Creepy experiences in the backcountry

I had this happen about 5 years ago and I'm still not sure what it was. I was hunting a lease in South West GA and was doing some scouting in February. I always carry my Glock everywhere, and most times in the South, I always had a machete with me. I worked down into a bottom I had been in probably 10 times and crossed it. Walked around awhile and came back into the same bottom. Working back towards the 4 wheeler in that bottom, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and something just wasn't right. I felt weird, but pulled out my pistol and walked out. Never did figure out what it was, but something easy right. Not a big story, but very rarely if ever have I felt that way out of the clear blue on a nice sunny afternoon.
 
I don’t know if this is really creepy but I bout peed myself.

Still hunting on a gated Montana FS road, about a mile from my parents place looking for a fat doe. Up ahead in the road I see where the ground was all tore up and it appeared someone had dragged a log out of the woods. I figured someone went around the gate with an atv and cut some wood or something. I keep on walking, as I get to it and start to go around it, I see a deer leg sticking out and big bear tracks. I realized I was standing on dinner, topping on the cake.

I retreated about as fast as I could and still hear/see well.
 
Didn't even mention the number of times we discovered prayer mats in the trash sites out there. The illegals dump their sleeping bags, blankets, back packs, etc in ravines and among all that litter...signs of Islam. How many terrorists entered here I wonder.

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That looks like a lot of places in California.
 
In the early 90's I was driving late at night between Tucson and the New Mexico border on I-10. It's a spooky stretch to begin with and I normally avoided it at night, but for whatever reason there I was. The wind was howling something fierce and I passed a guy walking down the shoulder dressed all in black. Boots, huge cowboy style hat, and a calf length trench coat that was swirling around him in the wind. He had long black hair flying around and was tall, definitely walking with a purpose down the road.

It is a very dangerous piece of road for different reasons, but that dude creeped me out. It was so random and his look was so odd it really spoked me. Nothing happened, but the memory has stuck with me.


Not backcountry, but that road runs through some of the most desolate terrain I've experienced.
 
My buddy and I are 8 miles from the Mexican border at dark thirty with our bows and FoxPro FX5 electronic caller…a little outing of predator hunting in the Cleveland Nat’l Forest in eastern San Diego County. It’s a hilly area with lots of chaparral, perfect for close and personal coyote action with a bow. We sneak in 40 minutes before grey light, place the caller 25 yards out and settle in awaiting the first rosy fingers of dawn to pierce the morning sky. Other than a few birds, there is nothing moving.

Wearing 3D camo and tucked into the scrub brush, we are seated for about 8 minutes or so when I hear movement directly behind me. At first I freeze, unsure what is approaching. Then I nock an arrow and remove my knife from its sheath…not sure exactly what to expect. The sound of heavy weight moving thru the chaparral is unnerving…whatever is coming up behind me is big.

I lock eyes with my buddy, they are wide open in fear and now I am filled with dread. When you see sheer terror on your hunting buddy’s face, you know you’re in deep sh*t.

The sound is moving laterally behind, not more than 15-20 feet. My mind is racing. I’m thinking about jumping up so if it’s a mt. lion I am not such a small target but realize if it was a something like that, my pal would already be up on his feet and you don’t hear lions coming in. He’s not moving. I follow his lead. He can see what it is, I cannot…not until the sound turns again and move past me at 20 yards. At first all I saw was the gun, an AK47 slung over the shoulder of the dirtiest man I have ever seen. Then I saw his buddy, equally filthy and toting the same firearm. In tow were 34 others, all Latino, most likely Mexican. We sit perfectly still and watch as a total of 36 aliens pass by without a word. The “train” was completely male and no backpacks, which I thought was strange. Not at all like the videos you often see posted online with a mixed bag of men and women of all ages moving past a surveillance camera hidden along the trail.

[video=youtube;KD-OPWEmHp8]

It isn’t until they had passed a quarter mile away that my buddy and I broke silence. He calls the Border Patrol and gives em the GPS numbers, head count and weapons description. We beat it outta there ASAP.

Later my buddy is told we were extremely lucky. Just ahead of the group that passed us was another of equal size carrying backpacks of dope. The second group was the relief column. We had slid in right between the two. When we retrieved the game caller, there were shoe prints 5 feet away from it.

Now we never hunt that area with sticks and strings…I carry an R25 semi-auto in .308 w/ ten rd magazines. There’s an armed invasion taking place on the border and people who do not live near the southern border cannot imagine just how real the threat is. I didn’t fully appreciate it until this encounter. Though this all happened years ago…I can see it like it was yesterday. The most dangerous animal in the field has only two legs.

Yea reminds me of similar experience that happened to my buddy. He was hunting coues deer in Arizona near the Mexican border. He was in a tree stand over a trail. He said some border patrol looking guys came walking by carrying machine guns. He almost shouted out to them but then kept quiet. He said they went Down the trail and in a short time returned but now with a line of others walking with drugs strapped to their backs. The line walked right under his stand. He feared for his life. But no one looked up and saw him. He said it was a very spooky encounter
 
Not in the wilderness, but a hunting camp.

about 6 years ago I bought a house in Arkansas for a duck hunting camp, it came from an estate after the previous owner passed away. The house needed work, pulling carpet, paint, etc. At the time, I only had one kid, my son, he was probably 1 1/2 or so, not talking yet. My wife, my son, and my jack russell drive out there to do some work before duck season. My wife and I are pulling carpet in the living room and my son is in the bedroom in a pack and play asleep. This is the same room the previous owner used as the master. All of the sudden, my son starts screaming bloody murder, we run in to see what's going on and he's staring at the corner of the room and won't calm down. We finally get him calm in the living room, when all of the sudden my jack russell is in the same room barking his head off and growling, staring directly at that corner of the room. There is nothing there, not even furniture. My wife is freaking out, I'm putting on a strong front but I'm a little unnerved too. I tell her everything is fine, we sleep in the other room, and that's that.

Flash forward to duck season. I use the other bedroom (not because of 'ghosts' but due to layout of the room), and the other room where the incident occurred is the bunk room with 2 bunk beds for friends that come to hunt with me. One night, we're sitting on the porch around the fire hanging out, and my long time friend, out of the blue, says, "I got a weird feeling in that room last night, like someone was watching me from the corner". I had never told him the story of my dog and kid, my wife had not told him ... made the hairs on my neck stand up.

Flash forward again to January 2018, I'm on the way to the house and I have two friends there. I'm 20 minutes away after driving 10 hours and I get a call. The house is engulfed in flames. My buddies (sleeping in that same room) woke up without reason to the house on fire. The insurance company and power company do independent investigations and deem it was due to faulty wiring by the previous owner (I purchased from their estate).
Did you purchase that place in partnership with some guys from Nashville?
 
There are some amazing stories in this post. Creepiest things I’ve seen has been a tombstone at the bottom of a hollow in West Virginia, and a human skull nailed to a barn in the same area. Assuming the skull isn’t real but you know what they say when you ASSUME ...
 
Plane crashes are always pretty creepy. And we have an oddly high amount in a small area around us (I can think of at least 3-4 right off the top of my head, and I know there are a couple more). Not as creepy as other things, but always just a little uneasy walking up on plane parts and knowing things were pure chaos there at one point.
 
I agree that most things have an explanation but what I saw was in the sky overhead, no way it was an airport beacon.

You've heard about David Fravor, right? CO of an air wing of F-18s who describes getting something very similar to what you're talking about on FLIR video. Pretty weird.

Also, wasn't there a thread somewhere asking why people carry when hunting? Hah
 
Okay...this wasn't in the backcountry but way offshore and still one of those things I think about often but rarely talk about cuz I don't want people to give me "that look."

I was on the sportfishing vessel “Pacific Voyager” out of San Diego during a multi-day fishing charter making bait (catching squid) on the starboard side about mid-ship. Most of the other anglers were on the stern or on the other side of the boat. I looked towards the bow and saw a huge man slowly walking astern. He was easily over six feet tall with a buzz haircut, gray clothes and about 350-400lbs. As he got nearer to me I stepped aft a bit so he could get around me...something this big guy couldn't do otherwise. No way he could squeeze between me and the rods in the rack. He was walking towards me and I'm looking at him thinking, "I don't remember seeing this big boy on the boat" when he just disappeared. Like someone had flipped a light switch and he was gone. A cold irrational fear gripped my chest and I felt faint, almost physically sick. WTF! That was it, I was done making bait. A moment later one of the deckhands asks me if I'm okay. I told him what just happened and he pulls me into the salon to repeat the story to another crew member with emphasis on the description of the guy I saw.

"That was Randy," he told me..."…he was our cook and died recently on the boat."

"He's still here," I said. Then the conversation ended abruptly.

A year later I was talking with a guy on the Seahorse (another fishing boat out of Dana Point Harbor) and mentioned Randy and he says "Oh man...he was the cook on my trip that died and I was the last guy to see him alive. He said he was really tired and was gonna go lay down. He was wearing gray sweats! It took several guys to lift his body out of the bunkroom, he was huge. He had been taking a bunch of meds for a long time and had numerous health issues.”

Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl to this day. I have since met one other angler who claims to have seen him (well...his ghost or whatever it is) on the boat. I've been invited back on the boat several times but cannot seem to actually get back on board. The guy I saw walking towards me was as real as anything else I've ever seen. He was real enough for me to step outta his way. He was solid! He was about five feet away from me. Then he was gone while I was looking straight at him!!! And just reliving it makes my skin crawl all over again. (((((((((shudder)))))))))
 
My guess is that could be someone's gear stash? Might be a tent or stove or something in there?

Could be. But usually they bury them deeper and cover them with branches so nobody would find them.

It also could be a spring. I’ve seen where ranchers or outfitters would bury a barrel with a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom, and ran a poly line down the hill. And then in the fall they pop the top stop the water flow during winter.


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OK, remembered one from my youth. I was not there or directly involved but know the man who experienced it.

I grew up going to hunting camp for deer and turkey in the northern tier of PA. My father and his hunting partners were involved with a family owned camp that was/is pretty nice as camps go. Many of the family members lived out of state quite a distance and one uncle, who lived about 20 minutes from me but 4 hours drive from camp, was the caretaker. He hunted a little bit but he enjoyed camp and family time immensely. He spent many weekends up there all year round. Tending the gardens and maintaining camp was his hobby. During hunting seasons he would be the cook and do whatever gardening task was appropriate for that time of year. He was often jokingly referred to as the gardener and everyone appreciated the fruit trees, flower beds, rose bushes and plantings that gave camp a comfortable touch of class.

i was away at college late one summer when he headed to camp for a weekend. There was some turbulent weather coming in but he figured he could make the drive before the storms got bad as he knew the trip well. It turned out to be one of the rare afternoons that a tornado makes an appearance in the mountains of PA. He saw the funnel touch down and move at an angle to the road he was traveling. Hoping to outrun it he put the pedal down and tried to get to cover behind a ridge. If he could make it then he could get to camp about 15 miles further and batten down the hatches.

Well, he didn’t make it to cover. Realizing it was futile he pulled his truck off the side of the road into the shallow ditch line. Jumping from the truck he ran about 30 yards and laid down in the ditch to hide and pray. The storm thundered around him and the funnel passed by across the field at the base of the ridge. He lay there until he thought it was safe and then some. Seeing the destruction on the hillsides around him was impressive and he gave thanks to be safe and still have a truck to leave in.

With mixed emotions and trepidation he continued on to camp afraid of the destruction he may find. He again had reason to be thankful at the sight of minimal damage. He thoroughly checked over camp and sat down to recover in a quiet moment. It was obvious that a great wind had blown through with broken branches and foreign debris scattered about. After getting some dinner and calming down he decided chores could wait until the next morning. But he wanted to walk around the “yard” area and see what might need prioritized on the chore list. He picked up litter as he went, the winds having carried stuff in from miles away. Retrieving a piece of paper from the base of a rose bush in a flower bed out front he smoothed it out and looked at it. Printed on that page was a poem entitled “ The Gardener”.

Things that make you go “Hmmmm”.......
 
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