After thinking about the events of the day I made a few decisions that would change how I operate when it comes to research expeditions. The first thing I swore I would never do again is ride, or travel to an expedition location without having my own vehicle. The second is that if I am out researching with someone that I don’t know and trust, I won’t be getting out of the vehicle. Some may call the latter being scared; or chicken, but I can assure you that being locked out of a vehicle by someone is not what you want to have happen when cryptids start coming out of the wood work. These are also things to consider if you are researching with someone who is green, or that has never had any kind of encounter.
That afternoon Roger, his girlfriend, and child showed up to the camp. Roger wanted to go walking and explore the area, and I wanted to do the same, but hadn’t had a chance to do that just yet. He and I took off walking and looking around the immediate area. We ventured down into the creek bed and we located a large pile of fish skeletons. It was mainly heads, bones, and dried skin. It looked like someone had taken hundreds of fish a short distance up the creek bad, filleted them and threw the carcasses into a large pile. The odd thing was that this pile was surrounded by tall weeds and you really couldn’t see it unless you were standing in the creek bed. We poked around in that area for a bit, and walked down toward the bridge. I was walking much slower, and looking for evidence while Roger walked much faster. He went under the bridge, and continued down the creek bed to the river. He had walked 30 or so yards down the creek bed before he called out to me. Come look at this! I walked under the bridge and headed in his direction. There on a flat rock ledge were three turkey feathers pointing in different directions, with a rock on top of them to hold them down. Neither of us had seen anything like this before, but were sure that this find was purposefully placed there. Roger took pictures of the find, and we continued to look around the area. There were no other finds until we went back under the bridge on our way out.
As we got under the bridge, on one side you could see a hole that had been dug out under the road bed. This hole was roughly big enough that a average sized man could get into it, if he went in feet first. There was nothing inside the hole, but we could clearly see that something had disturbed the dirt inside the hole. We looked around for anything of note (there was nothing else to note), took pictures and headed back to the campsite.
We helped Roger get his tent set up, and then we gathered around the fire pit to eat. It was getting later in the evening and we decided that we were going to hang around camp that night and catch up, and share experiences. Soon it started to get dark. As twilight approached I could see the man from the fifth wheel camper walking up the hill toward the generator. He went out of sight and shortly thereafter I could hear the generator running. I didn’t think too much of it and continued to talk to the guys. Some time went by and it was getting full on dark, and we decided it was time to light the lanterns. After they were lit we continued to talk and I happened to look down toward the fifth wheel camper. I could see that there were so many lights on, and that the area around the camper was lit up very bright. I remember thinking to myself that it sure seemed like an awful lot of light for a camping trip. I didn’t pay it any more attention for a while. It continued to get darker and we continued to nurse the fire. I happened to glance down toward the bright light of the camper to see them all go out at once, and to not hear the generator running. A few seconds go by and I see a flashlight making its way to the generator. A few seconds go by and the droning of the generator resumes. I can see the flashlight making its way back to the campsite which is now well light like it was before the generator went off. I didn’t think too much of this event at first because I assumed the generator went off due to running out of fuel, or overload from the draw of the really bright lights. I continued talking with the guys and didn’t think anything else of it. About fifteen minutes goes by and I hear the drone of the generator stop again. I look in the direction of the camp and all is dark. The flashlight makes its way to the generator. The droning starts, and the lights come back on. This is seeming curious to me and I’m trying to figure out what is going on. I’m really intrigued to watch the series of events unfold for two more repetitions. The fifth time it happens I see the flashlight make its way to the generator, and then back to the campsite. It wasn’t 10 minutes later I see headlights coming from the direction of the fifth wheel camper. I watched as the campers drove out of the campground in what seemed to be a hurry; trailer in tow, they drove up the mountain road and were never seen again. We were all talking about how fast they left, and determined that they must have had something happen for them to leave like that. We would never find out.
About 30 minutes later a pickup truck comes down off of the mountain road and turns onto the lower road that passes right by our campsite. The truck is occupied by a younger guy driving, and a younger female passenger. There was also a younger guy and girl in the back of the pickup. They passed by and went down to one of the campsites that was almost out of our view. They parked and we could see flashlights, and hear them talking. We could see them piling up wood, and dragging logs from the wooded area and putting them into a pile. We didn’t pay them any mind and figured they were there to drink beer, or smoke weed. After a little bit we could see that they had started a fire in their distant camp site.