A chilling encounter happened with a Hawaiian woman during her 100-mile ultramarathon race in a Hawaiian rainforest. Kay Borleis shared her race photos with her friend when her mother noticed something weird in one of them. It was a mysterious figure that Kay and her running partner hadn’t seen during the race. Kay said she was left with literal “goosebumps” after unknowingly encountering an alleged “Nightmarcher” demon during her race.
Since she was 14 years old, Kay Borleis became an avid runner. As an art director and designer, she specializes in very long races called ultramarathons, which are longer than regular marathons. This story happened to her in January 2019. Kay was taking part in a race called the HURT 100-mile race. It’s a really tough race where people have to run a 20-mile loop through some difficult trails in Oahu, Hawaii. They have to do this loop five times.
She said this race is tough because of all the obstacles like muddy roots, water crossings, cliffs, and steep, rocky hills. Everything was going well until she hurt her foot during the second to last lap of the race. She had to stop running, and it was the first time she ever had to do that in one of her ultramarathons.
After she got home and rested, her friend Cassie sent some pictures from the race to her mom and friends. But something scary happened next. “To this day, we still don’t know what it was,” Kay Borleis wrote in a blog post (now deleted) detailing the alleged shadowy entity.
It was the night of a lunar eclipse when Kay was running when she passed by a strange thing. Her friend Cassie, who was helping her keep pace, took a photo of it. They didn’t see the creepy figure until they looked at the pictures later. Kay got scared and shared the photos on Reddit, saying, “My friend took this while pacing me. Look at the figure on the left side of my head.”
A lunar eclipse is when the moon goes dark because Earth’s shadow covers it. People sometimes think strange or mysterious things happen during lunar eclipses. Kay talked about spooky things happening to her on a podcast after the lunar eclipse.
“We never saw anyone passing us and there were no statues along the trail…It is NOT photoshopped or made. This is legit. And we saw it the morning of the Blood.”
However, neither the ultra-marathoner Kay Borleis nor her running partner recalled “passing a person on that strip of trail.” “The reason why no one was on that part of the trail is that all runners had to run in a clockwise direction,” she explained in the blog. “And tourists weren’t out that early. We didn’t see anyone for hours while running together. So, we were — and still are — positive there was no one there.”
While she was running her fourth lap, she suddenly felt a very strong, painful sensation in her right leg. It hurt so much that she had to stop and began crying a lot. She said on a podcast, “I never give up on things. I’ve never stopped running before. But this time was different. It felt like I wasn’t really in my body anymore, and I just wanted to stop. It felt like if I kept going, something bad would happen to me.”
Kay, who loves running and has been doing it for a long time, decided to stop running that day. She told the people organizing the event that she wanted to quit. Then she and her friend Cassie went back to where they were staying. Later, when they looked at the pictures they had taken during the run, they saw something strange in one of them. It showed Kay running past something spooky-looking in the forest. Even though neither of them had seen anything strange while they were there, the picture showed something different.
Kay got worried and started investigating the area. They looked into it and found out about a Hawaiian legend called ‘Nightmarchers.’ These were supposed to be the spirits of ancient warriors who wander in the rainforest. It made the whole thing even more mysterious.
According to Honolulu Magazine, these rainforest revenants “supposedly traveled at night to protect people so sacred that the common man was never allowed to look at them. Breaking that rule meant death.” If you come across a Nightmarcher, it’s advised to take off your clothes and lie face down to avoid looking at them. (Source)
Legend also says that peeing on yourself or having a family connection to the spirits might keep you safe. Kay was relieved they didn’t see the forest spirit until later. “They are “murderous shades, demons, revenants that haunt the island. They are the rabid galvanized specters of ancient Hawaiian fighters, heroes, and warriors”.
According to the OluKai website, the night marchers were first spotted in 1883, described in archives as “a mighty phantom army … proudly led by the spirit of King Kamehameha, pacing angrily about on the Big Island of Hawaii.”
The website says residents “tell ghostly tales of rhythmic chanting, horn blowing, and the beating of distant drums carried on the evening tradewinds. Both locals and visitors report bright torches sighted in the darkness in areas of dense jungle with no trails.
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“On nights of the full moon, numerous credible sightings of bands of tall and muscular warriors, bronzed and beautiful to behold, are reported. The warriors are described as marching with a god as their leader accompanied by a band of torchbearers leading the way.”
The Honolulu Magazine website quotes storyteller Lopaka Kapanui, who said, “The night marchers’ job wasn’t to terrorize people. It was simply to protect the most sacred, high-ranking chiefs … The night marchers showed mercy by traveling at night to spare people from harm.”
Kay said, “Upon further research, we found out that “ancient Hawaiian tenets assert that any mortal gazing upon or being viewed in defiance to the marchers will die horribly and violently. Some people declare that if the mortal lies still, down on the ground, prostrated to the marchers they are giving proper respect, fear, and reverence to the Night Marchers; and they will be forgiven and spared.”’
After she posted the pictures online, people got angry and said mean things to her. They called her names and said she was being rude to Hawaiian culture. Some even sent disturbing messages, saying they wanted her to meet a Night Marcher and get hurt. She had to delete the photos within three days because of all the negativity.
