A year ago, I met a very interesting man who eventually became a good friend to me. I’ll call him Chris, to protect his identity. We both have a military background, so naturally we spoke about some of our exploits in those past lives. He had an unexpectedly haunting story to tell.
This took place on an undisclosed military base located in the damp jungles of a remote island. Chris says he remembers the wilderness being unnervingly quiet for at least a week leading up to the incident. The personnel stationed there chalked the silence up to a change in seasons or something. There had been reports of bizarre sightings; fast moving animals no one could explain. Anyone who mentioned them was typically shut down with ridicule from fellow soldiers. The sightings were notably inconsistent with one another; some saw large eyes, others saw small ones. Some heard a big thing trudging boisterously through the woods, others heard the sounds of something small and light sneaking around in the brush. No one had seen anything worth defending in an inevitable argument, let alone losing their reputation over.
Chris heard every report due to the fact he was the Desk Sergeant at the time. Anyone who saw or heard something off, which could potentially impact the security of the base, would typically come to him to have it notated in the log. He never took the more fantastical reports seriously enough to actually write them down, unbeknownst to the concerned soldiers who came to him. Some of them came just to talk about what happened, off the record. Anyway, this would typically end up with them just trading ghost stories.
On the night in question, Chris and his team were on the far side of the island; an area which was completely uninhabited. There was no human presence that could be found for hundreds of miles in every direction. For that reason, the military chose that location for storing their weapons and explosives. Chris and a partner, who I’ll call Barry, were conducting the nightly checks on the magazine storage areas, which lay several miles deep into the uninhabited zone. The jungle was still weirdly quiet, but it was good for them, being that their mission was to detect foreign intelligence or operatives tampering with US equipment or the occasional refugee group that washing ashore. They were on a road that rested in the valley of two mountains, bordered by gigantic hills; thick and rocky with tall grass. As they drove along slowly with their Humvee windows down, they heard a heavy thud coming from the woods; a totally unexpected, unnatural sound emanated clearly from the tangled growth. The first thud drew their attention, but was quickly followed by other noises. Barry shut off the headlights and shut off the engine so they could sneak up on whoever was out there. They knew anyone attempting to navigate the dense vegetation would have to do so carefully, taking time to avoid injury. But, surprisingly, they could hear fast-paced walking; rustling through the tall grass.
After a few moments, the sound began to move parallel to the road. They restarted the vehicle and started to pursue the noise. The walking continued for a while as they followed it with only their running lights on, before suddenly stopping. They at first thought they’d lost track of whatever it was, so they turned the headlights back on, assuming it was a deer or something, and continued a distance down the road.
As Barry proceeded to turn the high beams on, both men noticed something in the distance approximately 30 yards ahead. A humanoid creature jumping into the road and then into the brush on other side. It was gray, over two meters tall with a small oval head. Its movements were too swift for its size. The best way he could describe its leaping motion was like that of an impossibly nimble frog. Seeing the creature instantly gave Chris the feeling of being punched in the stomach. His heart sank so rapidly and the adrenaline kicked in so fast that he began to feel nauseous, on the verge of vomiting. He laments the fact that neither of them had the will to chase after the creature, but that the feeling of being at such a disadvantage was absolutely petrifying. The idea that they were stalking it raised the question: Were they hunting, or being hunted themselves? Whatever it was, the creature definitely had the tactical advantages of position and mobility.
Chris and Barry turned their truck around and sped off into the night. The woods remained silent for at least another week, returning to the normal droning sounds of the local wildlife. LR
NOTE: The US military has a number of facilities located throughout several island chains in the Pacific. I believe the location described in this account may have been a special operations base located on one of the many islands in The Philippines. Lon
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