Aidan
Appearances
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So my name is Aiden. I'm 28 years old. I currently, I just moved to Long Island. I lived in Brooklyn for the last seven years, but I'm originally from Spotsylvania County, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Very, very rural area. Not a lot going on. Around this time, things were pretty tumultuous. I was mainly living with my brother's dad through some mishap of custody. He was married to my mom.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
They got divorced. he ended up getting me and my brother. So I was living with him a majority of the time. This happened like the summer before sixth grade. So, you know, I had just finished fifth grade. Going into sixth grade, I didn't know a lot of kids in the neighborhood.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I knew like one other little girl, so I would hang out with her and my brother and play outside with them pretty much all day, every day. There just really wasn't a ton else to do. The neighborhood was pretty rural, and it was still under development at this time, so there was a lot of, like, empty houses. All of the back lots of this neighborhood didn't even have houses on it.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It was just, like, boxed-out clearings. So we would go play in those. We would go look for, like, old Civil War trenches. Spotsylvania is a huge, huge Civil War. Just the whole place is like a battlefield because it's right in the middle of Richmond and D.C.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So we would lay in trenches, we would shoot BB guns, we'd just run around in the woods following deer trails, looking for creeks, trying to find cool stuff in the woods. Me and the only other little girl in the neighborhood, we were good friends. And I don't know why on this particular day, my brother wasn't also with us. He probably just got in like a new Madden game or something.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So it was just me and her, as opposed to the three of us. And we're wandering around the woods like normal. We're exploring, just kind of not going too far, but you know, the woods that we know pretty well. And we go a little bit further than normal and we find a creek and it's awesome. It's like deep enough to kind of sit down in. It's super cold. It's not really buggy.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It's got like good banks on the side. So there aren't, you know, you don't have to worry about like snakes or jumping over a bunch of brambles and rocks and stuff. And we were stoked. We were like, this rules. We're going to come here every day. Let's come back tomorrow and have a picnic and like swim and just, this will be awesome. This is going to be our summer spot. So, so excited.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It's like the best thing we could have found in the woods other than you know, like, I don't know, deer stands were pretty cool. Or if you found like an old tree house, but this was like top notch woods find. So the next day we like pack up lunch and we decide to meet up at her house and then go and find this Creek again. And so we
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
you know, start off into the woods and we walk the same way we did the day before we're following, um, deer trails. And what those are is like deer walk through the woods, usually in the same places all the time. And it creates like these very narrow paths, uh, through the grass and the brambles. It's like not an official trail by any means. Um,
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And they're small, like children could probably navigate through them well, but like adults might have trouble. And so we're going down the same deer trail we did the day before and we're not finding the creek. And we're like, man, I don't really think we were quite lucky. you know, walking this long the day before. Like, it seems like we've been walking for a really long time.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Maybe we turned off, you know, the wrong way, or we missed a turn or something. Because that can easily happen, because like I said, it's just, it's not an official trail by any means. And so we decided to keep going because it's early in the day and we walk for a little bit longer and we're like still nothing. So we sit down and we decide to have lunch.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So, you know, we sit down, we're chilling, we're hanging out and having fun. And I'm starting, I don't know, at this point, I guess I'm a little bit worried because I don't know exactly where we are. And then that was not a feeling that I was used to because we were in these woods so often. I pretty much always knew where I was.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So I'm like uneasy, but I'm not like scared or freaked out or anything at this point. So we finish eating and, you know, we kind of talk a little bit about, do you think we should turn back? Do you think we should still try and find it? Well, what way do you think you should go? What way, you know, what's the right way? We decide to go a certain way. We walk in that direction for hours.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
probably another 15 or 20 minutes, and then we find what looks like a bathroom in the middle of the woods. There's a full, like, porcelain toilet. A few feet away from that is, like, the outline of a tub, like, just the white part of the tub, not, like, tiles or anything. It's like a tub basin, and a few feet away from that is, like, a porcelain sink.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And we look at it, and we're like, well, that's weird. One, I've never seen that before. Two... How, like it's heavy. It's a full porcelain toilet. Who's hiking through the woods with this? How did this end up here? There's no roads around here that you could like, you know, drive your truck back and like dump garbage. Your bathroom, I don't know, got garbage in the middle of the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So it was just really strange. We were like, how and why? So it's weird that it was arranged like exactly as a bathroom is arranged. Almost like the house disappeared around it. Like maybe the house burnt down. Because it's so odd that it would be... in such like perfect setting out there in the middle of nowhere. And we did look for a foundation of a house.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
We looked for old stones kind of laid out, you know, in a way that would show that the foundation of a house had been there. And we didn't really find anything. That was it. You find a lot of nails and stuff around spots where old houses or sheds should have been. We didn't find any nails.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
We didn't find anything to indicate that there had been anything else there at that point, which was just really, really strange, especially out in the woods where we were. I don't remember who brought it up first, but someone called it Bigfoot's bathroom. And we both thought that was just absolutely hysterical. We were like, yep, that's where he sits and uses the toilet.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
That's where he washes his hands. And so we got to that part and I think that was like the very last of the levity of this excursion. After this point, things just started to get really strange. I don't know, up until this point, I had never really been afraid of being in the woods. You know, there's just really nothing to be afraid of.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, no one's just hanging out back there, you know, waiting to pounce on little girls. Like, animals won't. really bother you if you don't bother them. Snakes suck, but if you're paying attention to where you're walking, you're not going to have a problem with that. So I had never experienced being scared in the woods. And pretty much immediately after we left this bathroom area, we walked into
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, a very strangely... This part of the woods was, like, dense in a way that the other part of the woods hadn't been. The entire ground was covered with, like, big, super ultra-green ferns. And all of the trees were sparse, but they were really tall, and they were really thick on top, which is just not...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I had never seen a patch of woods that looked like that in the woods that we were in that day. It's normally like very viney, lots of sticks, lots of brambles. Like nowhere was it just this blanket of ferns. So it stuck out to both of us. And my friend and I, we remarked on it and we were like, this is fantastic. you know, gorgeous, this is really pretty, but it feels weird.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It felt super just dreamy and strange. It could have been, like, because that area was so dark because of how thick the trees were on top and all of the ferns, it just felt really foreign. And I very, like, distinctly remember that being the moment where my stomach kind of turned a little bit and started to actually be...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
not so much like apprehensive of being lost, but like genuinely being afraid that we were lost because it was such an alien area of the woods to us. And so I think my friend started to panic around this point too because around then is when we began to bicker. I think we should turn back. No, I don't think we should turn back. I want to keep going. Like, well, if we keep going, where are we going?
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I want to go this way. No, I want to go this way. And I don't remember how much longer we were walking after that, but it gets to the point where she's convinced. She's like, I'm right. I know I'm right. We need to go this way to get out of the woods. And I'm like, I don't think you're right. I think we need to go this way. I think we need to follow the sun.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, the sun, you know, only moves in a certain direction. Like, if we follow that, we'll find our way out. And... It's incredibly stupid, but we split up, which as an adult who's like about to have like a daughter of my own, that thought is horrifying. It's like, oh my God, why didn't we stay together? Like at least stay with somebody. Like don't be alone in the woods. That's insanely stupid.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
But that's what we did. I don't know. We bickered a lot. And I guess just both of us had had it that day. So we split up. She takes off one way. I take off the other way. And probably about, I mean, it's hard to judge time, but probably about 20 minutes after we split up, I start to hear someone walking behind me. And I get insanely smug. I'm like, yep, she knew I was right. Here she comes.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, she was wrong. She got lost and she got scared. And now she's following me. And so I think it's my friend. And I turn around and look, and I can't see her. And I'm like, oh, she's probably, you know, ducking. She's probably, you know, I just can't see her. She's hiding because she doesn't want to admit that now she has to follow me because I was right, which is so stupid.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Just looking back, like, man, I was a jerk. So, you know, this goes on for a while where I'm hearing steps behind mine and steps behind mine and steps behind mine. And I keep, you know, whipping my head back, like, you know, quickly and at different intervals to, like, try and catch her.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And slowly, I start to realize or, I don't know, come to the conclusion that if it was my friend, she wouldn't have let this go on for quite so long. Like, she would have... jumped out and tried to scare me or been like, hey, I'm sorry, like, let's walk together. Like, it had been too long for her to be fucking with me, essentially.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I mean... it's hard to tell because your sense of time, like humans are terrible at telling time anyway. But when you're just walking in the woods, doing nothing, no cell phone, it's hard to judge, but maybe like 45 minutes, like it had been quite a while. I was like walking for a long time, thinking she was following me.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Just like crying. Like, very audibly, like, two distinct footsteps crunching leaves behind me. Like, two feet. Like, I thought it was her. Because it didn't sound like a deer. Like, deer don't make a ton of noise when they walk through the woods. They're pretty quiet. So if anything, you'll hear, like, swooshing or you'll hear branches, like, moving around.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
around them, but they don't make like big boot stomp sounding noise. You know, their feet are like this big. And in that part of Virginia, it's like, we don't have like giant brown bears or anything that would be stomping around the woods like that with like little black bears, like also wouldn't have made a lot of noise. Foxes don't make any noise at all.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And that's pretty much the only things that walk around out there. that would have been following me. I mean, it was like stomping. Like a person walking through the woods would sound. And it, I mean, it's also hard to judge like how far away a sound is, but it didn't sound that far. I mean, maybe...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
50 feet, 100 feet behind me, which you'd think, you know, you'd at least see a glimpse of someone even through like pretty, fairly dense trees. And it wasn't that dense. It was open enough for me to be walking through it. So I should have seen somebody or anything that was big enough to make that much noise would be visible.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So I start to realize that maybe it's not my friend or if it is her, she's like gone too far. Like she should have announced herself. So I do, I turn around and I yell out, I yell her name and nothing. I don't hear any stomping. And also it's like, it stops when I stop. When I stop moving, it stops moving. which is also why I was so sure it was her.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So I yell out a few times, you know, asking her to, like, cut it out, to knock it off. Like, hey, I know it's you. Just stuff like that. Never got any response back. And that freaked me out even more because now I'm thinking, like, you know, what if it's a stranger? What if it's, like... a man following me through the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And I start to get, I mean, not even start to get, I'm like, I'm scared by this point. I'm alone. I don't know where I am. I've like stupidly split up from the only other person who knows, you know, where I am. I don't have a cell phone. And I don't even think we told anybody where we were going that day.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So it's very swiftly occurring to me at this point that I've made enough bad decisions that I am now in like a really bad position. I'm scared. And I just, there's really... there's really nothing I can do either. Like I can't snap my fingers and get out of this situation.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, you know, if you, something scares you in pretty much any other place you have, if you have like an exit, like you can get up and go somewhere else. Like if you think someone's following you, you know, in the mall, leave the mall. If you think someone's in your house, you can leave your house. You can't just leave being in the middle of the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And all of this is kind of occurring to me as I'm still walking, like just how deeply in trouble I am. And this goes on for a long time. And I'm getting more scared and more scared. I'm like whipping my head around more often and more often trying to see where
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
what's behind me and I'm picking up the pace and you know it's the summer in Virginia I'm hot I'm sweaty and I'm just I'm miserable and I just I want to be home I want to get out of the woods I'm scared I mean, this goes on for hours and hours and hours. I'm just walking and I'll see a tree that looks vaguely familiar and I'll get excited and I'll go that way. And then it's nothing.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
There's nothing there. At one point, I'm like, maybe I can just find like the ferns again, like that big, you know, place where all the ferns were. And I just, I can't get back to that place. I'm heinously lost. I'm terrified that someone or something is following me through the woods. And then eventually it starts to get dark, which, I mean, we set out. well before lunch, probably like 10.30.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So I've been in the woods for a really long time at this point. We split up maybe at one and it's getting dark in the summer. So this is probably like 7.30. I've been in the woods by myself being followed for a really long time and I'm panicking. I don't wanna spend the night in the woods by myself. And I'm walking and walking and walking. And then finally, I come to a clearing in the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And it's not like a huge clearing. It's probably three quarters the size of a football field. And I walk into it and I kind of like, you know, I get excited because I'm like, this is something I haven't seen before. Maybe this is like the back end of someone's property. Maybe I'm like finally finding my way out of the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And I walk into this clearing and I look around and almost immediately I noticed this weird, heavy, dark mass in the sky, like... This thing, it's hovering probably, I mean, not even hovering, it's completely still in the middle of the clearing, probably a hundred feet up in the air, like just in line with the highest treetops. It's about as long as a bus and maybe twice as wide.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
The color of it is, it's like a dark, misty gray towards the outside. And then as you get closer to the center, there's like this dark color that's almost like super dark purple, like with really, really, really nasty rain clouds. And then even... Closer to the center of this thing is just pitch black, like so black that it almost looks like looking up at the night sky, but only in the center.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It's just, it's like a void. It almost looks like a hole. It almost looks like someone, like if you took a painting of like a beautiful summer's day and then like painted something on top of it, like it looked like it was on top of everything else. Like it looked...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
more defined than everything else and it wasn't moving at all like the trees around it are moving there's a little bit of a breeze there are other clouds moving and it's just this solid stationary spot It was very unusually low, much too high to be fog, way too low to be a cloud.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It was just in such an odd place in the air, just really hovering like kind of right in line with the tops of the tallest trees. And You know, I'm standing there and I'm kind of really struck by it because it just looked so wrong, like absolutely wrong. To this day, it's still the strangest thing I've ever seen.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And then something even stranger happened, which like turns my stomach to talk about to this day. A sound came out of it. And when I say it came out of it, I don't mean like there was a sound that happened in the woods or a sound was nearby. It like came bellowing out of this thing in the sky and it sounded like old timey church bells.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
like the but like massively loud with just like reverberation, like with gusto, like the sound of an old church bell billowing out from this horrible wrong thing in the sky. I've only heard it with the really old Baptist church in my town that I grew up in would do that sound at noon. All of the rest of the hours would just get like, but at noon it would do that bell progression.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
and it sounded like a metal bell like the sound had like i said it had depth it had reverberation it wasn't it didn't sound like thin like a recording or like music or something like that it sounded like like so heavy that like the air was vibrational like when you're close to something making that much noise
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And so after it plays this melody, there's like three distinct, very loud gongs, which is like gong, gong, gong. And then it stopped. And normally that would indicate like three o'clock. It definitely wasn't 3 p.m. because it was getting dark in the middle of the summer. And it definitely wasn't 3 a.m. because it was barely getting dark.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So that in and of itself was very strange, but the whole thing is strange. So... My grandparents had a clock that would also do a very similar chime to that, and every time I heard it, it would make my stomach turn. Hearing it still today makes me feel physically queasy because of how absolutely horrified I was.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It's like, I mean, if you've ever been to a really big concert, like I bartended music venues with like live music. And if you stand like too close to like an amp or if someone's got like big cabinets and you can like feel the music, like vibrating, you know, your skin and vibrating in your chest and That's what it felt like. Like, you can feel when music is loud and up close. Like, it has gusto.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It has, like, a physical sensation. And that's what I felt hearing this. So, and, like, like I said, it didn't come from, you know, behind me or nearby. It came, like, there was no mistaking where this sound was coming from, and it was billowing out of this thing. It wasn't, like, earth-shatteringly loud. Like, it didn't blow my hair back. But it was loud enough that it was jarring.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Loud enough that, I mean, you... Probably would be able to hear it from at least like a mile away. Because I was familiar with the melody. Like I knew, you know, when it was over. I think they say, you know, fight or flight. I think my flight kicked in against my will and my feet were moving before my brain even knew anything.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
What was happening before my brain could like process or look around or watch this thing for any longer, my feet had already decided to leave and I was booking it, just blind sprinting. through the woods as fast as I possibly could, you know, lunging, grabbing brambles, cutting myself up. Like my, you know, shoes are nearly getting torn off.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I'm just really scrambled, high sailing it out of there in a random direction. Mind you, I like didn't, didn't plot out like now I'm going to run this way. It's just gone. And I, I'm,
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
petrified like to this day that is the most horrified I've probably ever been by anything in my life and like I mean you know I've like seen some weird shit or been in some dicey like really dicey situations I bartended in Brooklyn And yeah, I have never been so deeply, truly horrified to my core. And I remember thinking, like, no one's ever going to see me again. Like, I'm gone. I'm gone.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Like, that is not something that happens in our reality. That's not something that should be happening. Like, what I just witnessed happened. Like, I just kept thinking, like, I'm just, I'm gone. No one's ever going to see me again. No one's ever going to see me again. I'm gone. As I'm, like, fall-assing through the woods. And it starts to get dark. Like, dark, dark.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It's not dusk anymore, and I'm running, and I'm crying. I feel like I'm going to throw up, and my knees are all torn up, and my arms are all torn up. And then finally, I hit something hard about waist high. Because I'm running blind. I can't see shit. It's dark. And I hit something about waist high and I go flying over it. Just ass over teeth. Hit this bar. tumble over it.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And that kind of, you know, knocks me for a second. And I'm like gathering myself. I'm on the ground and I look around and I had just hit a fence and flipped over it. And I was sitting in a field and I'm like blinking my eyes really fast and looking around and trying to like force them to adjust to the dark. And I can sort of make out like a hill and,
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
on the other side of me with another part of a fence and just like the biggest wave of relief hit me because I was like, I'm at a farm. I'm at a farm. This is like the back end of someone's property. Like there are people nearby. I'm not lost anymore. I can find somebody who's going to help me.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And I follow the fence back and I eventually come up to like the back of someone's like property, the back of someone's house. And I walk around the house, I knock on the front door and I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. I probably was just a hot mess, just ragamuffin covered in brambles, bleeding. I was like, so sorry to bother you. I'm lost. I've been lost all day.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I don't know where I am. And I need help getting home. And it was like an older man. I think his wife was like bopping around in the kitchen behind him. And he's like, sure. Are you okay? And I'm like, I'm all right. And he's like, do you want some water? I'm like, yeah, I would love some water.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Because, you know, the only thing I had had that day was the little lunchbox with a Capri Sun in it that I had packed myself. I hadn't had water or food or anything. And so, you know, I sip some water and I tell him where I live. And he goes, oh, you're far. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And he's like, you walked here? And I was like, yeah, I walked through the woods.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And he kind of gave me like a funny look. And I was like, yeah, I'm just, I'm scared. I've been lost in the woods. I want to go home. And so he's like, all right, you know, tells his wife everything. gets me in the car. It's like an old pickup truck and drives me back down the road. And I remember looking around and being like, oh man, I am far.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
There was an old church that we passed, not one that has church bells. So the noise couldn't have been this, just to state before the question even comes up. But I remember passing that and me recognizing it and being like, man, I'm like miles away from home. And so, you know, he takes me into my house. I'm like, yep, that's my house. He's like, well, all right.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
You know, I thank him, and I hop out of the truck, and I walk inside, and I can, like, smell that, like, dinner's cooking. And my brother's, like, on the couch, you know, watching TV, and just the relief that washed over me at, like, finally being home. And... Also accompanied by the terrifying realization that nobody was worried about me. Nobody was looking for me.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
Nobody knew that I had been lost all day. It wasn't uncommon for me to play in the woods all day. And especially if I was hanging out at my friend's, I would hang out at her house until pretty much dark. And then, you know, sometimes I'd call home saying I was having dinner at her house. And sometimes I would just come back home. But it just, it wasn't unusual for me to be out that late.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And just absolutely no one was looking for me. And I didn't tell anyone because, well, I didn't tell my parents because I was terrified I was going to get in trouble, which I definitely would have. My parents would have been like, you know, what the hell were you thinking? It was so stupid, which they would be totally right.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And then the next day I went and met up with my friend to be like, dude, what happened to you? Like I got lost and like this thing was following me and I saw this like horrible thing. And she's like, I made it out of the woods in almost immediately. She was like, I turned around and walked the way that I thought I was supposed to walk. And I was out in like 15 minutes.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
She's like, I just figured you did the same thing. So she wasn't looking for me either. Which, you know, it wasn't a huge, massive portion of woods that I was lost in, but certainly not anywhere you want to be overnight. And just the fact that no one had even... I don't know, just like no one cared where I was.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I don't know. Um... And I mean, I have a lot of theories. I mean, after this, like I said, I did not go back to the woods. I was terrified, but I was wildly curious. So, you know, I would rent books from the library about like paranormal stuff in the woods. And, you know, I would read like stories about the Wendigo. And I'm like, well, it wasn't that.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
You know, I would read stories about Bigfoot and the Taillipo and all of these like, you know, creatures and just nothing ever really fit the bill. And then when I was old enough to, you know, look online, I started looking online and trying to find like similar stuff online. And like the closest thing I ever came across was like Irish folklore, like fairy stories.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And then something that people call glimmer men, like things that are in the woods, but that are like see-through and you can't see them, but they follow people. And like none of that ever really felt right. And I've never seen anything about like the mass, the cloud thing that I saw. I've never heard a similar story ever. So I don't know. I really don't know what happened.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I've thought a lot about what it was that could have possibly been following me. You know, the rational side of my brain wants me to think that, you know, maybe it was an animal. You know, maybe it was a mountain lion. They say, you know, that they've been like extinct in Virginia for a hundred years, but you always hear stories from random hunters who like swear they saw one.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
So part of me likes to think, well, you know, maybe it was something like that, which is horrifying in its own way because it's a very dangerous situation. But something in my gut tells me that that's just not what it was.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
No. And that's the thing. You really wouldn't. I mean, if you were being stalked by an animal, that's like, I mean, that's their bread and butter. They're like, they're good at stalking. You don't hear them for a reason. It's really only people that stomp around in the woods like that, or maybe something that wanted me to hear it because it was so loud and so distinct.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I mean, it just, it had to have been something walking on two feet. And it had to have been something that wanted me to hear it. Not even a person walks that heavily through the woods if they're trying to sneak up on someone. We, I split up from my friend around, probably around one, you know, in the afternoon. It was about an hour after lunch. And...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
whatever this was, started following me about 15 minutes later. So from 1 to like, you know, 7.30, 8 o'clock, that's a really long time for something to be following you through the woods. I mean, that's like, it's like six hours of nonstop following.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
following um and it just doesn't make sense uh you know why didn't something happen within that time it never got closer it never got further it just consistently followed for six hours i mean that's that's just really bizarre i can't really explain it And this isn't something that dawned on me until way later, but around where I got lost was the site of a very famous battle called Bloody Angle.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It was a Civil War battle just known for being particularly gruesome. And this whole area was really... During the Civil War, there were tons of battles that happened around here. We used to play in trenches in the backyard. We would lay down and shoot BB guns in them. So maybe that has something to do with it as well. Like maybe, I don't know, just the...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
The energy from so much turmoil and pain and injury and bloodshed. I mean, maybe that kind of gets trapped in these places and just causes bizarre shit to happen. That could also be a distinct possibility. It absolutely, truly horrified me. Like, to the core of my being so much that I did not go back in the woods ever. And if I did, it was in my backyard. And if it wasn't my backyard...
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
I actually read this somewhere and then I ended up, I think I tried it once or twice, but even doing this, I was scared. I would get a ball of yarn and tie it to a tree in my backyard so that I could follow it back and would never get lost again. And even then, I still felt just incredibly uneasy. The woods never felt like a place to play for me ever again. I never felt comfortable in them.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
And this continued into adulthood. I didn't go camping until I think I was 22 because I was so afraid of being just like out in the open at night, out in nature at night after this event. And even to this day, like talking about it, thinking about it, Just seeing that thing and picturing it in the sky and especially hearing the bells or thinking about the bells, it turns my stomach.
Otherworld
Episode 106: Up in the Sky
It still makes me so scared. I get sweaty talking about it. My eyes will involuntarily just tear up. It still has such a... intense fear reaction from me now, even 20 years later.