Creepy Tales from the Bush.

[Skimo]

Freq, your story put a chill down my spine, you were being stalked.

I had recurring nightmares about walking between a sow and her cubs when I was younger, I'll admit that after dark I was about as chicken as it gets. Even now years later I have no affinity for walking the woods after dusk.

 

[fixer]

Maybe but...then again who knows? Maybe I overreacted?

nope, don't think so.

as mentioned by a few others, rangers would have said hello and identified themselves... many rangers are almost annoyingly chatty, especially when you're trying to enjoy the solitude of the wilderness.

regarding carrying a gun... that's a personal decision. some may not have noticed that you're in California which is an akward place to get a CCW. not a big problem in a few counties, but not easy in most of the state.

 

[Walkabout]

Looks like you've got your old men of the bush too

Kind regards
Mick

And another...

 

[Whiskey River]

When I was a kid, I was in the woods a mile from home, riding my motorcycle. I came to a clearing and there were about 5 staked out, skinned (dogs?) animals. You know... pegs in the ground, legs ties in all four directions and no skin or organs anywhere. I was about 15 and just about crapped my pants! Of course I had my Kabar dad had given me, but I still got the hell outta dodge! We called the police and they went to check it out. We were told it had happened in other nearby areas several times. No idea who was doing it, but it was really creepy. I would NOT have liked coming upon them while in the act..... unless I was my age NOW. hehe No worries.

 

[dipbait]

Part of a post I made last year about a canoe outing on a secluded river.

... We kept hearing a four wheeler, like he was trailing us. It would get close , stop ,then play Johnny Cash music real loud.Then repeat. It was surreal hearing Folsom Prison Blues echoing through the forest while paddling a canoe. Downright creepy. When we get to the takeout spot , there were pig carcasses dangling from the bridge. I got the feeling the Hillbillies didnt want us there.

 

[fixer]

Part of a post I made last year about a canoe outing on a secluded river.

... We kept hearing a four wheeler, like he was trailing us. It would get close , stop ,then play Johnny Cash music real loud.Then repeat. It was surreal hearing Folsom Prison Blues echoing through the forest while paddling a canoe. Downright creepy. When we get to the takeout spot , there were pig carcasses dangling from the bridge. I got the feeling the Hillbillies didnt want us there.

 

[untamed]

Great stories hehe! I spotted this thread early, but I let it mature since I knew it would become popular real fast! Remember the last one?

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=677572&highlight=sidhe

I taught functional self-defense for a number of years and one thing I've come to know thru research is that somehow, there is an apparent "proximity sense" we all feel thru our gut.

Maybe this is a vestigial perception that had become dormant now during these modern times and only becomes heightened when we're out of our familiar and safe urban surroundings, which is the opposite of when out in the wilderness or woods. But during pre-historic or even ancient times, our very survival relied very much on our "hunter's sense" to look for food. This role though is when we are the predators. I think proximity sense might be the defensive opposite, when we unfortunately become prey.

 

[Mentor]

Speaking of feeling creepy in the woods:

 

[Cpl Punishment]

Freq: You didn't overreact.
They were not rangers.

The thing that screamed in my head through your whole story was "Get out of sight and off the trail!!" Classic Roger's Rangers tactic: "Get off the trail, circle around and ambush those that mean to ambush you." You did everything but the ambush part.

I think the "This can't be happening to us" mentality gets more people hurt than folks realize. You did the right thing.

Now, if I may suggest, get a nice, big, vicious dog to hike with. Make sure it's endeared especially to your girlfriend. Anyone who wants to hurt her will do so over the dog's dead body.

Oh, and you might want to get one of these -- they tend to make people very polite, or at least realize that they have something else to do right now.

 

[JohnWayne360]

Deliverance?

 

[barrabas74]

Lol I have a rafting shirt with that logo. Yup its supposed to be a reference to deliverance. Hence why I said in my one story "I heard banjo's".


Another creepy one was not creepy in the "someones watching me, stalking me" sense. I was laying in my tent one summer night at my farm near the fields. I heard a hell of a commotion outside not far from my tent which sounded like a heck of a lot of feet running very fast and growling. Then I heard it probably 20 yards off the sound of a crying deer. Having spine shot a deer and hearing there growning I knew the sound instantly. It immediatley occured to me that a pack of coyotes had just downed a deer and was eating it not very far from my tent.

I had put the fire out so all that was there was my tent. Hearing the moaning and it being eaten alive sent chills down my spine. I was darn nervous to poke my head out of the tent and attract attention with all the of sounds of snapping jaws and tearing of flesh. Besides my car was a good 100 yards from my camp site. I had my pistol and rifle with me and knew the deer was long gone so I kept the light out and just sat tight. I listened to the sounds of feeding coyotes for much of the night and didnt sleep. It seemed like no other noises were heard but them feeding. A gruesome sound.

Eventually the feeding stopped and when light came I grabbed my firearms and came out of the tent. I went over to the scene and it was what looked to be a small doe and much of it was gone. It was eery how close it had happened to my tent.

 

[hollowdweller]

Maybe but...then again who knows? Maybe I overreacted?

IMO you did a great job.

Don't know if you know who Gary Hilton was/is but after he killed Meridith Emerson while she was hiking and it got around on the hiking boards there were a LOT of people posting who had encountered him in the woods including one girl who was hiking with friends but was either ahead of behind them he passed her on the trail and then in a few miles he ended up behind her.

 

[freq18hz]

Freq: You didn't overreact.
They were not rangers.

The thing that screamed in my head through your whole story was "Get out of sight and off the trail!!" Classic Roger's Rangers tactic: "Get off the trail, circle around and ambush those that mean to ambush you." You did everything but the ambush part.

I think the "This can't be happening to us" mentality gets more people hurt than folks realize. You did the right thing.

Now, if I may suggest, get a nice, big, vicious dog to hike with. Make sure it's endeared especially to your girlfriend. Anyone who wants to hurt her will do so over the dog's dead body.

Oh, and you might want to get one of these -- they tend to make people very polite, or at least realize that they have something else to do right now.

Its funny that you mention this because, in the past while my cousins husband was going through his Sere school training, I decided to re-vist the good ol army field survival manual, and at the time the reason I decided to get off the trail and down toward the gully was because:

1) The men behind us were silhouetted from the moonlight/starlight at the mouth of the bend where the tree canopy really thickened, and I wanted to keep them in sight

2) because there were bends in the road, they couldn't have seen us hop of the trail and move down onto the bank of the gulley

3) after reading the survival manual, one of the things that always stuck in my head was the evasion, ambush techniques. For some reason that one just stuck in my head. And in essence, even though we used the deer trail to get back, we basically would have been positioned behind them, but coming at them on their flank from a 90 angle, because the deer path and the trail did not run parallel.

The thing that still bugs me is, we never saw them or heard them after they went on down the trail.

I appreciate the kind words etc, but truthfully I do wonder if I just over-reacted. I guess better safe than sorry. Had I been by myself I probably wouldn't have reacted so extreme, but for some reason I felt very compelled to insure her safety.

Truthfully it is my bad for being out hiking that late, and not being equipped properly. Then again, if they had a firearm, I still would not be prepared for that.

It's sad to say, but when people get out of sight of others, sometimes they act poorly. Best thing to do when you are away from it all, is just stay away, and steer clear of people you don't know.

 

[555]

While in Scouts we were camping only a couple of miles from town and had a old drunk stumble into camp and sit by the fire and talked for awhile before leaving/stumbling away and I believe that was the same time and last time we camped there because a Police Car also rolled into camp that night, returning two scouts who thought it would be cool to walk into town and scope things out in the middle of the night.

 

[Tostig]

Here's some more 2 legged creepy, sorry if it's too long. Don't expect an amazing story or anything. If you all care though, the second story is actually what prompted me to discover bladeforums:
Thanks for listening, sorry again for the length.

Freq... That is a terrifying story. You reacted great , I think.


I agree , your story is an example of why I always carry some sort of weapon , regardless of 'simon says' laws.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

I would have been more scared for my girl than myself , those guys were creeps , Rangers do not act like that and if they do they have zero damn business calling themselves a Ranger. Those guys were scum up to no good.

Glad you are okay.


Tostig


I have my own story that I'll post after work.

 

[freq18hz]

Freq... That is a terrifying story. You reacted great , I think.


I agree , your story is an example of why I always carry some sort of weapon , regardless of 'simon says' laws.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

I would have been more scared for my girl than myself , those guys were creeps , Rangers do not act like that and if they do they have zero damn business calling themselves a Ranger. Those guys were scum up to no good.

Glad you are okay.


Tostig


I have my own story that I'll post after work.

Oh yeah definitely ok. Like I said, it made me research a new knife to buy and survival gear, which led me to finding bladeforums.com =)

 

[bulgron]

I have one I can't explain that happened just last weekend.

My wife and I were sitting by the campfire facing each other.
She's says, I think someones behind you, they just shined a light on the pine in back of you.
So I turn around and watched for awhile, there wasn't any noise, the dogs didn't stir.
Then I see what looked like a spotlight shine down out of the night sky a little further away for the pine that only lasted a couple of seconds. In about a half minute it happened again a little further still and also lasted only seconds.
This was repeated at intervals about 5 minutes apart, moving away from us down the rig.

I thought it was cool and it looked like something right out of a sci-fi movie.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I was floating in my observation balloon over the forest in central PA. Every once in a while I was shining my spotlight down looking for this guy who owes me a whole bunch of money for this knife he says he wants to buy. Anyway, right in the middle of this, I hear this woman say, "I think someones behind you, they just shined a light on the pine in back of you." Never saw who said it. Very creepy. Must have been a ghost.

 

[555]

Another Creepy Tale that has happened to me. We seem to have a stocker/bill collector stocking us throughout the mountain region of PA in a hot air Balloon armed with a spotlight.

The first time this happened, I thought it was the PA American Idol tryouts and broke out in song, even though I can't sing. The wife told my to knock it off and get a grip. She suggested it was the tryouts for next seasons Man vs Wild, so I ate a live Groundhog to make sure that I would get the part. She then changed her mind (and I down a roll of Tums) saying, maybe, it's the Survivorman tryout. Being the ham that I am and to make sure I got this part for next season, while in the spotlight I knew I had to show Les my fire starting skills. State Farm dropped my coverage the next day.
How was I to know, using my pick up truck as a way to start a campfire wasn't covered by the company?

After the Balloon left and the light was gone a Creepy Quiet came up the mountain hollow, as we were walking the path to get back home, the wife screamed, "Thars somethin up ahead on that's there trailz" I could feel the goose bumps as we looked upon a lone Penny Loafer blocking the Path.

It was Creepy I tell you, Creepy.

 

[bulgron]

Another Creepy Tale that has happened to me. We seem to have a stocker/bill collector stocking us throughout the mountain region of PA in a hot air Balloon armed with a spotlight.

The first time this happened, I thought it was the PA American Idol tryouts and broke out in song, even though I can't sing. The wife told my to knock it off and get a grip. She suggested it was the tryouts for next seasons Man vs Wild, so I ate a live Groundhog to make sure that I would get the part. She then changed her mind (and I down a roll of Tums) saying, maybe, it's the Survivorman tryout. Being the ham that I am and to make sure I got this part for next season, while in the spotlight I knew I had to show Les my fire starting skills. State Farm dropped my coverage the next day.
How was I to know, using my pick up truck as a way to start a campfire wasn't covered by the company?

After the Balloon left and the light was gone a Creepy Quiet came up the mountain hollow, as we were walking the path to get back home, the wife screamed, "Thars somethin up ahead on that's there trailz" I could feel the goose bumps as we looked upon a lone Penny Loafer blocking the Path.

It was Creepy I tell you, Creepy.

Oh. Right.

Could you please mail me back my shoe?

 

[555]

Oh. Right.

Could you please mail me back my shoe?

I'll send it back in the same box that you are shipping the REAL, Becker Necker with the thing on the Handle that opens all sorts of Bottles.

Recycle Reuse, ya know. And I sure could use a BK11. LOL

BTW the shoe was found as is, missing the Penny.