6.24.2012

The Night Marachers of Waimanalo Beach

Informant: Male/ 28 /Hispanic
Location of Incident: Waimanalo Beach, Oahu

When I was 16 years old, I was finishing my junior year of high school. There were many summer parties and I tried to go to as many as I could since I was going into my senior year. One night, my friend and I checked out an interesting party in Maunawili but were rejected after 30 minutes since the cops started to arrive and hang around. My friend and I went to go look for the next party in the area and drove to Waimanalo since we heard there was a party there. It was a graduation party that was held for family and was ending when we got there so we pretty much had a beer or two and left. We decided since it was only a  little after midnight to cruise at the beach at Sherwood Forrest. So, my friend, who was driving his 4 Runner, drove into the forest with his vehicle and found a quite spot to hang out, drink, and talk story about past and upcoming events. 

I noticed after using the phone that the lights on the beach were still moving around. I figured again, somebody's probably down there chilling. I had a thought of going out there to check what was going on, maybe it was someone fishing or something. But as I was about to step out I noticed the lights again at the beach. This time I looked more into the light to see what was out there. I realized that I was not looking at flash lights moving around, and there was nobody out there playing around. I noticed the light looked sort of like multiple lamps or a torch lamps that was rocking back and forth. As my sight was beginning to focus more at what I was looking at, I realized I was seeing shadows walking along the beach. 

I noticed when we parked near a small sand hill going down into the beach there were lights moving up and down. I figured it was kids or somebody at the beach with flash lights walking around, so it never occurred to me as anything important. It was dark in the forest, but the night in general was extremely dark. I was a little out of it since the night before; we had been at a block party on my friends lane. I noticed my friend stopped talking after a while and looked as if he was zoning out from a long day. So I called up a friend to ask if we could crash over since we were unfit to go home.

The shadows were walking in formation and it seemed as if there was hundreds  of shadows walking past these lamps. I realized that the lamps were not rocking back and forth but were continuously moving forward. I froze in place, and couldn't move. I was so frightened when I began to realize what I was looking at. I turned to my friend who was still zoning out, but with extreme alert coming from his eyes. I knew I wasn't the only one seeing what was out on the beach and ocean. My body was trembling and my teeth were grinding together. I slowly asked my friend what he thought he was looking at, and his response was as I expected. 

Night Marchers. 

I felt as if I was glued in my seat and felt as if my energy was draining from my body. I felt extremely tired, but at the same time awake as hell to witness this event. All of a sudden my friend snapped out of his zoned state and started coughing and appeared to be gasping for air as if he wasn't breathing. He then started the vehicle, threw the gear in reverse,  and floored it out of the forest. I remember it was so quick that when we got into the parking lot his vehicle bumper smashed into the ground as we went from the grass terrain to the asphalt. He drove out as if he was panicing. 

As we were driving back to Kailua, my friend told me he felt like someone was choking him from his driver window. We went back to Kailua to visit my friend who was expecting us to come over. When we got there, we told the story what happened at the beach to our friends. It was then that I realized that on that night it was a new moon. Also, I realized that my friend is Hawaiian, and his family comes from an old Hawaiian bloodline. Most likely, whatever was choking my friend at the time was a friend of the family or a relative trying to get his attention to get out of there. Today, we still talk about the event that occurred and how we were extremely lucky to come out of it alive and safe.