MAY 2019

DESCRIPTION

On a trip up here to see the fabled Brown Mountain Lights. Got a tip from some locals on the best time to witness the lights, so I headed out late in the afternoon to go to the Brown Mountain Overlook and see if I could get them on camera.
Drove up to the location and pulled up, there were 4 other cars in the parking lot. With my lights still on, I noticed that EVERYONE was crowded just a little past the sign for the Brown Mountain Lights. It looks like everyone sits next to the stones on the overlook edge next to a USGS benchmark.
The crowd of about 8 people didn’t take kindly to me or my little dog stumbling around in the dark near them trying to take photos of the night sky and observe “possible” Brown Mountain Lights so I walked a few feet down from them and tried to setup my tripod and camera.
After about 15 minutes of NOTHING, not a single light, I decided I should head back to the van for a snack. I walked past the people, past two cars driving away, and towards my van. As I was getting closer to my van, I noticed picnic tables to the north. Since there’s no light out there, you have to rely on the dim light of your smartphone or the lights of any passing vehicles.
Sitting at the picnic tables was a figure. It wasn’t sitting at a table, but on top of a picnic table. I could just barely see the outline of the figure, it was wearing a brown-ish grey hoodie, the hoodie over their head. They were curled up, knees tucked with arms wrapped around them. The figures head was down and it was almost like they were crying. I started to say “Hey, you okay?” and walked towards the figure. A passing car with it’s brights on blinded me, and as my eyes refocused, the figure was gone. I looked around, nothing. Nobody was at the picnic table area. I looked back behind me to see if maybe the person walked back over to the crowd of other people, only to see there were only about 4 people over there. There was nobody else around, and unless that figure jumped off the overlook or silently ran into the steep brush at the side of the overlook cliff, that figure vanished.
Later, my husband asked me if I saw “the kid in the hoodie” and I told him about what I saw. He saw something different. He said every time he was near that spot, in his peripheral vision he kept seeing a kid in a hoodie on the picnic table, but every time he looked over there it was either too dark to see clearly, or there was nothing there.
I don’t have any evidence of this, sadly. I took a picture of the picnic tables, and even at 10:30pm, all I have is a photo of picnic tables in the dark, with no haze or fog or distortion. So I can’t explain what I saw.

Submitted by TheOrdinaryHiker