A solo traveler living out of a van was left terrified when a man drove up to her vehicle under the guise of being a Good Samaritan to warn her that another was supposedly watching her with binoculars from a distance.
Conversation with a stranger
Alyssa Vanilla had been parked in a remote spot on government-owned land outside of Tucson, Arizona, when a stranger drove up in an all-terrain vehicle and struck up a conversation.
Out of nowhere, the man’s ATV could be heard growing louder in the footage shot by Alyssa for her YouTube channel – before he pulled up to her van, parked and asked her if she was ‘doing okay.’ To this, Alyssa responded that she was.
Alyssa then asked him if he was a park ranger. The man responded that he wasn’t – but said he lived ‘close by’ and claimed that he regularly drove around the area to offer campers water.
She thinks she asked a lot of unnecessary questions
The man also peppered her with questions about what she does for a living and how long she’d been on the road.
He then told her of himself: ‘Just so you know, so you’re not worried, I drive by here … I live here, like a mile and a half from here. So I kind of drive through, when I’m here, just checking on people, making sure they got water, got what they need.
‘So if you do stay, I’ll see you again! But, that’s all I’m doing. Nothing spooky!’ he said to Alyssa, seemingly in an attempt to reassure her he was a non-threatening presence at the campground.
Before driving off, he went on another tangent about how he’d had ‘s**t stolen from [his] house’ previously and after that ‘started making myself open to people that were out here, giving them my name so they knew who I was, so they saw my face.’
He then said that she would be ‘welcome’ to ‘come by’ his house and use his shower.
Feeling discomfort already
After three-and-a-half minutes, he finally pulled away – only for Alyssa to realize he still wasn’t totally gone as she could still hear the ‘muffled’ sounds of his motor not far off.
And, indeed, to Alyssa’s intense discomfort, some minutes later, the man came back.
And, on his second visit to Alyssa of the afternoon, he took a different approach – one even more riddled with red flags.
‘Hi. So, you have a guy on the mountain up there that is watching you with binoculars,’ the man declared from the driver’s seat of his ATV.
‘Well, that’s unnerving! I guess I won’t be staying!’ Alyssa answered warily.
She’d been sitting in the back of her van folding laundry and was now speaking to the stranger through its open side door.
‘Well, it’s not that you can’t stay. I’ll be honest with you, the other side of the mountain is safer,’ the man offered.’
He’s driving an older Dodge pickup and he told me that he comes out here and offers water to people.
But I would stay away from him. He told me he parks up there and looks around to see who might need water, who might need this, who might need that.’
‘The man lingers a lot’
And, I turned and looked… her f**king camper is right in the open,’ he continued of his supposed conversation with this other man in the area.
It was especially odd that, according to what the man in the ATV was saying, this unseen second man was also in the habit of lingering in the area to help campers in ‘need’ of ‘water’ – just like the man claimed to be doing himself in his initial conversation with Alyssa, minutes earlier.
Alyssa tried to lighten the mood by saying that she was happy to get some housework done, referring to her folding her laundry.
Next thing she knew, the man began staring straight at her as he slowly tapped his fingers on his steering wheel – and didn’t break his gaze for nearly a minute.
Only when she assertively asked the man if he ‘needed anything’ did he respond, ‘No,’ before he finally re-started his engine and drive off.
Alyssa then shared in on-screen text: ‘As soon as he was out of sight, I grabbed my solar panels and power bank[,] threw everything in the van… and drove as far away from the area as possible.’
As seen in the next shot, Alyssa eventually parked in a parking lot, where she addressed the incident on camera.
