The Chronicles of ShadowMyth: Hitchhiking with Government Agents

Since I was 14 years old, I began to hitchhike. At first it was just around the small town of 45,000 in which I lived, but by the age of 15, I was traveling long distances. I believe it was in my nineteenth year that an unusual phenomena began to occur when I traveled by thumb.

Almost every journey that I took from this age onward that was not a local expedition, began to see a running theme. Each long distance journey that I took, at one point or another, I found myself being picked up by an agent of the U.S. Government.

Now some would say that this was perhaps just an incredible ongoing coincidence, but there were times that this most clearly was not the case. Most often it was someone from the CIA, or Military Intelligence, and within five minutes of my entering the vehicle, they would announce this to me.

Never once did any of them say they were ’sent’ to give me a ride, but told some story of their just ‘happening’ along, toward a variety of destinations. Once, while traveling with a friend from Northern California to L.A., we were followed by a black van, with darkly tinted windows.

In the latter case, we had secured a ride through the L.A. area, and our hosts had decided to pull over onto the shoulder of the freeway. Immediately, the black van followed in suit, and also pulled over. We almost lost our ride, as our hosts realized we were being followed, but we were able to convince them to take us a bit further.

Each and every time this odd phenomena would occur, the conversation was most fascinating, as they would share with me little tidbits about their employment, and I would share with them my own experiences/knowledge regarding the government.

For those of you who have read my blog for some time now, you may gather ‘why’ this phenomena was occurring to me. For brevity’s sake however, I will only say, that yes, there were reasons for these events, and they were definitely not random. However, I have never fully understood the actual purpose behind them. Recently however, I do believe I have gained some small insight into this phenomena.

Approximately 4-5 months ago, I was living in the city of Denver. I was invited to an event in Colorado Springs, which was approximately an hour or so away. I had not hitchhiked any substantial distance in quite some time, and decided that instead I would put up an advertisement on Craig’s List. I requested that whoever offered a ride, include their name, and the purpose of their travel. This was to limit the many flakes who will offer rides in hopes of such benefits as sex.

An older gentleman wrote me, and told me he was heading that way for the purpose of looking at land in the area. He sounded quite genuine, and I accepted his invitation. I met him in a parking lot not far from my home, and we headed toward the Springs.

It was as usual, not five minutes after I had entered the vehicle, that he informs me that he is a Homeland Security officer. What are the odds? Let us just say, I was not surprised.

He was an incredibly fervent fundamentalist Christian, and seemed non-plussed by anything about me. He also claimed to be anti-government, and told me that his search for land was so that he had a place to hoard guns/supplies when everything ‘fell apart’, and he needed to defend himself against the government. When I tried to help him out with his search for a piece of land in the Springs that met his supposed needs, he suddenly seemed disinterested, as if this was completely meaningless to him.

As many of you know, I have recently gone on a new journey, in which I was to land in Seattle. I once again decided to place an ad on Craig’s List, and I did indeed receive a few replies. I however was not happy with any of the offers that had been placed on the table, and decided we would hitchhike instead.

My daughter Raven and I journeyed forth heading toward the nearest freeway exit, hauling our baggage with us. We stopped across the street from the exit, and sat down at a local bus stop. I went inside a nearby grocery store and got myself a fresh bottled water while Raven awaited me outside. I returned, and we crossed the street. I said to Raven, “Don’t be surprised if an agent of the government picks us up.”

We stopped in front of a Starbucks, figuring it was an easy place for a ride to pull over, as Denver is pretty strict on hitchhiking laws. We stuck our sign out, which proclaimed ‘Seattle’, and a white cargo van with Oregon license plates immediately pulled over, the driver motioning us toward the parking lot. We headed toward the vehicle, and a black middle aged gentleman jumped out of the vehicle. He asked us where we were going(duh?), and we replied Seattle. He acts all surprised, and says that he just came from there, having just arrived the night before.

He tells us he will take us to a better offramp, where we will have higher odds of getting a ride. He then proceeds to tell us that he had seen us on the opposite side of the road, and wondered why we were on the wrong side of the road hitchhiking. This was odd, as we were not hitchhiking at all on the other side of the road, and wondered how he would know we were headed the ‘wrong’ direction?

He loaded our stuff up into the back of the vehicle, and we climbed inside. For the sake of this article, I will call him ‘Fred’. Within five minutes of us being in the vehicle, Fred announces to us he is a Homeland Security officer. No, I was once again, not surprised.

Fred claims immediately before we have said anything about ourselves that he is anti-government, and begins to tell us about the evils of the U.S, government. He at one point even claimed to be used as a guinea pig of the government, as I had also been. Fred also is a hard core fundamentalist Christian, and carries with him, several versions of the bible.

As we are driving along, Fred tells us that he had come to Denver for a job interview with a company, as he only works for Homeland Security when there is a job available through the security companies he works for. He claimed that he was currently homeless, and only possessed $1300 to his name upon leaving Washington.

We are driving for about twenty minutes when I ask him where he is going to drop us off at. He tells me not to worry about it, he is driving us all the way to Seattle, and he doesn’t really want to be in Denver during the Democratic convention anyway. Yes, I am completely serious. The man claims he just got into Denver the night before, and is now driving all the way back to the Pacific Northwest, for two strangers he has never met before.

On the long drive to Seattle, which took a total of three days, Fred shared with us many stories and tales of his adventures in Homeland Security, and within his life. However, it was obvious, Fred’s situation was not what he professed, as his stories were filled with holes and contradictions. After some time, Fred changed his tune, he turned out to be completely pro-government, and had no anti-government inclinations at all. Why had he claimed so upon us entering the vehicle?

Though he claimed to be very poor, he paid for us two nights in a motel room, bought us necklaces at a convenient store along the way, and gave us $40 upon dropping us off in Seattle. He told us off and on during the entire trip that he had nowhere to be, and nothing he needed to take care of, and took his time along the way. He acted as if serving our needs, was his only purpose.

During the trip, Fred acted as if he was a security guard on duty, never allowing us to leave his sight. At one point we stopped to get a nap at a rest stop, and I told Fred we would be kicking back in the grass. He was very nervous, and begged us to stay closer to the van. We refused, and he cut the whole nap thing quite short, saying we would just go stay in a motel.

At one point Raven had gone back behind a store to make a private phone call on her cell. Fred came outside asking where she was, and I at the time had no clue. He went into a full blown panic, saying “Your daughter could be kidnapped!”. I assured him that Raven was fine, and she could take care of herself. I yelled out her name, and she appeared within moments from around the corner.

Truth be told, there was nothing normal about our trip with Fred. Off and on he would jokingly talk about throwing us out, and there were times we really contemplated just ditching him for another ride. It was quite obvious that Fred was very annoyed by me, and really wished he did not have to deal with me. I knew that if he had the choice, he would have dumped us out the first day, but no, this man was on a mission.

At times I disturbed him so badly, he would play his Christian radio station as loudly as he could, cut me off from speaking, or let me know he did not want to hear anymore of what I had to to say. Oddly enough when he dropped us off in Seattle, he acted really torn up over the situation, and asked for our email addresses and phone numbers. I told him we would be changing numbers in a couple days, but we could give him our email addresses. We have been landed a couple weeks now, and no letter from ‘Fred’ has arrived. Kind of odd, for someone that acted ’so concerned’.

One of the most suspicious things about Fred involved his cell phone. Though he had talked about how close he and his daughter were, and his relationship with his 6 children, ex-wives, etc., he never once received any phone calls or text messages. For a three day trip, that is quite odd. At one point we had landed at a motel, and were hauling our stuff inside. Fred told me not to worry, he would carry my other bag inside.

I waited inside for about ten minutes, yet Fred did not appear. I went outside to go grab the bag myself, and found Fred hidden behind the open van door, and in the process of texting someone. I grabbed my bag, and he seemed very upset, letting me know he would have carried it in for me. He was oddly taken off guard, and seemed quite nervous. Raven reported to me that she had seen him texting someone once, but once again there was nothing incoming.

I have pondered these many occurrences over the years, and as anyone would wonder, asked why? Why would the government send someone to accompany me on long distance journeys? What would be the purpose?

First, it does not seem it is for the purpose of gathering information. In fact, quite often, it seems to me they would like to know as little as possible. Secondly, in these latter two cases, these individuals were hired through private security companies, and were not expert agents of the government. They did their jobs very poorly, and seemed to have only have one function…security.

Third, there was always the announcement upon entering the vehicle, letting me know where they worked. This seems to imply, that ‘they’ want me to know what is going on. In the latter two cases, both individuals tried to make me comfortable, by implying they were anti-government. This would seem to be a ploy, to keep me in the vehicle.

There is a remote possibility, it could be to bate me into revealing whatever supposed ‘plans’ I could have. The latter I find not very plausible, or there would have been more effort to get me to talk. Quite often, the exact opposite occurred.

In the case of the latter two security officers, they both were extremely fanatical in the Christian faith. I pondered that this may have been for the purpose of making sure they would not be influenced by any of Raven’s and my idealisms.

So, after adding the math up, it seems to me there could only be one explanation…they were accompanying us for the sake of our security. This of course begs the question as to why they would care, especially considering I am one of their antagonists. I can only surmise that they feel us to be potentially useful.

I pondered whether I would even write this article, and I will admit it was a difficult decision. To be perfectly honest, I have pondered abandoning this particular aspect of my blogging because of these and other recent events. I have come into contact very recently with certain information that is quite disturbing, and even I have begun to wonder if I want to continue upon this path.

Well, stay tuned my readers, and I will share with you what I can, as I can.

Dream true,

ShadowMyth

Image can be found here.

For more from The Chronicles of ShadowMyth, be sure to visit my Myth section.