Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[TX_Diver]

I once thought I saw a UFO. Middle of the night in the mountains and a set of lights in a straight line comes silently running across the sky and disappears right in front of me. No clouds in the sky. Thought town might be obliterated when I got back to civilization.

Turns out it was Elon Musk's satellites. Kinda disappointing actually. A UFO would've been cooler.

I saw that 2x this year. First time I was alone in a new spot and it definitely was a bit eerie!

 

[kodyshriver]

About a decade ago, I went looking for deer sheds in a new place here in NE Oregon. I had a pretty good day and picked up a few buck horns. As a chronic sufferer from next-ridge-itis, I was still a few miles from my truck as it was getting dark. I had stupidly left my headlight in the truck, so I knew it was going to be a long evening fumbling in the snow and deadfall timber.

Right at dark, I heard a wolf howl in the bottom of the canyon maybe 3/4 mile directly downhill (big country). I thought to myself “well that’s pretty cool,” then heard another respond a few hundred yards closer. I was really enjoying the experience until another responded ~100yd behind me in the pitch black timber with a much deeper, gut-wrenching howl.

After a moment of silence, the surrounding area ignited with howls in every which direction. No longer really enjoying the experience, I unstrapped a 4pt shed to protect myself, and began the trek towards my truck—which was right in line with the source of the deep, commanding howl.

So off I go, in the pitch black timber, in a remote area I had never been before, with nothing but a 60” shed to protect myself. Meanwhile the wolves were communicating back and forth, until the alpha would howl and shut them up momentarily with the eeriest howl you can imagine. This continues as I make my way through the woods, however every time the alpha would howl it was still ~100yd behind me. After this happens a few times, I get a solid idea of what is taking place—it’s following me. All I can do is keep hiking.

After a while, I make it back to a trail, and scoot pretty quickly back to my truck. Upon reviewing google Earth later that night and identifying landmarks, I determined that the wolf stayed right behind me for ~2.5 miles as I fumbled my way in a V-shaped line back to my truck. The next day and subsequent weekends, I went back (properly armed) and counted at least 10 wolves in that pack, and was able to identify the alpha based on his howl—a big old gray colored one.

I’ve had cats creep up on me at night, had my share of supernatural experiences (none backcountry related, thankfully), but nothing will make a guy feel more vulnerable than walking through the pitch black woods, without a headlight, without a side-arm, not really knowing where he’s going (pre OnX or GPS for me), and being followed by the alpha wolf. Needless to say, I now always carry a headlight, batteries, and some form of protection on me at all times.

 

[Pharmseller]

You didn’t even have a knife?

 

[kodyshriver]

You didn’t even have a knife?

I suspect I didn’t, as I remember clutching on to that buck shed for dear life. Wasn’t planning on being out too long, but then got into the bone-zone… Felt pretty silly getting into my truck and looking at my headlamp and .357 sitting in the backseat.

 

[49ereric]

Wolves been known to do that forever but don‘t fall and play I can’t get up
they’d have to be starving to attack.

 

[kodyshriver]

Wolves been known to do that forever but don‘t fall and play I can’t get up
they’d have to be starving to attack.

Yeah I took some comfort in knowing he was likely just trailing me, and if they wanted to attack they would have done so much earlier. Just an eerie feeling knowing that creature with that big voice was interested in following me, and I’d have no way of seeing it. The next weekend I had a few run by at 30yd, we locked eyes for a short while, then they kept on trotting. I’d imagine a calf elk tastes a lot better than the skinny college distance runner I was at the time.

 

[49ereric]

Yeah I took some comfort in knowing he was likely just trailing me, and if they wanted to attack they would have done so much earlier. Just an eerie feeling knowing that creature with that big voice was interested in following me, and I’d have no way of seeing it. The next weekend I had a few run by at 30yd, we locked eyes for a short while, then they kept on trotting. I’d imagine a calf elk tastes a lot better than the skinny college distance runner I was at the time.

I walked into a wolf upwind but it heard me coming and waited to see what I was before taking off in haste. Dense woods and leaves on the trees when it happened.

 

[MarlinMark]

I never get lucky and have wolves follow me or cougars come in to calls. Maybe someday.

 

[def90]

I never get lucky and have wolves follow me or cougars come in to calls. Maybe someday.

You're hanging out at the wrong bars..

 

[MarlinMark]

Probably true............

 

[GoatPackr]

Great topic. I finally finished all 71 pages.
I wish I had something to share but I don't.

Kris

 

[505Wapiti]

Just hoping we aren’t tapped out on stories… this has been one of my favorite threads.

 

[Jqlarson]

What a thread


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hydro4570]

Thanks to all that have shared their stories I have enjoyed reading all of them except for the one about the lady hiker and her camera. So to keep this thread going here is my first post.
Living my life in central WV I have spent a lot of time hunting in the Monongahela National forest. While bowhunting in a stand of red spruce on October 31st( yes Halloween ) this happened to me. This takes place back when portable stands had a chain that wrapped around the tree and fall protection consisted of two pieces of seat belt material one around the tree ran thru the other wrapped around your waist.
I was in the stand overlooking a small creek and had watched a couple of doe walk by and decided to stay until full darkness, the moon had risen early so there was some light and I had a flashlight in my pack. As I was getting ready to lower my bow I heard loud wing beats heading towards me thru the spruce trees when all of a sudden a very large owl landed on a branch about 10 yards from me. I sat motionless watching the owl as it sat there watching me. After several minutes I slowly turned my head to look back to the creek to check for deer one more time before climbing down. All of a sudden I heard wing beats again and the owl was flying straight towards me with talons extended. I threw my arms up dropping my bow in the process and screamed at the demon owl who was trying to knock me to the ground. Fortunately the owl veered away from me and I didn't fall out of the tree. After a few minutes I regained my composure packed up and walked out to my truck without anymore harrowing experiences.

 

[kda082]

We’re all worried about bears, wolves, and lions. It’s the friggin owls we gotta watch out for!

 

[Gooseby]

I got one for you guys. Been lurking these forums for a few months now I figure I should contribute.

This story takes place during a rafting trip on the deschutes river in central Oregon. My girlfriend and I had decided to drive down from the Seattle area for the famous salmonfly hatch.
With that being said, due to the timing of the year there’s a ton of people on the water. Guides doing day trips, as well as other folks like my girlfriend and I spending a couple days fishing, floating, and camping.
Our first day of the trip goes by pretty poorly. I had a crappy boat and no idea what I was doing. Dry bags leaked, I hit a rock and got us a sizeable leak and then had forgotten the bucket so I spent the rest of the trip bailing out the boat with a water bottle non stop. So needless to say, we’re both pretty frustrated and tired and as the day turns to dusk we’re scouting out any possible spot to throw our tent up for the evening and get out of that crappy boat.
Finally things are looking up for us - we come up on this beautiful stretch of water with a small island diverting the river into two flows, with the main flow going along the deep left channel at a pretty good clip. On the right side bank a big clearing surrounded by tall grasses. This is where we chose to make camp for the night.
We do some fishing, cook, and decide to lay down for bed and read until it’s time to really go to sleep at full dark. Going out to take a leak nobody as far as I could see or hear had decided to camp anywhere near us, and prior to a few boats floating on by while we set up camp as far as we knew, we were alone.
That’s when the music started. At first it sounded almost faintly like someone was throwing a rave, with dance music and the like. My girlfriend and I looked at each other like “what the hell?” but we chocked it up to the wind carrying sound from far away because at this point the music was still intermittent.
It gets louder. and louder. And now we can make out the music except it’s not. You know that feeling when someone is blasting the bass out of their car subwoofers and you can feel it in your chest, and in your head? We’re feeling their, whoever they are, music through the ground as we’re trying to sleep. and all we can hear is this unworldly, jarring, collection of disjointed bass / drum notes coming through the ground. It doesn’t resemble any music I’ve ever heard, or even any sort of “beat” you could dance to.
By midnight or 1am we’re starting to getting really damn pissed off. It has been since around 10pm since they started and so that’s when I finally decide to go find whoever the hell they are and shut down that damn noise. I have one of those really powerful headlights that lets you output like 1500 lumens for a short burst and it really just lights up the whole damned countryside for hundreds of feet.
So all pissed off I jump out of the tent and turn up my headlight of doom and I’m just furiously scanning everywhere I can see. Up and down the river, behind us as far as I can on our own bank, across clear to the other bank, and the little island in the middle. And there’s not a single thing in sight. Complete pitch darkness. I turn off my headlight to see if I was washing out any light and I stand there for about 10 minutes to see if my eyes adjust and see anything. Absolutely nothing at all and this maddening noise is going on endlessly.
At this point I realize it’s the same three disjointed “songs” playing over and over endlessly. My girlfriend starts crying because she’s exhausted from the bass rattling our skulls while our heads on laying down on our pillows. We’re unable to sleep for hours as this thing continues on through the night.
Finally, sometime around 4:30- 5am it must have stopped and we both drifted off to sleep. I have a hard time sleeping in so I woke up by myself at around 6:30-7 and I roll out of bed furious, once more just going out to go see if I can find whatever bastards were making that noise all night long.
We never saw or found any sign of those people. we waited until about 9am slowly breaking camp after eating breakfast before we rowed out in the main current and back rowed to try to get a good look at the other side of the small island, and we saw no signs of people.
The only reasonable theory we have is that sometime after we went to bed, some folks floated down to the far side of the little island and threw some sort of… party? Ritual? All through the night and somehow slipped out between 4:30 and 6:30 AM. If I wasn’t with my girlfriend and she hadn’t corroborated as well I would’ve thought i was going insane. Just one long maddening sleepless night full of the same noise over and over, with no evidence before, during, or after that it ever happened.

I was eyeing every boat we passed or passed us for the remainder of the trip looking for anyone who was packing serious audio equipment and we saw nothing.

 

[bigbassin]

You know that feeling when someone is blasting the bass out of their car subwoofers and you can feel it in your chest, and in your head?

The only thing worse than hearing banjos in the woods is hearing electronic music lol.

Hog hunting a WMA I went back in there DEEP (for Florida standards) and was about 1.5 miles back. Crossed a swamp, went across a 100’ wide knee deep, grassy, black water river (think prime gator habitat), crossed some more swamp.

Find a tree dropping persimmons with sign all around, find a comfortable tree to sit against, and think how I probably have the place all to myself considering everything I had to cross to get there.

Then the EDM music starts blaring, had to be within 100 yards of me. I’m pissed, but also impressed because of the logistics and dedication it would have taken to get it out there. Sounded louder than double 15 subs, no clue how they dragged it that far back and across the river.

Music gets closer, until I can hear people screaming over it. Music turns off and sounds like about 3 people are moving pretty close to me but not talking.

Music turns on again after about 10 seconds, I hightailed it out of there circling way around.

Very weird deal, most likely just some weird folks throwing a weird party. And if that is the case, while I didn’t appreciate it, there’s a chance they didn’t see me and they have just as much right to be on public land.

But my gut was really leaning towards something was off. I didn’t see any reason to argue it.

 

[Gooseby]

The only thing worse than hearing banjos in the woods is hearing electronic music lol.

Music turns on again after about 10 seconds, I hightailed it out of their circling way around.

At least we know cougars >just< wanna eat us… no clue what those weird 2 legged creatures ever want. Lol

 

[Howdy Partner]

Seeing Joe Biden in a Corvette really creeped me out.

 

[Blowdowner]

I got one for you guys. Been lurking these forums for a few months now I figure I should contribute.

This story takes place during a rafting trip on the deschutes river in central Oregon. My girlfriend and I had decided to drive down from the Seattle area for the famous salmonfly hatch.
With that being said, due to the timing of the year there’s a ton of people on the water. Guides doing day trips, as well as other folks like my girlfriend and I spending a couple days fishing, floating, and camping.
Our first day of the trip goes by pretty poorly. I had a crappy boat and no idea what I was doing. Dry bags leaked, I hit a rock and got us a sizeable leak and then had forgotten the bucket so I spent the rest of the trip bailing out the boat with a water bottle non stop. So needless to say, we’re both pretty frustrated and tired and as the day turns to dusk we’re scouting out any possible spot to throw our tent up for the evening and get out of that crappy boat.
Finally things are looking up for us - we come up on this beautiful stretch of water with a small island diverting the river into two flows, with the main flow going along the deep left channel at a pretty good clip. On the right side bank a big clearing surrounded by tall grasses. This is where we chose to make camp for the night.
We do some fishing, cook, and decide to lay down for bed and read until it’s time to really go to sleep at full dark. Going out to take a leak nobody as far as I could see or hear had decided to camp anywhere near us, and prior to a few boats floating on by while we set up camp as far as we knew, we were alone.
That’s when the music started. At first it sounded almost faintly like someone was throwing a rave, with dance music and the like. My girlfriend and I looked at each other like “what the hell?” but we chocked it up to the wind carrying sound from far away because at this point the music was still intermittent.
It gets louder. and louder. And now we can make out the music except it’s not. You know that feeling when someone is blasting the bass out of their car subwoofers and you can feel it in your chest, and in your head? We’re feeling their, whoever they are, music through the ground as we’re trying to sleep. and all we can hear is this unworldly, jarring, collection of disjointed bass / drum notes coming through the ground. It doesn’t resemble any music I’ve ever heard, or even any sort of “beat” you could dance to.
By midnight or 1am we’re starting to getting really damn pissed off. It has been since around 10pm since they started and so that’s when I finally decide to go find whoever the hell they are and shut down that damn noise. I have one of those really powerful headlights that lets you output like 1500 lumens for a short burst and it really just lights up the whole damned countryside for hundreds of feet.
So all pissed off I jump out of the tent and turn up my headlight of doom and I’m just furiously scanning everywhere I can see. Up and down the river, behind us as far as I can on our own bank, across clear to the other bank, and the little island in the middle. And there’s not a single thing in sight. Complete pitch darkness. I turn off my headlight to see if I was washing out any light and I stand there for about 10 minutes to see if my eyes adjust and see anything. Absolutely nothing at all and this maddening noise is going on endlessly.
At this point I realize it’s the same three disjointed “songs” playing over and over endlessly. My girlfriend starts crying because she’s exhausted from the bass rattling our skulls while our heads on laying down on our pillows. We’re unable to sleep for hours as this thing continues on through the night.
Finally, sometime around 4:30- 5am it must have stopped and we both drifted off to sleep. I have a hard time sleeping in so I woke up by myself at around 6:30-7 and I roll out of bed furious, once more just going out to go see if I can find whatever bastards were making that noise all night long.
We never saw or found any sign of those people. we waited until about 9am slowly breaking camp after eating breakfast before we rowed out in the main current and back rowed to try to get a good look at the other side of the small island, and we saw no signs of people.
The only reasonable theory we have is that sometime after we went to bed, some folks floated down to the far side of the little island and threw some sort of… party? Ritual? All through the night and somehow slipped out between 4:30 and 6:30 AM. If I wasn’t with my girlfriend and she hadn’t corroborated as well I would’ve thought i was going insane. Just one long maddening sleepless night full of the same noise over and over, with no evidence before, during, or after that it ever happened.

I was eyeing every boat we passed or passed us for the remainder of the trip looking for anyone who was packing serious audio equipment and we saw nothing.

Send me map coordinates or post an image of the map.