Strange or Unexplained

[MikeW]

"Little People"
The Indians where I use to live(Paiute)told stories of "Water Babies" they live by the streams and rivers and would cry at night like a baby and when you went to go check on the crying baby they would kill you.

Sure use to scare me when I was a kid.
 

[stickbow1]

This is one of the most interesting threads I have ever read.  Great stories but my backpack will now be alot heavier with silver bullets, garlic, extra matches, crosses, and anything else I may need.  I will probably have to carry a framepack.  Also will have to pack a camera.  Great reading guys!!!

[Woodduck]

Friend of mine saw a black panther a few weeks ago!

In the wild, in NC....for really.

[OzarkRamblr]

You can find the original story of Ted the Caver's trip into the cave here.

 http://www.zenadsl6236.zen.co.uk/Thefearofdarkness.pdf

Apparently it's an adaptation almost verbatum of a short story.  It also sounds similar to a book I once read by Jeff Long called The Descent which relates the story of a race of underground creatures called Hadles (pronounced like Ladles).  A movie was also made, but it was so different from the book as to be unrecognizable from the orignal.  Interesting story, but not true.

[hockeyref]

OGOPOGOMAN you should see the hair standing up on my arms!
Afraid of the dark?   Nope... Things that go bump in the night?   uhhhm.. depends on what the little voice in my head is screaming and how much hair is standing up on my neck.

On too many occasions I've had that feeling of being watched or followed.... Sometimes there was a foul aroma, usually not... I hate that feeling none the less.

There is one occasion that sticks in my head. It was archery season in PA in the early 1980's (I think 1983). A friend and I decided it would be a good afternoon to hit the woods after I finished my morning classes - I was 17 and just starting college. It was about 3:00 pm when we crossed the stream that was probably 25 feet across and varried between one and four feet deep.

It was maybe 55 or 60 degrees and in general a pleasant fall day except for one thing - the woods were stone dead quiet! I mean NOTHING MOVING. No birds chirping or flying aroung, no chipmunks, no squirrels, even the bugs seemed to have dissappeared! OK.... I got that wierd feeling of being watched and the little voice is screaming that maybe we should call it a day and grab an early dinner. But NO, we decide to take a walk and look for any "sign"....

Both of us are getting the heebie jeebies from the silence as we just kinda hiked around wondering what the **** is going on. About the time we were ready to start listening to the little screaming voice we notice an aroma that was kinda like roadkill mixed with rotten eggs.... we hear wood cracking, a tree falling,  splashing in the stream, and finally something big crashing away through the woods back where we crossed the stream.

OK, great... what now? Well we do have bows and we do have to go that way to get to the car so we start off towards the noise. Talk about suddenly being wired! I'm feeling like I just downed a pot of double expresso. Ain't no close encounter with a deer ever go my heart pumping that hard... I could "feel" my heart thumping in my ears...

When we get to the stream I notice a hollow rotted tree trunk (that I usually did a leg hold set for racoon in) was laying on it's side. The bank of the stream next to it is kinda chewed up but no clear footprints. The bank on both sides of the stream like something slipped while going in and out of the water. As we crossed the stream heading back towards the car we discovered a footprint halfway across the stream in the stream bed with dirt still swirling in it. It was several inches longer and wider than my size 13 boots and was a good 1 1/2 inches deep into the stream bed. At about 185 pounds at the time I was sinking into the stream bed maybe a quarter inch. Standing there in aboout a foot of water, we were within sight of the road and about 100 yards from the pull off where we parked. Nothing was said - we just looked at each other, nodded and quietly but briskly walked to the car while keeping our eyes peeled.

I have been back to this same area several times since and I never fail to feel that I'm being watched...

[NDTerminator]

That smell is not soon forgotten, is it?  I say it smells like wet dog, mixed with rotten Indian food, in a dirty diaper.  Seems to stick in the nose.

Smelled it in Northern Alabama a couple years after the incident in 94'. Whatever it was the critter was circling us out of sight in the brush. We could smell it every time it swung upwind, though.  Gawd...

[xpauliber]

This is a sweet thread!

[Grizz 53]

When I was a kid we had to sleep with the windows open at night( no airconditioning ). One night my dad called me into his bedroom and told me to listen closely. We had a timber wolf howling on the back side of our 40 acres. Srange thing about it was when we would get up and go to the window to listen the howling would stop. We would go back to bed and he would start up again. This happened several times. Is it possible that he could sense something or was it a coincidence. He hung around in the area a while before moveing on. A few days after that me and my dad and my PaPa were in the pea patch on the back side of the 40 acres breaking some ground for our fall planting. The old Farmall tracter was fairly loud under the load of the disk it was pulling but everone there could hear him when he began howling at the edge of the field. We never saw him and never heard him again after that day.

[Longbeard]

Several years ago, while spring turkey hunting, I was set up along the edge of a power line.  Kept hearing the buzzing sound that sounded like a chain saw on steroids mixed with a funny whap-whap-whap sound.  Kept getting louder and louder and I started to really wonder what was going on and started looking around to see if I could see anything.  Just about that time, a helicopter with a gigantic hanging saw blade hanging from it popped up over the rise in front of me trimming the trees back on the side of the power line I was sitting on.  I had about 30 seconds to jump up and run into the woods before it was directly over where I had been sitting.  Huge limbs & debris hitting the ground all over the place, sawdust flying, etc.  That'll make ya pucker!

[hockeyref]

Nope, the memory of the smell isn't easly forgotten....

As a side note, is this what us humans smell like to deer, elk, etc???? Take that thought where ever you all want to.....

[Eric Krewson]

Had a similar thing come to mind when you mentioned your experience Longbeard.

A friend and I were riding our bikes to Norris Dam in Tn when we noticed some guys clearing land for a cemetery along the main road .They told us to back off about 200yds because they were blasting huge stumps out of the ground. Back in the 50s anyone could buy dynamite from the local hardware store.

Well, we were looking forward to seeing the explosion, expecting a small bang and puff of smoke when the what looked like the whole hillside erupted into a mass flying dirt and debris. There were huge pieces of tree stump falling all around us, some as big as a man's leg. The dirt, rocks and pieces of stump continued to rain down for a while because the blast had been so powerful.  Luckily none of the stuff hit us and being 10 years old we didn't grasp the seriousness of the event. I think our response was "Neat-o".

Turned out the guys blasting didn't have any experience with dynamite and had "overdone" it a bit. Shook them up so bad they had to leave. We continued on to the river below the dam for some trout fishing, but had a great story to tell out friends.

[GingivitisKahn]

Ok, I've got a couple of quick bear stories from the smokies.

Early in my marriage, my wife and I were camping near Cosby on the east side of the Great Smoky Mtn National Park.   I had set up our tent but the wife was afraid of bears so we spent the first night or two in my parents' camper.  Well, I finally convinced her to sleep in the tent (no bears w/in miles, they are more scared of you, etc.).  Sure enough about 2am she wakes be because she hears a bear.  I could hear it snuffling on the ground a foot or two from my head but settle her down by convincing her it was a deer.  Weirdly enough, she believed me and went back to sleep.

I couldn't quite get to sleep because of all the hairs on the nape of my neck were standing straight out preventing my head from reaching the pillow - heh.  Eventually the snuffler went away and I got back to sleep.  The next morning, I found one or two sets of cub tracks and one set of adult tracks in our campsite.  Needless to say, I'm still hearing about that one.  :-D

---

*Much* later (a few years ago) we were again camping in the park (this time at Elkmont) the week after a bear killed a lady (pretty close to where we were camping).  The last night of our trip, I was taking one last walk around the campground and was at the closest part of my walk to where the attack had happened.

I'm not afraid of bears, but of course the attack was on the back of my mind.  Anyway, I had a little LED light with me (the kind you use to get your keys in the door - not much of a light) but it was in my pocket.  All of a sudden, in the brush to my left, there is a *major* ruckus.

As fast as I could, I dug the light from my pocket (where the blasted thing was hiding amongst change, pocket knife, chap stick, blah blah) and shined it on the bush.  Staring back up at me was  a "cute" little fawn.   Son of a!  I guess that's karma.  Needless to say, I used my little light for the rest of the walk back.  :-P

[LoneWolf]

Love this thread, good reads.  Don't think I will be going in any caves for a while though.  
Only big scare that stands out.  riding through remote area witha  friends years ago.  We were in his truck(4x4, "modified" engine setting about 3.5 feet of the ground) and noticed a fire up ahead.  As we got closer he had slowed down and we were looking hard trying to figure out what was going on.  As we got closer, saw several people moving around the fire, that was when I caught movment out the corner of my eye.  Some guy wearinga  robe standing about 2 feet from my door.
Have you ever seen a 1/2 truck in four wheel drive turn around on a single lane gravel road?  Lets just say, foot on the floor, engine roaring and you could hear gravel whistling through the air and bouncing off trees.  Seems(as I found out later) someone stepped out of the wood on his side about the same time.  Needless to say, those two problably spent the next week having gravel removed from them.
Seen alot of wierd things I can't explain, no UFOs though.  Keep this thread going, I love this kinda stuff.

[camocowboy]

A few years ago I was hunting on public forest land, always scouting for good sign. I ran upon an old graveyard that had ,more or less been forgottten out in the middle of the woods. It was surrounded by white oaks and acorns and deer droppings were everywhere. The old grave markers went all the way back to the 1700's. Needless to say this became my hunting spot for a while.  It always felt weird when I climbed a tree beside of that old cemetery and in the moonlight, saw those markers surrounded by rising fog. One morning I had just settled in and gotten quiet, when I saw a strange white form moving up the far side of the little graveyard. To say I was unnerved would be an understatement, but I just sat quietly watching whatever it was move back and forth among the stones. It was still too dark to make out a form,
but I kept telling myself that it was probably just another hunter or something. As it started to get daylight, the form started moving towards my treestand and my breathing became more rapid.
All at once I realized I was looking at a white turkey. It was huge, but a true albino turkey.
Alas turkey season was not open or I might have become a ghost-buster!
.

[Full Quiver II]

No big foot sightings or UFO's...But, on a whitetail hunt four years ago I was shooting compounds (Yeah, we all had to start somewhere. Anyway, a doe came in @ 10 AM and my hunt was nearly over. She stopped broadside at 20 yards with her right side facing me in my treestand. This is important( HER right side). I settle the 20 yard pin just behind her right shoulder and squeeze the release. In an instant the arrow is on its way and I hear the familiar "thwack". The doe runs about 30 yards and stops and I can see my arrow sticking through her neck (broadhead half of arrow on one side and the fletching end sticking out of the arrow). Bad hit?? I figure or she just ducked. I remember seeing a blur when I released as this was an old smart doe and must have heard the sound of a bow before. She goes down quickly and when I get to her about 20 minutes later I feel like I am in the twilight zone and possibly shot another deer...The broadhead end of the arrow is sticking out of her right side and the feathers are sticking out of her left side. Meaning that before an arrow (traveling about 230 fps) could reach her RIGHT shoulder, she ducked, whirled and nearly escaped only to have the arrow strike her neck on her LEFT side. Amazing to me what these whitetails can sometimes do. I am convinced that killing an old mature doe is a true trophy with a bow.

[Caddo]

When I lived in Alaska, Mid 80's, we had our Spring Black Bear baits. My hunting partner and I had our baits about 3/4s of a mile apart so we'd park the truck halfway between them. One particular evening we parked and both went off in opposite directions so set the baits. I was in the stand about an hour when I noticed that everyhting had gotten deathly quiet. Even the mosquitos quit buzzing. In the Spring time in Alaska to have no mosquitos buzzing around is usually not a good sign! Then that feeling of somebody/something watching me hit. Raised the hair on the back of my neck! I sat there about another hour or so, the whole time looking all around trying to find out what the devil was out there. The whole while the feeling of somebody watching me was getting stronger and stronger. Finally I'd had enough of that, said to heck with bear hunting tonight and headed back to the truck. At a high rate of speed I might add! When I get back to the truck, here's my partner sitting in the truck with all the doors locked! As I got in he says "Man, I don't know whats going on but I've had this feeling somebody was watching me all night! I couldn't take it anymore more so I headed back to the truck!" I told him "me too, let's get the heck out of here". We left that night never knowing what was out there. It was strange that we both had the same feelings at the same time, being as far apart as we were. We both hunted those baits numerous times before and after and never had the same feelings. I try to rationalize it by thinking there may have been a Grizzley in the area, but you never know.........

LD

[Black Gold]

WOW...I burnt some serious time on that cave story!!!!

[Black Gold]

Was an excellent read though!

[Brian Krebs]

KirkII
    I have lived and hunted in mountain lion country now for 22 years; and mountain lions often follow people and just watch them. I have seen it and seen the tracks in fresh snow on opening days. I am glad they are not like leopards - and as willing to eat us on a regular basis. Maybe we smell like chemicals.  

 I once had the horrible duty of woodchuck control on some property owned by a local antihunter. She asked me to do it because I wore camo; and nobody would hear me shoot with my recurve. Woodchucks have a habit of walking down rows of sprouts eating each one as they go; so she resorted to .... reality  
               
 anyway I was sitting there one day; and could see a section of the dirt road I walked in on to get there. It was a couple hundred yards away; and I was sitting in a chair next to a woodchuck den waiting for a shot.            
               
 I saw a black cat crossing the road; and I remember thinking to myself ' man that's one big cat!'.  Several minutes later; a rabbit jumped out on the road right where the cat had been; and then it hit me how big that cat was! I don't know if it was a dark colored mountain lion (this was southern Michigan 15 miles from Ann Arbor). I don't know if it was a jaguar; or an escaped leopard. I do know that it was big enough to be one of those things. I have seen a lot of mountain lions since then out here in Idaho; and I have never seen one that reminded me in its walk and shape and tail carriage of what I saw.

 I once went hunting with a buddy of mine who always had a backpack on him; and he was about 3 inches taller than me. He took off one way one evening; and I another; and we were to meet up where a couple trails crossed.
                                               
                                     
I sat there waiting for him in the dark; and I saw a huge - what looked like hairy creature come my way in the darkness. Its one of the few times my stomach has ever flipped over; it was headed quickly for me !
                                     
 Turns out my buddy had bought a gille suit and not told me. He had it in his backpack when he parted with me earlier.                      
                                         
 He still thinks it was funny.                  
                                           
When I was a teenager I was out hunting and sneaking up on a deer. I came across a huge log I had to get over; and swung over it and landed right on a turkey. Not everything that can give you poo-poo undies is a bigfoot !!!

[Coon007]

Ok guy's here goes my story

A couple of years ago i got invited to hunt on a friends property in Starr co. in South Texas, Well we arrived at the ranch late at night and we started picking spots on the topo map they had of the ranch. I saw a great spot where a large hay field borderd some really heavy brush and at the edge between the brush and the field there was a  windmill and large water throug maybe 20'x10' tall. now this place has some huge bucks and the ranch is along the Rio grande river so I couldn't miss the chance. So when we woke up in the morning I was to say the least very optumistic about seeing some big buck's around the windmill area. The weather was perfect nice and cold and the rut was on. So when I got to the stand it was still dark and I was in a great mood, about 15 minutes later I was seeing deer running all over the field but it was still dark and I really felt pumped. suddenly from the other side of the  water trough a man walked out and paced toward the egde of a cattle feeder and went back to the same side and disappeard, so I got down to check if he was looking for me but he was no where to be seen. i did not hear a truck and it was impossible to come in thru the brush really impossible nop human could walk thru it without being shredded to pieces during the day much less while it was still kinda dark. I got back on the stand and waited again then once again here he come does the same thing then disappears again. I got off the stand thinking my chances were ruined with so much human traffic, I stilled hunted back to the ranch house but got no shots. Later that day I kept a eye on the ranch hand to see who was looking for me but no one looked familiar. So of I went back to the same stand that very afternoon to try my luck at those huge rack I saw before daylight. No close encounters that afternoon but at twilight the same thing happend with the same guy but this time I did not look for him, I thought he might be an illegal alien. so when the ranch owner Luis arrived I told him about the man. Ans I was shocked when he said casually O it's just the ghost of the guy they found dead there with his throat cut must have been drug related, Was he crying, No I answered. Well your lucky he gets to wailing and he don't shut up. he also told me of three other murder people they have found on the ranch but he is the only one that appears. After that I did not hunt that ranch again. I have been invited numerous times but something always come up.