Written Confession: Surrounded By Swirling Black Clouds and the Sound of Church Bells in a German Forest

The following written confession was shared via Reddit by Kamasylv:

So, today is Sunday, a day I usually go out to hike a route I hiked many, many times. I don't anymore. But I had to think of it today, this experience is roughly 2.5 years old now and I haven't gone back to my old routine since then.

I live in a pretty small rural village in Germany. Less than 200 people live here, not much around here besides fields, forests, cows, sheep, a donkey and 2 horses. Directly outside of the house I live in, is a road to the right which leads into a field and then into a pretty thick forest. The route I usually take is around 18 km long or 11 miles for the US readers (I will simply stick to miles, to keep it simple). It doesn't sound like much, but the route is very rough, It's uphill almost the entire time and the forest has no "roads" so you actually walk through rough terrain with thick tree roots and bushes etc.

Anyway, I walk this exact route 1-2 times per week and usually when It's already dark outside, I wear a headlamp for when It's too cloudy out and the moon isn't nicely visible, so I don't trip or get hurt. Why at evening/night? Because I'm usually on the phone with a good friend talking, we live very far apart, It's day for her when It's night for me. I don't mind, because that way, I don't feel alone hiking.

Info dump, because I deem it important:

For people who are not familiar with German forests, the most dangerous thing you may encounter is a wild boar, so It's usually pretty safe to just wander around. Almost no wolves where I am and even if, they would be way too "shy" to just show themselves. Bears are not a thing here, also no crazy people living inside the forest, the only thing you encounter is the farmer who drives up like 1-2 miles into the road to check on his livestock, after that It's all forests, no fields anymore anyway.

Now to the weird thing I experienced:

Headlamp on, airpods in, talking to my friend, catching up. For the first 5 miles or so, nothing weird happened, I even had the headlamp off, though I wore it on my head, the moon was making enough light and once your eyes adjust to the dark, you can see quite well, as long as you don't sprint around the forest. Though once I was in the deeper part of the forest, my airpods started making weird sounds, almost like I was losing connection, but I could hear her voice still, it was more like a background buzzing, it wasn't actually interfering with my call. This buzzing went on and after 20 minutes or so, I suddenly noticed that I couldn't see as well anymore as I could.

The moon was blocked by clouds, but these clouds didn't look like normal clouds. They looked like thick walls of fog just way higher up than fog should be - I know It's hard to picture but...clouds usually look fluffy or thinned out, these seemed heavy and...wet? It's hard to describe. I told my friend to hold on for a minute, because I had to focus on something (Idk why I said that, but focusing on her talk was disrupting my "view" for whatever reason lol, sensory overload I guess).

The thing I had to focus on was a huge, thick, deep black cloud. It kinda pushed itself through the fog like clouds and positioned itself right over me, almost as if it was trying to throw a shadow around an area I was in. The cloud also started to "swirl" in the middle slightly and that was when my connection just fell flat. I got the beeping sounds you get when you lose connection and gone was my phone call. No more bars, no mobile data. Nothing. BUT my airpods were still buzzing like crazy in my ears.

That's when I felt uneasy, neck hair standing up, cold sweats on my back and I started turning around to leave, because the way ahead just seemed a lot more dark and sinister than my way back. The moment I turned around and started...well slightly jogging back because I felt scared, was when I started to hear....bell sounds? Almost like church bells, but the sound was deeper, that typical "ring" you hear after a bell sound was just stuck in the air and it was giving me this weird sensation as if my bones were suddenly rubbing against each other. It was extremely freaky, all I remember is that I started to go from walking back to jogging back to running back trying to leave the forest and go back to the fields where you start. I didn't look back while running, but I could hear the bell sound getting weaker the further away I got and the fog like clouds were becoming less and less until I finally left the forest and I was back to a normal sky, thin clouds and the moon.

Once I got back home, I simply undressed, went into the shower and went to bed. Thinking I just simply got spooked today or maybe I was exhausted and my brain went haywire. I don't know. But I never saw a cloud like that in my life and church bells are not a thing late at night inside a forest.

Never went back to hike that route. Never told anyone, because I'm a bit embarrassed. But I had to think of it today.