Author: Unknown
Year: Unknown
I had recently spawned a new world in single player Minecraft, with no mods. Everything was normal at first, as I began chopping down trees and crafting a Workbench. At one point, I noticed something move against the dense fog. I have a slow computer, so I play with a tiny render distance. The fog is really heavy. I thought it might have been a cow so I chased after it, hoping to grab some Leather so I could craft some armor. It wasn't a cow, though. Looking back at me was another character with the default skin, but with empty eyes. I saw no name pop up, and I double checked to see that I wasn't on a server and that I had no mods. He didn't stay long, though. He looked at me and quickly ran into the fog. I pursued him out of curiosity, but he was already gone.
I continued on with the game, not sure what to think. As I expanded the world, I saw things that seemed out of place for the random map generation to produce. 2X2 tunnels in the rocks, small pyramids made of sand in the ocean...even groves of trees with all of their leaves cut off. I would constantly think I saw this other "player" in the fog, but I never got a good enough look to tell for sure. I tried increasing my render distance to far whenever I thought I saw him, but to no avail. I saved the map and went on the forums to see if anyone else had found this guy. There were no people, unsurprisingly. I created my own topic, telling of him and asking if anyone had a similar experience. The post was deleted within five minutes. I tried again, and the topic was deleted even faster. I received a PM from someone with the username "Herobrine" after that. The message contained one word: "Stop." When I went to look at the user's profile, the page 404'd.
I received an email from another forum user. He claimed the moderators could read the forum users' messages, so we were safer using email. The user claimed he had seen the mystery player, too, and had a small "directory" of other users who had seen him as well. Their worlds were littered with obviously man-made features as well, and described their mystery player to be an unnamed person with a pupilless default skin. About a month passed until I heard from my new informant again. Some of the people who had encountered the mystery man had looked into the name "Herobrine" and found that name to be used by a Swedish gamer. After some further searching, it was revealed to be a username frequently used by the brother of Notch, the game's developer. I found a contact email and personally emailed Notch, asking him if he had a brother. A long time passed before I received a response, and the email was very short.
"I did, but he is no longer with us."
I haven't seen the mystery man since our first encounter, and I haven't noticed any more strange changes to the world other than my own. I was able to press print screen when I first saw him, so that's all the evidence I have of his existence. Here it is.