I was out in the woods ambling along the narrow winding trail; the sound of the babbling creek breaking the silence and along with the filtered sunshine made an absolutely peaceful serene presence. A gentle breeze swished in and out of the leaves of the mountain alder and the bigleaf maple trees giving them the appearance of shimmering on the edge of the creek.

Poison oak shrubs lined the creek fairly thick except for one specific path that looks like it has been walked on for a long time, along side of a huge boulder. There were several trees that had fallen from the bank and from the hillside on the other side of the creek and were crossing the creek like natural bridges.

After meandering down to the water's edge about 12 feet down the little path, I couldn't help but notice the glimmering water as it glided over the rocks. As I pushed closer I thought how heavenly is this? Is is so peaceful back here in the canyon.

I saw a really nice large flat rock that was perfect for perching on, and climbed down to sit there and stare into the water in a meditational trance.

I started inching my way over there, as it was driving my curiosity crazy. I got almost directly over the top of it, and it was about 2 feet down under the water, and partially covered by another rock. I looked around and saw a branch about 3 feet long and about a half inch in diameter, and came back over to the spot where that white thing was. As I started to move it it appeared to be a white bony looking thing, and as I moved it a little more I realized what I had was not to be believed!

I started looking at it intently and the more I stared the more it shockingly became painfully obvious that I wasn't positive of what I was looking at. I backed up and sat there in disbelief as my brain was in so much turmoil trying to make sense of this and process what I was looking at. It was totally surreal.

So I walked back to my truck and called 911 and reported it and I told them I would wait for them as dispatch said they would get someone out right away. So I went back to the rock as I knew it would take them time to get out here, so I just went back and stared at the object again.

As I was looking at it the details started coming in to flip my mind over again, and I thought no, there has to be something more to this, maybe it's not real. Maybe it was one of those decorations that people put up, and then I would feel pretty stupid. But this is June and isn't even close to that day, and the last one was a while back.

After about forty-five minutes I heard a car coming and climbed back out up to the dirt pullout that I had parked in. A Sheriff rolled in and stopped by my truck, and he took his time getting out of the car. So I started walking over to him and he finally popped the door open just as I was getting to the front of his cruiser. He got out and introduced himself, and asked me what I had. So I said to him that I really wasn't sure and that he'd better see for himself.

We climbed down the path to the water's edge and back near the rock and I pointed into the water and I said, "see for yourself." So he climbed over to the rock I was sitting on and looked at it, and I told him that I had this stick to poke it. So we moved over to where we were almost over the top of it, and he started poking it and moving it around, and we both realized what it was! I took my shirt off because I realized that it was probably going to get wet, and after we moved it enough I got brave enough to reach down into the water and grab ahold of this thing and bring it back up to fresh air. As we pulled it out, we breathed a sigh of relief, and realized that what we had found was a skeleton from Halloween! So ended about an hour or so of a really bizarre lunch time for me and the sheriff was grateful that he didn't have to make out that kind of report.