[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What Is The Strangest / Most Unexplainable Thing You've Seen or Heard In The Woods? (Page 5 of 6)
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The first time I ever heard a deer blow it scared the shit out of me. |
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When I was in Boy Scouts we were camping in a non-wilderness area of woods. It was about 300-500 yards behind a mental institution that we were doing a clean up project for. In the middle of the night there was a VERY LOUD jet engine sound that lasted abut 15-30 seconds that woke me up. I was awake, heard it while I was awake. I did not dream it. I'm talking about Harrier Jump Jet loud hovering above us. Next morning no one else heard it. Hunting one evening and I was walking back to the parking area. I was wearing Peltor hearing muffs with the amplified volume. Every time I took a step, I could hear someone walking behind me, but not quite in sync with me. If I stopped, they stopped after a couple more steps. This is the same farm that the dozer operator saw the silhouette of a man on the edge of the woods as he was building a pond. Same farm hunting one evening. Heard a very loud chewing or grinding sound that echoed for quite a distance. Come to find out, it was a beaver chewing through a tree trunk. Same farm again, same Peltors. I could hear the redneck that lived in the trailer across the property line vacuuming out his car/truck with Freebird playing on the radio and he was singing along.  You could hear a snake crawling across the ground under the stand with those things on. Yea, I heard that and saw him.If not, someone else had a similar encounter. |
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A buddy and I used to bowhunt a spot that was about an hour walk in the woods. I always liked that spot, about a 3 acre clearing with thick woods all around it, had hunted it several times over the years. It was one of those spots that was just so peaceful and as the sun would come up all sorts of critters would get out and about. Our stands were set up about 75yds apart. That morning as light started coming on I immediately noticed oddly there wasn’t any noise.....no squirrels rustling, no birds, nothing but silence. As it started getting a bit lighter the silence started really getting to me, the feeling something was off started to set in. By the time it was daybreak the feeling we should not be there came over me, just a strong feeling that we should go. Shortly after that feeling set in I heard a rustling and saw my buddy heading for my stand at a pretty good stride. He looked about panicked when he made it to my stand. All he said was “I think we need to go”. That was good enough for me. We headed out and were about halfway back when about 75 yards behind us something big started crashing through the woods. Now these woods were thick and we couldn’t see shit, but whatever was tromping ass through the woods was breaking the hell out of branches, making no attempt of being sneaky, and moving directly towards us. We took off at a dead sprint and the whatever it was kept up staying far enough behind us we never could see it. We finally made it out of the woods into an open field and whatever was chasing behind us stopped and stayed just far enough in the woods we could see something big moving, but couldn’t see well enough to tell what it was. I couldn’t be paid enough to ever return to that spot. And that is my story of how I almost got eaten by an evil soul sucking demonic woods monster. |
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I've watched deer act like that. Sometimes they give no shits and don't move like a ghost. Quoted:
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A buddy and I used to bowhunt a spot that was about an hour walk in the woods. I always liked that spot, about a 3 acre clearing with thick woods all around it, had hunted it several times over the years. It was one of those spots that was just so peaceful and as the sun would come up all sorts of critters would get out and about. Our stands were set up about 75yds apart. That morning as light started coming on I immediately noticed oddly there wasn’t any noise.....no squirrels rustling, no birds, nothing but silence. As it started getting a bit lighter the silence started really getting to me, the feeling something was off started to set in. By the time it was daybreak the feeling we should not be there came over me, just a strong feeling that we should go. Shortly after that feeling set in I heard a rustling and saw my buddy heading for my stand at a pretty good stride. He looked about panicked when he made it to my stand. All he said was “I think we need to go”. That was good enough for me. We headed out and were about halfway back when about 75 yards behind us something big started crashing through the woods. Now these woods were thick and we couldn’t see shit, but whatever was tromping ass through the woods was breaking the hell out of branches, making no attempt of being sneaky, and moving directly towards us. We took off at a dead sprint and the whatever it was kept up staying far enough behind us we never could see it. We finally made it out of the woods into an open field and whatever was chasing behind us stopped and stayed just far enough in the woods we could see something big moving, but couldn’t see well enough to tell what it was. I couldn’t be paid enough to ever return to that spot. And that is my story of how I almost got eaten by an evil soul sucking demonic woods monster. Ended up being the biggest buck I'll likely ever see in my life. Stopped 20 yards in front of me in the only clearing there was, looked right at me with all sorts of trash hanging from his antlers, gave one stomp and ran off never to be seen again. |
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Just got goosebumps reading that. Quoted:
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Posted this one before but it's by far the creepiest experience I've had in the woods. From time to time my dad would tell a story about when he was out bowhunting on the public land that borders our land. We have 40acres but the public land next to us is 10k+ acres of county and federal land. You hardly ever see another soul up there, especially during bow season. Some areas immediately off the road get a little hunting pressure gun season but that's it. He was way, WAY back along the river creeping through the woods before daylight hours to find a spot to sit. As the sun started to come up he saw movement ahead. At the time he thought it was a deer moving its head back and forth. He sat still for quite some time watching it and quickly realized it couldn't be a deer as it was swaying back and forth for 15+ minutes. When it was finally light enough to see he realized it was something hanging from the tree. He walked over and found a black cat strung up in a perfect hangmans noose by it's neck. Touching it revealed the joints to still be somewhat limp. Needless to say he unassed the area immediately, completely bewildered as to what the fuck he just encountered as the nearest road or house was miles away though pretty thick woods and swamp. Many years later(15+) we were up bowhunting in the same area. Not having any luck all week long I decided I was going to try a new spot. I packed my little pack-n-stack ladder stand on my back and headed out along the river. After walking for quite some time I found a nice swampy clearing. Didn't see much for sign but I figured with how soggy the area was that wasn't much of a surprise, that and deer numbers by us were pretty low. After getting set up I settled in for the evening. One odd thing that stuck out was an old light blue colored chest freezer laying in the middle of the swamp. When I saw that I figured maybe I'd get lucky and bump into a trail nearby on my way out to make it easier to get back to camp. As it drew closer to dusk I realized that not only had I not seen any deer, I hadn't seen a single living creature all night. Our area is usually overrun with squirrels and other small game but I hadn't so much as heard one scurrying around the trees, or even watched a bird fly by for that matter. I realized that right around the same time a very eerie feeling started to creep in to the back of my brain. I tried to shake it off but as it grew darker it became more difficult to ignore. It quickly became overwhelming, this feeling, almost as if I was being physically pushed out of the woods by something. It almost seems silly and ridiculous even to articulate but I was completely overcome with dread, that something out in the woods was watching me and absolutely did not want me there. Now I'm no stranger to being alone in an unknown part of the woods in the dark. Hunting has been my biggest passion since I was 14-15 years old and our usual hunts back then involved walking in any given direction in uncharted forest until we found a good spot, then sitting tight till pitch dark, then making your way back to the closest road in the middle of the night. Not once have I ever felt nervous about it, even when my phone(which doubled as my only compass at the time) and only flashlight died 3 miles in in pitch black. Even the time I realized a young wolf was following behind me after an evening hunt and all I had was a bow and a knife. Nothing compared to this. I'll hunt through anything, freezing rain, blistering cold, unbearable mosquitos. Not this though. Before legal shooting time ended I decided it was time to leave. I half considered just abandoning my treestand and getting the fuck out but I figured I'd never live that down and I at least had to make some attempt to pack it up and bring it with. Never before or since then have I ever felt such a feeling of panic, as if everything around me was evil. I know I sound like a lunatic right now but I honest to god felt like the devil himself was standing beside me tapping his foot, as if at any moment I was going to run out of time. I didn't even break the treestand down and pack it out, I unhooked it from the tree and dragged it behind me, fully assembled, at a damn near sprint until I was well and far away from that swamp. Then I hastily broke it down and cinched it all together with the ratchet strap, didn't even bother to tie up the ropes or anything, just left them dragging behind me. After quite some time I finally bumped into my dad on a fire trail that leads back to the highway. His first comments were "Dude what the fuck happened to your treestand" seeing the tangled up mess behind me. Then he saw my face and asked what the fuck happened to me. I told him the whole story, prefacing it with "This is going to sound insane but..." I finished the story and he definitely had a look on his face that implied he thought I was insane until I said "And one more really weird thing, way back in that swamp, which best I can figure is way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere, there's a damn full size light blue chest freezer that looks like it got dumped back there years ago" His look of humor quickly faded to a look of concern, even fear. Took him a minute to get the words out but his only comment after that was "remember that story about the cat hung from the tree? Well unless there are two identical chest freezers dumped in the middle of the swamp back there, that spot you were in tonight is exactly the same spot where that cat was hung." |
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I got a call from a buddy one night to grab a shotgun and come over to his farm. I figured something needed put down and if it's a pet it's not uncommon to call a friend to do it. I get to his place and he points at the barn and says, "It's in there." So I go in, no electric so I'm using the flashlight on my shotgun. I find a set of paw prints that were stinking huge. I saw a shape moving in the shadows. So I slowly back out. I asked him what he saw and he says he's not sure but whatever it was his dog ran and hid in the house. And that was the night I went Tiger hunting in Southeast Ohio. An old woman a couple of places down the road had a pair and didn't bother to tell anyone when they got loose. You can’t leave that story hanging. |
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Holy shit. You can’t leave that story hanging. Quoted:
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I got a call from a buddy one night to grab a shotgun and come over to his farm. I figured something needed put down and if it's a pet it's not uncommon to call a friend to do it. I get to his place and he points at the barn and says, "It's in there." So I go in, no electric so I'm using the flashlight on my shotgun. I find a set of paw prints that were stinking huge. I saw a shape moving in the shadows. So I slowly back out. I asked him what he saw and he says he's not sure but whatever it was his dog ran and hid in the house. And that was the night I went Tiger hunting in Southeast Ohio. An old woman a couple of places down the road had a pair and didn't bother to tell anyone when they got loose. You can’t leave that story hanging. |
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Backingpacking with an old girlfriend on Mt. Mitchell in NC, there were Thunderstorms down in the valley rumbling away. Sometime in the middle of the night a light passed over the outside of the tent, like someone had ran a flashlight beam over it. I opened up the tent window shade to look out and there were dozens of these baseball sized green balls of light drifting up the slope, following air currents around bushes, some going up and over our tent. I was mesmerized and just watched them until the last disappeared up the slope. I always wished I would have gotten out of the tent and tried to catch one. Never seen anything like that before or since. I guess it was what people call will-o-the-wisps.
Another time out with a different girlfriend in WV the sky suddenly lite up like daylight around us with a bright point of light directly overhead that didn't move. No rotor sounds, so it wasn't a helo. It lasted less than a minute. My best guess was a fireball from a meteor that was dropping straight for us until it burned completely up. |
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Copy/paste of a post I made a few years ago of something that happened to me as a kid. Im going to relate this the best I can as I was a kid when it went down and much of it didnt dawn on me till later in life. We have a camp in the Pocono Mountains that my family has frequented since before I was born. It used to be a very secluded area. The kind of place where you could shoot guns whenever you wanted and really did fear wandering off and getting lost in the woods. My siblings are all older than me by 10+ years, so as a kid I was a tagalong/Mascot to my sibs and their friends and they got up to all forms of mischief. One day some of the hippie types ran back from a hike telling of mad dogs and people in the middle of nowhere cutting down trees with a chainsaw. There was something white up in the tree they were cutting but couldnt get a clear view of it with all the running for their lives they were doing. Knowing the area in question, everyone said they got lost and came upon someone else s camp, but they were persistent and "Knew" something fishy was going down and claimed they were in heavy back country with no roads or trails. Being that it was not firewood season and that we could hear a Chainsaw in the distance on the wind every now and again, some of the group, on a lark realistically, loaded up rifles and beer and went on the lookout for an adventure of some sort. I know that this might seem odd, but with it being the "70's" and all, it would pass for normal. We drove around for about an hour, stopping every 5min to listen for the saw but we couldn't "get there from here", so we went back to the cabin. On the way back we had to cross a creek and noticed that someone had drove down the creek bed and out of the woods recently and turned onto the road towards our camp. Once back at base we prodded the hippies into taking us back along the path they took (down a long valley) figuring that they had just got spooked by someones dog or whatever, but lacking something else to do..... These guys took us down the trail they found, but at the first sign of dog prints they got wigged out and boot scooted back to camp, telling us it was only another 1/2mi. OK, at this point things are becoming more real, as we ARE in the middle of nowhere and sure enough, theres some prints. Two of the guys with rifles start scanning the brush every 50yrds or so looking for any sign of banjos or chainsaws and dogs, but theirs nothing. We lost the trail we were on, the dog prints, we were no longer in the valley we had followed and went at least 1 mile further than where we left the hippies. After another 20min searching we decided to go back and find the trail and return to the cabin, end this wild goose chase and get some grub. We headed in a rough estimation of the proper direction and walked for about a 1/2hr when one of the guys spots something white up in a tree off in the distance and were like BINGO! Not even thinking about a damn thing we go charging off towards this bag in a tree, come busting out of a swamp right on the edge of someones old abandoned camp! We hesitated when we first saw the roof of the camp, but once we realized how run down the place was, it felt OK to go investigate. And this place was run down. Outhouse laid flat, front wall of the cabin was falling in all windows were missing, trees growing through the roof. Then we noticed things were a bit amiss here. There were trash middens everywhere with some containing only cans, others colored glass, and one containing nothing but Bones. Also off to one side there appeared to be 3 old graves with headstones made of local shale. These were sunken in and relatively shallow, one was only 3' long and must have been for a child. Discovering all this shit out in no mans land was so odd that we momentarily forgot about the thing in the tree. When we refocused ourselves we noticed that the thing in the tree was a large burlap bag about the size of a duffel bag and stuck in broken branches about 100' off the ground. The tree that it was lodged in had been cut and felled with a chainsaw, but it had hung up in a nearby tree, which was partially sawed through but still standing. Now at this point were all wondering and speculating on how this thing could have got so far up in a tree and why whoever wanted it down was willing to go to such great lengths to get it down. So being children of the "60"s, we did the rational thing and started to try and shoot the thing out of the tree. After about 20min of this and having expended all our available ammo we split for camp. We hit that tree with about 3 dozen different loads from .22 to 30:06 with no effect. The next morning we awoke to the usual hangovers and around coffee we all recalled someone driving past the cabin in the middle of the night, slowing down, then leaving several times. Since its not strictly a private road we brushed it off and started laying plans to go investigate the run down cabin and the burlap bag some more. We had taken better way points on the way back so it was easy to find the old cabin this time out, and were very surprised to find not only two trees cut down when we got there, but a third also and no bag to be found anywhere. We looked around and saw nothing more than a bunch of trampled weeds and an old ass two man saw. Whoever these people were they were so concerned about being found out that they not only came back in the middle of the night with a hand saw to finish the job, but we were sure they were scouting us out with the drive by's! We were freakin wigged out at this point and made a bee line back to familiar ground. We kinda laughed things off as the work of our imaginations when we regained sight of our camp, but were still a bit spooked and since it was Sunday we decided to pack up, lock up and head for home. Then we noticed fresh dog shit out behind the cabin and We GTFO quick. We had loaded up and drove about 20min everyone babbling about the possibilities of our experience and wondering what to make of it. Then we started to get to a road that took us out of the woods when we spotted the burlap bag draped over a forestry sign.......And it looked to have blood on it! Not believing what we were seeing we got out and looked and sure enough, there was a slightly bloody burlap bag with about 3 dozen bullet holes in it and.............a well worn child's shoe in the bottom. This put us all in a quandary as how would you explain what you did in a situation like this, A Fucking kids shoe? Do you report it? How do you explain it after having shot the shit out of the very same bag? We drive the 150mi back home with nary a word spoke in either vehicle. The next morning my brother got a frantic call from his Buddy that was with us. The guy found the matching child's shoe in the back of his truck that morning while unpacking. |
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Holy shit. You can't leave that story hanging. Quoted:
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I got a call from a buddy one night to grab a shotgun and come over to his farm. I figured something needed put down and if it's a pet it's not uncommon to call a friend to do it. I get to his place and he points at the barn and says, "It's in there." So I go in, no electric so I'm using the flashlight on my shotgun. I find a set of paw prints that were stinking huge. I saw a shape moving in the shadows. So I slowly back out. I asked him what he saw and he says he's not sure but whatever it was his dog ran and hid in the house. And that was the night I went Tiger hunting in Southeast Ohio. An old woman a couple of places down the road had a pair and didn't bother to tell anyone when they got loose. You can't leave that story hanging. |
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I got a call from a buddy one night to grab a shotgun and come over to his farm. I figured something needed put down and if it's a pet it's not uncommon to call a friend to do it. I get to his place and he points at the barn and says, "It's in there." So I go in, no electric so I'm using the flashlight on my shotgun. I find a set of paw prints that were stinking huge. I saw a shape moving in the shadows. So I slowly back out. I asked him what he saw and he says he's not sure but whatever it was his dog ran and hid in the house. And that was the night I went Tiger hunting in Southeast Ohio. An old woman a couple of places down the road had a pair and didn't bother to tell anyone when they got loose. You can't leave that story hanging.  That's absolutely purrfect.
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When I was five years old, my dad and his buddy from work took me along on a squirrel hunt in northern California, near Redding. The buddy had hunted there before and always killed squirrels. He took us on his regular loop around a hill; it took over an hour, and we never saw or heard a squirrel. About halfway along the trail, Dad started halting us from time to time, and we'd hear a footfall from inside the treeline after ours had stopped. The underbrush off the trail was too thick to see into, much less through. A couple of times we caught wind of a horrendous stink. Dad was getting uneasy, especially with me in tow and only a single-shot .22 rifle in hand, so he told Tom it was time to GTFO. The quickest way to do so was to stay on the trail and follow it back to the car. We didn't even eat lunch, Dad just rolled us out of there and to the nearest local bar. Dad and Tom had a couple of beers to steady themselves down while they discussed what just happened. The bartender and couple of locals inserted themselves into the conversation and mentioned that there'd been a lot of (drumroll.......) Bigfoot sightings in the area, particularly near the hill we hunted and the creek that ran past it. Dad and Tom returned the next weekend, both with 30-30s, but didn't find any Squatches or sign thereof, except for couple of wrist-sized branches that had been stepped on and passed into the dirt when they broke. They did whack a few squirrels, and revisited the bar.
I'm still not a Squatch believer. In 1990 I hunted elk near Granby CO. I only had an elk tag, but I could also have carried bear and deer tags if I could have afforded them. Of course, without a deer tag, I found myself following one of the biggest mulies I've ever seen down a snow-covered game trail. I figured that since he and I were going the same way I'd just let him break trail and maybe cover the sound of my approach to any elk that we might encounter. After a few minutes of slow, quiet walking, the buck looked at a dark, thick tangle of dog hair pine trees at our 2 o'clock and started to angle away from it, taking another game trail to do so. He went uphill, away from the ridge I was going to hunt, always checking that spot until he went out of sight. I decided to investigate this strange little dark clearing. It was about 20' in diameter, with the treetops meeting over the top and making sort of a roof. There was one lone tree right in the middle, about eight inches in diameter and limbless for ten or twelve feet from the ground. It seemed like the clearing just swallowed all the normal forest sounds from around it. I didn't even hear rifle shots from other hunters, or vehicles on the roads. I've never been in such a still place in my life, it felt old and scary and I swear I was being sized up. It didn't take me long to decide that I was spooked, so I stepped back out into the sun and headed to the ridge I wanted to hunt. Once I got away from that place the forest sounds all returned, and I lost that sense of dread. |
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One strange thing was finding a message in a bottle while working with kids as a wilderness therapist is Alaska. It was a letter from two girls to their dad who was lost at sea while fishing. Turned out to be from the cousins of a kid I was working with a few hundred miles away. It was found on Kuiu island and they were from Petersburg, quite a distance away. The Universe can be a strange place . . . |
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I was deer hunting with a muzzloader A mile or so by bicycle off the nearest dirt track, right at dusk I had something shuffling around just out of view in the scrub maybe 50 yards out. Right at dark I hear a “ WOOF!” and a yearling bear comes tearing out of the scrub like he’s on fire, hits the trail, and turns down the trail I cut to my tree in shoulder high palmettos. In the seconds this occurs, I realize that a scared bear is heading down a dead end trail towards a single tree that I happen to be sitting in... 
Happily, he runs right past me and continues crashing across the palmetto flat for 400 yards or so until I can no longer hear him. So there I sat, alone in the dark, with a long walk followed by a long bike ride, wondering; What scared the bear? 
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Bigger bear. Quoted:
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I was deer hunting with a muzzloader A mile or so by bicycle off the nearest dirt track, right at dusk I had something shuffling around just out of view in the scrub maybe 50 yards out. Right at dark I hear a “ WOOF!” and a yearling bear comes tearing out of the scrub like he’s on fire, hits the trail, and turns down the trail I cut to my tree in shoulder high palmettos. In the seconds this occurs, I realize that a scared bear is heading down a dead end trail towards a single tree that I happen to be sitting in...
Happily, he runs right past me and continues crashing across the palmetto flat for 400 yards or so until I can no longer hear him. So there I sat, alone in the dark, with a long walk followed by a long bike ride, wondering; What scared the bear? |
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Backingpacking with an old girlfriend on Mt. Mitchell in NC, there were Thunderstorms down in the valley rumbling away. Sometime in the middle of the night a light passed over the outside of the tent, like someone had ran a flashlight beam over it. I opened up the tent window shade to look out and there were dozens of these baseball sized green balls of light drifting up the slope, following air currents around bushes, some going up and over our tent. I was mesmerized and just watched them until the last disappeared up the slope. I always wished I would have gotten out of the tent and tried to catch one. Never seen anything like that before or since. I guess it was what people call will-o-the-wisps. Another time out with a different girlfriend in WV the sky suddenly lite up like daylight around us with a bright point of light directly overhead that didn't move. No rotor sounds, so it wasn't a helo. It lasted less than a minute. My best guess was a fireball from a meteor that was dropping straight for us until it burned completely up. |
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Quoted: What the hell is a wilderness therapist ? Trees are going bonkers because their brethren in the rain forest are burning ?  think Outward Bound type stuff or just google it. In our case we were working with adjudicated youth ages 12-18 and would take small groups on different 4-6 week trips doing daily group and individual therapy sessions along the way.
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Riiiiiiiggghhhhttttt... and that's why they had two guys armed with machetes as gate guards, and that's why they chased people away with machetes and threats of GTFO.... I don't believe the "pastor" for one second. I think your boss swallowed the story because you guys were too small a group to take on 300 MS13ers with machetes. He knew you guys could shoot plenty of them, but not all of them, and if it turned into a confrontation then you guys would not have survived. Quoted:
A guy introduced himself as a pastor and said it was a church group. He said they take troubled young men into to woods for a wilderness adventure retreat and fellowship. Kind of like a corporate retreat, but for young Hispanic men. While the boss came up to parlay with the pastor I struck a conversation with the cook, a nice enough guy who spoke perfect English. He said that some of the initial group we encountered were gangbangers, MS13 and the like. It was pretty obvious from the facial tattoos I saw on some of them. It turns out they did have a permit to have a campout at this site, but neglected to tell the Forest Service how many would be back there, or what they would be doing. They said the bonfires were part of the experience, and the "fighting" was team-building exercises, the machetes were used by the senior members of the group (second year participants of the retreat) for bear defense, and the bandanas were sort of like team colors for each subgroup. I don't believe the "pastor" for one second. I think your boss swallowed the story because you guys were too small a group to take on 300 MS13ers with machetes. He knew you guys could shoot plenty of them, but not all of them, and if it turned into a confrontation then you guys would not have survived. |
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Similar story. I was walking down a trail on my property and out of the edge of my vision I caught sight of motion and looked up to see a squirrel about 50' away coming at me at a dead run. Fucker had eyes on me and was booking with his tail up over his back. All kinds of shit was running through my head, rabies, infected, vampire squirrel, but it was so surreal and happened so quick I didn't even react. Lil bugger ran up to me and ran up my pants leg right up to my thigh and stopped, panting for breath hugging my leg as flat to it as he could get. I remember feeling how warm he was and how I could feel his breathing. After a few seconds he grained his head up over his back and started looking into a tree about 100' or so away. At this point I'm thinking he's drunk on fermented fruit, pumpkins or apples or something. I looked back to the tree just in time to see something drop and it's wings open up, it was a Cooper's hawk wanting to make this lil guy his breakfast. The hawk swooped towards me and for a second I thought he was either going to land on me or attack the squirrel, but he pulled up and landed on a branch about 10' up about 20' away. The squirrel was chittering and growling and the hawk is bobbing his head around looking at me like, hey bro, can you spare that squirrel? I was just dumbfounded and in awe of what was happening and was going to just let things play out until my squirrel decided he would be better off under the tail of my jacket. I wasn't having none of that and swatted him off and watched that hawk chase him off through the woods. That squirrel was smart too and took to running under every vine, sticker bush branch and twig he could while trying to get away. |
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Was out in the woods once many years ago and saw this buck wearing a small rack of antlers emerge from the brush and walk right up to me.
We stared at each other for a minute or so, and then... "Woof!" "Woof! Woof!" Yes, the God damn thing was barking at me. Up to that point in my life I had never been aware that deer can bark, just like dogs. That was when I learned that they can, and they do, albeit humans rarely hear it. It was probably rutting season and I think maybe he was being territorial, I don't know. Funny as hell though. |
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It took me two years to discover that the noise I heard was a vixen scream. An hour after sunset as I was walking out of the woods, it howled at me and set my hair on end. Goto 1:37, and imagine that clear as a bell, ten feet off the trail and pointed at you in the black of night:  https://www.youtub hie.com/watch?v=J6NuhlibHsM |
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Quoted: Many years ago, being into camping, hiking, ets, and stuck in the big city, As to weird stuff, there is a spot my dad found in the woods behind my parent's house, where it looks like the ground slow motion erupted, about a 5 foot diameter, 3 foot deep hole in the side of a hill, about 6 feet up from the base, all the dirt from the hole sort of piled up around below it. We never could figure out what caused it. The ground is generally hard pack red clay, not easy to dig in, even with a backhoe. And trees around it, so no chance a backhoe could get to it. Weird Geologic activity? Gas pocket explosion? Meteorite? Small bear digging a hole to curl up in? Bigfoot? After a hundred years all signs of the tree are gone and it just looks like somebody dug a weird hole in the strangest of places. If the ground is particularly rocky trees growing up thru the rocks create a strange fire ring with the rocks on their edges around the trunk. Tree dies and you see these weird fire rings in areas that don’t really make sense for a camp |
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Was out in the woods once many years ago and saw this buck wearing a small rack of antlers emerge from the brush and walk right up to me. We stared at each other for a minute or so, and then... "Woof!" "Woof! Woof!" Yes, the God damn thing was barking at me. Up to that point in my life I had never been aware that deer can bark, just like dogs. That was when I learned that they can, and they do, albeit humans rarely hear it. It was probably rutting season and I think maybe he was being territorial, I don't know. Funny as hell though. |
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I might have posted this before....
New hunting spot, deer season, public land. Got there with a four wheeler and hiked some distance to the spot. Had a rifle, and a 45. Sun comes out, getting warm and just enjoying the view. I hear noises in the woods, as if someone is walking behind me. Some old guy emerges from the woods, no orange, with a Bird barreled shotgun and a cup of coffee. We acknowledged each other. I think he was as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. Then it got WEIRD, FAST! He asked me if he could sit down, don't remember if he said next to me, but that is where he ended up. Not 2 seconds after sitting down, he startes balling. At this point I'm in a WTF? moment. This dude lost a few and I might have to explain how I capped an old dude in the woods. I couldn't run or walk away, he still had the shotgun...so, I figured might as well stay and take it one step at a time. As it turns out, that was his son's and his, favorite hunting spot. He son had died, I believe that summer in a car accident. We talked for a while, remembering his son, and their time together. Somehow I became a reflection of his son, sitting in that spot - he worded it different, but that was basically it-. At one point he thanked me for "listening" and he went on his way. To this day, I believe he went there to "end it"... |
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I might have posted this before.... New hunting spot, deer season, public land. Got there with a four wheeler and hiked some distance to the spot. Had a rifle, and a 45. Sun comes out, getting warm and just enjoying the view. I hear noises in the woods, as if someone is walking behind me. Some old guy emerges from the woods, no orange, with a Bird barreled shotgun and a cup of coffee. We acknowledged each other. I think he was as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. Then it got WEIRD, FAST! He asked me if he could sit down, don't remember if he said next to me, but that is where he ended up. Not 2 seconds after sitting down, he startes balling. At this point I'm in a WTF? moment. This dude lost a few and I might have to explain how I capped an old dude in the woods. I couldn't run or walk away, he still had the shotgun...so, I figured might as well stay and take it one step at a time. As it turns out, that was his son's and his, favorite hunting spot. He son had died, I believe that summer in a car accident. We talked for a while, remembering his son, and their time together. Somehow I became a reflection of his son, sitting in that spot - he worded it different, but that was basically it-. At one point he thanked me for "listening" and he went on his way. To this day, I believe he went there to "end it"... |
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Honestly, it sounds like God put you where you needed to be that day. Quoted:
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I might have posted this before.... New hunting spot, deer season, public land. Got there with a four wheeler and hiked some distance to the spot. Had a rifle, and a 45. Sun comes out, getting warm and just enjoying the view. I hear noises in the woods, as if someone is walking behind me. Some old guy emerges from the woods, no orange, with a Bird barreled shotgun and a cup of coffee. We acknowledged each other. I think he was as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. Then it got WEIRD, FAST! He asked me if he could sit down, don't remember if he said next to me, but that is where he ended up. Not 2 seconds after sitting down, he startes balling. At this point I'm in a WTF? moment. This dude lost a few and I might have to explain how I capped an old dude in the woods. I couldn't run or walk away, he still had the shotgun...so, I figured might as well stay and take it one step at a time. As it turns out, that was his son's and his, favorite hunting spot. He son had died, I believe that summer in a car accident. We talked for a while, remembering his son, and their time together. Somehow I became a reflection of his son, sitting in that spot - he worded it different, but that was basically it-. At one point he thanked me for "listening" and he went on his way. To this day, I believe he went there to "end it"... Glad you were there that day Draco223. |
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I've looked for that one, can't find it. Quoted:
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Hopefully, the person who saw a boulder walk away will post that story again. Quoted:
The creepiest thing I've ever seen happened to me as an adult, not as a child. I was born and raised in a little tiny mountain town in Northern California that no one has ever heard of (Pollock Pines) in 1966. My parents owned the only pharmacy there, and it was a great place to grow up. Times were different then. If your kids wanted to go out to play, you told 'em to be back by dinner. We were allowed to fish, and explore in the woods, the whole bit. It was a great place to grow up. Heavily involved in the outdoors and the Boy Scouts (Eagle, 4th one in my town). Whole summers spent on camp staff, or backpacking with friends (or with the scouts). NOT a stranger to the outdoors. I graduated high school in the next largest town over, Placerville (about a 20 minute drive on HI50) in 1985, and joined the Navy. Have lots of adventures, see the world, see most of the country, yada yada yada, and get stationed in 1994 at Travis AFB for a couple of years, which is cool because it's only three hours or so from home in my Scrambler. A couple of years previously, a chain pharmacy had moved in to town, and my father, seeing the writing on the wall, sold his pharmacy stock to them, as well as taking a job as one of their pharmacists (a good move on the chain store's part: small town of 3000 people get protective of "their" people). Mom and Dad used the proceeds from the sale of the store to buy 40 acres in the middle of nowhere, no power, no phone, couple of unpermitted barns (one converted to housing). Nice land––has a seasonal creek, big catfish pond, all on the southern slope––really great piece of property. Bordered on three sides by National Forest (Sierra Nevada) and on one side by the local lumber company, which used to be Michigan-Cal, but is called something else now. Up North of the property are two popular fishing reservoirs, Ice House and Loon Lake, where water is made more accessible for Los Angeles and surrounding area to steal. South of the property, the American River flows year round, occasionally washing the highway out when it gets all antsy. My parents have big plans on making this their new home (they had lived "in town", about a block away from the store they owned since '74). My Dad's an outdoor buff, too, and my mom goes where my Dad goes. They get good generators, put in a couple of propane tanks, and spend some weekends up there, but at this point in 1996, they're not living there yet. So, as both a great chance to get away from Fairfield/Travis AFB and as a favor to my parents, I'd go up on weekends I didn't have duty and sort of "watch" the place. I did this pretty much every week for two years. I loved it...Gold panning, shooting, a lot of maintenance and fire-prevention (brush clearing, etc)...but really? Relaxing. Fun. I'd pick up my parents dogs at the time, a Rottie and a rottie/Shepard/Australian mix, and they'd go up with me. I'd get done doing whatever I was working on, and then take a walk around the property while there was still enough light to see. You were inside at night––it was black as pitch out there at night without moon or city lights. The walks were cool, and I got to test out a lot of my equipment...Went through phases where I was trying to determine what the best working/journeying sidearm was, and how to carry it...the best long gun and how to carry it. At one point, I liked the Winchester 94s for the simplicity, but back then I could get a Garand (Blue Sky) for $295, so went with one of those for awhile, with a bipod on the end to keep the barrel out of the mud when I was chainsawing or slinging brush. That got to be too heavy to carry, so I switched to a Mossy 590, which I eventually dropped for lack of long-range effectivity (I was a sailor, not a soldier––don't make fun of me...effectively, I was playing), and ended up eventually with an AR15 HBAR that I'd picked up in OK while stationed at Tinker. I carried this African style, which is what the military taught me back when I had volunteered for security for a tour, and it only banged me up a little when I scrambled over the mountain. The night of this incident, I'd just finished doing whatever (I don't remember), but I was finishing the end of a "walkaround" before I went in for the night to the lower barn that was sort of set up like a house. It was still light out, but not bright––it was that dusky sort of light that is sort of orange and grey, and while bright enough to see very clearly, it was obvious that it was going to be dark very soon––like in ten minutes or so. Clear day, early summer, not too hot. Very light breeze, light clouds––the kind that are really pretty up in the mountains, and starting to turn orangey-pink from the sun setting down canyon. I'm walking the gravel road that comes from the top of the property where a great little artesian spring pumped out 5 gallons a minute or so (it fed the pond) and the upper barn (used for storage of Dad's equipment/tractors/etc...). I'm just passing the pond, off to my left, carrying that AR slung African on my left shoulder, handguard in my left hand to keep it from smacking me as I walk. I've got a SP101 in .357 in my right front pocket. My pants are a little damp from working, and I'm dirty, but happy––I loved being up there, as it got me away from my wife that hated the woods––and the weight of the sweat, plus the gun in my pocket tends to pull my pants annoyingly down every 40 steps or so. I stop where the gravel/mud road curves, and to where I can now clearly see the barn/house, and pull up my pants, making them more comfortable. I'm seeing the beautiful cloud patterns, the light breeze is feeling really good against my face, I'm pleasantly tired and looking forward to some cold fried chicken in the propane fridge, and I'm just really feeling calm and at peace. The dogs had been with me all day, and you know how dogs are––they explore. They were both tired, and the mix was actually leaning against me as I stood there after tugging up my pants, looking over this great scenery. The rottie was laying splayed out on the gravel in front of me, and I'm just looking around me, marvelling at how pretty everything was, checking out some old growth pine that had a really awesome looking granite boulder next to it...when the boulder stood up, turned around, and walked away. I swear to you, I'm not making this up. I was awake, wasn't thinking ANYTHING along the lines of "creepy", and I'm in home geography. Whatever this thing was, had been obviously watching me, and when I looked at it––looked right at it––it made the point of slowly turning around and walking away. No head, no limbs that I could see other than some sort of thick, trunk like legs, and I couldn't tell you how I knew it was watching me without seeing eyes of any kind, let alone a head––but I swear, it was. It waited until I was looking in it's direction, and then whatever the hell it was turned around and walked away. It took it's time, and was over the ridge line behind it and gone in about 8-10 seconds. It sauntered off slowly, sort of swaying. It didn't panic, or scatter, or bound off––it turned around and sauntered away. I stood there in shock. I was literally frozen. I don't want to say that I was scared, but I think I was...I don't know. It was still light, but now just dusky enough to where the shadows between the trees were dark black, and all I knew was that I wanted to be in. Inside. Inside somewhere with lights. I stood there, looking at the spot where this thing had walked off, and even though I had my hand on a loaded rifle with a full mag, I never even thought about using the gun. I just wanted to go, but I was afraid to move quickly...I don't know why. I think I cleared my throat or something, because it got Mellie up (rottie), and she came over and nuzzled my hand for love. I said something along the lines of "Come on, girls," and walked towards the barn/house, not looking anywhere else except the front door. I got in, shut the useless front door (made almost completely up of glass), and locked it...then put myself in a corner with two walls behind me (inside walls––couldn't stand the thought of being against an outside wall) and called my parents on this huge-ass Motorola bag phone we shared back then. I kept the dogs with me––mongrel in my lap, actually...I really, really needed something living there with me––and tried to explain to my Dad what I'd just seen. My Dad's already been drinking by this time, and I didn't want him to come up, and I guess I'm trying not to look like such a pussy (Dad? The boogeyman scared me! Can I sleep with you?) because I'm a grown man of 30 or so, and eventually tell him I just wanted to let them know that I had gotten spooked by something I couldn't identify. He laughed at me––not meanly––and told me that I wouldn't be able to stay up there anymore if I freaked myself out, and I laughed it off with him because he was right...but I still slept downstairs in the big room that night, with propane lights on all night. If you want to call that sweaty, feverish freaked out never-ending time "sleep". I was never in my whole life so glad to see the sun rise as I was that day. He and my mother came up the next morning, and we all went out to where I had "seen" whatever the hell it was. No tracks, nothing...and this thing was big. No hole where a boulder might have been, and neither of them ever remembered a rock being in that particular spot. I must have been hallucinating––it's the only thing that really makes sense––especially since neither one of the dogs that were with me lit up on this thing, and they lit up on EVERYTHING––including rattlers. I've never hallucinated before, and I haven't since, but it's the only thing that makes sense...but I swear to you, and will swear to anybody––I saw what I saw. The part that really freaked me out about the whole thing was how I fucking froze up. I didn't have to go for a gun––my hand was on a fully-loaded, round in the chamber, just click the damn safety off AR...and it never even crossed my mind to defend myself...all I could do was fucking freeze. And to be honest...my nights in the woods aren't always as comfortable now as they used to be. I do get a bit...weirded out sometimes. I never used to. Damnit. Parents still own the property, don't live there. Just got too old for it...Mom is 80, Dad almost there––and still working. Mom never got creeped out up there––she was inside when it was dark, and went to sleep to save gas. She got up when it got light. Dad had to make the 30-40 minute one way drive back and forth between work and the property, coming home late at night, and he's told me he's gotten weirded out up there before...but I don't know if he was just trying to make me feel better. I gave enough information out in this story so that anybody familiar with that area of the woods could almost figure out who I am. It really is a small town, to this day |
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Not scary but interesting. We took a trip to stay at a cabin in eastern OK earlier this summer with my parents and brother. My dad wanted to go on a short hike after dark so my kids could see stars better then they can in the suburbs, and just see what kind of wildlife we could run into.
At one point, he suggests everyone turn off our headlamps just to see how dark it gets out there. We do and I turn around to see a glowing spot a little ways away from us. I point it out to a few people, but they can't see it yet, so I turned my light back on. My light drowns out the little point I saw, but it's obvious it was further away than the treeline. So we turn the lights on and off to see the point, and then try to see what it's coming from. It's bright enough to be an indicator light on an electrical panel or something, but when we shine the lights there at it, there's no such object in the woods. Just empty air. Not coming from a tree or structure or anything. Again not scary, but super weird. What makes a steady light like that, and how does it seemingly come from nothing? After a while crawling into the treeline and bobbing our heads around to be sure the light's as close/far as we think, I get close enough to spot it. A firefly had died in a spiderweb while it was "on". If they die while on, they can stay lit a long time. |
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That's it!
Thanks! |
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1983, working on staff at Boy Scout camp...we had a habit of not using the trails/roads to go to troop camps...most direct route through the woods. No flashlights. Just went where we needed to the quickest way. Headed to a camp site at the top of the mountain, a green ball of light about the size of a basketball appeared in front of me and my buddy. It basically led us up the hill through the woods for about 10 minutes. Then it slowly moved off to the side our direction of travel and dissipated. Weird is that it didn't really scare us, but we clearly talked about it as it was taking place..."you see that?"..."yeah, I see it"... The orbs stayed 30-40 yards away no matter how fast you tried to approach them. IIRC we were usually in old Indian or family graveyards when we would see them. They were bright enough to see for quite a ways away, but didn't really illuminate anything they came near.
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| Not really in the middle of nowhere, but in the middle of my local MTB trail. It was around 2004 after hurricane Jeanne and Francis came through. Everything was flooded on the tail but after a month or so the water was receding. I went for a ride and was flying through the trail. Something caught my eye to the side I could see a dark, festered, and algae filled puddle. In it was a wild haired long bearded naked guy laying face up and doing his best "snow angels" in the green puddle. The trail veered off and I laid on the gas to get back to the truck. A mile later, this guy walks out right in front of me. I skidded to halt and off the trail to avoid smacking into him. He is covered in mud and algae and his hair and beard matted and he asking me mostly incoherent questions, and things about my bike as he trying to get around the bike that I was blocking him with. At that time I didn't always carry protection, but after that I ALWAYS have something with me. |