CHILD from OREGON Spoke of a “TALL FRIEND in the WOODS” — A Month Later, He Vanished…
1. The Boy Who Talked to the Trees
In the dense green heart of the Pacific Northwest, where fir and pine trees knit together into endless shadowed corridors, stories tend to linger. They do not disappear easily. They sink into moss, into soil, into memory.
One such story began quietly in the summer of 1997, in Douglas County, Oregon.
The child’s name was Ethan Hullbrook.
He was eight years old.
And before he vanished without a trace, he told everyone about his tall friend in the woods.
At first, no one listened.
2. A New Beginning at the Edge of the Forest
Deborah Hullbrook did not choose the house by accident.
After a painful divorce in Portland, she wanted distance—from her former husband, from memories that hurt, from a city that felt too loud for grief. Roseburg, Oregon, offered what she needed: quiet streets, familiar faces, and land that bordered something ancient and vast.
Their new home sat on three acres of private property, pressed directly against the edge of Jimqua National Forest, a wilderness that stretched unbroken into the Cascade Mountains.
To Deborah, the forest felt peaceful.
To Ethan, it felt alive.
Ethan was not the kind of child who ran toward crowds. He preferred pencils to soccer balls, sketchbooks to shouting. He was thin, red-haired, freckled, and introspective beyond his years.
The move was hard on him.
For weeks, he barely spoke.
Then, in mid-June, something changed.
3. The Woods Gave Him Back a Smile
Deborah noticed it first at breakfast.
Ethan began humming while he ate.
He asked if he could go outside early.
By midmorning, he would vanish into the woods behind the house, returning hours later with muddy shoes, flushed cheeks, and a brightness in his eyes that Deborah had not seen since before the divorce.
On June 10th, while pushing peas around his dinner plate, Ethan said something that made his mother pause.
“I met my friend today.”
Deborah smiled gently.
“Oh? From school?”
Ethan shook his head.
“No. From the woods.”
He described a very tall man—taller than the trees, he said. Someone who never spoke but showed him beautiful places: mossy clearings, cold streams, rocks shaped like animals.
Deborah felt a chill.
A stranger in the forest was not a fairy tale.
But when she asked more questions, Ethan showed no fear—only affection.
4. The Ranger Found Nothing
Concerned, Deborah spoke with their neighbors, Tom and Margaret McKenzie, an elderly couple who often watched Ethan while she worked at the hospital.
Tom McKenzie was a retired forest ranger.
That fact alone brought her comfort.
Tom walked the forest with his rifle, checking for camps, footprints, trash—anything that might suggest another human presence.
He found nothing.
No signs of trespassers.
No fires.
No trails beyond Ethan’s own small paths.
Tom reassured Deborah.
“Kids his age invent friends,” he said. “Especially after trauma.”
Deborah wanted to believe him.
She chose to believe him.
5. The Drawings That Should Never Exist
On June 23rd, Deborah made a mistake that changed everything.
While cleaning Ethan’s backpack, she opened his sketchbook.
What she saw inside made her hands shake.
Page after page—twenty in total—showed the same figure.
A tall shape towering above trees.
Arms too long.
Body too thin.
And where a face should have been—
Nothing.
Just a blank, white oval.
In some drawings, the figure stood alone between the trees.
In others, it reached toward a small stick figure—Ethan.
In one drawing, the two were holding hands, walking deeper into the forest.
When Deborah asked Ethan about it, he answered calmly.
“That’s my friend.”
“But… he has no face,” she whispered.
Ethan shrugged.
“He doesn’t need one.”
6. Rules, Boundaries, and Orange Ribbons
Fear does not always scream.
Sometimes it whispers.
Deborah forbade Ethan from going into the forest.
For the first time in months, he cried—hard, desperate sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than sadness.
He begged.
He insisted his friend was real.
At the hospital, a psychologist told Deborah what she wanted to hear.
Imaginary friends were normal.
Restriction could make it worse.
A compromise was reached.
Ethan could go into the woods—but only within a defined boundary.
Tom McKenzie tied bright orange ribbons to trees, marking a one-mile safe zone.
Ethan promised not to cross them.
At first, he kept that promise.
7. The Forest Begins to Change Him
As June turned to July, something subtle shifted.
Ethan became quiet again.
At dinner, he barely spoke.
His drawings did not change.
The same tall, faceless figure appeared again and again.
On July 15th, Ethan came home with a straight scratch across his forehead.
Not jagged.
Not accidental.
Deborah dismissed it as a branch.
On July 22nd, Ethan failed to come home on time.
When he finally emerged from the woods, pale and shaking, he spoke of a massive oak tree, far beyond the orange ribbons.
“He showed me,” Ethan said. “The biggest tree.”
Deborah should have listened harder.
8. August 7th, 1997
The heat was oppressive.
Unusual for Oregon.
Deborah made Ethan breakfast and reminded him to stay close.
He wore his blue T-shirt, denim shorts, and white Nike Air Max sneakers.
She kissed him goodbye.
That was the last time she ever saw her son alive.
At 9:30 a.m., Margaret McKenzie watched Ethan walk into the woods with a small backpack.
At 11:00, she rang the bell.
No answer.
By noon, police were involved.
By evening, the forest was filled with voices calling Ethan’s name.
9. The Shoes Beneath the Oak
Search dogs led officers north—past the orange ribbons.
One mile into the forest, beneath a massive oak tree over 300 years old, they found them.
A pair of children’s sneakers.
Neatly placed.
Side by side.
Laces tied.
Barefoot footprints led away from them.
Then—nothing.
No disturbance.
No scent.
No explanation.
Scratched into the oak’s bark was a drawing.
A tall, faceless figure.
Holding a child’s hand.
10. A Mystery That Refuses to Die
Ethan Hullbrook was never found.
Years later, his backpack surfaced miles away.
Inside: his sketchbook.
The final drawing showed the tall friend again.
Ahead of them—only blank white space.
As if the child could not draw what came next.
Or was not meant to.
