The Mysterious Footsteps
No Fear
by Richard Gerber (true story)

I walk out on the deck in the back yard and it is dark and I hear footsteps in the leaves. I listen to them and they are heavy sounding steps. Too heavy for that of a skunk, opossum, raccoon, cat, or dog, and they were spaced as if created by a two legged creature. I turned the back light on but could see nothing through the trees. I am in the middle of well developed suburbia, but I have a last piece of old growth forest relatively untouched, a tiny patch of wood preserved in the city of industry. There is a 300 year old tree in my yard, hollow and still alive, sort of like on HR Puff and Stuff, you get the picture.

So I turned it off and went and got a flashlight, a long black metal Maglite. I proceeded quietly through the darkness about 35 feet.

I self reflected, I was in a heightened state of awareness filled with intrigue, but not fear. What could possibly be walking in the leaves that I could not see? It had not responded to the turning on and off of the back yard light. So I knew intuitively it must not be a human up to no good and my feelings did not indicate there was a danger.

I knew if it was an animal I had nothing to fear because it was a part of nature. I wondered what if it was an extraterrestrial, perhaps invisible? Even then nothing to fear, intuition tells me they would be benevolent and only trying to help us. So I get back to the shed, about 15 feet from it, and turn on the flashlight not knowing what I might catch in it’s beam of light. There is nothing there, I am wondering if this thing is invisible because I still hear it, step, and a pause, and then another step. I look down the side of the shed and see nothing. I walk away from the shed to the other side to see behind it, I see nothing but tangled vines, a wood pile and growth. But I hear it again and now it seems to be coming from the front of the shed so I walk around to the front maintaining some distance and there “it” is caught in the beam of my light….. click to continue