You mention the cigarette. I don't have the super cool NV like some here do, but i have a Sionyx Aurora. It blew my mind watching a fellow smoking a cig. Drags would light up his face and shoulders like a lantern.

Nothing to add on NVG/Thermals, but yes, I've heard a bobcat.

The best story was told to me by another guy I used to hunt with.  He was taking another fella hunting early one morning and a bobcat "screamed."  His friend was a little jumpy and asked what that was?  My friend, being a smart alec, told him it was nothing more than a woman being murdered by the guys who owned the farm next to the hunting land.

He said that he really screwed up telling the guy that, since the guy was so scared that he wouldn't let my friend leave him until the sun came up!

My dad and me were watching one while cowboy camping in TX when i was a kid. It did a 180 as we watched it. We both tripped because we both saw a UFO. Later on, after i realized that alien visits are bullshit and impossible,  i knew our government (or the Russians) had some really cool stuff back in 1972.

I've had thermal for several years and haven't seen anything weird in the woods.  Nothing knows you're there as long as you're quiet and don't use any light.  The only thing that took me a while to figure out were flocks of large birds at altitude.  They have a hard time staying in formation at night.

I used to walk the dirt logging roads and pipeline right of ways quite a bit hog hunting with thermal and a PVS14.
Sometimes when I'd get really sleep, I'd curl up the grass or stretch out on my back and take a nap.
I woke up once to the sound of coyotes really close, popped up the thermal to 4 coyotes chasing a rabbit down the pipeline and back into the cutover.  Pretty cool.
I love sleeping in the woods but have never seen anything "weird".  

ProTip, thermal doesn't really show water moccasins or rattle snakes well, so wear your snakeboots.

The closest I have ever come to pissing my pants was letting my dog out at 4AM to find a bobcat howling in the front yard.

It was this unnatural screaming, sounding like it was coming from all around me with the sound bouncing off the trees and my metal roof.

Freaked my dog out too

Yeah, the PVS-5's I was using back then are practically "Stone Age" tech today (lol) but I wouldn't mind finding a working pair to lay out on a hammock with this summer for looking at stars.

It took a few hours for me to settle in to camping on a ridge overlooking SW Las Vegas back in December when we didn't get to the campsite until about 8-9pm and it was pitch black the entire time we were there. Had a small fire going for heat/illumination, but it was kind of sobering to be camping on a cliff in the dark with about a 250-300 foot drop straight down into the valley below us.

There were no other people for miles, but the wind whistling through those hills ruined any chance of hearing someone or something creep up on you. I know I was motherfucker'ing my buddy for the fact that he was camped in a CVT (vehicle tent mounted to the rack over his truck bed) while I was asleep in a Eureka tent on the ground

Lol Ill never forget it

My buddy and I just got nods at the time about 10 years ago

Out at some forrest reserve. We heard that sound, sounded like a lady being sacrificed and we just noped right on out of that area

demons are real

Details man

Where
When

You may be able to command an army of the dead.

I've killed a feral hog with thermals.

Amazing what 25MM from a M242 will do.

As long as you don't let "them" know that you can see "them" you should be fine.

Thermals of a 25mm hitting a hog would be something to see!

Yes Sir.....Weches Tx

The thing about NODs is there are three typical categories.



Stuff in the Sky. Freaks in the woods. Unexplained.



The stuff in the sky is just amazing, from star clusters to satellites to who knows what making high G turns.



The freaks in the woods are … well … entertaining. There is something to be said to waling through your neighborhood and seeing all the IR spray from security systems and movement lights. Some proximity sensors throw a spray, some don’t.



The other stuff … while some can be explained away as being tired and hallucinating, sometimes things are seen that just aren’t there to the naked eye. How to scientifically explain this .. idk … are they in the IR spectrum or something? I’ve seen some things on the hunting grounds in Kentucky Where the Bell witch is supposed to be, and needless to say it was lankier and taller than a human normally is. I wanted nothing to do with it. The Deep Woods I’m about done with when I’m alone. Not gonna happen again.

Be a 12 year old kid in the middle of a swamp walking back to camp after the evening hunt in total darkness and hear one scream. I about shit myself and made it back to camp in record time.

That swamp was a scary place already.

I saw three "satellites" moving in a line north to south in Afghanistan and the trailing one took a sudden 90 degree left turn ad the first two continued on for a short bit, stopped, reversed direction, then turned where the last one turned, following it. Very weird.

The weirdest thing I noticed there were the shadows that would move and disappear if I tried to look at them. Sometimes we would see a shadow with the outline of a human shape that would dissipate if we called out to it. That didn't happen often though.  

Afghanistan was a weird place, lots of history and what I can only describe as it is not a place where the dead can rest. So much tragedy and killing all throughout history. That's bound to leave a mark like the civil war battle fields here in the United States

Thermals are a different animal



Ive found recently using the Accolade 2 set of binoculars that im always using them so I throw them in the car.  Sadly stopping near any gas station that sells food and alcohol which is situated by woods or undergrowth, youre sure to see homeless people in the woods nearby which is kind of sad. Also some of the better neighborhoods in older cities are completely unaware of the rat problem coming out of their sewers after dark, but those bright red critters run right along the curb then zig zag straight to those million dollar homes lol.



The woods come alive, that’s for certain. The strangest thing happened to me a few years ago when using a flir. I was raccoon hunting in late November. I was situated on one hill, another hill across from me maybe 800 yards away, separated by a valley with a small creek. Trees over the entire thing but not along the creek. The wider area was all trees, no houses. Had hunted there for twenty years. I let the dogs out to do their thing. They made a huge circle of about a quarter mile like they always do, barking occasionally. The bark changed at one point when they got scent, as theyre prone to do.



They headed down the hill across from me and treed the rascal about half way up. The barking was more like howling now, as theyre trained. I had been watching them with the FLIR, what was clearly a man coming over the top of the hill and heading down towards the tree. My first thought was this guys gonna yell that we are here. Then I thought whered he come from, nothing on the other side of that hill but more woods. I hustled down my side and raised the FLIR again, he was passing right through my dogs, I watched to see if hed hurt them or theyd hurt him, they paid him no mind. This guy was crystal clear, walked within feet of them, and was now about 50 feet below them, heading in a line in my direction.



I travelled that way as fast as I could. When I got to the base of the hill where I should have met him, I was alone. I called out, nothing. I used the FlIR, nothing. He didn’t go left or right, he didn’t pass me, he couldn’t have gone back up in time. Guy just vanished. Spooked me.

I haven't seen shit because I am a poor

Spend any appreciable amount of time looking at the dark using NVGs or thermal while sitting quietly and you're almost guaranteed to see some weird shit

This is what could happen

Film it

Profit?

Looks like it’s laying an egg or pooping.

Don't need NVGs for that. It's like the little bastards have a lookout who gives them the signal to take off.

Yes.
Had one do that at the end of a boat dock we were fishing off one night...at about 30ft it will damage your calm.

Couple of questions before I comment:

1. How did you determine the height?
2. What is the resolution of your thermal?
3.  Why do you describe it as a shadow man, what specific things did you observe?

@axeeclipse14

What is an appreciable amount of time? I am under NODs quite a bit and have never seen unexplainable phenomena.

He might have been doing a pregnancy check.

copy/pasta from an email sent to a friend a couple years ago:

While driving a taxi in Bako in 1999 I bought my first night vision scope. I took it with me every night for the first few weeks. Expensive new toy and all.  That 2nd or 3rd week I had it, middle of the night in an empty parking lot behind Stockdale 6 theater I was bored and took it out and looked up.  I would say 50 feet up or so, slowing moving across the sky was what looked like a metallic (not metallica) ball floating slowing across the sky.  About the size of maybe a softball, though I had nothing to compare it to. I starred at it for a few seconds and thought, wtf is that, am I seeing things? I took the scope off my eye and it wasn't there. With night vision it was clearly visible. I did this a couple times to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I wasn't. It was crystal clear with night vision and nothing with the naked eye. I watched it slowly float for about 4-5 minutes until I couldn't see it across the field and over the tops of trees/houses.

The human eye sees such a narrow part of the spectrum,the NVGs at least widen that a bit with the IR

Imagine what else might be farther out in the spectrum

I lost my virginity banging Susie Rottencrotch on top of an above ground casket in Louisiana when I was 15.

Never know what you will see

What did he see?

I was playing with a PVS14 in the field during a FARP and I found this.
Attached File





You looked

You got me!  I've not heard or seen that in over thirty years.  That is hilarious!

I played tug of war with a racoon over our trash bag one time. He was a persistent little shit.

I was thinking that somebody was out field testing some sort of high tech "Predator" camouflage system in some of the sightings.  Letting our guys get a look at it in operation might have been part of the testing.

Whether it was ours or Russian or ChiCom could be an important question.

Wat

Never really saw weird stuff, but some of the stuff that always caught me offguard were the photoluminescent bugs and plants that were invisible to naked eye. Amazing what you can see in some parts of the world.

Watched ufo's constantly after I got my pvs-14's. I would set out in the dark in a lawn chair with a pair of bino's and the pvs'. What I could see with the nvd but couldn't see through one lens of the bino's usually was worth watching. It actually became boring after a while. Then, about a week before the Reno air races started, all activity stopped dead, and about a week after the air races it was business as usual. It dawned on me that air races attract the largest gatherings of trained observers.

Great observation, no pun intended

I have one hell of a scary story on one of my deployment in Iraq.

Karmah, Iraq, 2008

Our platoon had been on several missions back to back, including a census in our AO and building COPs.
We had been doing 12 hour patrols, going to every house, searching every house for a few days.
In between that, we would go to out to secure a COP, and for some reason, my platoon got shafted and did all the work for the COP.
We built up a hasty COP to be used in rotation between the other platoons. After we finished it in a day or so, we were told to move it about 15 miles away to a different place.
We un-done every sandbag we filled. every Hesco we filled (by carrying sandbags up several flites of stairs.
We packed it into trucks along with 50 cases of MREs, guns, ammo, gear, etc...everything to the new place and filled more sandbags and Hescos by hand that I care to count.

We finally get the new COP fortified and operational. Without rest, my squad gets sent on a recon/ambush mission. We get dropped off 20 clicks away, walk another 5 or so through flooded fields to avoid interaction with the Iraqi Civilian Watch. We set up in a field, wet and cold and wait. It's dark out...almost too dark for NVGs. Arty sends us some illumination, which half of them failed by plummeting in the field nearby (scary by itself hearing it hurdling down towards you but you can't see it).
Were there for a several hours and we get word our mission is canked and we got a new follow up mission that is urgent.. to help Iraqi police pick up body parts and locate a bomber/IED intel/secondary IEDs from an IED'd IP.
We get there. IP was killed by a remote IED. we find the wire, link up with a dog team and the trail ends at a sack of bread the bad guy left for the dogs.
Dog team ultimately gets picked up by one of our squads another mission, we walk our happy tired ass back to our exfil sight about 10 clicks from where we are now.
We make it, sit there, and have to wait for our squad to come back to the COP with the dog team before they can get us. 8 hours later, sun is starting to rise, and they make their way.
They finally reach us, and we're relived. Driver gets an MRAP stuck....
Now we have to wait for a recovery truck. Many hours later, the recovery truck arrives. Woohoo!
Recovery truck gets stuck.

We're due for post at the COP. We're told to walk back.
20 something odd clicks later (it's dark again), we finally make it back to a bitching squad on post who has been on post 1 hour longer than scheduled.  
We man our posts, cold, wet, tired, and hungry.

Our post's aren't manufactured. They are artisan hand-built fortresses compiled of sandbags, hescos, cami-netting, humvee ballistic glass and lawn chairs, so you have to sit down to be protected.

Now here is the scary part...
It's dark, I'm completely exhausted and drained. I'm staring out into the dark abyss of what is the Iraqi countryside, and then all of sudden, I hear what sounds like someone yelling in my ear "HEY!". It sounded loud, but at the same time wasn't. Very hard to explain. I felt the breath hit my ear when it happened.
Confused...I start to look around...and thats when I saw it....


My Platoon Sgt (big black former Drill Instructor)....
I had fallen asleep on post and never knew it.....



Me and sandbags got acquainted alot more closely.....

Did you stick the optic up its ass, or did it back up to your head?

yup

lots of weird shit in these georgia woods.

Shit don’t do me like that. Just moved to West Cobb after a few years of boring ass dallas

Best thread going in GD right now.

I remember when we first started getting NVGs, the first field exercise I got to use a pair you could see all the smokers on the line trying to be stealthy, ducking in the bottom of a foxhole doesn't help, putting a poncho over the foxhole makes it even worse.