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SC EP:1053 Never Going Back To That Area
05/05/2024
SC EP:1053 Never Going Back To That Area
Kip writes "I guess I’ll get right to it. Back in the late 90’s I had 3 separate terrifying encounters with some type of large black creature over 3 years. The first two encounters were roughly in 1997 & 1998. I was in high school at the time and 16-17 years old. And the 3rd was in late 1999 so I was just about 18. I can honestly say that they were so disturbing that I have thought about them often ever since. Two of the encounters I had multiple buddies with me and the most disturbing encounter I was alone exploring the mountain behind our home on our 4 wheeler. I grew up in a Southern California city called Corona. Its roughly 1.5 hours north of San Diego and next to Riverside. At this time the upper portion of the city had miles of orchards extending from the edge of the housing developments all the way to the base of the mountains that separated us from the coast and Orange County. As a kid myself and my family spent a significant amount of time on this mountain range hiking, mountain biking, exploring the various canyons, and a few of the abandoned tin mines. Although there were known predators such as mountain lions and coyotes that we would see from time to time, I never felt scared being in this area but always knew to be cautious. At the time of what I would consider my first encounter our town was changing a lot. Hundreds of acres, if not thousands, of the orchards were being leveled to build more homes. At this time being of high school age this was a total bummer. All of the cool places we would explore or hang out were going away every week and being replaced with massive housing developments. Because of the size of one of the housing developments, there was a large storm drain project that the army core of engineers was in charge of. This project was situated near the mouth of one of the larger canyons and was intended to divert stormwater underground to who knows where? This area was completely fenced off with barbed wire fences and they even had an on-site security guard at night. This entire area was surrounded by thick orange groves and also avocado groves. Knowing that there was a massive underground tunnel being built and also being obsessed with exploring abandoned mines, there was no choice but to explore this. I did some recon during the daytime hours and figured out the best way to sneak in at night hopefully without being detected by their on-site security guard. Late on a Friday evening my buddies and I drove my truck on a dirt road deep into the orange groves and parked it behind a large pile of dead orange trees that they had ripped out of the ground. This was an area that I was very familiar with. In this area, they also had bulldozers, graders, and loaders parked near a water tank. We snuck through the trees, scaled a barbed wire fence, and at this point the Avocado Grove began. We easily made it in and explored these tunnels which were kind of a disappointment because there was really nothing to them other than concrete and scaffolding. Feeling somewhat underwhelmed we decided to head back to the truck which was roughly a half mile from the tunnel. Upon exiting the range groves we saw headlights coming our way so we quickly jumped behind some of the heavy equipment thinking the security was coming to bust us. To our surprise, it was a two-door Honda Civic with two chicks. Being curious teenage boys we were immediately wondering if they were hot. Lol. After spending some time checking out all of the cool heavy equipment we made it back to my truck. Knowing that the road they were driving on was eventually a dead end we were surprised to see that they still had not come back out. We decided to investigate to make sure they were ok. We assumed the girls were probably drinking or smoking weed because this was not a well known place and was quite creepy especially at night due to how secluded it was. The three of us piled back into my single-cab Chevy truck and started heading in their direction. As we rounded a sharp turn on the dirt road we could see their car parked at the dead end off in the distance. As we got within 100 yards of their car we could see something black crouched down behind the car. The first we thought we had was that maybe one of them was behind the car but as we got closer we could see that it was definitely not a girl and appeared to be completely black and hunched over as if it was hiding and watching them. I had one of those Walmart special 12 million candle spotlight that plugged into the cigarette lighter in my truck. My buddy Aaron turned that on and hung out the window shining it down the road. We then thought that it must be a bear of some other creature but it was not looking like anything that we were familiar with which was kind of a weird sensation seeing something that we were not even sure what it was. As we were now within 50 yards or less, to our horror, this creature slightly turned to look towards us and stood up. This was nothing that we recognized. We immediately began freaking out yelling at one another "what the hell is that thing?!!" I hit the gas and we accelerated towards their car while keeping the light on it! To the south of where the girls were parked was another barbed wire. (To clarify, all of these fences were roughly 7' tall chain link fences topped with like 18" of 3 strands of barbed wire. A sizeable fence). The fence was within 15 feet of the edge of the road only separated by a small ditch that may have been 2' deep. Beyond the fence was a wide open field that had already been scraped of all vegetation. The base of the mountain was probably 400-500 yards away from this location. This creature which I would estimate was between eight and 9 feet tall took two steps towards the edge of the road and literally vanished before our eyes. We saw this happen from maybe 50 feet away. I slammed on the brakes and we slid on the gravel road stopping about 10 feet behind the girl's car. We jumped out paying no attention to them and immediately started shining the spotlight into the field. When the creature vanished we could not understand what we really just saw. Our minds were thinking of rational explanations like maybe it dove into the small ditch just out of sight and squeezed under the fence somehow. Or, maybe it climbed over the fence really fast and somehow we didn't see that which makes no sense. We were grasping for any explanation besides it literally vanishing into thin air. In reality, we should have seen the creature maybe 20 feet away on the other side of this fence running across the wide open field if it had somehow jumped this fence but like I said it had vanished. We had all become very animated at this point yelling and freaking out at what we had just seen. Probably thinking we were absolute psychopaths, the girls in the car immediately started the engine lipped around and just took off. I did hear one of them yell "what's your F-ing problem???" Rightfully so. We calmed down after a few minutes and started to collect ourselves. There was no sign of the creature at all, and because it was a gravel road there were no visible footprints. We stayed shining spotlight for probably a half hour, absolutely shaken by what we had seen. We saw nothing, absolutely nothing. It was now close to 1 am and we rushed back to my house and immediately woke my dad up from a dead sleep and told him what we had witnessed. A little back story on my Dad, he grew up in Starvalley Wyoming. He spent most of his years as a youth as a youth and teens in the mountains hunting. In his late teens and into his 20's he was a hunting guide. He guided hunters from all over the world into the backcountry on horseback. My Dad was tough and fearless, and if anyone would have encountered something like this before it was him. He immediately got out of bed and once we settled down a bit he wanted to entire story, every detail. After listening to our story he became very quiet and serious. He sat down at the table and said "Boys, I have no doubt that what you saw tonight was real. I do not think this was any type of animal but rather a being. Sometimes we are allowed to see things from the other side of the veil or maybe even another dimension. I don't know why we do but I think this is what you experienced tonight. I do not want you going up to that area anymore." after that he told us this was nothing to mess with and not to ever pursue it. It was so unsettling and still to this day I could call either one of my two buddies and have them recount the exact same story word for word. This creature was not how I pictured the typical sasquatch. it did appear to have a shorter sleek jet black fur. Its fur almost absorbed our light and was almost difficult to distinguish any facial features at all. It was almost like a 3 dimensional shadow if that makes sense somehow? It was very tall and athletic-looking. It did not have a massive hulking build but rather a very sleek, powerful, and fast type of build if that makes any sense. Think fairly jacked sprinter instead of a giant bodybuilder. That experience has bothered me ever since. Monday came around and we thought we had the craziest story that we could ever tell at school. To my dismay, people thought we were so full of crap and honestly did not believe us. That really pissed me off but also disappointed me. We didn't really tell anyone else after that reaction from a few people in fear of being seen as weird or just lying. Second Incident This encounter still scares me to this day and I still have so many unanswered questions. This took place maybe 8-9 months later. maybe a year. My parents had sold our boat and bought some 4 wheelers instead. I loved this option! I spent everyday after school enjoying this amazing new found sense of freedom and exploring the mountain behind our neighborhood which was about 1/2 mile away. There were fire roads, old trails, and riverbeds leading up to the canyons. If you would ride to the top of the mountain on a clear day you could see the ocean and Catalina Island off in the distance. A girl that I was friends with who had very wealthy parents just bought a brand new 4 wheeler. She tracked me down at school and asked if I would every want to meet up after school and take her exploring. They literally lived at the base of the mountain but about 3 miles from my house. I was stoked! A few days later I loaded up the 4 wheeler into the back of my truck and met her at her house. I did not know this area very well so this was extra exciting to go explore a new area. We went down the road a ways and decided to cut up through some orange groves on a slightly overgrown road. We climbed a few windmills to get a good view of what was further ahead. After weaving in and out of the labrynth of trees and small dirt roads we ended up at a gate. On the other side of the gate were some avocado trees, bee boxes, and an overgrown trail that turned into switch backs leading up the mountain. This looked awesome and I was so intrigued by it for some reason. A few minutes later an old man pulled up in an old fafrm truck and was PISSED that we were in there. He yelled at us and he said "and don't you ever think about ever going up that road, never go up there!" At the time I though he was just being a grouchy old dick but now looking back I think he knew something and was actually trying to run us off to keep us safe. My defiant teenage brain now had absolute tunnel vision on returning a few days later, finding a way around the gate and exploring whatever that road led to. I had to know where those steel switchbacks led to. Sure enough, a few days later I went back...alone. I had a pocket knife, camelback full of water, and was getting in no matter what. I found a way to cut down into the river bed and up a very steel embankment which put me on the other side of the gate. I showed that old man! After cruising around atg the bottom of the hill for a few minutes I was disappointed only seeing old abandoned farming equipment in the weeds. Now it was time to follow the narrow trail up the steep mountain. Just as I was starting up the trail there was a really sketchy narrow section where it had washed out around a culvert. I carefully made my way around it trying to keep from sliding down into a washed out ditch. As I made my way up the vegetation began changing. There were tons of massive oak trees growing in a large ravine and and along the edge of the trail. By this time I was WAAY up the mountain and could easily see across the whole valley looking out at Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga way off in the distance. Then I found the most bizarre things ever. Huge, old, single wide trailers probably from the late 60's or 70's just sitting on the side of the mountain. There were 3-4 of them one above me on the trail and a few out on this point on the other side of the ravine filled with the massive oak trees. Areas had been dug into the mountainside for the trailers to sit on. I still don't even understand how they could have ever placed those up there unless by a massive helicopter or something. A trailer would literally be impossible. I thought "Well this is super weird but I'm totally exploring these. The first one was really beat up and had no windows or doors. I hiked down off of the trail and began cutting through the ravine to get to the others. The oak forest I was cutting through was thick. even though it was still very light outside, it was very dim under the shade of these massive thick trees. The ground was covered in probable 6' of leaves and was very noisy when walking through. I checked out the other trailers for probably another 45 minutes. Nothing amazing but still interesting. At this point the sun would be setting by the time I got down the mountain and I did not want to try to find my way back out in the dark so I started heading back toward the trail that my 4 wheeler was parked on. I was walking through the bottom of the oak filled ravine when all of a sudden something just stopped me in my tracks. Everything had become so quiet. I'm talking impossibly quiet and I immediately noticed it. I have never experienced anything like this. I was if I just walked into a soundproof room but in the middle of a ravine. I immediately had the feeling that I was not alone and that something dangerous was watching me. I slowly started scanning my surroundings and had such a strange claustrophobic feeling. All I could hear was ringing in my ears. No birds, no breeze, not even the sound of the trees moving slightly. I had never experienced anything like this. I began feeling a very distinct dark and creepy feeling. As I looked at the hillside in front of me, maybe 15 feet in front of me I experience the most intense fear I have ever felt to this day. A quick glint caught my eye and as I looked at where the glint came from the weirdest thing happened. The only thing I can compare it to is when you are staring at one of those weird stereogram pictures. You are straining your eyes and then all of a sudden the 3-D image comes into focus. I was staring at the hillside right in front of me which was covered in leaves. There was a large gray rock to the right and slightly above the rock but 3 feet to the left was the trunk of an oak tree. I was staring at the leaves and in the space between the tree and the rock I saw it. It was like all of a sudden my eyes came into focus and I could see it. I hated what I saw. It literally paralyzed me with fear. I was a sprinter on our schools track team so running was always my best option. I literally could not move. I was looking at what I believe was that exact same creature we spotted that night close to a year prior. It truly was probably 8-1/2 to 9' tall. The hillside in that spot was very steep so it was kind of laid back against the hill perfectly camouflaged between the rock and tree but its body was in full view. It did not move but its shiny black eyes just intensely stared at me. I stared right back. I do not remember seeing any whites to its eyes but could tell when its eyes moved because of the glint they created. The eyes looked like tow shiny pieces of obsidian or glass. This is the part that scares me the most. This was not a friendly encounter by any stretch of the imagination. This was not a goofy and happy harry and the hemdersons experience. This thing felt so mean and evil. As it stared into my eyes in that intense quietness I literally could feel that it hated me and did not want me there. I did not hear any type of voice but I could feel the most wicked and intense hate from it. I could literally feeling in my soul that I don't think I was even breathing for an unknown amount of time. I know that sounds weird. I don't know how long I stood there in that trance or whatever this experience was, but I distinctly remember feeling my lips beginning to tingle and feeling dizzy. It was enough to snap me out of it. I stumbled backwards and weakly scampered up the opposite side of the ravine. I was so slow and felt like all of my strength was just absolutely gone. I was pretty much in tears and felt like I may have just almost been attacked or killed. I got on my 4 wheeler and started backing down the trail as fast as could because it was too narrow and the hillside too steel to actually turn the machine around. I got to a switchback area and did probable the most frantic 20 point turn every performed. I was so certain that at any second this creature was going to come sprinting from the edge other oak trees and kill me. I raced down the trail and could not believe my eyes. The narrow area where the trail had mostly washed out around the culvert had large branches and brush literally piled up with other brush. It was probably 3 feet high and was no doubt there to block me or make me stop. I basically said F it and crashed right through the edge of it and made it right through. Getting back to the truck was a blur. That was probably the hardest that 4 wheeler would ever have been ridden. For quite awhile after that experience I really thought that creature could come back and find me somehow. I don't know what it did to me but it absolutely got in my head and I have never felt that much hate and disdain from anything like that in my life. After finding your podcast I have been thinking about that experience so often and recounting so many of the details. I can remember that experience like it was yesterday. I can tell you exactly what the temperature was like outside, what the air smelled like, the smell of the exhaust from the 4 wheeler, and the smell of the leaves and dirt in that ravine. I think that day is pretty much burned into my soul. That creature was the most terrifying thing I have ever laid eyes on. I honestly don't even know what exactly to classify it as. It shares some similarities to a sasquatch but it was so long and slender while still appearing very strong and fast. This might sound crazy but it really felt like it was from some other place or realm. I have had a few very close encounters with bears while camping and while that was scary, especially being in a tent, it wasn't even in the same universe as how terrifying encountering that thing was. I never ever considered going anywhere near that spot ever again and still would not even today. I felt beyond helpless against that thing and am just grateful nothing actually bad happened. I did feel like that experience was a strong warning from that thing. I have often wondered if it was extremely angry at the massive changes taking place in the area with the destruction of all of the orange, lemon, grapefruit and avocado groves. It could have been the perfect environment to remain unseen and an endless food supply. I honestly just don't know. Third Incident So this encounter I still don't understand. My buddies and Had just graduated from high school. It was the typical time in life when...
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