[██████]'s strange letter.

Thanks for reading my email [██████], I've been a fan of your channel for about a year now, ever since I stumbled upon your videos regarding [██████] and [██████]. I've always been fascinated by paranormal topics and you seem to have knack for unearthing some very strange and obscure accounts. Despite that, I'd never knowingly experienced anything inexplicable in my entire life - that is, until June this year. I'm still not entirely sure if I've fully processed the experience I'm going to recount here, and I am a skeptical person by nature, I want to emphasize I've never had a supernatural or unexplainable encounter in my thirty-four years on this planet until this happened. I apologize if this is a bit of long email in advance.

I live in [██████], in the west midlands region of England and near my home is a tract of suburban greenery surrounding the River Tame, which flows through my neck of the woods. It was a favourite spot of mine to go for morning walks on my days off, and especially during the current lockdown it helped me get some much needed exercise and alleviate my many anxieties. It was always quiet and peaceful whenever I went, with very few other people about save for a few other regulars I'd recognize. Elderly dog walkers, some joggers, etc. 

Whatever the weather was like you'd typically hear the ever present flow of the River Tame, the sounds of the households surrounding the park waking up, birdsong, and the traffic on the bypass just behind an embankment rearing up above the riverside. It used to be my go-to walking spot, but I haven't been back there ever since the following experience took place. I'm only beginning to realize months after the fact how much it changed my perception of things.

Sorry for the preamble... Mid-june this year I had a week off work. Because I couldn't really go anywhere as only essential retail was open, it was only natural I'd take the opportunity to take more walks. Fourth day into my holiday and when I arrive by the river something feels off. It's devoid of people, not even the aforementioned regular joggers and dog walkers were there. Stranger still was the absence of any of the usual animal life like ducks, squirrels and swans. I became progressively aware of how unnaturally quiet it was. 

No birdsong, no domestic ordinary sounds, no weather, no roar of traffic, not even the sound of flowing water. It was uncannily silent, to the degree that I could only hear my own breathing, as well as my own heartbeat thrumming against my eardrums. It's at that moment I notice there is something in the sky.

It took me a minute or two to interpret what I was seeing. The object was obviously at a great height and contrasted quite starkly against the sky, given how crisp and sunny of a morning it was. The air was surprisingly cool given the month, and the sky itself was totally cloudless and blue. I don't live close to an airport, so typically if you ever see airplanes they are extremely high up and leave a white stream trailing behind them. The shape didn't fit any balloon or aircraft I could think of. I wondered briefly if the trailing shape could be smoke or pollution of some kind, but despite the distance it seemed too substantial and solid to be that. 

It doesn't take me long to realize that I can't recognize or put a name to what I'm looking at, more intensely bewildered rather than genuinely scared at this point. If it had stayed like that I probably would have dismissed it as pareidolia or some other optical illusion, and gladly discussed it with friends and family. But at some point whilst gazing up the object, in an instant it's form suddenly made all too much sense, and it dawned on me what I was looking at.

It was an inverted, falling, black outline of an enormous figure. It's arms and head dangling below it, a long dark dress or coat tails fluttering above it. In an ordinary place utterly familiar to me, rendered into a dream like scenario by the absolute silence, I realized with deep set primal fear I was alone and watching a giant shadowy body falling in slow motion from the atmosphere. Never in my life have I ever felt a more potent sense of seeing something that I shouldn't be seeing. I knew I shouldn't be there, witnessing whatever that was. I've never been more scared in my entire life. I fastwalked back home and didn't look back.

To this day I haven't been back to my old walking spot. With the passing of time I am fully willing to accept that there is rational explanation for what I witnessed, or there is likely a psychological basis for why my mind created this event. But even if it was something entirely cooked up by my imagination, the image is seared into my memory and I know i've subtly changed for having seen it. Again, I apologize for the length of this email, but I've never told anyone this story as I have no close friends, no partner, only infrequent meetings with my family, etc. I just really wanted to get it off my chest, and to insure my own mental wellbeing against the possibility that I've gone senile long before my time.

Thanks for your time and attention [██████], do with this story as you see fit.