Sightings - The Great (And Frightening) Outdoors

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

The heart of summer brings camps, road trips, and national parks. But sometimes, it also brings terror.  Story Music tracks used by kind permission of CO.AG Sightings is a REVERB and QCODE Original. Find us on instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@sightingspod⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nature has a way of making you feel small. Open skies, ancient forests, the kind of silence that reminds you how little of the world actually belongs to us. But what if that silence isn't empty? What if deep in the wilderness where campfires burn low and the night stretches on forever? Something ancient still wanders the woods. And what if it's waiting for you?

You. Welcome to sightings. I'm MacLeod. And I'm Brian, and it's the hardest summer, so I thought we'd feature a story from one of America's most incredible national parks, Yosemite. There's legends of a lake deep in the wilderness there that's haunted. Are they just tall tales? Or is there really something lurking in the dark at Grouse Lake? Find out on this episode of Sightings. Hello

Hello My son Danny gave me this recorder back in March He said I should use it to get some of my observations down Since I was always yamering on about the park Like I was narrating a nature documentary You know, he's thoughtful like that But I want him to know If he ever listens to this

That I did not intend to use it for something like this Oh, my name is a name is I've been a park ranger in Yosemite going on 16 years. My wife would tell you I'm a deeply boring man, and I think she means it as a compliment. But what can I say? I like the outdoors, the quiet, the calm of it all. So understand that what I'm about to describe is not something I arrived at easily, and that talking into a recorder about it is just about as far outside my nature as a thing can get,

but something's been happening out here in the park and I need to put it somewhere so here it is I'm sitting about 200 yards back from Grouse Lake right now it's early morning sun just up and I haven't slept which makes sense given the night I've had but I'll get to that first history because without it What I'm about to say will sound like the ramblings of a man who spent too many nights alone in the back country, which, fair enough, but hear me out. Most people who visit the park have no idea Grouse Lake even exists. It's small, off the main trail systems, tucked up in the forest above Bridal Veil Creek at about 8,000 feet. Tall pines around it kill the wind, so the water is usually still, and usually looks like a painting.

It's quite lovely, actually. But long before anyone decided to map this place, the Miwok people lived here. And their stories, which go way, way back, give the lake a particular spiritual weight. The specific story, at least as I've heard it, involves a young boy from the community who drowned in the lake. Nothing was documented, of course. This had to be, what, 150 years ago? But the legend stuck, and the tribe believed that boy's spirit never left, that it stayed in the water, restless,

and that if you went to the lake on a still evening, you could hear him crying. Now, I've been out to this lake dozens of times and heard nothing out of the ordinary, until... Well, I'll get there, I promise. A few days back, a group of backpackers came to the visitor's center, after a three-day loop through the back country. Four of them, all experienced, all sensible seeming. But they sat on their second night, camped just off Grouse Lake,

they were kept awake from a sound on the water. They described it like a child, crying, but wrong somehow, not distressed exactly, mournful. They were clearly bothered enough to report it and asked whether any wildlife in the area could account for it. I told them I'd look into it, which is the kind of thing you say usually, and then you file the note and move on. But then I remembered something I'd read.

Old writing from more than a century ago of frontiersmen and naturalist who heard strange cries on the lake. One of those men was John Muir, who, well, he's kind of a big deal, and if he heard something just like these hikers did, well, I wanted to get to the bottom of it, so I decided I'd go up there myself, camp a night near the lake, and see what I heard. And, yeah, that was two nights ago. I made camp here right where I'm sitting now, maybe a hundred yards from the shore, and the trees where the ground is level. The idea was to sit, stay quiet, and listen.

And the first few hours were exactly what I expected, pines settling in the cold, water lapping on the outlet rocks, a couple owls working the meadow on the eastern side, nothing unusual. And I'll admit I sat there feeling slightly foolish the way you do when you're committed to something that isn't cooperating. But sometime after midnight, I guess around one in the morning, I heard it. It started low enough that at first I wasn't sure I was actually hearing something or just listening so hard I'd invented it. But this sound. It kept going, and as it went on, it got clearer. It was coming from the direction of the lake,

and the only way I can describe it was that it was a wail, a wail of pure grief, not pain, grief. And I sat with it for a long time, maybe close to an hour. I didn't approach the lake, partly out of instinct, but also because I was a bit spooked. Then it stopped. No fade, no trailing off, just gone. I didn't sleep at all after that.

And this morning, with the lake sitting there looking completely ordinary in the daylight, I've been trying to build an explanation. Maybe it was some animal I'm not familiar with, or an acoustic trick of some kind. or a tired mind working against itself. But I'm going to stay here another night. I want to know what this is, and not just hear it.

I want to see it. Okay, I'm... I made it back to the trailhead. I'm in my truck, and I just... Oh, gosh, I... I just need to sit here a minute before I drive anywhere. I stayed at the lake again last night, just like I said I would.

I spent the day working through what I'd heard and looked for a rational explanation. And my best explanation was some kind of bird. There are species in the Sierra that produce surprisingly human-like calls, and I figured I'd heard one that was distorted by the water. And that felt plausible to me, not satisfying, but plausible. So night fell and the lake was clearer than the night before, where almost no wind and a moon close enough to full that I could see the entire lake surface reasonably well from where I sat.

And I could make out the far shore, the boulders at the waterline and the dark trees behind them. And sure enough, that sound came again, maybe 11 o'clock. Same quality as before, that low, sustained, mournful sound, human and wrought. As soon as I heard it, I got up and slowly. moved toward the shore, staying in the trees as long as I could. And as I got closer, maybe 30 feet from the water, I saw something on the far bank. A figure standing at the water's edge near the boulders on the north side of the lake. Small, child-sized, just standing there facing the water. The moonlight was enough that I could tell it was a person or something shaped like one.

My first thought was that a child had wandered away from a campsite, alarming, but explicable. So I started moving around the lake's edge as fast as I could manage without making too much noise. It took me maybe three minutes, tops, but by the time I got there, there was nothing. And no one there. I told myself I'd misread the shadows,

that the moonlight and rock faces arranged themselves into something my prepared mind was ready to find. But I crouched by the waterline anyway, more out of habit than any real expectation. And then that's when I saw prints, barefoot prints, small ones, child-sized, coming up out of the water and stopping at the bank, not going back in, not continuing into the trees, just stopping as though whatever made them had simply vanished right there in the mud. I don't know how long I stood there looking at them,

long enough to go over them several times with my flashlight, long enough to be certain that what I was seeing was human, barefoot, footprints. And then I, uh, I heard something directly behind me, not from the lake or the water, but right behind me. Still squatting a turn.

to look and I found myself face to face with a young boy. He was eight or nine, maybe, dark hair, dark eyes, Native American by my estimation. And he was completely still, just standing there, staring right at me from a few feet away. I want to be careful about what I say next because I've been turning it over my whole hike out, trying to be precise about what I actually saw versus what I might have layered onto it out of fear or, I don't know, something else. But I can say with 100% uncertainty that the boy was there, or at least that I saw a boy there, he wasn't a ghost or transparent or anything like that. He was solid. a child on the lake shore.

And before I could even say anything to him, he opened his mouth. And the sound that came out was the sound from the lake. That same sound right in my face, shuddering through me all that, all that grief, that sorrow. And it was so loud, too loud to bear. And in that moment, I did the thing I would not have predicted I would do.

I ran. I ran. Not as a decision. My body just ran. I couldn't control it. I went with it. I grabbed my pack without stopping and I just kept moving. Hiked out in the dark four miles, which I do not recommend.

I got back to the truck maybe 20 minutes ago and Oh, here I am. I have a deep respect for how the natural world produces things that feel impossible to account for. Sounds carry strangely over still water, shadow and moonlight rearrange themselves, wind currents and rock formations. But some things are more than that. I know that now. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to say for sure what I saw.

But, Danny, if you ever play this back, I'm fine. I'm in the truck and I'm fine. I just need to say what happened. And this is your recorder. So it seemed right. I think I'm just going to sit here for a little while longer and think about this. calm down before I drive.

Yeah. Sightings will be back just after this. Hey, skeptical geckos, it's Brian, and as you know from our theme this month, we are in the heart of summer. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed, unless, of course, you are in a haunted hot spot. But when I'm relaxed, I reach for comfortable, go anywhere close that will get me through the heat.

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I've got some of their cookware, and it is amazing. And they have everything from home to travel to everyday essentials. So make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince.com slash sightings for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash sightings for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash sightings. This episode is brought to you by FIFA World Cup, launch edition on Netflix.

It's a fast, fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. You just launch it on your TV, scan the QR code with your phone, and boom, you're shooting and passing in seconds. Plus, it's included in your Netflix membership with zero extra costs. Go to the Games tab and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now, only on Netflix. All right, welcome back, everyone. McLeod, that was a little different than the one we did last month, huh? All that hyperventilating made me like... I feel like at a loss for oxygen.

I'm needing more air. Yeah, well, let me fill you in then, because this is all allegedly true. We all know that Yosemite is a real national park in Central California. Yes, we do know that. That is real. That is real. It became a national park in 1890.

Okay. And there's a lot of eerie stories, but a lot of them seem to focus on grass. And a lot of the stories of what might have happened there predate the formation of the National Park. Okay. So in 1857, a ranger named Galen Clark visited the area. He and the local indigenous people went on a deer hunt near Grouse Lake. And Clark heard the cries of a lost dog or a small child.

But the locals, they're like, oh, no, that is neither of those things. Those were the cries of a ghost of a boy who drowned here long ago. And apparently the elders of the tribe would gather by the lake in ceremonial clothes and would perform rituals to kind of soothe the ghosts, you know, soothe his spirit, I guess. But still, the whales continued. Like we heard in the story in the 1800s, John Meir wrote about hearing those sounds too. And he learned that anyone who ventured too close to the cries risked being lured into the water to their deaths. Like a siren type situation. Yeah, yeah.

And drown. Uh-huh. Oh, wow. So I don't think there's any modern reports of people drowning in that lake, though. Right. But even today, people do hear things at the lake or have this feeling that they're being watched. And others have seen the shape of a young boy in or near the water. So that's kind of the overview of this lake, which sounds such an interesting contrast,

because it sounds like such a beautiful place. Yeah. With such a haunting legacy in a way. Yeah, and so this particular story is it's generally based on that. Did you say Galen was his name? This was just kind of an amalgamation of all of the more modern accounts of. Okay. Because this is not like the kind of thing that you've seen on Go shows or, you know, it's not a giant story.

I kind of took some dramatic liberties with what he ended up seeing. But, you know, the lore that, you know, you hear the sound, you see the boy kind of thing. it does exist and people have had that account. And it's just interesting that I wonder what happened to this boy. I mean, obviously he drowned, you know, in the lake. But it must have been particularly, I mean, I guess no drowning is not traumatic. But he's still there, still stuck there, you know. The despair so deep like you, like that it draws you in to like this like need to like comfort it or fix it or to or to run.

Mm-hmm. It kind of like sirens, like you mentioned before, a little bit. Like, the call kind of draws you in in a weird way. But usually it's like sirens are more about like beauty. Yeah, like this kind of a seduction almost. But there's a lure. It's a lure. It's a, you know, they lure you in still. Yeah. Is that like the, isn't there like a yorena? Isn't that like a crying thing too? Yeah, it is the crying ghost. It's like a Mexican. It's the crying ghost. Oh, like that's, there's something about that that's so, oh, and like a whale. Yeah. Like, part of me does think, like, it could be, like, there could be a, like, oral phenomenon. Yeah. That occurs with, like, this, almost like, you know, if it's this lake that's blocked from the wind. Mm-hmm. If, like, if maybe, like, what occurs is the wind kind of skips over the top of this depression or whatever, and almost, like, blowing on the top of a bottle. Exactly.

Creates this. Ooh. Oh, yeah. That's what skeptics have said, and they've also said that, you know, the acoustics of the lake itself might just distort ordinary noises like birds or... Loons or other animals or the wind or something like that. Yeah. I'm struck by the fact this being in a national park just kind of like... It lends it like wilderness hauntings like lind them such an epic scope.

Oh, yeah. Because it's like the sound just filling a mountain range kind of like. It just like becomes so kind of big and epic. Anyway, cool story. Let's dive into another quick listener story before, or let's do a quick listener story before we jump to another break. This one's a quickie. Ironically, also kind of has national parky vibes in a different way, I guess, though. Okay.

A little bit more history to it. So this is from Elaine, from New Jersey. Okay. Let's just get some music on and dive right in. I grew up in an old part of Southern New Jersey right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. an area rich in colonial history. Growing up, I had no interest in history, but when I was around six years old, I experienced something that stuck with me my entire life. It made me start researching the area to answer a question that haunted me for years.

It was around 1963. We had just moved out of our house to live with my grandparents while my father built our new home in a neighboring town. My grandparents lived in the small town of Glendora. I became good friends with Billy, the boy next door. door, who was just a couple of years older than me. Back then, my parents felt safe letting me roam the neighborhood, knowing I wouldn't venture far from home. One summer day, Billy was excited to tell me about something he had discovered after a baseball game at the local ball field. We hopped on our bikes and rode less than a mile away, behind the ball field to an open area in front of

an old brick house. The house looked abandoned. We walked up to the door, carefully opened it, and saw four or five men standing around an old wooden table. They were looking at what appeared to be a map. The men looked old-timey, and in hindsight I realized they were wearing revolutionary war uniforms. They stopped talking, looked up at us, and had no reaction at all. They simply ignored us and went back to their business. Billy and I were scared. I was afraid we'd get into trouble. I don't know what Billy was thinking, but we jumped on our bikes and peddled as fast as we could. I knew my parents would not be happy if I told them I had walked right into someone's house, so I didn't say a word. It wasn't until years later, as a young adult, that I finally told my mom what had happened.

She had grown up in Glendora and immediately knew the house I was talking about. She said it was just an abandoned house on Big Timber Creek. About 10 years ago, when I started doing genealogy research, I stumbled upon an article about the house. It was originally a tavern, the Gabriel Davies Tavern, also known as the Hillman Hospital House. Built in 1756, it served as a tavern for boatmen on the creek headed to Philadelphia. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington designated it as a hospital. I found documents detailing the owner and occupants of the house during the time I was there. I don't really believe in ghosts, but I know for sure the men we saw were not of our time.

By the time I discovered all this, Billy had passed away. The house is now a historical site and a popular location for paranormal researchers. I've been back to New Jersey a few times and have driven by the site. I wasn't able to get a tour, but I looked in the window and saw the same wooden table, just as I remembered. This is not meant to diminish her story at all. I was like, what if she just walked in on a bunch of reenactors who were just hanging out in the house? I know. That came to mind, too.

It's eerie, though. Could you imagine walking into, you know, like, there are old houses like that all over the East Coast. And to walk in and just walk in into a time warp, basically, almost. Yeah. And the way they just kind of look up at the door and then keep going, it's almost as if she's the ghost. Mm-hmm. And like they just sent something. And they're like, did you hear that?

Mm-hmm. And they're like, oh, I guess it was nothing. Yeah. And continue their business. So in a way, I wonder if this is actually a ghost story or more of like a time slip story or something. Like there are stories of people who, there's a pretty famous one of some two women in, I think it was Versailles or something like that, who were walking through the gardens and all of a sudden found themselves in the 17th century. Whoa. And then, you know, a little bit later ended up right back where they started.

I wonder if that's a little case of what happened here. It's just some weird, you know, brushing up against parts of the universe in a weird way or something like that. Yeah, some fold in the space time continuum. But Elaine, thank you for sharing that. That's a really cool little encounter story. Yeah. And I like that it was like a jumping off point for like an interest in history and research. And like, I think that like, you know, that's the, the best.

best aspects of kind of like learning come from just like trying to solve a problem or like figure out something that's like happened to us or moved us or very cool well when we come back we're going to stick with our great outdoors theme we've got another outdoor summer story coming right at you so twizzlers keep the fun going yeah i know i just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that twizzlers keep the fun going well irony isn't my forte but twisty Chewy, yummy Twisler sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little palette cleanser for whatever's queued up, which, by the way, should be coming very soon.

Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. All right, McLeod, we got one more listener's story. This one is obviously set in The Great Outdoors. This one was sent in by Doug, and it takes place at a summer camp. A summer camp? Summer camp. We're in the middle of the summer, so I thought it was perfect.

I know, but now I'm getting Jason vibes. Yeah, no, this one's more mysterious and cool. So let's get some creepy music going. Cool. Could you do some crickets for us, too? Oh, let me see. I'll find some crickets. Yeah, I think we have some.

Ah. Oh, yep, I feel like I'm there. It's like we're there. All right, I'm Doug now. I worked as a camp counselor for three summers during college, all at the same boys' camp in northern Michigan. Not the kind with horseback riding and water skiing and big white dining halls. This was the simpler kind, smaller, a little scruffy around the edges.

It sat against a big inland lake, surrounded by tons of forest and a half-forgotten state trail system that never got much use outside the campers. The kids were between 10 and 12, mostly from the Detroit suburbs. A lot of them had never been in the woods before. The ones who came back every summer treated the place like a second home. Aw. Mess hall jokes, campfire traditions, that kind of thing. I liked working there. The counselors were all college age and pretty low-key.

No one took it too seriously. We did our jobs, made sure no one got lost or broke anything important, and made up dumb songs to keep the kids from getting homesick, the usual. The camp was big on outdoor activities, as I would expect most camps would be. Isn't that the point of camp? Which meant every cabin got one long hike day per week. Nothing too ambitious, just different trails around the area to get kids out in nature and wear them out.

before dinner. The trails were all pretty well marked and most of them were loops that brought you back to camp in two or three hours, depending on how fast your group moved and how many times you had to stop for bathroom breaks or someone losing their water bottle. My group's hike day was Thursdays. In this particular week, we were doing this easy two-mile loop that went through some pine forest and around a small pond. Perfect for the age group because it wasn't too challenging, but still felt like an adventure. Usually there were a couple spots where you could see the lake and some Sometimes deer would come down to drink, which was a plus. So this particular Thursday, in mid-July, we headed out around 10 in the morning, like always.

Beautiful day, sunny and warm, but not too hot. Perfect hiking weather. The kids were in good spirits making jokes and trying to spot wildlife and doing that thing where they pick up random sticks and wave them around like swords. Normal kid stuff. We were maybe 40 minutes into the hike when I noticed fog starting to roll in. which was weird because the day it started crystal clear and fog usually burns off by mid-morning, not the other way around. But weather up there can be unpredictable, so I figured maybe it was just some kind of humidity thing

or marine layer coming up from the lake. At first it wasn't too bad, just a light mist that made everything look a little dreamy. The kids thought it was cool and started making jokes about being in a horror movie and yelling into the fog to hear their voices echo, even though that really did. didn't work. All these dumb kids just shouting into it. You dumb kids yelling into the fog. I told them it was probably just a weatherfront moving through and it would clear up soon.

But it didn't clear up. It got thicker, really thick to the point where you could barely see ten feet ahead. I'd never seen fog that dense, especially not in the middle of a sunny morning. One of the kids asked if it was smoke. and another said they smelled something metallic, even though I didn't smell anything. I stopped the group and did a quick headcount to make sure everyone was still together. All ten kids were accounted for, but they were definitely starting to get a little nervous. Not scared, exactly, but unsettled and trying hard to hide it.

So I told them we were going to stick close together and keep following the trail markers until we got through this patch of fog. But then things started feeling really off. We kept walking and the trail markers seemed to be further apart than I remembered, even though that was impossible. And after about 20 minutes of walking through the stuff, the kids started acting very, very strange. Oh, no! And I'm seriously trying not to be overdramatic here, but bear with me. Kyle, I wonder if that's his real name.

Did you change the names? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I did not change the names. Kyle, you're now famous. Kyle, you're famous. Kyle, you're famous. Kyle, who was usually the shyest kid in the group, suddenly became really talkative.

Like, nonstop chatter about random stuff. He kept pointing into the fog and talking about things he claimed he could see, even though the rest of us couldn't see anything. Then Joel started humming. He was near the back of the group, and I noticed he was walking in perfect rhythm, like each step hit on a beat. The tune wasn't anything I recognized. Just five or six notes repeated over and over.

low and even. It sounded like something you'd hum to yourself when you're trying not to be scared. Makes sense. When I asked if he was okay, he just nodded and kept walking. Another kid said they'd heard that same tune before in their dream. I tried to redirect everyone, offered snacks, cracked a dumb joke. No one laughed. That's when I started to feel genuinely off balance, like something had shifted beneath us in a way I couldn't track. The weirdest thing was when Jake, who was definitely a first-year camper, started insisting that he'd done this exact hike before. He kept saying he remembered this part of the trail

and that we were about to come to a big fallen log across the path. When I reminded him this was his first time at camp, he got this confused look on his face, but kept insisting he'd been there before. We stopped for lunch in what seemed like a small clearing, though it was hard to tell with all the first. a fog. The kids were quieter than usual, just sitting there eating their sandwiches and looking around like they were listening for something. That's when Marcus piped up and asked me about the

other counselor who was walking behind us. I asked him what he meant, and he pointed back toward where we'd come from and said there was another counselor following our group. Had been for a while. When I looked back, I couldn't see anyone, and when I asked the other kids, none of them saw what Marcus was talking about. But he seemed really sure about it, kept looking over his shoulder and waving at whoever he thought was back there. Another boy mentioned that his watch had stopped. I checked mine and it hadn't, but it showed we were well past where we should have been if the hike was going to stay on schedule. So I made a decision to pick up the pace. After lunch, the fog thinned a little. I kept us moving. The train.

Trail was technically still visible, but I had a growing sense that we were not quite where we were supposed to be. The trees had changed, more birches than I remembered, and the underbrush was strangely low and brittle, almost crunchy. A couple of kids started dragging their feet and asking how much longer. One of them asked if it was Tuesday or Wednesday. I told him it was Thursday. He looked confused. We passed a fallen tree in the path, and Jake shouted, I told you so, but I knew he'd never been here before. He was one of our few campers from out of state. When we finally broke the tree line and saw the lake again, it didn't feel like a relief. It felt like waking up too fast. Everything was too bright. The fog stopped abruptly right at the camp's northern fence line,

like a curtain had been pulled back. We got back about an hour of earlier than scheduled. One of the assistant counselors made a joke about us setting a speed record. I laughed and played it off, said the kids were motivated, but I remember checking my watch three or four times. The math didn't make sense. I didn't think we'd moved that fast, and we'd stopped for at least 30 minutes. The kids seemed tired, but otherwise okay, and they went to their afternoon activities like nothing had happened. So I figured maybe I'd just been overthinking the whole thing. Fog happens. Weird stuff happens. Plus, kids are just weird. That true. Yeah, Doug. But that night, a couple things happened that stuck with me. First, Kevin, who hadn't

wet the bed once all summer, had an accident. Not unusual for kids at camp when they're stressed or homesick, but Kevin had been great up until then. Then around midnight, I heard David talking in his sleep. He was mumbling something about the man in the woods following us home. When I checked on him, he was still asleep, but he seemed agitated like he was having a bad dream. Over the next few days, I noticed a few other weird things. Marcus, who had insisted there was another counselor with us, refused to go into the woods again. Every time his activity group was supposed to go in there, he'd find an excuse to stay back at camp. I asked him about it, and he couldn't explain why. But maybe that's just a kid thing.

Then another kid, I honestly can't remember his name now, came to me one night and said he dreamed of walking a trail that never ended. He said he kept seeing our group up ahead but could never quite catch up. And he looked completely messed up by it. I didn't report anything except Kevin's problem to the camp director because honestly what would I have said? That my group had a weird experience in some fog and the kids acted strange for a few days afterward, it sounded ridiculous even to me, and I was the one who lived through it. Plus, the kids

seemed completely fine by the time their parents came to pick them up. When the summer ended, I went back to college, and it turns out that was my last summer at camp. And I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole thing until something happened that brought it all back. I was at the grocery store in my neighborhood doing my usual weekend shopping when I saw someone familiar in the produce section. It took me a minute to place him, but then I read it. realized it was Jake from my cabin that summer. He was older, obviously, probably in college, but definitely the same kid. He recognized me right away and came over to say hi. We chatted for a few minutes about what he was up to now, and he seemed like a totally normal, well-adjusted young adult.

But then he got this strange look on his face and asked me if I remembered The Fog. And that was a gut punch if there ever was one. Here was this kid I hadn't seen in years asking me about the exact thing I'd been trying not to think about all this time. I told him, yeah, I remembered, and asked him what made him think of it. He went quiet for a minute, then said he thought something had stayed with them after that day. Not like haunted, he was quick to clarify, just like something had come back with us that wasn't supposed to. Then he said something that really got to me, and I know it's dramatic, but I swear he said it. He said, Sometimes he wondered if we all made it back completely that day.

Like maybe part of us was still out there in the fog walking that trail over and over. But before I could ask him what he meant, he said he had to go and walked away. I've been thinking about that conversation for a while now. Part of me wants to track down the other kids from that hike and ask them if they remember anything weird, but part of me is afraid of what they might tell me. I still don't know what to make of any of it. Maybe it was just a strange weather event and some kids having bad dreams. Maybe I'm reading too much into a random encounter at the grocery store.

But I can't shake the feeling that something happened in that fog that I'm never going to fully understand. And sometimes late at night, I think about what Jake said about not all of us making it back completely. I wonder if he's right. I wonder if part of us is still out there walking through the fog, trying to find our way home. All right. Bye, everybody. I thought this one was fitting for July. I guess it happened in July, whatever year this was. Yeah.

I, too, was a summer camp counselor for after college for a few years. I actually, there was this, well, it's going to make me sound really lame, but it was a summer camp at Yale University. Oh. for the kids who thought that going there would help them get into Yale. Right. I went to the Yale summer camp. Yeah, I taught classes. I taught, like, screenwriting classes.

Oh, okay. So it was more like, it was not like a hike through the woods camp. No, no. Not like a live in a cabin camp. It was like. No, you lived in the dorms and taught, like, I taught classes in Yale classrooms and stuff. Oh, okay. Cool.

Yeah, yeah. And then I did another year at one program that was similar, but for 10 and 12-year-olds, which was. That's a great age for. storytelling. No? That's like middle school where no one knows what's happening. Yeah, middle school is a bit like, and they're all like super awkward. I did it.

At that camp, actually, one of our kids went missing. Oh. Yeah. He went missing for 10 hours. Oh, no. That was terrifying. Yep. So like there was massive manhunts that I was off that night, but like I had to come

back and help organize and run point on this with police and stuff because there was definitely a thought that, like, we could find this kid in a stairwell or something, you know, not alive possibly. Yikes. Yeah. Turns out he'd gone on a field trip, fell asleep on the bus, and the bus driver never checked. So the kid just woke up the next morning in a different state. Woke up in a different state?

It was New England. Right. You like throw a rock and you hit another state. But yeah, so that was my terrifying. Poor kid. That would be pretty scary to wake up. But I was a young person. I went to scout camp that was like this where you did the hiking and the,

boat stuff and the swimming and the gun shooting and stuff like that, you know. Yeah, I did a camp that had like the hiking and and, but never, not not the water stuff, which I was thankful for because I don't like the water. And no horrifying fog either to get back to the story. Yeah, that would have freaked me out if I were the counselor or one of the kids. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, like the feeling of being lost is scary enough, being lost when you're responsible for. like 10 children is very upsetting.

And then they're acting weird. When you're a counselor with these kids, which I mean like kids act weird when they're scared. But you get to know these kids and like this seems like stuff that he remembered years later obviously so it must have stuck with him. And then you know that the kid remembered it years later too is kind of creepy. Yeah. But anyway, really cool kind of eerie story.

Not like frightening like some of the stories we've done. But I like the eeriness of. of it and also that it was a summer camp story. And Brian, I am already excited for next month. Can you give me a hint as to where we're going? It's been a little while since we've done these kind of little teaser hints, hasn't it? It has. Yeah, well, I will say we're going to the Bay Area in California.

And all I'm going to say is that the legend we're going to tackle is spooky. And it has an awful lot in common with what happens to be one of this summer's big blockbuster movies backrooms. So it's not haunted sourdough? It's not haunted sourdough. Nope, but get ready for some really weird kind of liminal's faces. It should be a lot of fun. So we will see you all then. Same time, same place next month, right here on sightings.

Looking forward to it. Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer, and McLeod Andrews. Series music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering. by Pat Kickleiter. Artwork by Nuno Sarnadas. Sightings is presented by reverb and cue code. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.