Creepy experiences in the backcountry

I live next to an old army base that was turned over to the state for use as a wildlife area.
There are numerous ponds for waterfowl hunting, planted pheasants, lots of cottontails for hound hunters...
anyways, one day while poking around in the brush there I came across a piece of black velvet fabric about the size of a tablecloth. In the middle was puddles of melted red candle wax and a black candle with strange figures cast into it. More concerning, the surrounding small trees had skulls of small animals; squirrels, mice, that type of small critter, hanging from thin red ribbons. There were dozens of them.
 
Dang! What the heck is going on down there! You guys have some crazy stuff happening!
 
Back in the mid 80's I was a young teenager and was on a backpack trip with some family up in the Chiricahua Mountains in southern AZ. We were about 3 days into it poking along a creek bottom when we saw some sort of carcass. Based on what I know now it would most have likely been a deer but at the time we could just see a rib cage so we weren't sure. It was across the creek bed from were we were standing probably 30-50 yards. Behind it there was overhang that looked like a cave opening. We were standing there looking at the carcass deciding if we were going to go closer when my Dad said you boys see those yellow eyes in the cave behind it. We started to make fun of the idea and knew he was joking and he actually thought he was joking until we started looking a little closer at the opening and could see there was actually something there. You couldn't really see eyes and based on the angle of the over hang and the way the sun was shining we couldn't tell what it was but there was obviously something there. We thought we were pretty tough so we decide to move a little closer to change position and see what it was. Just about the same time we could see better into the opening we heard a deep low growl that I'll never forget come from it. Everyone froze, I had that hair standing up on the back of your neck feeling with the unmistakable feeling that I wasn't so tough anymore. As we stood there listening to the low growl and staring at what had now materialized as one the Jaguars which decided to make AZ its home, I new I wasn't so tough. My Dad kept it together and got us all to very calmly back out out of there. The cat never got up it just moved it's head. We were planning on staying the night close to where we were but decided to go a little further than we had planned.

We didn't know anything about Jaguars or even believed what we saw was possible until the next year 1986 one was killed in the Dos Cabezas not too far from where he had seen this one. No idea if this was the same one or not.

Pretty cool now but pretty freaking creepy when it occurred.
 
Back in the mid 80's I was a young teenager and was on a backpack trip with some family up in the Chiricahua Mountains in southern AZ. We were about 3 days into it poking along a creek bottom when we saw some sort of carcass. Based on what I know now it would most have likely been a deer but at the time we could just see a rib cage so we weren't sure. It was across the creek bed from were we were standing probably 30-50 yards. Behind it there was overhang that looked like a cave opening. We were standing there looking at the carcass deciding if we were going to go closer when my Dad said you boys see those yellow eyes in the cave behind it. We started to make fun of the idea and knew he was joking and he actually thought he was joking until we started looking a little closer at the opening and could see there was actually something there. You couldn't really see eyes and based on the angle of the over hang and the way the sun was shining we couldn't tell what it was but there was obviously something there. We thought we were pretty tough so we decide to move a little closer to change position and see what it was. Just about the same time we could see better into the opening we heard a deep low growl that I'll never forget come from it. Everyone froze, I had that hair standing up on the back of your neck feeling with the unmistakable feeling that I wasn't so tough anymore. As we stood there listening to the low growl and staring at what had now materialized as one the Jaguars which decided to make AZ its home, I new I wasn't so tough. My Dad kept it together and got us all to very calmly back out out of there. The cat never got up it just moved it's head. We were planning on staying the night close to where we were but decided to go a little further than we had planned.

We didn't know anything about Jaguars or even believed what we saw was possible until the next year 1986 one was killed in the Dos Cabezas not too far from where he had seen this one. No idea if this was the same one or not.

Pretty cool now but pretty freaking creepy when it occurred.
That's a cool story. Thanks for sharing.
 
Probably the same one, just north of the highway. I drove by a few weeks later and without the skulls sitting out front it didn't have near as weird of a feeling to it. Someone spent some serious time putting that thing together

Yup that’s the one. They build fires in the rock formation above as well. A lot of college kids go out there and mess around.


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One of our camps were located on Cemetery Ridge in Idaho. Got its name because several firefighters got caught in a cross fire here and lost their lives. My guides and I and clients had several unexplainable things happen. One of the scary ones was a client was glassing and said he saw a man in a fireman's clothing looking at him. One night we heard an awful long scream, sounded like several different voices. I told the hunter's it was coyotes but I often wonder. Years later I found out our camp was at the exact spot where several bodies were found. I actually had one client leave early because of the occurances.
 
Can't explain the firefighter sighting but I would buy the coyote explanation in a heartbeat. When they sound off they sound off all at once from all over the place.
 
As a teenage bow hunter, I went scouting prior to deer season just west of Durango. This was relatively close to home and the trip wasn’t too interesting until I nearly got back to the car. Behind a tree I found several ziplock bags full of kittens stacked in neat rows. It was pretty disturbing, to say the least, and I found another drainage to hunt.
 
Can't explain the firefighter sighting but I would buy the coyote explanation in a heartbeat. When they sound off they sound off all at once from all over the place.
I dunno man, I listen to them all the time. When I hang deer in the shed the will come up within feet of the house and howl. Wakes me up, sometimes sounds like they are in the living room but I've never thought they sound like human screams. That's some weird stuff. At the same time though, ghosts defy the laws of thermodynamics which everything else in the universe has to adhere to. For them to produce light/noise ect (so you can see or hear them), they must use energy. So the energy they are using must come from somewhere, they can't simply exist without consuming another energy source and actually needing more than what they produce. Here's a really good article on the subject. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-phys...on-collider-disproves-the-existence-of-ghosts
 
Thinking back to the camp there were times that the horses acted strange. We had great mountain horses but sometimes they would just stop and refuse to go forward or just decide to turn around on the trail. I always attributed to smelling a bear or something but we never saw anything. Who knows?
 
Recently watched a movie available on Amazon Prime Video called Missing 411-The Hunted. It is about a series of unexplained missing hunter stories from different areas in the US. It was actually pretty good...and a little creepy. Based on a book from a series of missing person stories by investigative author Dave Paulides. He is a former police detective and has researched hundreds and hundreds of missing person cases in depth. I was googling each of the missing hunter stories as I was watching the movie and they are all bona fide unsolved cases. If you’re a twitchy person when it comes to stuff like this, I don’t recommend watching it until after your upcoming solo hunt...
This is definitely worth a watch. Some of them seemed easily explainable. Most, very weird
 
I am working on a house in the country that has spirits present. Lots of strange stuff happening there. I have another 5 weeks of work to do...sitting in my truck eating lunch a week ago and hear the sound of someone tapping keys on the window behind me, no one was there. Other strange stuff also, the owner hears noises in the kitchen at 3am every night.
Always suspicious of this stuff. Don't really want to find out if I ever had the chance though! Good luck
 
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