foreign [Music] hunting season at least once a year I try to travel up to Maine and rent an Airbnb to go hunting I never bought my own place because I can't really afford it just for a single trip every year so doing a weekend rental makes more sense for me plus I'm not exactly an expert I'm still trying to get more experience some years I'd go with my uncle but in recent years he hasn't been in the best shape health-wise he's not really up to it anymore so I've been going alone more recently last year
which was 2022 at the time I'm writing this was the last season that I went hunting it was November the Airbnb I rented was near a national park I arrived late on a Friday because I had to come home from work get ready then head out on the road trip when I pulled up into the long stretch of private dirt road to get to the cabin type Airbnb it was Pitch Black outside and it was dead silent too this time of year there's obviously no bugs or crickets left so the knights are dead silent and
dark up there especially if the place you're staying is secluded like this one I pulled up as close as I could to the cabin and the owner told me the key would be hidden under the mat sure enough it was there I brought my two bags inside the cabin and unpacked my things onto the bed in the one bedroom it was a very cozy cabin and the owner already had the heat turned up for me which was nice Maine gets pretty cold up there in November there was cable and Wi-Fi in this Airbnb so I
set an alarm to get an early start at dawn which in my opinion is the best time to find deer or even moose if you're lucky the next morning I was up as soon as my alarm went off and I was out in the woods in less than half an hour since this was foreign territory to me I posted up behind a blowdown I found some knocked over trees usually this would now be a waiting game but I heard a man's voice call from behind me I had a mini heart attack and turned around to
see some men with gray hair but who looked like he was only 50. he was approaching me slowly he said slowly in a very angry sounding voice what the hell are you doing here I responded excuse me he said hunting is restricted here I actually was unaware of this when I explained this to him he said I watched you right up here you best leave the way you came this scared me I said what do you mean you watched me right up here he told me he always sees people riding up to that cabin always
out of town folk who come up here for the wrong reasons I apologized to him and told him I'd leave I grabbed my things and started walking back the way I came and when I looked behind me the man was gone out of sight I walked back to the cabin then took my car and drove to a different Park that according to some website allowed hunting I posted up there and had a failure of the first half of the day around midday I went back to the cabin to just regroup and have a meal but
when I got back to the cabin I found that the door was unlocked I could have sworn I locked it before when I got inside I was almost positive certain things had been moved around and the zipper to my bag was unzipped I couldn't remember if I left it zipped up or not but it was typical for me to always keep my bags zipped up I just checked every room quick before settling down I was way too hungry to just prepare a light meal so I drove to the little village nearby and picked up some
Chinese takeout then I drove right back to the cabin I was planning on heading back out to the park at dusk when I got back to the cabin I just ate my food and went straight to take a nap after my nap I headed back out to the park I spent about an hour walking maybe a quarter mile very slowly and I wasn't finding anything my uncle always told me you could find a dear a moose in 10 minutes or 10 days it just depends on how many are present and being in the right place
at the right time sadly luck was not on my side this day and so when it was starting to get dark I packed up and started heading back to my truck it was just a short drive back to the cabin I cooked the pasta and meatballs I brought with me for dinner as I had the TV on in the background then I laid down on the little love seat couch as I ate and watched some old black and white movie while sitting there I thought back to earlier how the door was unlocked and things appeared
to have been moved only I didn't notice anything missing I wondered if it was just in my head or not long after this I brushed my teeth and shifted to the bedroom where I began to watch another movie in there planning on falling asleep to it I was starting to drift into that half sleep state where what was going on in the movie was actually starting to blend into this half awake dream I was kind of having so I heard the distinct sound of a door clicking open that snapped me out of my half sleep
I groggly looked up and noticed the closet door in the room was now cracked open this immediately woke me up completely now the door being unlocked and belongings potentially being moved did not seem like a coincidence I waited a moment and got out of bed went to my hunting pack and grabbed my CZ 75 I went back to the bedroom turned on the light and pointed my gun at the closet door I yelled come out now or I'll shoot a big part of me still didn't believe there could actually be a person in there and
I thought that I was just being overly cautious but when the door actually pushed open I was in pure shock that older man from earlier in the day stepped out and his unhappy looking face switched to a gross smile missing a front tooth he said you got me I said don't move as I went to grab my cell phone and call 9-1-1 thank God I had service here the sheriff's department was on their way and I let them know I was armed and had the intruder at gunpoint it was an excruciatingly long wait before the
sheriff's deputies arrived during that time the man was telling me how he's sick of people like me having no respect for the parks up here I had no idea what he meant but I wasn't entertaining him I kept telling him to shut up when deputies got there it was an obvious arrest for breaking and entering and possibly robbery though I don't think he ever actually stole anything from me the man claimed the door was simply unlocked though I don't know if that was true or if he had somehow picked a lock or even climbed through
a window the Airbnb host said that there were no other hidden keys and that I definitely left the door unlocked he seemed more concerned about whether anything of his was stolen and putting blame on me as opposed to asking me if I was okay and apologizing for the experience he said he had no idea who the man could have been even after getting his name I still don't think I left the door unlocked but thank God I was on a hunting trip and had my firearms with me to quickly neutralize the thread I was 14
when the story took place it was my first year hunting deer with my family to be specific my father my cousin and myself to paint a picture my blind was two miles south of my father's with his stand being nine miles Southwest to my camp we drove a four-wheeler about a hundred yards away from his stand which left me with a while to walk before I even got to mine I live in northern Michigan and during the winter it gets dark quickly and early it was around 4pm when I started to get cold and decided
to close up my tent I was hunting with a 243 rifle that had a pink camo cover on it with a strap around so I could hang it off my back closed up my blind zippers and put my garbage away in a bucket I had as I was throwing away my trash I heard a couple leaves crumble so I immediately turned my head up to see if it was a deer after about a minute I brushed it off as a squirrel or a bird disappointed I closed my blind and headed to my father's as I
was taking my first steps out of my blind I could see a fresh pathway brush through the leaves it was a wide path not from a small animal or even a deer I immediately started thinking a bear or wolf so I started speed walking to where my dad was I started to panic as it started to get even darker and I was still roughly a mile away I was just walking as I was stopped in my tracks by one of the most haunting and horrifying noises I'd ever heard the best way to describe it was
a bear slash man that was being murdered [Music] sounded roughly 150 yards back as I started to run with boots and thick hunting gear was hard with 20 pounds on my back but fear pushed me through and I didn't stop around 25 seconds later I was still running when I heard it again [Music] this time it was louder and closer at this point it was completely dark out with the Moon being the only source of light I turned around with my headlight and what I saw is still the most terrifying thing I've ever seen around
50 yards away I saw a black figure in the dark illuminated by the Moonlight behind it it was around 10 feet tall and skinny without thinking twice I started running while trying to get my gun off my back I didn't know where I was running but I just ran I ended up on a road that I recognized as Rabbit Road the road that connects my camp with the entrance to the hunting area I ran on the road until I got to my camp by the time I got into sight of my cabin I turned around
again and saw it again this time further away it was still standing up and I can only describe it as a tall black skinny figure it had long arms and long legs as I got on my cabin steps I threw up from exhaustion and continued to vomit for about a minute as I later then passed out I woke up to the sound of my dad's four-wheeler turning into the cabin driveway I started crying as I ran up to him hugging him I quickly told him the story of what happened and how I ran back without
stopping he didn't believe me at first but as we got settled inside his face started to change as he saw the desperation in my eyes I didn't sleep that night or for weeks after people have told me it was most likely a bear or I was just seeing things but I know what I saw I'm older now and I only hunt with someone with me I also hunt with a bigger gun because it gives me reassurance that I could shoot something larger as I'm writing this this was the most scary experience of my life [Music]
it was a Friday evening and I was getting home from school I was 13 years old and was really excited to go hunting I love hunting especially the ranch we go to in Alice Texas I've been going there since I was four and I have so many memories of the place it was my grandpa my dad and I going there were going to be a few other people like the ranch owner's family we were packed up and ready to go it was deer season my favorite season just the feeling of seeing a big deer right
in front of your eyes is a wonderful feeling and of course shooting it people say that it's wrong to kill animals but I disagree if you're actually eating it we got to the ranch and it was 10 p.m so it was pretty dark out there the ranch is 300 acres I believe and the campsite is an old Little Shack probably the size of a normal bedroom there is electricity there but it's not a huge cabin where most hunters sleep in however there are little beds there but one time my dad found a huge snake shed
in one of the beds when I was little so from then on we sleep in a tent the camp is surrounded by woods with a little field up ahead probably a little less than the size of a football field we use that field for dove hunting anyhow we unloaded and chatted for a while around the campfire telling jokes and whatnot when we heard this scream it was the most disturbing thing I'd ever heard it sounded like a human hybrid or something the scream sounded not too far away all of us jumped from our seats and
looked at each other every man there was freaked out I could see it in their eyes the ranch owner was the first one to say what the was that he then told us and one of his family members to go check it out he's a pretty old guy in his 70s so that's why we went to go check it out we took my grandpa's ATV and did a quick search around the perimeter only to find nothing I was still traumatized I was even scared to go in the Blind by myself as all Hunters know we
have to wake up Before Dawn and get up into the blind to be unseen by the deer I went to sleep in the tent with a gun right beside me I woke up to the alarm and got ready I was scared of being left alone in the dark even though it was only an hour or two before Dawn breaks I was still petrified by the scream and it still echoed in my mind today my grandpa dropped me off of the blind with his ATV and left my dad was already in his position my grandpa's not
a soft Grandpa he expects you to know it and do it him being him he just left me in the dark expecting me to find my way up to the blind myself so I began climbing up the ladder and began navigating with just my hands I got into the Blind and waited for the sun to peek out 20 minutes passed and it was still dark out when I noticed something in the middle of the trail I couldn't see well so I thought it was the right time to use a night vision sight that my uncle
had given me I was excited expecting a big deer but when I put my eye into the site when I saw still haunts me today I don't care if you believe me or not but I was expecting a deer only to find a person walking towards the woods it was distorted looking but had the same outline of a person I don't know how it spotted me but I saw it turn and face towards me now the night vision is not super clear so I couldn't see its face but I could see it was looking straight
at me then what I heard next will stick with me for the rest of my life gave out the same exact blood curdling scream as the night before only louder at that moment I cannot describe the fear I felt the word fear is not enough to describe how I felt I managed to break free from whatever shock I was in and managed to grab the 22 and started to fire the entire clip into the path it was standing in I was still frightened so I got my rifle and fired all the rounds into the path
when I looked back into the night vision it was gone I started to get texts and calls like crazy mostly from my dad I told him what happened and he had heard it too and so did my grandpa you still go there to hunt but it has not been the same peaceful hunt now when I hunt I go with my dad because I'm scared that thing might come back I don't know what that thing was but whatever it was it survived 25 rounds from a 22 and four rounds from a 243 because when we went
to go check there were no signs of blood or anything not even Footprints I know it was still dark when I fired all those rounds but I know for sure at least one of them had to hit whatever that thing was [Music] it was the fall of 1986. I was 23 years old I'd never really been scared in the woods before honestly I always felt like the Wilderness was my safe place somewhere I could go and relax and get away from the stresses of life I've never seen a Bigfoot or Skinwalker or any kind of
Boogeyman in the woods as a lineman for a small town in West Kentucky I have seen crazy being a small Muni we all had to wear a lot of hats including utility disconnects wasn't fun but it was part of the job and there was a lot of crazy but never in the woods my only real Hobbies were hunting and fishing back then it was easy to find a really good place to hunt just by stopping and asking the landowner for permission most were eager to have the deer population thinned out as they were really destructive
eating young soybean crops and this was coal country and back in the 50s there was a lot of strip mining that left a lot of land unusable for building and farming so much of it was open for hunting it was October 1986. Daylight Savings Time hadn't happened yet and it was still daylight till just after 7 pm I left work at four and ran home to change into my camo it was bow season in Kentucky my favorite season I was gonna hunt in an area that was special to me it was in an area we'll
call Ridge this was a very remote area with broken farmland and wooded areas after parking I decided not to unload my three-wheeler and just walk the three-quarters of a mile to where I was going to hunt I was using a Summit Climbing stand so I had to carry my stand and my bow as well as my fanny pack with my knife and flashlight I had to walk Halfway Around the cornfield the corn had not been cut yet so I stayed in the lane left by the farmers so that they could get their equipment to the
upper end of the field the field was rectangular and the upper end was a much higher elevation on the bottom where it heads across a creek with Shin deep water to enter the field at the top of the field the right hand corner was where I was going to enter the woods it was the highest point of the field I had to pick my way through a thick Blackberry Thicket but managed to find a game trail that led me through and it finally opens into a hillside with large trees after finding a tree suitable for
my climbing stand getting set up and a little climb I was ready to hunt I love to watch nature the deer hunting was just an excuse to be in the woods as a lineman I had no fear of climbing high so I would get as high as I could this time I was up around 20 feet before the canopy started blocking my view it was around 5 30 when I was settled in my stand and had an arrow knocked I regularly stated my permanent stands late as not to Spook deer close by I had added
reflective tape along the trail to Mark the way out this made it easier to find my permanent stands at night but this day I was in my climbing stand in an area I hadn't been in that night I was about to start down when I heard something walking so I waited it sounded like a deer in the thicket but I never really could get a look at it was eight o'clock and close to a Full Moon that night so for my high vantage point I could see pretty good in the woods and I felt like
I could still shoot up to 15 yards but it was after shooting hours so I started down as I did I could hear the loud crashing of a deer that must have spotted me moving like a sloth down the tree on the ground I quickly secured my stand and bow and looked in the direction of the way I came in I turned on my flashlight now the woods look different at night in the dark and downright foreign when you turn on your flashlight it's not bad in a mature woods with no undergrowth but I was
walking into a Thicket I walked along the edge of the thicket for a while trying to find the trail I came in on but no luck it was almost nine o'clock now and I was ready to get out so I just started picking my way through the thicket keeping the moon on my right shoulder and finally I came out into the field about 25 yards from where I went in as I stood there picking the thorns out of my hands and legs thinking this adventure was over I surveyed the lane around the field and in
the light of the Pale Moon I saw it now when I walked in I came up the left side of the field around 200 yards to the end turned right and walked another 100 yards where I was it was higher on the ground and I could see around the field where I came in when I walked in there was nothing in the trail I hadn't heard any equipment or ATVs so I was shocked to see something in the trail and no small something either look six feet wide and six feet tall just standing there about
halfway up the field Trail it was the only way out so I never hesitated I started walking back to the trail turned toward whatever it was standing there hoping it was just a strange Shadow but it wasn't I grabbed an arrow from the quiver remembering my knife was in my three-wheeler I walked fast and never broke stride 100 yards away and it didn't move or make a sound I walked loudly straight towards it for 200 yards all the while thinking it's really there in my trail blocking my only way out as I got closer I
could make out what it was it was two people standing side by side and this unnerved me even more it was 9 15 40 degrees out here nobody should be here I kept walking now 20 yards away and I see that it's a guy and girl maybe 20 years old 10 yards away I'm walking towards them but no sounds from them they just stood there when I got to them I half expected them to jump me but they never moved I said kind of cold out here ain't it no sound they still never moved I
kept walking I turned to keep an eye on them I was thinking okay this is it they never turned around never even moved their heads across the creek and within another hundred yards I made it back to my truck I was even more uneasy approaching my truck it was just so quiet all I could think of was someone waiting to Ambush me so I kind of eased up on it very quietly and watched it for maybe three minutes before approaching it it seemed fine so I headed to my truck as I left I tried to
figure out how they got here because I never saw another vehicle I tried to just put it behind me but the next day at work during lunch I was gonna run and get some food and I noticed all four of my tires on my truck were low and after inspecting them they all had around 10 to 15 roofing nails in them I had to put tubes in them to get home something odd was going on in those woods somebody most certainly did this to my tires while it was parked in them after this it always
felt like someone was watching me when I was hunting in that area that's why I stopped going alone and I never parked off the main Gravel Road Again I never found out who those two young people were or who punctured my tires foreign [Music]
