A Tennessee family is experiencing a variety of unsettling unexplained phenomena. As time goes on, the husband gives a detailed account of the activity, along with updates. This is a 2-part account.
The following account, w/ updates, was recently brought to my attention:
PART 1
About a year ago I moved my family and I to a home way out in the woods in Tennessee. I wanted to be brief here, but I need to get this off my chest, and after looking into this matter a little more I have a lot more details that I think will paint a clear picture in the end so please bear with me. The nights here can be extremely loud. Between the crickets, the tree frogs and the cicadas it can almost be deafening.
One night, not too long after we moved in, I had forgotten something in my car and headed outside to get it. The first thing that struck me as odd was that my dog wouldn't go outside with me. My dog goes everywhere with me, as I am her whole world. But not this night, as I held the door open, she looked out then looked up at me like nope. So, I walked out and shut the door behind me. The second thing that caught me off-guard was that there was not a peep, it was dead silent. Still shrugged this off and walked down my front steps and headed down to my car. When I had gotten about 10 feet from my car the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt as though something was watching me. I looked around but saw nothing. After I reached in my car for what I had forgotten to grab earlier I had this feeling like something was moving towards me. I took a step back and checked around me.
All of a sudden, I heard one of my hedges next to me that line the walkway to our front door rattle. At first, I thought it was a rabbit that I had spooked, as I had seen one just earlier in the day right where this was. A few seconds later I heard the sound of a large rock (about the size of a cantaloupe) landing a few feet away from me. It hit the walkway and bounced into a shrub. I drew my gun and called out and said, "Whoever that this was, is about to be shot!" After a few seconds of nothing I began to think that maybe this was some local teenagers messing with the new people. I holstered my sidearm, turned and started walking back to my front door. Almost as soon as I turned towards my house, I heard this deep panting sound. It sounded like a huge dog, but what made me nope back to my front door was that it sounded like it was right behind me. I leaped up onto my porch, turned, and drew my gun again expecting something right there but again there was nothing.
A couple weeks later I was on my porch at night, sitting on a bench with my wife. She got up and walked inside to get something and as soon as she shut the door, I heard that panting sound again. I couldn't see anything, yet this sounded like it was right on top of me. The sound was coming from everywhere and it was very loud. Again, I couldn't see anything so I noped it back inside my house. Now at this point I was questioning moving here, but after nothing else really happening I let it go.
A month or so later it was a really rainy and stormy night. This is around 9pm and my wife and I enjoy listening to the rain and talking about how relaxing the rain is. Me, growing up in Oregon, loved the rain, and for the past 10 years we lived in Vegas where it would dump the entire year of rain in a day then be bone dry for the rest of the year. For my wife who grew up in Nevada rain was such a rare thing she loved going outside and watching the rain. So, for us this is an enjoyable experience. Except this night in particular things took a weird turn.
As we were sitting there talking about the rain and relaxing my wife stops me and said, "Did you hear that?" I said "No, what did you hear?" She said, "I swear it sounded like a small child calling for help out in the woods beside our house." I said, "No I didn't hear anything." After a few moments of us listening intently she said, "There it is again!" I said, "I didn't hear a thing sweetie, are you sure you're not just hearing things?" She looked at me offended that I didn't hear anything and said, "No, I am positive. How could you not hear that, it was our son! I think he's out there and got lost!" I said no he's in the house sleeping on the couch. We then both looked through the blinds that were open right behind us and we could see all of our children laying there. She said, "That's so weird, I swear it sounds like our son." I said, "Well, it isn't him, he's right there, besides I don't hear anything!" She then stands up and says, "Wow, he's really crying out for help. I need to go look for him!"
Now at this point, if you knew my wife, you would know she is absolutely creeped out by the woods and wouldn't be caught dead walking into them during daylight, much less at night during a storm. I grabbed her hand and said, "I have been listening intently and there is absolutely nobody calling out for help! You need to stay here." At this point I am getting worried about her. She was acting completely out of character, not to mention that at this time she is 8 months pregnant with our baby daughter. She then says, "What if there is some child out there lost in the woods?" I said, "Well, first off, I would be able to hear them too. Secondly, there are no other kids around here for miles and the odds of them being lost 100 feet from our house that's lit up like a Christmas tree is nil" She then says, "I know, but what if it's a kid?" Before I could say anything else she stands up and starts walking toward the stairs. I jumped up and grabbed her hand again and said, "No your not, get in the house. I don't know what's going on but you need to go inside." She then complies and we both go inside. I didn't know what this was but it freaked me out.
A few months after this just as it was getting dark outside, I heard the front door to our house open and I got up to investigate. We have autistic 6-year-old twins, and we have the door setup so that they can't open it without us there, so to hear this sound it could only be my wife. What was weird was the fact that she usually doesn't go outside without saying something to me. I walked out front and saw my wife walking down our private road towards the drive on the side of our house. I ask her what she is doing, and she says she was sitting on the back patio and kept hearing a baby crying out in the woods. I said, "Seriously and you just decided to walk off into the woods to investigate?" She then looks out into the woods and says, "See, there it is again!" Again I can't hear anything, but what I did notice is that it was completely silent out again. I told her just like before the chances of a baby being out in the woods outside our house is slim and that she needed to get back in the house. She said, "What if someone left a baby out there!" I said, "Well, if that were true, I would hear it too." Now at this point I was really starting to worry about my wife's mental health. I actually asked her to see a psychiatrist, and she did. Now looking back, I feel really bad about this knowing what I know. A key to this moment was that my wife had just given birth to a baby girl a month before.
A few days after this we are out front on the porch, its early evening and I had just mowed the lawn this day and our 3-year-old son was riding around on his little car in front of the house. Now, he knows that he is not allowed outside of a certain area that we mapped off. He loves playing outside, but with the road behind 50 feet from our front porch we have to be careful as a lot of boaters will fly through after drinking all day on their boats. As we are talking, we are both keeping an eye on him. A neighbor drives by and stops to say hello for a second. This interaction took approximately 8 seconds as all they said was how are things, we said good, and he told us he would stop by later as his wife got something for the kids (who happens to be one of their teachers in school) and we said, OK great and he drove off.
I looked over where our son was and he was gone. I called out his name and ran over to the side of the house and could hear his car on our side drive. I scolded him for leaving the area and he said something in his 3-year-old gibberish and pointed to the woods behind our house. I told him that he had 5 seconds to get back up to the front of the house or else! And he adamantly pointed back in the direction of the woods and kept trying to tell me something. I looked off in the direction of the woods and just assumed he saw a deer or squirrel or something and wanted to see it up close. I walked him back up to the front of the house and he cried the whole way there. He got really upset that I wouldn't let him go into the woods, but I just wrote this off as him being curious and most 3-year-old boys are. Now, this instance isn't isolated as our twins have done similar things but nothing quite as extreme as this.
There have been nights where we had just laid down for the night and heard a loud bang on the side of our house, on the wall behind our bed. It was so loud that I jumped up and looked out the window. Our flood light had come on but I could see nothing. Now the weird part about this is that our bedroom sits about 12 feet from the ground level as we have a full-sized basement that's cinder blocked. I put on my slippers and grabbed one of my 12-gauge shotguns and walked outside to investigate. It was dead silent again. The flood light that's on the side of the house had clicked off at this point, so I walked over to the end of the deck and shined my light around the yard. There was nothing. I walked around the house and shined the light around intently. As I approached the backside of my house the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It felt like someone was watching me. I shined the light up in the trees but again nothing. I rounded the corner and the first thing I noticed was that my 3 dogs, that were in their area, weren't making a peep. Now our dogs have no filter and will bark at anyone and everyone, this includes me. So to see them all hiding with their tails between theirs legs not making a peep really had me worried. As I kept walking, all of a sudden the crickets and frogs started making sounds again. It was as if someone had clicked a switch. I walked back into the house and told my wife that I hadn't seen anything. She shrugged and said ok as long as our dogs were ok. Due to the circumstances that night I decided to let the dogs in and sleep with us. This very same thing has happened on all 4 exterior walls of our house. It's random and annoying but just like this instance every time there is nothing going on outside.
There have also been times where we were sitting in the house and as I was watching a movie my wife walked over to me and said did you call me? I said no and she said she swears she heard me call her name in her ear. She said that it was definitely my voice, but she didn't understand because it sounded so close, and I was a good 20 feet away from her in my recliner. The important part to this was that she was sitting at the table doing something and the slider to the backyard was open behind her. Now, our back patio sits about 20 feet off the ground and is like a balcony as it has no stair access outside. I think the previous owner built it to barbeque. There have been several instances where she would say she heard someone whisper in her ear, but she couldn't make out the sound. Again, I kept thinking she was going crazy, but as you will see I think all of this is tied into this final moment where things are revealed.
The last thing I want to mention, before we get into what just happened, is that I have a shooting range built behind my workshop on opposite side of our property next to the main road. It is kind of on a down slope, but it works perfectly for what I need it for. The range itself is cut straight into the woods going down about 100 yards or so. When you're at the down range you have woods surrounding you on all sides except back up to my shop. I have to say it has always felt creepy when I am dealing with my targets or mowing. When you are down there, it feels like your miles from anyone.
One day around 5pm in the evening, I was sighting in a new rifle scope. The sun was still up but was going to start to fade soon. So, I knew this was going to be the final test. Up until this point nothing really happened while I was making my multiple trips down range other than this feeling of uneasiness. As I got down range, I kept getting this feeling like someone or something was watching me. I looked around but didn't see anything. As I was placing stickers over my previous shots, I heard something big off to the side of me. It sounded like a large branch had snapped off a tree. Now, if you have been in the Tennessee woods, you will know that a lot of branches fall off of trees randomly out of nowhere, so this is nothing new. Except this time, it was very loud and sounded like fresh strong wood, if that makes any sense. I turned and looked, but again couldn't see anything. I started walking back up to my rifle and I swear I heard someone right behind me. I turned around but again saw nothing. As I started to walk again, I heard this deep growl. It was really deep and loud and what's worse is that it was all around me. I turned around facing the range and started walking backwards. The thought of some rabid dog charging out of the bushes had me freaked out, so running wasn't a good idea. I slowly walked backwards up the hill to my rifle, but nothing happened. I grabbed my rifle and sprayed the target with rapid fire hoping to scare off whatever was stalking me. I left 10 rounds in the mag and grabbed my rifle bag and quickly walked back up to the house. I never told my wife about this as I didn't want her to freak out.
Fast forward about a year later from when we moved in and my niece is staying with us as a live-in nanny to earn money over summer break from college. We were on our way back from the store and about a mile from our house and I saw two eyes reflecting in the headlights coming from a wide tree on the side of the road just ahead. It had caught my attention because they were higher than a deer but a different color and size. Just as I had said "what is that?" and squinted they vanished. I had made a comment that it was almost as if it had known I could see its eyes and moved. The color was kind of a golden/ green, but they resembled the mannerism of a large cat as they felt ominous. It's hard to explain but I shrugged it off as we were passing the tree and saw nothing.
A few moments later we arrived at the house. As we were getting the bags out of the car my 3-year-old son came bolting out of the house excited to see me. As I was waiting to help her carry in her bags, I heard my dog growl. I looked in the direction she was looking at my neighbor's property across the street. Now what I saw has kept me up all night. Up until this point I have always been skeptical as I had never seen anything with my own two eyes. Even with what had happened to me the year prior, I still had my doubts that it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
Now, my street is kind of a spread-out neighborhood. Each house sits on several acres, and at the end of our road is Kentucky Lake (near Land Between the Lakes Recreational Area). My neighbor's house sits adjacent to my house on about an acre lot. Directly in front of my house is a wall of woods and directly behind my house is several thousand acres of untouched forest. As I was looking across the street to my neighbor's property, I saw a large dark figure between the trees at first. The movement caught me off guard as it looked like something big moving quickly on all fours. Then, when it came out into clear view, it stood up and walked like a man. At first, I didn't know what to make of it. It was very tall, but what was strange about it was the distance it was covering and the fact that when it was in front of his shed, I swear I could see through it. It was clearly walking quickly but moving faster than any person could at a sprint. More importantly there was no sound. It was like it was phasing in and out of reality as it moved. I said, "What the hell is that?" I realized that it was looking directly at us. It had moved at an angle away from us to minimize its time out in the open and moving quickly as it could while still being silent. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I realized that whatever it was, was stalking us. I told my niece to get in the house now! I grabbed my son and booked it inside. I grabbed my AR-15 with a short scope and came back outside to see my niece still grabbing stuff out of her car.
Knowing I told her firmly and clearly to get in the house, her disregard to my command annoyed me, but still I watched over her without saying a word. As she was slowly walking, she turned towards the woods across the street from my house and suddenly bolted for the house. She ran up the steps in a panicked state. I asked her what she saw, and her face was pale as a ghost. She said, "I heard something big in the woods walking loudly on the leaves and when I turned toward it, I heard a deep guttural growl." I asked her why she didn't come when I told her, and she said she thought that I was talking to my son. I told her what I had seen, and she wanted to get a closer look to see if she could see something. I told her that it was not a good idea, and she went anyway. As she was walking down the walkway, I heard the sound of dry leaves crunching in the woods across the street. I told her to stop and come take the flashlight.
Now, at this point, she is about 6 feet away from my wife's SUV. As she turned and started walking back to me, I caught a glimpse of something gray and hairy, bolt from behind the SUV back across the street into the woods. My porch is a raised porch, and our SUV is about 6.5 feet tall, and whatever this was it cleared about 45 feet in what looked like a single jump. It moved like lightning. Whatever it was it wanted my niece. it jumped behind the car out of my line of site and was waiting for her. She still doubted my warnings and grabbed the flashlight and walked back toward the car. As she entered my driveway, she stopped dead in her tracks, leaned forward as if she could see something. I asked her what she saw. She turned and ran back up on the porch with a terrified look on her face saying, "nope, nope, nope" over and over again. She said it was a figure hiding inside of a tree and that she saw its eyes. I asked her what they looked like and all she could say was that they looked dull red at first but as she got closer, they looked dead. I said what do you mean dead, and she said that where the pupils were looked grey like the way eyes look when they go blind. She said it was really dark grey and she swears she could see through it almost like a dark cloud. She wanted to go out again and took a step down the stairs and as she did it revealed itself from the tree. I said get inside and I went in and locked the door. It looked like a tall human-shaped being, it was really tall and looked ominous.
The next morning, we did a height comparison to the tree limb she saw it stand over and it put its height to around 9-feet-tall and its eyes were about 6 inches apart. At this point I don't know what this thing was. After doing some research I think this thing was a Crawler. I looked to see if there had been any other sightings in Benton County, but nothing. More importantly, I swear it would phase in and out almost like a shadow person, but bigger and more obvious. One of the things that was makes this fit is that it can communicate telepathically. This explains why everyone was hearing something that nobody else could hear. Secondly, it has a playback like communication. So when I heard a dog panting it was probably one of my dogs it had heard. My wife was actually hearing our son crying for help as he had recently fell and cried for help. The baby crying would be our newborn baby who she had given birth too recently. And it must have heard me call my wife's name and kept telepathically calling my wife's name with my voice. Another thing that my niece had said that night was that she felt compelled to go back outside to it. She said she felt like this thing was communicating with her somehow and it wanted her to go back outside.
The more I read about this thing the more everything that's been happening over this past year makes sense. One thing that I find extra convincing is that down the road towards the lake there is a property that is barb-wired off and is a wall of forest with no driveway. A lot of the property down our road is undeveloped owned land. And on one of the trees there is this large old sign that says "Screamer lives here" with an arrow pointing back into the woods. Now, I have to admit, when I first saw this sign, I laughed thinking maybe the owner screamed at trespassers who entered his property and teenagers put up the sign to mess with him. But when I did a satellite search of our neighborhood that entire section of road has no houses or trails or anything and is just pure forest for as far as the eye can see. One of the things that this thing is said to do is make a loud scream when threatened.
Now that you understand my story, I doubt this is the ending. The next question is what can we do? I don't want my wife or kids to disappear one day. And if there is more than one of these things out there this really makes the Missing 411 make a whole lot of sense. I feel perplexed and scared as what can I do? Any advice?! I will try and keep this post alive with any new experiences." AM
END OF PART 1
Werewolves, Portals, Crawler, and Shadow Beings Near Land Between the Lakes - PART 2
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Have you had a sighting of a winged humanoid or huge bat-like creature in the Chicago, Illinois metro area / Lake Michigan region? The entity has also been referred to as the 'Chicago Mothman', 'Chicago Owlman' & 'O'Hare Mothman.' - Chicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map - Please feel free to contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com - your anonymity is guaranteed. Our investigative group is conducting a serious examination of his phenomenon. We are merely seeking the truth and wish to determine what eyewitnesses have been encountering. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.
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