§336

‘Myself and two friends (all eighteen to twenty-one) went to a golf course one evening with the intent to have a few casual beers. Upon arrival, it began to sprinkle so we decided to head towards a ‘fort’ some kids had built in a nearby wood. As we were walking down the fairway, we observed some creature walking up towards us from the opposite end. It was definitely dark out (probably about 9:00 pm), but quite misty, and the mist was reflecting sufficient light from nearby homes and streetlamps that the silhouette of the creature was quite visible even at fifty yards. We continued to approach each other for several minutes, my friends and I trying to figure out what it was that was walking towards us (with an apparently human gait, but much too short to be human). We literally stopped walking (us and the creature) only when we were within perhaps three feet of each other. I swear, I thought I was looking at some kind of very little man (maybe eighteen inches in height), and was quite stunned and literally speechless. I bent over to make sure I had a very clear look at what I thought I was looking at, and my face and his (the creature) were, at one point, perhaps twelve inches apart. I was still speechless, but the friend closest to me blurted out, ‘it’s a little man.’ I turned to look at him, and then past him to my other friend, who immediately followed up with, ‘it’s a skunk!’ I turned back to the creature, and it now appeared to be a skunk. So, the creature turned and ran back the way it came while we turned and ran back the way we came, and the event ended. I know this is not some kind of recollection of a dream or something, because for years after the event my friends would still poke fun at each other with the phrase, ‘it’s a little man!’ any time something even slightly unusual or unexpected happens, and no matter what anybody tells me, and in opposition to any way I might have described this event to others since then, what I saw when I bent over was a little man. Short curly hair. No hat. Suede-like garb, apparently hand-made. Guessing its age, he most resembled a human only a few years older than I was at the time (mid-twenties, perhaps?). I hold an MA in psychology and am working on turning that into a PhD, so I do not speak of this often, but there it is, for the record. End-note, I have recently (within ten years) been involved in regression-type experiments in which I was to be arbitrarily regressed to some point in my youth as part of the process. I asked the hypnotist if it would be alright to regress to a specific event – this one (without giving him any details of the true experience) – and he agreed to do so. In that regression, I re-experienced the event vividly, and it closely coincided with my memory except for two details: i) the regression was much better lit than the original experience, and ii) in the regression, what I saw when I turned back after *** said ‘it’s a skunk’ was more of a dense, black and swirling mist than any sort of creature. ‘The easiest comparison would be to the portrayal of Samwise Gamgee in the film series Lord of the Rings, but quite short, and no cape.’ ‘It looked quite human, and quite solid.’ ‘This isn’t exactly what I would have expected a fairy to look like, and perhaps it was in fact something else? I don’t delve much into the topic.’