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I was about two seconds from having my pants around my ankles and there wasn't any deer. i looked up and it was  a sow and two cubs coming down the trail right for me less than a hundred yards away.

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Try hearing that pack 80 yards away between you and the road at around dark+30 when you are about to climb out of you tree, pack your climber, and have to walk 300 yards through river swamp back to your 4 wheeler when you are bowhunting. I didn't shit for 2 days.  

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Neither creepy nor scary, once I realized what it was, but a group of javelina came into my camp about 1 AM once, when I was camping in southwest Texas. They bumped into my canvas tent a few times while snuffling around searching for food.  

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I was attacked by a bear.  Looked like this:
http://knowyourmeme.com/i/340/original/Pedobear-watch.jpg

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I used to be in Army ROTC and was tasked with border security for our camp one night (we were out on an FTX).  We did it in shifts, and mine was from 3:30am to 4:00am or something like that.  Anyways, I'm walking around in the middle of the woods, alone, and I hear this ungoldy loud banshee like scream.. it sounded like maybe a couple hundred yards away, but still was unbelievably loud against a quite night.  It did not sound like anything an owl or hawk could have made, it was much too loud and the sound wasn't right.  I mean, it sounded exactly like what I would imagine a banshee screaming sounds like..


Anyways, I was creeped out by that.  Years later I hear from someone that there is a random-ass animal that makes such a noise, but I can't recall what it was.

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Less than four months ago my friend and I were hunting on our leased land thats near a cemetery. My friend radios me that someone is driving down our cemetery road (private road so this is suspicous) and told me the car is headed my way. I can't see the car once it hits the cemetery, but I hear it. I am less than 100 yards from it.



I hear the car leave, and all is quiet for a while. Then a truck comes down the same road, and it stays a while then leaves. I get done hunting and head back to camp without incident.





Grandpa calls me the next day and asked if I was hunting that night. I say yes, and he brings a newspaper clipping by our camp. It said Hopkin county sheriffs were dispatched to the cemetery I hunt at, and they found a bloody blanket, hack saw and witnesses said a man disappeared into the woods with a gun.



So all this happened less than 200 yards from me, in a very remote location. Spooked me out!

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HINT:  LOOK AT YOUR AVATAR!!!!!!!!

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In the late 1980's I was at Subic Bay naval base in the Phillipines attending a jungle survival course. I stayed in the Marine barracks. There were three US Marine security force companies that protected the base. At the time it had the distinction of being the only location in the world where the U.S. military was regularly conducting live combat patrols, in this case against the Communist New People's Army who regularly performed incursions into Subic and dropped mortar rounds onto the Charlie Company outpost in the hills.



When I was there I overheard some security force company Marines talking about the "Red eye". Over the next few days I heard this term several times. I finally asked one of them about it. This is what he told me. Back then there were very isolated clearings in the jungle on the perimeter of the base where guard towers were located. Each guard tower was manned by a Marine with a rifle and PRC-77 radio. There was one additional Marine on the ground at the base of the tower.



One night about a month earlier the Sergeant of the Guard recieved a radio call from one of the isolated posts. The tower Marine reported that he has seen possible movement in the jungle near his tower, The Sergeant instructed him to dispatch his ground sentry for a closer look. A short time later the tower Marine called back and said his ground sentry described what looked like a "Red eye" approaching the clearing from the jungle.



A minute later the tower Marine called frantically and reported his ground sentry was down and his position was being observed. The Sergeant dispatched the Corporal of The guard with the security alert team in a Humvee and asked who was in the towers perimeter. The Marine responded he didn't know and that he could just see one red eye approaching his position. A short time later one last frantic radio call came in from the tower. The Marine screamed "It's climbing the fucking ladder". The Sergeant responded who is climbing the ladder. The last transmission from the guard tower was a screaming message "I Just See One Red Eye!". The radio went dead. A few seconds later the Sergeant of the Guard heard M-16 rifle fire from deep in the jungle.



When the Security alert team arrived to the tower about 15 minutes later they found the tower clearing deserted. The floor of the tower post was covered in blood, bits of uniform, and several expended 5.56 cartidge cases. The was another spot near the edge of the clearing covered with blood next to a M-16A2 rifle laying on the ground. There was a blood trail leading into the jungle but no sign of the two Marines. At daylight  Negrito indian trackers were brought in to follow the trail and search for the Marines. After a short time the trail just vanished. The Negrito indians said the demon that lives in the jungle took them. They had a name for it. I cannot recall the name but their legends describe it as a beast with one red eye. The Two Marines were never seen again.

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Anyways, I'm walking around in the middle of the woods, alone, and I hear this ungodly loud banshee like scream.. it sounded like maybe a couple hundred yards away, but still was unbelievably loud against a quite night.

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Hearing a pack of coyotes fight over a meal 50 yards from my tent was a little disconcerting.

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My parents house is located on Potowatomi ceremonial grounds, supposedly there are burial mounds in the woods. When they were kicked off the land by settlers they cursed the land. I never had any outright weird experiences there, but once the sun goes down the woods have such an ominous feel. It feels like you're being watched, and the woods grow so dark that they almost seem to swallow the yardlights. During the day it isn't so bad, but there is still acertain stillness to them. Out of all the places I've ever been, that is the one place that puts me on edge.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

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Anybody in Florida have any stories about witches around the middle to middle east part of the state?

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Sounds like the perfect time for a belt fed.......

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Meh, I can go at back and hear them right now closer than that. We've got a pack of about 20 that lurk around here.

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Less than four months ago my friend and I were hunting on our leased land thats near a cemetery. My friend radios me that someone is driving down our cemetery road (private road so this is suspicous) and told me the car is headed my way. I can't see the car once it hits the cemetery, but I hear it. I am less than 100 yards from it.

I hear the car leave, and all is quiet for a while. Then a truck comes down the same road, and it stays a while then leaves. I get done hunting and head back to camp without incident.


Grandpa calls me the next day and asked if I was hunting that night. I say yes, and he brings a newspaper clipping by our camp. It said Hopkin county sheriffs were dispatched to the cemetery I hunt at, and they found a bloody blanket, hack saw and witnesses said a man disappeared into the woods with a gun.

So all this happened less than 200 yards from me, in a very remote location. Spooked me out!

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a screech owl busting loose close to you, in the woods at night, will certainly get your attention. if you've never heard one, it sounds like a cross between a cougar, and a woman that's been stabbed. scary as crap, if you don't know what it is.––possib ly what some of the above posters have heard. it's definitely blood curdling.

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In the late 1980's I was at Subic Bay naval base in the Phillipines attending a jungle survival course. I stayed in the Marine barracks. There were three US Marine security force companies that protected the base. At the time it had the distinction of being the only location in the world where the U.S. military was regularly conducting live combat patrols, in this case against the Communist New People's Army who regularly performed incursions into Subic and dropped mortar rounds onto the Charlie Company outpost in the hills.

When I was there I overheard some security force company Marines talking about the "Red eye". Over the next few days I heard this term several times. I finally asked one of them about it. This is what he told me. Back then there were very isolated clearings in the jungle on the perimeter of the base where guard towers were located. Each guard tower was manned by a Marine with a rifle and PRC-77 radio. There was one additional Marine on the ground at the base of the tower.

One night about a month earlier the Sergeant of the Guard recieved a radio call from one of the isolated posts. The tower Marine reported that he has seen possible movement in the jungle near his tower, The Sergeant instructed him to dispatch his ground sentry for a closer look. A short time later the tower Marine called back and said his ground sentry described what looked like a "Red eye" approaching the clearing from the jungle.

A minute later the tower Marine called frantically and reported his ground sentry was down and his position was being observed. The Sergeant dispatched the Corporal of The guard with the security alert team in a Humvee and asked who was in the towers perimeter. The Marine responded he didn't know and that he could just see one red eye approaching his position. A short time later one last frantic radio call came in from the tower. The Marine screamed "It's climbing the fucking ladder". The Sergeant responded who is climbing the ladder. The last transmission from the guard tower was a screaming message "I Just See One Red Eye!". The radio went dead. A few seconds later the Sergeant of the Guard heard M-16 rifle fire from deep in the jungle.

When the Security alert team arrived to the tower about 15 minutes later they found the tower clearing deserted. The floor of the tower post was covered in blood, bits of uniform, and several expended 5.56 cartidge cases. The was another spot near the edge of the clearing covered with blood next to a M-16A2 rifle laying on the ground. There was a blood trail leading into the jungle but no sign of the two Marines. At daylight  Negrito indian trackers were brought in to follow the trail and search for the Marines. After a short time the trail just vanished. The Negrito indians said the demon that lives in the jungle took them. They had a name for it. I cannot recall the name but their legends describe it as a beast with one red eye. The Two Marines were never seen again.

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I was bow fishing one night with some buddies out on Dam-b. Its a very eerie part of the state. Cypress trees covered in Spanish moss coupled with long leaf pines and mixed hardwoods. The shallow waters are great for hunting big gar. Anyways, we were about thirty miles from the nearest town and had traveled up the river by boat another 30 to get to the good spots. I tell ya, you go back in these woods and you step back in time. Untouched by man and so damn unforgiving, its no surprise. It was about 11:30 P.M. when we entered the slough. There was no sound except for the humming of the trolling motor. He had decided not to use the generator and the halogen lights but instead use some rigged handheld 500,000 spot lights so we could hunt coons as well. Thats when we heard it.

I was just putting a dip in when I heard the soft sound of music. Instantly, fear and confusion set in as I looked around. My buddies heard it as well and we could only listen, looking at each other for some sort of answer. No one could be out there, it was impossible. There were no roads, no way to climb the huge, clay cliffs made by the river. It was coming from the absolute wilderness. The tune was the most terrifying part. It was not a song anyone alive today would know. It sounded like it came from an old record player. It was scratchy and muffled with a woman's voice singing and it filled me with more adrenaline and fear than I have ever had in my whole life. I can only relate it to something from the turn of the century. By this time, Jake had stopped the trolling motor and we simply sat down and continued to listen. Its like we were in a trance. We know that back country and we know that this was not right. People never would have trecked through those marshes and woods to play a joke.

Then the music simply faded away. We sat there in the dark, waiting for something to move, something to give its position away so we could put the lights on it. Whoever or whatever it was would have surely made noise in the swamp water.

Nothing. Not a sound for thirty minutes. We felt after an experience like that, it was time to go.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q262/Texan6326/Damb.jpg

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 What good is a dead body going to do you?

THE BAUMAN STORY
 
Presidential frontiersmen "Rough-rider" Teddy Roosevelt began writing his soon to be published book in 1890. Titled The Wilderness Hunter, the author writes of a grizzled, weather beaten trapper by the name of Bauman, whose figure of a man reminded me of actor Robert Redford's portrayal of the legendary woodsman-tracker Jeremiah Johnson. Bauman however was German born, lived all of his life out on the early frontier. Roosevelt must have had some degree of belief in Bauman's tale to include his thoughts in his book.
Before his legendary encounter, Roger Patterson wrote in his 1966 book, Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist that, "He [Roosevelt] was a hard man to fool with a wild tale." Bauman must have held to the story for it was said that he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points in the yarn. A yarn that was to become a legend at Roosevelt's unwitting recounting, weathering the retelling for more than 100 years and will go on ad infinitum.

One of Idaho's best known horror stories, it tells the story of two trappers who set out on a beaver hunt in the still remote alpine terrain of the beautiful Salmon River countryside. This portion of the Salmon River is located in the Bitterroot Mountains between the state of Idaho and Montana. To this day, stories of the Sasquatch come out of this part of this virgin wilderness. Roosevelt wrote that the previous year a trapper's body had been found torn to bits and partially eaten by an "unknown beast, which left enormous human foot tracks in its wake." [Bears do not leave human footprints; overlapping bear tracks upon one another can be differentiated.]

Oblivious to what should have been a warning to the senses, these two men journeyed deep into the wilderness' remote regions, moving campsites from one creek to another in search of satisfactory places in which to place their beaver traps. Here is that famous excerpt about Bauman from Roosevelt's book:

"Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and those few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type. But I once listened to a goblin-story, which rather impressed me.
A grizzled, weather beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman who, born and had passed all of his life on the Frontier, told it the story to me. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore. So that many fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the specters, [spirits, ghosts & apparitions] the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk. It may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no man can say.

When the event occurred, Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to contain many beavers. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighted very lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass where they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground being from there onward impracticable for horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight left, and after building a brush lean-to and throwing down and opening their packs, they started upstream. The country was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was much down timber, although here and there the somber woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass. At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountains slope, covered with the unbroken growth of evergreen forest.

They were surprised to find that during their absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked, "Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs."

Bauman laughed at this, but his partner insisted that he was right, and upon again examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem to be made by but two paws or feet. However, it was too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the footprints could possibly be those of a human being, and coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under the lean-to. At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the under wood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the night.

After this the two men slept but little, sitting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the morning they started out to look at the few traps they had set the previous evening and put out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and returned to camp towards evening. On nearing it they saw, hardly to their astonishment that the lean-to had again been torn down. The visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and destroyed the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by the brook. The footprints were as plain as if on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of dead logs and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night, one or the other sitting on guard most of the time. About midnight the thing came down through the forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed there on the hillside for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire. In the morning the two trappers, after discussing the strange events of the last 36 hours, decided that they would shoulder their packs and leave the valley that afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had caught very little fur. However it was necessary first to go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this they started out to do. All the morning they kept together, picking up trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they had the disagreeable sensation of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap after they had passed; and now and then there were slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were, through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness, to face every kind of danger from man, brute or element. There were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these and bring them in, while his companion went ahead to camp and made ready the packs.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three beavers in the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing and preparing the beaver, and when he started homewards he marked, with some uneasiness, how low the sun was getting. As he hurried toward camp, under the tall trees, the silence and desolation of the forest weighted on him. His feet made no sound on the pine needles and the slanting sunrays, striking through among the straight trunks, made a gray twilight in which objects at a distance glimmered indistinctly. There was nothing to break the gloomy stillness which, when there is no breeze, always broods over these somber primeval forests. At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The campfire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling upwards.

Near it lay the packs wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang marks in the throat. The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story. The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long noiseless steps and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently unheard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his head back with its fore paws, while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gamboled around it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved and believing that the creature with which he had to deal was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, abandoned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until beyond reach of pursuit."

There is by the way, a second passage in The Wilderness Hunter where Teddy Roosevelt may quite possibly have been describing a personal Bigfoot experience. He writes about how he and a friend were on a hunting trip in the State of Washington. They had contracted a Native American to guide them into a remote region. Their guide urged them to avoid a particular area due to some native "superstition" that hunter-tracker Roosevelt held as utterly preposterous.
In any event, old roughrider Roosevelt, as was his way sometimes, bullied the apprehensive guide into taking them to this area anyway. They did not find any big game during that trek or other sign but Roosevelt made a point of mentioning the very strange noises he heard at night while camping there. He did not recognize nor describe the noises, but he did give the distinct impression that they were unusual in his learned experience and found them to be unsettling. Uncharacteristically, Roosevelt did not offer any explanation or speculation about the source of the noises, simply mentioned them, and said no more about it. Odd for an author who otherwise went into such vivid detail relative to the animals he observed and hunted.

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Word in red.

Translate from "Texan" to English please.

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150 feet? We have coyotes singing closer than that often, almost every night in the spring and fall.

What are you guys, cub scouts or something? I consider it beautiful music myself.

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I was bow fishing one night with some buddies out on Dam-b. Its a very eerie part of the state. Cypress trees covered in Spanish moss coupled with long leaf pines and mixed hardwoods. The shallow waters are great for hunting big gar. Anyways, we were about thirty miles from the nearest town and had traveled up the river by boat another 30 to get to the good spots. I tell ya, you go back in these woods and you step back in time. Untouched by man and so damn unforgiving, its no surprise. It was about 11:30 P.M. when we entered the slough. There was no sound except for the humming of the trolling motor. He had decided not to use the generator and the halogen lights but instead use some rigged handheld 500,000 spot lights so we could hunt coons as well. Thats when we heard it.

I was just putting a dip in when I heard the soft sound of music. Instantly, fear and confusion set in as I looked around. My buddies heard it as well and we could only listen, looking at each other for some sort of answer. No one could be out there, it was impossible. There were no roads, no way to climb the huge, clay cliffs made by the river. It was coming from the absolute wilderness. The tune was the most terrifying part. It was not a song anyone alive today would know. It sounded like it came from an old record player. It was scratchy and muffled with a woman's voice singing and it filled me with more adrenaline and fear than I have ever had in my whole life. I can only relate it to something from the turn of the century. By this time, Jake had stopped the trolling motor and we simply sat down and continued to listen. Its like we were in a trance. We know that back country and we know that this was not right. People never would have trecked through those marshes and woods to play a joke.

Then the music simply faded away. We sat there in the dark, waiting for something to move, something to give its position away so we could put the lights on it. Whoever or whatever it was would have surely made noise in the swamp water.

Nothing. Not a sound for thirty minutes. We felt after an experience like that, it was time to go.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q262/Texan6326/Damb.jpg

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"scrotes" is short for scrotum.

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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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There's a place a couple of hours fromm here where we camp every fourth of July. We always set our tent up next to this little creek. Not every night, but sometimes while I'm trying to fall asleep, I start to hear things mingled into the sound of the creek, if that makes sense. It usually sounds like voices and sometimes like a party with drums or music. It's really wierd. It doesn't frighten me really, it's just bizarre. My wife says she notices the same thing sometimes. It's a pretty remote area at the end of a dirt road. Sometimes people camp near us, but it's not them. I've gotten up and checked around before and there is nothing nearby making the noises.

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I have had a couple of unexplainables like that, one with a witness. To my dying day I will never know what it was.

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I was bow fishing one night with some buddies out on Dam-b. Its a very eerie part of the state. Cypress trees covered in Spanish moss coupled with long leaf pines and mixed hardwoods. The shallow waters are great for hunting big gar. Anyways, we were about thirty miles from the nearest town and had traveled up the river by boat another 30 to get to the good spots. I tell ya, you go back in these woods and you step back in time. Untouched by man and so damn unforgiving, its no surprise. It was about 11:30 P.M. when we entered the slough. There was no sound except for the humming of the trolling motor. He had decided not to use the generator and the halogen lights but instead use some rigged handheld 500,000 spot lights so we could hunt coons as well. Thats when we heard it.



I was just putting a dip in when I heard the soft sound of music. Instantly, fear and confusion set in as I looked around. My buddies heard it as well and we could only listen, looking at each other for some sort of answer. No one could be out there, it was impossible. There were no roads, no way to climb the huge, clay cliffs made by the river. It was coming from the absolute wilderness. The tune was the most terrifying part. It was not a song anyone alive today would know. It sounded like it came from an old record player. It was scratchy and muffled with a woman's voice singing and it filled me with more adrenaline and fear than I have ever had in my whole life. I can only relate it to something from the turn of the century. By this time, Jake had stopped the trolling motor and we simply sat down and continued to listen. Its like we were in a trance. We know that back country and we know that this was not right. People never would have trecked through those marshes and woods to play a joke.



Then the music simply faded away. We sat there in the dark, waiting for something to move, something to give its position away so we could put the lights on it. Whoever or whatever it was would have surely made noise in the swamp water.



Nothing. Not a sound for thirty minutes. We felt after an experience like that, it was time to go.



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No one could be out there, it was impossible. There were no roads, no way to climb the huge, clay cliffs made by the river. It was coming from the absolute wilderness.

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Where do they live in Indiana?

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And yet, they were there to hear it?