A Shenandoah National Park ranger recalls his encounter with a pale crawler humanoid while he was on duty. The photo that he captured was analyzed but didn't reveal much usable evidence.
I received the following account:
"I've been employed at a few different state parks around the country but for the past 10 years, I had been a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I just retired this past Fall, but I do miss a lot of things about my work a lot.
Last Spring of 2022 something happened that I wasn't prepared for at all. I've always been attuned to the sights and sounds around me and though I'm cautious I've rarely been afraid of much out there. The Summer before last (2021) we had a remarkably calm season. There were hardly any animals we had to deal with and it seemed the bears and other pests were leaving everyone alone.
In April 2022 people started to hear noises around their campsites very late at night. These noises would drive their dogs insane but nobody had really seen anything unusual. It kind of felt like whatever it was was probing and checking out the area nightly, but it was staying far enough away that we couldn't see it with our spotlights.
Then one night when I was walking back to my quarters I started feeling a profound sense of dread and unease. There was the most creepy malevolent feeling in the air. I looked around and scanned the tree line before looping toward my door. I scanned the area from left to right and from my fire pit to the table. About 20 feet behind the table I saw a naked, extremely pale almost gray figure. There was this big boulder behind it so it was kind of blending in and not easy to see. If I hadn't purposely been scanning the area I wouldn't have noticed it. The thing had this humanoid quality to it, and it was very lanky and standing still. It was directly facing me. Then our eyes met and I felt my heart drop. I just went cold. I probably only stared at it for a few seconds but it felt like several minutes while my brain was trying to process what I was seeing. It stood between five and six feet tall and the shoulders were low and slumped. The body was frail and thin. It was crouched down on all fours. I couldn't make out many details of the face beyond its large black eyes. But its mouth seemed to be open and making strange clicking sounds. It's hard to describe. The fear and shock that came over me was terrifying and I couldn't think rationally at all.
I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket and I snapped a photo that seemed to startle it. I watched it jump up onto the massive rock and then climb the tree next to it. The speed it exhibited was astounding.
I ran like my life depended on it the rest of the way to my door. I grabbed my shotgun and loaded it and aimed it at the door. I sat there with my heart hammering waiting for the doorknob to turn or the window glass to break. I even called for backup. I sat there and waited for what seemed like hours for two of my colleagues to show up. I must have sounded like a blithering idiot trying to describe what I had seen and what happened. I was usually really calm and collected which is probably what made them believe me. The three of us were all armed and we went out together to look for it. We stayed out into the early morning expecting to see or hear something but we never did. Eventually, at around 4am we lowered our guard and went into my cabin to try to get some sleep.
The next morning I could hardly believe what I had seen the night before. I kept obsessively searching the area in the daylight to see if there were any shapes or items that I could have mistaken for the creature. But the only things around were my typical campsite things. I really really wished that there could be another witness for validation.
I had to make my report but I had so little substance that I felt a bit ridiculous. I mean there were no sightings by anybody else and no one had been harmed. There were only the strange noises that people and dogs had been hearing and my one sighting. So, what could I really say? The photo that I had taken was dark and grainy and you could barely make out the rock, let alone the creature. I kept watch again that night to see if I could spot anything but there was nothing. The thought that this thing could be out there observing us was really unnerving. It was also really hard to want to warn people but not really have anything concrete to say to them.
I attempted to have the photo analyzed by several professionals, but the pixelization and darkness made the photo useless." G
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