Published October 1, 2026 03:02AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In honor of spooky season, <\/em>Outside editors are sharing their personal encounters while in the backcountry, hiking, camping, or otherwise enjoying the outdoors. In October of 2024, <\/em>Outside social media strategist Nicole Facchina drove down to Zion in the dark. Here\u2019s what it was like to feel watched by something you can\u2019t see.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n The night is thick in the middle-of-nowhere, southern Utah. It\u2019s fall 2024, and the autumn leaves are just beginning to turn. My boyfriend, Marshall, is sleeping in the passenger seat as I drive us from Salt Lake City to Zion National Park. It\u2019s our first trip to this landscape of narrow slot canyons and\u00a0red rock.<\/p>\n Suddenly, I jerk the steering wheel right, and the car glides around a sharp 90-degree corner on the dark road; it\u2019s as if a switch flips inside me. My heartbeat quickens, and goosebumps rise on my arms. The temperature in the car drops ten degrees in a second, and my skin goes ice-cold everywhere except the back of my neck, which is unsettlingly warm.<\/p>\n I look into the rearview mirror. Inky blackness meets my gaze. Nothing there\u2014at least, not that I can see. But that doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n I feel like I\u2019m being watched.<\/p>\n Growing up a day-trip away from Virginia\u2019s section of deep-woods Appalachia, I\u2019m no stranger to this kind of abyss. It\u2019s so dark it\u2019s impossible to know whether anyone, or anything, is outside of the thin sliver of headlights.<\/p>\n This was different.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a name for that feeling of being watched: scopaesthesia, also known as the psychic staring effect.<\/p>\n In 1913, American psychologist John Edgar Coover reported<\/a> that between 68 and 86 percent of students he surveyed intuitively knew when they knew when someone was staring at them. Nearly a century later, biologist Rupert Sheldrake similarly found in 2000<\/a> that people could sense when they were being watched, writing that the reason was, at present, unknown to science. A quick scan through Google Scholar, a database of academic literature and scholarly research, returns 149 studies that include the term.<\/p>\n Our bodies have an in-house detection system to ensure our survival. That means our eyes may notice subtle movements even when our brains don\u2019t consciously register them. We hear tiny sounds, and our skin can detect changes in temperature or pressure.<\/p>\n Whether this phenomenon is a psychic sense or our evolutionary hyper-vigilant ability to quickly process shifts in sound or temperature remains debated. Nonetheless, it\u2019s an eerie feeling for those who have experienced it.<\/p>\n At the time, Marshall and I were new to the state. Marshall\u2019s favorite national park was Zion, and to celebrate our new proximity to it, I booked a one-room cabin just outside the East Entrance.<\/p>\n We left on a Friday at around 5:30 P.M. It wasn\u2019t long before the sun slipped below the horizon, leaving me to drive in total darkness. Marshall had worked the graveyard shift at the Lodges at Deer Valley the night prior, and I let him sleep while I drove the first leg of our six-hour drive.<\/p>\n To his credit, I think he looks pretty cute when he sleeps.<\/p>\n Up until this point, the drive was almost painfully uneventful. But everything changed the moment the car charged through that dark corner. It felt as though every move I made, every twitch and shake of my body, was being studied by the oppressive gaze of an unseen watcher.<\/p>\n Then, Marshall, who\u2019d previously been dead asleep through every sharp turn before, snapped awake. His eyes darted open, and he spun around in his seat, as if startled by something behind him.<\/p>\n When did it get dark?<\/em> I remember him asking. Why didn\u2019t you wake me up to drive?<\/em><\/p>\n I swallowed my unease, not wanting to spook him further.<\/p>\n Didn\u2019t need to,<\/em> I said.<\/p>\n I wondered if he felt it too, but kept quiet. As the miles passed, I couldn\u2019t shake the heavy feeling in my chest.<\/p>\n Forty-five minutes after that eerie turn, we pulled onto a dirt road leading to our cabin. The air was cold and dry, as the desert nights tend to be. Our weekend cabin sat at the very end of the road, barely illuminated by the dim ground lights poking out of the red desert earth.<\/p>\n I rushed Marshall out of the car and told him to unlock the cabin while I fumbled with our bags.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never moved so fast. I snatched up the bags, locked the doors, scampered through the pitch-black night onto the dimly lit porch, and practically dove inside. I locked the door behind us, checked the lock, and checked it again.<\/p>\n The rest of the night blurred by. Marshall fell asleep quickly. I, on the other hand, stared at a thin-paned window next to the bed, searching for whatever could be on the other side.<\/p>\n I never saw anything. At around 3 A.M., I finally forced my eyes shut. By sunrise, as daylight flooded the room, the oppressive feeling evaporated. For the first time in hours, I felt at ease.<\/p>\n We had a full day of hiking ahead, and I wasn\u2019t going to let a night of paranoia ruin our trip.<\/p>\n And it didn\u2019t. We spent the weekend exploring red-rock cliffs, eating whatever gluten-free treats we could find, and hiking the Narrows\u2014Zion\u2019s famed trek through a river surrounded by canyon walls.<\/p>\n I dismissed the night until a year later, over dinner with friends, when the topic of weird wilderness encounters came up. As I shared my story, I expected laughs. Instead, everyone looked at Marshall. His face had gone pale as if he\u2019d seen a ghost.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just you,<\/em> Marshall said. I felt it too.<\/em><\/p>\n My comfortable denial vanished.<\/p>\n I woke up in the car because something felt wrong,<\/em> he told me. When we got to the cabin, I felt like we were being watched. Then I woke up in the middle of the night\u2014and I swear I saw two glowing eyes looking at us through the window.<\/em><\/p>\n My mouth fell open. Why didn\u2019t you say anything? <\/em>I asked.<\/p>\n Marshall shook his head. I don\u2019t know. I guess I didn\u2019t want to believe it.<\/em><\/p>\n Neither of us can explain what happened that night. I may never understand if that feeling was just paranoia brought on by driving fatigue or something actually lurking in the desert shadows.<\/p>\n What I do know is that our instincts pick up on cues long before our minds process them. The next time you feel that hot prickle on the back of your neck in the backcountry, don\u2019t write it off. Trust your instincts\u2014they exist for a reason.<\/p>\nThe Science of Feeling Watched<\/h2>\n
The Drive into the Shadows<\/h2>\n
Unpacking at the Edge of Zion<\/h2>\n
\u201cIt Wasn\u2019t Just You\u201d<\/h2>\n
Always Trust Your Instincts<\/h2>\n