Rate this encounter: Stephen Wendell Gallagher, Marin Headlands, California, August or September 2004

I was literally attacked by a very evil, powerful, and malicious force in an old, abandoned, de-commissioned, pre-WW I gun emplacement on the Marin Headlands, in Marin County, California. I am a well-known individual in Northern California, especially in Sonoma County, and I believe that there are many people who will attest to my honesty and integrity. Everything that follows is the absolute truth. I have told many people about this experience, but today is the first time I have documented it in writing. I just discovered the Ghostvillage Web site tonight. I am narrating this story with the hope that paranormal experts in the San Francisco area will go and investigate the site. Do not go there alone.

I have always been fascinated by paranormal phenomena. I had always heard personal stories and accounts about many of the abandoned gun emplacements at the Marin Headlands being haunted as well as the area in general due to all the violent deaths that have occurred there. I had been told that several others were haunted in the same area as the one that I had a terrifying experience in.

I had first found this site a year or so before, but did not have the time or a flashlight to enter. Nor, did I wish to enter alone. I was never able to interest anyone to come with me so finally I went back alone in August or September of 2004, just before going off to UCSC to complete my four-year degree. I had wanted to arrive in the middle of the day, but didn't manage to get there until dusk. Even during the day, the Marin Headlands can be spooky as hell, but at night... Over the years hundreds of people have been murdered or worse at the Marin Headlands. I brought my two 4 and 6 D Cell Mag-lights.

I turned on my flashlights and crawled through the hole with one in each hand. Inside the compound was a series of five rooms in the shape of an H, with one central room connecting the other four rooms. There were several big metal doors that prevented access to the rest of the compound. I spent about five minutes cautiously walking through the small complex, making sure there was nothing hiding anywhere. It was very dusty and dirty, but very little trash. It didn't smell especially bad. The temperature was normal, maybe a little cool. There was a lot of graffiti on the walls, but it was so old, that it was unreadable. I was quite disappointed. I was expecting something to happen, but since I was alone, I was glad. I had actually been more worried about an encounter with hostiles of the living variety.

I was standing in center of the main room that connects the other four and I literally said this. "This is bull s___. There is nothing here." These were the first words I had spoken.

As soon as I said this, I was attacked by this incredible force. I can't begin to describe how it exactly happened. All of a sudden my chest cavity was filled with this incredibly excruciating pain, and all of the energy in my body was draining out of me. I was overcome with extreme weakness and exhaustion in an instant and was struggling to not faint or pass out. I literally had to fight to not collapse but slowly get down on my hands and knees. I could no longer stand and I was afraid of toppling over and cracking my head and then I'd be history.

I was way beyond being scared. I shifted the flashlights in my hands so that I was resting my knuckles on the ground and still holding them with the flashlights facing forward so I could see where I was going. The best I could do was look at the ground because I couldn't lift my head up. I was now focused on crawling to the hole that I entered which was about twenty feet away, and in my state, it seemed like a mile. The whole time that I was crawling to the exit, I felt as if there was this tremendous weight on top of me, trying to crush me into the ground. Suddenly, there was this subtle voice in my head that was telling me to just lie down and go to sleep and part of me thought it sounded like a good idea since I was so tired. I was seriously terrified now, and mentally chose to not look around to see what horror had suddenly materialized out of the ether. It took two or three minutes to crawl with great difficulty to the door. It took tremendous will and determination too make it out of that building, because as bad as my symptoms were, when I was first assaulted, they slowly worsened. I was literally like a baby struggling to crawl, moving first one arm and then a leg and then another arm, etc and the whole time very wobbly and fighting so hard to not fall over or faint.

I was traumatized further when I finally got to the exit because I forgot that the hole had I entered was elevated so I had to crawl up the side of the wall to exit the building. This was extremely difficult to do. The shelf that the hole was in was only two or three feet high, but in my condition, it was daunting. And I was terrified beyond belief that now that I was about to escape from whatever was attacking me, they (I typed "they" and not it) were going to take it to the next level and materialize physically so they could grab me. That didn't happen, or at least I was not aware of anything like that happening, and I crawled out of the entrance.

Incredibly, as soon as I got out, all the pain, dizziness and weakness instantly disappeared, as if it had never happened. I am serious. As soon as I crawled out of the hole, I felt completely normal again. I was still scared to death and shaken mentally, but physically I felt fine. I got back in my car, badly shaken and drove back to Sonoma County, the county directly north of Marin County where I had lived all my life up to that point. I will never go into that building again.

Through the whole ordeal, I felt mentally aware and competent. I have never felt any physical symptoms like those that I experienced, before that time or since then. I am now only 43, and have always been in excellent health. In high school I was known for possessing tremendous strength and endurance, and stayed that way into my thirties. At the time that this occurred I had not consumed any alcohol or any drugs of any kind at all, in over 16 years, so you cannot say I was "on something." And I have not consumed any since. I have never been a smoker and I have no heart problems of any kind.

I would also like to say that I have strong spiritual beliefs. I consider my self a spiritual warrior, a peaceful warrior, a fighter for truth and justice, and for the most part, I am fearless. I felt that these values, beliefs, and physical attributes of mine were practically worthless in the face of what I experienced. Maybe those beliefs and my physical stamina saved me, probably God did, but I do not want to be put to the test like that ever again. I now know beyond the shadow of a doubt that powerful, evil, paranormal forces absolutely do exist in the world. I feel that I am lucky to be alive.

Now I will tell you how to find this place. Do not go there alone. I honestly hope that you do not experience what I experienced, but I do want to know the history behind the place and maybe kill the evil that lurks there by setting it free by healing it. There are many batteries, even in just the northern Marin headlands but this smaller battery that I went inside is very easy to find. Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, you take Bunker Road all the way through the tunnel to the very farthest reaches of the Marin Headlands, eventually driving past Battery Mendell to the very end of the road and a parking lot. You will be high up on the cliffs at the very edge of the sea. Looking west over the ocean, you will see a two- or three-story guard house 200 yards south of you, on your left, that is about to fall in to the ocean. Maybe it already has. To the north and right of you, are two large batteries that are each respectively about 50 and 100 yards away. I think the parking lot ends at two batteries that are side-by-side, and parallel to the face of the cliff. These are both right at the edge of the cliff and will eventually fall into the sea. These are not imposing gun emplacements with huge cavernous holes coming out of the sides of cliffs like many in the area. They are just low flat concrete buildings right at the edge of the sea. I believe it was the more northerly one on the right that I entered. It will be obvious, because it is the only one with the bars pried open and a hole torn in the steel covering.

I currently live in Singapore. I moved here 16 months ago, but I have lived most of my life in Sonoma County, California, where I my family and many friends still live. Everything that I have written here is the absolute truth.