[Bill]

"The Shape-shifter" This is all true. Twelve years ago, I spent a few years in Arizona, with my first wife, Linda, and my 3 awesome kids, Erica, Daniel, and Zachary. I'm sorry if this story get's a little long-winded, or rambley, but I've never written it down, only told it. Actually, I almost deleted it from the voting competition, but kept it in there. My son, Daniel, around 13 at the time, had signed up for a summer hiking program, where other kids his age and several teachers and whatever parents cared to accompany them would go on various day hikes around the Phoenix area. The last trip of the season was a weekend camping trip to Cottonwood State Park. My wife, Linda, had been on several day trips with the group, but the two teachers arranging the overnighter had trouble rounding up parents that would be willing to go to Cottonwood and spend the weekend. As I had slept once or twice outdoors, my wife volunteered me to be the third chaperone so that the trip could take place. I packed up my gear, and Dan and I got on the bus with 20 or so young teenagers and 2 teachers to drive up to Cottonwood. We got there midafternoon and had a large group campsite. The male teacher, let's call him Mark, a Marine, and I walked the perimeter, and agreed, a triangle shaped group site, only one way in and one way out, very secure. We three adults set up our tents quickly in the late afternoon and then helped the kids set up their tents. The group had dinner and we 3 adults agreed that at any given time, one of us would be awake and patrolling the campsite, and keep the fire going down near the point of triangular campsite. I had 10pm-12:00, Mrs. Blank had 12:00-2am, and Mark had 2am and then just stayed up. At 9pm, we put all the kids into their tents, and things started to quiet down. Mark and Mrs. Blank retired to their own tents and I took first watch. I don't do drugs, and on this trip, no beer. It was a little chilly, so I cooked up a little hot chocolate, and all was quiet as I sipped it, and thought, let me go down to the fire and keep it going for the next shift. As I approached the fire, I stopped dead in my tracks. Opposite the fire from me was a man, in jeans, thin, about 6'2", with long dark hair parted in the middle, in a flannel shirt staring into the fire. My first thoughts were, "how did he get back here", and then"there's no way he's getting anywhere near those kids" . Okay, get ready for the weird part. Just as I opened my mouth to confront him, he calmly lifted his eyes from staring into the fire and looked into my eyes, and at that point, he changed, or transmorphed, don't know any other way to put it, into a flat black buck deer and without a sound turned and bounded with 3 or 4 hops away from me and over a fence. The next day, I checked the perimeter again, and that whole area was fenced in with sheer drops all around. I found no tracks, and the whole event was soundless. When our trip was over, I talked to my Arizona friend Pat, and he told me, "Billy, my people have lived here for over 3 hundred years. What you probably saw was an old Indian from somewhere on a vision-quest and he was attracted by your fire and when you came up, it startled him and he left, that's all." I was stunned, that he believed my story. "Billy, Pat said, that's tame to what we have seen". I told the story to my friend Joel as well, Lived in the South Pacific for 25 years, and said, Bill, I've seen things on these islands you would'nt believe. My best friend, Todd, said, "you saw a shapeshifter" I can still see it like it was yesterday. Please post and tell us all what you have all seen that is outside the norm.