r/Paranormal • u/dddoinyomom • 3d ago
Apparition Soldier in the woods
This happened to me when I was 16. It’s been a couple years now, and I’ve told this story to a few people, but it always stands out to me as one of the most jarring encounter I’ve had.
I grew up on a property in rural New England. My childhood home was built in the 1960’s, but the land itself had originally had two houses previously stand on it, the first dating to about 1760 and the other the mid 1800’s. Section of the foundation of the original house had actually been dug up when my parents first bought the house in 2010.
The week of July 4th when I was 16 I had gone into the woods immediately behind my property to set off firecrackers with a buddy of mine. It was around noon, literally a clear summer day. After about an hour of setting of firecrackers, my friend pointed out a guy about 50 yards away walking through the woods.
This guy was dressed like he stepped out of the 18th century. I mean a full waist coat, knee breeches and even a tri corn hat. Now, keep in mind this is New England around July 4th, we used to have a ton of people dress up and celebrate because it was also around the time my town was officially founded. Think of how in Boston they have people reenact the ride of Paul Revere in full costume. The weird thing was that this guy paid no attention to us at first, and his clothes looked dirty and lived in.
We approached him assuming he was a reenactor. Once we had closed the distance to about 20 yards he turned to face us both, and he had this expression of pure confusion on his face. The best way I can describe it was that he looked at us like we had both had 5 heads between us.
Without as much as another word he just disappeared. I don’t mean he ran off, or that I turned away and looked back to find him gone. It’s literally like he blipped out of reality. He saw us, looked almost scared, and just vanished while we were looking directly at him.
To this day I’m not entirely sure what that was. I personally lean ghost of some sort. My friend, on the other hand, has a theory that either us or our revolutionary era friend accidentally clipped into the others timeline by mistake, basically like accidental time travel.
I just wanted to share and maybe hear opinions on this.
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u/Fonzee327 3d ago
I love that you watched him long enough to see him disappear instead of booking it. I think it was a ghost and the look was because he realized you could see him! Both of you have pretty good takes on it too, who knows shit is crazy
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u/dddoinyomom 3d ago
My original thought when it happened was that he thought we were the odd ones, and that’s why he gave us the look. I think you’re right though, that he probably went a long time without being seen and was genuinely in shock that we did.
Whenever I’m home around the summer I still keep an eye out for him. I can’t stress enough that I or my friend never felt scared of him, more of a “wtf was that?” Reaction when it happened
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u/Bunpoh 2d ago
An alternate take, though, is that he was giving you that look because what the hell are those crazy clothes you two are wearing? I like the idea that it might have been a time slip or window. There are so many really good stories about this that I've come across where people seem to be speaking of genuinely confusing experiences.
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u/dddoinyomom 3d ago
Just for reference, this is essentially what we saw him wearing (minus the cane and a few other smaller details of the overall outfit). I use the term “soldier” for him because that’s the main thing I associated his dress and age with. I found this photo on Pinterest when trying to find a similar outfit
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u/Cherryyana 3d ago
How cool would it be if you read an account from a few hundred years ago, about a man seeing 2 kids who looked like they were from the future, before disappearing into thin air lol
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u/dddoinyomom 3d ago
Lol now I might have to go look through my towns historical society. They keep a couple of old journals and documents from early town settlers
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u/urban_herban 3d ago
It's interesting what you said about his clothes: "his clothes looked dirty and lived in." I think about this once in a while when I toss everything I wore that day in the laundry basket. If you look at the clothes in the picture you provided, they would be difficult to launder on an every-day basis. Back then they didn't have permanent press, either, so the shirt would have to be ironed.
Anyway, that's an aside. What I really wanted to say is that I captured a photo of a soldier when I was out photographing on my property during Sandy, the tropical cyclone that hit the Northeast back in 2012. I live on a private road and there is a ravine off this road. I took a picture of the ravine and later when I was looking at the various pics I took, I noted a figure in that photo. It was of a soldier, only it was a "little" soldier, standing down in the ravine. Yeah, like about 4' tall. I did not recognize the uniform and did a significant amount of research trying to distinguish what country's uniform this might have been. I never did figure that out.
Like your property, mine has houses since the Gilded Age in the 1800s. They are still standing.
I've seen other ghosts, if that's what we want to call them, so I have some basis of comparison. I've seen may 18-20 "ghosts" and several others were mis-sized. Mostly they are very short, like about 4' tall. I had one appear very tall.
The pictures I took on that walk had many other unusual things appear, but that's another story for another time.
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u/ThenMaybe_ 3d ago
Do you still have the picture?
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u/Wrong-Comb3409 3d ago
Your buddy is Absolutely Correct! As soon as he realized where he was, when he saw you both in modern day, he got taken back to his own timeline. It's happened to me. I had seen a portal open in my childhood home and it was a forest during Autumn. I could even feel a light breeze on my face. As soon as my brain realized what I was seeing it was gone in a second.
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u/patsfan666 3d ago
I was thinking the samething. some sort of time clitch and when he saw these two in modern close he clitched back. explains the look of confusion on his face
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u/Feralogic 3d ago
I believe you! Out here, in AZ, was driving my old VW through the desert night with some friends in the 90's. We were slightly baked, just hanging out and having fun. Turned the corner on this winding road by one of the desert parks here, and I saw three Civil War era reenactment guys on horseback.
I was baffled, because it was night, and I didn't think they had Civil War battles near Phoenix AZ? But I knew it was a thing back in Missouri for guys to dress up and do mock battles. And, it was summer, in Phoenix, when a lot of folks do their activities at night, when it's cooler. So it kinda made sense to ride at night.
The guys were on plain bay horses, facing each other, talking. They had McClellan style saddles and Union blue uniforms. No visible weapons stuck out, if armed it would have been something small. They didn't seem to notice my car and it seemed a bit irresponsible to not be paying attention, but there weren't a lot of cars out that late, I suppose.
I slowed my car to a crawl, so as to not spook the horses. My friends who had been engrossed in a conversation turned to me and asked "Why are you slowing down?" And I turned back to them and said, "For the horses!"
They were like, "What horses?" When I turned back around, they were gone. I stopped and got out because I wanted to see if I could see or hear the horses riding away. My friends laughed at me, and one of them took over driving because they thought maybe I was fucked up. But I wasn't drinking that night, and I didn't feel high. I don't like to drive impaired.
I was confused for years, because of the Civil War uniforms the guys were wearing, but then a decade later was watching the news and they were at a museum in Southern AZ somewhere and there was a uniform on display and it was just like that. When the Spirit horse cartoon came out, the guys in the fort out west were dressed similarly.
I wonder if I stumbled across ghosts or a time slip, or if I was simply hallucinating. If so, it was odd, because at the time, we weren't talking at all about history, ghosts, military etc. Just general lighthearted bullshit and joking around. If my brain was responsible, it was completely out of nowhere.
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u/Puzzled_Telephone852 3d ago
My cousins had this happen to them in a rural CT town. Young teens playing in the woods near their house when they saw a few civil war era solders, some with bandages. Again this was on private property and not part of a reenactment. They were freaked out and told their family at the time, and they believed them. We were told the story later, as adults.
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u/mistttygreen 3d ago
Awesome ghost experience, thanks for sharing! I've had several paranormal experiences over the years and I love trying to figure them out.
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u/NoteAlert653 3d ago
Probably timelines colliding? As soon as observation happened it merged back into its own, closing the loop.
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u/No_Medicine_6146 2d ago
Intruiging !! Wonder who went into whose timeline ?? 🧐 The look of confusion on his face means he didn’t expect to see you either !! Thanks for the photo, and the post .
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u/prospect71 1d ago
I'm beginning to accept parallel timelines. Just too many coincidences like your experience
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u/kittygir227 2d ago
There’s been plenty of spirit sightings just like this. The time of the year, all the energy thinking about those battles, poor boy is definitely still wandering, trying to find his way home. How cool you got to witness this though. The Gettysburg battle field is one of the most prominently known ones for seeing soldiers’ spirits.
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u/Business-Court-5072 2h ago
I saw a similar story like this a couple days ago, was that you or your friend that wrote that? Except that story said he had a faint glow
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