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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Public_Web_9105 on 2024-09-25 01:11:06+00:00.

Growing up in a smaller suburban town as a 17 year old the only things to do were drugs or late night drives. My best friends, Casey and Danielle were driving with me late at night from a Walmart the next town over. I was always the back seat friend but what can you do? Some people are more meant for each other than others but they were the only two people other than my family that I ever felt any connection to.

We were cruising down the one of the small two-lane highways that stitch towns together between the vast rural areas of Upstate New York, when I saw an erected telephone pole covered in blue flame tucked into the bordering woods.

Immediately I screamed “CASEY, DRIVE FASTER”. She was confused but abided nonetheless. Quickly, I explained to her and Danielle what I had seen. as a consequence of living sheltered lives, we were all fearful. To this day I believe that fear was valid. During the day seeing something out of place can be confusing, but on a dark unlit highway? Downright terrifying.

“Maybe it’s a klan meeting?” Danielle said. Honestly, it was a valid theory. One thing people don’t know about New York is that the further north you get from NYC, the more like the deep south it becomes. “Well you know that the finger lakes used to be a hotbed of klan activity in the 1920s. Even now, people will find pamphlets for secret meetings” She continued. “You’re such a fucking history buff” I said. But we all knew her theory was completely plausible.

That was what we decided it was and we all tried our best to rid our minds of it. It was something none of us have brought up or even thought of in the following 6 years.

We were all grown now. Danielle did a semester of college and hated it, I graduated from a cheap state school. Casey had never liked school so she went straight to working with her family. Casey had the most money out of all of us and was the first to own a house. It was a small house and not in a very interesting area, it was hers though and that’s all that mattered. On the plus side she had about 5 acres of land secluded in an old forest. I still don’t know how she got such a good deal on the house.

While heading to the housewarming party I saw a charred pole on the highway just like the one I’d scene years previously. As I swung the door open I said “Hey guys! I saw a burnt out telephone pole while driving here and it made me think of that one time”. “What are you talking about?” Danielle said. She clearly didn’t remember so I went to the kitchen to tell Casey. She was just confused as Danielle was. I think since neither of them personally saw it, it didn’t leave as big as an impression on them.

“Remember when we were driving around as kids and we saw the klan pole?” I said. They slowly remembered what I was yammering on about. “You mean when we were driving back from Walmart and you thought you saw something in the woods?” Casey said. “Ohhh right I remember that, we didn’t believe you but you’re so easily spooked that we just went along with it.” Danielle said. A little hurt I said “well since you guys didn’t, believe me let’s go see it!”. “Ty you just got here and I just finished the snacks for the party. Just wait awhile and then we’ll go see your ‘klan pole’” Casey said while making air quotes with her fingers. It all made us chuckle because me thinking I saw something unusual was a completely normal occurrence in our younger days. “Yeah don’t you remember that time in middle school that you thought you saw someone watching us at the mall?” said Danielle. “Yah and it was just a mannequin with a hat?” Casey said with laughter. Seeing that my face was pink with embarrassment they relented. “Fine” Casey said with an air of mock annoyance. “Show us the pole, we all know how much you love poles and people won’t be getting here for another hour”

Elated I ran to my car with them in tow. This time I was the one driving. It was only 5-10 minutes away from her house depending on how fast you feel like driving.

We pulled over on the side of the highway and hopped out of the car. The pole was clearly visible from the roadside. With a grandiose gesture I raised my arms and said “SEE!?” Both of them were taken aback by my enthusiasm and the fact that this might be true. “Okay let’s go back now” said Casey, clearly more worried about the party she needed to host than childhood memories. “As long as we are here let’s get closer view of it” Danielle said. Cautiously, we hopped over the underbrush and reached the clearing.

I regret ever going there.

We stepped into a circle of scorched grass and mugwort to see the pole. I was wrong. It wasn’t a telephone pole. Well it was a telephone pole, but it lacked any sort of utilities on it. Only the bottom 7 feet of the pole showed any signs of direct burning; mostly light charring and some ash. Soot licked up to the top of the pole in thick uneven layers — I think this is the only reason I was able to notice it from the road. There was also a goop at the bottom of the pole that looked like a mix of glue and ash. As I took a step to examine it with my finger I quickly realized it was fat from sort of animal. In shock I took a step back and heard a crunch. Beneath my heel was an ashen rib bone embrittled by fire. It was a pig’s rib bone — nonetheless it was startling.

I was already paler than a sheet when Casey pointed out deer cams. Whoever did this had our faces and possibly my license plate. It didn’t take much convincing for all of us to run back to the car and we drove back home in silence.

None of us are professional investigators, hell I think the only one with any investigative knowledge would be Danielle. You see, Danielle works part time at a library and a diner, Casey helps operate her family’s machine shop, and I teach science at our old high school. Internally, I rationalized to myself that it was just some fancy way of barbecuing I’d never heard of.

The housewarming party went well but there was a sense of unrest shared between all three of us. At the end of the party, I was getting ready to go, but as I picked up my boot I saw a glint of metal caught in one of the sipes. As I wriggled it out I realized that it was a tooth with a dental cap. I showed it to Casey while panicking and we immediately called the police. We showed them the tooth and the location of the pillar on a map. They took the tooth as evidence, recorded our statements and left. I don’t know what good the police will do, hell I don’t even trust them. It was right next to the fucking highway. Whoever owns the pillars and the deer cams seem to have felt that they felt no need to hide what they were up to.

The last thing Casey said to me was “you know that wasn’t the way we took that night right?” The meaning was clear in her expression. Either this was unrelated to what I saw or there are multiple pillars.

Tomorrow Danielle and I are going to the town library to find any records of ownership for that area and old newspapers to see if anything similar has been seen in the area. I will let you all know if we find anything that gives us more insight in what we saw. To ease your mind, no one has been tailing my car so far so I think we are safe. If this post never gets updated, assume that we couldn’t find an answer or it is not something we can publicly discuss quite yet.