Terror in the Woods

some type of spirit attached itself to me.

It felt like I was not in my body.

Kelcee: The whole bed was shaking.

His eyes are rolled back.

It was absolutely terrifying.

He was like, "I think I got possessed."

it's gotten more and more dangerous.

Was it trying to kill me?

john: I felt in danger.

I felt, like, high alert, fight-or-flight, you know?

something demonic-related.

I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

my name is emilio sanchez.

I'm from denver, colorado.

It's a beautiful mountainous state.

I try to be outside as much as humanly possible.

Very few people are just kind of stay-at-home bodies in colorado.

my family's cabin is in red river, new mexico.

From denver, it's about a 7-hour drive.

It's well-hidden inside the woods.

It's pretty secluded.

When I was 11, I would hike up there.

It was dense forest.

And as I got further in,

all you heard was birds and, you know, the wind blowing.

It's beautiful.

But that's when this whole thing started to get bad.

I've never really told anyone about any of this.

My mother and my stepfather,

we were just taking a few days for a family get-together.

It was probably about 6:30, 7 in the morning.

We were just in the cabin, kind of in the woods,

playing a card game.

You sure you're not coming?

Yes, I'm sure. Okay.

Well, you've got the key.

You'll have to let us in. All right.

My parents went down to the lake, getting fish for breakfast

because I was supposed to actually go fishing with them,

but I didn't want to.

I heard in the distance,

it sounded like someone was walking on the driveway.

I thought it was my mom coming back to make breakfast.

There was, like, a fog, you know, like a low mist

hovering over the ground a little bit,

but I couldn't see anyone.

but then I saw this thing,

and he was standing off in the distance.

It was maybe about 50 yards or so.

It was just standing there, and the best I can describe it,

it was kind of a guy who had deer legs and a face.

It looked like someone wearing a hollowed-out deer skull.

I couldn't see his eyes,

but then it turned its head to me.

where the eyes, like, should be, you just see black holes.

We looked at each other,

and that's when I knew it was something else.

I kind of got scared, so I hid below the windowsill.

I could hear one footstep hit the gravel driveway,

and then from there, I hear three.

[ stomps three times toward cabin ]

and the next thing I know, it's at the cabin.

The distance from the porch of the cabin

to the end of the driveway is about 50 feet.

I don't know if it jumped or it flew or what,

but it covered that ground in three steps,

and it was on the porch.

[ heavy footsteps, stairs creaking ]

it started to walk up the stairs.

It was about 3 feet from the door at that point.

I was confused and really scared.

let me in.

I remember hearing my mom's voice.

Don't leave me out here!

I thought maybe what I saw was in my mind,

and my mom was on the porch.

I wasn't sure if should look out the window to see

if my mom was there or just stay hiding.

Open the door!

If it was my mom, she would keep asking me,

or she would put down whatever she was carrying

and open the door herself, and none of that happened.

I won't ask you again!

Let me in!

It was still asking to come in in my mom's voice,

but every time that it was refused entry,

it kind of got deeper.

open the door!

Answer me!

It sounded like someone recorded my mom's voice

and played it backwards.

Open the door!

It happened within the blink of an eye,

from trying to casually open the door

to it kind of kicking and punching at the door.

I didn't open the door because there was no way

that that was my mom.

Let me in!

It was the creature with the deer head.

Answer me!

Open the door!

It seemed like it was trying to break down the door.

The main feeling was just fear of

what's going to happen if it gets in?

[ door handle jiggling rapidly, knocking ]

it just stopped hitting the door.

It stopped asking to come in.

I heard loud footsteps leaving the porch,

and when I looked back up, it was gone.

When my parents got back to the cabin,

they said they didn't see anything.

They didn't hear anything while they were down at the lake.

They didn't hear anything walking up.

While we were fishing?

They said, you know, it could have just been an animal

who was eating a deer.

I asked my parents, you know,

if there was anything in the world that was like that?

I'm fine.

They said no.

I didn't think that I would ever see it again.

for years, I questioned what I saw a lot.

It would come up, you know, every now and then

when we're sitting around campfires

or hanging out with friends, but it wasn't always on my mind

until the second time that I saw it.

It was a late may day, and it was crisp air.

It was in the morning.

It was beautiful.

Cleanest air you can breathe in.

It was about a 37-mile hike on the top of the madison range,

so it was around 12,000 feet.

There is not much wildlife up there,

and my plan was just to hike from peak to peak.

It was just me.

There is not a lot of people that know about that trail.

I was just hiking along the trail,

just enjoying the scenery.

I could hear birds singing in the distance.

I can hear the wind, bugs, crickets.

then it got quiet.

There wasn't any birds singing.

There wasn't any bugs.

There was nothing.

I started feeling really anxious.

It seemed like someone was watching me.

I saw someone standing off to the side.

I thought, "maybe some crazy up in the woods of montana

playing jokes on people."

I've seen deer, elk, moose, all that,

and it wasn't anything like that.

I saw what looked to the be the creature again.

All I could see was its upper body, the old deer head.

It looked exactly the same.

It was just standing there watching me.

I was startled.

It kind of put everything in concrete for me

that what I saw the first time when I was 11 was...

It was real.

I just stared at it, and after a certain time,

I did look away,

and when I went to go look back, it wasn't there.

After it disappeared, I waited to see

if it was going to reappear somewhere else.

There was nothing, so after about 10 minutes,

I just kept on going.

I was afraid that it was kind of stalking me, in a way.

On the hike, I would just leave my car at the trailhead.

It was miles away, and I ended up spending the night

because I didn't want to drive that late.

After the creature disappeared,

I was more afraid that it was going to reappear closer,

that it was stalking me all night.