A woman who goes by the name “Travelwithdiana” with the handle @dianaelsatravels says she and her boyfriend were forced to flee their rented cabin in the Appalachian Mountains in the middle of the night. In a TikTok video, she describes a series of unsettling events that began with flashlight beams circling their campsite and ended with what she described as heavy footsteps in the woods behind them.
The video’s caption reads: “Part 1 #appalachia #appalachian #mountains #truecrime #skinwalkers”. In the clip, the woman says the couple arrived at the cabin around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, later than they had planned. She says they immediately noticed that the Wi-Fi was “completely turned off” and “not discoverable,” even though the listing said Wi-Fi was offered. She also says the cabin had “absolutely no electricity,” with the only light coming from solar-powered ceiling lights and two small battery-operated lamps.
After dropping off their belongings, the woman says they drove about half an hour to go kayaking until around 6 o’clock. On the way back, she says their GPS stopped giving directions, which caused them to miss a turn on the highway and added an “extra half hour” to the trip. She says this delay meant they returned to the cabin after dark, and it was “pitch black” when they got back.
The couple says flashlight beams kept moving toward their campfire
The woman says they cooked dinner inside the cabin using a propane stovetop, since it was too dark to cook outside. After dinner, she says they went outside to sit by a campfire. She says that at some point, they noticed “two flashlights moving around” to the left of the cabin. She says they initially tried not to “get paranoid” and assumed it might be another couple from a nearby cabin.
A few minutes later, she says she looked again and asked her boyfriend, “Bae, like, are they flashing their lights into our campfire?” She says he confirmed, “Yes, they are.” She says the flashlights eventually stopped getting closer and appeared to retreat to wherever they came from. The couple then went back inside the cabin, turned off the lights, and closed the blinds, though she says they left the windows open because they “wanted to hear what was going on.”
After a while, the woman says the flashlights stopped moving closer and went back to a structure somewhere in the distance. She says the couple decided to go back outside to the fire and try to relax. She says her boyfriend then asked if it was time to tell scary stories. She says she suggested they do it later inside, and he responded, “well, we don’t want to talk about skinwalkers.”
‘Something starts walking behind us’
The woman says that the second her boyfriend said the word “skinwalkers,” “something starts walking behind us.” She says they heard “about 4 very heavy steps over sticks” cracking. She says both of them jumped up immediately. She says her boyfriend, whom she described as someone who “does not believe in spirits, ghosts, really anything,” was visibly shaken and told her to “get the flashlight.”
She says the moon was only “illuminating 2%,” there were no stars because a storm was rolling in, and it was “extremely, extremely dark.” She says she struggled to find the flashlight, and her boyfriend repeated, “Diana, get the flashlight.” She says she found it in a panic, and he told her to “look for nocturnal eyes.” She says they looked but didn’t see anything. She says they ruled out a person because the forest was “so incredibly dense” that it would have been impossible to navigate behind them.
The woman says they then heard a car start and a door close. She says someone drove away from the area where the flashlights had been. She says she found it “really weird” that someone was driving past 11 o’clock at night in the middle of nowhere. She says they looked back and saw “still one flashlight flashing at us,” meaning one person had apparently left while another stayed behind. Diana’s account of fleeing a frightening situation is not the only such story shared on social media, with one woman recounting how she barely escaped a free 10k cult cruise.
She says this made them uncomfortable, and they decided to go back inside the cabin. However, she says the cabin had no bathroom inside and only an outhouse next to the door. She says she needed to use the outhouse, and her boyfriend insisted on coming with her. She says he told her, “I don’t think we should not look at each other for the rest of the night.” She says he expressed a bad “gut feeling” about the “skinwalkers” comment and the events that followed.
The woman says she also felt uneasy about the situation. She says they went back inside the cabin, and that “things took a turn at the fire” and “this inside is when it really took a turn for us to leave.” She ends the video by saying she will post part 1 and part 2 at the same time so viewers aren’t left waiting, and that she will explain how and why they fled. Unsettling encounters during stays away from home have surfaced elsewhere too, like a Georgia woman who spotted a face staring back at her during a virtual house tour.
The video drew a range of reactions in the comments section. Some viewers questioned the couple’s decisions throughout the night.
“But like why did you GO THERE???” one commenter wrote.
“I’m not going to lie this sounds like a movie where you’re wondering why the main characters are making crazy decisions lol” another wrote.
“YOU WENT BACK OUTSIDE” one commenter said, followed by several crying emojis.
“okay, im scared.” another person wrote.
“Your bf who’s a skeptic has a strong intuition” one commenter said, followed by wide-eyed emojis.
“But girl why were the windows not covered!!!” another wrote.
