I’ve never told this story to anyone except my fiancé; however, after hearing a similar experience someone had on a podcast, I felt inclined to finally share mine.
I will start by saying I grew up in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains in a small town in Western Maryland. I always played outside in the woods that backed up to my family’s property. The set up was actually super cool and my house was on top of a HUGE manmade hill. I’m talking multiple people broke a bone on this hill when sledding in the winter. At the very bottom, our yard actually ended at a main road named Route 40. Once I got down there, a large sewer drain that ran under the road was my passageway into the woods. It was probably only about 500ft or so and would open up on the other side of the road into a stream. There were wild blackberries and raspberries growing back there and I loved just having this spot that seemed so private and magical.
So, one day when I’m about 14, I decided to venture further into the woods instead of just hanging out past the tunnel. But there wasn’t much of a bank on either side of the stream so I ended up having to walk in the water to keep going. I probably walked no more than half a mile before I came to a stop because my path was now blocked by a barbed wire fence. I thought it was was odd to see going across the water, but farmland surrounded my town and it wasn’t necessarily an unexpected thing to see. Luckily, I was able to barely squeeze through the middle of the wires and kept trudging on.
After another 15 minutes or so, I finally had enough ground to walk to the right side of the stream. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day around 4pm and suddenly the woods just got dark. I mean, not just sun behind the clouds, but almost like someone had put a mask over my eyes. I kept walking because what else can I do but go back into the water? And suddenly it is light again, like super bright, making me squint. I then realize I’m standing in a giant clearing. No trees to the left or right, or in front of me that I can see, even in the distance. Only the ones behind me that I had stepped out of. And immediately I feel the energy-shift and there’s some kind of pressure, mainly in my ears like I was changing altitudes or something. But what made me freeze was that there were no sounds at all. Not from the woods, the stream, birds, wind-nothing. Everything stood still until I began hearing a low humming sound. The best way I can describe it is like a dryer on the low cycle. But it got louder and louder and when my ears popped it seemed to snap me out of the trance i was in and I couldn’t even control my body, I just started running back the way I came.
Now I know I was scared and frantic, but as I made it back into the stream and began kicking up my legs so fast that I was drenching myself, I look up to see the sewage drain. In what seemed like less than 5 minutes, I was back to the side of the road, nearly to the safety of my back yard. No barbed wire fence. I also know that I left my house sometime between 3-3:30 pm. When I finally made it back through the front door, I run into the kitchen and the clock on the oven says 3:17.