r/VisitingHawaii • u/AdventurousPlate409 • 15h ago
Hawai'i (Big Island) Odd experience at Kaumana Caves
Had an odd experience at Kaumana Caves today, haven’t seen a similar post and wondering if anyone else has run into this person.
A group of 4 (including myself) stopped by the caves after a day in Hilo. We were immediately greeted by a guy (\~late 30s-early 40s) looking for cans from our car. We gave him a couple of our empties. He then went onto give us instructions about the cave entrances & told us to “leave our phones in the car because they would go dark” (important later). We did not oblige, walked across, and entered the caves. He continued wandering the parking lot.
We went into the caves for a short exploration \~15-20 mins total. When we came back we were chatting as a group outside and our friend from the parking lot came back.
He engaged us again about the cave etc, so we asked a couple questions about depth to the skylight. Instead of answering, he took a totally different direction. Started talking about the private property aspect (which we never passed or said we passed), how there are unconfirmed reports of people essentially impersonating police, handcuffing people, seemingly kidnapping them. handcuff conversation went interesting direction. It was very, very odd… to the point we later joked as a group that it felt like a confessional.
At first I took him as a slightly odd dude who was really into caves, but after the second interaction it became a little eerie. Has anyone else seen this guy around or an interaction similar?
tl/dr: Went to caves, guy lingered by car and told us to leave devices behind, seemed a little sus but fine, came out and started talking extensively about potential kidnapping and unconfirmed reports in caves.