Paranormal Police Encounters: That Don’t Officially Exist
The idea that people in positions of authority are hiding things isn’t new. We’ve heard it all before. But what I’m about to tell you… It goes farther than you think. Farther than most of us can even imagine.
The truth is, they don’t just keep secrets, they choose when to look away. They decide what’s worth noticing and what’s better left alone. And the things they ignore… they do it because of fear.
Fear isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It lives in the quiet moments, in the things you don’t see. There are… entities, places, events… so terrifying that the people we trust to keep us safe won’t come near them. They won’t step forward. They won’t intervene. They simply pretend it’s not there. And that means we’re on our own.
I’m a police man in a quiet town, just north of Buffalo Springs, right over the Oklahoma-Texas line. After everything I’ve seen… after what I’ve survived, I can’t stay here. Not if I want even a single night of sleep that doesn’t feel like a trap.
The town is small, made up of people who’ve known each other their whole lives. Families that stretch back generations. It used to be farmland, the kind that swallowed you up with work and sun, but the climate has shifted. Decades of heat and drought have left the land too dry to grow anything worth a damn.
There’s one river. It swells once a year, heavy and dark, then retreats into a thin, sluggish trickle by summer. Winters are worse. Either the rain doesn’t come, and we brace for another cruel, dry season, or it comes too hard, washing away the earth and flooding homes. There’s never an easy balance.
I’ve lived here all my life. My grandparents were born and raised here, their parents before them. When they passed, they left me the property. My parents… they were never supposed to inherit it. Addiction took hold of them when I was a kid. One day, everything changed. Life as I knew it disappeared. They weren’t always like that. I’m not even sure what changed, but my grandparents didn’t trust them with the responsibility of the home and the land it stood on. So it became mine.
There’s one main road through the town, and most of the houses line it like beads on a string. Some folks have carved up their land over the years, letting others build houses or park trailers where the fields once lay.
A few side roads branch off, and that’s where the river runs, at the edge of town, mostly untouched. People rarely go there. For part of the year, it’s overgrown, wild, and empty. In the summer, it dies back again, leaving only the twisted banks and shallow water, a place most pass by without a thought.
I’ve been a police officer here for over fifteen years. There’s no chance of fame or recognition here, no big career to chase. But I was proud of what I did. I still am, in a way… though lately, that pride feels thinner, stretched tight, like the calm before a storm breaks.
Near the river, there’s a small bed and breakfast. It mostly houses travelers, people passing through, looking for a night’s rest before moving on. They arrive late, leave early, never really noticing the town itself, and certainly never paying much attention to the river.
One night, I was at home, eating a quiet dinner, when my phone rang. It was work. Reports had come in… of screaming along the riverbank. They wanted me to go and take a look.
I dressed quickly, uniform pressed, badge pinned, and headed out. The drive was short. I didn’t use the sirens, didn’t want to startle anyone already wandering the streets on their nightly routines, or possibly scare away a perpetrator.
I reached the bed and breakfast and spoke with the visitors. They were polite, uneasy, eyes darting toward the darkened riverbank. They said they’d gone for a walk, something they did every night after dinner, a little ritual of sorts. That’s when they heard it. From somewhere near the water’s edge, a scream cut through the night. Not a shout, not a yell… something sharper. Something full of terror.
They froze. I could see it in them, in their eyes when they spoke about it, the way their shoulders tensed as I asked them to describe it. After doing this job as long as I have, you can tell when someone is afraid and truly feels terror in their heart.
As they recounted what happened, I took all the notes I could. Considering that the river was thick after this season’s first rains, it was impossible to see what was happening without venturing into the brush. If there was someone there who needed help or was potentially dangerous, going in alone simply wasn’t an option.
I called in for backup. It took twenty minutes before Officer Adkins arrived, by which point the tourists were making their disapproval of our tardiness well known. I caught Officer Adkins up on all that had happened, and we readied to go in search of whoever had been screaming along the riverside.
We’d barely made it to the edge of the brush when the first scream sounded out. It was so loud that I bent my head down, ear towards my shoulder. Birds scattered into the air, from the high shrubs and grasses, and everyone who was there fell silent for a moment.
I’ve never heard a scream so loud before in my life. I felt it in my chest, like when standing too close to a speaker at a concert. The scream sounded like someone being badly hurt. We were in a potentially dangerous situation. The only good news that came from that was that it gave us a good idea of which direction to start our search.
We moved together slowly. Hands ready on our sidearms, we stepped into the shadows, each snap of a twig making our hearts hammer just a bit more in our chests. The river stretched out before us, dark and slow, banks cluttered with reeds and fallen branches. There was so much ground to cover, and only the two of us. My mind kept returning to the possibility that someone was being hurt, and we might not reach them in time.
We followed the edge, scanning every ripple, every shadow. We used our feet as we walked through the tall grass to feel for someone on the ground. Officer Adkins swung his flashlight at the slightest noise. Every rustle, every splash, set our nerves on edge.
Minutes later, we reached the place we thought the scream had come from. Officer Adkins crouched, shining his flashlight on the ground. Footprints. Small, delicate… like a woman’s or a child’s. They seemed to come out of the water itself. There wasn’t much water left in the riverbed, yet the prints carried across, in the mud, disappearing into the brush.
I trained my light across the river, but saw no signs of tracks on the opposite bank. Something, or someone, had moved through the center of that river. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched; like it was still there, just beyond the reach of our lights.
Following the footprints seemed like the only choice. The tracks were fresh, still wet, tiny. If someone was in trouble, this might be our only lead.
We stepped into the brush alongside the river, tracing the path. Ten or fifteen minutes passed. The footprints stayed clear in the mud, perfect impressions of small, careful steps. Every time I thought I might catch a glimpse of them, they remained just out of the reach of our lights.
Then… they stopped. Just vanished. No footprints, nothing. We scanned the ground, the bushes, even the low branches of nearby trees. Nothing.
Officer Adkins looked at me, eyes wide with confusion, whispering, “None of this makes sense.” – “Where could they have gone?”
Before I could answer, another scream broke the silence of the night.
This time, right beside my ear. Sharp, wet, almost liquid, and impossibly close. The hair on my arms stood rigid. I swallowed hard, and I placed my hand on my sidearm. That’s when it hit me. We weren’t following it anymore. It was leading us somewhere.
We froze, barely daring to breathe, as movement emerged through the mist along the riverbank. At first, it was just a ripple in the brush, a shadow stretching over the water. Then… she walked out and her form became clear.
She was impossibly thin, pale as the river foam, her wet hair clinging to her face like dark seaweed. Even standing in the dim light of our flashlights, she seemed almost too tall, too fluid, her limbs bending in ways that shouldn’t be human. Her eyes glimmered with something cold, intelligent, and feral. She didn’t run. She beckoned. As she stared into my eyes, something deep inside me wanted to step closer, to follow her.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” Officer Adkins called out, his voice trembling, unsure whether he was talking to a living woman or a ghost.
The moment the words left his mouth, she moved. Faster than anything natural, a blur of pale flesh and wet hair. One second, she was on the bank, the next, she slammed onto Officer Adkins’s chest.
His cry was cut short as her mouth opened impossibly wide, wider than humanly possible, teeth sharp and glistening. She clamped down on his neck, and the force of her weight pressed him into the mud at the shallow edge of the river. Water splashed over them as she began dragging him in, his struggles weak against her unnatural strength.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” I shouted, fumbling with my gun. I aimed and fired, but nothing; bullets had no effect, they just went through her. It was useless. She was no human, no living thing I could fight. Sometimes, I caught glimpses of her form blending with the mist and the water, almost see-through, impossible to hold onto with anything physical.
Officer Adkins screamed again, muffled by the river, his hands clawing at the red mud. And then, as suddenly as she had struck, she vanished beneath the water, taking him with her. The ripples calmed. The river lay still, silent.
I stood frozen on the bank, shaking, listening. The only sound was the river, gentle and indifferent, as if nothing had happened. But I knew better. She was still there. Somewhere. Waiting.
I made it back to the squad car, shaking and pale, lungs burning from running through the brush. I didn’t even glance at the tourists still lingering near the bed and breakfast. I told them, “Get inside and stay there”. There was no way to explain what had just happened, not without sounding insane. I started the engine and tore back toward the station, every shadow along the road twisting in my mind, every rustle of the trees echoing that scream.
Whatever it was out there, whatever had taken Adkins… we were going to need help. And not just ordinary help. I called the chief of police, my fingers trembling as I punched in the numbers, hoping I could get him to understand without sounding like I’d completely lost it.
He picked up on the third ring, his voice groggy, annoyed. “It’s late. What the hell—”
I launched into my explanation, trying to keep it concise, trying to make sense of it to myself as much as him. “There’s… something… along the river. Officer Adkins—he’s—he’s gone. She attacked him. I don’t know what she is, but she’s not human. She moves faster than—”
The chief cut me off. “You’re telling me a ghost took Officer Adkins?” His tone was flat, dismissive, like I’d just called to complain about a broken printer.
I ran my hands through my hair, trying to steady my voice. “I don’t care what you call it. Something killed him—or dragged him under. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous. I don’t think we can handle it like normal. You need to come. Now.”
There was silence on the line, the kind of silence that made my stomach tighten. Then, in that pause, I realized something I hadn’t before: no one would believe this. Not at all.
The chief met me at the station. I’ll never forget the look on his face. Every line, every trace of expression, vanished as soon as he saw me. His eyes were empty, hard, like he’d seen too much already. Without a word, he gestured toward his office. “Close the door. Keep your voice down,” he said, his tone clipped, almost urgent.
I obeyed, shutting the door behind me. He walked to his desk, bent low, and pulled open the bottom, locked drawer. Inside was a stack of papers—yellowed, worn, edges frayed. He handed them to me, almost reverently.
“Write it down. Everything you saw,” he instructed.
I did. Every detail—the scream, the footprints, the way she moved. When I finished, he took the pages and filed them away, sealing them into that drawer like some grim time capsule.
“We need to do something,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “There are people near that river. They could be in danger.”
He didn’t look at me. “We will do nothing,” he said flatly. “There is nothing to do about something like this. In two days, it will stop. Then we can all forget it ever happened.”
I stared at him, disbelief cutting through my chest. “I don’t understand,” I said. “If you know what it is, if you’ve seen it before, why—why do nothing?”
He shook his head slowly. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, with a heavy sigh, he leaned back. “Nobody knows what she is,” he admitted. “But… these experiences go back decades. Generations. She always comes, she always leaves, and we all pretend she never existed.”
I pressed him further, desperation clawing at my voice. “How can I leave it alone? I heard her scream, Adkins’ scream. I saw Officer Adkins’s face as she…she tore at his throat and dragged him into the river. You’ve seen this before. If you know anything, tell me.”
He gazed at the floor, shadowed by the dim fluorescent light. “The less you know, the better,” he said quietly. Then he added, almost to himself, “Some things are not meant to be stopped.”
I swallowed hard. “What… what are we going to tell his wife?” I asked, my voice low, tight with dread. “The townsfolk who saw us both enter that brush? They only saw me come out. What do we say to them?”
He didn’t flinch. He looked at me with the same empty, unreadable expression. “We tell them nothing,” he said, calm, unyielding. “Some truths cannot be spoken. They would only bring fear, hysteria. “We tell them Officer Adkins accidentally drowned in the river during the investigation into the screams.” It’s better they remember only what they saw, and forget everything else. The river… it takes, and the river gives nothing back. That’s the only story anyone can safely know.”
He proceeded to tell me about other incidents, similar in nature. “We can’t have the panic,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “You know the people of this town. If something like this enters their minds, they’ll be out of control. And these orders… they don’t come from me. There are higher powers overseeing this.”
He paused, studying one of the reports with an almost reverent caution. Then he handed it to me. It was an FBI report.
My stomach dropped when I saw the names. The individuals involved were my own parents. It recounted an incident years earlier, along the same river’s edge, where they had gone for a picnic. They heard the screaming—followed it—and witnessed the same horror I had: a small boy the same age as me had been torn apart and dragged into the river’s depths.
Ronald Landking. I remembered him. He had been in my class since kindergarten, though I and every other kid in town was told his family had moved away to Houston.
“This is what happened to your parents,” the chief said quietly. “They turned to substances to forget, but I fear it wasn’t enough. Some things… can’t be erased.”
It all clicked then, the threads of my life unraveling. Every oddity, every shadowed memory, suddenly made sense. I was then handed an NDA contract to sign, pledging my silence on the matter.
I requested time off, and it was granted without question. I nodded, but the weight of his words pressed down on me like the thick, humid night air along the riverbank. I left his office that night with more questions than answers, a cold dread settling over me. Whatever this thing was, whatever had taken Officer Adkins… it wasn’t finished. And deep down, I knew it never truly would be.
It’s been weeks since that night, and I haven’t slept. Each evening, I lie awake with the scream still echoing in my head, ricocheting through the hollow spaces of my mind. I left the force. A new job awaits me in Fort Worth, far away, where I hope to feel safer, though I know it may not.
I told my parents to enjoy the house and the land. I don’t think I’ll ever return. I don’t know if the nightmares will ever end, or if whatever waits along that river will ever stop.
All I know is the chief of police was far too calm. His composure was unsettling, as if events like this were routine. It made me wonder just how much exists in the world that the authorities keep from us.
I’m not sure I want to know. For now, I remain haunted. The memory of that night lingers like a shadow in every corner, a weight I cannot shake. No matter how desperately I want it to end, some things follow you forever.
This has been Pale Lantern Media.
If you’ve heard a scream that led you deeper into the dark…
If you’ve seen footprints vanish into nothing…
If you’ve watched the river swallow someone whole…
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