Kenny writes "I had an encounter in 2005 about a week after hurricane Katrina. I’m from a small town about an hour north of New Orleans called Ponchatoula. We didn’t get any structural damage but we did get a lot of downed trees. I was about ten years old and living with my grandparents. For the next couple of weeks after the storm me and my grandpa would clear as much of the trees and other crap out of the yard. After a few days we were starting to run out of clean clothes so my grandma had me go out to the pond in our backyard to get some water so that she could boil up and wash some clothes in this big 55 gal pot we had (typically used for crawfish) because we still didn’t have any power. I didn’t think much of it and went out there with some buckets. For some backstory we only lived about 3 miles aways from Manchac Swamp and were surrounded by pine forest except for the 7 acres of land we lived on which was clear except for about 30 pecan trees. Anyways, when I went down the bank I heard a bunch of noise like trees crashing from the other side of the pond. I started watching over there and then what I thought was a bear came out of the woods and stopped at the opposite side of the bank. I knew we had a few black bears in the swamp but had never seen any so I just stood still to watch it. After what felt like a few minutes I saw it reach into the water and snag up a catfish (cats were the only fish we kept stocked in the pond). Being a 10 y/o who loved nature I thought that was pretty cool until it stood up and stretched. The kind of way someone who just woke up would with its arms reaching up to the sky. I could see that it still had the catfish in its hand. Seeing that thing stand up I froze. I don’t think it ever noticed me because as soon as it got done stretching it simply turned around and went right back the way it came. After a few minutes when I couldn’t hear it anymore I just ran inside and needless to say we didn’t get any laundry washed that night. I never saw or heard anything else after that but yeah that’s my story and just thought that I would share.”   Dusty writes "I've been thinking about writing you for a while now but haven't committed to the idea yet; well here goes. I have had many strange encounters with paranormal and supposedly "unknown" or at least "unpublished" entities. I had a sasquatch road crossing encounter when I was a kid. It was pretty basic, it just ran across the road in the middle of the night while I was out with a cousin of mine. I was 12, and my mom had passed away in March of 2000, and this encounter was close to the 4th of July. After my mom died I was kind of on my own most of the time, and would get dumped off with various people from time to time because I wasn't welcome at "home". Life was pretty traumatic at the time looking back, and maybe that's why that encounter didn't really stick with me to be honest. It happens at night, probably around 0100-0300 in the morning, I had been with an older cousin of mine who was more of a child than I ever realized, and he never really grew up. But when you're 12 and life goes tits up you don't think about those things. I would hang out with him and his drunken friends a lot and cruise back roads and things like that. I started learning to drive because they're getting drunk and stupid and I'd drive people home. We were going to his house from a local lake one night, and a sasquatch just crossed the road in front of us, probably in 3 east steps, and walked into a big field headed for a creek. I turned in my seat and watched it for a few seconds. We made it to the highway and turned and headed for town in shock. We made it to his house and I didn't think I slept much, and I was just flabbergasted the next few days. But nobody cared to notice, and my cousin was so drunk and hungover he didn't remember what happened. The creature was massive, bulky, tall, upright Harry and the Hendersons looking critter. It was a breathtaking experience and it happened so quickly that it almost didn't register for a while what we saw. We both just looked at each other, wide eyed and pale as could be. I remember saying we just saw a bigfoot!!! But that was about the end of that encounter. I went into the Marine Corps at 17, and was stationed in Washington DC in late 2006, at a ceremonial unit that marches funerals in Arlington, Presidential ceremonies, among other important ceremonial jobs for the Marone Corps. Our barracks was "out in town" as we didn't have a formal "base" it is just a small post just north of the navy yard. It is the oldest post in the Corps, and has been in place since 1801. During the war of 1812 when the white house was burned by the British, the Marine barracks and Navy Yard were attacked and the Marine barracks supposedly burned down. From the stories I've heard several Marines were killed in the collapsed barracks. One night while on duty I was walking down the lower parking area, an underground secure parking garage under the barracks. I heard screaming and yelling coming from the locked, heavy steel door that closed off the electrical equipment room for the barracks. A secure concrete room with a heavy steel door. It sounds like dozens of people inside screaming and yelling to get out, rifles slamming on the door from the inside, and then it just stopped. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, the temp dropped and it was so scary down there I just took off running. I hot the stairs well closest to me and ran up several flights of stairs in dress shoes, which isn't easy to do. I made it to my duty post and didn't leave for the rest of the night. Another night I encountered another spirit down there. Another "barracks ghost story" for which there was no shortage. A young girl had been run over one night playing with her ball on the ramp between parking levels. I was on duty walking the lower parking, and as I got closer to the ramp I could hear little feet slapping the concrete, a small girl giggling and a ball bouncing up and down the ramp. She was headed down the ramp to me as I ran past. That was the last time I was ever down there after dark alone."