A solo traveler living in a van was left terrified when a man disguised as a Good Samaritan drove up to her car to warn her that another was allegedly watching her from a distance with binoculars.
Alyssa Vanilla was parked in a secluded spot on government property outside Tucson, Arizona, when a stranger in an all-terrain vehicle drove up and struck up a conversation.
Out of nowhere, the man’s ATV could be heard getting louder in the footage Alyssa captured for her YouTube channel – before he pulled up to her van, parked and asked her if she was “okay.” To this, Alyssa replied that she was.
Alyssa then asked him if he was a park ranger. The man responded that this was not the case, but said he lived “close by” and claimed he regularly drove through the area offering water to campers.
YouTube creator Alyssa Vanilla was camping on state land near Tucson, Arizona, when a strange man drove up to her van and started a disturbing dialogue
A strange man, claiming to live nearby, drove up to Alyssa and her van in an all-terrain vehicle not once but twice in one afternoon.
The man also bombarded her with questions about what she does for a living and how long she had been on the road.
Then he told her about himself, “Just to be on the safe side, so you don’t have to worry, I’ll drive by here… I live here, about a mile from here. So when I’m here I kind of drive through, just checking on people, making sure they have water, what they need.
“So if you stay, I’ll see you again!” But that’s all I do. Nothing creepy!’ he said to Alyssa, seemingly trying to reassure her that he was a non-threatening presence at the campsite.
Before driving away, he elaborated in another way about how he previously “wasn’t stolen from (his) house” and then “I started opening myself up to people who were here, giving them my name so they knew . who I was, so they saw my face.”
He then said she would be “welcome” to “stop by” his house and use his shower.
After three and a half minutes, he finally pulled away – only for Alyssa to realize that he still wasn’t completely gone, as she could still hear the ‘muffled’ sounds of his engine not far away.
And sure enough, to Alyssa’s intense discomfort, the man returned a few minutes later.
And on his second visit to Alyssa this afternoon, he took a different approach, one even more riddled with red flags.
‘Hi. So there’s a guy up there on the mountain watching you with binoculars,” the man explained from the driver’s seat of his SUV.
Shortly after approaching Alyssa for the first time, the man returned a second time – under the guise of warning her that another man had been watching her with binoculars.
The man stared at Alyssa without saying anything for almost a minute before Alyssa asked him if he “needed anything” — prompting him to answer “no” and drive away
“I felt a few warning signs,” Alyssa said of her reaction to the man’s first visit, adding that as soon as he drove away for the first time, she was already planning to leave as soon as possible.
“Well, that’s nerve-wracking! I don’t think I’m staying!’ Alyssa replied cautiously. She had folded laundry in the back of her van and was now speaking to the stranger through the open side door.
“Well, it’s not like you can’t stay. I’ll be honest with you: the other side of the mountain is safer,” the man offered.
“He drives an older Dodge pickup and he told me he comes out here and offers people water. But I would stay away from him. He told me he parks there and looks around to see who might need water, who might need this, who might need that.
“And I turned around and looked…her damn RV is out in the open,” he continued his supposed conversation with this other man nearby.
It was especially strange that, according to what the man in the ATV said, this unseen second man also had the habit of hanging around the area to help campers in need of ‘water’ – just as the man claimed to be. himself did in his first conversation with Alyssa, minutes earlier.
Alyssa tried to lighten the mood by saying she was happy to get some housework done, meaning folding her laundry.
Before she knew it, the man started staring straight at her as he slowly tapped his fingers on his steering wheel – not taking his gaze away for almost a minute.
It was only when she assertively asked the man if he ‘needed anything’ that he replied ‘No’, before eventually restarting his engine and driving away.
Alyssa then said in an on-screen text: “As soon as he was out of sight, I grabbed my solar panels and power bank(,) threw everything in the van… and drove as far away from the area as possible.”
As seen in the next shot, Alyssa eventually parked in a parking lot, where she discussed the incident on camera.
“It was just weird…he said the person looking at me claims they give water to people who need it. That’s exactly what he just told me he did!’ Alyssa said about the meeting
Alyssa was living in a van in the fall of 2021 and had been going out regularly since 2020
“I felt a few warning signs,” Alyssa said of her reaction to the man’s first visit, adding that as soon as he drove away for the first time, she was already planning on getting out of there.
“I just went with my instincts and I was going to leave. Because he said he drives around to see if anyone needs water. But he didn’t have any water with him… that was weird,” she said.
‘There is another thing that appeals to people, namely explaining too much.’
“When I asked him if he was a ranger, he said, ‘No.’ He said he’s doing this because someone stole stuff from his house a few years ago. That has nothing to do with giving water to people in the desert,” Alyssa continued to think.
After he came back with the story about another man watching her — who was also supposedly hanging around giving water to campers — Alyssa described how more alarm bells immediately went off for her.
“It was just weird because he said the person looking at me claims they give water to people who need it,” she added.
“That’s exactly what he just told me he did!
‘He was just very suspicious. He would tell me something and then stare at me, then take really long pauses and just stare at me.”
“I know that the lifestyle I live has inherent risks,” she added of her van-focused daily life.
The Texas native began living out of a van in the fall of 2021 and had previously been on the road regularly since 2020.
The next morning, Alyssa doubled down on her instincts about the ATV-riding man.
“F**k that guy, dude,” she declared. ‘The more I thought about it, the creepier he became. Like serious Ted Bundy vibes… if only Ted Bundy wasn’t charming and bad at lying.”
