Old western state hospital. Steilacoom, WA.

by Shauna R
(Lakewood, WA)

One night after i got off work around 10 pm, my boyfriend picked me up. He also brought along his niece and cousin. The four of us drove about five miles over to the Steilacoom park where the old western state mental hospital was directly behind. (We like to find places that are haunted and do a little ghost hunting of our own.) Since it was getting late and the park was closed, we actually had to park our car up the road by Pierce college and walk to the park on foot. after walking for a while, we reach a gravel road and then turn right. We walk up a hill and finally we reached our destination. We approach the vandalized building and didn't see or hear much.. Little noises but nothing paranormal, we believed. We decided to call it a night and leave. We walk down the hill, and begin walking towards the gravel road next to the old barns. As we turn the corner to reach the gravel road, every single one of us stop in our tracks, as if we were paralyzed. Standing dead in the center of the gravel road, a good forty feet in front of us, was a very tall dark figure balancing his left arm on an object.We began shining our flashlights on the figure. When we shined the light on his face. it was empty. completely black. He looked to be wearing some sort of long trench coat. We then shined the light on the object in his left hand. The light kind of shined off the object. It looked to be some sort of sword. Very long, and shiny. My boyfriend tried talking to the man to be friendly and show we weren't there to cause any harm. No response. So we stood there for a while in shock and the man lifts his head up and cocks it at us. It was a very threatening gesture. This figure just lets off a very bad vibe. All of a sudden the figure starts walking towards us and that's when we began to run around the figure into a parking lot next to him. Then out of almost thin air, a red car is coming straight towards us and screeches to a stop. gravel is flying in the air. It honestly felt like something from a movie. My question is how did the car get into the park when the park was closed and we couldn't even get our car in. We started to run out of the park and when we looked back the car was gone and the figure was no where in sight. I don't know what I saw to this day but I truly believe it was something paranormal. Something I can not explain.