16x23: Weird Stuff Happens in the Mountains

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[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_07] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_07] I enjoy camping occasionally, but I don't particularly enjoy going often. However, my dad is an outdoorsman, so he's an avid hunter, fisher, and camper. Because of this, a lot of my childhood memories include camping. And I've learned a lot of the do's and don'ts of camping.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_07] I know things like, pack it in, pack it out, never leave food out, always keep things sealed and off the ground, and never walk through another person's campsite, unless they're family or you have otherwise been permitted to do so. These are just camping basics that, honestly, everyone should know about to stay safe and keep animals away.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_07] I've been married for 12 years, and every year, my husband's family hosts a family reunion, which is a huge camping trip in a national forest with a large lake. It's likely the only camping trip of the year for my husband and me, so we'll usually go just to get away from the city and romp around in the mountains for a bit. We have a daughter, who's almost 3 years old, and our son is 8 months old.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_07] Our daughter wanted to sleep in the trailer with grandma and grandpa, so we decided it was best to keep our son in our tent, with us, because he wakes up at 3am and then falls back asleep for a bit. Before waking up again at 6am. And then he gets up for the day at around 8am. Basically, I didn't want anyone to miss out on a full night's rest because my little man wakes up a lot. It was pitch black out, and I really had to pee.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_07] I had two options. I could make the 2-3 minute walk to the outhouse or pee outside of the tent. I decided there was no way I was making it to the outhouse, so I turned on my lantern and I checked on my son. He was still sleeping, so I put on my shoes and went outside. The moon was out, but hidden behind a cloud so I could make out the outlines of trees, but everything was still shrouded in darkness.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_07] And the only other light source was the soft glow coming from the tent. I finished up, and I was pulling my pants up, but I had this urge to rush back to the tent. I was overcome with this feeling like I should start heading back there while I was still pulling my pants up. I just had this inexplicable sense of urgency. One minute I was fine, and the next, I went into a state of semi-panic.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_07] As I got back into my tent, my son started stirring, so my panic subsided, and I got his bottle ready. Then I got his blankets all situated so that he was nice and warm, and I turned on his little octopus that plays lullabies. By the time I got back to bed and turned the lantern off, he was already back to sleep. While I lay there for just a few minutes, I watched the blue and purple lights flicker and bounce off the walls of the tent as Rockabye Baby played.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_07] I couldn't fall asleep, so I got out of bed, turned the lullaby octopus back off, and then snuggled back under the covers, but I still couldn't manage to get myself to relax. If you haven't been camping, let me explain. It's almost totally dark out there, unless the moon is full. As such, your eyes will play tricks on you, so you can never be certain if what you see is real, unless there is a sound accompanying it.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_07] Anyway, as I lay there, I swore I could see shadows moving outside of my tent, but I just told myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me. Even then, I felt this sense of unease and started to think about the slight panic I had felt outside, not even ten minutes prior, when I inexplicably felt the need to rush back to the tent.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_07] While I continued to lay there, I watched at least three large shadows move past the side of the tent. These shadows slowly moved from the side of the tent where my son was sleeping, and I saw them move towards the front of the tent. I stayed awake for a little while longer and didn't see anything else, so I was able to relax and fall asleep. My son woke up at about seven that morning and refused to go back to sleep,

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_07] so I got him dressed, made some coffee, and enjoyed the relatively quiet morning. My sister-in-law soon joined me at camp, and we started talking. She then told me that she had woken up at about 2.15 because she had to go pee. She also said that she decided not to go all the way to the outhouse, so she decided to pee outside of the tent, like me. When she finished, she got back into the tent, and before dozing off,

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_07] she said that her dog got very fidgety and started to walk around the tent pacing and sniffing the ground. She thought that her dog needed to go out as well, but then the dog started to growl. Her dog didn't bark, it just growled. That was when she started to hear the noises outside of her tent. She thought that it sounded like a big animal since it sounded like it was traversing so quietly, but she could hear twigs snapping right next to her tent and the brush rustling nearby.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_07] She woke her husband up, and they listened together, but he fell asleep eventually, as did she. I ended up telling her about my experience with the shadows that I saw outside of the tent just shortly after she heard the noises. Of course, we joked about it being sasquatch or a deer, but here's the thing. The campgrounds were full. There were maybe two empty camping spots left in this area. We had all been making a bunch of noise just three hours before this,

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_07] and all of the food had been sealed and put away. While it is possible an animal went through the camp, I would like to point out a couple of things. There weren't any deer tracks, bear tracks, or other animal tracks the next day, and nothing had been disturbed. But there were shoe prints in the dirt near my tent, and they were not made by flip-flops. Our camp was set up so that my in-law's trailer was in between our tents,

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_07] with the fire pit and tables further separating us. This means whoever was at our camp literally hung out in our camp and potentially watched me pee outside. And while I was then tending to my son, getting him to go back to sleep, they stayed. They stayed until I shut off the octopus that plays the lullabies and quietly left our camp, hoping not to be seen or heard. Even if someone wanted to take a casual, friendly stroll around the campgrounds on a Friday at 2.30 in the morning,

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_07] there would be hushed voices and flashlights, not just silence. Also, I'm sure they would have walked on the road instead of walking through some random family's campsite, so I'm not sure what was going on. Anyway, my aunt had rented a cabin that was located a little up a dirt road across from the campground entrance, and she had shown up at around 6.30pm that same Friday evening. When she and her kids were unloading the truck,

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_07] they saw a beat-up car making its way up the dirt road. My aunt said that the lady in the car was asking really weird questions about whether she had seen some guy, and she asked my aunt if she and her kids were staying at the cabin. When she told the lady that she had rented it for the weekend, the lady looked very irritated, abruptly ended the conversation, and sped back down the dirt road. I have a feeling that the guy that this lady was looking for, or possibly that lady and the guy,

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_07] were making their way through the camps in the middle of the night. And all the years I had been going there, that was the first time anything like this had happened. We were in a national forest. The area we were in has one road in and out, and it takes 30 minutes to get down the mountain and into a little town. I don't know what their intentions were, but something about them wasn't right. And something about that night wasn't right either.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_07] I know the sentiment, trust your gut, gets repeated constantly around here, but about six months ago at the airport,

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_07] my body reacted to a stranger with such an intense fear that I still think about it regularly. Back then, my husband, who's a 29-year-old male, I being a 24-year-old male, flew from the west coast back to the east coast on a red eye. We landed at the airport early that morning, exhausted and kind of delirious in that weird, post-overnight flight, hazy kind of way. This airport has a pickup station that can be pretty chaotic.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_07] The arrivals area gets backed up constantly, so instead of waiting downstairs, we took our luggage upstairs to departures, since pickups can usually occur way faster there. It was cold outside, but after spending hours in airports and being on a plane, the fresh air felt nice. We leaned against those concrete barriers outside the terminal while my husband called his mom, who was driving to pick us up. Traffic was bad,

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_07] so we were just standing around. And that's when a man came over to us. At first, there was absolutely nothing strange about this guy. He looked like a completely normal tech guy, and he appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s. He was clean cut, wearing a fleece vest, and he had his AirPods in. Honestly, he was the type of person you wouldn't look at twice. He told my husband he liked his jacket, and my husband thanked him.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_07] Then he complimented mine. I awkwardly said something like, thanks man, you too, even though his outfit was pretty generic. He smiled and sarcastically replied, I'm sure you do. It was subtle, but something about his tone felt slightly off. But none of it seemed alarming. We then made small talk. He asked where we were headed, and we said we were staying with family nearby. He started talking about family as well,

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_07] except every comment he made had this bitter, self-deprecating edge to it. At one point, he said something along the lines of, friends and family don't matter anyway. We tried to be nice about it, though. We were just chalking this up to be a casual conversation with a stranger while waiting for a ride. But then something changed. I cannot explain this properly without sounding insane, but the atmosphere shifted so suddenly

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_07] that I physically felt it. I got chills all over my body. This wasn't anxiety, nor was this nervousness. I was feeling this primal fear. The guy's expression changed completely. He was still talking normally, but the way he was looking at us suddenly felt deeply wrong. The only way I can describe it is that he looked at us like he wanted to hurt us. There was this intense anger behind his eyes that had absolutely not been there before.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_07] Then I took a closer look, and I remember noticing he had no luggage at all. He only had a backpack. This struck me as odd because he mentioned getting off a long flight. Then somewhere in the conversation, he casually said, I don't have a home. As I was standing there in that moment, every instinct in my body was screaming at me that something was wrong with this guy, though. My husband usually gets absorbed in conversations

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_07] and doesn't pick up on weird vibes the same way that I generally can, but I knew we needed to get away from this guy without escalating things. So instead of abruptly saying that we needed to leave, I decided to quietly walk back inside the airport and down the ramp towards arrivals and briefly leave my husband. When I made up an excuse that I had to go to the bathroom, this guy suspiciously said, Oh, the bathroom, huh? Now I know it sounds terrible, but I genuinely thought

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_07] if I acted alarmed or made it obvious that I was scared, something bad would happen. Once I got downstairs, I called my husband and told him as calmly as I could, You need to come inside right now. Something is seriously wrong with that guy. While I was on the phone, I heard the man say, Oh, is that your friend? Tell him to come back out. My husband ended their conversation politely and just said something like, Nice meeting you.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_07] The guy responded almost mockingly. Yeah, I'm sure you really meant that. The way he said it made my stomach drop for some reason. A minute later, my husband finally came back inside. The second I saw him walk around the corner, I was relieved. Before I could even explain myself properly, he immediately said, No, I get what you mean. That was really scary. And that was the moment that I knew I wasn't imagining it. Well, we waited inside until my husband's mom arrived.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_07] The second that we got into the car, she started asking how we were, excited to see us after we had been away for a while. And honestly, I was relieved to see her too. Not just because we hadn't seen her in some time, but because it genuinely felt like she had unknowingly pulled us away from something awful. The entire time, we were driving out of the airport, I had this horrible adrenaline still running through me. I immediately started trying to explain what happened, but I was talking way too fast, trying to describe why the interaction had shaken me so badly.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_07] The more I tried explaining it out loud, the more impossible it became. The guy never threatened us. He never followed us. He never even raised his voice. And yet, I had never felt a stronger, instinctual fear response in my life. I think the part of what frustrated me so much was that I couldn't properly communicate what I felt so deeply that was wrong about him. I couldn't explain it to my husband's mom, or even fully explain it to my husband. Although, he felt it too.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_07] As we drove out of the airport, we passed the same man sitting alone further down the terminal. He didn't look over at us, but I remember staring at him through the car window, feeling like we narrowly escaped something that I couldn't explain. So to the man outside of the airport that morning, I'm not sure where you were traveling to or why you were traveling so late, despite the long flight you claimed to have. And I'm not sure what your deal was in general, but I certainly could feel that something was off. So let's not meet.

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[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_07] This happened eight years ago in August 2013. I was camping in far north Queensland, Australia, in a place called Barren Falls. I'm a 22-year-old girl, and I was camping with my two male friends, Theo and Charlie, who were backpacking from Estonia. We set up camp somewhere that wasn't an official campsite. To get there, we walked along the tourist path, climbed over the railing, followed the train track

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_07] for a few kilometers, veered off into the dense forest, and eventually went downhill to the river. It certainly wasn't easy to get to this area, and there was no mobile phone service, but Theo knew about it from friends who had previously shown him this spot. The site was beautiful. We were surrounded by a tropical forest, and were only a short walk upstream from the waterfall. After setting up camp, we walked to the waterfall,

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_07] where both Theo and Charlie plunged from the cliff into the water below. I decided not to follow. I was, and still am, scared of heights and the possibility of hurting myself. I sat and watched them for a while before eventually deciding to return to camp and read my book. I was totally relaxed, enjoying the serenity, taking in the beauty all around me. What had been an exciting and adventurous day was then interrupted

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_07] by deep, sinister laughter coming from the forest surrounding our campsite. Instantly alerted, I felt chills running through my body as I scanned the forest, trying to detect where the laughter was coming from. I didn't see anything, so I tried to forget about it, and I convinced myself that my mind was playing tricks on me. Theo and Charlie then returned and told me that they had forgotten fire lighters for the campfire.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_07] They said that they'd need to travel to the nearest store to buy some and told me I should wait at camp. I told them that I didn't feel comfortable staying there alone, but didn't mention the laughter I had heard before. I didn't want them to think that I was naive, and for context, at the time, I had quite a large crush on Charlie. So, I wanted him to think that I was cool. They insisted that I would be fine and said that they'd be back before dark.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_07] Reluctantly, I agreed and let them go. It was about 4pm and I continued to read my book. As I began to think about it, I realized that the walk back to the car was about 20-30 minutes, so they would be gone for well over an hour. At this time of year, dusk would be 5.30 or so. Therefore, I was likely going to be alone in this remote area in the dark. After I had this realization, I distracted myself

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_07] with my book, but as dusk began to settle, I struggled to read the pages and fear began to set in. After about an hour, I started to hear footsteps in the forest. My first thought was that Theo and Charlie had returned and I was instantly relieved that I was no longer alone. I listened for their voices but I didn't hear anything. My heart dropped and it dawned on me that it may not be them.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_07] So I began to panic. Then came the laughter, the same deep sinister laughter that I heard before. Only this time it seemed much closer. I sprang to my feet and surveyed the forest and that was when I saw him. He was standing on the other side of the stream which was connected to the river. He was standing on a log, this man wearing formal clothes. It was so bizarre at first. I thought

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_07] that I was hallucinating. But I did a double take and I wasn't. His hair was shoulder length, very wiry and unkempt. He laughed, the same laugh I had heard from the forest. It came from him. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes. I had planned to sprint into the forest if he charged at me and observed that the small creek between us would at least slow him down. He then asked me,

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_07] what are you doing here all alone? As an unsettling smile stretched across his face. Luckily, I was able to remain calm and I told him that I was camping with my male friends. I explained that they quickly went to get some supplies and said they would be back soon. The man laughed again. He asked me how long we would be there for. I lied and said that we were leaving the next day. It seemed

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_07] as if he wanted to provoke a reaction out of me. I felt like he wanted me to panic and run but I remained calm and I acted as if we were having a standard conversation and I think this confused him. Miraculously, I then heard Theo and Charlie's voices approaching. This alarmed the man and he said that he saw somebody else camping upstream he told me that he was going to go and check on them and then he left.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_07] Minutes later, Theo and Charlie returned. I immediately told them what happened and they laughed. They thought I was making it up to scare them. I started to cry and Charlie realized I was serious. Theo didn't seem phased though. He was a very stereotypical backpacker and had a carefree nature that travelers tend to have. Charlie, however, assured me that I would be okay and had me sleep between him and Theo for the next

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_07] two nights. I barely slept for all those nights. I kept listening for the laughter again. But luckily, I never heard it. For years after this, I searched online for any reports of similar encounters with this guy but I never found anything. I've always contemplated what would have happened if Theo and Charlie hadn't returned at that moment. I haven't been camping since.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_07] This happened to my husband and me about three years ago in late November. Back when we lived in Seattle, we surfed frequently. On this occasion, we decided to try a few spots along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The land along the Strait is beautiful but incredibly remote. The only way to access most of it is by driving Highway 112. There's almost no cell service along the highway as there are only a few tiny towns out there.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_07] We decided to surf at a spot called Twin. We had surfed there before and knew the area pretty well. According to the report, the waves would be best early in the morning so we chose to drive out the evening before and sleep in our car overnight. Since it was late November, we skipped paying for the campsite at a nearby campground and just parked near the beach at Twin. We figured nobody else would be there and we were mostly right.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_07] We arrived at around 3.30pm and the only other people there were a young couple in a van. Nothing particularly eventful happened. We cooked dinner after 7 and took a quick walk along the beach. The only strange thing that did occur just before the sunset was hearing loud whistling from the highway. This man then appeared walking down the entrance road towards the beach. My husband and I immediately thought that

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_07] it was odd. There was basically nowhere along the highway that you could realistically walk to. The guy only had a tiny backpack with him so he clearly wasn't hiking. He said hello to the couple in the van and they invited him to sit by their campfire for a while. The last time we saw any of them was later in the evening when my husband and I decided to turn in for the night. About an hour later I woke up and cracked the car door for some fresh air.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_07] I noticed that the van was gone. Something about that deeply unnerved me. I couldn't explain why so I told myself I was just tired and I laid back down. The next time I woke up it was close to 11pm. I sat upright so suddenly that I woke up and asked what was wrong and I told him nothing. Just that I had woken up startled. He was relaxed and quickly fell back to sleep but I stayed awake for

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_07] another 15 minutes listening. Looking back I think my intuition was screaming at me that something was wrong. Eventually after not hearing anything I forced myself to lie back down and try to sleep. About 20 minutes later I woke up again but this time my husband was already awake. He was sitting completely still listening. The way that he was frozen in place listening intently scared me.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_07] I switched on the interior light and asked what was wrong. He whispered someone is tapping on the windows. I felt this immediate overwhelming sense of dread. When I woke up earlier I whispered in response I noticed that the couple from the van had left and there's no one else camping here. At that point we both threw on our shoes grabbed our flashlights pepper spray and a knife and then opened the

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_07] doors but we were met with silence and absolutely pitch black darkness. My husband walked towards the tree line behind us to look around while I stood near the car shining my flashlight down towards the beach. I couldn't see anything. I sat on the back bumper waiting while he searched the area. Out of instinct I checked my phone for service but we didn't have any out there. A couple of minutes later my husband quickly came back.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_07] We have to leave he said. There's a car parked near the exit road. Its lights are off but the engine is running. I couldn't tell if anyone was inside. In less than a minute we threw everything into the front seats climbed in and started driving back toward the entrance road. We didn't want to risk taking the exit road and driving directly past the car. We got out of there so fast but in our confusion my husband accidentally turned the wrong direction. We were now driving

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_07] in the opposite way we needed to go. As we passed the exit road we saw the car. Its headlights were now on. A few seconds later we realized it was accelerating behind us. I remember practically screaming, what the fuck are you doing? There's nowhere else to turn around. For context the highway we were on was narrow. There was a forest on one side and then the ocean on the other. Luckily we spotted a small turnout just ahead. My husband

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_07] kept muttering fuck before jerking the wheel into it. The second we turned off the car behind us kept going without slowing down. We immediately whipped around and sped about 90 miles per hour down the road. Nobody followed us the rest of the drive home. But even now thinking about whoever was sitting in that car still creeps me out. To whoever stalked us that night let's never meet again.

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[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_04] Your social media feed says eat more protein, track your sleep, boost your VO2 max, wake up in cold plunge, cleanse yourself of parasites. You're intrigued, but confused. So where can you turn? Welcome to Health vs. Hype, the show where we take the loudest wellness trends on the internet and ask the questions only science can answer. What's real, what's exaggerated, and what is completely wrong? I'm Trace Dominguez. Each episode we show the science

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_04] behind viral health claims, from high-protein diets to cold plunges, detoxing to sleep tech obsession. And we talk to the people in the middle of it all. Influencers, the curious, but more importantly doctors and researchers. Not to cancel the trend, not to hype it more, but to understand it. Listen to Health vs. Hype with the American Medical Association on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Slow the scroll, start asking better questions.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_07] I'm a 29-year-old male and I recently met up with a guy from a dating app. Before I continue, I want to say I made a lot of naive decisions and I never trusted my gut. I've been out of a committed relationship for six years and out of the dating scene entirely for about 15. I got caught up in feeling like someone was interested in me and let it put my best judgment behind me. Now, on to the story. We met up to smoke and

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_07] play video games. The first red flag went up when we were talking on the phone and was out of red flag.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_07] We hung out for a while and he seemed like an okay guy but he repeated and contradicted himself quite a bit. he also tried to make some moves which I wasn't down for but halfway through he just stopped. He made more comments like I didn't bring you here to kill you. I'm not going to kill you. I was still caught up in the moment and pretty stoned so

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_07] I brushed it off as more awkwardness. Some time later he asked me to give him a massage. He told me that he had back problems so I was careful but eventually he said I was doing it wrong. He suggested that we switch so that he could show me how to do it. We switched and this is when I realized I needed to leave. He began massaging me but he was pressing down very hard. It was hurting me.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_07] I told him this and he said something along the lines of when it hurts you know it's working. I asked him to stop and just lay on top of me. Then out of the blue he asked why don't you care about yourself? Now I've got really bad dental issues. I'm working on it now after meeting a very kind dentist but it took me a really long time to do so because I've been turned away from doctors and hospitals who have written me off as an addict when

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_07] they see my teeth. For the record I have actually never used drugs. So that was where I assumed the question came from. But then things took a very dark turn as he began talking about his sister. He said that she was killed by her boyfriend after he invited her to his place for the first time. I didn't say much because I didn't know how to process what I was hearing. Then he said, sometimes I think about

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_07] doing that to someone because I want to understand what's going on in their head when it happens. This sent chills down my spine. I've never felt fear like this before. At that point, he was sitting up with his weight on my lower back. In my mind's eye, I kept getting flashes of him holding a weapon or something above me, so I flipped myself over and shimmied my way out from underneath him while telling him I had to leave.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_07] I didn't know if he had any plans or ideas. Losing a sibling is really tough, so maybe that was in the front of my mind, but I couldn't deny the alarms going off in my nervous system. I've never felt fear take over my body like that before. After a few weird messages today, I told him I wasn't comfortable seeing him. I asked him not to contact me again, then I blocked his number and socials. So to Mr.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_07] I'm not going to kill you, please let's never meet again. This happened in 2009 when I was driving late at night on I-90 between Deer Lodge and Missoula, Montana.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_07] I'm originally from Seattle and was visiting at the time. If you know that stretch of freeway, you know how isolated it feels at night. There are long stretches of dark mountain road broken up by tiny towns, the occasional truck stop, and almost nothing in between. It was around 11pm and I was heading from my hotel in Missoula when I realized I needed some gas. So I pulled off into one of those

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_07] tiny mountain towns. It was the kind of town that felt like it fell asleep before midnight even hit. There was one gas station with a 24-hour pump and an attached convenience door but the store itself was closed and completely dark. The second I pulled in, something felt wrong. I can't really explain it beyond that. There were no people around and there wasn't any traffic or movement, just the hum of the engine and those harsh gas

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_07] station lights cutting through the darkness. Everything around the station fell quiet. I pulled up to a pump and put the car in park, but I left the engine running. I remember reaching for the key to shut the car off when out of the corner of my eye I caught movement. There was a dark figure. It came from the side of the closed convenience store and started running straight toward my car. Not walking, not waving for

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_07] help, but running. Instinct kicked in before my brain even processed what I was seeing and I threw the car into drive and hit the gas. The whole thing happened in 10 to 15 seconds. I pulled in, parked, and reached for my ignition, then saw someone running at me, and then I was gone. As I peeled out of the lot, I looked back and I saw the figure sprinting after my car. And not just a little bit, whoever chased

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_07] me, chased me all the way toward the freeway ramp. I remember the feeling of glancing in the mirror and seeing that dark shape tearing after me under scattered patches of light before disappearing into the dark behind me. By the time I got back onto I-90, my adrenaline was through the roof. This was 2009, so smartphones weren't exactly what they are now. I had a flip phone with almost no signal and no

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_07] idea where the next gas station would be. I remember staring at the fuel gauge, trying to convince myself that I'd make it somewhere populated before running out. Thankfully, about 10 miles later, I found a brightly lit truck stop and filled up there. Even standing under around other people, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had almost stopped long enough for something bad to happen. Maybe there's a perfectly rational explanation.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_07] I know parts of that area had, and probably still have, a serious meth problem, so maybe it was just someone desperately trying to rob whoever pulled into that desolate gas station alone at night. But after hours of driving through dark mountain roads, alone, exhausted, and in the middle of nowhere, my brain didn't care about rational explanations. All I knew was this. Someone came out of the dark and ran toward my car, and if I had turned the engine off just a few seconds

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_07] earlier, I don't know what would have happened. I've heard people say strange things can happen in the mountains, and after that, I stopped challenging people about that. I started working at my retail job about a year ago.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_07] The age range of my coworkers is a wide span. At 25, I'm the youngest, and I was 24 at the time of this story. My oldest coworker is easily in their 80s, which feels more important to mention in this situation. One of my older coworkers, a 65-year-old male, would chat with me here and there when we worked together, though it wasn't very often. He seemed sweet,

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_07] so I didn't think too much of it. Once, he even brought fresh cookies in for another coworker and me, because we hadn't been there one week when he originally brought them. He was welcoming, kind, and never gave me a creepy or uncomfortable vibe. A few months into my employment there, he had surgery and took some time off. During his leave, he came back into the store to walk around and catch up

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_07] with coworkers. One day, while I was eating lunch in the break room, he walked in to grab a cup of water and we started making small talk. We started talking about how his surgery went and what I was eating, just normal stuff. But then the vibe suddenly shifted, and as the conversation started dying down, I genuinely felt the energy in the room change. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card with his phone number on it and handed it to me.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_07] Then he said that if I ever wanted to grab some coffee sometime, I should call him. I was uncomfortable, so I awkwardly laughed. This was a grown married man asking me, a 24-year-old coworker, out for coffee. But he had always been so kind and never made me feel uncomfortable before, so I rationalized it. I figured maybe he was just lonely or maybe he genuinely liked chatting. I even thought that maybe I was reading too much into it.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_07] Even so, it felt off. After I awkwardly said that I would think about it, he left the room and I instantly felt anxious. So I then started texting a friend about what happened and I felt weirdly close to tears, though I couldn't really explain why. He then came back into the break room. He asked if I could keep our conversation between us because our coworkers might get jealous that they weren't

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_07] invited. And that's when my stomach dropped. Whatever benefit of the doubt I had been trying to give him disappeared. The comment made the whole thing feel secretive and inappropriate in a way that immediately justified how uncomfortable I felt. Now, because I had only recently started working there, I was terrified to bring up to management what happened. Instead, I confided in two coworkers who were women, closer to my age. They immediately validated how uncomfortable I

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_07] felt and encouraged me to talk to our boss. I still felt nervous to do it myself, so one of them asked me if she could speak to our manager for me, and I agreed. About two weeks later, I was on the sales floor when someone told me he had come back into the store to walk around again. I immediately told my managers that I was going to wait in the office while he was there. That was when my boss decided to speak with him. I sat in the office for around ten

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_07] minutes until I heard my manager say, firmly, I've told you to leave five times, please go, while he begged to come into the office and talk to me. Honestly, it scared me. At the time, I suddenly felt guilty and wondered if I had misunderstood the whole interaction after all. My boss later reassured me that if it felt weird, it was weird. She told me that a 65-year-old married man whose children were likely older than

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_07] me shouldn't be asking a 24-year-old co-worker out for coffee and then asking her to keep it secret. Recently, he came into the store again for the first time since it happened, and my heart immediately sank. After my co-workers warned me that he was there, I hid in the break room until he left.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_04] Your social media feed says eat more protein, track your sleep, boost your VO2 max, wake up in cold plunge, cleanse yourself of parasites. You're intrigued but confused. So where can you turn? Welcome to Health vs. Hype, the show where we take the loudest wellness trends on the internet and ask the questions only science can answer. What's real, what's exaggerated, and what is completely wrong. I'm Trace Dominguez. Each episode we show the science behind

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_04] viral health claims, from high-protein diets to cold plunges, detoxing to sleep tech obsession. And we talk to the people in the middle of it all. Influencers, the curious, but more importantly, doctors and researchers. Not to cancel the trend, not to hype it more, but to understand it. Listen to Health vs. Hype with the American Medical Association on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Slow the scroll. Start asking better questions.

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[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_06] This is Ashley Iconetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. You know that moment when you're in your stylist chair and you're describing your dream hair like it's a Pinterest board come to life, but you have zero idea how to make it happen at home? That is my Roman empire. But Amiga totally gets it. Their clean, vegan, cruelty-free, clinically proven formulas are why stylists swear by them. I'm obsessed with the wizard detangling primer. It's like a magic

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_06] spell for my hair. For a limited time, save 15% off your order with code FAMOUS15 on loveamika.com. Restrictions may apply.

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_07] I work in a bookstore and I genuinely enjoy my job, but after this disturbing encounter, I'm honestly scared to even clock in. I was rearranging some books when one of my coworkers came up to me and said a guy had asked to borrow a pen and paper and was giving her the creeps. I brushed it off at first, but then about 10 minutes later, while she was at the register, I walked over to chat. She gave me a concerned look and said, go in the back, I'll tell you later.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_07] I was confused, but I trust her completely, so I went to the stock room, wondering what had really happened. A few minutes later, she came in and explained, that guy said he's in love with you and left this for you. She then handed me the paper that he had asked for. It had this eerie looking drawing on it that I genuinely couldn't make sense of. Most of the writing on the paper was illegible, and it was surrounded by

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_07] crosses, pentagrams, and other strange symbols. The only parts that I could make out were something about him being in love with me, wanting to get to know me, and a mention of a specific belt with crosses that I own, but wasn't even wearing that day. That immediately freaked me out because it was evident that he had been there watching me for some time. I could also make out words like queen, flames, and a line in Spanish

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_07] that said, I love you forever. Most of the rest was gibberish and disturbing drawings. He also told my coworker he planned to come back and ask for my number. I was shaking. We don't have security at my store, so I called my manager, who wasn't on shift. She said he most likely wouldn't do anything else and told me to go in the back if he returned. And she instructed my coworkers to tell him I wasn't interested. This left me feeling really unsafe.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_07] Honestly, more than anything, I was angry. It angered me that someone would behave that way, leave a note, and leave someone feeling terrified and anxious at their workplace, only to go home and sleep peacefully. The next time I worked, I was working with an assistant manager. We watched the camera footage together. The guy appeared to be about 40. I'm 22. In the footage, he was actually seen speeding towards me as I went into the back, but I never noticed him.

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_07] When he realized he wasn't going to catch up to me, he went to my coworker and started asking questions about me. She lied and told him my shift had ended and I had gone home. After that, he stood near the stockroom door waiting for me for at least 10 minutes. I genuinely had no idea what he planned to do, but that realization was terrifying. After that, I decided to ask to be temporarily relocated to another store within the chain. The guy returned to my store while I was

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_07] gone, looked around for a while, but ultimately left. A coworker mentioned that he appeared to be holding flowers. A few days after that, he returned again and tried to leave another note. This time, he just left it on a pen tester display instead of handing it to any of the coworkers. Security was called before he could finish, and I believe some kind of physical altercation took place. At this point, I'm planning to take the matter to the police.

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_07] This happened about a year ago to my husband and me. It was our 10th anniversary, so we decided to go camping, just the two of us and our dog. There was a big national park with campsites close to where we live. It's less than an hour drive to get there, so that was where we were headed. It's basically a big forest with many small lakes, ponds, trails, and campsites. It's a pretty popular place during the summer, but we still saw some people when we went, even though it was late September and the weather was pretty cold.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_07] We found a good spot next to the lake and set up our camp. It was a beautiful day, so we wanted to take a hike into the forest. There was a nice long path that circled the lake where we had our camp, so we chose to take that one. The lake was quite small, and there was another campsite on the other side opposite ours. You could see it from our campsite, and you could see our campsite from there. The two sites were nearly on exact opposite sides of the lake. As we walked the trail around the lake, we walked

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_07] past other campsites, and we saw a man at one who was alone, just standing and staring at us. He appeared to be around the same age as us, somewhere in his late twenties. He didn't answer us when we greeted him, so we figured he was maybe a bit shy. He had a small tent set up and some other stuff set out, so it seemed as though he had been there for a while. We just continued walking and didn't think much of it. Eventually, we got back to our camp and decided to start setting up our tent before

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_07] it got too dark. Then we made some food by the fire and just sat there enjoying the peace. Suddenly, our dog began barking like crazy. Her long leash was tied around a tree nearby, and we quickly realized that she wasn't being paranoid. There really was something in the woods, and it was near. Also, it had been very dark for hours by this point. I then grabbed the dog's leash and my husband started to look around with his bright headlamp. Our dog just

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_07] kept barking, though. We were confused, and sure, it was some kind of animal, maybe a bear or a moose, but we couldn't understand why it wasn't scared of us or why it wouldn't run away. So my husband then stepped on the path that went around the lake, the one that led to the other campsite. Right as he got to the path, which was less than 10 meters away from our camp, he saw something on the ground. I told him to check it out, and followed with our dog. He stopped and turned to me and

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_07] said, it's a person lying on the ground. My first thought was maybe this person was hurt, or dead. They were just lying there, not moving, face down on the ground. My husband then called out, are you okay? Are you hurt? The person then suddenly stood up. It was the man from the other campsite. He was intimidated by our dog, and he was telling us not to let her near him. I was kind of

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_07] relieved that it didn't turn out to be a bear or any other animal that could eat us, but I soon learned that a bear might have been less scary than a man. After he stood up, he walked straight to our campfire and sat down. My husband tried to ask him multiple times why he was sneaking around in the dark forest without a light, but he wouldn't give us an answer. He even laughed when I told him about how we thought there was a bear or something, but when he laughed he didn't smile.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_07] He just stared at the fire, looking annoyed. I also noticed his right leg was soaking wet, since he probably stepped off of the path and dipped it into the lake on his way to our camp. He sat with us for about thirty minutes, but he wasn't talking much. He also clearly wanted to know where our dog was at at all times. I saw that he had a knife hanging from his belt, but I suppose it wasn't too weird for him to have that, being out in the woods, but it was something that I noted.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_07] Every few minutes, he put his hand in his pocket and just peeked at whatever was in there. It was kind of like when people checked the time on their cell phone without completely taking it out of their pocket, but it wasn't a phone that he had in there. I felt very uncomfortable and anxious about the whole situation. After about thirty minutes, he stood up and mumbled something about heading back to his own campsite and then he left. He never gave us any explanation as to why he

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_07] was lying face down on the path and why he came to our site. He also didn't tell us why he was stalking us in the dark. I'm not sure what was going on, but it seemed like he was trying very hard not to be seen when we found him. When I thought that he was far enough, I told my husband that there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in that tent. That was extremely scary. Unfortunately for me, he agreed and said that he was concerned that the guy might come back while we were sleeping.

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_07] I just wanted to leave as soon as possible so my husband started packing things up. Our car was nearby, thank god, and I was guarding and looking around with the light to make sure that he wasn't coming back. Just when we had almost all of our stuff in the car, I saw a quick flash of light on the path from the guy's camp coming towards us. He was coming back. Maybe he thought we had gone to sleep because we had put our campfire out. We didn't stick around to see what

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_07] he was coming back for, though. We got in the car and we left. I'm not sure what this guy's deal truly was, but I had such a bad feeling about him. Who crawls in the dark, wet forest, alone, just to stalk some strangers? What would he have done if our dog hadn't heard him? What were his motives? I'll never know, but I didn't want to stay there and find out. I'm just glad that our dog was with us. She likely saved our lives. Oddly enough, I

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_07] think other people are the scariest thing to find in the woods at night when you're camping. If you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode. If you want to get access, go to

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_07] patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate, plus bonus stories in those extensions every week, stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radio Cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com and follow me on twitch at twitch.tv slash crypticcounty. Be sure to send your stories in to let's not meet stories at gmail.com if you'd like to

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_07] hear them on the show. This week you have heard Night Visitors by Mysterious Movie, Something Was Very Wrong With That Man by Ellis, The Gentleman of Barron Falls by Four Labaster, Stalked at Night While Car Camping in Rural Washington by Tubular, I'm Not Going to Kill You by Throw Away 2025-5, Weird Stuff Happens in the Mountains by Steven Everill. He Told Me to Keep It a Secret by EffectiveDealer7572, Customer Left Me a

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_07] Weird Note by S, and finally he made us leave our campsite real quick by TiredDogLady. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. We'll see you next week. Everybody stay safe.

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_07] The story that I have to share happened back in

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_07] 2016.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_06] This is Ashley Iconetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. You know that moment when you're in your stylist chair and you're describing your dream hair like it's a Pinterest board come to life, but you have zero idea how to make it happen at home? That is my Roman empire. But Amiga totally gets it. Their clean, vegan, cruelty-free, clinically proven formulas are why stylists swear by them. I'm obsessed with the wizard detangling primer. It's like a magic

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_06] spell for my hair. For a limited time, save 15% off your order with code FAMOUS15 on loveamika.com. Restrictions may apply.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_01] I like things my way, my coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self injecting with the Vivgard Hytrulo pre-filled syringe, which contains F-Guard-Tigamide-alpha and hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit VivgardMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com. And talk to your doctor about Vivgard Hytrulo. Brought to you by

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_01] Argenics.

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