Strange Sightings, Creepy Feelings

[steve white]

Mountain lion in the dark while on horseback. We didn’t see it, but the horses lost their shit! A small rodeo ensued and the one flashlight we had showed fresh cat tracks just in front of us.

I’ve had to walk by a hippo in the dark to get to my tent. As long as they are still chewing, things are “mostly” ok.

I took a short nap in on a wooded mountainside on the last day of an elk hunt. When I woke (maybe only 10-15 min?) I retraced my steps and crossed big bear tracks over my boot prints not 70 yards from where I was napping.

Today: buy a thermal handheld and you will have a much different impression of the night. There are quite a few animals moving about in the dark. Owls are truly amazing. They are a lion in a small package.

You're not lying about owls. My uncle had one in a huge cage when he was young. His buddy bet him that his dad's prized fighting rooster could beat it up. The owl took one look, flew down and in one motion spread the chicken open and began to eat!

 

[Daniel Cary]

@375 Ruger Fan , That was great!
I'm sober, sucks .. I mean, it's awesome! ;
I will say, 12 hours of this, lack of sleep, heat. I've heard coworkers say things where their starting to hallucinate, and I relate.

 

[Daniel Cary]

Unfortunately, have dispatched more game @ work, than hunting. We've seen maimed deer in a snowbank for 4 days, how nothing got at it in the interim was beyond me. Until the opportunity came to stop and put it out of it's misery with the only available tools .. it's incredible, the will they have to survive & how much energy it takes to put it down? Lord.

 

[Daniel Cary]

You're not lying about owls. My uncle had one in a huge cage when he was young. His buddy bet him that his dad's prized fighting rooster could beat it up. The owl took one look, flew down and in one motion spread the chicken open and began to eat!

That's really interesting. Owls have to be the most mysterious creatures.
My Grandmother, always talked of German folklore, a lone Owl perched outside, staring in your window was a sign someone was going to die in the home. I'm sure there's a long list.

 

[Daniel Cary]

This was found on my Uncles Farm/camp in the UP. There's a lot of arrowheads, interesting finds. But the Abbott Lab's Morphine Bottle was found in an old outhouse, no date.

 

[bashaw]

When I was on my Oregon Bighorn Sheep hunt, I was sleeping under the stars close to a waterhole sleeping in the middle of night I got woke up by Blood curdling screech, my sleeping bag and I levitated a couple feet in the air came back down & I grabbed my King Cobra 357 from under pillow and laid there not really tired anymore trying to figure what the screech was a minute or 2 went by and it happened again, it was a screech owl in a willow tree 25' away

 

[Pheroze]

This is west of Thunder Bay, down a logging road, through a forest to a field that probably had many feet of snow. The trail camera was up in a tree angled down. This person must be 8 feet tall and immune to the cold. Wtf. Oh, and no tracks in the snow behind him. Anyways, it kind looks like the side of a bald guy's head...no? Lol

 

[bashaw]

Another time my daughter and I were hunting Mule Deer, I was sneaking down a ridge & she was down below just in case I pushed a Buck out, about hour into hunt I got this feeling inside me that lasted a 1/2 hour I couldn't shake it I was thinking Mountain Lion or Wolf or I was having some kind of Stroke, never seen any predators following me or up in a tree watching it finally went away never had that feeling before or since

 

[Pheroze]

I was moose hunting and came across a trail of two wolves. At first I thought how cool is it to be walking in the same direction as another predator. When I got to a beaver pond I saw that the two wolves were many more because the tracks fanned out across the pond. I suddenly felt insignificant and glad I had a rifle. We have a lot of wolves in our area and sometimes they leave tracks around camp. Their prints are huge!

 

[Pilgrim]

30ish miles down a dark dirt road in the middle of the night in a remote southern Utah area. I was on my way to a friend's cabin in my 'Ole chevy pickup. I come around a corner and there's a guy running up the road, headed away from the highway. I slow down in complete disbelief that somebody could be out here, especially since I hadn't seen any other vehicles either driving or parked since leaving the highway. I couldn't just drive past in case he was in trouble. As I stop, my hand finds the hilt of the .44 mag and my thumb readies itself on the hammer of the single action super Blackhawk just in case. As it turns out, it was James and he was headed the same place I was so no real threat, but you don't ever expect to see that. I had to drive the rest of the way with the window down due to a lack of recent showering on his part coupled with a long sweaty run.

 

[Daniel Cary]

30ish miles down a dark dirt road in the middle of the night in a remote southern Utah area. I was on my way to a friend's cabin in my 'Ole chevy pickup. I come around a corner and there's a guy running up the road, headed away from the highway. I slow down in complete disbelief that somebody could be out here, especially since I hadn't seen any other vehicles either driving or parked since leaving the highway. I couldn't just drive past in case he was in trouble. As I stop, my hand finds the hilt of the .44 mag and my thumb readies itself on the hammer of the single action super Blackhawk just in case. As it turns out, it was James and he was headed the same place I was so no real threat, but you don't ever expect to see that. I had to drive the rest of the way with the window down due to a lack of recent showering on his part coupled with a long sweaty run.

That is a creepy sight, thought, unexpectedly.

 

[Daniel Cary]

Lost, loosing your bearing & daylight is panic. The Marquette Range, Lake Superior shoreline has so much Iron, standard compasses were unpredictable.

They say there's so much Iron left underground; it can be welded? idk.

I'm sure many have seen this...

 

[Ravensview]

Lost, loosing your bearing & daylight is panic. The Marquette Range, Lake Superior shoreline has so much Iron, standard compasses were unpredictable.

They say there's so much Iron left underground; it can be welded? idk.

I'm sure many have seen this...

I Have watched my compass needle move in different directions because of the iron ore deposits, when Longyear was surveying many areas he used a pocket solar compass because of this

 

[Pilgrim]

One time we were riding atvs out on the Arizona strip, probably 60 or more miles from the nearest highway. It's probably one of the more remote areas in the lower 48, a vast almost 8,000 square mile stretch of desert characterized by mostly grass and sagebrush and very few people. We come around a corner and almost run over a naked man riding his bike through the desert opposite our direction of travel. Naked? Well, that was an exaggeration, he was wearing a pair of shoes. He seemed nervous but didn't want help so we continued on, but the needle on the "something's not right here" gauge rose into the yellow. A mile or two later we find a trail of oil leading to his abandoned light blue 80s sedan in the middle of the rocky two track road, it's oil pan smashed from numerous high speed encounters with the canteoupe sized rocks littering the road. Why was this guy driving so recklessly so far from civilization? Does he know he could die out here? We didn't know what he was thinking, but now the needle was in the red.
A few hours later we pass a group of Jeeps whose occupants had witnessed a man beating a woman earlier in the day. He had probably intended to kill her with his .22 revolver, except the Jeep posse had so rudely interrupted and chased him off. The last they saw of him was a cloud of dust trailing a light blue 80s sedan as it sped away. The lady's injuries were such that she required life flight to a Las Vegas hospital.
Later that afternoon as we were headed back, we found him again, watering himself at a nasty algae filled cattle trough. At this point he was obviously in dire straits and without rescue probably would have succombed to either starvation or giardia induced diarrhea. We gave him a ride to Mesquite where we arranged a meeting with the police.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Another time my daughter and I were hunting Mule Deer, I was sneaking down a ridge & she was down below just in case I pushed a Buck out, about hour into hunt I got this feeling inside me that lasted a 1/2 hour I couldn't shake it I was thinking Mountain Lion or Wolf or I was having some kind of Stroke, never seen any predators following me or up in a tree watching it finally went away never had that feeling before or since

+1. And the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you sense something is wrong but you can't put your finger on it. I've never seen a mountain lion in the wild while hunting or camping, but I'm sure they've seen me.

 

[Daniel Cary]

I was 10yrs old & saw that frightened me so bad, I passed out. I remember a strange taste prior, "often referred to as an aura."

I learned in Medic school, that's where the phrase, "the taste of fear" came from.

 

[JG26Irish_2]

Sitting in our WV deer camp a few years back and we were around the fire pit talking about how many more coyotes were now in the area. I walked over to my 4x4 and fished out the FoxPro caller and turned it on. dialed it to the coyote locator call set and hit it on max volume for one set about 20 sec long. Our cabin sits atop the tallest mountain at the head of three streams that all begin on the property of about 375 acres. When the call went silent a large pack of coyotes answered to the North down in the hollow near the farm pond on the farm. That was where we expected them to be.

Immediately a 2nd pack of yotes responded from our neighbor's farm located to the southeast. Wow, that was fast! Within about 5 seconds a third pack of yotes replied to the other two from the hollow where I usually hunt to the West. We were surrounded and did not know it til I lit them up with the call. We were outside at about 7:00pm and it was dark except for the firelight and a single coleman lantern on the porch of the cabin. One of my hunting buddies got up and walked to his truck and when he returned was wearing his 45 in a holster on his belt. He looked at me and said, I am not sitting out here without a gun. I smiled and sipped my beer and slid my coat aside revealing my H&K USP45 riding on my belt. Not saying we were scared but it was spooky.

Officially, Mountain Lions do not exist in KY. Un-officially, that statement is BS. As a young man in my middle teens I was riding a trailbike at dusk from the local gun club located about 2 miles from my home. I was about 1/2 mile down the dirt road in the dark when a very large Mtn Lion lept from the left side of the road, landed in the middle of the road about 20yds in front of me and then in a single bound leapt about 25y up a pipeline R/W to the right. I stopped and stared up the pipeline but it was gone. I rode home literally looking over my shoulder. That time I was scared. About 10y later we saw another in a neighboring E. KY county while riding dirt bikes on some old fire roads. Only visible for a few seconds this time bounding down the mtn. About 25yr later one killed my sister's 125 lb alpha male chocolate Lab (she had about 12 of them at the time) on her rural KY farm. Two days later the same Mtn Lion clawed and injured two more of her dogs in her backyard before she could intervene with her shotgun. About 3wks later she saw it one more time while hiking in the woods with one of her dogs. They travel over a wide range but they are out there in small numbers. Shawnee hunting parties referred to Mtn Lions as the "Grey Ghost" because they would appear and then melt into the forest. As a young man prior to the return of Elk to Eastern KY, I was travelling on business in Colorado at the beginning of the Elk rut. I was checking into a motel in Estes Park, CO about sundown and was standing in the parking lot getting my bags when a big bull Elk bugled over the valley nearby. I had never heard such a thing and the hair on the back of my neck literally stood on end, lol.

Last story: As a young Eagle scout I was privy to a particular honor that required that I camp alone tending a fire all night. As I kept my vigil members of long ago native tribesman would visit my fire imparting tidbits of wisdom to me the young candidate. This was to represent a coming of age step made by the young warrior as he reached manhood. Sounds harmless enough. I was to be visited by three spirits from the past over the night and return in the morning. After the first two spirits and sometime after midnight, I heard a twig snap just outside of the circle of firelight. I assumed it was my last mentor arriving to share some great truth to me. Unconcerned, I sat on my log tending the fire. Then a scream that for all the world sounded like a dying terrified woman pierced the darkness and sent chills thru me that even today are burned into my memory. I picked up my axe and stood staring into the darkness. Then I saw two yellow eyes glowing from the firelight and made out the shadow of a large Bobcat about 20y or so in the forest. Soon thereafter, it began to lightly rain. Great, I think to myself as I gathered more wood and placed it closer to the fire. The cat circled my campfire about three times slowly and then scampered away suddenly for no apparent reason. A few moments later my 3rd mentor appeared. To this day, I cannot remember what he said, lol. Needless to say, I had no difficulty remaining awake all night. Some years later, I told a friend that I had once spent the night with a Bobcat. He sarcastically replied, "Yeah? what was her name?"

 

[PARA45]

About 15 years or so, I was invited to hunt Elk in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The friend who invited me, shot a nice 5x5 elk in the afternoon hunt and asked me if I was ok quartering it by myself, while he went down this mountain to get help and packs. I said no problem. Well, to lighten up the load, he took my backpack, and rifle with him, leaving me on this mountain with a dead elk, two small knives and my head lamp.

About an hour into it, I had this elk gutted, and almost quartered, when without me paying too much attention noticed that it was dark. Not thinking much about it, I continue with my task, and then it hit me that I was in prime bear and mountain lion country and didn't have a rifle/pistol to defend myself. I managed to finish quartering the elk, and realized that I was covered in blood, next to a pile of meat and guts. Fear set in, and not having a weapon, but the two small knives. To make matters worse, the battery on my headlamp died, and my spare batteries were in my backpack, so I was completely in the dark. I position the elk quarters, gut pile and skin in a semi-circle, and sat in the middle with about 10 ft or so of buffer zone in between. I figured that if something came in, they would be more interested in the elk than me. Sitting in the dark and your mind races at warp speed, and you think you hear or see things. I know there was something near me, I could feel it but unfortunately or fortunately since it was so dark, I never saw wat it was. I've never been so terrified in my life, but that night did it. I finally saw my friend coming up the mountain and I finally felt safe. We packed up the elk and the four of us headed down to safety.

We joke around now about it, but how not thinking can get you into a world of hurt. One of the local hunters/guides said I was lucky. He said that he had seen a lot of mountain lions in the area we were in. I guess someone was looking after me.

 

[Daniel Cary]

West Virginia is another place where "time stood still", @ least where I was. The mountain roads, shotguns in the back windows of pickup trucks, houses with dirt floors, the mines. I went back roading, lost in Tennessee. Someone's property had painted signs "Get the **** out", etc. And just Like bad areas in the City, where your definitely out of your element and not welcome.
Fear can really stimulate your imagination, be beneficial for survival. "Vincent Price" stated it can kill ya.

I never miss a chance to talk with the ole timers, or often wonder how'd they operate in these times. I don't military experience, or much culture compared to some that have been all over this world.

I have to find/share a photograph taken from an old abandon house in South Carolina ..

 

[Brent in Az]

Some years ago, I was hunting in East Central Arizona. An area Ive been hunting for over 40 years.
Early one morning I was glassing an area where a couple of narrow canyons converged, and saw what I thought was a very large Coyote just sitting in a clearing on the side of a slope
When the animal moved, I could see that it wasn't a Coyote after all, but a Mexican gray wolf. They have released a bunch of them in this unit over the years.
The alpha male & female usually have a tracking collar on them. This one didnt.
After hunting all day, the sun went down, and I headed up the trail in the dark to camp.
As I was hiking back, and my spiderman senses suddenly went on full alert, and the hair on the back of my neck was at full attention.
I realized I wasn't alone in the dark, but I couldn't see what was out in the shadows. I had a headlamp flashlight on my head, and a small flashlight in my hand. I shined it slowly in a 360° circle around me and couldn't see any creature of the night, except maybe a quick glint of eyeballs?
You just know when you are being watched., I hurriedly went up the trail, stopping every 50 feet to shine a light on my surroundings.
Made it back to camp without incident.
Was it the wolf pack out there? I will never know. But it was a seriously creepy feeling.

Shot this Coues on a different day about 300 yards from where I saw the wolf. Apparently, the wolves didnt scare everything out of the area....lol.