Alright, alright, I'm finally going to cave and tell this story (because I love this thread and this was my creepiest experience ever). 20 years ago I decided to solo hike into a remote area in Idaho to archery hunt for a few days. Tough, 6-hour hike to get to this location (on-trail with elevation for a four miles then off-trail for another two miles, climbing uphill with downhill growing alders, etc.), which I was up for because I knew the gig from hiking in there without a pack on previously. Found a flat spot and pitched a solo tent with high hopes for the next few days of hunting. I wandered around the tent after setting up and spent a few minutes at a nearby glassing spot with no unusual feelings or thoughts other than, "Man, this is going to be great." I had dinner and turned in with high hopes for the next few days. About 1:00 A.M., I woke up with the same feeling of absolute dead/terror that gulfofmexicoflyfishing described in post #1,776. I was used to being in the backcountry solo and had probably spent a few hundred nights in a tent by myself in remote places at that time. This feeling caused every hair on my body to stand on end and there was no doubt I was fully alert with a full dump of adrenalin to boot. It was a new moon and I got out of the tent (without turning on a light) to take a leak. I did some deep breathing to force this sentiment to subside and after staying up for about 20 minutes, I dismissed the whole thing as a bad dream (that I was unable to recall). After lying awake for a period of time, I was finally able to fall back to sleep. Some unknown period of time later, I was again awoken by an even stronger feeling of dread/terror, which I did not believe to be possible. I swear, if I had been anywhere other than this hell-hole, I'd have left everything behind and run for the truck. That's how powerful this feeling of impending doom was - incomprehensible as I sit here typing today. This time, I didn't try to do anything to suppress the feeling. Instead, I turned on my headlamp, pulled on my clothes, grabbed my bow and made my way to the glassing spot I had visited earlier. I recall I arrived there about 3:00 A.M. because I checked my watch. I sat there on that high spot until it got fully light. There was no way I was going to close my eyes again or try to get back to sleep that night. After the sun was up, I wandered back to my camping spot. About 100 yards out, I slowed to a very controlled pace in an effort to determine if I was able to find a cat or bear track, to which I could attribute this event. Nothing! I was rummy from being awake for what felt like all night, but I am confident I didn't miss a track on the way to my tent. I wish I could say that I saw something physical that I could attribute to this experience, but no. I half-heartedly hunted part of the day but had already decided that I was getting the hell out of that location before dark. Seriously, I've never before nor ever since had such an experience. I screwed myself out of a few days of hunting, but I truly felt happy to be alive - it was that intense. And, I've never been back to that location to this day.