I’m writing this in my car legitimately 15 minutes after this happened. I’m not gonna act like I’m shaking or traumatized, but I do want to post about this in the hopes that someone could possibly offer clarity or similar experiences. I don’t know if any of the details are important, so Im gonna try as much as I can to give as many details as possible.

had to go to the bathroom and i’m at a park I hike the trails of in my spare time in Nashville, TN while workin on stuff bc it’s pretty; go to bathroom there’s a guy in there in the small stall locked in standing, i go in the big one and sit down, it stinks bad like gasoline and i realize it’s coming from him, he’s just slowly rocking back and forth on his boots. i literally don’t hear anything, no breathing, no pissing, nothing, for around a minute. then he flushes, and then stands there for another 30 seconds, unmoving. As soon as I entered, I was filled with just this strange feeling of dread. Normally, this park is a place of relaxation and refuge for me, hence why I go there so often to do work. I looked up from my notes and without seeing or hearing it, the man’s feet had completely turned around, now facing the door of the stall. his feet were slightly poking out of the stall doors, and when I went back around the Nature Center to fill up my water bottle, I tested this to see, and just as I feared, my head would be around two to six inches away from the door in this position, which won’t make sense in a second, and further would just be very uncomfortable to stand in front of for an extended period of time (the door was closed)

after this realization he’d turned his feet, im focusing on the movement of his feet but can still see the top of the stall in my peripherals. even though i can tell he’s not standing on his tip toes or anything, i can see the very top of his head starting to move straight up and mechanically turn itself towards me, without the feet moving at all. his head was coming up from the middle of the stall, if anything, towards the back near the toilet. Given his unmoving feet, this would place his head around a foot away horizontally from his feet. his head was not angling like when a person gets up from a sitting position, the movement was straight up, as if it was extending, the best thing I can compare it to is a submarine’s telescope thing exiting the water to survey the area.

i quickly look up and almost reflexively, i see the top of his head sink back down, again, straight down with no angle or bend. i only saw the top of his head sinking back down, but i was filled with this feeling like he had looked at me writing notes about him in the other stall, and right before the stumble, the “head” piece went back into the stall. then he legit almost falls over but braces himself against the stall, and starts making these just… disturbing almost animalistic noises. like this is probably gonna sound funny but the best way i can think to compare it to is the sound the pufferfish makes when they put the carrot in his mouth, with these long sighs. i hear him sort of stumbling around making this noise, and then the sink turn on, and finally he leaves. It sounded like he was clinging to the walls as he walked, or more, thudded towards the sinks and eventually out the door.

i legit was like going wild in my head being like tf tf tf what if he’s just acting like he’s leaving duh duh duh so i waited like 15 seconds until i was sure he was gone and then quickly washed my hands and went to see if i could see him walking in either direction bc regardless of where you go outside of the bathrooms, you’ll be visible for at least a minute unless you’re running, as the area is mostly open. Given the man’s large, dirty work boots, i figured he’d still be visible. i looked in both directions outside the bathroom and even looked down towards the other entrance of the trails where he could’ve turned, absolutely nothing. There were others around the park, as again, it’s a nice day, but nobody bald or as tall as he was. Note, I’m around 6’2 and my head goes maybe an inch or two below the top of the stall.

Edit 1.5 <my post got removed from r/paranormal for some reason (i guess I had an encounter with one of their mods in the bathroom and they took offense): i went back into the bathroom to take a closer look at the smaller stall and take a few pictures, and looked a bit into the history. I’ll put the pictures I take in a comment below the post, as it won’t let me add pics to the initial post, but it’s honestly nothing too crazy. I saw a message between the stalls that said “BJ at Krogers 6-8.” I could’ve sworn this wasn’t there when I took a look back at the stall the first time, but I 100% could’ve missed it. There’s also graffiti that seems to be wiped off which clearly said “fuck you” previously, and I also tried to picture where my head would be with the feet sticking out the way they were [note: I wasn’t able to get my feet to stick out as much as his did without my entire body touching the stall door].

I also found out some of the older staff who have been there multiple decades are still there, and if there is interest, I will ask them if they have any similar experiences.

Last note as far as that goes; the gas smell actually seemed to have transferred. whereas it was very clearly stronger in the smaller stall, it was much stronger in the larger stall that I was in, and more faint from the smaller stall.

Now, for the history, and where things get strange. As far as documented deaths themselves, there’s only 1. Or, well, one death that happened at or near the parks

However, there were two men who attempted to lure two others with the promise of a drug deal in the parking lot outside the nature center, which is near the bathroom. they were both charged with attempted murder after their plans were uncovered by a patrolling police officer, who exchanged fire with them. however, nobody died, unless one of the men died in prison. Here is that case file.

Finally, there’s also a website with inventorial documentation of various (i assume unmarked) cemeteries around Nashville. There are a good amount of graves found around Edwin Warner Park; as you can see here

Edit 2: I’m only able to put one photo in the thread at a time, so I’m just making an imgur album instead; here’s that