A listener writes “This happened to me on 1/25/24 at the Poverty Point UNESCO World Heritage site in Louisiana. The park includes several native American mounds from 3,000-1,100 BC and semicircular earthworks. The tallest mound is about 6 stories high with a modern staircase leading to the top.
There are many details that, as I’ve been researching, point out things I noticed but didn’t really register at the time. The more I learned the more dots connected… I was aware of skinwalkers but didn’t know much about them.
So I want to tell this as it played out and what I was thinking as it happened, then go into why I think it was a skinwalker. I don’t have any video of the actual skinwalker but I have a few videos of eerie howling in the woods.
I was on my way back to Mississippi from Texas on a work trip and stopped at a gas station off I-20. I was in northern Louisiana and had seen signs about the Poverty Point UNESCO World Heritage. I had read about it before and after much mental deliberation I decided to drive the extra 15 minutes to check it out. The sun was starting to go down and the park had already closed so I didn’t know what to expect when I got there.
I’m driving through flat fields for farm animals and crops, the setting sun made the sky soooo beautiful. I was glad I decided to take the scenic route and make this pit stop.
As I pulled up there was no fencing or anything to prevent me from taking my self-guided tour. There were also no people. This park is miles from the nearest town so everything was quiet, the fog was dense and low to the ground, the sky was beautiful. It was the perfect atmosphere for a reflective experience.
I parked in front of the gate to the visitor center, somewhat blocking the driveway; but since it was closed I didn’t think it would matter. I walked about five minutes up the trail, which runs through the field between some of the earthworks and leads to the mounds, when I saw a car pull up behind where I had parked.
The driver got out and seemed to be inspecting my car. I thought it was a park ranger wanting me to move out of the driveway. I considered going back to see what the issue was and if I needed to move but just said screw it and kept walking.
As I followed the paved path I was looking for the stairs to get to the top. Apparently it was too dark and I missed them. I ended up walking all the way around the mound before finally finding it around where I had started. It was a nice walk though. I saw some armadillos and other wildlife. The thick mist gave off the just the right vibes. It felt like I was walking amongst Native American spirits. I imagined people 5,000 years ago, living here and creating these monolithic structures.
The mound was pretty high, about 75 feet, essentially six stories to the top. It was a truly awesome view. I spent about 20 minutes there watching the last of the sunset turn to twilight. It was almost a spiritual experience.
I noticed there were some forestry acoustics so I tested them out with a loud ‘Hello.’ The echo was pretty long and seemed to stretch for miles. So I did it again a little louder. The dark had really started to fall at this point and it was time to get back on the road. I shot one last video from the top and started to go down the stairs again.
As soon as I was descending the forest became ‘louder’. The bugs started chirping louder, the atmosphere over the course of a minute went from quiet to heavy static. That’s when I heard the first howls. I went back up to the top to check it out. For the next few minutes there were howls of what I assumed to be a coyote. I could almost point where the sound was coming from in the woods below me.
The howls were eerie… It sounded like a dog barking then would turn into loud, long howling. The sun was down with just the last bit of light before night. After about two or three minutes the howling stopped and the forest went quiet again.
I didn’t hear anything like that again. It was just a few minutes of interruption during an otherwise peaceful walk through this ancient American city. After finally descending from the mound, rather than walk back on the main path, I took the more direct way through a clearing between the woods.
It definitely wasn’t a trail, it was dark but the moon was bright enough. I didn’t want to use my flashlight because I was enjoying the natural environment and didn’t want the park rangers to notice me in case they were still there.
Even after that howling if I did notice anything weird I would chalk it up to my senses playing tricks on me.
One thing I did notice, but didn’t really let get to me at the time, was that it seemed something was following me in the forest. I would hear it when I was walking but it would stop when I would stop. I just told myself it’s some armadillos or something and kept on.
I was past the clearing and into the open field between me and my car. This field is nothing but open space and shorter grass all the way to the road. Its about 3 football fields of the semicircular earthworks, but still mostly flat. The fog is even heavier than it was earlier and more encompassing. It’s so thick that I can’t see my car so I follow the glow of the street light above it.
When I’m maybe 25ish yards from my car, a truck comes down the road. I’m going to explain this exactly as I saw it and how my brain was interpreting it. Through the fog and against the headlights I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. There seemed to be a dark silhouette coming from my left halfway between me and the road. I thought I was seeing things or it was some shadow… but then I’m like… no… it’s something… an amadillo?… no… it was a little dog… or a big dog… no, it’s someone doing the Naruto run?… oh shit it’s standing up and running on two legs, damn, the park ranger caught me and must be playing a trick on me for being here after hours and parking in the way… oh wait… okay… no… it’s leaping forward… it’s a kangaroo?… monkey?.. it’s running on all fours… okay it’s a panther…… panther coyote…? the silhouette is chasing the car. It is running with its front and back legs out then in, out then in… it’s running so fast and so unnaturally… the first car gets to the intersection and turns as another car comes up from behind. The headlights shine on the creature enough for me to see it’s lightish brown fur and limby large body… It’s still running parallel to the road and keeps chasing the second car into the darkness… This encounter probably lasted about 15 seconds as I stood there a bit stupefied. What did I just witness?
My mind wasn’t really processing what I was seeing… It looked like a bunch of different animals but also not like any of them. I’m pretty sure I can exclude park ranger from possible explanations. I call my cousin and said I’m not crazy, just stay on the phone with me for a minute while I walk to my car. I literally had to cross paths with whatever I just saw, so yes, I needed to phone a friend. I hadn’t really been nervous until the last 50 feet to my car. I thought if I’m going to be attacked this is the place. Because of the fog I wasn’t sure my car was even still there until I was much closer. I was praying no one had towed it out of the way, but there it was.
I have never been so happy to see the unlock lights come on. I get in the car, lock the doors and say to my cousin… I have no idea what the f**k I just saw. I tell him what I saw but was having a hard time describing it. I was like it was this but it wasn’t this but it was kind of this but also nothing like that. Some kind of kangaroo-monkey-pather-dag-park ranger. It ran right in front of me. There was the fog but literally nothing but a flat field of grass between me and my car.
So I’ve had a hard time trying to rule out what it could have been. I even considered a few hopping armadillos. It was way too big to be a coyote or anything smaller than a LARGE adult panther. It really wasn’t like any animal I could identify.
After getting home, since I was at a mound site I started looking at Native American myths. After some scrolling I found a drawing that looked almost the exactly like what I had seen. The website said that it was a skinwalker…
It’s so strange how well a skinwalker fits into my experience… Native American lands, the howling, the woods stalking, the shadowy silhouette shaping into a small animal, transforming to a human-form then to a large animal, chasing cars… idk… there are just a few too many similarities for comfort…
So I found out I could have seen a Skinwalker or another mythos of Louisiana Native Americans. Whatever your guess, it’s as good as mine. All I know is that whatever it was, it was a very strange something.”