I guess mine it qualifies as 'paranormal'. Please note, I have no belief whatsoever in the paranormal of any kind, and I tend strongly to the James Randi end of the 'ghost believer' spectrum. I will say that this is absolutely true, and I haven't thought about it in decades.

Anyway, whatever, I had a best friend when I was in my early pre-teens (maybe 10 - 12 years old) who lived about 3 miles away from me. We'd often walk or bike to each other's house, depending on whatever we were planning to do. The hiking route was through a thickly wooded area, which had a deep ravine right about in the middle of it. From my back yard, you entered the woods, and when you emerged on the other side, you'd be in his back yard (which was actually a huge set of fields, they were farmers). There were fairly clear trails through the woods, but it was an arduous journey in either direction, which actually made it more fun. Nice to be off the streets and in the woods, you know?

But these woods were weird. Like I said, it was thick forest, and you had to descend into and back out of a deep ravine, with a stream running through the bottom. The ravine had no trails, and you just roughed it by dead-reckoning through and up the other side to get out. Oddly, there was a little copse at the bottom of the ravine that had a fountain in it. A regular, man made, ceramic fountain like you'd see at any garden center, but empty of water, right there way out in the middle of nowhere. It sort of stood on a base of some rocks.

So on several occasions (most often in the deep winter), I'd set out through the woods, bash my way down the ravine, pass the fountain, and then up the other side (freezing cold by then), and through the last half of the forest trail...

...and walk out of the woods into my own back yard. Right where I'd started.

The first time this happened, I called up my buddy on the phone, and was like "dude, I just hiked all the way to your house, and ended up at my house." He sorta wigged out, and said, "dude, you're kidding me, that happened to me last week coming to your house."

So over a period of two years, (most especially during winter when there was a lot of snow) we noted that this happened to each of us independently maybe four or five times. Not every trip by any means, but only rarely.

So we decided to make several trips together. In one day. Once again it was in winter, very cold, deep snow, and the walk was a pain in the ass. Our first trip was from my house, and sure enough, through the woods, down the ravine, past the fountain, back up the ravine, out of the woods, and we arrived at my house, right where we started. I kid you not.

So on the second trip, (we were already sick of this by now, and were not really interested in doing it again, because it was a pain the ass), we decided to take a slightly different route, around the bowl of the ravine, and out the other side without descending. It took a lot longer, but we ended up at my friend's house as one would expect. We abandoned the experiment at that point, and just played Atari for the rest of the afternoon. I stayed overnight. I remember his weird mom made us french toast the next morning, and it was delicious.

I took the standard route home the next day, but in the valley of the ravine, I purposely avoided the copse with the fountain. I ended up back at my house like normal.

It's not an exciting story (except maybe the french toast), but I will say this: in the early spring after our experiment, my best friend's mother took her own life. I don't know why, but I never experienced the forest travel anomaly again after that. Maybe it's because my best friend became pretty withdrawn afterwards, and we saw less and less of each other. Our travels through the woods became less frequent, and eventually just stopped.

I haven't seen that guy in 35 years. I can't help but wonder what he's up to now.