The Aussie Cowboy

This story is 100% true. It happened to me when I was about 15 (I'm 29 now).

I was in the Air Cadets and we we're on a bivouac (camp) in the bush about 1/2 hr from the nearest town. I was a third year cadet and as being a Corporal I was in charge of a group of other cadets, all of whom were close friends.

The second night we were out in the bush there was only my mate and I awake at the campfire (everyone in my group was asleep), when we saw one of our mates who was a fourth year cadet. We thought it was our mate as he had a cowboy hat on (he always wore it), but when we called out to him he didn't answer us. We called out to him a few times, but still no answer. After we abused him for being ignorant he walked towards the latrines. Now the thing that puzzled us the most was our mate was not due to arrive at camp until lunchtime the next day, so when he did turn up we asked him why he didn't answer us, he said he was on manoeuvres all weekend & had just gotten into camp about 10mins before we saw him. Naturally this freaked us out, and after a bit of investigating we found out that the Army Reserve & Army train at the same grounds we were at, and they have also reported a figure wearing a cowboy hat.

We also found out later that the bush we were in is rumored to be haunted. Guess we found out the hard way.

Thanx for reading my encounter.