Introductions

 Hello.

     

    My name (as far as I'll tell you) is Arbor. I am as archivist who works with the National Parks Service. I will not give out my location obviously as I've been using the internet for years and that would just be a poor idea. My job basically involves keeping catalog on changes in the service, as well as helping with book keeping. I'm sure you could imagine, very riveting work. I did not make this blog just to complain about the monotony of 'Arbor can you get this book from storage for the year 19xx' I made this blog as a way to showcase some oddities that involve my hobby. You see while I archive documents for the Service, my favorite thing is archiving video and photos. Preferably pertaining to nature. If you haven't noticed I like the outdoors and its why I took a job in the Service anyway. I dreamed of being a Ranger when I was a kid, but that job doesn't exactly pay the bills. 

 

    That aside and back to the matter at hand, my friends are all avid hiker/ nature influencers, people who basically make a living off social media photos of cliffs and rivers and beautiful scenery or the natural facts of the world etc you know the type. So I naturally offered to help keep track of their photos they keep in reserve for slow weeks. Tons of people on socials do this as a way to keep up with algorithms. It's a solid way to keep that revenue up when they want to vacation off Insta or Tiktok.  I've happily done this for them for the fun of it. I like looking at the photos, putting in their locations and such. I do it myself even, but keep my photos to myself.

 

    Now with social media its a given that you push the limits of what others do. As it stands, all my friends who do this stuff play it very very safe. Staying on public trails or well known viewing areas that they find new angles to capture to put over their *insert advertisement* post. All of them do this except one. My friend (who will be known as Connor from now on.) wanted to innovate. Connor has a smaller following than my other two friends who do this kind of work, in fact so small he still works a full time position as a chef. He had an idea that would help him out a lot however. See the area I am located in has... Well to be said rumors. The preserve I work for has a very large expanse of open area to the public. Yet we do have one area that is off limits. This area is stated to be "Teddy's Regret" to locals. Stated as so for one large reason. 

 

    A lot of people disappear in Teddy's Regret. 411 cases in that area are significantly higher than other areas of the park. To a point the service set up a barricade to prevent people from entering. By that I mean a chain fence but we are the NPS after all not a lot of extra funding for that kinda stuff. People still get in obviously but the return rate is... Low. It's said there's a beautiful river clearing that caps the head of a large flowing river that runs through most of the preserve. Connor wanted to be the one to get a photo of it. He confided this to me a few weeks ago. I obviously told him that was stupid and that I wanted nothing to do with it because that is a criminal offense on trespassing charges and I have a roof to keep over my head. Connor promised me he would not do it, which ended up being an obvious lie. 

 

    I hadn't heard from Connor in 2 weeks before today. When he sent me a Google drive of photos with the name "I got them". I looked into the drive and found a few photos that were pretty run of the mill.

 

Below are them:

         Nothing of too much note to start. Just mushrooms which are Connor's specialty. He grows his own kits and collects images of them ETC. Then I saw this.

 

     Son of a bitch jumped the fence. I know this because this area lines up to a 3d drone view of the area in our catalog of Teddy's. It also matches up with the description the Rangers gave me of the area when I asked. The Ranger stated that was one of the top search areas for missing individuals who come up as 411 as its near the end of the river. I've been messaging Connor non stop about this. He hasn't responded much since the drive was sent because he's been "Busy" but from what I can gather he jumped the fence more than likely and got these photos. Now most of them are pretty normal. However one set of photos does stand out. Stuck in a folder that was initially zipped with no name was a collection of distorted images. This is more or less where I say. I need help.

 

    Connor's images have odd artifacting that has me very confused. The artifacts only appear on 3 images in 3 specific locations ranging from low artifacts to high. Connor's camera settings were perfect and he's never had this problem previously. So I have 2 things to ask. 1 Has anyone seen this type of artifacting. 2 Am I suffering from pareidolia or is there someone in the last image?

        Like I SWEAR that is someone standing there. But none the less this is what has the most artifacting. In the mean time I will be looking for more information from Connor as to what he saw there and why he even thought this was a good idea to begin with.

   

    Thank you for the help anyone out there in advance. 

 

-Arbor