Skinwalker: (Wikipedia) is a person with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal he or she desires. Similar lore can be found in cultures throughout the world and is often referred to as shapeshifting by anthropologists.
Shadow person/animal: (Wikipedia) Are supernatural shadow-like figures of both modern folklore and paranormal popular culture that believers claim appear as dark humanoid (or animal) forms or evasive specters seen mostly in peripheral vision.
Here's a true story to get your shivers on:
My friend had an experience that so impressed me by her story (and gave me shivers), that I sat her and her boyfriend down to get the details. This time, I took notes instead of curling up with my feet tucked under me being spooked by the description. I thought I’d share it with y’all because, as logic-minded as my friend and I are, this encounter left us both puzzled for an explanation.
It was July 2006. My friend (we'll call her Audrey) and her boyfriend were leaving the Grand Canyon Park to head south towards Williams for their hotel room. They were driving in a car, heading out the park entrance around 9:30 p.m. They were less than a mile from the park on this unusually chilly night. In front of them was an SUV perhaps 8 car lengths ahead. They saw the brake lights go off on the SUV and Audrey warned her boyfriend, who was driving.
They both noted the SUV swerve into the oncoming lane as if something were in the roadway. Audrey witnessed something very huge and black, taller than the SUV, its shoulder area seeming to be about even with the top of the SUV. They had only a couple seconds before they came up on the spot themselves.
Her boyfriend swerved the car into the oncoming lane as he witnessed this huge black creature threateningly close to the car. As he did this, Audrey, in the passenger side, looked up to this gigantic black mass. Its head was well above the height of the car and she caught its eyes as they passed by it. Her immediate reaction was one of impending doom and threat. She felt its massive size and power and felt completely inadequate in their car in comparison.
Her boyfriend slowed down, thinking of turning around, when he looked into the rear view mirror and saw the car behind him swerving the same way in the road, just missing this huge black…creature. Oddly, the lights of that car shed no detail on this black mass either. It was as if the "thing" could not reflect light, like some sort of spatial black void.
They both continued down the road, confused and upset by the encounter. Later, they passed by some elk in a field and their car lights hit them and showing exactly what they were including the details and shapes of them and the foggy wisps of their cold breath from their flaring nostrils.
It wasn’t until Audrey was describing the story to me that I realized some strange features. One was the SUV in front of them slammed on their brakes. Had those people seen this thing in their headlights in the distance, they would have braked slower. They didn’t see it, even with headlights, until they were upon it.
Audrey described a steep embankment near the roadway that seemed to have entrapped this thing, forcing it to follow the road to get out. At least, that was the sense of the situation.
Her boyfriend thought it was on two legs and Audrey though it was on four legs, but both agreed about its massive size and that it was so black that even the car lights didn't illuminate it at all. The headlights revealed no color, no detail, no definition. Given that it was threatening their place in their lane, this creature should have been seen, as the elk had been seen by the headlights.
As well, the size was exceptional. If a typical SUV is perhaps 6’ tall and the slope of what seemed to be shoulders was even with it, then that would make this creature perhaps over 7’ high! Audrey commented several times about how massive and threatening it seemed.
What it was they saw that evening on the roadway, they’ll never know. The memory still haunts them as a singularly strange and eerie encounter. Whether it was a skinwalker or possibly some kind of shadow animal (like a shadow person) or even a Bigfoot with weird properties is unknown. The intriguing thing is how shadow people are caught out of the corner of your eye, you turn to see them and they’re described as completely black and solid-appearing without detail, and bring with them a sense of impending doom and threat. Similar, huh?
The Grand Canyon has a lot of weird happenings I will be covering in the future.