So, when I think of this encounter, I assume that the “Stickman” had some sort of survival instinct that kicked in after it ridiculously stepped out onto the road into oncoming traffic. And that is what interests me about this sighting vs other “Stickman” encounters, as there was no stalking of a witness, no evil, foreboding feelings, and no hint of supernatural speculations.

The thing ran out in front of the witness’s car. It ran across the road and hid. The witness lost sight of it. It left some kind of imprints on the grass. That’s it. If this story is fictional or embellished, there’s very little creativity to it… which IS NOT A BAD THING.

And as mundane and boring of a sighting you think that might be, in my humble opinion the blandness of the encounter (although it was bewildering to the witness) does lend some credibility to the account. Sometimes a sighting does not have to be elaborate to be straight-up unsettling.

It was difficult to find a sighting that described a subject similar to the Stickman of Clark County Ohio. As I said before many “Stickman” sightings are of dark, black shadowy figures in which many of the themes lean toward a supernatural vibe.

However there were two somewhat similar encounters I was able to look at, both being witness accounts and neither verified. The first comes from a commenter on a Reddit thread I posted seeking similar encounters like the Clark County Stickman. Here is their comment:

“In 2017 I was at Ohio University and around 1-2 AM I decided to go to “The Ridges” with some friends (haunted asylum on campus). We walked… which was about a 45 minute to an hour walk and once we got there we got a really bad feeling, I’ve been there before and never felt the way I did so we turned back. We noticed on the way back we were being followed by a car so we had to try and figure out how we were going to lose the creepy guys that were following us. We got turned around and we’re in a courtyard and all the university help phones were all out so we couldn’t call for help and our phones were dead. So we peeked around to see if the guys were still following us and all we saw was something that was taller than a stop sign, [two-dimensional] and didn’t really have a face and it was running across the field as fast as a car could drive. I’ve never been able to find any paranormal thing to compare it to but this is the closest yet. Every time I talk about it I tear up.”

When we posted the video on our Reddit page, one responder made this interesting comment:

“So this might be a coincidence but there is a native American reservation in Yakima Washington. There is a tribal legend about stick who come out at night and try to trick people into following them. They talk to each other with whistles, and you can hear them giggling. They have the ability to sound like people to help lure their prey.”

A related encounter with a “Stickman” comes from the Reddit page Humanoid Encounters:

“Okay so. Where do I start? I was walking up to my local park with 2 of my friends. It was about 9. There is a path when you first walk to the park that leads to this elementary school that I used to go to. There is a fence on the side of it, its gated and on the other side of the path is just a hill leading to the park. There is then a street light on the path. We were walking past this and one of my friends said what’s that? We looked and kept walking toward to seem like a dog. It was just frozen and staring at us. I got closer and It ran away then and I saw its spine and it was nothing that I’ve seen before. It had short legs but was weirdly long. That’s not where it gets interesting tho. We just walked up to the park. When we were leaving (about 10 mins later) we were walking and wondered if we would be able to see it again. So we stopped and stared down the path. It’s more like a concrete path. Then me and my one friend saw this stick-man like thing running down the hill towards the woods! It was going mad fast, it hit the feet. It was about 7 ft tall maybe a little shorter. Point legs and arms… I didn’t really get a good look at its head. I saw it for maybe a good 4 seconds. It wasn’t really black it was like black and grey, I saw it clear it went in the view of the street light. It was just running then before it got to the path it vanished. It was terrifying and I got the chills. I explained it and then my other friend said he saw the same thing. My other friend didn’t tho, idk why. We are going tonight again, at the same time, and to do the same thing and see if we can get it on video. I’ll post a picture of where I saw it later and hopefully a video of proof. That was extremely disturbing. I researched it a little last night and came and saw “the black stickman phenomenon”. I saw another story like this one on reddit. He said him and his mom saw it run across the road and his dad didn’t.”

Unfortunately, the person who posted this encounter did not update with photos or video. However, another commenter did reveal that they had had a similar experience before.

“So, I just happened to stumble into this subreddit but thought I’d mention this while I’m here. There was one of these lingering around my house when I was 14-15. I saw it a few times at a distance but never really got close enough to it to ever see any features. It always showed up around twilight hours or just after dark. I haven’t seen it in over 10 years at this point though.”

These sorts of encounters with Stick Men can be extremely unsettling for those who experience them, and can really cause people to reassess what they thought they knew. One good example of this is a commenter on True Ghost Stories Archives who is a self-proclaimed skeptic and seems to be having a hard time reconciling his own brush with a Stick Figure, of which he explains:

“I honestly thought I was crazy. I’m 33, level headed, and while I won’t rule anything out I generally don’t think much of the paranormal. The other night (morning maybe, I keep odd hours) I went outside for a smoke. My lawn has a low retaining wall, about bench-height, and a long, sloping road down to the creek, noted for its malfunctioning street lights. I saw something walking down the middle of the road. I have a neighbor who walks at all hours day or night, I didn’t think much of it. As it got closer, it looked like a pencil drawn picture of a man done by a kid. It wasn’t black, so much as it was nebulous, like the static on a TV channel. Grey and black moving in a blur, in the shape of the sign that lets guys know which door to go in. The street lights flicked on and it stopped, “looked” around (I assume as much, all I saw was its head move) and saw me. As soon as it did, it took off down the road faster than my eyes could follow. I didn’t tell anyone for a few days, then did the “promise you won’t think I’m crazy” with my girlfriend. She said she had heard of similar stories, and asked it I’d googled it. I did, and here I am. At least if I’m crazy I’ll have company.”

From “The Truly Bizarre World of Encounters with Real Stick Figures”

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are certain tales of “Stickmen” that are ENTIRELY fiction.

One such story I found on the Reddit forum r/nosleep from 2015, and some may liken “Stickmen” encounters with the Creepypasta meme “The Slenderman.”

Also recently, an encounter tale was removed from the Reddit forum r/humanoidencounters after the individual was called out for writing fiction, and the post was locked by moderators.

However, many of the stories from sources mentioned above are elaborate and the “entities” are evil and intend to do harm to individuals.

Other links concerning “Black Stick Men”

ObscUrban Legend Wikia: Black Stick Men

Cryptid Wiki: Black Stick Men

Paranormal Kativity [YouTube] Black Stickman Phenomena

Blogtalk Radio: The Mothman of Chernobyl & Black Stickman Phenomena | Peck Report Ep.218

Beyond Creepy [YouTube] “The Black Stickman Phenomenon”

The Fortean Slip: The Black Stickman Phenomenon

Mysterious Universe: The Truly Bizarre World of Encounters with Real Stick Figures

Mysterious Universe: Extremely Bizarre Encounters with Truly Surreal Mystery Humanoids

Phantoms and Monsters: The Stickman Entity

Related NCS Case Files:

“SLENDERGUMBY:” Humanoid Figure Leaps Through The Forest at the Same Time on Consecutive Nights in Florida

NCS Case File #23: Slender-Limbed Shadow Creature (possible Black Stick Man)

NCS Case File # 3: Unknown Pale White Beings in the Midwest

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by Adam Benedict

This collection of over 170+ articles, direct from newspapers of the 1800s and 1900s, brings some of the most bizarre, amazing, and incredible stories of true monster encounters out of the past and into your hands! Presented with zero spin or bias, this book delivers just the facts and allows you, the reader, to decide for yourself if the stories within actually happened or not.

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Full Transcript of the Video “Stickman of Clark County Ohio”