A night shift worker walking home along a pitch-black rural road experienced what she describes as an inexplicable encounter that left her shaken and searching for answers. “I have this horrible feeling, almost like impending doom,” the witness reported on Reddit. “Next thing I know I feel my hair getting yanked back.”
A Familiar Route Turns Frightening
SallySue54321, as she identifies herself online, has walked the same two-hour route home from work countless times. Working night shift means her journey takes place in complete darkness along a road with no lighting, bordered by bushes with mountains beyond and an abandoned factory nearby. “I’m not scared about this really,” she explained, noting her comfort with nighttime solitude stemming from childhood experiences. “My mother used to kick me out as a kid for whatever reason and I’d be out walking the streets until like 3am.”
The witness’s familiarity with the route and her generally unflappable attitude toward walking alone in the dark makes her reaction to this particular incident all the more notable. She typically walks with music playing and a torch to light her way, treating the journey as routine despite the isolated setting.
“Next thing I know I feel my hair getting yanked back“
The Encounter
Everything seemed normal as the witness made her way along the deserted road that night. Then, as she neared the end of her route, something changed. “I start coming to the end of the road and suddenly I have this horrible feeling, almost like impending doom? All my hairs are standing up and I try and shake it off.”
What happened next would send her running. “Next thing I know I feel my hair getting yanked back,” she reported. The physical sensation was unmistakable—her head was pulled backward by an unseen force. “The yank physically pulled my head back,” she emphasized, making clear this wasn’t a subtle sensation or something she might have imagined.
Her immediate response was to spin around, expecting to find someone behind her. “Obviously I turned around in an instant freaked out that someone was behind me but there was nobody there,” she wrote. The realization that nothing visible had caused the pull sent her into flight mode. “I was so scared I ran the rest of the way to the end of the road.”
Searching for Rational Explanations
The witness reached the end of the road visibly upset. “When I got to the end of the road I was a bit emotional because I was shook up,” she admitted. Since the incident, she’s been actively seeking logical explanations for what occurred, reluctant to jump to paranormal conclusions.
Her first theory involved wildlife. “I wondered if maybe a bat or something swooped down,” she suggested, before dismissing the possibility of birds. “It couldn’t be a bird because there aren’t any birds at that time of night.”
The witness has also carefully ruled out mundane causes. “I was wearing a hi-vis raincoat that doesn’t have any buttons or anything on the back that my hair could have caught on,” she noted, eliminating the possibility that her clothing had snagged her hair. Critically, she added: “I have short hair.”
The Owl Theory—But Does It Fit?
One common explanation for mysterious hair-pulling incidents involves owls, which are known to occasionally attack humans, particularly targeting ponytails or long flowing hair that might resemble prey. However, this witness’s short hair makes such an attack far less likely. Owls typically strike at movement and silhouettes that trigger their hunting instincts—long hair swaying as someone walks fits that profile, but short hair does not.
The location and timing are right for owl activity. The isolated rural setting with mountains and bushes provides ideal owl habitat, and the nighttime hour aligns with when these birds hunt. Yet the absence of any sound—owls’ flight is nearly silent, but a strike close enough to pull hair would likely produce some audible indication—raises questions about this explanation.
A Return Journey Looms
The incident has left the witness genuinely frightened about returning to work. “That was my last shift for the week and I’m back in on Thursday and have to take the same route and honestly I am scared,” she wrote in her plea for explanations.
This account originally appeared on Reddit’s r/Ghosts forum, where the witness specifically requested help debunking the experience. “Need help to debunk what happened to me last night,” she titled her post, demonstrating a desire for rational answers rather than paranormal validation. “Open to explanations of what this could have been instead of jumping to ghost conclusions.”
Historical Context
Rural roads in isolated areas have long been associated with unexplained phenomena, from ghostly encounters to mysterious attacks. The presence of an old factory along this particular route adds another layer—abandoned industrial sites frequently appear in paranormal accounts, though whether this represents genuine supernatural activity or simply the unsettling atmosphere of derelict buildings remains debated.
The “feeling of impending doom” the witness described moments before the hair-pulling is particularly intriguing. This sensation appears frequently in accounts of paranormal encounters, often described as a primal warning system that something unnatural is present. Skeptics attribute such feelings to subconscious environmental cues—perhaps sounds below the threshold of conscious hearing or subtle visual details processed by the peripheral vision.
The Mystery Remains
The witness remains uncertain about what pulled her hair that night on the dark Welsh road. The physical sensation was undeniable—her head was yanked backward with enough force to be unmistakable. Yet no visible cause presented itself when she spun around, and the encounter has left her dreading the return journey to work.
“What could this possibly be?” she asked in her original post, a question that remains unanswered despite her attempts to find a logical explanation.
What do you think happened on that isolated road? Could an owl have attacked despite the witness’s short hair, or does the sensation of impending doom and the forceful yank suggest something more unusual? Share your theories in the comments below.
