Toxic Waste and a Space Ape

A Reddit user by the name of u/Senecatwo told the story of a bizarre experience that one of their friends had about 15 years ago. They were particularly struck by this admittedly-outlandish tale due to the fear in his face and voice being ’*visceral and contagious*’ as he told the story, despite it having happened years ago when he was just a kid.

## The Incident

He and a group of friends were out, roaming around ’*our little rust-belt town not far from a big city*’. They were ’*doing all the things kids do before they discover drugs and girls and all the other things that take you out of that childhood sense of adventure*’. In particular, they were playing out by an area that they now call ’*the Flats*’, which was once an industrial zone but had since been reclaimed by nature after the large fibre plant that had been keeping it going closed down. It was mostly fields and woods ’*after you got past the big dilapidated factory that sits on the tracks*’. Local parents would always tell their children to stay out of the area for obvious reasons, seeing as it was a dangerous abandoned industrial plant. However, the Redditor also said that there are consistent rumours of some kind of toxic waste buried in that area - ’*allegedly radioactive and/or related to the Manhattan Project*’. It has become embedded in the local folklore that there is something out there ’*you don’t want to get into*’, and this has been widely known since their father was young in the 1950s.

The Redditor’s friend and his little posse were playing manhunt, and so he was wandering through the forest in search of his friends, who were clearly doing quite a good job of hiding from him. He stepped out through a break in the trees into a small meadow, ’*and that’s when he saw it*’.

There was something squatting in the tree-line, about 20 yards away across the meadow. It was clad in all silver, and was wearing a bulbous helmet of some kind, meaning that it looked ’*almost like some astronaut from a D grade sci-fi flick*’. It noticed him as soon as he noticed it, and it leaped up in surprise, assuming an ’*almost simian*’ stance. It apparently resembled a chimpanzee in a space suit, but taller and slightly more humanoid. In an instant, it raised its arm in a pointing movement ’*and somehow fired a tiny metal dart*’ at the witness, which hit him in the hand as he turned to run away. He ’*ripped the thing out of his hand*’ as he ran and screamed loudly for his friends. He told the Redditor all of this with a shaky voice, while showing them a small scar on their hand.

## Analysis

The Redditor is apparently a skeptical person - ’*but this is a guy who is not capable of faking the trembling voice and faraway look of someone who is remembering something that terrified them*’. After hearing this, they insisted that they both go and investigate the area where the apeman was seen - but all they found was ’*a weird looking warehouse type building closer to the freeway than the woods*’, which appeared to be relatively new. To this day, the Redditor has no idea what their friend saw, but knows that he saw something.

## Source

https://www.reddit.com/r/Humanoidencounters/comments/a45b97/metalclad\_apeman\_firing\_darts/?st=JPFINHW1&sh=007747c1