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Today's podcast features three camping horror stories.
The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.
The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.
The first story you'll hear is called The Far Away Dock and it's about a group of kids who swim out to a suspicious-looking dock on a lake.
The second story you'll hear is called Tripwire and it's about a family who hears heavy footsteps walking through their camp at night.
And the third and final story you'll hear is called Laughter, and it's about hunters who hear strange sounds coming from deep in the woods at night.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please invite the Amazon Music Follow button to come to a fancy dinner with you, but make them pay the bill.
Hey guys, John here.
If you can't tell, I lost my voice.
I got sick last week and my voice just hasn't come back.
And so I wasn't able to record today's exclusive podcast.
It just would have sounded horrible.
And so what we decided to do was flip-flop the schedule this week.
Normally there is the Monday exclusive podcast, and then on Thursday is the remastered version of our best YouTube audio.
So we're changing those up this week.
Monday will be a remaster today, and then this Thursday we are still going to put out the exclusive episode that should have gone out today.
So you're just going to get it a couple of days later, so my voice can finally recover and I can actually record a reasonably decent podcast.
It's a great story.
The one that was supposed to go today that you'll get this Thursday.
So stick around this Thursday.
There is an exclusive podcast coming.
Apologies.
You know, this is just life.
It happens.
So thank you very much for your patience.
Enjoy today's episode.
And this Thursday, again, you will get the exclusive episode that would normally go out today.
Okay, let's get into our first story called The Faraway Dock.
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Back in 1994, an 11 year old named Mark was living just outside of Philadelphia with his family.
And for the past few summers he and his siblings would go up to the summer camp on Mount Kittany in a rural part of New Jersey.
And they would stay there for about eight weeks every summer.
And this year would be no different.
So on June 23rd, Mark and his siblings and his family loaded up the minivan and they began their two and a half hour commute up to Mount Kittany.
When they arrived, the parking lot is filled with parents dropping off their kids.
And there's already a batch of campers that had arrived already that are coming down to meet the new campers.
And in the middle of all of this chaos, one of Mark's friends from the previous summer.
His name was Kyle.
He was the same age as Mark.
He saw Mark and he runs down and he excitedly tells Mark that they had been placed in the same cabin this year.
And so Mark is thrilled.
The summer is already off to a great start.
So for the next hour or so, Mark and his siblings and Kyle, they began moving all of their stuff up to the cabins.
And then at some point all the parents left and all the campers were instructed to head over to the big dining hall where the camp director and some of the camp counselors were going to go over expectations and scheduling over the next few days.
So Mark and Kyle make their way over to the dining hall.
They sit down at one of the long tables next to a couple of their buddies and they listen in while the director goes over the rules and the regulations.
And the director would make a special point, like they do every year, to remind all the campers that the far away dock is absolutely off limits.
So don't ask about it.
Don't try to swim out to it.
Just leave it alone.
The main cluster of buildings that made up the camp was situated right up against this huge man-made lake that was quite long and fairly narrow, and on one side of this lake was the designated swimming area, and then this side they didn't even use for the camp.
And within the swimming section there was a main dock that extended fairly far out into the water that they divided.
On one side was the weaker swimmers and on the other side of the dock was the more advanced swimmers.
And then farther out past the dock were these two floating docks, these square floating docks.
There was one that was maybe about 10 meters away from the head of the main dock.
And then there was the so-called far away dock that was absurdly far away.
In fact, no one really knew why I was out there to begin with.
It was at least 100 meters away from the head of the main dock.
There were lots of conspiracy theories about why the faraway dock was actually off limits, because the camp staff never actually explicitly said what their reasoning was for not allowing anyone to go near it.
They just said it was very dangerous.
Most campers believed it was just because the faraway dock was so far away.
It was a dangerous swim to be making, even for an experienced swimmer.
Other campers had heard a rumor that years earlier someone had swam out and then gotten sucked underneath.
There was apparently some suction underneath the stock and they got sucked underneath and they drowned.
And then the most outlandish conspiracy theory was the dock was not actually a dock at all.
It was a lid that was covering over a secret tunnel that went into the lake.
But regardless of whichever conspiracy theory, the Cambers believed in the faraway dock had developed a very spooky reputation and they did not need to be told twice to not go near it.
No one's going near it.
Well, unless you're Kyle.
After the director and some of the counselors had gone up and spoken, the campers were allowed to finish their meal and then make their way back to their cabins.
So Mark and Kyle finished their meal and they start walking back.
They go into their cabin, they're getting set up in their bed.
Their two other cabin mates come in and they're all kind of chatting and joking around.
And at some point they turn off the lights and they want to go to bed.
And after a little while, after the lights have been turned off in the cabin and everyone's trying to sleep, Kyle breaks the silence by saying hey guys, I really want to swim out to the faraway dock this summer.
Now, Mark and the other two that were in there with Kyle had heard Kyle say this before.
He talked incessantly the summer before about wanting to swim out to the faraway dock, but he never did.
And he really never showed any serious attempt at wanting to go out there.
And so when he's saying this now, they're not taking him seriously at all.
And so they kind of laughed and said, yeah, it's pretty creepy that dock out there.
I wonder why we can't go out there.
And they kind of had a quick discussion about that.
You know, the various hot theories around why you can't go out there.
And ultimately, they just kind of wrote it off and went to sleep.
The next morning, Mark and Kyle got up and began their walk over to the dining hall to get some breakfast.
And on the walk, Kyle says to Mark, hey, I want to swim out to the faraway dock today at lunch.
Will you come with me?
And so to this point, Mark has only ever heard Kyle talk about the faraway dock and going to it.
In theory.
There's never been a timestamp of this is when we're going to do it.
And all of a sudden Mark's thinking, Kyle might be serious.
He might actually want to do this.
And so Mark looks at Kyle and he's like, are you sure that's a good idea?
Because I know there's lots of theories about why we can't go out there, but it's pretty clear the camp counselor and the director believe it's a dangerous place.
And Kyle just kind of smirks and he's like, nah, I don't believe that.
My dad told me that dock is probably just rotting and that's why they don't want us to be on it.
And so I think, as long as we're not jumping on it and we stay towards the edge of the dock on the main beams, we should be fine.
At this point, Mark wants to convince Kyle not to do it.
So he takes another approach and he goes, well, Kyle, what about the swim out there?
I mean, that's a difficult swim and you know, You're not their best swimmer.
So how do you feel about that?
And Kyle shrugs and he's like ah, we'll just take some pool noodles and we'll take our time going out there.
And hey, if I start drowning, you can just rescue me.
Mark started to get the sense that this was going to happen, whether he participated or not.
And Mark's thinking to himself if he goes and he's successful at getting out to the faraway dock and I basically back out because I'm too scared to go, i'm gonna have a whole summer of living that down and spending all my time with this guy who's gonna rub it in my face.
And so mark didn't know what else to say to kyle and he just says all right, if you go, i'll go with you.
So mark and kyle go in, they have their breakfast and then afterwards they split up because they each had different activities that morning and so they don't see each other for a couple of hours.
And then it comes to be lunchtime and mark knows this is the time they were going to swim out to the faraway dock and he's hoping, as he's walking towards the dining hall, that somehow kyle's forgotten or has changed his mind.
And as he gets right in front of the dining hall he hears Kyle yell his name and he looks to the side of the building.
There's this big forest right next to the dining hall and he sees Kyle and he's got his bathing suit on and his pool noodle in hand.
He's got an extra one as well and next to Kyle are his two other cabin mates who also have bathing suits on and are also holding pool noodles.
Mark's pretty disappointed at this point because now it's really happening.
He had put on his bathing suit, so you know he's ready.
And he walks over to Kyle and his other two cabin mates And the whole time he's kind of hoping that a camp counselor or one of the directors will see him and will question them and stop them from doing what they're about to do.
And so he's kind of taking his time looking over his shoulder, trying to be extra suspicious as he walks across this field.
But look at me, I'm doing something bad.
I hope no one catches me.
And he makes it to the tree line and no one catches him.
And Kyle hands him his pool noodle.
And then Kyle and the other two cabin mates turn and start kind of walking slash, running into the woods.
And Mark follows after them.
And as they're running, Kyle turns around and tells Mark that their cabin mates didn't want to be left out.
And that's why they're here.
And Mark had a sinking feeling that probably they had the same reaction that he did, which is, if I don't do this with him, he's going to rub this in my face for the whole summer, and I'm living with him.
And I'd rather just swim to this horrible dock than put up with that for the whole summer.
And so they finally make it to the swimming area and they have their main dock that juts out into the water.
And then there's the closer floating dock.
And then way over there is the far away dock.
And as soon as they get onto the beach, they're kind of exposed.
And the main camp.
If they were down at the water's edge they could look and see them, if they were looking in that direction.
And so the boys immediately get into the water and they put themselves up against the main dock, kind of obscuring them from view from anybody that's over at the main side of camp.
And they begin swimming out to the far away dock.
The swim out was super easy.
It's beautiful outside.
It's sunny.
The water feels great.
They had their pool noodles to rest on, so not much energy to actually do the swim itself.
And they were taking their time because they had at least about an hour and a half to two hours before they need to be back at camp before someone recognized they were gone.
And so they get about three quarters of the way out to the faraway dock, and it's the first time they can see it more or less up close, because before this none of them had been to the faraway dock and had never been close to the faraway dock.
So this is the first time they're really getting a good look at it.
And the dock is pretty unremarkable.
It looks a little bit more beat up than the other dock.
The wood is more gray, and it looks like there's probably a good amount of splinters on there.
But it definitely does not look like it's so rotten that if they climb on it it's going to collapse under their weight, which makes them happy because now they know they can actually get on it and take a break from swimming for a second.
But they were kind of let down.
You know, they're nearing this thing that's become almost like folklore within their camp.
And it's just kind of a huge letdown that it looks like any other dock.
They finally made their way right up to the ladder, which was fairly rusted over.
And Mark was actually the first one to be in front of the ladder.
And he was about to grab it and step onto it when he stops.
And the other three are right behind him.
And they're like, what?
And he goes, look at that.
And on the ladder is this thick bodied, wide fat spider with long legs that's just perched on the rung of the ladder.
And so the boys all see the spider and they're like, okay, number one, I'm not touching that ladder.
I'm going to be climbing up somewhere else.
I'll figure out a way to get on this dock that does not involve this ladder.
And two, how did the spider get out here?
It's huge.
What is it doing out here?
Like, where did it come from?
There's no land around us.
But they're like, you know what, whatever.
There's one random spider on this dock.
Can't be a big deal.
And so they make their way over to the side, so away from the ladder.
And Mark actually grabs onto the edge of the dock, the wood, and manages to pull himself up and they push him up as he gets up there.
And Mark turns around and he hoists up Kyle and They end up hoisting up the next two and before long you have all four on the dock and they're looking at each other and they're feeling pretty good about it.
Even though it was a letdown that there's not much going on out here besides maybe that weird spider, but it'll make for a great story and they couldn't wait to get back and tell their friends that they had made it out to the faraway dock.
So they weren't ready to just jump right back in the water and go right back to shore.
So they laid down on the wooden slats of the dock itself and they just enjoyed laying in the sun.
And as Mark's laying there, he hears a very distinctive scratching sound or rustling sound that's coming from right underneath the floorboards that he's laying on.
And the dock itself was resting on these big blue barrels to stay afloat.
And so Mark's laying there thinking maybe the barrel is rotating underneath the wood and it's causing a weird sound, or maybe there's some residual waves from us moving around and displacing the water that's, you know, lapping up against the side of the barrels.
But Mark at the time was not really over analyzing this.
This is just his initial thoughts of what the sound could be.
He's not remotely concerned about what the sound is.
He just took stock of it.
And at some point Mark and the other guys stand up because they're kind of bored of just laying there and they start goofing around and pushing each other and trying to see if they can push each other off of the dock.
And then they start playing one of their favorite games that they play on the other floating dock, where they all kind of shimmy to one corner of the dock and try to get that side to begin to submerge without falling off.
So the boys shuffle to the corner of the dock and they're all kind of jokingly jockeying for position, you know, because they're going to flood the side and they don't want to fall off.
And so they get in position and the dock starts to sink.
And so, after about a third of the dock was now underwater, they start hearing a scratching sound like the one Mark had heard when he was laying on his back.
And all of the sudden, hundreds of those huge thick-bodied, long-legged spiders start coming out from underneath the dock through the breaks in the wood.
They're pouring out frantically, trying to climb out from underneath the dock because the boys have just flooded their nest.
And so hundreds of these things are pouring out from underneath and sliding down towards the boys, because it's on an angle.
And Kyle, in a panic, loses his footing and falls face first onto the dock.
But because his weight shifted so quickly, the dock went down flat again.
And now Kyle's laying on the dock as these spiders are swarming his body, getting in his hair and mark and the other two are still on the dock and they can feel the spiders at their feet and they jump into the water and mark.
As soon as he hits the water he sees there's hundreds of spiders in the water.
They're all over the place and that's when he feels one in his hair and he's trying to swat it off of his head and he dives underwater thinking that's going to get rid of it.
But no, he feels it gripped down tight on his hair and he had to reach up and actually grab the body of the spider and pull it off of his hair.
He swims up, there's more spiders around him.
He frantically starts swimming away and he hears Kyle screaming and he sees him jump into the water, still trying to pull spiders off of his body.
And then the boys would swim as fast as humanly possible to shore, the whole time either literally pulling spiders out of their hair that were clinging to their hair or their ears, or believing, because they just had this horrible experience, that there are more spiders on them.
And so the whole time, You know, they're pulling spiders off, even if they aren't there.
Like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights, he thinks he's on fire when he's not.
That's the situation they're in, but with spiders.
They finally get to shore and they're looking each other over to make sure there's no more spiders on them in their shorts, on their back, in their hair, in their ears.
And finally, all the spiders are gone and they're safe again.
Mark said he'll never get over the trauma of this horrifying event.
And he says what really gets to him is when he thinks about when he was laying on his back on the dock and the other three were doing the same thing.
And he heard that rustling, that scratching sound.
That was the sound of hundreds of these massive spiders that were literally inches away from them, perched underneath the dock.
And not just any spider, but the dock spider.
And they're named that because they make their home in docks, because they typically hunt for fish, small fish, insects as well.
And they have the ability to run on water.
They have this waxy substance on their legs that keeps them from sinking.
And they can even jump on water and then land again on water to avoid being eaten by fish.
And they can go underwater for up to 30 minutes.
They can effectively scuba dive because they trap air on their hairy arms and underneath their bellies.
And they breathe that while they're underwater.
And so these spiders identified the faraway dock as a great spot to live.
And they must have ran out on the water to this dock and then made a home underneath.
And then no one's disturbing them.
So they flourished.
Later on, Mark would find out from one of the camp counselors that the real reason the faraway dock was off limits, the reason that they didn't want anyone going out there, is because they discovered the faraway dock was a breeding ground for these dock spiders.
And they tried to get rid of them, but they kept coming back.
And so, after a number of failed attempts, they finally just gave the faraway dock to the dock spiders.
And the reason they don't tell the campers about it is because they don't want to scare them.
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Our next story is called Tripwire.
In 2015, an experienced outdoorsman named Bob, along with his wife, his young daughter and their two German shepherds, decided to go camping in a remote part of Northern Oregon.
When they arrived at the site, Bob began setting up the big family tent for everyone to sleep in, and his daughter said hey, do you mind if I sleep in the spare two-man tent that we always bring with us?
Bob and his wife deliberated for a minute but said you know what?
That's fine, but you got to bring guts.
That's one of the german shepherds.
Guts needs to sleep with you because he's going to be your protection.
So that night, after some s'mores around a campfire, bob's daughter along with guts retreat to their two-man tent and bob, his wife and leah, the other dog, retreat to their tent.
That night bob wakes up suddenly to what sounds like footsteps outside of his tent And he looks to his side and his wife is still in the tent with him, and so is Leah, the other dog.
And he listens really closely and he can hear his daughter is snoring and he can hear the sound of guts breathing.
So his whole family is accounted for, but he still hears these footsteps.
And they don't sound like light little scampering sounds like you might expect from a squirrel or some small critter.
They sound heavy, like a big creature is roaming around their campsite.
But Bob's dogs are really keyed in to protecting their family.
And since Guts and Leah are not up going crazy about whatever's out there, he figures you know what.
It's got to be an elk or something, and it's not going to do anything to us.
So Bob ultimately just goes back to sleep.
The next morning, Bob gets up and everybody's just fine.
There's no sign of any intruders in their campsite.
And so that only confirms to him that yep, it was just some harmless animal kind of walking around the wilderness, because we're in a pretty remote area.
That morning, they decide to go for a walk down the road that was right next to their campsite.
And so they take the dogs, they start walking and they make it a couple hundred feet down this road when, all of a sudden, Guts sees something or hears something and takes off sprinting down the road and turns down this little access road that branches off of the road.
They're on into the woods.
And Bob is thinking oh no, there's a campsite down there and this big German shepherd's going to bound up on them and something bad's going to happen.
And so Bob, his heart's racing, he starts taking off after Guts.
He goes down the access road and he finds Guts stopped right outside of a campsite.
But there doesn't appear to be anybody in the campsite.
But there's a tent, there's a cooler, there's a table, there's all the things you would expect at a campsite, just no people.
So Bob runs up and he grabs guts and he yells out reflexively, hey, I'm really sorry.
He's totally harmless.
I don't know what he saw.
Hey, we're leaving.
But then before he leaves he realizes on the tent there's this big scratch through it, like it's been cut open.
And curiosity gets the better of him.
And so he kind of walks up, keeping an eye out in case he's wrong and there are people still here.
But as he gets closer, he realizes there's definitely no one here.
This site is abandoned.
Because he's looking around and all of their stuff has just been ransacked.
There's scratch marks on everything, like animals have clearly come through here.
And Bob, who is an avid outdoorsman, he knows how much some of their equipment cost.
And he's thinking why would anyone abandon this really expensive tent or this really expensive cooler?
And as he's thinking about that, he turns and he sees there's a propane tank, a solid metal propane tank that has been completely flattened.
But there's no tree that's fallen nearby.
There's no source.
There's no way that could have been flattened.
So he's definitely unsettled by this, but ultimately he decides, you know what?
I'm going to take my family, go back to my campsite.
I'll just call the park rangers.
They can come down here and they can figure out what this is.
Later that afternoon, Bob and his family are back at their campsite, just a couple hundred feet away from this abandoned campsite.
And at one point, his wife gets up to go use the bathroom.
She walks about 70 feet away behind a tree and she squats down.
And then all of a sudden she gets up and starts running back towards camp.
And Bob sees this.
He turns and sees her running towards him.
At the same time, Guts gets up and starts sprinting towards her.
And so Bob's thinking, what the heck is going on?
Bob turns to his daughter and says, stay right here with Leah.
And Bob gets up and starts running towards his wife.
And Guts at this point has run to his wife and past his wife.
Guts has run way into the woods.
And as Bob is running up to his wife, he's like, what's going on?
Why are you running?
What's going on?
She says, I don't know.
I just had this horrible feeling someone was watching me.
And when I turned, I already saw Guts running towards me and it scared me.
And so that's why I'm here.
And he's like, look, go with our daughter and with Leah.
I'm going to see what's going on.
And so his wife leaves and Bob draws his pistol and he starts walking out towards where Guts has now stopped.
Hair raised growling, it's gapping and barking at something in front of it and bob's looking at it and he can't see anything.
And finally, after not being able to figure out what the heck is going on, he just takes guts and goes back to his campsite.
When bob got back to his campsite, he wanted to leave and his wife wanted to leave.
His daughter didn't really know what was going on, but the attitude was we want to leave.
However, it was getting late and they had a bunch of stuff they would need to pack up.
It was going to be a real ordeal trying to do that, especially without any light.
So they decide okay, we'll stay one more day and we're going to leave.
First thing in the morning, In Bob's head, he's thinking okay, I heard weird footsteps outside.
You know, we have this abandoned campsite nearby that's been thrashed up in the flattened propane tank.
And now my wife is running away from something and Guts is seeing strange things in the woods.
Like there's a lot of weird stuff going on.
And he decides he's going to set up a trip wire all the way around his campsite using a rope tied at about eight inches off the ground, where along the rope would be little pieces of metal that would clang together.
So if anything touched the rope, It would make the metallic clinking sound.
Then it would alert Bob that someone's here.
And so Bob goes over to the edge of the site, where there's an obvious starting point for this tripwire.
And he bends down to tie the rope and he realizes, oh my God, someone's already done this.
There is another tripwire that's already been built around the outside of our campsite.
It's just been cut.
It's been broken.
Like it doesn't work, but it's here.
Someone else who was at this campsite felt concerned enough about whatever was in the woods that they already had this idea.
Bob didn't even tie his perimeter.
He just drew his gun, told his family, get in the truck.
And he stayed up all night protecting his family in the truck.
As soon as the sun came up, they packed up and they got the heck out of there.
Bob is convinced that there is something out there in the woods in Northern Oregon that was walking around their campsite at night, that's scaring their dogs, that's stalking them basically, and watching them from a distance.
And probably whatever is out in the woods is the same thing that caused the previous group to set up their own trip wire.
And it's also probably the reason the other campers at the other campsite were willing to abandon their nice equipment to get the heck out of there, because they are not messing with whatever the heck is out in those woods.
The next and final story of today's episode is called Laughter.
In the early 2000s, a teenager named Eben and his father would regularly go hunting in the Georgia backcountry.
When Eben turned 14, his father befriended a very wealthy landowner in Georgia who offered them access to one of his best private hunting areas.
And just a couple of days later, on October 5th, Eben and his father would take him up on the offer.
They woke up super early and they drove out to the edge of this property that was actually fenced in and they went to a main gate where they had the combo that this guy had given them.
They punched in the combo, opened up the gate, drove in, shut the gate, locked it and then continued down the access road.
They followed this road for about two miles, where it came to a stop right outside of this huge forest.
They parked their truck, they got out, they put on their gear and, in the pre-morning darkness, began hiking into the woods.
Even though they were there primarily to hunt, Eben and his father secretly enjoyed just hiking around the woods and camping out, and any chance they got to extend their hunting trips they would, even if the hunting wasn't good.
And so, since they spent a ton of time in the woods together, they noticed almost immediately, when they walked into this particular forest, that something was off.
There's no birds.
There's no animals.
Silence.
It's just totally silent.
The only sounds they heard that were not them was a single plane that passed overhead.
Although they found this very odd, they figured, you know what?
This is private property.
Not a lot of people are out here.
I'm sure as soon as we showed up, the animals were aware of us and they've scattered.
They finally make it out to the hunting stand that the owner had told them about.
They get all settled in.
They're getting ready to see some animals.
And all day long, they don't see a single animal.
They don't hear a single animal.
In fact, again, it is just completely silent.
Frustrated, they began packing up their stuff, making their way down off the stand and they started looking for a place to make camp for the night.
And Eben's father suggested, well, hey, you know, there's obviously nothing over here.
It's been quiet all day.
Why don't we walk deeper into the woods a little ways, set up camp there, so tomorrow we have a better chance of seeing some animals?
So they hiked for about an hour farther away from where they parked their truck and they reached this clearing, which is perfect for setting up their camp.
And so they set up their tent and Eben's father says, hey, you know, we still got some daylight.
Do you want to go try our luck and see if we can see some animals out here now?
Eben's like, yeah, why not?
So they hike a little ways away from their campsite and they set up their blind.
And once again, they don't see any animals.
It's totally quiet.
And so they turn around and they start heading back.
As soon as they could see their campsite, which really was just their tent, they noticed that their tent was now collapsed.
And Eben's father turns to him and says, oh, it must have been the wind.
And Eben says no, it couldn't have been the wind.
Because all day today we have been commenting on how quiet it is and how the fact that there's no weather, no wind, no anything, is heightening, the fact that it's completely silent.
So it could not have been wind.
So Eben's father is like well, when you set the tent up, did you not put the posts into the eyelets?
Did you not build it correctly?
And Eben's like, no, I've made that tent like a thousand times.
I know it was set up correctly.
They walk into their campsite and they look down at their tent and they're really confused at what they see.
The two rods that go in an X over the top of the tent, that thread through nylon loops and then anchor at four different points on the base of the tent.
Well, they had been removed from the four corners.
And if you know how a tent works, it works on tension.
And once you have a rod anchored in two points, it doesn't just pop out.
It's anchored at two sides.
It's actually difficult to remove each anchor.
Once one is out, the other comes out easily.
But basically the rod would need to break in order for it to come out of those anchor points or someone would have to come over and remove it.
And they didn't remove them and none of the rods were broken, which leaves them with either they failed to set up their tent, even though they had distinct and clear memories of setting it up and double checking it was set up because they put gear inside of it, or someone came over to their campsite while they were gone and undid the four corners.
They decide.
You know what.
It can't be some stranger coming over here because we're the only ones with the gate combo.
This is private property and no one could have been here.
And why would they do that if they came to our campsite?
Why would they randomly collapse our tent and then vanish?
So it had to be us.
We must have not made the tent.
And while they didn't really believe that they had not made their tent, they convinced themselves that that's what happened because the alternative was just too bizarre and frankly, terrifying to consider.
So they build their tent and they make a little fire and they stay up for a little while chatting before being tired and saying OK, let's just go to bed.
They extinguish the fire.
They get in the tent and they both fall asleep.
A couple hours later, Eben wakes up suddenly and he's not sure if he's dreaming or not, but he thinks he hears someone laughing a couple hundred meters behind their tent off in the woods.
Eben instinctively turns to make sure his dad is still in the tent with him and he is.
And then Eben starts listening really intently to what's happening outside and all he can hear is silence, like it's been since they got in the woods.
He doesn't hear any more laughter, and so he says okay, I must have just been dreaming and there wasn't any laughter out there.
And eventually Eben goes back to sleep.
A little while later Eben wakes up suddenly again, except this time his dad is already awake and looking around anxiously, and Eben sits up and goes.
What's going on?
And his dad goes...
And he goes, can you hear that?
And Eben listens, and to his horror, he hears laughing.
He wasn't dreaming before.
Eben also realizes the laughter is not coming from the same area he heard it.
It's now coming from the opposite direction, and it's a lot closer to them.
Eben very quietly and carefully explains to his dad that he actually heard this laughter a couple hours earlier.
And Eben's father turns to Eben and says before we came out here I asked the owner should we expect any other hunters or campers or anybody nearby?
And the owner said, this is private property and it's fenced in.
There is no one there but you guys.
After this revelation, they both turn their attention back to just listening, because they're hoping this is just going to stop and whatever this is is just going to leave.
But it doesn't leave.
They hear footsteps running towards them from way off in the forest.
And it's so quiet, it's really easy to hear these footsteps.
And whatever this is, is charging towards them.
And then it comes to a complete stop right at the edge of their clearing.
At this point, Eben is now grabbing onto his father.
Eben's father is holding onto his rifle and he's getting ready to open the tent to confront whatever is out there.
And right before he grabs the zipper, this thing, this person, whatever it is, starts laughing again.
And it's practically right on top of them.
It's so loud.
They can hear it clear as day right there, right outside their tent, and Eben's father takes a deep breath.
He grabs the zipper and as soon as he begins moving it, the sound the zipper made causes the laughter to stop.
They don't hear footsteps, so they know probably something's still out there, but the laughter stops, like it's recognized that they're making noise.
They're right there.
There they are.
They're in the tent.
Evan's father freezes with his hand on this zipper and he's debating whether he should go outside or not.
And before he can even make that decision, whatever this thing is, turns around and runs back into the woods and it's just gone.
And for several minutes they just sit like that in total silence, praying that whatever this is is gone for good.
And after several minutes, when they don't hear anything, there's no more laughing, there's no more running.
Evan's father re-zips up the tent, puts his hand back down and they're both left just sitting there thinking what the heck just happened.
Eben and his father would stay up all night and they would barely speak because whatever this thing was had heard them when they moved the zipper.
And so they were really afraid of making any sound, even little sounds, because it's so quiet.
Sound travels really far and they don't know who or what is out there.
And so in silence, holding their guns, they're just waiting for the sun to come up.
And as soon as it did, they were up and out of there, literally running out of the forest, checking over their shoulder the whole time, all the way back to their truck.
And so to this day, they have no idea who or what the heck was running around out there.
And they told the owner of the property about it.
And the owner just said, it's not possible.
We have a totally gated in private piece of property.
And there are cameras watching the only entrance.
You are the only ones that went in or out over that time period.
And prior to that, we monitor this property.
Nobody else was in there.
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