Two young boys are camping in the Oregon high desert near the Warm Springs Reservation, when they are confronted by an upright white-eyed antlered entity that exits the river.
I recently came across this bizarre encounter:
"I grew up in Central Oregon, and there's a reservation called Warm Springs about two or so hours from where I lived. I only mention that because a lot of people in my area have friends there, and a lot of the land in that area belongs to that tribe (The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs). When I was a kid, we used to go camping up there. Not on the reservation, of course, but in that area, and I met a lot of kids who grew up there. I got to know one kid really well, his name was Nolan, and we ended up hanging out a lot when our families were in the area. Our folks got to know each other so we'd all get in touch and camp out around the same time. We'd camp for about two weeks, so we were out there for a long time.
One year, Nolan and I were out there, I think we must have been like twelve or so. We wanted to go out and camp near the river because we wanted to try night fishing, I think we must have been about a third of a mile from the main camp. Far enough away that we couldn't hear or see anyone else, I remember that. We were messing around most of the day. I don't really remember much about it, but we ended up building a fire at some point and I was really impressed because he had this flint or something that he used to start it. I'd never seen anyone do that before so I thought it was pretty cool. I got him to teach me how to do it and we lit some stuff on fire, which looking back was really stupid because it was the middle of summer, and if I remember right the fire warning was either at yellow or orange. But thankfully we didn't start anything major, and when it got dark we sat around and talked about whatever it is twelve year olds talk about. I don't really remember. What I do remember is that at some point, he looked over my shoulder at the river and asked me if I could see something.
The way our camp was set up, we were about ten feet from the river, and we were at the widest point, so it was probably about twenty feet to the other bank. It gets hot up there in the summer but the water's still cold, which is important.
I look over my shoulder and I could see something wading into the river on the other side. From where we were it looked like a deer but we couldn't really tell because of the fire. I got up to look closer and I saw a pair of antlers, so I figured it was a buck. But I thought it was weird that it was wading into the water, and it was definitely heading for us. I asked Nolan what he thought we should do. He's looking at the fire with this weird expression and he tells me to sit down and shut up, so I do, because I'd never seen him act that way before. He's whispering at me to ignore it, and to just keep talking like we were, but I couldn't think of anything to say. He was saying something about an episode of some show, but I could hear the deer coming through the water, so I wasn't really paying any attention. I kept trying to see over his shoulder, but every time I did he'd sort of hit me on the arm and make me look at him. I wasn't really scared, I remember, I was just sort of confused.
But then I hear the deer come out of the water, and I could kind of make out what it looked like. I realized it wasn't a deer because whatever it was was walking on two legs. I started to get up, I was super freaked out, but Nolan just yanked me back down and talked louder about this television show, and I could tell he was just as scared as I was, probably even more. He leaned in and poked the fire with a stick, and he whispered that whatever I do, I can't speak to it. I could see it come closer, and it stood right behind Nolan's back. I was about ready to piss my pants, and I think I'd probably have run if I'd been alone, but I didn't want to leave Nolan. So I kept sitting really still and sneaking glances at it.
It wasn't that tall, but the way it carried itself was just wrong, like its center of balance was screwed up. I can't really describe it, but it was kind of like it kept shifting too far forward. It just stood there behind Nolan for a long time, and eventually Nolan ran out of things to say and we just kind of sat there for a second. The fire was making noise, but I thought I could hear this thing talking in a really low voice. I couldn't hear what it was saying, and I leaned forward a tiny little bit, and I actually DID pissed my pants when it leaned forward too. I couldn't see its face, but I saw its eyes.
They were cloudy and milky, and if you want to know what they looked like, find that scene from Lord of the Rings where Frodo falls in that lake and all the dead people are floating toward him. That's what its eyes looked like. So all I saw were these two white eyes floating above Nolan's head, and the really vague shape of the antlers coming out of its head. I don't know what my face looked like but at exactly the same time Nolan and I f*cking booked it out of there, and we ran non-stop until we got back to the main camp. My pants were soaked, so I took them off as we were running and threw them in the bushes. We both stopped once we were in front of my dad's RV and we couldn't see anything chasing us, so we stood there and caught our breath.
I asked him what that thing was, but he said he didn't know. He said his grandpa had only warned him that if anything ever came up to him when he was out in the desert, he was never, ever supposed to talk to it or listen to anything it had to say. I wanted to know if he'd heard it talking too, and he said that the only thing he'd been able to understand was 'help you'. I think we ended up sleeping in the RV with my parents, and the next night we went back out and didn't see anything." H
NOTE: In a way, this account reminds me of the Wendigo legends. There is a phase that describes it as 'the spirit of the lonely places.' But it also has some connotations related to the Skinwalker stories. I'm not sure what those boys encountered, but it no doubt had evil intentions. Lon
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