01/02/2016 Photobomb

It was January 2nd, 2016 and after nights of celebrating the arrival of the new year, my friend and I decided to settle down and start off on a good note. Our plan that day was to get up early and travel to Raven Rock State Park and enjoy the serene landscape.

On our way there, we pulled over at a beautiful church in the countryside so my friend could take pictures. See, she's addicted to Instagram and will take a picture of anything if she can apply an old looking filter and get likes. Personally, I find it ridiculous, but that's just me.

As she snapped stylish photos of stained-glass windows and a statue of Jesus Christ, I told her to take a picture of me. I figured a new year should start with a nice selfie.

My friend caught what I would consider a rather great shot. I wasn't doing anything silly in the photo, such as sticking out my tongue or giving a duck-lip expression, but just standing there with a simple smile on my face. She sent it to me after applying a black and white filter.

I recieved an inbox message containing the selfie, but figured I would upload it later.

After spending the day at Raven Rock, we went to Barnes & Noble to look around and grab some smoothies from Starbucks. When we sat down at a table, I took out my phone to look at the picture. It was then I noticed something odd in the background.

Standing several feet behind me appears to be a person wearing a black coat. This figure's face cannot be clearly distinguished due to either its distance or the brightness of the sun.

I found it rather unsettling as to who or what this individual was doing and why they decided get in the picture. I posted it on Facebook to get to feedback about what others believed this to be.

Automatically people began commenting that it was a demon, and that I was in danger. One guy said that it looks like a scarecrow that a farmer placed in the field. However, the scarecrow idea doesn't make sense because there is no crops.

My co-worker replied to his comment saying it was a ghost. Now, I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I really don't believe in ghosts. My best guess is that someone was simply walking in the background and decided to photobomb the selfie to be funny.

But what doesn't make sense is that this church is literally out in the middle of nowhere. The closest and only house in the area is at least half a mile away. I find it very strange that someone was just walking in the middle of field, saw two people taking pictures, and decided to jump in the background. And something else I didn't notice until my cousin pointed it out is that this person looks like they are holding a knife or some sort of weapon.

I askd my friend if she recalled seeing anyone in the background while snapping the picture. She told me that she honestly didn't notice anything weird that day.

Now, I could conclude this story by saying a week later I recieved strange phone calls, or woke up and discovered a VHS tape on my porch, or that someone started stalking me. But the simple truth is that nothing creepy has happened since.