EmeliusBrown Thread

I was 17 years old, and lived in a very small rural community in Central California. It was late spring 1996. My best friend and I were bored, and decided to take a drive, something we did frequently. Bear in mind, that where I lived was basically surrounded on one side by mountains, and the other by over 80 miles of flat, sandy valley. Anyway, it was about 11:00PM, and we had been driving out toward the valley on a dirt road for about an hour. Descending down into the valley from the hills, I spot a glimmer of reddish orange light. We of course drive another 20 minutes toward the glimmer, and come upon it. Coals. The glimmer was embers, or coals of a fire.

Where we were, there was nothing, and I mean nothing. No bushes, no trees, no hills, nothing. Not for at least 10 miles in either direction. FLAT. We shined a handheld spotlight all around, and didn’t see anybody or anything. We decided the proper thing to do was to turn the truck around, and throw dirt on the embers by spinning the truck tires. As my friend backed up the truck, I looked out my rolled-down window, and not 5 feet from me was the largest man I’ve ever seen. Black, shirtless, bald, wearing only denim shorts. At least 6’5, 300 pounds, and staring right at me. I yelled “DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE”, and without even looking, my buddy tears off out of there. When I catch my breath, I explain what I saw. He’s still driving 50-60 MPH on a dirt road back toward town, which at that speed, we could reach town in around 30 minutes. Of course, my buddy never saw anybody, and he and I both think I’m losing my mind. Remember, there was NOTHING out there besides the coals. No car, no motorcycle, nothing. No way for anyone to be out there other than by foot. I should also mention that heading back to town, there were any number of dirt roads back in, and I’m talking hundreds. Trails, road, hills, hell, we were in a 4X4 and could’ve made our own road if we wanted to.

We ended up coming down a rarely used dirt road, and on the last curve before pavement, just outside town, the same man steps out from behind a tree, looks at us, and shakes his finger and head at us as if he were scolding a child. We both saw him this time, and when we looked back, he was gone. This is the only story in my life I have no explanation for. First, there is no possible way this person could’ve known which way we’d go back into town, especially with enough time to hide, and wait for us. Second, and I know I already said it, but there was NO vehicle out in the flats. There just wasn’t. To this day, I get the creeps just thinking about it.