I recently went camping with the wife to Paradise Campground in Santa Barbara Mountains. Arrived Saturday around 3:00 PM. When we arrived, wife had a bad feeling about the place, but I convinced her that this would be a nice time. The campground was mostly empty and there were more bugs than usual. Didn’t really care because we stayed in our vehicle to sleep.
We walked around the campsites and noticed that many sites were booked Friday to Sunday but were completely empty. No signs of people returning. Later we would understand why these campsites were abandoned or so we believe. One thing I want to note about the campground was that it was really dark at night. Around us were 3 other camping parties. One in front of us (Woman, Man, and dog), one behind us (Man woman and Child, i would say toddler) and one to our left (big family, One child that i remember, a few adults).
The camping festivities followed: grilling, drinking, some music then a campfire. As the night was drawing to a close I did not recall when the other families decided to call it quits and go to sleep. I know for us we decided to go to bed around 10:00 -11:00 PM.
For some reason this night I felt really hot. Typically in camping it gets colder at night but for some reason, I felt really hot. I sat outside the car till I was able to cool down a bit. I then went back inside the vehicle and was able to sleep around midnight.
My wife then wakes me up around 3:30 AM. She had already been aware for a little bit before that. She asked, “Can you hear that”? It was really quiet at night. Just some bugs and trees moving with the wind in the background. After a minute or so I heard it. It sounded like a child gently begin to cry then burst out into a sob. Then suddenly it would stop. 10 minutes later it would begin again. It sounded like a boy crying. It was definitely a child crying as I had not heard any other things like this at night and a child crying is very noticeable. This continued for about 1 hour till about 5:00 AM it stopped. We were both rattled in the car and could not understand what exactly that was. I took the analytical approach to the situation. It could be a kid crying in one of the campsites next to us. But then I wondered, why would he be crying at this hour and stop then continue again, then stop and so on and so forth. I wondered why didn’t any of the other camping inhabitants with the child tell him to stop or come to his aid. Someone could have tried to comfort the kid but no voice or noise followed the crying. It gave out the SAME cry multiple times, slow weeping to a sob.
At this point my stomach was hurting and I needed to go to the restroom. I got out of the car and walked toward the restroom. It was still fairly dark but the crying had stopped. I used the restroom and walked back to my car. I felt as though I was being stared at during my walk back to the car. As if something was trying to lure me out of the campground but I walked toward the car and went back in. My wife was still shaken by what she had heard didn’t not want me to leave anymore. We waiting till about 6:00AM and we began packing everything. Another weird thing that happened was that while she was cleaning a rag that we used at the water reservoir, 5 turkeys came flying into the campsite, one by one at 6:00 AM. They flew from above the tree line and you could hear their wings flapping from a distance. One flew right over my wife’s head.
That was the last straw and we left and didn’t look back. IM still trying to understand what this was. Was it a child in another campsite? Was it some cryptid or unknown creature? Was it a ghost? I’m not sure. My wife did read that Paradise experienced a fire in 2018 that could have claimed some lives. Maybe some spirits that weren’t laid to rest?
One thing is for sure, i am never going back there again.