On July 31, 2021, a driver traveling along Highway 210 in Pender County, North Carolina, spotted what appeared to be an injured man standing beside the road.

There seemed to be blood running down from his head.

Concerned that the man needed help, the driver called 911 and continued down the highway while giving the dispatcher his location.

Then, in the middle of the call, something hit his truck.

The dispatcher heard it.

Seconds later, the driver screamed four words that would eventually turn an otherwise routine 911 call into one of the strangest unexplained encounters to come out of North Carolina:

“That’s not human.”

The recording is real. The call was made while the incident was unfolding, and years later, the story behind it would finally become public.

So what happened on Highway 210 that night?

In this episode of State of the Unknown, we follow the encounter from the original 911 call through the investigation that followed, separating what was documented that night from the details and theories that emerged years later.

A special thanks to listener Nikkihens, whose suggestion sent me down the rabbit hole on this one.

Topics Covered

• The Pender County, North Carolina 911 call
• The mysterious roadside man on Highway 210
• The impact heard during the emergency call
• The driver's reported encounter
• The subsequent law-enforcement response
• Later accounts of the 2021 incident
• The theories surrounding the Pender County encounter
• What the available evidence can—and cannot—tell us

SEO Keywords

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Some stories don’t stay buried.
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