Can you see your reflection in the window? Like a ghost standing just outside in the night, looking back at you. It’s a trick the light plays, when you’re inside looking out on a night as dark as this one. One of many tricks light can play — some stranger than others. That’s what must be the explanation behind this story — it must be a very specific trick of reflecting light that has only ever been observed in a little lake in a little park that’s out there in the darkness. 

The park is called Laurelhurst Park, in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The lake is called Firwood Lake. And the thing that people see in it… well, no one knows quite what to call that. 

The most popular name, the one we will use, is the Firwood Reflection. And something about it isn't quite right.