Creepy Encounter at Diamond Fork Hot Springs in Utah

I always tell people that my Diamond Fork hot springs experience is the most terrified I've ever been in my life, so terrified, in fact, that I haven't been back ... until two weeks ago, during daylight :). I've often wondered if it was all in my head, but after reading the story at the link above, I feel more validated that it wasn’t in my imagination.

I was going to BYU at the time and one of my classmates and I spontaneously decided to go hiking up to Diamond Fork hot springs around 1 a.m. The parking lot was full of about 15-20 cars when we got there and even though we were alone, I didn't stop to think twice about it maybe not being the smartest thing in the world for two girls to be hiking up to the hot springs in the middle of the night I don’t naturally get squeamish or scared about things like that.

But as soon as we left the parking lot that night and started up the main trail to the hot springs, almost immediately, I had this overwhelming feeling like something was following us. It was one of the most intense feelings of fear and being watched, that I’ve ever felt in my life. Every one of my senses was on full alert. The feeling got stronger as we went along. I was filled with a strong sense of how very, very alone we were and that we had done something stupid and we could be (or were in) some kind of danger. Like I said, I normally don’t think this way, so this level of terror was unusual for me. I had also been up to Diamond Fork hot springs before a couple times in the middle of the night, and I had not been scared (with bigger groups of friends, though).

So as we were going along, I had a very strong feeling like, “Don’t slow down, keep going at a steady pace, and no matter what you do, don’t let on that you think something is following you, don’t talk about it.” What sucked is that my friend was having a bladder infection and we had to stop about three times for her to pee in the middle of the trail! Each time I was thinking, “HURRY HURRY HURRY” but on the outside just kept up a light, pleasant conversation which felt forced because I was literally shaking with terror. I did get up the courage to casually shine the flashlight down the path at one point while she was taking one of her potty breaks, but nothing was there.

At one point, I told my friend, “Oh, I want to tell you something when we get to the hot springs,” and at one point, she said, “What was that?” We were silent for a few seconds, but I didn’t hear anything but the water sloshing in her bottle in her backpack, so I lightly said, “Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just the water in your bottle.” So there was about 30 minutes of this, us walking completely alone on the trail, me feeling highly certain there was some presence following us, me trying to come up with meaningless, banal conversation, and finally, a group of about 10 people passed us coming back from the hot springs, going down the way we’d come. The spell seemed to be broken and the thick feeling of being watched or followed went away as soon as they passed us. I didn’t feel like anything was following us anymore for the last 10 minutes of the hike.

When we got to the hot springs, and we were surrounded by like 10 or so other people up there soaking as well, and we were setting down our stuff to get in the hot pools, my friend asked me what I was going to tell her. I said I felt like we were being followed the entire way, and she said, “I did, too.” She then told me that she had heard footsteps following behind us on the path, switching from one side of the path to the other, about 15 yards behind us (not that she THOUGHT she’d heard footsteps, but that she had heard them). When she had said, “What was that?” she said it was NOT the water sloshing in her bottle that she had heard, but a branch breaking about 15 yards behind us. She said whenever we’d stop for her to pee, the footsteps would continue for a second or so, and then stop. Then they’d start again when we’d start. Something obviously instinctively kept her from saying anything out loud to me about it, too. She said the feeling started for her as soon as we left the parking lot, but that as soon as that big group of people passed us, the feeling went away, just as it had for me.

We were definitely still feeling scared after our soak, so we hiked down from the hot springs with a big group of people. On the drive home, we talked over what it could have been. Nothing really made sense. We thought maybe it was a wild animal, perhaps waiting for us to separate and attack us … the hot springs are miles from nearby towns and known to have wild animals (including cougars) in the hills. But she pointed out that wild animals don’t break branches and usually move silently through the forest (you can’t hear footsteps). I thought it could have been some guy with bad intentions, but when I shone the flashlight down the path, there was no one there. The third option was that it was something not human; some evil spirit or presence or something (suggested by another person; my then-roommate). It was hard because it had characteristics that were a cross between something animal and something human (like an “animal with remarkable intelligence,” that the story at the link above mentioned). But because I hadn’t seen or heard any of the footsteps first-hand, and only my friend had, I felt like I had to always end my telling of the story with, “Yeah, it could have been all in my head.” After reading the linked story above, though, I feel more validated that there was something there, and I can only surmise that they must have experienced the same kind of thing/entity following them, whatever it was. It is insane to me that they experienced something so remarkably similar.

TL;DR - Got followed by someone/something up the Diamond Fork hot springs trail in Utah in the middle of the night. My friend heard it, too. No explanation makes sense as to what it was; it seemed like a cross between something animal and something human.