paranormal story-woods woman

hey guys!

i'm starting a new series thing for you on this blog. i actually wanted to make these into videos but my computer's mic just totally shit out on me so bad luck, i guess!

let me preface this by saying that i know these posts won't be for everyone. if you don't want to read these, that's fine. if you want to tell me i'm wrong or crazy, that's fine too. i know what i'm doing by putting these things out there. 

i also want to tell you that this is 100 percent true and as accurate as i can remember. i have more stories like this (not a TON but definitely a few) that i plan to put up, as well, as time goes on. this is my first such story, or the first one that i remember clearly enough to retell. i know i'm a writer, i'm a storyteller by nature, but i am embellishing as little as possible. there are certain things that i don't remember like what time of year this took place in but i'm relating it to you guys as well as i can.

final disclaimer: i am a complete and absolute skeptic. what i do believe is that there are things that science can't explain YET. i don't believe in "ghosts" but i do believe in "hauntings". i believe that people with powerful emotional presences or forces can maybe affect the people and things around them without knowing it just as emotional state is tied to physical health and a person's physical state. i also believe that people who are particularly perceptive of emotions are more likely to experience events that could be considered "paranormal". i am an atheist. do not believe in god. do not believe in an afterlife (although i often i wish i did). and finally, you have the absolute right to call bullshit. that's totally cool.

i don't remember exactly when this happened. i wish i did. it was before i went to college, so definitely at least two years ago. i don't quite know what season but i think it was late fall or early winter. when i picture it i picture the trees being bare although i don't think it was that cold out. i was in the woods in pennsylvania, right near the house of a couple my parents were friends with, and i'd taken a walk because of various moral objections to some of the guests in attendance (my parents are liberals who can be friends with conservatives. i am a liberal who cannot.) it wasn't dark out yet, it was sort of late afternoon somewhere between "midday" and "starting to get dark". i wasn't that far into the woods, which was basically their backyard, and the trees were still fairly sparse, when i saw an old woman walking. i only saw her for a few seconds, but i wasn't like startled or taken aback or anything. she just looked like a totally normal old woman, i can remember down to the last detail exactly what she was wearing--all white, one of those bucket hat things that only old people and babies on the beach seem to wear, a white zip-up sweatshirt, some white folded item of clothing (i assume a coat or something) folded over her arm, and white track-type pants with white tennis shoes. it didn't seem weird that she was wearing all white, it wasn't all clean and pristine or glowing or anything, just looked like something an old woman would wear when she was going on a hike. she looked pretty healthy, maybe in her mid 70s or something and not fat but kinda plump in that way old ladies are sometimes. she was also wearing glasses. she was maybe about ten feet away from me.

she completely disappeared a moment after i saw her. just vanished. like i said, the trees were relatively sparse and they were mostly those birch trees with fairly thin trunks, so it wasn't like she'd disappeared into the forest. the trajectory she was on would have meant that i would have had to have seen her again. i know i saw her. (i also know that there is the slight chance that i am going crazy, but it definitely wasn't like a branch or something that i mistook for a person. i saw her clear as anything.) i know she wasn't there. i know she disappeared. i'm a smart girl, i'm not immediately saying 'ooh i definitely saw something that isn't of this world', i am just saying that i saw something that i cannot personally explain. 

the entire time i wasn't scared. i wasn't scared when i was going into the woods, wasn't scared when i saw her, and wasn't scared when i realized she wasn't there. i don't think whatever it was was supposed to be a "bad" or "scary" thing. i don't think i was being contacted from beyond the grave. my theory, and again, this is just my theory, i'm not a paranormal expert or anything like that, is that someone had an emotional connection with these woods or this specific area and they left a little something behind, and that's what i caught a glimpse of. i don't even assume this woman is dead, i think people who are alive could very well leave behind these traces as well.

i'm sorry that this isn't really the "point" of this blog as a whole but like i've said before, this is my blog and i do whatever the fuck i want!

if you read all of these words, thanks for reading. if you have had experiences like this, please please please please share! i'd love to talk to people who won't think i'm absolutely batshit nutters. i just really wanted to record this story and get it out there because sometimes it slips my mind. it was quite a while ago but clearly it has really stuck with me. i'm not trying to "scare" anybody and i really hope i didn't. 

xoxo

mouse