The Man In The Snow

x77, there would be no way for someone to walk backwards off my porch. As for other recent comments, the only trees in my yard, the branches were roughly 8 feet off the ground, so no one could have brushed them and left a mound of snow. My house was very close to the road (maybe 20 feet of front yard space and there were no trees on the sides of my road, or tracks from a car (the majority of my neighbors were elderly and would not drive when there was fresh snow) anywhere on the road.

(Thanks, Tweed: I knew I was missing **something** about the process.)

Hi Kentucky,

I really enjoyed your experience mainly because I love being baffled, and this really made me think. On a much more serious note, I do hope this was a ghost and not a nasty pasty up to no good, as others have suggested. So glad you locked the door and never heard from him again!

Just wanted to leave a note for Biblio about wet and dry ground weather.

Biblio, as far as I know moisture evaporated from trees, grass, vegetation in general contributes to cloud formation and rain. Where as in a dry land location, like a desert with minimal vegetation there's minimal evaporation going on.
In Australia the farmers are constantly divided about whether or not to plant trees in order to attract rain. They know it'll work, but then the trees will block valuable sunlight for their crops.

Kentucky, were any branches around where the man would have walked? I wondered if brushing past a branch could've caused a mound of snow to fall on the path thus covering the 'way out' footprints. That would need a fair amount of snow in some very strategic places. Suggesting it just in case.😊

Greetings, Kentucky_believer;

I've read each of your narratives on YGS two or three times, now. Having them posted back-to-back is a rarity, and I appreciated your clear, descriptive writing style.

As you have included specific details in each recounting, there is one fact which seems more and more jarring each time I read it: YOU locked the door (a sensible precaution) and said 'Hello" to the stranger (again, perfectly normal), THEN the stranger **knocked** on the door and asked to come inside to use your phone. I'm in complete agreement with RedWolf's statement that, "The spirit would have taken that as an invitation to come in and stay." Even if this had been a living, breathing, physically-healthy human being who was indeed having a bad day due to car trouble in the snow, his behavior seems to be well outside of 'normal' actions.

(A hypothetical example for clarification: If I had car trouble on a snowy road and my cell phone was out of power, my less-intimidating 5'6" would still activate a chihuahua's hyperactive defensive barking, and I would not take the locking of the door personally; but after you'd said "hello?" I'd have begun speaking to you, NOT knocking on the door.)

In one of your responses, you include the information that there was a nearby police station and that a driver would have gone "to an officer of the law rather than walking to a house in the middle of the night," which overlooks one terrifying problem; had this been a living person, only someone with a serious criminal history or currently engaged in an activity of which he wished the police to remain unaware would have avoided the police station. Again, locking the door was a very sensible precaution.

Also when you and your brother looked outside to see where the individual went, you stated you found "footprints only walking from the middle of our front yard..." Do you mean that they didn't originate from the road, but that they suddenly began at a point in between the road and your porch, or did you mean that they started at the road and proceeded dead-center down the middle of your yard up to the front porch?

I don't know about the snowfall in Kentucky (I suppose it depends upon the area where you lived), but much of the state seems to be over 1,000 feet above sea level; you're liable to get lake-effect snow from the great lakes; the Appalachians act as a buffer to retain (or, at the least, to slow down) snow-laden weather patterns, and a whole lot of the state is typical karst topography with aquifers and sinkholes. [Sidenote: for reasons I've never completely understood, wet ground is more likely to attract/retain wet weather patterns while drought conditions on land seem to create an environmental pocket where wet weather is less likely. I'd have thought that cause-and-effect were the other way around, but it's more a meshing of cause-with-effect that's beyond my current knowledge of meteorological science]. If an 11-year-old (such as shelbyloree was in Flagstaff or as x77 suggested) stepped backwards into shallow snow to give the impression of a vanishing person as a prank, that's both funny and typical child's play; a 6' tall man with car trouble who is trying not to attract too much attention walking backward through your front yard to return to a presumptive broken-down car would just have looked damn silly if your dad investigated, and when you & your brother opened the door. Even then, if the snow were quite deep, say 14-to-17 inches (as on January 23, 2016), it would be obvious from the collapsing-in of the front part of the footprint that he'd walked backwards.

This experience is an odd one, and the more I think in-depth about the details, the less sense it makes.

Please let me know if I've gotten any of the data wrong, here, or if I'm misrepresenting your experience.

Best,
Biblio.

P.S.: While looking into Kentucky's terrain and weather patterns, I've discovered that Owsley County in spring, Boyle County in autumn, and Clinton County in the summer all look very lovely. The Kentucky winters, though, you may keep. 😉

I just have a couple questions-What time of the day did this happen? You stated it was after a long day so I'm thinking evening/early night. And the second question is how long between going to your parent's room and you opening the door with your brother? I am thinking that's why you didn't see any sign of your visitor upon your return. I have also seen people standing in the snow and then found no signs of a person there. Now if you had the footprints just leading away that could be explained (wind, weather, time) but just leading up to the porch, unless he was a very intelligent thief, I can't explain.

kentucky_believer

When I was about 16 I heard crunching in the fresh snow through a slightly open bathroom window. I looked out of the window and saw a boy about my age wearing a denim jacket running through our back yard. I told my parents right away and my father went out to check to see if the kid went into the garage. He came back in 5-10 minutes later looking quite shaken. My mother asked him what happened. He said there were NO foot prints at all but his.

Your father was smart to tell you not to open the door. The spirit would have taken that as an invitation to come in and stay.

Regards
Red

Maybe he walked backwards on his previous footprints. My guess. Lol
😁

Sds the house was not very old, only about 8 years older than I am, and no I moved away. We had no other neighbors with houses in the same direction as us, so the footprints would have had to move away from our yard. We did look to see if there were any cars broken down in the area of our house (which was near a police station, so anyone would have went to an officer of the law rather than walking to a house in the middle of the night) but there was nothing explainable.

Hello kentucky_believer, thanks for sharing. But quite difficult to comment except that it was quite strange as to how that there were no footprints of going away.

Did you do any investigation about the incident, like making some inquiries to your neighbours, elders and about the history of the house? It might give us some clue.

Are you still living in that house? If so and if the incident had happened, not so long, you can still investigate.

If you have done already, kindly share it with us.

Regards and respects to you.

SDS

Shelbyloree No, just to the door from the center of our front yard in fairly powdery snow where tracks would've changed shape if he had taken the same path or he would have left more.

He didn't walk around the porch or through some mud elsewhere?

In Arizona where the snow would melt in a day (Flagstaff) I would sometimes manage to hop back over my tracks successfully, to not leave more, but I was also 11.

I would think you would have seen him walking back down the street or around the neighborhood knocking on other people's doors, rather than vanishing into thin air.

Shlebyloree sadly no, or it may have made more sense; this was a completely different house in a different town, and this man was much larger and obviously younger.

Is this the same guy you were having dream of in the bloody shirt and who opened your cupboards?

If so he is acting like he's confused and not sure if he is welcome at the house. He may have died unexpectedly and now isn't sure where to go or what to do.

Wow Kentucky_believer I too live in Kentucky and have had lots of strange things happen... I seen a man walking on the side of the road one night who looked like my dad and when I stopped and turned around he was gone and when I got home my dad was in bed sleeping so I know it wasn't my dad

Miracles51031 Thank you for your comment and sharing your experience with me! I hope you someday get an explination.

kentucky_believer - I had a similar experience only mine was boot prints (like cowboy boots) heading up the steps. None going back down the steps, nor did they go up on the porch. They were wet from the dew, not snow like yours. I have never been able to explain that or figure it out.

I shared this just to let you know I believe you 😊