was friends with the junior cheer captain let this happen four weeks afterwards she would ask me about my date every day when he came in I told him to get out and leave me alone his feelings were clearly hurt and he left looking like a kicked puppy my classmates started calling me cold and hard it didn't matter what I'd said to them about him I was an ice queen refusing the sweet boys advances everyone in the school had decided that I was in love with him and nobody care what I had to say about it my crush who was part of the popular group joined the junior cheer captain and pressuring me into returning my dates feelings at every event where the cheerleaders present my date would push his way to the front of the crowd he would go to great lengths to get my attention at football games he would wave a flag in the students section so I'd look at him when we were cheering the other girls would make comments on how endearing he was when he waited in the parking lot by our bus back to the school just to hug me and tell me how great I did I didn't know what else to do other than let this happen I had only recently ascended to a position of visibility if I conflict' it too hard with the cool kids who were so dead set on setting me up with the sky I could be an outsider all over again I hope that if I just kept ranting to my real friends about how creepy he was and publicly let him do what he wanted it would all blow over my school had a 15-second attention span so some scandal had to one-up me sooner or later the truth emerged as usual in the locker room it turns out the junior cheer captain had been telling him during their afternoons together that I was into him he come to her for help announcing his crush on me and she gone a step further and convinced him I felt the same despite the fact that I didn't even know his name she had lied to him for weeks prior to the homecoming proposal and when I told her that was wrong she didn't care she told me I should be grateful because everybody was starting to think that I was gay my best friend the lesbian who was starting a gay revolution and I inspired and spread a rumor that we were dating after all everybody already thought it was gay right but my date wasn't phased in fact he told everyone that he just turned me straight again ill three weeks after he asked me it was finally homecoming night thanks to cheer obligations and a complete coincidence involving a switched backpack that left me without my dress I ended up only attending the dance for half an hour my date awkwardly stood on the side of the room while I dance my heart out to mr. Brightside I almost felt bad for him when right at the end the junior cheer captain appeared like a summoned demon this suggests we slow dance at the next opportunity thank God I escaped that one by walking to the DJ and suggesting he played Footloose my date walked me out to the parking lot to wait for my mom to pick me up while we waited for her to drive around which took entirely too long because she still hoped I'd stop making a fuss and date him he asked me out I politely declined they quickly stammered that's we could go with a group of people like the junior cheer captain and my crush I denied him again and made it clear that we were only friends and I wasn't interested in romantic endeavors because I was too busy that was actually true I wasn't in all advanced classes varsity theater and cheer and work part-time a few days later a teacher eloped in Vegas and nobody cared about my love life anymore my date to nine were distance again my classes and activities and work it appeared that everything was going back to normal that Friday at the football game my crush asked me to sit on his shoulders for the alma mater kind of a romantic thing in my school overjoyed I accepted and hoped this was the beginning of a new chapter for me I ignored the frantically waving flag in the stands Monday my date stood in a chair in his second period class and announced that everyone should be wary of my crush because he would steal your girl I heard everyone buzzing about it for a few hours later when someone called me a terrible name again for breaking my date's heart I knew I was being dramatic but I decided to not go to lunch that day terrified of running into him I'm so glad I didn't later I saw on snapchat that my date had carved my name into his arm with a pair of scissors his bleeding arm was screenshotted and sent to me by half a dozen people most of them demanding why I'd hurt him like this he did it in the middle of lunch in a crowded cafeteria and somehow no administration noticed her cared the school was buzzing my date was a broken hearted victim and I was the evil secretly gay woman who wouldn't give him a chance I got so many dirty looks by fifth period I was ready to just walk out but my good girl instincts kicked in and I decided to tough it out for two more hours around that time I got a panicked text from one of my cheer friends while she had initially been insistent that I date the creepy guy she apparently changed her mind after the lunch incident earlier she told me that my date who was in her fifth period class was going off the rails he had started out saying that he wanted to end his own life because I wouldn't love him this had escalated to saying that he would hurt my crush for lying to me and stealing me away finally he'd started talking about how he knew where I lived my parents had given him my address when he initially wanted to ask me to the dance in my house and he would make me pay for wronging him I knew that after sixth period our paths to the hall would cross since the beginning of this ordeal the school had cracked down on students going outside and my alternate route to escape him was no longer an option my class was at the far end of the hallway with nowhere to go into the central hub and he would be coming from the other end of the hallway towards mine if I was stuck up a chimney basically desperate I texted the junior cheer captain to finish what she had started and tell him that I was not and had never been interested in him she'd made this mess and I wanted to make sure that she had cleaned it up she said that she go to the counselor but she didn't know what else to do that was way beyond her control now for the first and only time I skipped class I hid out in the theater hall and waited for seventh period I got a few texts during the passing period that my date was waiting for me by the bathrooms there was a little alcove right there where you can't see people coming around the corner and the thought of him hiding there and waiting for me to walk by alone horrified me right before seventh period began a few of my classmates burst in cackling and proclaimed that my date was coming down here after school to hurt my crush they thought this was hilarious but judging by the look of my crushes face this wasn't a joke to him anymore our teacher brushed this off as typical theatre drama pun fully intended I washed the clock and try not to cry knowing that by the time the bell rang my date would be outside waiting for me and my crush to emerge that day ended up being a workday so my crush and I were able to escape the classroom and hide out elsewhere in the theater all to get away from him he opted for the black box theater and I went for the light in closet obviously I didn't witness what happened but my best friend filled me in afterwards allegedly my date had turned up three minutes before the bell rang and stood outside the classroom where we couldn't see him when we opened the door he told everyone standing around that he was ready to have a knife fight with my crush we didn't know if he actually had a knife or not but the idea that he might was enough to terrify me his arm was wrapped in a paper towel that he was bleeding through my best friend told him my crush and I were gone but he didn't believe her he stood outside for 25 minutes until the administrators began walking through to make sure no one was in the school who shouldn't be my date wasn't in theaters so he wasn't allowed to stick around that night I texted them that not only would I never date him he can no longer even see a friendship between us I sent him a number and told him to get help finally I told him that he needed to learn what no meant and I never wanted to speak to him again he responded that he was sorry and asked if there was anything he could do to fix this and I told him no I don't think he learned the meaning of the word after all because the same pattern repeated itself a few months later on Valentine's Day the next year at homecoming senior year Valentine's Day and prom but those are other stories I've since graduated and gone off to college hundreds of miles away from him my family back home moved from the address my parents gave him contrary to popular belief I'm not gay my crush on the other hand came out too few months later and we were friends for the rest of high school I'm working on handling romantic endeavors in a healthy way but he got in my head he was the first person ever show interest in me ironically the last time I saw him was my first and only homecoming game after graduating but this time I had true friends to defend me when he predictably tried to pull some weird stuff with me the worst part looking back was somehow being at fault for everything to this day people from my high school referenced the whole ordeal is that you wouldn't date that poor shy kid I can't even appreciate red roses anymore [Music] to follow up I really appreciate the support I'm getting from part one I've been keeping pretty quiet about the whole experience for years because I thought no one would believe me I'm really happy you guys do for the most part I answered some questions about details on part one which I'll repeat here to clear some stuff up part one happened in 2015 when I was in junior in high school I'm a junior in college now I was 15 during the first homecoming debacle because some young for my grade everyone else involved was 16 or 17 at the time my parents after all this played out had very different reactions my mother apologized for not believing me in the first place and pressuring me to lower my standards my relationship with her has become a success story in the past four years and this experience jump-started seven on the other hand my father has rewritten the narrative entirely and insists he never once advocated I go to homecoming with my date he says he was always wary of this kid and he also didn't ever ask if I was gay I'm not I'm bi actually but I didn't realize it until senior year of high school I didn't go to the guidance counselor yet because she was known to be bad at her job as you'll see in this continuation she victim blamed a lot and she would usually bring up her religion to solve students problems regardless of our school being public and non religious and she was fired after I graduated in 2017 my high school in home district in general was an administrative nightmare I've heard from younger friends that after a massive staff turnover things are starting to look up but none of it improved during my time there my story was perfectly in character for the level of ignorance my school expressed towards unhealthy activity my date didn't end until media at least not to my knowledge I found an abandoned Twitter account that looked like it might belong to him but it was last active in 2016 I have no contact with him at all anymore which I guess is a happy ending a few people have implied I'm making all of this up they're not the first and they probably won't be the last to say so even I know this is wild and that's why I didn't say a word about it for years I don't feel the need to prove my honesty to random strangers on the Internet but there's anything I learned from this nightmare that's that people who only believe what they want to believe the truth is is that I had a really weird experience and it affected my life in a lot of ways believe it or don't I still have to deal with its repercussions on a daily basis this post is less of an update than it is a continuation long story short my ex date it didn't get the message after homecoming junior year and he ended up pulling some seriously weird stuff even after her until we graduated none of it was as epic as junior year homecoming but it definitely cast a shadow over the latter half of my high school experience from here on out due to his activity for the next two years I'll be referring to him as my stalker for the months after homecoming things started to settle down again I didn't have any classes with my stalker and the only person I still had to deal with was the junior cheer captain she would go out of her way to be nice to me inviting me to parties and buying me coffee and give me rides to games basically bribing me to keep quiet about what a manipulative person she was my stalker reappeared on Valentine's Day 2016 I was still a junior but I had almost forgotten that homecoming even happened when halfway through my day he cornered me in the hallway and gave me a rose out of his teeth I hoped that that would be the end of it but I underestimated my classmates appetite for drama during 7th period theatre we were in the library computer lab after the Rose thing my crush from fall semester who had since come out as gay warned us that my stalker was carrying around a present for me in his backpack I thanked him for the heads-up and told my best friend gay revolution lesbian she and I were sitting together on the inside of a row when the bell rang we stood up next to leave but the girl on the other side of me turned to face us blocking us off from the exit she was a close friend of the junior cheer captains she asked me what I was doing after school and I knew that she must be trying to herd me towards my stalkers so I could collect my presence I leveled with her and said that I knew my stalker was waiting for me somewhere and I told her straight up that I wasn't going to play nice with him anymore she turned on the same old guilt trip as everyone else telling me how much she cared about me and how hard he worked on these presents but I refuse to go I knew I needed to get out of the school as soon as possible before she just told my stalker to come meet me at the library instead of the theater hall to get her out of my way I said I need to go meet him after I went to the bathroom and she moved out of the walkway my best friend and I hid out in the bathroom farthest from the theater hall I knew he wouldn't leave until he delivered his gifts and we had rehearsal that day so I knew I'd have to go down there sooner or later my best friend suggested she go down and retrieved the presents for me so he'd leave before I had to go to a rehearsal two more of my friends happen upon our bathroom crisis and they decided to link up with my best friend on her mission I waited in the bathroom while they went to intercept the gifts 20 minutes later they returned among the gifts were three boxes of my favorite candy which I didn't really like anymore thanks to this whole mess an expensive Doctor Who jewelry box and a full bouquet of roses again they told me laughing uncontrollably that there had been a whole group of people waiting for me to walk into the theater hall my stalker wasn't too happy to hand over the presents but my best friend made it clear I wouldn't be coming to get them so he could hand them over to my friends who never delivered them at all after about 10 minutes the group waiting for me dissipated and my stalker gave away the gifts I was so creeped out that I didn't keep any of them for my birthday a few weeks later I go out of school after fourth period and went to a theme park with my cousin I didn't tell anyone I was leaving or where I was going my best friend told me my stalker had waited outside the theatre hall for me with a letter in a rose in hand until the school kicked everyone out who wasn't in theater I was an assistant director and like crew for a one-act play that spring an acquaintance of mine who didn't keep up with gossip was in charge of making the program and she mentioned how cute my boyfriend was for taking out an ad in the program for me I was sufficiently freaked out told her I didn't have a boyfriend and asked to see the ad he'd paid for it was a picture of my stalker and I from junior homecoming along with a note that said something like good luck saucy I love you I begged my friend not to put it in the program and she didn't seeing my obvious discomfort she refunded him as money and made some excuse about a local business buying more ad space he tried the same trick for the last show of the year which I was actually in he showed up to the opening nights and got kicked out for filming the theater department has now instituted a widespread rule of checking with the person an ad is targeted at before printing it which is more than school administration ever cared to do during a clean-up day for theater the summer before senior year a guy from a different school showed up to help he had been talking to me over social media for a few weeks and I knew I was his next target he had made a game out of going on a date with every girl in our department sure enough he'd asked me out while I cleaned up the prop closet and I agreed he was decent looking and he wasn't mentally unstable even if he was an idiot I also knew that if I played my card right I could turn this to my advantage he was using me so I just made sure I got something out of it too we went on our dates it was okay no weird advances or anything and he bought me dinner on the way home I directed the conversation towards homecoming he caught my drift and asked me right there no muss no fuss I said yes senior year started my new date was all the way over at his school on the other side of town my stalker was in two of my classes fourth period biology and sixth period English and had the same lunch as me I was hyper aware of him staring at me every day but didn't want to make a big deal out of it I knew he wanted my attention and I refused to give it to him instead I went about my life as usual I made friends with the teachers who were lunch hall monitors so I could leave the cafeteria effectively avoiding my stalker a lunch in the theater hall with my best friend every day I asked my biology and English teachers not to make me sit by him or work in groups with him and they agreed if someone reluctantly they like pretty much everyone else thought it was being a dramatic cheerleader making up stories I was a senior and I really didn't want to deal with this nonsense of a crazy stalker anymore not that I ever wanted to in the first place homecoming was even earlier this year than last year in English class my stalker sat near two theater girls who usually walked to seventh period theater with me and he turned around to ask them for ideas on how to ask me to homecoming they were in the camp of classmates who were amused by my stalkers antics so they wanted to rile him up and watch the fireworks they also knew about the other idiot that I was talking to because theater kids are the worst gossips ever and they gleefully told my stalker that I already had a date he proceeded to attempt to bite his finger off in class which went about as well as you might think obviously he didn't succeed but he did draw blood and he terrified my two theatre friends who would incited his instability he stared at me the whole time and I sat on the other side of the room and ignored him I didn't care what he did I refused to give him my attention and I wouldn't be intimidated by him anymore after class my two friends came up to me and told me the details about what had just happened together the three of us approached the English teacher she believed me fully this time he was moved into a different English class by the next week sidenote blessed this teacher she was the first adult I encountered who took action to protect me and she continued to check in with me about the situation throughout the rest of senior year sixth period became nothing less than a sanctuary for me because for once somebody believed me and they were listening I didn't have to worry about him after fourth period because I skipped lunch every day I was getting confident about my escape manoeuvres I forgot to mention the third and weirdest self-harm incident after getting kicked out of English class he desperately wanted my attention so he got a pass out of his class one day and found mine he walks through the trash can't outside the door to my class and I watched in horror and disgust as he pulled out a tooth and held his face over the trash can spitting out blood I know I said I wasn't giving him attention anymore but the kid just ripped out of body part I feel like I'm allowed to be terrified then my usual hall monitor was gone and I got stuck in the cafeteria I had been out of lunch for so long that I had forgotten my stalker was in the same one until I had accidentally made eye contact with him staring at me from across the room like some kind of grudged ghosts the second I saw him he started speed walking across the room to my table I ignored him hoping he was just trying to psych me out but it didn't work he sat down on the seat next to mine I was freaking out I looked at the girl on the other side of me and begged her to get him out of here she simply laughed at me a year before I would have kept quiet and dealt with my discomfort for fear of people hating me and when I was a year older and already contracting senioritis so I stood up grabbed my backpack and stomped out at the lunchroom the hall monitor's stopped me asked me where I was going and if I had a pass I said I was going to talk to the crisis counselor and he let me go probably because he didn't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole I walked directly to the counselor's office signed in and found myself sitting in her office a few minutes later I told her the whole story from the beginning I had been to her office once before and she shooed me away after saying I was being too dramatic this time she didn't instead she spent the greater half of the hour I was there asking why I hadn't come to her when all this started when I finally got her to address the actual problem her first question reaffirm my fears she asked me after I told her about the self-harm and threats and general creeper II what about Tim made me so opposed to dating him I thought I was going to scream I had a gut feeling that the truth wouldn't get me anywhere and I needed action I didn't care how I got it done but I needed him out of my life and definitely out of my classes so knowing full-well her attachment to Jesus I pulled the saving myself for Jesus card I put all those Sunday's being forced to go to church to good use and it worked she stopped asking me why I'd waited why not just date him and asked what would make me feel safer I told her to get him out of my schedule and she said she'd look into my options within a few days I was called back to her office she had gotten him placed in another lunch period but biology was only offered fourth period and both of us needed it to graduate I still consider this a victory I only had to see him for 50 minutes every day she told me to come talk to her whenever I needed someone to lean on she would make sure my teachers understood funfact junior year my best friend was assaulted by an adult man when she left class mid panic attack to go see the crisis counselor she was told to pull herself together and get back to class before she missed anything important my stalker found new methods of seeing me my best friends didn't make the cast of winter musical but I did I didn't realize that I had been isolated until my stalker joined Cru and regularly tried to intimidate me he would drill holes and set pieces that didn't need work because I was sitting near them and he wanted to watch me flinch he would steal the prompts I used and hide them in a shop so I had to be near him to retrieve them my new crush and I were code ants captains and she convinced her friend the set head to keep my stalker offstage at all times after musical ended in spring my new crush told me she'd heard my stalker was getting angry about me playing hard-to-get I was hanging out in the theater hall with the few crew kids getting ready for one-act play when one of them pointed at me shocked and went your saucy he told me he'd seen pictures of my back yard I was confused and weirded out so he explained that my stalker had showed him pictures of my backyard and porch I asked to see them and he said he didn't have the pictures he'd just been shown them by my stalker I didn't really believe him and he could tell so he said you have a big bay window in your living room a bunch of bikes on your back porch and a big rosebush it was an accurate description I don't know for sure how to explain that but I've theorized that my stalker had at some points been in my backyard before we adopted our purebred Doberman the dog Oh had freaked out in the middle of the night a few times but we brushed it off now I wasn't so sure my bedroom was in the front of the house so I tried to reassure myself by thinking he hadn't seen me changing or anything super scary but it didn't really help my best friend was disowned by her mother and stepdad and within the weekend she was shipped off to live with her biological father I told myself I could survive the next four months and graduate and then I'd never see my stalker again I pursue a did my parents says prom and graduation approach that I only wanted one present my best friend they paid for her plane ticket both ways and flew her home to be my date to prom I kept her a secret so I could surprise our other friends when she showed up for prom to dance with us my stalker only briefly entertained the thought of asking me to prom which I later discovered was the now senior cheer captain's doing I guess he'd finally started to realize the full effect of her actions because she told him he needed to leave me alone I don't know what else she said but he went to eerily silent in the weeks leading up to prom he still came to the last play of the year but he didn't fill me this time he waited for me outside the auditorium afterwards but I was with other people on our way to cast dinner and he didn't try anything at prom my friends were elated when they saw my best friend had returned we danced and talked a bunch of trash and had a great time together it was honestly one of the best moments of my life when they walked in and saw her of course my stalker tried one last time to change my mind my friends and I were sitting at one of the tables together laughing and catching up and I saw my best friend's expression turn into a glare when someone walked up behind me I turned around to see my stalker waiting behind my chair I stood up I was taller than him in my heels and said as calmly as possible but he wasn't welcome here I was also 17 and angry and feeling unstoppable so I tacked on if you ever speak to me again I'll rip your junk off it was the last thing I ever said to him my best friend flew away again we all graduated and everyone went our separate ways for college I saw my stalker again at the first homecoming after I graduated high school but he didn't talk to me he just stared at me the whole time later he showed up my sister's fall play at her alma mater and he asked a cast member where she was and if I was there luckily for me the cast member was one of my littles and he told my stalker he needed to leave immediately [Music] this all just happened only a few hours ago so I'm writing it down now while the memory is still fresh my wife and I have been talking about it non-stop since it happened and had been unable to come up with any explanation that even begins to make sense please help us figure this out so we can forget about it I'll try to make this as short as possible but I need to make sure you get all the details so you can help us figure this mess out today we planned on going on a four mile hike the trail makes a big loop with the beginning points also acting as the ending point the story begins in the trail parking lot there were about five other cars in the lot and out of the car nearest us came a middle-aged couple we paid them no mind as we typically do with strangers and as we headed off to the restroom before hitting the trail they set off on their own hike when we started the hike we chose route number one doing the loop counterclockwise the trail itself makes a huge loop about four miles in length with the parking lot being at the highest elevation and the lowest point being the middle of the trail the ascent from the bottom middle section to the top going either direction as' extremely steep slow and slippery and tough this is important information for later about twenty minutes into our overall three-hour hike we reached point a where we caught up with the older couple about the time we caught up to them in the canyon they decided to turn back towards the parking lot passing us along the way we exchanged smiles and waves as we passed and again thought nothing of it from point A to point B everything seemed totally normal we were hot and tired of course but were enjoying ourselves and thought very little about the other couple when we reached point B about two-thirds of the way through the loop just starting the uphill climb back towards the parking lot however things started to get a little weird as soon as we exited the low-lying Canyon region we saw the same couple heading towards us as if though they had returned to the parking lot and opted instead for route number two we still didn't find this to be completely out of the ordinary as the first Canyon around Point a was tough to get down and it seemed that they were somewhat unprepared the woman was wearing a knee-length skirt a very bad choice for sliding down slippery Canyon slopes and climbing steep Rock Bluffs and it appeared they had not brought a pack with water or anything we passed them again exchange pleasantries and continued on this time though we did talk briefly about the situation we found it odd that they had made it far enough to meet us at this point as the first parts of route 1 and 2 were steep and slow in the area between point A and B were pretty flat and steady considering the difference in terrain and their age apparent physical conditions we agreed it was softly strange to see them at that point on the trail but we continued on anyway just shrugging and thinking no more about it soon afterwards we made it to the outlook which was a couple hundred feet above the bottom section of the trail and ten minutes past point B as we pause to take some pictures and catch our breath my wife pointed out she could hear their voices below in the canyon as we rested we listened and mutually agreed that it was probably the same couples since the point voices seems to come from would be the right spot for them to be at least given the location we saw the mat and the lack of anyone else in the trail so far still nothing too strange yet that is until we reach point C between the outlook and Point C which was 20 minutes from the end of the loop and 40 minutes past point B was a wide gravel trail with steep drop-offs on either side you could say it was sort of a ridge as everything within the loop made a giant loop sided Bowl much like a volcano with the elevation difference between the lowest point of the trail and high spawn and the trail being 500 feet this made the terrain around the trail seemed pretty much impassable it was extremely steep and covered in thick overgrowth and fallen trees it seems to be pretty much a given that the established trail is the only way to get from the outlook back to the parking lot as we neared Point C we were becoming increasingly exhausted and ready to be done we stopped once or twice for about 30 seconds apiece to catch our breath and as we got closer closer to point c it was as if the energy was sucked out of both of us of course the trail was tough but we had done it and many like it before and it was not even eighty degrees outside even as our mental focus began to waver and we started noticing a significant change in our demeanor and attitude we still marched on knowing the end of the trail was near when we reach point C everything changed for the worse now keep in mind we saw the older couple about 40 minutes earlier at point B and there was no way to reach point C from there except the trail we were currently on there were no shortcuts there was no realistic way to pass us without us knowing and no way to possibly beat us there and yet there they were sitting on a bench on the side of the trail eating lunch at that as we passed them the man mentioned something about a picnic to us and smiled laughing we tried our best to respond in kind but the mood was as if we had just walked into a gigantic black cloud of smoke I don't know how else to explain it but the area around them disoriented to us completely and we no doubt were pale as ghosts and obviously shaken it wasn't a malevolent feeling and they didn't seem aggressive or strange but her brains were just shocked in a state of horror and seeing them there it just wasn't it just wasn't it just wasn't possible we passed on by then and as soon as we were out of earshot my wife turned to me with a face I had never seen before in my life we were terrified without saying a word to each other we both expressed the same feeling of shock it felt as if though we had just walked through a time warp or as if we had just brushed against another dimension our following discussion amounted to this there is no way they could have beaten us there sure maybe possibly just maybe there was a chance but only if after seeing us at point B they sprinted through the woods in a direct line towards point C now this would require them to run up steep Rock Bluffs through unmarked woods and who knows what else for over a mile in 40 minutes that's how long it took us to get there going at a pretty good speed using the clear trail which as a crow flies was not that much longer than a direct route from B to C we are in our early 20s an in decent shape and we were dead tired by the time we saw them and based on their apparent level of preparedness and fitness no judgment here only stating what we could see there's no way even if they did take a direct off the trail route they could have made it there before us on top of that they had somehow found two Bud Lights and a lunch box full of sandwiches on the way and we're already done eating by the time we met them at Point C all of these things combined with the overwhelming feeling we got when we encountered them at Point C had left us and mental shambles for the past several hours we have no idea what to make of this and no clue how to explain it in a way that even begins to make sense please help us figure out what this was or who they were [Music] it was a seven-year-old girl little over 30 years ago when my best friend and I saw a lady get shot and stabbed I live in an apartment in Bellflower California at the time the apartment complex was in a shape of a rectangle with an open courtyard in the middle of it it also had a swimming pool which was where my friend and I were when this incident occurred there are three security doors to enter into the complex itself the front entrance is made out of thick glass and you need to use either a key or a code to enter if you're a visitor he called the apartment number and get buzzed in there was a driveway on the side of the complex for tenants to park their cars unfortunately at this time there was no security gate in the driveway before anyone could walk off the street into the tenant carports as well as the other two security doors and the other two security doors is located in the side of the complex and the other to the back the detail of the layout is important as the line of sight of my friend and I and the lady who was attacked he cannot see the courtyard from the front glass door because of a privacy garden while blocking the view however you can see the middle of the pool from the side security door and that's where this incident occurred as I said my friend and I were swimming in the pool my friend's father was watching us while sitting on a pool chair reading he was not in view of the side security door but my friend and I were when the lady I'm sorry I can't remember her name walked up to the side security door we knew her as she was a tenant in the complex she was a nurse and must have gotten off her shift as she was still in her scrubs she was a black woman in her mid to late 30s she was a very nice woman and I believe she lived alone at the time my friend and I called out to hello to her and she said hello back as she was getting your keys so she could open the security door to come inside the complex we were just hanging on to the side of the pool watching her when two men walked up to her we didn't quite hear what was said except I do remember hearing her shout now the two men seemed to be a bit young possibly late teens or early 20s one man was black with a a haircut while the other man was either White's her light-skinned and had a bit of an afro the race and hairstyle is all I can remember of them when we heard her scream out know that is when I'm remembers seeing one man pulled out a gun and shot her then the other man pulled out a knife and stabbed her she collapsed onto the ground crying out loud I don't know if my friend and I made a sound or what but as we hung out on the other side of the pool in shock the two men turned their heads towards us immediately my friend and I ducked down into the water in the pool and she grabbed my hand and underneath the water we swam towards the shallow end of the pool where we would be out of view from the side door my friend's father had heard the gunshot but was on the other side of the pool and would have to cross the side door entrance to go to his apartment to call 9-1-1 we had to wait a few minutes to ensure that the men did not enter as they now had the lady's purse and keys and could get inside the complex if they chose to once my friend's father knew they were not coming inside he told us to stay in the pool and if they come in to duck back under the water many ran to their apartment and called 911 what I was doing I told her I wanted to see if the lady was okay but my friend told me to stay otherwise I could get hurt too we Ruth crying so worried for the lady I can't remember much after this as I tend to lose some memories traumatic experiences when I was younger due to some trauma I had gone through as a child I do remember some things though and as I got older I tend to have some flashbacks occasionally my friend's father came back out and said the police and ambulance were on their way and for my friend and I to get into the apartment my friend's mother was there so she took there of us while my father's friend went to check on the lady I can't say for sure whether or not we were questioned by police and I've talked to my friend about this and she is a hard time remembering this as well she actually completely forgot until I asked her about a death to remember in myself I do remember being told though that the lady did actually survive thank God but she never went back to that apartment complex again no surprise there though while the lady recovered in the hospital her family members came and removed everything from her apartment this was the last straw for the tenants from what my parents told me there were complaints about the safety of the carports and complex itself because there was no security gate in the driveway the tenants requested to have a gate installed but the complex owner refused however after this incident the owner installed a security gate to the driveway and the tenants had gate openers that they could use kind of like garage door openers as this was a traumatic event for my friend and I I cannot even imagine how traumatizing this was for the lady who was attacked we didn't live in the safest neighborhoods but we didn't have very many incidents like this that I can remember I do remember having nightmares a few times after witnessing this I would dream that the two men actually came into the complex and tried to hurt my friend and I not only am I glad that the lady survived but that my friend her father and I were not hurt from those men I don't know what we would have done if they did manage to get inside and we were only children but maybe that could be why they didn't come inside where it could have been because they did this in the middle of the day where anyone could see I don't know what happened to those men I don't know if they were found and brought to justice they could have been and the adults just decided not to say anything else to us about this incident so my friend and I wouldn't be afraid however I'm just glad that I never had to meet them again [Music] I'm a 17-year old female I'm not timid though I can get a little awkward if I don't really know you now on to the story this happened last year before I turned 16 so I'm a 15 year old surfing on Facebook when I see a post from someone I know that lives on a town over now I have never hung out with her but we have spoken a messenger I'll call her Lucy I messaged her and tried to cheer her up as her post was very negative about herself and her outlook on life I mean I've been there so why not try to make someone feel better that's the nice thing to do right well Lucy claimed me to be her best friend right afterwards she said we were going to hang do fun stuff I was kind of weirded out but then again I have been really lonely so I just went with it she wanted me to spend the night now my mom was leery about it but she knew I needed friends and then I can't be isolated all the time she gave in and told me to ask her where she lived when I did I was surprised to learn that she lived in a trailer park I never hung out with someone who lived there she was ashamed but honestly I thought it was kind of cool I'd regret that later I get there and my mom says she wants to meet her mom well her mom never comes out so my mom leaves and guess who comes outside Lucy's mom Rena she didn't care that I was there or what she said apparently because she went guess she couldn't wait long enough hmm I got a little ticked over it seeing as we waited over 15 minutes for her to come outside no joke either we get in I lay my stuff down and for the first few hours everything went alright that is until she wanted me to go with her and her friends to beat up some guys yep guys she was on a voice call screaming at them saying we were gonna get a ride and come over there then you guys are gonna regret it that's what I heard come ahead we have guns this is when I get scared I texted my boyfriend at this point in time and he was livid he wasn't able to come get me for some reason so I just told him I'd see if it will calm down it didn't threats come across and back and forth getting more violent as they come and go ten more minutes go by and she finally hangs up she calms at this point well I wouldn't say calm just blank she turned her head to me and just slowly asked I'm going to a friend's are you coming or staying here obviously I said I was going I wasn't trying to have someone show up there while she is at a friend's her mother drove us to the house which was of course and the more dangerous part of the town it was approximately 15 to 20 minute walk back to the house we go up knock and I heard a lock turn in the face looking through the crack of the door she says some name and he shuts the door only to hear more locks unlocking until we were finally let inside right when I get inside you can smell it horrible nauseating even rotting smell he locks the door back and tells us to go upstairs so we do and here are two more large men sitting on the couch smoking we sat on the kitchen floor as it's a very small apartment now these men see me and I'm automatically uncomfortable they start asking me questions like what's my name how old am i how I know Lucy well I'm being interrogated Lucy is on the phone texting people leaving me to entertain these guys of course they asked us if we would smoke with them Lucy did but I didn't I'm no goody two-shoes but in that situation something was off and I could feel it Lucy decides that she wants to walk to Dairy Queen and told the guys to keep me comfy with a little wink I nonchalantly texted my dad and told him text me back asap saying you're picking me up because of a family emergency do not ask questions do not make it seem suspicious and send the text and start heading this way he does and I tell Lucy we're in return I get an aggravated look she wanted to know why seeing as I haven't been there an hour of course I told her my father texted me saying there's a family emergency which I showed her so she knew I wasn't pulling a leg she didn't ask questions just said come back and turned around to go sit on the couch this is when my idiot self realized I still have to make it to her trailer alone I'm in a town that I had never been to and I need my belongings from the trailer because I was not planning on coming back ever I put on my GPS and what do you know it's low before I step a foot off the yard a car pulls up real close to me on the curb causing me to stop I'd recognized it it was the car that I saw coming into the building and the guy that unlocks the door must have gone right back out after locking the door again he asked me where I'm going and I quickly say I'm going to the hospital for an emergency and that be back later his furious space was replaced with the suspicious expression but all he said was you better while pulling away and pulling in their driveway at this point I'm running scrambling looking at my GPS and trying not to get lost and make it to the trailer park but it's all a big circle I'm frantically looking for a trailer scared out of my mind there are men and women on their porch looking at me like I don't belong there and the right I don't my phone has died at this point so I would have to go look at the numbers and go from there well I find it - my parents are already in the driveway trying to call my phone I walk up and hug my mom telling her I'm sorry for whatever reason I had to make me think that this was my fault I tried the door to the trailer and it's unlocked I go in get my stuff and get out over the next few days I get messages from her all throughout the day and night talking about me coming over again or her finding out my address so we can hang out I blocked her only get texts from other people about her I still do to this day but I do my best to ignore it I was warned was told she was a psycho I just thought she was upset and needed a friend [Music] this happened in the fall of 2017 my sister Gigi was in high school my parents took a trip out of country so I was in charge of my sister I temporarily lived in my parent's house while doing so I took her to school and back picked her up when she was at her friend's or boyfriend's house and picked her up after her church meetings I was told she started going to regular church on Sundays with her boyfriend and his family which I'm happy that she's into we grew up Catholic but don't often go to church after we moved to the United States but also she was going to another church at nights with a friend of hers I grew up with Sunday Mass and that's it so the thought of spending extra time and free time going back to church was weird but if she wanted to grow up as a super extra religious person Who am I to stop her on Monday she went to school and hung out with her boyfriend I picked her up from her boyfriend's house no big deal Tuesday she went to night church after school with her friend I was told that they would get a ride from her friend's mom she was supposed to be home at 9:00 p.m. came in a little late at around 9:40 I asked why and she said they were preparing for a retreat that Saturday seemed alright of an excuse and I trusted her so no big deal Wednesday to Thursday mostly normal one day she went home after school and we hung out another day she was hanging out with friends one of these days she was hanging out with her boyfriend and some friends and she asked me if she could go to church this would be the second time going to the night church in the week I remember thinking when I was in high school hanging out with friends did not cross was spending free time at church they ended up not going which relieved me a bit at this point that was getting weird vibes from the night church Friday day before the retreat her plans were to go to night church after school and come home at 9:00 p.m. my plans were to hang out with friends and be home by 9:00 p.m. as well I'm driving back home a little late and texture to not worry her no reply waited a bit and texted her again no reply called her no answer at this point I was hoping she was already home and for some reason went to bed early no house was empty I kept calling texting calling texting panicking around 10:45 p.m. almost two hours after she was supposed to be home she calls me she says that they are still in church preparing for the retreat and that she wasn't allowed to have cell phones on I'm normally the cool older brother but I lost it a bit not towards her but just got to the point I'm coming to get you text me the address I don't care what you're doing I'm coming to get you I got a text with the address and drove to get her I was a bit calm now that I heard her voice but I was angry at the place once I got there some lady was outside waiting for me and she says sorry for the trouble we're preparing for tomorrow that's why gigi is still here no that's fine I'm just in charge of Gigi for the week and our parents wanted Gigi home by 9:00 p.m. every day so can you go get her please well Gigi can't come out right now the sermon or whatever she said it's not over yet at this point I lost whatever patience I had left you bring out Gigi right now or I'm calling the cops for kidnapping I'm her legal guardian and she's under 18 I don't know the law well but that's what I said this sparked a light under her feet the lady started walking inside and invited me inside do you want to come in you're welcome to just go get my sister out lady walks inside in a moment later my sister and the lady come out the lady is giving my sisters some documents in his shirts and some information about tomorrow's retreat in the car ride home I'm trying to choose my words carefully when my sister goes I don't want to go to that retreat tomorrow can I stay home and say you weren't letting me yes turn me into the bad guy I don't care you don't have to do anything you don't want to turns out everything up until tonight was normal Church stuff tonight they turn it up to 11 people all around were season yelling throwing up they were feeding people something which was causing this and the smoke and air smelled funny according to my sister I kept asking my sister if they fed her something but she said no they weren't supposed to feed my sister or anything until she goes to her first retreat the retreat which the night church said they paid for her making it seem like they were generous was supposed to be an initiation or commitment to the place according to my sisters friend who already went to the initiation they gave you something that makes you sick represents the evil leaving you and you feel sick for a week or two the people there tonight were scary and it didn't look right in the head I read this stuff that they gave my sister all culty stuff and BS the place looked like a house that was made to look like a small Church - I also later found out from my aunt that their church named and make any sense at least from a Catholic point of view and they weren't listed or officially a church by any legal standard needless to say my sister never went back to that church ever again [Music] two summers ago my now ex-girlfriend Kat and I were sitting next to the edge of this cliff at a beach on New York's North Shore overlooking the water with a very nice view of Connecticut's coastline it was super dark the only real light source being the full moon above us we were just chillin looking up at the clear night sky looking for shooting stars one of her favorite nighttime activities the whole reason we always went to the speech especially the part we were at was because no one never went there it's pretty isolated and hard to find unless you're really searching for it you have to walk through a trail for about ten minutes or so before it opens up into a small area free of foliage above the main part of the beach below it was a great little spot to smoke in peace we were having a good time talking about stupid stuff and just hanging out when I heard this mumbling followed by twig snapping behind us I put my index finger up signaling for Kat my girlfriend to be quiet and I turned around and looked into the dark foliage for about a minute but there was nothing it was a little weird because it was around 1 a.m. but I thought maybe it was just some other people exploring the trails no big deal right then I heard it again that same mumbling followed by twig snapping closer this time I quickly turned again and there was a dude standing right at the edge of the tree line which is about 10 feet away from us he had long dark hair no shirt or shoes on just jeans and a weird tribal looking necklace it was so dark and his hair was so long and thick that it shrouded his face so I couldn't really make out any distinct features he was kind of whispering but it was a really quiet night there was no wind and no waves crashing below us his voice made the hairs of my arms stand up it was really monotone but soft and he was speaking French I don't speak fluent French but I understand a good amount due to the fact that I spent 10 years of my life from the southeast border of England right by the Channel Tunnel so I learned some in school and also dealt with a lot of French tourists when I work a fish and chip shop I'm fairly certain that he sends something that roughly translated - are you afraid of death maybe I didn't hear him right it's been almost four years since I moved back to New York by then so I responded asking in French what again in French she asks are you afraid of death nope I definitely heard him correctly I stood up facing him my eyes adjusted to the darkness behind him a little where I saw two more people on either side of him a girl in some kind of white dress cliche I know and another shirtless guy slightly further back they were just standing there I didn't say anything I just crouched down - Kath who had remained silent the whole time keeping my eyes fixed on these weirdos grabbing her hand bring her up to a standing position and slowly walked us towards a much less steep part of the cliff where we were able to carefully climb down towards the main area where I had parked my car avoiding the trail all the while constantly looking over my shoulder it was visibly shaken by the whole ordeal I'm not a small dude I'm six foot four but my girlfriend was about four foot eleven little latina chick and I had left my knife at home so I wasn't taking any chances cat kept asking me what the guy was saying but I didn't want to creep her out too much so I just told her I didn't know and that they were probably just tourists asking for directions or something she wasn't buying it but she eventually dropped it once we got in the car a litter did some research on that area and found out that only five years prior there were reports of illicit and strange activity occurring there on behalf of a self-proclaimed pagan cult focusing on weird druidic practices originating all the way from France I'm thankful I didn't take the time to truthfully answer that french-speaking man's question [Music] I'm a female who is in a long-term long-distance relationship with my boyfriend in England you can call me ginger and my boyfriend is Brandon these incidences still continue and I will update them if anything major happens any health offered with the whole situation would also be greatly appreciated since around August or September of 2017 Brennan and I have been continuously harassed and stalked by these online cyber stalkers we absolutely have no idea who they are or exactly why they are after us and it's clear that there are multiple people out to get us it started with my boyfriend getting a message on PlayStation Network from someone who used to know back in early 2017 a person that tried getting with him and an obvious catfish they told him that they were going to make his life miserable we tried brushing it off and thought that they were making empty threats because they couldn't have their way with him however this was not the case and for a long time now this person has been doing everything they can to separate us and make us suffer they would use these IP hacking programs to boot Brandon off of his internet and would occasionally do it to me it would only happen to me when I was playing a specific game so I avoided it for a while and tried changing up my IP address Brennan would also get the occasional message from this person saying things like your girlfriend doesn't love you and never will she just cheated on you or and your life now you piece of trash just the typical bullcrap that would come from some lowlife hiding behind a screen however as time passed the harassment only got worse it even escalated to the point of this person having other people join in with them saying Brandon's real name street address and family names to us it then got up to me where they told Brandon my street address to him which I had never told anyone about not even him we would also have people come to us on skype kik or playstation network with screenshots of us supposedly cheating which still happens occasionally only screenshots that were real was when my boyfriend played along to one of them to see if they would admit their plans to him but they didn't he told me they had sent a few Photoshop images of scantily clad girls saying it was them and to show the images to me so I would get jealous he did indeed show them and pointed out how the waistline of one of them was uneven the poor edits were quite noticeable from there it kept getting worse and worse they would pretend to be us to an entire community throughout different accounts and try making us look like they were against each other one of them even got through Brandon's PlayStation account and pretended to be him to me saying that he had a new girlfriend and hates me or whatever recently however my boyfriend has completely lost his account with all the details changed and he's had to use alternate accounts he also lost his main Skype account but I simply made a new one I have no idea if they plan on attacking me but I wouldn't be surprised that they did and been trying to ignore them recently even though I used to reply to them when they sent me messages but I'm doing my best to stay strong through all of this as of right now my boyfriend has been completely taken off of his net for now again it was off for a month beforehand and we almost separated due to that and some other mistakes that I will not go into detail with however I can say that we patched things up now this is a bit off topic but it connects with the rest of the cyber stalkers Brandon had an ex friend he knew in person for years a guy we will call Ivan he suddenly decided the turn against us simply because me and Brandon were dating and used to argue a lot this guy legitimately had no reason to hate us but hates me most of all even though I did nothing wrong to him we were good friends to him and tried putting up with his toxicity for almost two years I knew from the moment I met this guy that he was incredibly shady but I tried ignoring that gut feeling for the sake of Brandon I did let him know that he was completely toxic towards us so he eventually broke off the friendship however while Brandon's net was off for a month Ivan did let me in him talk when I asked about him which I found to be quite strange when Brandon came back and the three of us were playing a game together I beat Ivan and he suddenly turned against me once more I had enough to this waste of space and told him to never speak to me again even blocking him but not before sending him messages of how he had burned his bridges with me this guy was straight to Brandon and told him how much he hated me even saying how horrible of a person he thinks I am he was basically just calling me everything under the Sun Ivan even threatened to end my life if I ever went to go see my boyfriend in England he just went on other accounts to try turning me against Brandon by coming up with lies about how he cheated on me would I just ignored them however Ivan then said he was going to go to work with our stalkers and tried to break us apart this had me thinking that he may have been secretly letting out some information about Brandon to our cyber stalkers since he knew his address and everything so I wouldn't put it past him if he was one of them one thing to note is that Ivan held Brandon up against the wall and yelled at him just for talking to me he's a seriously violent and mentally disturbed person it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he got sent to prison for something terrible it wasn't until my boyfriend's internet allowed for consistent communication between us did my boyfriend finally come clean about what has been happening and this is where things have gotten incredibly strange and I don't know where to take it they told me about a few months prior to the various stalkers and threats did he come into contact with Ivan through a mutual friend at his work he says that Ivan led him to join an online community that operated in his local area they were known for their open society promiscuity and my boyfriend came clean that his loneliness led him to succumb to participate in this community it wasn't until a month into the experience that he start to feel very sketched out by the strange practices the group would participate in such as animal sacrifices and strange rituals that he decided to abandon the group altogether but persistence and use of blackmail has now placed him in an even more terrifying position he cried throughout all of this sudden revelation to me and I truly am in shock as I write this he's lost my trust but my fear for his safety leads me to wonder what should I do now [Music] my name is Morgan and I'm a 17 year old male from North Wales UK me and my friends five of us in total we're going to the castle close to our house to do a Ouija board we all live on the same street so we met at my house and then walk the three miles to the castle it's now 11 p.m. and it's completely dark they have to walk in the woods and up some very steep inclines it would take us an hour to reach the tower where we were planning to do the Ouija board so on to the story we were about 15 minutes from the Tower my best friend Cheryl tells us all to stop and listen just faintly in the distance we can hear talking and we can smell smoke Cheryl tells us to walk on but slowly and quietly after about 15 minutes we are about 50 feet from the tower and now we can hear full-blown chanting we can see a fire coming from the tower and I can see a white figure facing towards this fire I tell everyone to stand behind me and be absolutely quiet we tiptoe towards the tower and when you're now at the entrance and I peek my head around and see about 10 hooded figures around a fire and what looks like a dead dog being burned on the fire after about one minute of staring and shock one of the hooded figures spots me he alerts the other figures soon before they started to come after me I calmly walked away to my for absolutely terrified friends and quietly said run so we did we ran for our lives I could hear the figures hot on our backsides I started to cry they were not saying anything they were just bolting for us fully covered in white hooded robes with two black holes where the eyes would be after about what felt like five hours of chase but was only about five minutes we came to the main path leading out of the castle I look behind me one more time and saw the last few figures walking back towards the tower we still had another 45 minutes walking down the path leading through the woods and out of the castle presuming we were safe we sat down had a cigarette and a beer each and my fiance David and Cheryl both went on to tell us that the hooded figures were probably caught they explain what a cult was and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck I had never been so disgusted and terrified in my life but we soon changed the subject to lighten the mood and eventually set back off we finally arrived back at the entrance to the castle we decided to get a taxi home and I phoned the police I told the police about what we all saw and they said that they would look into it the next day we received a follow-up phone call from the police saying that they went to the tower found a fire pit with the remains of a dog in the middle of it but they never found any trace of the group to this day we haven't been back to that castle and we don't plan on doing so [Music] years ago as a 17 year old I worked at a deli in a grocery store this grocery store was in a small town so it seems as if we had a very concentrated amount of crazy people I was really naive and did not know how to say no to people so I got into a lot of perplexing situations there for our uniforms we had to wear white button-up blouses black pants black aprons and a huge nametag the nametag not only had her first names but our last names as well my first name is slightly unique but my last name is uncommon basically I'm really easy to find he searched my name on Google or Facebook and I'm the only one as of now that pops up I was always really uncomfortable with people seeing my full name in such a public job an older man with big glasses white beard and red plaid coat came in one day asking for something small as I was dishing it up I did my usual chatter with a customer he was asking me a lot of really uncomfortable personal questions but I wasn't quite catching on that he was getting creepy that was a senior and shared that with him he asked me a few more things and he was on his merry way I promptly forgot about him he came back in one week later and asked me if he could take a picture of me I didn't know what to think of it but I smiled and said that I belong behind a camera not in front of one he had a nervous laugh and disappeared about 15 minutes later a co-worker ran up to me and asked me if I had just saw this old guy in a red plaid coat take a picture of me from behind this glass window we had by the entrance it was really creepy but let it go about two weeks after this he came back in and waited until I was free to speak to him he told me that his name was something like this is not his real name or legal name is when he made up a manual Lambrecht he asked me if I would like to go out to his home out in the country every Thursday night and be as hostess force readings that he had they said he wanted the beautiful woman to greet his guests and be admired by his side I told him thank you but I worked two jobs and I valued my few nights a week that I had off and would rather spend them with my family and trying to convince me he told me that he had a community of people that lived on his land and they were all very peaceful I turned him down again and moved to a customer waiting for me later on that week a manual lamb branch came back in with some flyers apparently he had been going door to door and handed them to me told me he was waiting for me and left I read the literature on my break one was a typed out love poem it was very sexual the next was some political flyer I guess he was running for president or something the third absolutely creeped me out I wish I still had it to type it out for you word for word basically it was informing people of the New Kingdom and how Emanuel lamb branch was the leader of the New Kingdom and that he had a bride waiting for him his bride was me he put my full stinking name in there and explained how he'd commissioned a local artist to paint a large portrait portraying me as his bride apparently it was sitting above his fireplace he said we were to have descendants who had ruled the New Kingdom that was it I'd had enough of him I went home crying and asked my mom what to do she immediately called the police and they issued a restraining order on him they took all of the papers from him and talked to him they told them I wanted to be his bride and was waiting until I was 18 disgusting Emanuel lambrianou the store that I worked on for the next month it would stand over by the magazines and would just watch me for hours it made me nervous finally a co-worker alerted the store manager who told him he could never come back inside no he just stood outside the door apparently that summer he was jailed for some violent behavior and thankfully I never saw that would-be cult leader again [Music] three years ago I thought I joined an amazing church I was never a Jesus Freak and in fact used to make fun of them as a kid referring to them as bible thumpers during college that changed i felt the need to form a relationship with God after the deaths of close family members it couldn't have been better timing because I ended up at a new school and a new job where I eventually met Joanna Joanna was an instant friend we clicked right away we shared a passion for music we're studying the same major and could talk for hours about anything Joanna and I hung out for about six months before I started to notice anything out of the ordinary basically I would never see her on the weekends because she told me she devoted them to her church and youth group I didn't think that was strange but I was curious and asked her what religion she was she told me she was nondenominational and quickly changed the subject Joanna started showing up to work less and less and she started missing classes she was always tired when she did show up or look completely drained or out of it rumors around school and work was that she was doing drugs I knew that was false because both of us had a disdain for drugs and others who partied hard like that Joanna had less and less time to spend with friends so I rarely would see her after about a month like this she called me out of the blue to go out to Denny's we met up and she pulled out her phone she showed me a YouTube video of a recent volunteer activity she did with her church group Joanna explained to me that she volunteered a lot with her church and it took up a lot of her time the video quality was excellent for a church video and it played almost like a short film the passion she had talking about all the good deeds they do and how much fun it was piqued my interest I asked her to the name of the church again she did not disclose but said non-denominational Christian she asked me to come with her right now because it was better than I see it myself I found that strange because it was 10:00 p.m. at night on a Wednesday I went into a small office or warehouse looking building I found it strange so the church wouldn't have any signs or pictures of Jesus in the space it looked like a child's daycare or learning center immediately women rushed over and hugged me it was unreal I later learned I got love bombed before I knew it I was sitting in a corner of a room with a woman slightly older and Johanna she had a dry erase board and started teaching me about the Bible the Bible study made sense but soon after she asked me if I was ready to be baptized it was now around 11:30 p.m. and I felt some sort of obligation I had no ride home had no idea where I was and these happy shiny people were cooking for me and teaching me the Bible how could I say no I was hesitant but the intensity grew and I could feel the attitude start to change the desperation they promised it would only take a few minutes and that God was watching and I may die if I deny being baptized after learning the truth so like an idiot I agreed and was rushed into a bathroom to get changed into a white robe and then let them know I had changed they ushered me into a bathtub where a small Asian man walked in apparently he was a pastor he told me not to be nervous and that the water would be warm I knelt in the shower with the lights dimmed while the rest of the women came in wearing veils over their head singing in some strange monotone voices I heard him baptized me in the name of some Asian God and that's when I got freaked out once I left I was baffled and nervous it was such an intense feeling I was still stuck there as Johanna had driven me away out into another County so I had no idea how to leave they made me some more food and later told me that the name I was baptized under would later be explained to me when I returned to study more everyone kept telling me how I was part of the family now I ended up returning and being pretty ly heavily brainwashed by this group to the point where I felt like they were my family I did things I'm not proud of I helped recruit people and spent hours and days and weeks there I later found out that Johanna was just a recruiter which would soon turn out to be someone who just forms fake French to bring more young women into this group and escaped mentally and deprogrammed and D fellowshipped it was a truly haunting experience that no young female should go through I still see Johanna from time to time with her vicious Wolf Pack preaching the women on campus and malls I usually hide or run the other way and I hope I never end up back in that cult again I own this property in the countryside of Alabama it's in the middle of nowhere with 60 plus acres and as an abandoned house barn and greenhouse the barn house are close to each other in the greenhouse is far into the woods me and my friend were setting up film equipment in the house because we were going to film a video the next day we had to sleep over for some reason I forget I didn't want to sleep in the truck so we slept inside the house my friend wakes me up and tells me he's getting really weird feelings about all of this so we go sleep in my truck I fall asleep when we get in the truck and my friend is still awake he told me it was around 4:00 in the morning and he saw seven to eight people in hoods and robes he said they looked around the house for a bit probably to see if anybody was there because they saw our equipment in my truck one of the guys stared directly at my friend in the car but the windows are tinted so the guy had a hard time seeing my friend the guy stops investigating my truck and goes back with the group my friend tried to wake me up but I guess I wasn't morning came and my friend was still very sleepy from not catching any sleep we're going to the house to check on everything the lights are smashed papers are burned umbrellas are broken we found candles around the house a cat nail do a wall with a pentagram around it I was very shocked by everything and wish I was awake my friend sounds like he was terrified previous days we had found decayed animals two dogs some horses some cattle birds a bat and some kind of hand buried since this place was once farmland I just assumed the previous owner just left the animals to die or something but I didn't know how to explain the bat birds in hand this stuff was found near the barn and in the barn so one day we come back to see if there's any more weird stuff going on we find three pigs sown crosses near the house the pigs were decapitated and the heads were on the ground in front of them they were wearing makeup and they had wigs sewn into their heads my friend tells me he thinks the people he saw the last time were there did it and it was telling me that he thought that they might be part of some satanic call for some other group around the crosses and pigs some of the grounds were burned a few large circles me my friend spent the rest of the day taking down the pigs and burying them in the woods we go here again to ride some dirt bikes and ATVs and nothing weird was there when we came we put the vehicles in the barn because we would come back later in the week my friends putting up his ATV and tells me he saw a person in the barn just relaxing when some hay but it was in the dark and one of the horses or cattle stalls my friends stood there for a while to see if it was a person and the man moved his hand in a goodbye kind of way my friend runs out of the barn and tells me what happens I go in there because I thought my friend was messing with me but no one is in there and then when I'm leaving the barn I see the guy trying to sleep on the second storey and I asked if he's alright and he tells me he is and tells me to go away and let him sleep even though it's my property I don't want to start any crap with him so I let him be my friend says he thinks he is part of the group that's been doing stuff on my property we go there again about two weeks later and we see from my truck the guy walking out of the barn and talking with two guys one of them point in my truck and they all run into the woods I get my knife and gun keep it under my seat and it finally came in use and I go with my friend to go find the guys to tell them they can't come here anymore and then it's my private property I can't find them but we found that most of them stay inside the greenhouse we found clothes books and dead birds and squirrels and I'm assuming that's what they ate there was a pond nearby so that's probably where they bathed then or didn't bathe at all we go to the barn to investigate sand we found books on the second storey an altar and some tall candles all of this was out of sight from the ground we also found stuff like ropes knives nails a hammer and a mallet we conclude that all of those guys there are in the group and they did all of that weird stuff we have not been back at that property for months so we don't know if they're still there or moved on the police have searched there before for two guys that had kidnapped a nine-year-old too so those guys might be related to that unfortunately the police found no one there [Music] about two years ago my friends and I found out about an abandoned insane asylum located in Downey California being the curious 17 year olds that we were we decided to be a good idea to go explore this abandoned facility just to see what we could find inside so on a Saturday night we gathered a few more of our friends and made the drive out to Downey so we could explore this building for ourselves after about thirty minutes of driving we arrived in Downey and make our way through the city to where the asylum is located the closer we get the shadier and shadier the neighborhoods were passing through become and after about 15 minutes of driving we arrived at our destination we parked the car climbed through a hole in the fence and make our way into the building to see what we could find to be honest it started out not being too bad considering we had about 10 people we were thinking what's the worst thing that could happen to a group of 10 people so we meandered through the building looking at all the broken furniture scattered throughout the rooms the patient files thrown upon the floor and we're pretty much just having a good time looking at what once was this weird mental institution but this is where things get weird as we're walking and we of course have a flashlight pointed down the hallway because the power that once was in this building was and is clearly out but as we're walking with our flashlight pointed ahead of us and we come to a corner we see the adjacent wall of the corner light up from what we assumed was another flashlight and sure enough we turned the corner and there's another group of four kids shady weird kids we confront each other and they asked us if we had been to the slide we politely answer no because we have no idea what they're talking about and they tell us that we should follow them of course we declined because we're getting weird vibes from these people and as they're talking amongst themselves one of the kid comes up to me with a kid you not a solid six inch long bowie knife looking thing isn't this cool look what I found as he moves the knife closer to my face I politely answer what a cool fine that is and we start to back away telling them that we're going to go explore the roof of the building surprisingly they say all right and they turn the corner and continue on their way all right now that that was out of the way I'm seriously beginning to feel weird about being in this place and about how we're definitely not supposed to be here so at that point I say screw it we need to go to the roof go down the fire escape and get out of here so we make our way to the roof and we're sitting there plotting our escape like I said people are not supposed to be in the asylum so they have a police car stationed at the main gate to make sure no one comes in so as we're up there and we try to figure out the best way to get out of here without getting noticed by the police that's my friend sees a fire escape ladder coming down off this higher portion of the roof we decide that that is probably our best bet so we grab a small ladder and that will be able to boost us up onto this higher portion of the roof my friend Jonah goes up and immediately turns around so he could help other people out by pulling them up as I'm getting myself up there my heart completely sinks Jonah did you not see this when you got up here I whisper what are you talking about man he responds I'm looking forward and he slowly turns to see what was pretty much a worst nightmare there's about 1,500 people sitting in a circle up there surrounding a burning cat or some other dead animal these guys are talking in tongues and just making noises which seems satanic as we're both getting down we get noticed and they start talking amongst themselves in this weird language and as soon as we get down these guys stand up and start sprinting towards us I tell everyone to ditch the idea the fire escape and to not worry about the cops we need to get out of here now so we start sprinting through this building with this cult and close pursuit behind us we miraculously make it out of the building and are starting to run across the field to the main gate and as we're doing so the cop notices the commotion turns on the sirens and comes driving in thank God he manages to cut the called off from us he starts to chase them as we get away safely honestly I can safely say it was the scariest experience of my life what would we have done if they had taken one of our friends what do we have to go back in and confront them I don't know and I'm glad that it didn't happen [Music] my friend Connor has a girlfriend who lives a few hours away and her mom reads all her attacks so they generally stick to Skype well after a while his girlfriend Ellie wants to introduce him to her Skype friends this is a group of people who met in various places across the internet who have those awful chats you can't keep up with and she introduces him to Jack Jack is the epicenter of the group Connor mentions him to me in passing a few times over about a month and then he finally messages me one nights and says I need to talk to you so we talk and he tells me what Jack's been saying Jack is what I like to refer to as lier crazy legit and I asked to mate the odds of each of those are fifty forty nine one see Jack claimed to be a supernatural being which I'd normally laugh off except he's got a group of hapless people convinced of this and Connor describes the group dynamics and it's red flags all around for controlling behavior and well it's sort of my speciality dealing with people like Jack but Connor doesn't want to stir up trouble because he's not confrontational I don't have similar inhibitions so one night he invites me into the group chat which is ominously dubbed the truth cults have a collective belief in varying levels in something in this case the truth is about Jack the first thing anyone says to me is did you get Jack's permission every alarm bell and my system is going off Connor and I both play dumb slowly hesitantly a few other members of the group all strangers to me start saying hello not welcome me just asking how I know Connor not trying to explain that the chat is kind of private just saying tentative hellos the girl who first am Anand to know of Jack gave me permission to join announces she asked Jack if I'm allowed to stay Connor meanwhile is messaging me about group dynamics the only non-believer Connor knows of this king whose vocal about his problem with Jack I talked to King who tells me that the other person doesn't believe is the girl who challenged me about entering the group red flag number one someone who doesn't believe jack is still the first to challenge outsiders cults don't appreciate outsiders that's about when Jack arrives he's likable don't get me wrong he is good at what he does I think for about thirty minutes that he's too good for me to be any use but I'm a writer so I can commit to a character pretty well and he buys into my southern belle act once he invites me to a private chat I'm immediately told that I can ask him anything without fear of repercussions dude lives 600 miles from me what kind of repercussions could there be so I talked to King and the girl who challenged me and it turns out he's doing something else that scene and cults he's using threats and fear to get people to obey Him something about being sold in the magical slavery if he doesn't protect them I'm gonna pause here to say the people who don't believe Jack are the most emotionally stable once there are abuse victims and depressed teenagers in this little group they're smart but they have two options believe Jack or lose friends anyway back to the circle of creepy Jack's Skype mood is going to kill my brother I inquire he tells me that his brother stabbed him with a sword and sides with her father who Jack hates after this guy's lore comes from The Dresden films for a creepy would-be cult leader he really sucks at lying so I mark him down for dysfunctional and real-life family and possible violent tendencies I then lured Jack into a trap I won't bore you with details but I get to irrevocable screenshotted proof that he's a lying liar who lies not delusional and not legit I let Jack know the jig is up as retaliation he decides he should ban me and Connor from the group but before he can I go off on a nice little tangent in the group chat about a Criminal Minds episode where a cult leader kicks out anyone who challenges him lest the others be swayed Jack is angry at me really angry like hope the city it can't trace my IP address or I am dead but it doesn't end there oh no Jack returns to the group chat with a sob story and I let him stew because I've been slowly working my way through the group ripping off the jack is a liar who lies and manipulates and really shouldn't be talking to this guy no really band-aid I go talk to King he tells me that his fellow non-believer a challenger has a picture of Jack's ID because I believe in having leverage I do some totally legal digging into the sky who has an unfortunately unique surname dear Jack's mom you should change your facebook security settings some fun facts about Jack his little brother is a jock better-looking mesomorph body athletic popular and Jack is none of these his mum stops talking about her eldest son quite suddenly no more pictures of Jack not a single mention of Jack since he was 18 so I made note of it and moved on with my background check but then I noticed something an arrest not unusual except before the arrest date he and his brother I equally pictured on their mum's Facebook and then nothing I can't figure it out until I'm talking to Jack distracting him and letting him talk himself in circles I see his mood again gonna kill my brother dear God I think remembering that every lie holds a kernel of truth he actually has a brother he wants to kill I asked him why he was arrested even though I feel it in my gut that I'm right assault he says on whom on my brother I need confirmation and a few other things before I present the facts the group still called the truth even as more and more members sit behind their computers marveling at the irony so I keep talking him to make sure I had the right jack but I'm not dealing with a catfish creep we video chatted it is him mug shot and ID confirmed he keeps asking me questions where do I live north of you what do I do for a living consult how old am I 17 what's her full name I wasn't giving that one out I like Jack have one of those last names that are incredibly rare it could find it if he googled me at any point Jack could do five minutes of googling and find my full name first middle and last anyway I told the group about Jack lying that day and shut down as manipulative attempts to garner sympathy now he says he's dying and his father's a mobster and his brother is his adoptive brother except there's no one around for this equally ridiculous story he's trying to convince me literally just me I live in a rural part of Chuckie there's not much to do here for a couple of bored teenagers you always hear about local urban legends every town has one or two my town is no different Kentucky has a cult presence there is a DaSilva in a remote part of the area it sits by Kentucky River on a stretch of road out in the middle of nowhere kids in the area love to throw parties there one of my friends J was one of these kids Jamie to our school in the middle of the year he knew everyone and everyone knew him during a doll math lecture Jay and I started talking about local myths surrounding the area there are quite a few Jay starts telling me about a distillery he used to throw parties at he says that he's heard rumors that a cult meets there and continues to tell me weird experiences he's had there everything from dolls being nailed to the walls inside the distillery to a homeless guy shooting at him down there I decided that I wanted to check it out Jay a few friends and I decide to go to the disarray the following weekend to explore the area around it our plan was for me to drive my car and Jay to drive his car we'll hit a total of eight people going with us and for me to follow Jay there Friday comes in the whole day at school we are getting psyched up for our trip at about 10:00 that night we all meet and saddle up I follow Jay in his car with my four passengers and Jay drives his car with two passengers we drove for what seemed like forever about 45 minutes I didn't even know if we were in the same town J turned his car onto a two-lane road this road seemed pretty normal no sign of anything out of the ordinary I keep following J's car down this road for about another five minutes that's when things start getting weird the road got smaller and we passed a street sign that just had the word hell spray-painted on it we passed a couple of houses that had weird red lights on the inside and a few houses that look like they were falling apart a little further we passed the distillery and took a left up another holler this road was even crazier it was almost straight up a mountain with no guardrail on the side if we were to swerve off this road we were dead we get to the top of the hill and keep following this road until we come upon a gravel driveway and Jay stopped his car this is it he said as he got out of his car and walked over to mine I noticed some strange things right off the bat the driveway led up to a huge house surrounded by trees and the trees I noticed ropes hanging from them they look like nooses there was signs posted everywhere about shooting anyone who came onto the property I also noticed a weird rock formation in the clearing of trees off to the side of the road almost like a stone hedge type deal after talking to Jay for a little while about the route we were taking to go back home we noticed lights coming down the Drive a few of them dr dr j shot as he took off back to his car I immediately floored it I left Jay and his passenger in the dust I almost had three deer that jumped out in front of my car my buddy in the back seat started asking us if we had seen those things behind us I asked him what he was talking about and he said that it was what looked like dogs and the road behind us he said that they look like dogs but they were way too big to be dogs we got back to town and stopped at a Waffle House to rehash what had just happened Jay said that he had seen a few dirt bikes and ATVs coming down the Drive and didn't want to be around when they got there could this have been the cult everyone was talking about I may never know hey friends thanks for listening be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations if you got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit our let's read official and give them received feedback from the community and maybe even hear your story featured on next video and join my discord to interact with me and other listeners directly and if you want to support me even more grammar early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on patreon and maybe even pick up some let's read merch on Spreadshirt and check out the let's read podcast where you can hear all these stories and long compilation form and save huge on data located on both Spotify and Apple podcasts links in the bio thanks so much friends and remember are you a parking ticket because you've got fine written all over you

Channel: Lets Read!

Views: 429,885

Rating: 4.7697992 out of 5

Keywords: true scary stories, lets read podcast, scary true stories, true horror stories, reddit scary true stories, scary stories, horror stories, true scary stories from reddit, true horror stories from reddit, subscriber submissions, true stories, scary horror stories, stories from reddit, lets not meet, reddit, lets read, asmr reading, asmr sleep, ASMR, true creepy stories, creepy stories, true scary stories reddit lets not meet, podcast, compilation

Id: 73eAeq1YdA4

Length: 168min 6sec (10086 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020