SC EP:969 Danger Close

<p>John writes “My encounter happened in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, where Umass is, in October of my senior year of college (October 16th, 2021); I was twenty-one years old.</p> <p>To slightly set the scene for you, I was home due to covid during the second half of my sophomore year and my entire Junior year of college. My senior year was the first year everyone returned to campus, with everything running as normal as possible. After a long week of midterms, I decided to take the Saturday to myself and hike in October Mountain State Forest in Lee, Massachusetts, to relax my mind.</p> <p>I was on the trail for about an hour and a half and prepared to return to my car around four o’clock in the evening so I would be at my car y the time it was dark. On my way back down the trail, the sun was starting to set, so I wanted to try to find a better view of the sunset. I found a trail that was not as finished as the main trail, which went up a small hill, so I figured I climb it to see the sunset better. I went upwards on the trail for what was probably twenty-five minutes when I just came across it. There was what appeared to be an ape-man sitting down staring at me as I stared at it. It was about my size, 6’1”. It had black fur, and its skin was a grayish-black color. It was holding a branch in its left hand, and I believe it was eating the leaves off of it and saw me as it was in the middle of chewing. It had its head tilted upwards with pupils on me. Its mouth was half open, and it had a confused and scared look on its face. What scared me the most was the eyes.</p> <p>There was so much human expression in the eyes alone that I was unsure what I was looking at. After about thirty seconds, it lowered its head and faced forward to its right side but kept its eyes on me. This side-eye it gave me made me feel sick to my stomach. I was looking at a human, but it wasn’t a human. The creature then moved its eyes off me, looked in the direction its face was facing, and then moved its eyes back on me, never moving its h