I am a twenty four year old female from northern Arizona. This was couple years ago, at the time, I was living out of a small campervan travelling along the West Coast.
There is a lot of different lifestyles people like to live in these types of vans or are vs. I always tried to keep out of the big cities and stick to the small towns for camping in between destinations, but for the most part, I like to camp out in the back country.
Being in the middle of the woods with nobody else around was where I found myself most comfortable and where I most enjoyed the lifestyle of travelling.
I think part of it is that it was always safer to be out by yourself in the forest than it was to be stealth camping in a busy parking lot in the middle of a city.
Don't get me wrong.
It can still be get creepy at night but I always know I am better off out there with nobody around.This week I was slowly travelling between two differents big cities in Washington.
I was taking my time staying staying on the back roads and hunkering at campsites for several days at a time on this day, I pulled off the road and onto a small dirt trail going deep into the forest.
There were a few sports but none were taken and it looked like nobody had been down there in a while. So I kept going hoping to secure a larger and more nice spot.
At the end, there was a large circle to pull off on. It wasn't scenic, just surrounded by trees but it was large and secluded and peaceful and even had a stone circle in the middle for a campfire. I leveled out my van and parked since it was the middle of spring, it was raining pretty much everyday here in Washington, so there wasn't much for me to do outside.
I opened the side door to my Van for some fresh air while I cooked a meal on my propane stove. It was around sunset so, I still had several hours before I had be in bed.
Over the next 30 minutes, the sun fell past the horizon and rain started breaking up. I shut the door to keep the water out and instead, cracked open one of the small windows near the back of the van, I sat on the bed and watched a show on my laptop. But midway through it, a glare came in from the open window behind me.
It was the light reflecting onto the screen for my laptop before I was able to react, it went away. It didn't move away, though it turned off as if someone switched the light off. When I turned around and looked out the window, I saw nothing.
It was really dark and still pouring down outside.
I had no way to know how far the light came from or what it even was. Being on a trail with other pull of spots, I had to assume it was just another camper. Maybe there headlights that somehow found it way through the trees and shined into my window. Then they quickly turned their vehicle off.
The only problem with that was the light didn't come from the road I came down, behind my window was just trees. Maybe there was another trail.
I didn't know about there, wasn't much investigating I could do anyway, so I turned back around I went back on my laptop occasionally I had check out the windows or think I had heard something outside but with the rain clanking against the metal roof, it wasn't clear if I was actually hearing something or not every time I looked though.
I never saw anything to confirm that something was out there so I didn't worry myself too much. I want to say it about ten or eleven when I decided to call it in for the night and try to sleep.
I turned off everything in the Van, closed all the windows and drew the shades. It was nearly pitch black and sight. I got under the covers and tried to sleep. Usually I didn't have much trouble at all but tonight I just couldn't manage to fall asleep.
Unfortunately, the rain picked up even more after an hour and thunder started rolling in.
It was very loud and made it impossible to even try to sleep. About 2 hours into the night and through all the harsh rain and thunder, I swear I heard something more outside.
It was just loud enough for me to know. I really heard something.
It sounded like someone or something running around and kicking over a branch on the ground somewhere just outside of my van. As soon as I heard it, there was no other sounds, it was so dark. I couldn't even see the ground beneath the window. The longer I looked out there, the more uneasy I felt I just had this feeling like someone else was looking back at me. I put the window cover down. I sat there. Try to tell myself I was overreacting but only a minute later, I heard a voice.
It was a male voice kind of in a loud whisper, like they were talking to someone else, I sat in silence, too scared to open the covers and look out of the windows again, knowing they had probably see me if they hadn't already. However, they like I already could assume someone was in the Van, which makes it all the more terrifying.There was a good 2 or 3 minutes where I didn't hear anything.
Aside from the rain and thunder, therefore there was a suddenly something outside the sliding side door to the van. It sounded like bending plastic like someone was leaning against the side door then there was a knock a few seconds later.
They knocked again even though I was sure they knew I was an here already. I was too scared to speak, maybe they weren't sure how many people were inside, or if I was a man or a woman. So I felt safer, not giving them anything. I am just staying quite a very disturbing and anxious.
5 minutes spent by as the knocking continued every few seconds, without anyone saying anything they had to be drenched by now and probably couldn't see at all through the weather, but then they finally said something.
"Sheriff department, open up". What I didn't leave that for a second. If it were true why wouldn't they have said that from the beginning, they continued knocking and calling out different lines; all basically stating that they were an officer and I needed to open the door, they seemed like a desperate attempt to get me to open up without violence, I slowly lifted the window cover and looked out.
All I could see was the dark figure moving near the door but from the shape of it, it didn't look like he had sort of law enforcement gear on, so I was sure this was about to get really bad. I debated in my head what to do for 30 seconds as it felt like knocking got more and more impatient, before I decided to risk getting into the driver's seat and trying to drive away as soon as I went up there.
Turn the car on and ready to fled,steps started to running up to the side of the Van. I began pulling out just as well. A figure appear in the window next to me. Thank God... . the van didn't get stuck, and I was able to get out onto the trail as I drove away.
I never saw any other vehicle down the road. Which makes the intention of these unknown people likely really disturbing. I put in a report with the country who of course said, no officers were out there that night but I never caught any follow-up.
Things could have gotten really bad out there.
What I haven't heard anything else happened since then.