I first heard about Kai Yazee's ordeal from a friend at N.A.U. who told me,

you've got to talk to this guy. He saw something beyond bizarre one night on the Navajo reservation.

Naturally, I was curious. People whisper about strange events out here all the time, but Kai's story had extra weight to it.

So one evening, we grabbed coffee in a quiet corner of a cafe near campus.

He hesitated before sharing, almost like he was still trying to convince himself it had really

happened.

Kai explained he'd been around 10 when it went down. He and his father

were driving late at night toward Window Rock, heading home from some family gathering. They'd taken a

lonely back road with hardly a streetlight for miles. Kai remembered he was chatting about trivial things,

maybe something about a movie he wanted to see,

when his dad abruptly stopped responding.

He said his father's knuckles tightened on the steering wheel, and the older man scanned

the night as if searching for a threat.

That tension seeped into the truck's cab.

Kai sensed every muscle in his father's body was on high alert, so he asked,

Dad, is something wrong? The reply was nothing more than a muttered. Don't look outside.

That warning was so quiet, Kai almost didn't catch it. He leaned forward to ask again,

but then his dad pressed the gas, urging the old truck to go

faster than it ever had. The fear on his father's face was more alarming than any words could

have been.

Kai couldn't help himself. He glanced out the passenger window. Shadows flickered across

the desert, but he didn't notice anything unusual at first. He continued

...