Strange/unexplained stories on the trapline

New to the forum! Seems every time i talk to fellow trappers/hunters i eventually ask if they’ve seen anything strange out in the woods? So I’m just jumping right to the punch. I saw a stealth bomber flying extremely low and not making a sound once and also saw a floating light in a bottoms at night that completely threw me for a loop how it maneuvered. Also had a buddy find a dead body under a bridge! anyway, share your stories! I wanna hear anything creepy, ghostly, paranormal, criminal, or highly strange! And if you wanna be anonymous just send me a message! I would love to hear it!

Way out in the south Idaho sagebrush I found a 16’ tape measure fully extended just laying there. Nothing around to measure no road no trail just sagebrush. Same season,again no road just a small game trail in a spot probably only a trapper would go, I found a military camo jacket with a very large and partially crushed bottle of aspirin in one pocket and $4 in another. Nothing else around that I could see to explain why it was there. Also not far from the tape measure I found a bow fishing arrow way up in the sagebrush. Wasn’t far from a river but still a few hundred yards from the water. Must be something going on out there I don’t know about.

Now that’s defintely out of place. Wonder what the heck was going on?

I’m glad I don’t trap in Illinois!

We just legalized weed. I bet we find a lot more things in the woods JP

Never know what you'll find here. Nothing surprises me. Guys that look like Hal's niece wandering in the brush singing Bob Dylan songs...

I havent seen na haints or boogermen

I did find a teddy bear in the middle of nowhete once on the border

One time I was walking an old railroad grade and just off to the side was what looked liked a grave.It was about 3'long,maybe a couple feet wide and lined with brick.At one end of it was a collection of old plastic flowers.That was about 40 yrs,ago,I was back there about 20 yrs ago and if it wasn't for finding a brick and a plastic flower I wouldn't have found it.Always wondered about it,could have been where somebody buried their dog but why way out there?If not a dog,then what,somebody's baby?The grade dated back to the logging days,but the grave didn't.When I found it,around '79 or '80,it had been there a while,but not that long,maybe 20 yrs. before.I had a time trying to find it 20 yrs ago,I'm pretty sure all trace of it would be gone now.I remember one old timer telling me about a baby being still born on his family farm.He said his dad took the baby and buried it next to their machine shed.Things like that weren't so formal then like they are today.Maybe what I found that day was something similar.

Found a colt 45 cal pistol in a case by an expressway bridge. No clip

Welcome, pull up a chair and your favorite drink.

One time, I was checking some muskrat sets under a bridge at about 4am in the pitch black. I had a LED light clipped to my hat and the water under the bridge was about 2' deep. Well, once I climbed down there and clicked on the light, all heck broke loose LOL. There was a flock of pigeons roosted under the bridge right a face level and they burst out of there in a flurry of flapping wings and noise and just about gave me a cardiac arrest LOL. after I collected my thoughts, I noticed something out of place... somebody had hung a piece of plywood from the ceiling to form a shelf and on that shelf sat some stolen goods... DVD player and some other random stuff. Notified the police, collected my traps so they wouldn't get stolen and went on my way. Replaced my sets there about a week later, shelf was gone, but the danged pigeons scared the heck out of me again.

THE MONSTER

(Authors note: This story is exactly as it happened; there was no need to enhance it, as it is pretty unbelievable as it is. People have accused us of lying about it, or making it up. Well what purpose would that serve? I freely admit I was scared “spitless” and Arnold , well he was mighty concerned.)

The headlights of the truck slanted through the trees illuminating them in a ghostly fashion as we pulled up Walls’ driveway,. It was Thanksgiving Day 1992, around 3:30 AM., and as dark as midnight in a mineshaft, as there was no moon and heavy cloud cover. Arnold’s Truck rattled to a stop and we stepped out in to the chill night air. We gathered the buckets of trapping gear, and slipped our pistols into their holsters. We got ready to do the loop as we called it, down the hill, up the valley, around the field, and back across the valley to the truck. Arnold and I walked along, checking our coon sets, talking softly back and forth to each other as we usually did. This part of the valley is thick enough to stall a Tiger tank. The multi-flora rose and honeysuckle creating almost impenetrable walls of vegetation, so dense that even in the daylight you can only see about 20 feet. The only way through is a single deer path. Strangely the woods seemed to deathly quiet, I mean no owl hoots, no deer or rabbits breaking cover, not even a breath of wind. It was a very eerie sensation, and suddenly I felt the hair on the nape of my neck stand up….

The Darlington Valley of Delaware County Pennsylvania has a long history of strange incidents and occurrences. Many people have reported seeing strange things lurking in the seemingly ever-present mist of early morning and evening. Far more people have reported hearing horrible cries, screams and roars coming from the dark woods. So horrific were the sounds some people vowed never to again return to the valley.

My Dads close friend Melvin and his girlfriend had an experience neither of them ever forgot. Melvin and his girlfriend (I can't recall her name) were um, ah parking down in the valley late one night. As usually happens they were rather involved in what they were doing, when suddenly behind their car "The Monster" let loose with its audio assortment of mayhem. Even before the cries faded away, Melvin had the car started and was laying a smoky trail of rubber out of the valley. He told his friends that this was no animal he'd ever heard. Melvin was a good ole boy, born and raised as a hunter and trapper, so he knew the sounds of the woods. However his friends being young punks, of course teased him unmercifully, calling it Melvin's Monster. Well it frightened him so badly whenever he and his friends hunted the valley he would not get out of the car till it was light and would always be back at the car long before dark. No one believed poor Melvin or his girlfriend. Yet stories of "The Monster" continued for years afterward even up till this very day.

I had heard the stories of the "Darlington Monster" as a child from both my Father (who didn't believe a word of it) and my Mother (who always said, “There is something evil in that valley.”) I personally decided that it was probably just different animals making noises and citified people couldn't explain them and therefore were scared of what they heard. Foxes screaming, coons barking and growling, and numerous owl cries can unnerve the unknowing. Little did I know that I would get a first person interview with the legend itself.

We were walking along guided by our trusty $1.24 flashlight, its dim sickly yellow light barely illuminating our chosen path. Suddenly it front of us this thing, beast, monster lets out this sound. (No I can’t tell you exactly how it sounded, since I have never before or since heard such a sound.) It started with a rumble like distant thunder, rose up to a howling shriek like banshee with a toothache and tapered off to a mad dog howl. It was so loud it reverberated in our chest and we could feel it strike our faces. Arnold and I both looked at each other and said, "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT??????" If you think this was inappropriate language, all I can say is brother you weren't there! We drew our pistols and loaded them so fast, we could have beaten Butch, Sundance, or The Kid. This is all the more amazing considering the pistols were in snap down holsters and the bullets were in our pockets. We tried shining the light around but that did nothing constructive for our heart rates. All the more disturbing was there was now no sound, so whatever made that noise was still right there in front of us just beyond the light. (The floor of the valley was cover with dry leaves so even a slight movement would be heard.) I will be perfectly honest with you; if I had been alone I would have turned tail and run till I hit asphalt (the nearest road is over a mile and a half from where I was.) I had a million thoughts going through my mind, “What the heck was that?, Why am I in this valley?” and “Why in the world do I have “Now I lay me down to sleep” running over and over in my mind?” Arnold suggested we should slowly move off to the right to our other sets out in the field. You can believe me when I say this was met with less enthusiasm than "The Charge of the Light Brigade" they were only riding into the Valley of Death, I was already there. I informed Arnold I liked the tree I was backed up against and daylight was only 1 1/2hrs away so why not wait around for it. Arnold coerced me into following him by starting off toward the field with the flashlight in one hand and a fully loaded and cocked pistol in the other. I sure as heck wasn't going to sit there in the dark by myself. I quickly covered his back trail, with my pistol fully loaded and cocked as well. To say we covered the 200 yards from where we met the monster to the edge of the field where our sets were at carefully is a masterpiece of understatement. We were so slow and cautious you'd thought we were tiptoeing through a minefield. Thank God no deer broke through the brush or rabbit scampered through the dry leaves, otherwise there would have been a hail of lead laid down. We finally made it to the field edge without any more loud scary surprises. After checking our sets we had to re-enter the valley to get back to the truck. It was just light enough to see when we marched back into the valley. On the far side we heard the noise again. We continued back to the truck and got the heck out of there. Did this experience change us? Well yes and no, we were back checking traps the next day in the same valley, but now we had fully loaded pistols in unsnapped holsters.

Arnold and I have talked about this incident many times since then. We know what we heard. Arnold and I between us have over 60 years of experience in the woods, from southern Virginia swamps to New York mountaintops to Midwest plains; we have been to them all. We firmly agree it was no animal that walks the woods (to many sound variations in a short time), or human (no way a person could make those noises).

So you may ask what it was then. Well we believe it was a demon or other restless spirit, the whole valley is known to be an Indian burial ground. It is rumored to be the Lenni-Lenape royal burial area, but I’m not sure of that. I am sure what I hear and what happened though, and all I can say is if I never hear it again it'll be too soon.

Was hunting late in the afternoon without much luck and sat down to take a break on a fallen oak tree that was on a rise with a good view looking down the hill in all directions and thinking what a great deer stand it would be that fallen tree was just big enough to be a perfect spot to sit, so I was just sitting there looking around and noticed something odd so scrapped the oak leaves away and there was a shotgun just laying there, well of course I reached down and picked it up and got the shock of my life when a skeleton hand came up with the gun, about gave me a heart attack

Was an old guy that had gone out hunting and just disappeared several years before m



And then there was the pot farm I walked into back in the early 80s, god must have been looking out for me that day because when the police raided the place it was loaded with booby traps and I walked in and out without a scratch

Weirdest thing that happened to me was one day checking traps, I had fastened a Lil Griz by cable to a small ash tree growing alongside a stream. A large boar coon had gotten caught, climbed the ash tree as high as he could to a low crotch in the tree. He fell through the crotch and hung himself. I poked him with a stick to be sure he was dead. I thought that was really bizarre!

The next day when I checked the same trap, I had another boar coon. He had climbed the same tree, fell through the crotch, and hung himself too. My first thought was, didn't I take him out of the trap yesterday? I knew I had and this was another big coon. Both coon were 30+ pounds.

Good Lord!!!

Man these are some great stories. Thanks for posting! Hope to see some more if anybody’s got em.

I was doing some deer hunting on our farm a few years back, and discovered a very old cemetery in the middle of the woods. Most of the stones were crumbling and unreadable, but a couple of the stones I could make out went back to the mid 1800s and early 1900s. One stone that I could barely make out read 1739-1831. Kind of cool and creepy lol.

It was dark, middle of the night, cold, and almost christmas. I started into the square from the road and thought what is that back there in the woods. I'm half spooky anyway. So I talked myself down and determined it was an optical illusion of some kind and probably was part of the christmas lights on the next road and not really in the middle of the square by the woods flashing like it looked... So i started back in... Kept telling myself no its the lights on the next road. Get back there and sure enough... it was ambers from a camp fire and when the wind kicked up it would glow orange. Not that big of deal except there wasn't anyone there. Which freaked me out. Was it from earlier and they left or did they see me coming with my light and were hiding right here in the woods somewhere. I just got the shivers thinking about it. Being out in the middle of nowhere at night really seems to make around my house seem like nowhere when it isn't really. Some freak nut job hiding behind a tree or something jumping out to get me was always my fear.

On a thread like this years ago someone told a story about going down a two track in the middle of no where literally and having an head lamp on and seeing in time someone crouched down on a tree branch in the fence row off to the side. He chose to ignore the guy and walk past. Then on the way back out he wasn't there anymore. It was already a fear of mine. That story he swore to didn't help none.

I walked up on a car in back a dead end woods path that shouldn't have been there. It was raining and it was wet underneath it. It was a small truck with a cab topper. Gave me the heaby geebys walking past it. I actually called my buddy and told him where I was and kept in on the line until I got in and back out.

Oh I tripped over a headstone in the woods in the middle of the night before that obviously didn't used to be a woods. It was creepy b/c there is that one kind of grass / weed that grows in old places like that. Must be something they used to plant at grave yards. Literally falling over one and being face to face with a head stone like that in the middle of the night jazzed me up pretty good. eeek.

Years ago, I found a small purse in the ditch. Inside it, there was a $10 bill and nothing else. No identification. Several MONTHS later, there was a lost/found ad in the local paper. They described the purse perfectly. When I returned the purse and money to the lady, she said that her daughter had lost it out the window of the school bus. She said that it had a lot of sentimental value to the family. She wanted me to keep the $10 but I refused. I was just happy they got it back.

The odds of me seeing that ad were next to nothing. I typically don’t read the paper much less the lost/found section!

I bet it was a Wendigo

I found a place in the bush littered with old bones.

Not so scary, but I found a huge collection of dirty "men's" magazines and VHS tapes. Kept me busy for months!

Found an abandoned homeless camp in the NF. Snow was covering everything and barely noticed a small corner of tarp sticking out ontop of sage brushes and chola cactus. I reluctantly looked inside it was fully stocked with food clothes backpack etc.... it looked like no one had there for awhile. Few nights later walking back down that line in night and snowing I could hear something following me. I couldn't see anything and running wasn't an option on snow covered decomposed granite boulders and cacti all over.

Found a tree where birds of prey preferred to eat their catches.
Stumbled into an old graveyard, old rotted down cabin.

I grew up trapping with my uncle in the mountains of east Tennessee back in the late 60's and 70's and we used to come across the occasional still - only time I would ever see my uncle get nervous in the woods. We came across a guy passed out drunk once on the banks of the Caney Fork in the middle of nowhere and my uncle left a dead possum on his chest. I guess that guy would be the one with the unexplained story. Good times.

Now that's funny...

OTG

I'd like to hear his story, lol!

Great thread!

Not a trapping tale, but........................

I had sat in my tree stand and listened to elk as they fed just out of my sight. The snapping of branches and the soft cow calls had riveted my attention for the last half hour. As the fed out of hearing I realized that the day was over. Darkness would catch me within minutes and I had almost a mile of forest walk to get back to where I had parked my truck.

I readied my gear and let my bow down on a pull rope. As my feet touched the ground it was dark enough that I had to feel to unhook my bow and shoulder my day pack. There was no trail to follow out. I just headed out through the timber and brush. I had not gone far when I thought I heard something behind me. I stopped and listened. Heard nothing, so I started on. There was that sound again! Once more I stopped. The noise stopped also. Now this was getting spooky. Every time I stopped, the noise would stop, but when I moved the noise seemed to follow me. It was too dark to see anything, so I increased my pace. So did whatever was following me. The timber cleared out a little so I hit a trot for about a hundred yards. Same thing.

Now, I don't consider myself a coward, but for the last couple of hundred yards I turned the heat on. I decided that the cab of my truck would be the best place to be. In spite of falling a couple of times and having multiple scratches and bruises I made it to the truck. I hastily jerked the door open, tossed my bow inside and removed my day pack. As I tossed it in there was something attached. Some way, in my hasted to leave the tree stand, my pull rope had snagged onto my day pack. Thirty feet of rope had followed me for almost a mile, moving when I moved and stopping when I stopped.



Disclaimer: This did not happen to me. I heard that it happened to someone else though. Anyway, it is no more farfetched than some other stories. LOL

Once while trapping, I heard a shrill, wavering cry behind me... after coming back down from my leap into outer space, I turned around to discover, much to my relief, that it was no Alaskan sasquatch, but only my trapping partner. Much annoyed at his scaring me out of my wits, I quickly found great mirth in the fact that he had caught his manhood in a 330 he was trying to set. I forgave him for scaring me so badly, which is rude and immature you must admit. I do not think he has forgiven me for my mature reaction to his predicament, such as my belly laughs, and thigh slapping.

I cannot to this day explain why he would do such a strange thing to himself???

Not trapping related but reading the other stories got me thinking of this one.

Heard a story about a guy who paddled down the porcupine river one year. I guess the rain really started up one evening and he was getting soaked and really cold. He started smelling camp fire smoke and luckily for him he came upon a cabin where the occupant readily invited him in out of the weather and fed him well. The next day he continued on his way and eventually reached the community of OldCrow Yukon. Some of the locals noticed him pulling in and in their usual fashion went down to welcome him and hear the stories of his river adventure. One of the guys asked how he made out in the rain. He told them about the nice old man who helped him out and went on further to describe the guys nice cabin in detail. This bit of information had the local guys full attention. Once he said the guys name the locals kind of looked at him and each other in disbelief. Turns out the friendly old man had passed away several years before and his cabin and personality fit the paddlers description to a tee.

Mike traps2
I say grey fox...

When you set a 330 if you decide the spring angle isn't just right while your standing in the creek placing it and you lift your leg to rest it on your thigh to push the springs down (b/c your standing in water and need something to set it on) its easy to have a trap firing near your junk. Don't ask me how I know. Tank god it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Think I'll stick with dry land trapping now.... that's the scariest story on here

Not trapping but hunting. It was 1971 I was goin deer hunting when I had vehicle issues and decided to walk. I was about five miles from town it was about eleven pm. I was in some rolling hills and the lights from town would apear and then disappear as I walked. When I was in one of the dips the sky lit up where the town was. When I got to the next rise where I could see the town again there was a white “smoke ring” hanging over the center of town. What was really strange was the size and orientation of the ring . It was approximately three city blocks in diameter and was vertical with the bottom of the ring about three hundred feet above the buildings. I could see if something had blown up on the ground how a smoke ring would be formed but it would be horizontal. I watched as it would dip out of sight as l walked then reappear as I crested the next rise. It took about a half an hour to disapate as the air was calm. Never did figure out what caused it.

I was kneeling along a bushy fencerow making a fox set just below the crest of a hill when I heard footsteps coming at me really fast. I mean thump thump thump pounding towards me from across the little hilltop. I knew it was something on two feet and I was sure someone was running towards me. Got a creepy feeling and stood up just as an ostrich just about ran me over. This was in Iowa in the late 1980's. Not kidding. I later learned there was a farmer raising ostriches about five miles from there. Near as I can figure one of them had gotten out. I didn't tell anyone for a long time because I thought no one would believe me.

Walked under a bridge to check traps and found a motorcycle leaning up against the concrete bridge wall. Called the cops with the license number, sure enough it was stolen. Pretty sure it was a kid who lived nearby who I caught red-handed stealing my traps.

Saw this on another site...(thanks Cpt. Rudy)...

Here is mine...... I was laying in my bunk one night, the only one in camp. I thought I heard this screechy voice saying something but I couldn't quite make out what it was saying. I figured I was hearing things or maybe just the wind that was blowing pretty good. I started to doze off again and I was awakened by the same horrible voice repeating whatever it had said.....I pulled up the covers and made sure the .380 was on the nightstand all the time trying to tell myself it was the wind....I finally fell asleep..... about 4 hours later the voice that I can only describe as a withches voice repeated the same words only louder....I said to myself that's it Im going to confront this THING....I remember walking down the hall then BANG.....I was on the floor.... What had happened was I was having a bad dream, a real NIGHTMARE, then was walking in my sleep and tripped over a chair.......I was dreaming my X wife was at the cabin with me and that hideous voice kept repeating CAN WE GO HOME SOON I HATE THIS PLACE........ Shes gone now, thank the Good Lord. Some other poor guy is listening to that witches voice.

I found a twenty dollar bill once. Layin' there , plain as day, with a rock about the size of a golf ball holding it down.

50 years ago we used to hunt deer in the Upper peninsula of Michigan. I was about a half a mile back in, hunting along a little creek called Nuns creek. There were no houses, no nothing in the area, especially off to the north. I heard this very loud buzzing noise on the North side of the creek. A very hard to describe noise. It certainly wasn't a chain saw and it was nothing but an impassible cedar swamp on the other side of the creek. It was an area hard to get to and not an area anybody would just go traipsing around in. Never did figure out what it was, it was just a very loud, distinct noise, in the middle of nothing.

I was way out in the bush about 50 miles south west of Timmins,about 20 years ago hunting partridge in sept.I looked off the trail a bit and seen about 5 lbs of marijuana drying on a chunk of canvas.

He said strange stories. That is fairly common isnt it?? haha.

At least the guys around here dry it in a shed, I guess doing it in the bush is less common.

How come you never told us about this when we at the Head of Blow river we could have went and stayed with that old man. Him and wally probably really get along good.

Ever seen the movie "Escanaba in da Moonlight"? LOL (we watch it every year during deer camp)

Escanaba in da Moonlight. Same at our camp watch it at least a couple times especially after a few cool ones to set your mind right!

I seen a sightin! That is pretty much the only VHS that ever graces our VCR at our hunting camp. We watch it a few times during deer camp, and usually at least once a weekend when we're up in the off season. I can still remember going to see it in the theater when it first came out.

It's on Amazon Prime video I believe if anyone wants to watch it.

Dang, in 60 years of rambling thru the brush I have never had anything strange or unusual happen.
There is always tomorrow though.

Zim

I found a prosthetic leg once up a creek with no homes further upstream, and many miles from the nearest home downstream. Didn't find the body that went with the leg though.

I know this will sound weird but I swear to God it happened this winter when trapping the river for beaver, I was going down onto the sand bar backwards so if I fell I would slide down the bank and remain standing. When stepping down the bank I was facing west, the river runs north and south at this point, next thing I know I’m in the air with my hat falling off, my gun falling out of my holster, when I hit the ground only my right butt cheek hit touch and I was facing east. After sitting for a minute I got up and realized I was 10 feet away from the bank with no tracks between my butt and the bank I picked up my hat and gun and went home. For the next week I felt like I was in a fog and hardly had any strength.

Short story.
Scouting for deer.
Saw this empty box with a picture of very large marital aid device on it laying on the ground.
Couldn't have been more startled than if it had been a rattle snake.
Or so I thought.
As I was running to get out of there, I almost ran right into said device, strapped to a tree at the appropriate height for inappropriate activity.
What is wrong with people?!

I wasn’t trapping, but fishing for brook trout 20 some years ago in north central Pa. While hiking in to fish a stream, I saw a dead deer in the forks of a chestnut oak, about 20 feet in the air. How the deer got up there remained a mystery until I read an article about how the Game Commission had dropped roadkilled deer from Chinooks on loan from a local Army Reserve outfit. The PGC had recently released fishers in the Wild Area to reestablish them in the state, and someone thought it would be a good idea to give them some feed.

Mystery solved.

These are some great stories. Stuff people who stay in their suburbia homes never see or experience. Creepy or otherwise.

I've only been trapping for 1+ full seasons so nothing too crazy has happened on the trapline. However, I was quail hunting eastern Oregon about 5 years ago in a remote, deep canyon that had some old growth sage and switchgrass down in it with steep canyon walls. This canyon spurred off of a very rural desert dirt road about 20 miles from the nearest paved road and there was not another vehicle or sign of a person in sight. Was following my two GSPs through the canyon when I looked to my left and on a flat piece of granite was a red human handprint, still very wet in what appeared to be blood. It was a perfect handprint on a piece of granite wall that was obviously deliberately put there, not like someone was running and swiped their hand across it. I got the total heebie jeebies about it, called my dogs back to me and decided to go hit a different canyon.

I gotta say these are some awesome stories! Some are so funny and others give me the creeps! and that’s exactly what I was shooting for!!! Keep me coming if ya got em! And thank you for posting!

Had a buddy call me a few years ago and said someone was poaching deer on my property.
I found that hard to believe as I'm purdy keen on what goes on there.
I asked him why he thought that?
Well, he went skiing on the river ice during a full moon at way after dark.
Came around the farthest bend and seen lights just up from the river bank in the woods.
He turned around not wanting to get in a confrontation.
I bowhunting that remote stretch but only in the mornings and have to access it by canoe.
Stands are hard to find in the dark so I hang some cheap solar lights.
That's what he seen LOL.

I was trapping beaver on the Stillwater river which is a boulder strewn channel bed from start to finish with aspen, cottonwood and willow tree's lining the bank. It's also a wind tunnel coming off the Beartooth mtns.
I noticed a few aspen tree's the beaver had been chewing on in a spot where the creek washed out the bank was around 5' so I made a mental note to myself to keep an eye on those tree's .
During the next check the one tree had fallen over into the river hitting a young whitetail buck on the back forcing it down into the water killing it . Sadly the pictures I took of this were lost in time.
So yes beaver can kill deer ha ha

One night during the dead of winter I went out and ran my small line. Now, where I live it takes me quite awhile to reach good ground for trapping. As I head back in to town after my checks I notice a light from a helicopter (pretty sure it was a helicopter but I never saw it) off to the right side of my truck. That light followed me all the way back to town. Never figured out why it was following me, I always guessed that it was just following cause he/she could.

Seems to be quite a few stories of strange lights. I’ve always heard, don’t follow the lights in the woods. Not sure why, old wives tale I’m sure.

I was always told not to because it could be a reflection off of water or ice, and when especially when in unfamiliar woods you could fall into the water or get lost because you’re not paying attention to where you are going.

My father and I made the Wolverine Hat for "Escanaba in da Moonlight" My daughter was young but got meet Jeff Daniels. Those were fun days in the UP.

Did it look like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FridXUHwYw

I'd be interested in a thread devoted only to lights of this nature. I hesitate to even bring it up because of the nonbelievers, but am interested if any others have witnessed such a display.

I have a story to share.

There's a town called Woodsen just south of Little Rock that had a light that was similar to those in the video Muskrat. You could see it when you traveled down Woodsen Lateral Rd. By the time I was old enough to drive it was not as commonly seen as it was in the 70's due to the clearing of the woods for subdivisions. I did see it once though. It seemed to bounce across the road about 50 yards in front of the parked vehicle. Strange thing.

Not on the trapline but in the woods. Back about 10 years ago I was assisting GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) agents secure a crimes scene where a missing woman was buried. We had found her shallow grave the day before in an overgrown fire break. She had been missing for more than 10 years and it was suspected that she had been murdered but with no body..no arrest had ever been made. GBI and local SO had received info where she may be buried and a LE team was formed and we began the search. I found the first bone laying in the overgrown break....the radius or the ulnar (human arm bone.) I was crawling on my hands and knees down the break when I found the arm bone. Other LE said it was a deer leg bone...nope! Scene was secured thru the night and crime scene techs began digging one spade full at a time out of a shallow depression near where I found the bone. Most of the skeleton was quickly exposed. She had a house robe on when she died. I remained on scene throughout the day.....a clear blue, windless pretty day. In mid afternoon as I was watching the tech carefully uncover her head area and blond hair...a strong wind picked up and blew for several seconds...actually bendng the pines over slightly. There had been and was no other wind that day. About 8 of us officers just stood looking at each other for a minute. To this day I feel that was her spirit...free at last.....knowing justice was coming. And it did...her husband was her killer and he was charged and convicted.

Back in the early 80s my friend and I were bird hunting on the logging roads of Northern Maine. We entered the woods through Ashland Maine and just headed west. We went through some pretty overgrown roads looking for birds when we came across a rundown camp in the middle of nowhere. When driving by a women came out and waved to us and told us to come in for something to drink and some muffins

We sat and talked with her for a while when someone started throwing rocks at the cabin from the outside. At this time she told us that we need to leave now. She literally threw us out of the camp.
We took off and continued hunting. We latter stopped at a truck on the side of the road. A trapper came out who we talked to for a while. We told him what had happened and he said that the women had moved out there a while ago with her husband who was a Vietnam vet.

He said that during the war the vet’s face had been permanently damaged and he had did not want others to see him so he lived with his wife in this camp. The trapper said it was probably the vet who was throwing the rocks at the cabin telling the wife to have us leave. Never went back.

Fact ? Fiction? I am only writing on what we had seen and were told and I do not BS.

Did experience one scary moment on the trapline...other than when I got caught in a Belisle 280.....

...back about 1982 or so I had just caught the second coyote of my trapping career at a field edge near a swamp. I placed him in the truck and proceeded to wade off into the flooded knee deep creek bottom to check several coon traps I had set on the same property. My mind was on coyotes and how mean they looked and acted compared to the many grey foxes I readily caught. I reached my first mullet head nailed on a tree coon set when all of a sudden I heard tremendous splashing out in the swamp and whatever it was was now rapidly approaching my location. I was thinking deer and just as my eyes found the splashing two huge Siberian Huskies appeared about 50 yards and were running right at me. I screamed like a little girl and they both stopped and turned and ran back into the flooded timber. My clear mind said that was dogs but my scaredy cat mind said I was being attacked by the coyotr's family. I walked out of that swamp with a strange metallic taste in my mouth.....never saw the Huskies again or their tracks around that field.

Yep. Muskrat, it was similar to that. It moved slower but smooth. Literally moved under the turkeys I had roosted the day before. Didn’t even spook em off their roost. If it were hunters in headlights those birds woulda busted, no question. And it was below the ridgeline, in a bottoms. Couldn’t have been traffic or D/D lights.
I know some things are little odd to talk about but the reason I started the thread in the first place is because we as trappers have a trained eye for things that are out of place. We see patterns and also see when they are disrupted. We know sign. We know what things are supposed to look like. Basically professional observers. So I figured it would be neat to hear what guys/gals who are out in the rural areas are seeing that’s “out of place”. And again, thanks to everyone so far, I’ve enjoyed reading every contributing post. Have not been disappointed that’s for sure!

My dad and I took his camper to our deer lease in South Texas in the early 1980's prepare for the coming deer season. It was October and we wanted to do a few days of scouting. We had a favorite spot to set up camp each year under some large trees. I was standing under a tree guiding him back and looked up to make sure there were no limb in the way. As I looked up I noticed a face looking down at me. I had to do one of those double take looks to be sure of what I was seeing. After stopping my dad to come look up into the tree to confirm what I was seeing he just looked at me and said "Monkey"? It didn't seem to be very concerned about us so we finished unloading the camper and started to prepare something to eat. This got the monkeys attention and he came down to the lower limbs of the tree to watch us. He was a large monkey of about thirty pounds and seemed to be use to people. We decided that he was someone's escaped pet and thought we would catch him and return him to his owner. We had a bag of apples in the camper and went in to get one. He never took his eyes off of me as I cut a slice of apple and toss it to the base of the tree. He came down and picked it up as he seemed to be upset with me for getting dirt on it. He very carefully wiped the dirt off of it with his hands and ate it. At this point it was obvious that he didn't like the dirt on his food and came over and sat on the corner of the picnic table. I continued to give him slices of apple but he would let us closer than four feet to him. I made a rock cubby and put a noose around the opening and slices of apples in the back. He sat there looking at it for a minute and then walked over to the side of the cubby and reach down with one hand and gently picked up the noose with two fingers as he reached in with the other hand to get the apple. He dropped the noose and gave me look like OK smart guy what is your next trick! We quickly ran out of apples and he wanted more. He got tired of waiting and walked over to the camper door and sat down looking at it. He must have been watching me very closely each time I would go in for more apples. He put his fingers under the bottom edge of the door and yanked the door open like it was something he had done hundred times before. Jumping in the open door he quickly found the empty apple bag and started looking for something else to eat. He found a bag of potatoes and pulled it open. Putting one in his mouth and one in each hand he jumped back out of the camper and walked over and sat on a large corner post of some cattle pens to finish his meal. Shortly after that the land owner came by and we told him about our new friend and point him out. As soon as the land owner seen him he ran for his truck to get his rifle. Seeing the rifle the monkey ran into the thick brush and and we never seen him again. The story was that some of these monkeys had escaped from a TB research lab. They were all infected and the rancher were shooting them on sight. It was a good thing we didn't catch him or I should say he didn't catch us.
.

The following is never a way that I would ever dispose of a skinned animal carcass now but it was 40 years ago and we were young and dumb. My point here is what went through this homeowner's head the next day...

A guy I knew in high school was trapping the local river. By then it was sort of squishy if the river was still open to trapping being at the edge of town or not. Anyway, this guy caught a 30-40 pound beaver and had skinned it and had the carcass to get rid of somewhere. We were driving around and for some reason decided to head into an upper-income neighborhood-- this was before security cameras were common. I had delivered out-of-town big city newspapers in that neighborhood several years before so I knew some of the stories of these people. We ended up in front of the local newspaper's editor/publisher's house. It had a nice slate stone front porch. The skinned out beav carcass was gently placed on the porch and we left. It was sort of cold that night so the beav body probably froze down a bit on the slate. I wonder what went through those people's minds when they found that the next day? Probably thought they had been visited by a Satanic cult. I never heard another word about it, this guy had a whole paper to say something about it. He probably thought that might continue the situation. I wonder if that story has been passed down the time in that family's circle...?

You probably should have been checked out for a stroke or a heart attack or something.

This somewhat of a hunting story but..... My son and I were up at the cabin one weekend bowhunting and scouting. My son who may have 15 or 16 at the time had a really good bow stand that year wanted to be out on stand even though impending rain was on it's way. So I drove him up the road to where he walked into his stand and told him to text me if he needed anything. I was going to go out and do a little scouting. The rain started coming down hard and I drove up to go pick him up. He got in the truck and we headed to town for gas. About a 1/2 mile up the road we came over a crest and there was someone walking down the road abut a 1/4 mile in front of us. Like my kid read my mind we both looked in the backseat to clear some room so we could give this person a ride. When I turned and looked seconds later the person was gone. When we got to the spot that the person was walking we slowed and scanned the woods and saw nothing at all. There was any possible way that in that short distance someone get get out of site from us. After looking for a minute or so my son looked out the window on the road and said "dad there aren't even any tracks int he road. I backed up a little and we scanne the side of the road for anything human. Nothing. My son opened the door and stepped down and looked to see that a perfectly formed track could be seen in the on the side of the muddy dirt road. Never did figure out where that person could have gone to or why there were no tracks but we both saw the same thing.

One time I set a trap,,,and the next day,there was NOTHING in it !!!!!! Strange but true.

Back in the early 80s I was running predator traps at night, mid December snowing hard pitch black night. I'd caught a nice red fox, dispatched it and I'm on my knees remaking the set and something rubbed against my leg.. Thinking it was the fox I grabbed it in squeezed real hard and screamed like a girl. It was a cat, and yes the cat got some needed flying lessons... LOL

Back in the mid 80's My wife's great great uncle stopped by and gave me a big buck mink he caught in his chicken pen. He knew I was trapping and he didn't want to mess with it. He also told me there was muskrats in his lake that was a 1/4 mi back in the field and also a church was having coon problems about another 1 mi over. So I went and talked to the deacon and he said they wasn't having church of the winter and coons were working on the roof again. So I set me up a oval shaped line hitting 4 ponds and small lake and a couple of spring fed trickles. Probably about a 3+ mile walk. First night I caught 3 coons and was a load for my pack basket. I didn't want to skin them as I cooked all my coons for my dogs and us on occasion. Well the second night my wife said she would come and help me bear the load. We ran it in the night on account not to bother the deer hunters, Well we got to the church about mid night and walked right thru the middle of the old cemetery, my wife wasn't that fond of doing that, I picked up a coon at the church and another at a pond and a muskrat and a possum at the last pond. This was rough country really no terrain for even a 3 wheeler. Well I had a wheat light we walked by and when we would get to an open spot I would turn it off and walk in the moon light. I had the two coons in my basket, she was carrying a rat in one hand and the possum in the other. We was on a deer trail and the old man was too slow for her so she passed me and as we was getting near the woods the shadows was darkening in on the path. She is probably 50' ahead of me and all of a sudden she lets out a scream that raised the hair on my neck. She comes charging back at me as I get the light on. T H E R E S S O M E T H I N G up there. I fiddle getting my trusty 22 H&R untied in my holster. She stays back and I go up there and about die laughing. There was a huge old grey cow standing there with the expression, you gotta problem? She was 3/4 mi from where she should be. I went and told the neighbor the next day where his cow was. He had a big laugh, he had known my wife since she was a toddler. Also told me where more rats and coons were and to drive thru their pasture which put me closer to my other sets. My wife carries her own light even to this day!

Ohio boy I have been tested since, no mental probelms that a stroke would cause and the stress test for a heart attack was good and haven’t had any other kinds of episodes since. That’s the weird part doc couldn’t find anything and said without anything happen again he has no clue.

Great post!

Not a trapping story but one that has puzzled me since it t happened

When I came back from living in China the wife kids and me bought a 120 acre farm just north of the snake river state forest one night I had insomnia and couldn’t sleep so was up late reading, I had let the dogs out into the fenced area in the front of the house and I am not sure how long they were out there maybe an hour or so, but suddenly there was a loud bang on the door followed by another and another along with barking from the dogs.

Well I did what any one else was on here would do I grabbed my gun and a flashlight and went to see what was going on, when i opened the door I was almost bowled over by all 3 dogs trying to get into the house at the same time, 2 of them immediately hid one behind the sofa and the other under a chair, while Charlie my coon hound took up position behind me looking out the door and growling not his ready to fight growl but more frightened and uncertain.


Charlie and me had encountered a lot of scary things in our time together and this was the only time I ever seen where he was not not ready to go in and fight even the time we ran into a pack of wolves he was frightened but was between me and them scared but I think if I had asked him to he would have gone out and attacked them but here he was not just scared but terrified

Well I flashed the light around the yard but there was nothing there, and then I looked up, there in the southern sky was what I can only describe as a glowing ball about 2 hand spans above the tree line and looking about the size of a tennis ball held out arms length away

I just stood there on the porch staring trying to figure out what the the thing was, first though was it was a chopper because it was not moving but there was no sound none at all, and then it was gone, like someone shut off a light

Another strange thing is that there were no night noises and anyone who has spent time in the country in spring knows there is always something making noise but it it was totally silent not even a bug making noise

The next day Charlie was mostly back to normal though he was on high alert acting nervous and the other 2 dog my daughter had to coach out from where they had been hiding alll night and by the end of the day every thing was back to normal

To this day I sometimes think about it and wonder what that light was, it wasn’t a plane or chopper, it might have been light reflecting off something but what and what about the dogs and why were all the night sounds quite

Maybe someone here can explain it I sure can’t

Somethings I have kind of come to conclusions on are that it was nothing I can really explain, but whatever it was I believe was between 1 1/2 and 2 miles away don’t ask me why I think that’s how far it was it’s just an impression
I have it could have Ben further or even closer it’s hard to tell when you don’t have anything to measure against

If someone has a logical explanation I would like to hear it

Saw the Hornet Spook Light a couple times during my teen years.

Mike

Nightlife just last year the wife and I were driving home on the back roads and witnessed a light just like you described. No movement at all but when it disappeared, it just turned off like a flashlight. Much brighter light than on any aircraft I've seen.

That's a good one, nightlife! The puzzling question for me is not the light, but why the dogs would react like that to a light in the sky. Perhaps it was the unusual silence? A good mystery for sure.

And Bob_Iowa's experience of landing 10 feet away from the bank is puzzling as well. Perhaps you took a bounce you never realized? But presumably there would be some evidence of that.

Anyway, these are all great stories!

I reckon everyone is thinking what no one wants to say.

Mike

Virgina is for LOVERS after all...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsC4kf6x_Q0

A French Lesson and disapearing act.

Burl and I were heading to Mule Creek Pass to check some traps after a long day’s work at the copper mine. As we approached Needles Eye just above Black Jack Springs we were stopped by the DPS and we were informed we would have to wait a bit as there was a film crew making a commercial with some fancy cars. We informed the officer we had to get thru to check some traps as required by law and anything he could do to get us thru would be appreciated. Well he got on the radio and talked to his partner on the other end and they decided to let us pass and cautioned us about going slow as they had wet the road for filming purposes. We continued on our way and approached the lite up area where they were filming. The film crew was from France and they were friendly enough waving at us shouting in a language we did not quite understand. When we checked in with the next officer he asked how long we would be and we told him a couple hours to check all the traps. He wished us luck and off we went. Well we snagged a fox and a small skunk which sprayed a little bit on Burl. I did not think he smelled too bad so back in the truck we got and back to home we headed. As we approached the DPS officer he started to back up, talking to us from a distance, it appeared he could smell Burl. I mentioned we had caught a skunk, which no doubt the officer had figured out already. Well he gets on the radio and calls ahead to inform his partner at the other end. The laughing officer then approaches us and informs us to drive real slow, especially where they are filming as he wanted to make sure we did not get any dust on those new cars and upset the film crew as they had been complaining a lot about the traffic. We being the careful law abiding citizens that we were, we eased on down the road. The slower we drove the more I realized that Burl had got hit pretty good. Around the bend we went and there was the film crew with those fancy sports cars, well talk about hand jestures and vocalization, it appears they had never smelt a skunk before. We waved back and offered a few hand jestures of our own but when they started throwing rocks we decided to pick up the speed a little. Well the DPS officer at the other end had a big grin on his face and waved us by and invited back the next night. We said same time, and see ya later. Well the next day, them fellas were gone. Burl made a comment about them not being real friendly anyhow..

Should have thrown the glands back at them

Man I just hear of so many unexplained lights in the woods. Some people out there, I would blow it off. But Trappers? I tend to hold us to a higher standard. And if we have a hard time explaining something in the woods, then I definitely believe there’s more to the story.

Another one I just remembered, not trapping related but it was definitely weird. I'm not one of those Sci-Fi people who is obsessed with aliens/E.T. life out there. I don't discount the possibility that in all of the universe there could be another planet that supports some form of advanced life forms. I'm of the opinion that until I see hard and fast proof I'll just assume they aren't out there. But a night spent alone, camping under the stars in the southern Utah desert has had me thinking ever since. It was 2004 and I was 16 years old, camping about 50 miles outside of Loa, Utah in the desert in the Capital Reef. I was just sleeping in my sleeping bag. No tent, mesmerized by the best stars I've ever seen, to this day. No idea what time it was. Probably around midnight, when I saw a light high up in the sky, moving roughly SE to NW at a steady, consistent pace, pretty high up there. I didn't think much of it. Looked like satellites I had seen in the past, but moving a bit faster. The light was solid and not blinking. Normal yellow/white light color. Then all of a sudden it dropped at an incredible rate of speed straight down, almost directly over me. The light was much brighter and I would estimate it to be anywhere between 1/4 mile and 3/4 mile up. Really was hard to tell how far, but it definitely was SIGNIFICANTLY closer than before and it dropped down from the height of a commercial jet engine plane at cruising altitude or more to right over me. When it came down it stopped moving and stayed there for about 3 or 4 seconds, then went straight back up to where it had been before and continued it's consistent steady trajectory in the from SE to NW. It didn't scare me. In fact it fascinated me and to this day I still wonder what it was. Was it an "alien" life form? Maybe. Was it a satellite? No. This was long before drones were popular or even heard about in a recreational sense of the word and the height it was at was way to high for a drone anyway. I will never know what it was, but it sure was a very incredible experience. And no I was not on any illicit substances.

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxlwi.html

Well I wanna refresh my post since it’s been several months, any new strange sightings or occurances on the trapline? Was an AWESOME discussion last time I asked.

My wife and I were night fishing the bank of a lake around 1 a.m. and I noticed a light slowly coming across the water toward us. The light was rotating end over end in a forward direction. It appeared to be very low as it approached us, but it was completely silent and we could not make out any shape. We were very confused. I still don't understand what it could have been. It was if someone threw a flashlight across the lake at us.

2 weeks ago I was climbing out of a beaver pond under a bridge when my phone fell out of my pocket and landed on a wooden plank just above the water. It didn't bounce or anything, but straddled the 2" board perfectly. The city guys that hired me were awestruck.

I have one that isn't trapping related either,but its definitley strange.Years ago we were camping and the subject of an old abandoned farm house that we all knew about came up.We'd been by it a thousand times but it's inside a gated pasture so we'd never been inside.We'd seen pictures of it dating to around 1900,with the family that built it.It was quite a showplace in its day,a 2-story monstrosity.Being teen agers we all piled in to a truck and drove out to the field where it sat.Going in the backdoor,you were in the kitchen,shining our flashlights to our left showed an arch way with columns on each side with bookcases full of books covered by glass doors.It entered the living room,a small cozy place with a rock fireplace.This place hadn't been occupied since the fifties(this took place in the 70's),and alot of personal effects were still in place.When we were leaving my brother wanted a souvenir so he opened up a book case and took a small book.The next day he asked me if I wanted to make another trip to the house,I told him not really.He said he had to go back,and when I asked him why he showed me the book.I opened it up and on the inside cover was our youngest sisters name and date,along with a personal note from the teacher to her.Apparently the female of the house had been a school teacher and had our sister as a student.Our sister died in 1969 of brain cancer.Of all the books on those shelves thats the one he grabbed.He didn't look at this as a good omen,one look at his face was all it took,he was taking this as a bad omen,that he shouldn't have taken it.I told him I thought it was great he had something from her from when she was little,he looked at it like he was bringing a world of hurt down on his head.A couple days later I noticed the book was gone and when I asked him about it he just said he took care of it.

I did ADC work for timber companies for years, which included hunting and trapping porcupines in August and Sept., breeding season. I would take off late in the afternoon and check and set traps, and then drive the logging roads looking for porkies waddling along and dispatch them. I took a break from driving one night on the edge of some old growth Doug Fir, big trees. I stretched my legs by walking down the road a bit and back. I stopped at some point and scanned the clear star filled sky, and saw a shooting star. I though it kinda weird that it seemed to be coming right at me. It disappeared and I looked away from the sky. A few minutes later a tremendous crash occurred in the big trees near me. Was it a meteorite? It sure seemed like it.

Bumping this post, let's hear of some more unexplained stories that you all have experienced

I had a dog proof coon trap wired to a 4 inch ash tree. The next morning a boar coon was caught, climbed the ash tree, and fell into the "Y" of the tree and hung himself. At first, I thought he was alive just hanging there. I poked him and he was dead. I thought that was about the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen.

As God is my witness, this is true. The next morning when I checked the very same trap another boar coon had gotten in the same trap. He climbed the ash tree same as the other one, and hung himself in the "Y" just like the coon did the day before. Weird!

I have made that same set on the same tree years after that and caught coon in it. But, none ever climbed the tree.

When I was a little kid I always took my mutt out for a walk down the crick after school. She brushed up a big bobcat right in front of us and chased it up a big dead cottonwood. I went over and the cat was crouched in the "y" of the tree and was maybe 10 feet from where I was standing and we locked eyes a stared at each other for a really long time. I remeber the sun was setting and that image is still seared into my brain, very cool. Buried that old dog many years later under the same tree.

Was walking under an expressway bridge and found a colt 45 pistol.
Also caught a handful of muskrats that day around that bridge.
Back in the day fox season came in 2-3 weeks before raccoon and muskrat season. We were allowed fox, skunk and opposum. A pond on my uncle place was full of muskrats and I had a couple fox sets on the pond dam so I looked at rat sign around the pond every day. One day about 10 days before muskrat season noticed a half dozen stakes in the pond. Checked them out and somebody had set foot traps in big feed beds.
I had some possums in the truck so I skinned them and put the carcasses in the traps. Next day traps were gone.
When season came in I caught around 20 muskrats in that pond.
I hate cheaters.

I’ve seen white lights in the woods a few times. The last time I couldn’t tell what was making it but I know nobody was around for at least 30 miles. Pitch black and running traps as well as checking deer cams. I started walking down towards it but when I stopped it would stop, it seemed it was leading me somewhere but I didn’t have the balls to follow it. If I ever see it again I’m going to follow it. It was the brightest white light I’ve ever seen and only lit up about 10 feet around it.
I do know there used to be an old homestead up there in the 1800’s and they lost quite a few kids sadly, I can’t help but think maybe the light and them are somehow connected.

Bumping this post due to the Cattle Mutilation thread. Let's hear some strange and unnatural occurrances you all have experienced. They don't even necessarily have to be trapping related

Not trapping related

Here's a couple I can think of involving my family..

I must have been 7 or so years old, so this was around 2002. We have a cow pasture that belongs to my neighbours about 200 yards from the house I lived in, and the house my mom still lives in. She woke up one night and from here bedroom window, she noticed two bright lights coming down at about the level of the top of this big old oak on the corner of the pasture. One of the lights was wider and duller than that one in the center. The light in the center was bright white coming from a source that she could not see. She said she stood there for about 10 seconds, mesmerized. And then all of the sudden like someone flipped a light switch they vanished. I was young then, I don't remember every hearing about any cows being mutilated, not do I remember seeing any dead cows in that area.. we used run like wild Injuns all over that pasture and around our property, creeks, and woods when I was a kid.


My maternal grandmother has a lot of sisters. And they had a lot of paranormal experiences happen to them from when they lived up around Waverly and Ana Moss, Iowa. This event occured after my grandma had moved down here to Massac County in Illinois. She had a large bay window on the front of her house and at night it would illuminate the staircase leading to the upstairs bedrooms. From her bedroom with the door open, you could have full view of the staircase. She said one night while lying awake in bed she noticed a shadow moving out of the corner of her eye. When she turned to see what it was, it was a shadowy figure running up the steps. She said it ran into her room, knocked over a couple stacked totes and then jumped for her. She said she screamed like she had never screamed before and that it disappeared at that moment.

Last one

When my mom was a little girl she lived in the same house from the above story. A house that I have also been in growing up. The house my mom lives in and the one I grew up in, the one from the first story was later built about a quarter mile back behind my grandma's house. Anyways, when my mom was a little girl, she looked out her bedroom window one bright moonlit night back in the early 1970s towards where her future house would be built roughly 30 years later. She noticed a figure in all white walking through the tall grasses. This figure would have been walking roughly where her current driveway is. She never told me or my brother this story until AFTER what happens next. Flashforward to about 2010, me and a friend are out riding our four-wheelers and we are at a neighbours house about a mile down the road. My younger brother was left at home. He called me with fright in his voice saying that while he was sitting in the garage with both doors open he heard some crunching of the gravel that made up the driveway. He looked up and saw a figure in all white cross in front of him outside of the garage and then continue walking until it stepped into the front yard. He was young, scared, and obviously didn't go chasing it down. He called me and told me what he saw and me and my friend immediately headed that way full throttle and were there at the scene of the incident within a minute and a half. We got spotlights out and sped all around the property and never found a thing. Could this be the same white figure my mom saw as a little girl walking in the direction of her future house? After we told my mom of my brothers incident did we learn of my mother's incident as a little girl.


I know a lot of people discount the paranormal and I'm not exactly so sure where I stand on it my self. I do know very credible people who have had some very creepy stuff happen to them and I've heard the stories multiple times over the years with no variance in the story. I just haven't had anything personally happen to me

This isn't unexplained or even really that strange I guess. But back in the late 80s I had a coon trap down along Jovita Creek. On my way to check it I walked by some black garbage bags several times, just figured it was trash someone had dumped out of their car.
A week or so after I pulled the trap Brandon Bootey and a couple of his little buddies we're poking around in junk down by the creek and opened up one of the bags to find one of the "Green River Killer" victims.

^^^^^^
Kind of an interesting side note;

I had a carcass pile about 30 yards away. There were bones from years of carcasses.
I learned several years later that I had somewhat inadvertently caused the investigators to look at all of us trappers in the region as potential suspects.

While that mayhem was happening I was always surprised when they would report finding another body, and it had been found in an area that either I had trapped or someone I knew had trapped; Green river, Jovita creek, Scatter Creek, Star Lake, and a few other spots. It even got me wondering in that direction.

Turns out the guy was not a trapper. But he did live about one mile from where I am sitting right now.

Two lines, so do you still smell a pipe being fired up from time to time? Very interesting story and thank you for sharing


Waggler thank you for sharing as well. That is a very creepy story, you were pretty much trapping along the dumping grounds of one of the prolific serial killer in American history.

Once again these aren't outdoor or trapping related, so sorry, but here's another few ghost stories that doesn't involve my family, but a family that I'm pretty close with. I highly doubt anyone on here would even know them but just for privacy reasons I'll refer to them as man, mother, son, etc

The father and mother built a house out in the country, there first born son would play with an imaginary friend named "Lindgren", first off what little boy at the age of 5 or 6 comes up with a name like that. It's a Swedish name and we had a lot of Swedes and Germans settle in my area way back when. Well there would be a few instances where the boy (who is probably 5 years older than me now) would be playing with his toys and when it would be time to go somewhere his parents would have him put them all away. They would make sure his toys were picked up before they left the house. Whenever they would return from running the errands they would come home to all the toys being strewn about the room. Another time the parents were getting the boy dressed and could not find his shoes even though they were on a bench in the kitchen minutes prior. I guess some.other things that I haven't heard about had been happening recently, but the mom became aggravated and yelled "Where are the shoes? I know you have them!" Then there was a loud thud from behind the closet door in the hallway. She opens the closet door and lo and behold the pair of shoes are there on the floor in the middle of the closet.

One time the wife had a cookie sheet fly across the kitchen right in front of her eyes and smack against the kitchen wall.

The man had woke up on several occasions over the course of a few years to an old timey woman "floating" above him, parallel with him.

I stayed the night at that house one time when I was about 16. Me and a girl were in the back room. There was a small window to the outside above the couch we were sitting on. There was a quick series of knocks on that window and I had though it was the son that lived who was my age or his cousin who was my age as well messing with us. (I've been beast friends with the two that were my age for as long as I can remember). I quickly looked out the window and there was no one there not was that any vegetation that could have made that knock. This room me and the girl were in was at the very end of the hall on the left side. At the end of the hall was a solid wall. About 30 seconds after the window knock, I noticed a shadow cross under the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor coming as if someone had stepped out of the solid wall, which I immediately thought as strange. Immediate without hesitation, I jumped up off the couch flung the door open, and the hall was empty with no clear cause of "who" had walked past that door. They had no inside pets.

There's lots of stories this man and his wife can tell of their experience at that house. They no longer live there, they now live out on their family's farm which is where I do a lot of trapping. But at one point when they were originally building that house where so many incidents had occured, that man walked around close to where they were building with some dowsing rods and found over 15 spots where there was something buried under the earth. To this day he thinks he inadvertently built his house atop, or right next to an unmarked cemetery.

I need to visit this man soon, he had lung cancer several years ago and had a lobectomy done to remove it. Now there's a spot back in his lungs and he has a malignant tumor in his brain. These are very good people that I think a lot of.

Twolines,
I believe you. I had a somewhat similar experience a few years ago when a friend of mine drowned. However, he only stuck around for about a week, then left. I can't quite explain this type of thing from my theological perspective, but there are some things that I guess we just don't have all the answers for.

While living in AZ I was told of a trapper that caught a blue eyed lion on the san carlos reservation, they had to get a sha-man to check it over to see if it was a shape shifter, and then determine if it was to be release or disposed of. I heard they put it down.

i have been in canyons out west that once you entered them all noise ceased, one of the times i found where a lion had killed a trapper gray fox, so i figure lions were close

another time in NM it went quite and then at the trail head i saw one of the released mexican wolves

A number of rattle snake run ins, some very close.

Seen quite a few lights in the sky in AZ and NM. some very close.

One morning after I attended a Grateful Dead concert I had a raccoon in the first set I checked. He asked me how the show was and if Jerry Garcia had gotten his chops back.

To this day I have no idea how he knew I went to the concert.

I once caught a muskrat in the river, but when i went to take him out of the trap, thing that was odd id that every bone in its body was broken, crushed really. It was like a big mushy ball. Was a real pain to skin, but no holes or punctures, just lots of bruising.

Still cannot figure out how that happened

was up in the mountains montana elk hunting bout 3 miles from anywhere you could get a vehicle of any kind really rough boulder ground and found a piston from something layiny on a rock. looked to be 100 yrs old by the design and rings sits in my shed now. the thing weighed 4 lbs

Old mining equipment?

Once,,when I came back from checking traps,,,I logged into Trapperman and found a Coonman post that was in perfect English,,very legible and made perfect sense.Also didn't have anything to do with his truck,,or work. HAHAhaaaaaaa just kidden.That would only happen in the Twilight Zone.

I was bird hunting in Michigan's U.P. with my father and brother-in-law back in the late '80s. Love 'em both, but those two had a dickens of a time keeping track of where we were in relation to where we parked the trucks - it got to be quite the joke every time we ventured out. One time out we decided to try a remote area new to us. We parked the trucks and I marked the spot in my newly acquired GPS as we turned the dogs loose and then started our hunting. After a few hours of meandering all about we came upon a two track and per the required joke I asked them both which way to where we parked the trucks. In this particular case I was SURE that the trucks were just around the corner down the two track off to our right about a quarter mile. After getting answers from those two - neither agreeing with my assessment of direction - they wanted me to fire up the GPS to see who was right, so I did. To my total disbelief, the GPS showed the waypoint to be near where we were, but to the LEFT of us about quarter mile. I immediately called BS and proceeded to try and convince the other two that I was right and this piece of technology was wrong - they weren't buying it. I finally convinced them to take the two track to the right in the direction I had believed - and still believed - was the correct way back to our parked trucks. We started walking and after a quarter mile or so we came to our parked trucks, very much to their surprise as during this leg of the walk the GPS showed us moving further away from the spot it was directing us to. So now we're back to the parked trucks and I'm back to feeling confident in my navigation skills, but I'm confused and disappointed in the GPS situation so I decide I'm going to check out the spot this thing is set at. The other two didn't want to go, so off I went with the GPS in hand checking the screen all along the way until I get to the spot - a small clearing. This particular spot struck me as odd as walking into it appeared to be a perfectly round circle, about 100-ft in diameter, with nothing but tall grass growing in it. No ferns, no saplings, no old stumps. Now is when it got really odd - as I'm standing there looking at the GPS the screen slowly clears itself, first scrolling to a blank screen, then scrolling back to the navigation screen - but with the waypoint now showing THE SPOT WE PARKED THE TRUCKS. I recall turning the device off and back on again only to find it showing the correct spot, and never again did it ever do this. The other odd thing is that during this particular hunt (and I believe when I was standing in that mystery spot) my compass needle switched polarity and to this day is backwards from how it was purchased.

Did you look around for a piece of meteor in the area?

Where is Michigan was this? We hunted near Copper Harbor one year with a friends grandfather. Following the compass that kept taking us in circles to this open area similar to what you described. That was probably 30 yrs ago. We just figured the was a deposit there

There wasn't anything that stood out on the surface, but perhaps something was buried from long ago.




We were in the central portion of the U.P. - lot of iron ore deposits in that area as well.

Iv always wondered where ghosts get their clothes.

This was still one of my weirdest. Checking coon sets ata bout 3:00AM and come.across this in my little flashlight beam. Big mature boar caught in hind foot in 1.5 bridger at dirthole set. Looked like he put up quite a fight before whatever killed and half ate it. A big boar coon is a fairly scrappy animal, and some thing really kicked this ones (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) and ate half of it. Was an eerie walk back out with me scratching my head.



I've come across other odd stuff over my 40+ years on the line. Walked up on a car way out in middle of a corn field near where I had some coyote sets. This was late at night too. Guy and a girl inside sleeping it off. Thought they were dead at first, no just drunk and sleeping and he didn't remember driving into a corn field.stsrtled the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) out of him when I knocked on the window...and I wasn't sure if I should knock or not, they looked dead in my flashlight.


Found homeless camps here and there along creeks, those are weird to walk up on in dark too.

Found about half a box of live 20 gauge shells in small pile in middle of a field once too. Must have fell out of pocket or box but was odd to find, not an everyday occurrence at all.

I have a fishing rod I found, no reel, nice rod too. Had been there all winter and not claimed and looked like it was there well before I noticed it in fencerow. Farmer/landowner didn't recognize it when I finally picked it up and took it to him. His pond is only accessed by 1/2 mile hike through his corn field. He said to keep it nobody supposed to be back there anyway but me for coon and coyotes.

Jim

My buddy and me and 2 other guys were hog hunting in south GA one night. Me and Mike split up from the other 2 guys and we hit a farmers field a couple miles away. We let the dogs loose and we started walking. The field was in an oval shape. By the time we were across the field from the truck I tapped Mike on the shoulder and pointed at the truck. The door was open and you could see a figure standing there looking inside with a head lamp on. The figure stood back and looked up scanning the tree tops. In seconds poof! The figure and the light were gone! Mike hit the other guys on the walkie to see if they were at the truck. They hit back saying they were still a couple miles away. We both looked at each other and ran to the truck. Nothing missing. Truck door and interior light still on. No fresh tracks in the sand. Couldn’t explain it. No house around for miles.

Trapping beaver on a retention pond last week. Still quite a bit of blown snow on one bank and there sits an ice fishing sled, tent in a tote bag, bag of garbage and a LEAF BLOWER. All half buried in snow. I took the sled.

The.electromagnetic flux from the heating elements coupled with the drum rotation create a cross-dimensional portal in your dryer... All of your missing socks go to the great beyond.

My theory is that if you were to reverse the drum drive motor it would pull clothes back in from the other dimension.

Mike

saw a man walking along side the road on one of the farm lanes I trap.............I looked over for a few seconds to change the radio, looked up.......he was gone......vanished...now mind you this was down a lane , all the fields turned, and the closet any trees were, woulda been 1/4 mile away...................I still think about sometimes.

Went to "Blue Oyster Cults" last Lazer Light show concert.Saw all kinds of funky stuff coming back from that one! Oh yea,,and had to check traps the next morning.All I could hear checking traps the next day was "Don't Fear The Reaper".