Subject: Sleepwalking or not?
From: Zachary
Date: Mon, September 26, 2005 1:19 pm
To: Report Alien Abduction

I am unsure as to whether or not I was actually abducted or sleepwalking and am more curious if there are any other people out there with a similar story.

Back in 1997 when I was 12 years old I frequented the Adirondacks with my scout troop at the time to a scout camp called Camp Sabattis. The troop would go up to the area once every summer for a week long stay; Friday to Friday. Every Thursday night the camp and the counselors would hold a closing camp fire for the entire camp and all the troops. Once that ended my tent-mate and I walked back with hoards of other scouts to our campsite to sleep. As we walked back through the entire camp you could see flashlights were bobbing everywhere and people talking about us. We finally arrived back to our troops camp area and walked around to we came to our patrol’s campsite. My tent-mate and I were both fairly tired and decided to brush our teeth and head off to bed.

(I’m going to go into detail about the set up of a platform tent because most of my story lies around the setup of this tent.) Our accommodations at the time were platform tents with metal framed beds inside with a thin mattress on top of that. With that, we would put our sleeping bag on top of the mattress to sleep in. A platform tent looks like a generic scouting tent. The floor of the tent is a sturdy wooden frame that lies flat on the ground and looks similar to a shipping pallet. The tent is made of heavy canvas and stand about 5 feet high on top of the platform. It has an accessible entrance to the inside on the front and the back with a pole in the middle of each. To close the tent, the inner canvas is tied to the pole and the rain flap is tied on the outside of the tent. The metal beds sit about 1.5 feet off the ground and lie about 6-10 inches from the pole.

After brushing our teeth we quick rushed back to the tent and changed for bed. That night I had slept with nothing but shorts and boxers on. At the time and still to this day, I have an innate fear of spiders and other large insects. Because of my fear, every night I would tie the inner and outer ties of the tent as tight as they would go and in the morning I would have trouble untying these knots. So after preparing the tent for bed I slipped into my mummy bag and zipped it up all the way and wrapped my head in the cocoon-style head wrap. I would do this for the same reason I would tie the tent so tight. That year in particular I had had trouble with biting insects in my sleeping back and felt the need to then zip it up all the way to avoid as much spider related contact as possible. After doing that I adjusted my camping pillow and glanced at my watch, which read 10:30 PM. After sweating a bit from having the bag zipped up, I finally drifted off into a sleep.

Later that night I awoke quickly and obscurely. The first thing I noticed was that I was on my feet, standing up with my head tilted backward, looking up. I also noticed that my eyes felt as if I had been starring into a bright light for some time and was quickly shoved into the dark. After about 3 seconds I was curious as to whether or not I was dreaming, so I literally pinched myself as hard as I could. I realized then, that I was completely awake. In awe of the whole situation I took a few steps backward and stepped on a stick, cutting my foot and making me fall to the ground. At this point I knew I wasn’t dream, mainly because of the pain radiating from my foot and because I was able to move.

As I sat up and looked around, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, I began to see trees around me. The first feeling I felt wasn’t fear but rather calmness or serenity. This feeling alone surprised me because as a young child I always had an innate fear of the darkness along with fearing spiders. I had a nightlight in my room until I was 11. On top of feeling calm, I also felt a determination to find my campsite. The first thought that jumped into my mind was how I had just learned that past week, that if you ever were lost in the forest during the night, to stay where you were until the morning. That thought quickly went through my head and I decided to go on my own and try to explore. Without any idea of where I was I started to saunter in between the trees, just looking for anything that I recognized. After about 45 feet I glanced to my left and noticed a tent that looked strangely familiar to me. As I got closer and closer to the tent, it finally dawned on me that this was an extra tent inside my campsite that wasn’t occupied.

My heart and my mind began to race with cautious excitement, knowing that I wasn’t that far away. With a weeks worth of trampling through the area, I had this place down pretty good. So I began walk to the right of the tent closer and closer to the middle of the campsite and back to where I had originally started. I began to identify each tent and its occupants with my finger and finally came upon what I believe was mine. I went up to the tent and recognized that my tent was actually the one to the left of this one. I was finally relieved and my heart began to slow.

So I walked up to the front of the tent and expected the flap to be open. I grabbed the rain flap and gave it a quick tug but it didn’t give. The top knot was still tied; so I quickly wrestled my hand to the inside knot and found that it was still tied to the pole. I went to the bottom knot on the rain flap - same, inside, still tied. Thoughts began to race through my head as I began to rationalize how I escaped from this tent. So I ran around to the back and checked the knots, all tied in the same fashion. Beginning to panic I ran back around to the front and retried every knot. I started to become fluttery and decided to try and squeeze myself back into the tent by aligning myself in between the pole and the metal bed frame. I attempted to lift the canvas, but I had trouble getting the stiff lower part of the tent up. I gave it one more shot and pulled myself through the barrier, in the process scrapping myself on my stomach.

I finally had made it back, safe and sound in the tent that was all tied up. A little distraught and nervous, I began to shake my tent-mate and started whispering his name. I got absolutely no reaction from him. He didn’t even budge. Still nervous and fluttery I reached for my flashlight that was on the floor and turned it on. To my satisfaction there was nothing noticeable in the tent. I glanced at my watch and it read 2:30am on the dot. I thought nothing of it until I reached for my sleeping bag. And to anyone who’s reading this, there was nothing in it, thank God. But what scared me shitless was that my sleeping back was perfectly laid out, all zipped up. The pillow was nice and fluffed aligned perpendicularly with my sleeping bag. I have to say I was a fairly neat kid, but I never ever bother to go through that much trouble to fix my sleeping bag. So I cautiously slipped back into my bag and waited until morning to start asking around.

I’m now 20 years old and at college. I haven’t gone a week without thinking back to that night since then. The only other "encounter" I had was when I was walking over to a friends house about 500ft from my house and I saw a UFO over a park that was near me. The minute I saw it, I ran as fast as I could back to my house, beckoned my mom to come outside only to find it gone.

I don’t like to make assumptions about what happens to me but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more to this than sleepwalking. I won’t assume anything but just state this out for opinions: About 4 years later I noticed a scare, about 2.5 inches long in the very small of my back. I have been a power lifter since the age of 14 and a lot of strength for my size. I’ve never taken steroids nor done any other supplement. Nobody in my family exhibits this sort of strength. And the reason I noticed that scare was because my lower back, when bent over, is unusually large. If I bend down, it protrudes from my body in an odd fashion. My ex-girlfriend noticed the scar on back when she was examining the size of my lower back.

I don’t really know where to go from here, mainly because I’m always expecting a visit. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any feedback would be great.

Thank you again,

Zach