This event is copied directly from the journal written that day: April 20, 1987. The event happened as I sat on the western edge of the woodland, through the woods from my parents’ home. I do not recall exactly if it was the spot that overlooked the Long Island Expressway (which is gone since they built the service roads ) or the hill that overlooked the industrial park from the steep embankment. I visited both as ideal spots for watching the sun set. As you can tell, I was more intersted in watching the clouds than what was below them at the time.
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I sit outside in the sunshine on this warm spring day. I watch the sun sink slowly below the horizon from the top of a steep hill. I look into the sky where the clouds camouflage themselves to match the sunset. Tonight, one cloud suspends over the sun.

The bottom of this cumulus cloud takes on no other color I’ve seen before: pink. But so soft a pink it looks like cotton candy, but not sticky. I guess it would be more like cotton then.

Then the tremendous view rose from there. Around the outside edges of the cloud, there is a billowing formation soft and cottony like. But the center wasn’t defined as the edges. The center was blended together smoothly. It varied in colors that we[re] constantly swirling. I saw greens, blues, purples, pinks, reds, yellows, oranges, browns, and white. But there was no black. No darkness existed whatsoever within that cloud. If I watched the center for a few minutes I began to see things. Places that I’d never think I would see, but places that I wanted to see so much.

Someone came up from behind me and sat down beside me on the hill. He looked at me and at the cloud I was watching. The cloud that was beyond my description, because it was so beautiful. Then, this person pointed at the cloud and remarked about its beauty.

I nodded still looking at the cloud. Then the person told me that what the sight was wasn’t just a cloud, but the outside of Heaven. I turned around to look at this person, but he was nowhere in sight now. Strange. Then I turned my eyes back toward the sky to see the last of the cloud fading into nothing.

Next, I thought of the cloud and what the person had said. Then, I though to myself if that was what Heaven was like on the outside. It must be unimaginable on the inside.

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Yes, I had a complete stranger walk up, tell me I’m looking at the outside of Heaven and then vanish from sight when I turned to look at him. But it was a remarkable sight. And this also took place on Manetto Hill. The area you call Mount Misery.

I also would like to add, while I have seen the glowing red eyes, I do know the difference between those and tail-lights from Harvard, the industrial park or Long Island Expressway. Having grown up in and around those woods, I can say I would be well used to it – day or night. I am not just some hiker who has visited the area.

In fact, I can point out the remains of a tree house and two underground “clubhouses” my siblings and I built in those woods a little off the common trail that now exists. I can also point to the marker in the tree beside the existing trail where a friend of mine set it decades ago. That was when we ran into a “glowing red eye” thing in daylight. It is on the west side of the trail, north of the firebreak (where you can see industrial park on one side and Harvard Drive on the other, just north of the radio towers but south of where Harvard makes it’s final turn back toward Plainview Road / Washington Avenue in Woodbury.)

Having lived there until I was 23, I will say I have also NEVER seen a UFO flying overhead. Though I do know Long Island has many NIKE sites (missiles, not the sneakers). They would have been active in the 1960′s.

On Harvard drive, my parents’ house faced the woods – day and night. From my bedroom window, I could see the radio towers (at first only one), long before Channel 21′s tower went up down the hill. There was much to see over the span of over two decades, from twinkling lights of the industrial park on the other side in the winter, to strange sightings seen from the edge as well as walking through the woods long after dark year round. This was in the 1970′s and 1980′s, long before they introduced an official trail system through the “green belts” of Long Island.

I have never heard of “Mount Misery” until your website, nor heard any legends of Mothmen in the area (though I plan to look that up). But I can recall horrors. In the early 1970′s, allegedly some maniac jumped out of thick bushes on Harvard Drive, grabbed a young female teenager, raped her, cut her up in pieces and dumped her remains in plastic lawn-and-leaf bags in the woods. I’ve confirmed that the find of decomposing body parts of a female victim was true. That was a time when many landscapers in the area dumped their bags there. They never found who did it.

On a personal note, I have witnessed the “glowing red eyes” in the woods, from the windows, from the front lawn and while walking at night in the woods. The figure is black, yes, as in the color of your background. A closer description would be a blackness that swallows all surrounding light completely. Wings? Perhaps. I’ve caught a glimpse of something that may be such, but personally, the eyes were disturbing enough. It’s creepy seeing those looking directly at your bedroom window…

My guess is less “mothman” and more demonic. I’m not one to jump at shadows and see demons or ghosts in corners on a regular basis. But I have not been the only witness to what I have seen and spoken above. Sadly, for generations Long Island has been (and still is) rife with people who play with Ouija boards, call circles, or perform actions that call these things. And many people are too stupid to set limits or know what they are actually doing in general. There is currently, very little natural growth (“green”) on Long Island. For some reason, away from the crowds of people are where some unusual things are found… Granted, playing with the paranormal may have gone on long before the 1900′s. The name “Manhattan” was based on the Native American word for “Hellgate”…