A boy is exploring his family's 100+ acres ranch in northern New Mexico. Suddenly, he awakes to his mother trying to revive him. He had lost 11 hours and has never been able to explain it.
The following account was forwarded to me:
"This happened several years ago when I was about 11 years old. I was in a wooded 100+ acre ranch in northern New. My family owns the property and we have family reunions every year and all stay for about 5 days to camp. There’s an area of the ranch where we all set up camp and cook and eat. Getting to that part of the ranch requires driving through a small village and several gates for about 2 miles. The first gate beyond the village is slightly past a set of railroad tracks. That’s a lot of description, but it’s relevant later in the story.
Because I had been camping at the ranch for as long as I could remember and the land was private, my parents would allow me to go off on my own during the day as long as I didn’t go too far. I’d spend time walking the property near our camp area looking for arrowheads or trying to catch tadpoles in the ponds. On this day, I left the large camp area after lunch, which was around 11:30, and told my mom I was going to a nearby creek. I planned on catching some tadpoles to bring back to camp and be back on time for a swimming trip my cousins were planning. They wanted to go to a nearby river and I really didn’t want to miss it.
I made it down to the creek and got several tadpoles. I probably spent a total of 15 minutes down there. To get back to camp, I would have needed to either climb up a relatively steep embankment with a lot of loose rock or circle around on a longer route with a flat trail. I’d usually go up the embankment, but I didn’t have a top for the water bottle I caught the tadpoles with and didn’t want to risk slipping and spilling them out/killing them. I had never walked the longer trail by myself, but I had with my dad and felt confident I could find my way back to camp on it.
As I walked back to camp, I had my head down looking for arrowheads in the washed-out areas of the trail. I started feeling a little creeped out as I continued walking. We all know that feeling like someone is watching. It was unsettling, but I chalked it up to just getting spooked being on the trail by myself.
Now the next part, I can’t explain whatsoever. It’s as if a light switch was turned on or someone snapped their fingers and I came back to reality. Except when I came to, I wasn’t on the trail I had been on before. I was near the railroad tracks and it was completely dark. My mom was standing in front of me shaking my shoulders and yelling, “Where were you?” Two things I remember really clearly about the moments I “came to” are:
1) the look of fear/anger/relief in my mom’s tearful eyes as she was yelling at me, and
2) the confusion I felt about what the hell was going on.
The last thing I remembered was walking on the trail back to camp, and now suddenly it was dark and I was at the railroad tracks leading to the ranch (which was over 2 miles away). The best way I can describe it is to compare it to the movie 'The Butterfly Effect.' The main character would be living in one moment, then suddenly he’d wake up somewhere entirely different.
My parents drove me back to camp and I learned it was 10:30 PM. This meant I had been gone for 11 hours, about 10.5 of which I can’t account for to this day. My parents and all my family had understandably freaked the hell out when I hadn’t returned to camp. They had been looking for me all day. I was a really good kid growing up and rarely broke any rules, so my parents were baffled at my behavior. I tried to explain to them that I had no memory of getting to the tracks, but they didn’t believe me. They thought maybe I got lost and was embarrassed to admit it.
This was the only time I’ve ever experienced something like this. I can’t explain how unsettling it is to not be able to account for all those hours I was gone. Was it a coincidence that I had that creeped-out feeling on the trail and then just lost 10.5 hours of my life? I wish I had answers for what happened." H
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