‘We were in the mountains for a long weekend, at cabin in the woods near water. Maybe a dozen of us just graduated from high school. It was within three hours of the SF Bay Area, but I don’t recall the exact location. We were swimming in a glacial lake, and upon arrival, everybody noticed a cave on a cliff, that we all agreed we should go explore, if we could figure out how to get up there, and to the edge. The cliff was granite or similar, and flush with the water’s edge at one end where it rose up into a mountain slope and forest. As we were swimming, we were discussing our plans to go explore. From in the water, I saw a three- to four-foot tall, almost as round [i.e. diameter] ‘somebody’ move from perfect camouflage on the cliff wall, right next to the cave’s opening, shimmy to the cave opening, cover the opening, and disappear into/as rock again. The cave was no longer visible. There was no cave where a moment before we had all seen the cave. When we got out of the water, no one talked about the cave again, and we all left and went back to the cabin. I chose not to bring it up while at the lake. From the shore, the cave was still invisible. I could see where it should have been, and it was rock wall. No one brought it up until we were back at the cabin with, ‘Hey we all forgot to go to the cave!’ I knew it was because we weren’t welcome in it.’ ‘It was stout, oblong/round in shape. Very sturdy. Looked just like the rock it inhabited, only visible in body form for a moment.’ ‘Might call it a gnome or other tribe than faery, but [it] was not alien or ghost. Certainly corporeal.’ Fairies are ‘spirits or beings that inhabit places as guardians or tenders of the vitality there’. ‘I felt very surely that the faery here was either warding us off due to his own ill temper, to keep us from invading his space, or to protect us from the danger or peril involved in the assent of the cliff. He did not want us there. I’m certain he cast amnesia into the minds of my friends. The four dudes on the trip had been planning how to get to the cliff’s cave, as a mission
§696
California, US
1990s
Female: Age 11-20
occasional supernatural experiences
on or near water
12 pm-3 pm
ten minutes to an hour
with several other people, some of whom shared my experience
you were extremely happy
aloof
loss of sense of time, a sense that the experience was a display put on specially for you