Your true campfire stories of Strangeness amd Conspiracy?

Hello all, I hope life is treating everyone well.

Let me start by saying, I love , and I mean really love, reading peoples true stories about high strangeness, conspiracies / or weirdness that they have experienced.

Sometimes, after a long day stuck with my own thoughts, it is great to read of weirdness and mystery from ATS members on other parts of our Earth.

Does anyone have any true stories they feel like sharing - I would love to hear any UFO / Strangeness / Conspiracy accounts?

Ok, this is probably less wierd than you were hoping for, but "campfire" caught my eye.
Back in the 70s, kids used to have a lot more freedom than they do now. My friends & I used to go hiking & camping quite often. Later, in our early teens, this changed, especially for the girls. The only way they could get out from under their parents was lying. The only way any of us could get completely out from under adult interference was to go camping somewhere remote enough that nobody would be around. The girls had to make arrangements with farmers etc so their parents felt they were safe, ie not in contact with boys. Yeah right!

My male mates & I were by this time pretty hardcore. We went off onto the Yorkshire Moors in the middle of winter etc for no better reason than to put survival skills to the test & have a laugh. The point to grasp is that from the moment we put our boots on, in our minds, we became like the characters from our favourite fantasy novels. Rules, law? Er... For Level 0 NPCs: we were on a mission!

So 1 time, the girls managed to find a farm that would let them pitch tents about 30miles easy walk away from a great little valley we'd discovered in our ramblings. That valley was the intended rendesvous. Back then, girls were not really expected to pay for anything, but we were all skint, so since they paid for a useless campsite, we lads had to carry enough tentage, booze, food, other comestibles & equipment about 40miles from the nearest bus-stop. Bear in mind that our "map" was a sketch copied from the Ordnance Survey @the local library & that it didn't show the farm the girls had chosen exactly. A blizzard blew up about 15miles into our slog.

IDK how familiar any of you are with orienteering, but be assured, when there's heavy cloud cover & freezing sleet coming down on you in the middle of nowhere, its not easy, even with a good map. Our choices were simple: either pitch tents where we were or put on "forced march" speed so the exercise would keep us warm enough to survive.

(TBC)

(Cont from above)

The thing is, it wasn't just meeting the girls that was @stake. We could've done that @home. It was uninhibited sex, drugs &, so long as the batteries lasted, rock'n'roll. We got a spurt on to push through the pain barrier & get there more quickly. There was literally steam coming off our soaked clothing by the time we arrived & made camp - No girls. Hey ho, we were early & they were always late whatever the circumstances.

By about 22:30 we decided to scout the valley. Still no girls. So, despite the weather & probably due to an excess of endorphines, we packed up & headed off to find the farm where the girls were supposed to be.

Now, even professional soldiers will tell you that orienteering @night under overcast skies is difficult, but this was a detail our exuberance allowed us to forget. We came to a road that we believed would lead to a lane that the farm was on. We found a lane & a farm. It was about 03:30 so waking people up wasn't the plan. We scouted the area & 1 of us found a barn that girls were sleeping in. Wehey, right?

Not quite. It turned out that we were @the wrong farm, that these girls were from a totally different part of the UK & were also quite posh. Here is where it gets a little wierd.

They had been intending to hike to a tumulous on the map that was less than a mile from our "secret valley" & camp there, but the weather had put them off. Chances are we would've met them anyway b/c the valley is an obvious place to camp. Anyhoo, after a bit of chat & sharing our gubbins, a good time was had by all & we parted late next morning with smiles on our faces, phone numbers & promises to keep in touch... Er yeah. Well back then there was no internet or SMS & phone calls used to cost a lot more, compared to other living costs, than they do now. We actually had snail-mail pen-pals back when dinosaurs roamed the earth! So we all just got on with our lives & remembered it as a fun adventure with a strange coincidence. Untill... [dun dun der!] about 6yrs later...

(TBC)

(Cont from above)

6yrs-ish later, 1 of my mates moved to a part of the UK that nobody involved in this story had any connection to, in order to study. He got hit by a car, but fortunately got away with minor fractures & bruising. However, he did get knocked unconscious.

Who should he see trying her best to give him 1st aid when he came round? The very woman he'd shared a sleeping bag with that night in the barn!

Turned out that she didn't recognise him until he woke up. They both say that the moment he was conscious, their eyes met & they knew each other immediately. She was studying @the same university as my mate & lived about 5mins walk from where he did!

They've been together for 22yrs &, despite being as different as chalk & cheese & their respective families pretty much hating each other, they're still happy together & have a pair of kids who are pretty decent people.

Where it gets slightly spooky is that she hates "the great outdoors" & only went on that camping trip b/c her mates pretty much bullied her into it. When the weather turned bad, she says she was sure they were all going to die, but not just b/c of the weather: she's originally from Sussex so she imagined that the North of England is like its portrayed in the film "American Werewolf In London" (not that the portrayal is actually too far from the mark, its just that if you dont need a rod & staff to comfort you, you can camp in these valleys without fear of any evil that doesn't stem from the various rods & staffs that exist elsewhere). Its just that she was literally losing her mind with fear before they found that farm to get shelter in. We've tried to get her to come camping again. "Effin' no chance!" is the response so far...

Wait up tho... 1 time I went back to camp in that valley & dreamed of my mate's wife singing in harmony with another woman who looked just like her, but older. Turned out she has a 1/2 sister that her mum gave up for adoption that she had never met. I didn't know that...

*takes torch from under chin*