Ok, this is one I have never told anyone except my wife. It isn't scary, but definatly so weird it's crazy. I have no idea what it was, but I swear I wasn't asleep and dreaming, drinking, on drugs or anything else that would account for it. I have never even heard of anything else remotely like it. You figure it out!
It was in May of 1986 near Whitewater, Missouri in the southern foothills about 30 - 40 miles or so from Jackson. I was coming home from work, pulling my trailer and just crusing along with the window down listening to a tape of a show we'd done the week before with Narvel Felts and was driving about 50 miles per hour or so. (I'm a pokey driver, never get in very much of a hurry.) It was about 1:00 am in the early morning, the weather was warm, not a cloud in the sky, just a beautiful night. There was no other trafic on the road, didn't meet or pass anyone the whole way home on this little country road. As I topped a small hill I saw something standing on the north side of the road, right on the shoulder. When the truck headlights hit it, it threw up it's arm to block the light and stopped dead still. It was wearing clothes, looked like a forest green sort of "Robin Hood" type hood and a dark brown vest. After all these years I can still close my eyes and see the image as clear as day. I slammed on the brakes but by the time I got stopped and off on the edge of the road I was maybe 100 yards past it. I grabbed a flashlight and went running back down the road to where I had seen it. There was no sign of it. I thought I saw a slight part in the grass, but I got down on my hands and knees and looked as close as I could but there were no tracks of any kind in the hard gravelly ground on the road shoulder. I walked out into the bushes and trees in a circle around the area but saw no signs of anything being there.
The next morning I went back to the spot and looked more in the daylight, but still no signs of anything being there.
Now I know you are thinking it was just some guy in a costume. Only one tiny little problem with that theory.
Whatever I saw was somewhere between 12" and 18" tall!
Had an "old" looking face from the glimpse I got of it. All wrinkled and a big nose, but most definatly human looking. Dark skin, sort of an American Indian or Mongollian skin color.
The best guess I can make is it was a racoon or 'possum standing on it's hind legs that someone had dressed up and put a mask on.... far fetched I know, but not as far fetched as the alternative!
Just weird, but my life has been full of weird things from St. Elmo's fire, to fox-fire, will-o-the-wisps, giant hairy critters, huge pinwheel lights in the ocean....