Hello Raven,
One December [see Note 1 below] I journeyed north for a weekend of late autumn relaxation. Through the course of my journey the weather turned from bad to worse, and by the time I entered our local section of forest, the weather morphed to a full-on blizzard, with driving winds.
Though snow was accumulating fast, our main road had been plowed. I had no trouble driving the eight or so miles to a junction where I turned downhill towards our lakeshore dwelling. This was an unplowed gravel lane, shared by six or so homeowners.
Rolling treacherously over about 8” of old compacted snow, with new inches accumulating, I realized getting stuck was a distinct possibility. Halfway to my destination something loud hit the rear of my car. I spun out of control into drifts at the edge of the trail. I rationalized I had hit a concealed stone with one my tires.
How had I let this happen? None of the tires were damaged, in fact there was no trace of hitting any hard object at all. So what had made the loud noise? I could only speculate. With just an eighth of a mile to walk, and sunset nearing, I set out, realizing the importance of getting inside, and starting a fire.
Shouldering a pack, handbag and other belongings I headed down the trail to the camp. I set my cooler of food in the snow by the car. There were a few crucial turns to make, all navigation I was intimately familiar with, in clear summer weather.
Just yards from our property, I couldn’t be sure of where I was. The driving snowflakes made my eyes burn and squint. Snow goggles? In my lower bottom drawer, lot of good they were doing me now. I bumped into piles of lumber, trees, even a neighbor’s propane tank. I struggled for thirty minutes or so until I saw the side of a building. Wrong building, the garage of a cousin neighbor. I’d gone too far.
I backtracked my own footsteps in the ten inches or so of total accumulation. My trudging around left a clear record of where I’d walked. Yet the amount of footprints I’d made seemed excessive as if I had been dragging both my feet. I hadn’t because I was wearing my downstate shoes. To keep snow out of my socks, I'd been walking like a stork. So how had those deep furrows been made? Bizarre.
Truly freezing, I opened my stride and retraced steps to the other turnoff, then descended via the only alternative. Fumbling, I found the rear door to our small home. My fingers were numb. Finding and using the right key was a monumental task. I hadn’t kept gloves or any winter clothing in the car, I thought let this be a lesson. I kept having this internal dialogue about keeping winter clothes in the car. Lot of good they did me in the bedroom of our camp. I mean, who ever imagined the last five minutes of a car journey could turn so deadly.
Note I was thinking about winter clothes in the bedroom.
I readied a pile of kindling in our frozen fireplace. My match struck, a tentative flame rose, the kindling caught, and I heaped on cordwood in an attempt to get warm. It was then that I heard an animal rattling about in the bedroom down the hall. We’re used to squirrels, mice, birds, they all work their way indoors at different times. During this storm, some large critter had worked its way indoors. No matter. I heard the sounds a few more times. They were loud. Bigger than a squirrel or rabbit. The noises seemed human, bureau drawers opening and closing.
I ran into the bedroom end of the camp and threw open the door. Nothing. Holding a flashlight I rummaged around, found my winter overalls, parka, and boots.
Braving the snow again I opened the valve on our propane tank, then headed back towards my car, hoping the cooler of lettuce and milk hadn’t frozen solid. A few meters from our camp I saw the cooler, sitting where I couldn’t miss it. Someone had carried it a distance of a hundred yards or so through the snow.
“Whoever you are God bless you!” I shouted, and brought the cooler indoors.
I laid on the couch by the fire. Our building was designed for summer use, so I dragged a sleeping bag and a soft mattress, close to the fire. I had no intention of opening the bedroom again. Too cold.
Suddenly more sounds emanated from that bedroom. Someone was messing with bureau drawers, organizing stuff in the closets. Who the hell could that be? Cousins? Something told me not to interfere. Literally we are on a lake where there is nobody this time of year.
Nothing good could come from challenging another person back there.
My father taught me always to leave kindling, matches, and some edible supplies in any remote dwelling. During ancient times, a stranger seeking shelter is entitled to a warm reception. In times of inclement weather, one was entitled to enter a vacant building. Furthermore, any homeowner was required to provide food and shelter to a stranger. This was known as Zeus’s law.
I shouted out loud, “Whoever you are, stay warm. It’s terrible out there."
Then from my vantage on the couch in front of the fire, I saw a see-thru outline in light, of a human-like being, pass by my feet at the end of the couch. It entered the dining room, then I heard it exit the kitchen door. Not tall, perhaps five-foot five The only detail I observed was a outline around its form, that seemed to match the color of the fire. Otherwise it was invisible.
We had been in possession of this property just three seasons, bought from cousins after it sat vacant for nearly twenty-five years. Trees had grown up around it, the roof had sprung leaks. The building, though beautifully sited, was a rescue job. We’ve made great strides, but there was a heap of work left to do.
Years later that I put together the sudden slamming of my car into the snowdrift, with the rattling noises in our bedroom. I now believe that our building housed other occupants during the twenty-five years it stood vacant. Our off-season occupants were surprised when I suddenly arrived for a winter weekend. One fishtailed the rear of my car to buy time, so the borrowed room could be neatened up. It left deep furrows in snow for me to backtrack after I became lost, and again, assisted me by carrying my heavy cooler of food down the trail. From the evidence, they made great pains to vacate and give me my space, without being discovered or confronted.
I wondered about that light outline. What sort of being was it?
The next summer I was up again. During that trip I was followed back from a nearby lake, and though I saw nothing concrete, I played the game of 'pine cone tennis' over the full distance. I've reported that incident in detail with another blog entry. That occurred over the 4th of July weekend. Subsequent to that weekend, the contacts continued. Most of our family had left the park during the last three weeks of July, and it was during that period I heard loud footsteps on our roof, then a cadence of small stones thrown against the camp.
I went to the back door. “Please!” I shouted. “Don’t throw pebbles because you'll break a window! Use pine cones!”
The cadence of projectiles continued, this time the sound was softer. The building was subjected to a barrage of pinecone artillery. I stepped outside and verbalized a request. “Come out and show yourself. Let’s talk this over.”
By now my Sabe run-ins had piled up. Mostly secondary evidence, prints, help moving stuff, being followed along a trail. The sightings I'd had were distant, some might have been of bears, though I was always suspicious of certain types of bear encounters. I’ve written of these 'magic bear' run-ins in other communications.
Never were any of these confrontations frightening. It seemed these beings wanted to communicate. So when pinecones hit the camp, I verbalized a desire to meet my adversary, and engage in conversation.
“Come on”, I shouted out the back door. “Show yourself. Let’s talk about this."
To demonstrate, I threw open the porch door and took a seat on the furthest of metal chairs and angled it to face the woods.
“Come on!” I shouted. I scrutinized the trees for signs of a large hairy being.
Suddenly, I became aware of someone sitting comfortably in the other chair immediately behind me, less than a foot away.
An enormous older but very muscled man, with charcoal black skin, and long black hair covering his entire body, sat slumped in the chair just a foot behind me. One leg was crossed over the other, one hand propped his head like Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker”. He was significantly taller than me. Allowing for his slumping, he might have been seven feet tall, but I estimate his height closer to six-foot six or eight. Definitely an older guy. A bit of a belly. His posture disguised his height. He resembled one of my closest friends, but his nostrils were much broader. His intelligence gave off a diffident air that seemed to say, “We gotta talk.” My first thought was, is this man a family member?
His massive head, somewhat conical, was covered in glossy black hair. The dark black hair was streaked a bit with grey on his body, except around his eyes nose and mouth. He sat in that thinker pose, forefinger to forehead, legs crossed waiting to see what I would do. Coal black eyes. I did not observe any whites in those eyes.
All of a sudden I felt betrayed. Fooled. I mean I had invited him to meet me - but again he had snuck up behind me. 'That’s not on', I thought. I stood up, feeling emotionally bruised. I was handling heaps of new information all at once, and felt the need to set boundaries. Perhaps my indignation was concealed fear. Whatever.
“Flanking me like that isn’t on if we’re to be friends,” I thought, fully appreciating he understood my state of mind. I noticed no smell, , I got the feeling he had worked on that, in order to make an impression.
Like a peevish diplomat, I left. I needed to digest all this.
I stood up slowly, kept my eyes on his, as I stepped around his long crossed legs and walked indoors, then closed the door behind me. It was an action I’ve regretted many times. I was not frightened, rather flustered, annoyed and concerned. I had to let him know - if relations were to move forward between us, there had to be rules.
In a desperate flash, I wondered if it made sense to go to sleep with my rifle. Naw. I didn’t feel threatened. Two more steps into the living room I turned around to look and he was gone.
Best regards,
Postmark Winter Owl
Note 1: I now shamefully admit that autumn trip up may have occurred as late 2018 or 2019, (not in 2015 as first reported in this blog) and the encounter on the porch happened during the subsequent summer, of 2019 or 2020]. My son Arjun is verifying dates in his journal that will let me be sure. One of the problems not writing about these experiences immediately, about a place where the setting remainw exactly the same from year to year, and the people as well, that without a new births, deaths, or construction project to tag an 'experience', the feature of each year recedes or advances one year to the next.
