Creepy experiences in the backcountry

I had a strange one a few months ago. I was sitting on a high point glassing and while looking through my spotter, noticed this small, metallic looking thing moving up my fov. At first it was almost like an eye squiggly, but I zoomed in a little and it was an object moving in the air of greyish/white/metallic color, looking roundish from where I was.

It moved up a hillside until the sky was in the background, then started back down toward the ridge and trees, all at one constant speed. I thought if it was a bird, it would land in a tree and disappear. It coasted along the ridgeline, still at the constant speed, before swooping upward into the sky background again. It then stayed at a fairly constant elevation moving directly away from me with a sky background until I could no longer see it, at the same constant speed.

Some may say mylar balloon, but I can’t imagine a balloon moving like this object moved. Also, it was far enough from civilization that I can’t imagine it was a drone, and I couldn’t make out any typical drone features on it. It was weird enough for me to write a note down in my phone so as not to forget the experience. Our predominant wind is typically from the west, and the object moved into a west/sw direction, and I didn’t pay attention as to what the wind was that day, but if I remember right, it was on the west side of my face when glassing. Who knows!
 
khart_6882 said:
Not exactly backcountry, but out there a ways.
I drive log truck for a living in the very NE corner of Washington. One morning I was headed to the woods on a narrow and winding paved 2 lane road about 30 miles from the nearest town. The nearest town has about 500 people in it. This road follows along the edge of a valley that’s 1-2 miles wide and the valley is just open grass and meadows and tons of cattle. There are small houses kind of scattered along the edge of the valley, maybe a house every 5 miles and they’re mostly old burn out hippys who just like to be left alone.
It was mid October and high 30 degree temps, about 2:30 am and scattered patches of fog. I was driving along at maybe 45mph and ahead of me the road made a right hand curve. As I approached the curve, in my headlights on the opposite side of the road and just off the shoulder, I see a woman wearing a long white dress with long black hair standing there and just facing out into the valley. Keep in mind we’re like 3 miles from the nearest house.
I let off the throttle and hit the Jake brake with 8” straight stacks (it’s obscenely loud) and she doesn’t even flinch. I rolled by her at maybe 30 mph and saw that her white dress and long black hair are both very dirty and weathered. She looked like the lady from that movie The Ring.
I stood on the throttle and got the hell out of there.
About an hour later I rolled into the landing, I got on the radio and asked the truck that was loading ahead of me if he’d seen anything odd on his way in this morning. He replied “God Damnit…I was really hoping I’d imagined that.”
Got loaded and headed back towards town and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
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Man that's interesting. My father has two stories about the lady in the white dress from back in the 50's. Both wee hours of the night in the middle of nowhere like yours.
 
khart_6882 said:
Not exactly backcountry, but out there a ways.
I drive log truck for a living in the very NE corner of Washington. One morning I was headed to the woods on a narrow and winding paved 2 lane road about 30 miles from the nearest town. The nearest town has about 500 people in it. This road follows along the edge of a valley that’s 1-2 miles wide and the valley is just open grass and meadows and tons of cattle. There are small houses kind of scattered along the edge of the valley, maybe a house every 5 miles and they’re mostly old burn out hippys who just like to be left alone.
It was mid October and high 30 degree temps, about 2:30 am and scattered patches of fog. I was driving along at maybe 45mph and ahead of me the road made a right hand curve. As I approached the curve, in my headlights on the opposite side of the road and just off the shoulder, I see a woman wearing a long white dress with long black hair standing there and just facing out into the valley. Keep in mind we’re like 3 miles from the nearest house.
I let off the throttle and hit the Jake brake with 8” straight stacks (it’s obscenely loud) and she doesn’t even flinch. I rolled by her at maybe 30 mph and saw that her white dress and long black hair are both very dirty and weathered. She looked like the lady from that movie The Ring.
I stood on the throttle and got the hell out of there.
About an hour later I rolled into the landing, I got on the radio and asked the truck that was loading ahead of me if he’d seen anything odd on his way in this morning. He replied “God Damnit…I was really hoping I’d imagined that.”
Got loaded and headed back towards town and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
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Sounds like Onion Creek!
 
A long time ago I was scouting mid September for deer in the Tongue River Breaks. It was getting close to sunset and I hear something moving to the west. I look over and see a man on horse with a rifle slung over his shoulder. It was Adam from the west side of the river and to say he didn't have the best reputation was an understatement. This made me very nervous, because he was clearly on a poaching ride. He was a good 200 yards below me and the boundary fence was between us. Adam road up to the fence and went right through where the fence was cut and started up the mountain toward me. Clearly it was not his first time on the mountain. He knew right where the fence was cut. Adam didn't see me until he was with in 50 yards and the surprise that someone else was on the mountain was all over his face. He road up and said "I have lost my horses. Have you seen them, There is a friend below me looking to". It was a total lie, but a way out of a sticky spot. so I replied " No I haven't, if I see them I will let you know" and Adam road off. It wasn't more than a few years after that, Adam was convicted of beating a man to death with a bat.
 
Came across this thread and figured I’d share something my uncle found a while ago. I don’t have a ton of the story to it, but my uncle had gone to his hunting property in December around Christmas time. While he was out there, he came across a dead black calf, black cat, and black lamb. Plus some chicken feathers in a tree and some other creepy stuff. After some asking around, I think they suspected it was the guy they paid to trap coyotes on their land doing some kind of satanic ritual. Likely around the winter solstice. I keep these pictures on my phone for proof it happened. Pretty sure that guy still traps for them too

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wpeach1912 said:
Came across this thread and figured I’d share something my uncle found a while ago. I don’t have a ton of the story to it, but my uncle had gone to his hunting property in December around Christmas time. While he was out there, he came across a dead black calf, black cat, and black lamb. Plus some chicken feathers in a tree and some other creepy stuff. After some asking around, I think they suspected it was the guy they paid to trap coyotes on their land doing some kind of satanic ritual. Likely around the winter solstice. I keep these pictures on my phone for proof it happened. Pretty sure that guy still traps for them too

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Does he keep the coyotes cleared out?
 
Just standard trapper stuff.. The hole in ground with sticks is a dirt hole set with a bedded and covered trap in front and the wing in tree is an attractant for curious bobcats… the carcasses are probably from a farm and being used as bait


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ryannels said:
Just standard trapper stuff.. The hole in ground with sticks is a dirt hole set with a bedded and covered trap in front and the wing in tree is an attractant for curious bobcats… the carcasses are probably from a farm and being used as bait


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Yep I agree. I trapped all through high school and did the exact same things shown in the photos with any good bait I could get my hands on. No satanic ritual there, although maybe that would have helped me catch more critters 🤷‍♂️.

I always hung feathers or ribbon in a tree as a visual attractant especially for bobcats. Put sticks around my hole sets so they had to step on the trap’s pan to get to the bait. Farm critters that had passed and are piled up like that are a great way to snare all the entrance routes to the bait pile (the fact that they were black was probably random, and the cat was probably by-catch in his traps…). I didn’t have chickens but used waterfowl or upland bird carcasses I had hunted, and my favorite bait was a fresh rabbit or prairie dog.
 
Great thread, time to get it kickstarted again. I've got a few decent ones and some shorter crappier ones. I'll write out the former category on their own first and I'll probably condense the latter category down into one.

First one:

My buddy and I were out one early Fall night in Maumee State Forest hunting for coyotes or a raccoon if we chanced on one. It started off as a fun night, spotted a couple possums by their eye shine right in the first 25 yards of the trail. We let the little buggers carry on with their business. Any critter that eats as many ticks as a possum does is a friend of mine.

As the night progressed, we would occasionally play raccoon or distressed rabbit noises off my friends phone (sounded terrible, about 0% chance anything would come into it). The moon was bright and full, so when the canopy was thin we would travel with no headlamps. The deepest portion of this particular section of state land was one such spot. In fact it was a totally clear cut rectangle, about 100x250 yards, with an old horse trail skirting the perimeter on 2 of the edges. The far edge of the clearing from where we entered was bordered by more woods for 300 yards or so, before the giving way to a soybean field.

Shortly after rounding the corner to walk that far edge, we spotted a dim orange light way off in the field, floating at about human height. Its weird to say, but my first thought was it was an old school lantern. We stopped to watch as we thought it might be a person heading our way. The light was moving up and down and side to side, almost like somebody looking for something in the dark. But try as we might, we couldn't spot a person anywhere near it, and certainly not holding it. We watched for several minutes and the light just seemed to keep meandering over the same little spot in the field, never really traveling. Since then I've always thought of the light as a will-o-the-wisp.

The light creeped us out, but eventually we got up and started walking again, albeit a lot more quietly. We hadn't made it 10 yards when we heard a nasty, raucous sound like animals fighting fire up across the clear cut. We were both initially excited, we thought it had to be a big 'ol boar coon. Excitement turned to doubt when we saw an entire, 30ft pine tree shaking at the location of the sound. Doubt turned to abject fear when the shaking transferred from the first tree to the adjacent one and on to the next one, impossibly fast. As soon as one tree would start up, the previous would stop, all the while the coon-ish noise would emanate from whatever tree was shaking. The wave of shaking, screaming trees traveled in a loop all the way around the outside of the clearcut. It must have been moving an easy 60 miles per hour, faster than any animal in the woods of Northwest Ohio could possibly move.

After making the loop, the noise and the shaking stopped all at once. All that was left was two, relatively in shape, 20 year old men with fully loaded AR15s sitting on the forest floor back to back quaking in their boots. We probably sat for a good 30 minutes before one of us nut up enough to stand up and start the hike back to our trucks.

I still have no idea what that light, or what that... other phenomenon was or if they were in any way connected. But it remains the scariest night I've ever had in the woods. That was 5 years ago now, and texting my buddy to refresh myself on some of the details, he told me how bad he was wishing a bear would leap out of the trees, because then at least we'd know it was something we could defend ourselves against.
 
Second story:

I believe I was 19 years old on this next one. My girlfriend and I decided to go for a little backpacking trip on the Morgan Sisters trail in Wayne National Forest. Even though this would have been 2019, I have a bit of a luddite streak and still didn't have a smart phone. We were way outside of signal range either way and relying on my windshield-stick Garmin along with some paper maps I had printed. Eventually we make a wrong turn down a road we thought was leading to the trail head. The brush closed in tighter and tighter and the path got muddier and muddier until my poor '99 ranger was well and thoroughly stuck.

Spent an hour or two doing everything we could to unstick it. Digging it out, walking back to get gravel from the road, pushing. Nothing doing. Fine, we're way out in the sticks but there has to be a house eventually. I leave my AR in the truck, I really don't want to go walking up to somebody's property rifle in hand. But I do clip my Glock 81 (knife) onto the back of my belt. So my gf and I set off down the road.

Before we spot any houses, we see a Red Jeep Liberty coming down the road. We wave 'em down and I see its the mail carrier. This was pretty novel to us, being flatlanders. Hadn't ever seen a mail jeep. We explained our situation and asked for a ride to town. Whether its true or whether she didn't want to pick up the dirty hitchhikers (wouldn't blame her), she told us she can't give rides in the mail vehicle due to some federal law or regulation. But she did kindly let us know NOT to ask for help at the next house we'd come across heading the way we were going. Didn't really elaborate but made it clear we didn't want to be caught on their property. Told us that a couple miles further down was the house of a good guy to ask.

So we walk down a good 4 miles or so and knock on the door. The guy calls down to us from the second floor that he'll be down in a minute. Took more like 8 minutes. I'm sure he was strapping on his CCW (again, don't blame him). We explained the situation and he agreed to help. We waited while he pulled around his Kubota tractor. We hopped on the back and directed him to where we were stuck.

Dude got us pulled out no issue. He also did not fail to point out that what we thought was the road, was private property. And the folks who owned it would not hesitate to bury us with a front end loader where they'd never find us. Also gave me a stern warning that I need to be more careful about this stuff, especially with my woman in tow. He was totally right. I asked if I could pay him and he said he'd take 40$ for the diesel. We didn't have any cash but we wrote down his address so I could mail it to him later (lost the address, I feel like an absolute POS to this day. If anyone thinks they know the guy please dm me).

He got us sorted out with the right trail head. By this point it was near dark. We probably hiked no more than 300 yards and set up camp. Ate our MREs around a small fire and hit the hay.

Sometime in the middle of the night my eyes shot open. I could clearly hear the sound of a horse and a rider circling our tent. The rider was talking in a low voice and at first I couldn't make out what he was saying. Laying there terrified and struggling to hear, I could eventually make out that he was describing our tent, our camp location, and us into a walkie talkie or a radio. I was straining to do something but I felt literally paralyzed by fear. I strained and strained and finally managed to jerk myself upright. I shouldered my AR inside the tent and swung towards where I thought he was an screamed out "Who's out there?!". This woke up my gf and obviously scared the piss out of her. She asked what happened and I told her that someone was outside our tent. I unzipped the door and went out muzzle first with my 1000 lumen weapon light on, hoping to get back a little advantage against the mystery rider. But no one was out there.

I shined my light all around the woods around us, nothing. No tracks. Nothing at all. Eventually, we started putting the pieces together that the rider was a sleep paralysis hallucination. This was only my second or third time experiencing it and it was still very difficult for me to differentiate it from reality.

Come morning, between getting stuck and the little nightime freakout, we decided we had had enough for one weekend. We packed up camp and started the 4 hour drive back to Toledo, 2 days ahead of schedule. Spent the rest of the weekend playing videogames indoors, haha.

Nowadays its much easier for me to tell when I'm having a sleep paralysis episode so this doesn't happen anymore. Especially since I learned I just can't sleep on my back.
 
Woodland critter, you have brass balls. If I ever saw something like you described in that first post about the screaming thing in the trees, I would never go out in the woods again! Maybe never leave the house. Maybe just sit in the closet with all the lights on crying and holding my gun.
 
EastHumboldt said:
Woodland critter, you have brass balls. If I ever saw something like you described in that first post about the screaming thing in the trees, I would never go out in the woods again! Maybe never leave the house. Maybe just sit in the closet with all the lights on crying and holding my gun.
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The woods are just too fun to give up on. I can't watch scary movies though. All fear and no reward. Alien is about where I tap out
 
Had been going to the same fishing spot for most of my youth life with my dad. Just a spot on the river where you can park by a bridge and walk down to the sandbars. Nothing special, but fishing was good most of the time and no one was ever there. Dad worked nights, and I have never slept well in my life so we often were out late at night on weekends. Waffle house at 2:00 am, fishing at midnight, etc. Pulled up to the usual parking spot one night and found a pentagram with candles in the tips (not lit). The pentagram was some kind of white-ish powder. Don't remember any other objects being in there and there was no one else parked there. I told dad there no chance I was staying so we left. My soul belongs to God, but I am not going to go looking for trouble.

With all that said, the most scared I have ever been in the woods was one of the first hunts I went on by myself on my grandfathers property. Walking back in the dark, no light, probably 14 years old and deer started blowing at me and crashing through the woods. I had never heard a deer blow before so it really startled me. I've never ran back to my house so fast.
 
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