This happened back in 2008ish in Pike County between Promised Land and Lake Wallenpaupack, where I used to live. This is near the top elevation around the area, and that October we got a surprise heavy and wet snowstorm. One day it was still Indian summer and the next we had almost a foot on the ground. I remember meeting my neighbor between our yards and just sitting there experiencing something I doubt I ever will again. It was about as quiet up there as ever with the pack on the ground and trees, except every 30 seconds you could hear another tree go crashing down. It was alarming.
He was afraid of the old huge trees in front of his house, which were leaning a way you would think is impossible without snapping. At some point we lost power, which did not come back for the week. Before the roads were completely impassable I tried to make it to the only corner store around, perhaps a mile down the back road. When I got to the crossroad I realized it was never going to happen with all the dead trees in the road. Really the problem was from the trees all along both embankments. With the weight of all this snow on their leaves they were bent so far over on each side that it looked almost like a fairy tale path. The trees were touching from across the road about 15 feet above about the middle yellow line, and if it was not so dangerous I might have liked to walk down it and take pictures. Anyway, all of this is to illustrate the setting for these two events that I experienced that week.
We had a propane heater hooked up to the front room, which came in handy when the power took a dive. We put quilts up between the lesser-used rooms to conserve heat. We actually had a good deal of fun the first few days, melting snow for the toilet (you have to melt way way more than you imagine lol) or learning to pop popcorn with tinfoil and oil on an old iron skillet, and the usual ‘young kids in the snow’ stuff. Maybe on the second night I was a little restless and could not get back to sleep, so around 4 a.m. I decided to go beyond the quilt into the dining room, where we had a big picture window looking out at the back yard and on out into the woods. I sat there in my thoughts when what I can only describe as a strong bright light of unknown origin flashed in an arc that seemed like someone spun it right around in an almost 360 turn. It lit up most of my back yard and barn for a few seconds. The light made a kind of moving globe/strobe effect. It was as bright as those powerful searchlights and it kind of had a red hue as it faded. With the snow on the ground and enough of the moon out it was not pitch black and I took a good look for people. I would have seen them walking around easily. The next day I checked again for footprints but the snow was virgin. It was a little unsettling, but only a preview of the next day.
I got over my brush with the unknown as the morning came and got started on the next day’s duties. I decided I was going to shovel out the car port. It was such a great crisp day; cool from the snow, but warming up again because it was still just mid-October. It was making the snow nice and heavy to deal with, though.
Anyway we lived right next to the road that connects both of these vacation hotspots and often I found myself calling it Shiny Mountain Highway because of the speeds the traffic would come through at. I had been going up to this family home all of my life and one constant was “stay away from the damned road!” And now that I was the adult with children it filled me with the fear as well. But that week I did not worry, because I had never seen less traffic on it. My great-grandparents used to tell me what it was like before the paving, when it was just a dirt road and a log cabin in the ’30s, and this was about as close as I was ever going to get to it. It was great!
So I was shoveling this heavy snow when I finally got up to the road. I looked to my left where since I was a toddler I could see way down to where the road would curve out of sight and saw nothing but some huge black shadow. I did not know what it was I was looking at. I thought maybe a big truck was stuck in the road about where the old dirt road goes way down into the wood, where the few people who live back there are able to come and go. I thought maybe it was an ambulance despite not being able to make out anything at all.
If I remember right my wife learned from a text or a call from a neighbor that one of the guys out there bushwacking with PPL to try and get to the main lines that were down had cut himself with a chainsaw some. So at first I figured some idiot thought they were getting down there. But I watched this thing for minutes, without any movement or sound.
I started to walk down that way but after 20 to 30 feet I just had to stay where I was. I could make out nothing more of this black hole and I was starting to really feel unease. I watched it longer and wondered if size and everything else was fooling with me. I wondered if it could be a bear. Seen plenty of ’em up there. But that would have been one huge bear to block that much of what should be visible; not to mention how soundless and motionless everything was. If it were an animal it would have to have been as big as a moose…maybe a friggin elephant.
I wanted bad to go further but nothing in me could get me to go down that way. That has never happened to me before or since. So I backed up to the port and decided to have a staring contest. Who would blink first? I figured something would happen and I could laugh at myself, but after a good 10 to 15 minutes I knew I wasn’t winning. It was like a 3-D shadow, is the best I can describe it.
I started to ascribe far more meaning to it after all this time, which might as well have been standing still. I made a bargain. I almost felt I accidentally caught a glimpse of something one usually is not supposed to. That is the best I can describe it.
I decided I was going to look up at the bright blue sky for 20 seconds and watch the clouds and breathe deep and give it some time. I knew what I was going to see before I saw it.
When I looked down I could see nothing but the curve of the road all the way up ahead and the sun shining on all of it. I waited to see anything of a truck or something moving on the back road, but there was nothing.
