This is a personal event that the experiencer rarely speaks of, but which has dramatically changed the course of their life. It's hard to put into words, and the emotions are still intense.
I received the following account:
"Mr. Strickler. I was 22 and in college. I'm 36 now. I still haven't fully recovered. November 23, 2009 is the day it happened.
I lived in rural South Central Pennsylvania, though I'm reluctant to be too specific. I know you live near where it took place, but I don't want the public to know. One side of the street had a small strip of houses with farmland behind. Houses further apart than a typical street. Across the street was farmland, then wilderness all the way to the mountains. Pretty isolated. Unfamiliar neighbors. The backyard wasn't fully enclosed. The house had been expanded in years past, so what used to be the back patio had been turned into a greenhouse room, made entirely of windows. I lived alone.
I had gotten home from a night out with friends in the nearest city, about 30 minutes away by the freeway. It was sometime after 2 AM. I hadn't had anything to drink that night because I had been going kind of hard lately [college] and wanted to take it easy.
I came inside. Fed my cats. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I went into my bedroom and flopped down on the bed, which was nothing more than a mattress on the ground pushed up against a corner of the bedroom. At that time I used to keep my bedroom door open. I'm lying on my back as I drift off to sleep.
I wake. I immediately noticed two things. The first is an ambient light, the way dawn looks through a window, but it is still dark in the room.
Second, there's, something, very near me. I was on my back, in bed. This thing was situated near my waist, at the side of the bed. I couldn't tell if it was standing and was only 3 feet tall, or was sitting. I really only remember the face.
It was grey-colored. Large black eyes, but not as large as they make them look in movies and media. Egg-shaped. Some sort of scales or pigmentation which looked like very aggressively furrowed eyebrows. I felt from it an intense, hateful, malevolent sensation. It wanted to hurt me. I don't know how I knew that from the feeling it emanated, but I knew.
I didn't have an emotional response at first. I was very shocked. Then, I managed to utter a slight 'whoa,' as I put my hands up defensively and moved my body away from it, slamming into the wall as I did so. I didn't have time to feel any panic or terror before a type of hand came up and hit me in the head. My vision was awash in a world of grey milkiness, with dark grey "veins" interspersed. I could move so it wasn't sleep paralysis. Felt too real to be a hypnogogic hallucination, especially since it wasn't anything near what I was dreaming about upon waking. I don't have sleep apnea so I wasn't experiencing loss of oxygen to my brain. Though I have entertained these as possible explanations, none suffice because the experience doesn't fully meet all of the criteria of any of the phenomena.
The next thing I remember is trying to wake up but being extremely disoriented. Like when you've been under anesthesia and you're trying very hard to wake up, but you can't snap out of it. I'm panicking while trying to wake up.
I finally snap out of it. I immediately vomit and begin sobbing uncontrollably but I'm too scared to close my eyes. There's blood from me rubbing them to keep them open, by the time I'm able to stop crying. It takes me an hour to build up the courage to get out of bed. I grab a bat and begin clearing each room, trying to avoid panicking. There's no one there. No signs of forced entry. My cats were TERRIFIED of me until I sat down and put on a hat. I'm bald and have dark circles under my eyes, so if they saw this thing too, the similarity might've made them scared of me.
The aftermath was, and is the hardest part. For five days I couldn't return home. I stayed with other people and my ex-girlfriend would feed the cats. I finally returned home, sitting in my car in my driveway for a couple of hours, my cats peeking through the curtain to meow at me. I kept a knife taped to my back, one in my pocket, a bat by my side, and a phone with a flashlight app always nearby. I rearranged all my furniture to see all the doors and windows. I noise-booby-trapped rooms.
I would panic if I tried to sleep at night. I developed a caffeine addiction. For the rest of my time in college, including the graduate program, I lived on a night schedule. I did not sleep until the sun came out, never left the lights off, and did not go outside of my house after dark, for five years. No exceptions. I would stay out after dark with friends or at school, but wouldn't return home until sun up. I have been unable to close my eyes voluntarily for anything longer than a blink, without fear setting in.
I slowly was able to push myself, out of necessity for work, back to sleep at night and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But I'm frequently late to work and most often exhausted throughout the day.
To this day I still have an incredible amount of fear about falling asleep at night. I still arrange furniture tactically. I still keep a weapon near me at all times. I was never able to return to the state of physical health and confidence I had before this event.
I sought help and was referred to psychologists, despite me being one. I sought out people who claimed to have had similar experiences; they mostly were mentally unsound or selling something.
You don't have to believe me. This story is out there." M
Bigfoot: West Coast Wild Men: A History of Wild Men, Gorillas, and Other Hairy Monsters in California, Oregon, and Washington state.
The Book of Giants: The Watchers, Nephilim, and The Book of Enoch
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