The Trap

While reading yesterday, I came across an account by a fellow in Oregon who had an experience eerily similar to the one I had while hiking through a forest in New Mexico, which I recounted here last Friday. However, this man seems to have come within inches and seconds of being trapped in a portal, snatched by Bigfoot, and joining the ranks of the dead or missing. Reading this little story has left me a bit gobsmacked and concerned about what could have befallen me while I was walking down that trail alone. Something supernatural is definitely going on in the deep woods wilderness which has yet to be explained by biology and physics. Do we really want to know? Any ideas?

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A Bigfoot eyewitness testimony by Larry Kelm, as recorded by Sharon (Eby) Cornet in a paper titled -

Vanishing Bigfoot and Anecdotal Accounts:

Implications and Challenges for Researchers

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In the fall of 1980 I ran a small business as a construction contractor in Eugene, Oregon. During the slow times and in-between jobs I would don my backpack and hiking boots and disappear into the mountains for weeks at a time enjoying the peaceful solitude of long hikes. At that time I was single and didn’t answer to anyone so I was free to do what I wanted when I wanted. On the trip in question I decided to hike the old Mollala Indian trail that followed the ridge tops from Saddle Blanket Mountain to Oakridge, one of the Native American’s favorite summer camps and trading centers. It was a beautiful August day, two days into the hike (I expected to be gone about two weeks), when literally out of the blue the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me in my life occurred. It would change my perspective of reality forever.

I was walking along the trail enjoying the strong breeze and bright sunshine when, in the middle of a step, everything around me started to turn gray and blurry. The only way I can describe it was as if suddenly I was looking through someone else’s prescription sunglasses. I finished the step and started another. Every inch I moved forward the darkness increased and the gray blurring turned into a jumble of shapes that made no sense. I then seemed to pass a barrier and everything started to return back into focus when my foot reached the ground on the second step everything around me had changed. Day had turned into night and there was no wind. All the Douglas Fir and pine trees had been replaced with thick jungle-like growth. The cool thin mountain air was replaced with humid thick air. There were no stars in the sky, but there was a diffused light that let me see everything clearly, however I couldn’t tell what the light source was.

As often happens when the human body receives a massive dose of adrenaline the entire incident appeared like it was in slow motion and even though I was only there for a second or two I had time to observe my surroundings. The silence was broken by [a] continuous high pitched keening sound, and I was nearly overwhelmed with a sense of fear and danger. My momentum caused me to take one more step before stopping in my tracks.

It was at this point, I heard a whispered "Gotcha" over my right shoulder. I couldn’t tell if I heard it with my ears or inside my head. The word wasn’t directed at me but something said the word quietly to itself. I was so terrified I actually felt my heart stop for a moment. That whispered word is what saved me. I opened my mouth and gasped in a huge gush of thick air and recoiled backward in the same footsteps I had entered wherever I was. As I threw myself backward, I looked over my right shoulder. A dark colored hairy right hand and arm was reaching for my throat over my shoulder. The hand had pale ivory spade-shaped fingernails. The nails looked clean and almost had a manicured look to them. The thumb was placed lower (towards the wrist) on the hand than a human’s is. Both hand and arm were thin and powerful looking and both were covered with thick coarse black hair.

I got a good look at it because the thumbnail grazed my neck (it did not break the skin) as I moved backwards. As I continued backwards, the hand clutched where my neck had been a split second before and it seemed to fade off into the distance as I returned through the Portal.

I took two more steps backwards and everything reversed itself from what had just happened. The world around me became lighter, the fir and pines gradually came back into view and by the third step I was back on Saddle Blanket Mountain.

I continued to move backwards in terror, and as I did, I observed that where I had just come from was a shimmering oval patch of air about the size of a large door. The woods behind it looked like it was under water. By the fifth backward step the shimmering area seemed to just evaporate and everything was back to normal. By then my lungs had nearly burst from the volume of air I had inhaled during the huge gasp I had just taken. My body felt like it was on fire from the adrenaline surge. I spun around and ran back down the trail as fast as my legs could carry me, and didn’t stop until I reached my truck. I was nearly two days getting to that place and about three hours getting back.

On my way home I was absolutely horrified at the thought of what would happen if I were to drive my truck into something like that. It had been a trap pure and simple. Whatever it was that tried to kill me somehow kept the Portal hidden from me on the way in, and I didn’t actually see it until I was back out again. I had terrible nightmares for years, and still haven’t come to grips with what happened. My fingers are trembling and the hair is standing up on the nape of my neck as I write this.

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Scott Carpenter

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𝕃𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣 ℕ𝕖𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕝