Otherworldly 'Tentacled' Creature Encountered in Southern Arizona Desert

This story is unique and yet had no direct consequence to the witnesses. It is almost as if they were tasted.  

The event began at a serious distance and then approached almost imperceptably like a dust covered balloon.  It may even have been a slime mold balloon covered with dust drawn by curiosity.

They sat still for all this which suggests mental interaction.  The rest of us would have stood up and tossed a stick.  Then it interacted by rolling over them and disapating then and there.  Again slime mold behavior.

The dust coating likely brought it to earth if we are talking about such a thing.  It is then noteworthy such a thing is able to move along the ground.

Otherworldly 'Tentacled' Creature Encountered in Southern Arizona Desert

https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2022/05/otherworldly-tentacled-creature.html

Sunday, May 08, 2022

Two brothers camp together in the southern Arizona desert at night, when they notice a large bizarre-looking mass slowly creeping towards them. The experience is otherworldly and unexplained.

I received the following account from Kyle & Cam at Expanded Perspectives:

"First, I don’t have all the details. There’s obviously a greater story here, a bigger picture, and I’ve only had a small glimpse of it. An experience that lasted for only a few short minutes, with the “event” constituting maybe forty-five seconds. But I can’t explain what happened in those forty-five seconds; can’t wrap my head around it, or reconcile it with what I know about the natural world and life, specifically the potential for life’s development when not checked by some ever-present environmental stressor or predator.

A few years ago, I got a call from my brother in Arizona, asking if I wanted to visit, maybe do a little hiking, eat at some Mexican restaurants he thought I’d like, etc. He’d just gotten some big bonus at work, and wanted to spend it on some brotherly time. I had a few vacation days saved up at work, so I agreed and took the necessary time off.

Nothing of interest happened on the way there, and we met without any issue. He showed me around Phoenix, Tempe, and Chandler, and treated me to some food. Two days went by and we branched out in our explorations of the state, visiting Sedona and a few other areas. I was set to leave on the third when he suggested that we end my stay doing something outside. We’d already gone hiking, but he wanted to do another outdoorsy thing since he knew I wouldn’t be able to once I went back home, where the weather was snowy/rainy.

We found a decent place to camp for a day in southern Arizona, somewhat near the border, not far off from where we had hiked the day before. With Arizona being a desert, there was plenty of land and open space for us to spread out our stuff and relax. The drive there—which lasted a couple of hours—gave us time to chat, and listen to the few bands we mutually enjoy.

We brought the usual camping supplies: tents, food & water, flashlights, flares, a radio, etc. It was just one day, an evening, and a night, really; so we only brought the basic (i.e cheapest) necessities. His truck was parked about half a mile away from the campsite, to preserve the “camping” atmosphere, whilst keeping it at a reasonably accessible and visible distance.

We spent most of the evening just talking, catching up on anything we hadn’t covered the first two days, and eating the leftover food we’d saved from past restaurant dinners. There was no one else out that we could see, and the nearest road was about two miles from where we had parked the car. It was mostly flat desert in every direction; a cozy desolation.

Around 10pm, just after we had finished dinner and gathered up our trash, we both saw something off to the north, about half a mile from camp. A mound in the desert, but one that moved; seeming to inch toward us every few seconds. Not continuously, but in steady lurches, as if the energy or effort for each motion needed to be mustered. The mound was the same color as the sand, but even from the distance we had initially spotted it, we could tell that it wasn’t made up of sand. The surface, while sand-colored, was fuzzy, in a way that was highly uncomfortable to look at for more than a few seconds. I remember turning to my brother and seeing him wince and rub his eyes. I’d had the urge to do the same.

For whatever reason, a mixture of awe and fear, maybe, we stayed put; didn’t move until the thing was only a few yards away. At that distance, the size of the thing finally registered to me. It was huge, an immense body that towered over us. I’m sure the sheer flatness of the area made it seem larger than it really was, but sitting before it, looking up at this wall of uncanny fuzziness, really gave the impression of enormity.

I’ve spoken with my brother several times since then, and each time we try to recall and describe the thing, we come up with new descriptions. Not necessarily new details, but new...forms, structures. We generally tend to settle on the admittedly odd description of a “huge and dry washcloth.” One that’s been thoroughly used and left out for quite some time—scaled well beyond useable proportions. A haphazard shape, not necessarily formless, but spread out. Another description, one I offered, was a “hideously blossoming flower.” The ugly petals unfurled, some larger than others, but without any uniform center. There were no eyes, no feelers, antennae or identifiable sense organs. Only the massive, ever-mobile body.

If given the means, the easiest way I could replicate the thing’s overall structure would be if I were to take a ball of light-brown clay or dough, pull at it in every direction, and then insert tiny, almost microscopic pins all over its surface. Thousands of them. Then, somehow, make those pins vibrate, and give the dough itself a sort of buzzing, almost breath-like animation. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s honestly the clearest idea I can give; the best reproduction of how the thing idled.

We stared at it without speaking, both feeling something more than just basic fear. When it got really, uncomfortably close, I felt sick—not queasy or nauseous, but more like delirious. As if being in close proximity to it had caused some sort of sudden neurological issue. While I didn’t recognize it at the time, looking back now, I’m certain that my mind had simply been unable (or independently unwilling) to fully grasp the thing’s appearance. It was so unusual, so unprecedented.

One of the parts (tentacles, tendrils, even the more general term “appendages” all feel weirdly inaccurate) drifted by me, in what could’ve been a missed attempt at contact, or simply another motion of self-propulsion, and I felt the space around me...shift, get pulled away in the wake of the part. I was suddenly aware, acutely, intimately aware of the space I occupied; somehow became highly sensitive to the particles or whatever, and noticed, palpably, how the “stuff” of that space had been drawn away from me.

This interaction, phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, scared me more than the sight of the creature itself. The revelation that it could somehow subtract or brush aside the elements, the essence of the air, was absolutely terrifying.

I heard my brother utter and then quickly stifle a cry, and turned toward him just in time to see the passage of another part over his head, this one much larger than the one that had swept by me. The thing was now over us, and I expected to find teeth or a gaping maw or something like that beneath it. I think, at the time, I had mentally associated its appearance with that of an octopus, or a starfish; some multi-legged, water-inhabiting creature, but having thought about it a lot, I can confidently say that neither is close enough for a worthwhile comparison. Their anatomies are too ordered.

But there was just more of the same beneath it. More of that pulsing, buzzing, prickly flesh, which was so disconcerting to look at it. Since it hadn’t tried to eat or attack us, I got the idea that maybe it couldn’t see or sense us; so, I turned to my brother and mouthed, “Don’t move.” he didn’t nod or mouth anything back, but it was obvious that he’d already decided to stay still, likely out of sheer terror.

We’ve had our disagreements about the exact amount of time we spent beneath it, but agree that it the thing’s passage took between twenty and forty-five seconds. It had felt much longer than twenty seconds to me, maybe because I was so hyper-aware of it, of its bizarreness in relation to myself. I think my brother had been numbed to his perception of time while the thing passed over him. It had obviously affected us differently.

I didn’t turn around immediately, actually waited several minutes before even turning to my brother. When I did, I saw him breathing slowly, rhythmically, obviously trying to calm himself down. I on the other hand was weirdly relaxed, at least in an immediate physical sense. Terrified, sure, but I had been so thoroughly scared by the thing’s unwholesome and unprecedented nature that my mind essentially said, “the heck with it”, and put me into a kind of blissfully apathetic state. Like, why even worry, why waste the effort of being hysterical, with something like that roaming around. Why run, you’ll just die tired, etc.

When we finally turned around, there was nothing to be seen. Just the same flat desert we had gazed upon earlier in the day. I saw the truck, just where we’d park it, and that was the only sizeable thing in sight for miles. The sand before and behind was disturbed as if something inordinately large had rolled, crawled, and swept by (all actions at once) but there were no droppings, no slime; nothing to specifically, empirically attest to the creature’s presence.

We actually spent the rest night out there, speaking to one another only when we needed something; a bottle of water, a bag of jerky, etc. We’d brought a radio, but neither of us bothered to use it. I had my earphones but didn’t take them out or use my phone for anything. Having just witnessed something so profoundly weird, there wasn’t anything on the internet that could’ve amused, entertained, or intrigued me. We both, for hours, sat in silence. I remember sleeping, but couldn’t tell you if I dreamed. My brother never mentioned dreaming—on that night—either.

In the morning we packed up our things, quietly walked back to the truck, and then drove back to his house. We had a farewell breakfast at a diner not too far from the airport, and then I flew back home. We didn’t discuss the experience until almost a year later; both having needed time to process our thoughts.

It wasn’t like seeing a wild animal, or a car crash, or a building collapse, or anything...worldly, mundane. There was an element of the unreal to it, something beyond the natural order of the Earth, and Man’s own creations. But at the same time, the thing had seemed so comfortable with our world, so relaxed and assured of its place among a planet of insects, wolves, starfish, and humans.

I don’t know what we saw, but I do know, that’s probably the last time I’ll ever visit Arizona." George

If you wish to comment on this Phantoms & Monsters post, please go to Phantoms & Monsters Post Comments