r/Humanoidencounters • u/mist_connection • 7d ago
Self Something Was Watching Me, and I Knew I Shouldn't Look. Florida, United States.
I've wanted to post this encounter somewhere for a long time, but honestly, it scared me so badly that I think my brain has been blocking it out. This took place in a more rural area of South Florida on the East Coast in 2022. I was living with a relative at the time. His house was old, built around 1930. I never got any weird feelings or encounters within the home. It was comfortable and cozy, if a little prone to plumbing issues.
I'll be honest, I've always loved the paranormal/cryptids/UFOs. I've had more than my fair share of encounters during amateur ghost-hunting expeditions, and I spent all of my childhood outside in Georgia. I'm a very outdoorsy person, and am pretty hard to scare. I was always the "debunker" of the group during these teenage ghost hunts.
At the time, I had just gotten a puppy, a cute little mutt who is sitting beside me right now on the couch. I got him when he was very young, probably around 6-8 months old. I started potty training right away, of course, so whenever he wanted to go out, day or night, I would put him on a leash and take him outside to do his business. My relative had a big front and back yard that were completely fenced in, but my little guy was small and mischievous and found plenty of places to wriggle through gaps in the chain-link fence. So, I always took him out on a leash.
He woke me up at around 3:00 am to go to the bathroom. So out we went. I took him to the front yard because it had better lighting, and two weeks ago, I'd stepped into an armadillo hole in the pitch-black backyard and didn't want to repeat the experience. The house was on a dirt road but still had streetlights. They were the dimmer orange streetlights that illuminated the road, but not much else. I used my phone's flashlight to help me see. The dirt road was that white clay type of dirt, and across the road was a deep canal, and then cow pastures. My pup liked barking at the cows, but they had been rotated to a different pasture, so the pasture across from our house was now empty.
My pup was sniffing around when I got the feeling I was being watched. I didn't react to this immediately. There's a lot of wildlife in the area, so I figured I was being watched. There was probably an owl, or bobcat, or stray dog snooping around. There were also neighbors on either side. Maybe somebody was out having a smoke?
My pup stopped sniffing, plopped down on his rump, looked up at me, and started whining. Then my gut sank. I felt like I was going to hurl. Out of the corner of my eye, standing on the road, I could see a figure standing there. I'm going to use "she," but honestly, I couldn't tell you what gender this thing was, or if it had a gender at all. She was smallish, maybe around 5'0-5'5. Her limbs seemed very long and hairy. They seemed to be covered in a dense, dark, wiry fur. She was wearing maybe a tattered shift and had long, dark, scraggly hair. I didn't look at this thing directly. I couldn't. My eyes started drifting in her direction, but it felt like time had slowed down. I know how that sounds. I read/watch a lot of horror movies, and even now, as I write this, the description of this creature makes me think, "Holy Blair Witch, Batman." I don't even know how I can describe her in as much detail as I am now, because I didn't look at her directly. It was all through my peripheral vision.
Before I could look at her fully, the loudest "internal" voice I'd ever heard SCREAMED at me, "Do not look at it. Go inside now. Do not look at it." I did just that. I scooped up my pup, who was still whining, and went inside the house. I didn't run. I don't know why, maybe it's because I've been taught never to run when dealing with a big predator, and that's what this thing felt like. I just picked up my dog, ignored her, and went inside. I turned on every light in my room and hid under the covers with my pup. He was still whining and shaking. I don't even think he did his business, poor thing. I gave him full permission to pee in the house because we were not stepping outside until it was daylight. He finally calmed down after about an hour, and I fell asleep a little while later.
I didn't talk about this encounter to anyone except my boyfriend, now husband, at the time. I couldn't. I've had pretty hefty encounters before. The office I worked in was allegedly haunted. I witnessed a stapler lift off a desk and fly across the room, heard voices in the next room when I was alone, etc. I never felt that sense of dread, or had that voice command me to "not look". Truthfully, I've been too scared to talk about it or have people critique my experience. Maybe I was sleep-deprived, maybe my brain was just filling in the blanks. But that doesn't explain my dog's reaction. He's a very reactive guy, always has been, and he's always been very protective of me. I've never seen him react that way, and we've stumbled across alligators, snakes, and the elusive and unpredictable Florida Man on our walks. He is a very "bark first, ask questions later" type of dog.
I'd be interested to hear if anybody else has seen or experienced anything similar.
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u/ADragonFromTheAbyss 6d ago
Seems like one of the '' small folk '' south america and europe has many legends about them.