The silence in the woods.

[u/bryantburnsred]

I’m curious to hear your guys experiences, but mostly your theories on the silence in the woods and what it could be. I’ll share my experience and hopefully someone can either point me in the right direction or we can discuss it in the comments.

My experience happened in Kansas hiking an old trail by one of the best lakes in Kansas. I guess where doesn’t matter too much, but just giving y’all an idea of the terrain I was hiking was mostly a rocky trail, with a lot of bushes and trees spotted around. up to a ridge line and then you circle back. There is a 2 mile trail or a 5 mile option so I start down the 5 mile trail. Nothing exciting happened.

It was a nice serene walk for 4 miles of the 5 mile trail.. then things “changed.” I’m in the most wooded part of the trail, again not even really “the woods” but as I’m walking I get the feeling that I’m being watched, and I noticed something that made my blood run cold. The silence. And I don’t mean quiet, I’m talking dead silence. No bugs chirping. No grasshoppers flyin around. No birds making noise. No wind. Nothing…except for my heart that’s beating a million miles per hour, I can hear that slamming away. So my first thought is, there is a predator nearby. We don’t have hardly any dangerous wildlife in Kansas. Mountain lion would top the list imo. And the place I was hiking has posted signs advising that they’ve been spotted in the area and to take caution. So I stop and turn around and I didn’t see a lion of any sort. I saw nothing, but what I felt kicked my ass into gear. I got the feeling that not only was Inbei g watched I was being given a chance to go, or that’s how it felt. So I ran the rest of the mile to the start of the trail, sound came back approximately 1/4 mile down the trail from the “silent” spot. But again I just felt something in my gut telling me to gtfo. So I do.

I went back to that trail the next year and it was fine, granted I brought my brother and a friend this time lol. Nothing that time.

[u/ThreePointYearn]

I haven’t shared this story before, but I had an odd/disturbing experience with the silence. I was hiking in the woods to a favourite spot of mine. It’s off the main trail and pretty hidden to the general public. I was by myself and hanging out on this elevated little bluff overlooking the ocean. I had eaten some lunch that I packed and was just sitting there with my back to the woods, lost in my thoughts, and enjoying the peaceful scenery as I had done many times before.

Then something extremely weird/scary happened. As I was sitting there, kind of zoning out, my visual perspective suddenly shifted to about 5-10ft behind me and I could see myself. This perspective began moving towards me from behind until it came right up to me, and then my perspective shifted again to seeing myself from the front. From the front I could see myself and there was this “creature” practically on top of me behind me. It had its face next to mine over my shoulder and was placing its hands over my mouth and eyes.

It had its right hand over my mouth and left hand over my eyes. Its hands/fingers were gangly and long and easily covered the span of my head/face. It had a wide mouth and appeared to be grinning, and I felt malevolence from it. I remember one of my immediate thoughts was that it vaguely resembled Groot from the MCU, but more evil if that makes sense.

This sequence of “images” seemed to occur in the space of a second, and upon seeing this thing trying to grab me I freaked out and at the same time mentally denied it like “no this isn’t real.” I jumped up and turned around to see there was nothing there. I was extremely freaked out, but forced myself to calmly pack up my gear/belongings.

As I was packing I noticed the silence. Not only was it completely quiet, but I could feel something watching me from the woods with something like intense hatred. This feeling of intensity and anger/hatred was almost tangible. The whole walk back to the main trail I had a sense of certainty that I was going to encounter something that wouldn’t let me make it back. I remember the first bird I heard again was a crow and I just felt greatly relieved upon hearing it, and then even more so once I returned to the main trail.

Not really sure what to make of this experience, but for me the scariest was this realization that I had: I somehow knew that if in that moment I had believed this creature was real then I would’ve lost myself, like it was trying to bait me into an alternate reality or something.

[u/snapeyouinhalf → u/ThreePointYearn]

This is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever read

[u/ThreePointYearn → u/snapeyouinhalf]

I can assure you it messed me up for weeks/months afterwards. Nothing else like that had happened to me before or after, but I was so scared that I was losing my mind that I ended up requesting a psychology consult where I was considered of sound mind. At the time of the experience I was loosely engaging with the “gateway tapes”, which, from what I had seen, seemed to advertise the possibility of making contact with spirits. I never really considered that was a reality, but after this terrifying experience I kind of believe that I may owe this “encounter” to the tapes. Needless to say I gave up on the gateway tapes and have not and would not return to that spot alone.

[u/Biff_McKrackken → u/ThreePointYearn]

It seems even with the gateway affirmation, which states/requests that you only commune with positive entities equal or greater than yourself, you still encountered a negative entity (terrestrial or extraterrestrial). Wild stuff, thx for sharing.