Posted by neil johnson on February 4, 2006, 2:47 pm
12.221.171.64

I am a stable, logical, and truthful person. Let me also say that I am having difficulty finding a message board that specifically deals with real life sightings of werewolves, or wolf-men. I don't know whether it is silly to post a message about having possibly encountered a werewolf on a message board that seems to deal with fiction or poetry written about werewolves, or if this message board of that type, but whatever...I'm posting anyway. Okay. It was January 1999, and I was a second- year undergraduate student at Illinois State University. A few of my buddies were visiting the university on one of those 'explore our campus' trips, and were staying in my dorm room for the nite. We had been doing the annoying "we're twenty years old and we're playing drinking games" thing, but the situation had not gotten out of control or anything; it was just your usual catching-up with each other type of evening. We decided to call it a night, as my roommate is a lite sleeper and had an exam in the morning. It may be important to note that the dorm where I was living was situated so that our seventh floor room had a panoramic view of the nite moon. I know this, because on the clear, moonsoaked nites of this particular winter, it was always difficult to fall asleep. My roommate constantly complained about this phenomenon. Anyway, we were calling it a nite, and I told my friend, Dogg, as he was heading to the bathroom for a final piss, to make sure he locked the door when he came back in. Our dorm room proper was situated across the hallway from the stairway door, and we had had previous problems with theft/breakin attempts. Well, Dogg had a piss, and came back to the room, forgetting to lock the door. I had already fallen asleep, and so did not notice that he forgot. Perhaps an hour or two later, I was awakened by the door opening, as lite filtered into the room from the hallway. The door closed quietly. I rolled over in bed (to face the wall), assuming that one of the guys had gone for another piss. Moments later, someone was lifting my blanket, trying to crawl in bed with me. The person was forceful, but not overly rowdy about doing this, and I assumed one of my guests was sleep-walking or was messing with me. I kind of elbowed the person and mumbled some half-asleep thing, and the person silently got up and out of my bed. I turned over to look, and I was shocked at what I saw. Moving quietly through the room towards the moonglowing window (it was close to a full moon this nite)was a somewhat hairy, barefoot man of medium stature (5'10" 160 lbs), clad in too-small blue sweatpants, and a white T-shirt. And there was something really wrong with his face and head...Really, REALLY wrong. Like as in, everything relating to his head was nightmarish, and didn't make any ####ing sense at all. Let me describe it. For one thing, his head size was very much disproportionate in relation to his body (25-30% larger than it should have been). His hair could be described as a tall, bristly-brown Elvis-style boufont, very coarse in texture. The mass of hair was like a helmet that extended downwards onto the forehead and neck, further than any human's hair really should have, ending in pig-like bristles above the eyebrows. On the sides of the head, there were what could be described as sideburns gone wild. They were mutton chops; thick, and also pig-bristled in texture, bearing no resemblence to human facial hair. The man's neck muscles were tightened, corded by tendons which seemed to stretch diagonally, all of the way to his shoulders. The size of his head and neck, again, was just not humanly possible. The (man's?) face was even more shocking. The skin was of a waxen, gray-brown palor, and covered with grotesque bumps. The bumps were like extensions of normal human facial features that had been altered nightmarishly, and were located on the cheekbones, and in the wrinkles of the brow. These bumps also sprouted bristly hairs. The nose and mouth were semi-fused, as though the man had jammed a large orange slice in his mouth and was holding his lips pursed shut, pushing his upper lip towards his nose and eyes. More horrifying than all of these attributes were the man's eyes. They were large, and saucer-like; the whites were white/yellow,and bulging from their sockets noticeably. There was a shiny glaze cast over the eyes, and they held a strange expression that mingled fear, confusion, and calculated rage- not unlike the stare of a cornered animal. The eyes were focused directly on me, because the man had turned to realize that I was awake, frozen flat on my back, and staring at him in terror. He moved towards me, and for what seemed like minutes (probably only 15 or 20 seconds), he stood over me with his fists clenched, breathing eratically and heavily. His stare bored holes in me, as he moved his eyes to trace my outline. I felt like he was sizing me up. Every few seconds, he would look directly into my eyes, with the same cold stare of hatred/fear. I knew full-well what it was that I was seeing, but at the time, I was trying to convince myself that it was a nightmare, or that I was hallucinating, or that I had temporarily lost my mind. The guy looked almost exactly like the classic portrait of a person in the transitory phase of becoming a wolf. It occurred to me that somehow, every cheesy 80's horror movie depiction of a werewolf was dead nuts accurate in relation to what I was now seeing. I mean, this guy literally WAS teenwolf, and I had never been more terrified in my life, nor will I ever be again. By this time, my friend, Dogg, who had forgotten to lock the door, was waking up. He rolled over to on the floor to see the side profile of the man standing over me, and started to freak out. He was yelling, "What the F&*%k are you?!?" over and over again. For the first time I spoke (actually I screamed like a woman) at the man. "Get the F$%#k out of my room!" Then something inexplicable happened. The man walked to the door, flipped on the room lite, and proceeded to check out his reflection in the mirror. After doing this for a few moments, the man turned towards us and shot us a glare of pure anger and hatred, which flickered like lightning back and forth like between Dogg and I. It was the most disturbing, frightening, INTENSE thing thing I have ever witnessed. I'm really glad that my buddy had woken up, because I would still be questioning my sanity to this day. The man (well, WEREWOLF, I guess)then turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Dogg bolted from the floor to lock the door. We could hear the guy walking down the hallway, and the noise from his bare feet as they padded across the hall tiles was something I can never forget- Clicking toenails were audible, as was a wet/sticky sound that accompanied each foot- step. Dogg and I called the campus cops, and briefly described what we saw, of course, to their cavalier disbelief. We filed a report, and I was called to the police station the next day to 'identify' a lineup of pictures based on the description that we had given. It seems that the campus cops had gathered up a bunch of long-haired, bearded students who were of the generalized, 'campus hippy' variety. None of these dudes looked even vaguely close to the guy that I had seen the night before. Later, I found out that a few female students living in the dorm had been attacked by a hideously ugly man with strange hair and bad sideburns, who had been hiding in the bushes outside of the dorm buildings. This all had taken place during that same night, and in the night preceeding our 'visit' with the man. I was vaguely familiar with one of the women attacked, and I asked her about the man. She described him as "Fugly...with sideburns...wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt...no shoes...Breathing heavy...Had really 'psycho' eyes..." Same ####in' guy, most likely. She told me that he had grabbed her as she walked past, and she had screamed "Rape!", and kicked and scratched him to get free. Before she could get inside the dorms, he was high-tailing it for the empty drainage ditch that runs past the dorms and through town. She said she called the cops, describing the guy as "real scary-looking", and "not-all-there". Anyway, I am obviously not a werewolf writer; I know little about werewolf folklore, and the only reason why I posted this sighting story is because I believe it to be of general interest to those who have a fascination with werewolves. This story is of absolute truth, although I am wondering if any of the details about the physical attributes that I have noted in my account are systematic with what experts typically know or believe about what a werewolf is, or looks like. I have told this story innumerable times at campfires, Halloween parties, etc., and everyone who knows me, except Dogg (The only dude awake to witness the shit)is skeptical, or thinks that I am exaggerating. Even Dogg, the most logical guy that I know has tried to 'talk himself out of' the reality that we faced that night. Was it a Werewolf? Was it just a really ugly, confused, and possibly stoned man? Scientists speak of the mask-like appearance and distortion of neck muscles and facial features that drugs like PCP can cause, but what about the hair, and the eyes? Would the college theatre department have had access to really convincing special effects make-up, etc., to pull off some kind of elaborate ruse? If so, who would waste their time, risk arrest, etc. Again, someone should email me (neiljohn17@yahoo.com), I would really appreciate insight from someone who has even armchair knowledge on the subject. I Appreciate the time you have taken to read this post...