Scary things

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Okay. Time to come clean. I don't normally come out with this story, but what the hell. I'm jobless and this is the internet and I'm way past giving a whole lot of damn.

Here's the thread: anything you can't explain scare the crap out of you ever? I guess what has got me thinking about it was my dad in law was watching a show on the Lizardman and Bigfoot on TV last night and we got to talking.

Okay, for the record: I have not seen Bigfoot or Lizardman. I have not seen bigfoot footprints, hair, or any sort of thing like that. I am not making any sort of claims. I simply got a scare and don't know how to explain it.

So here it is. (I get severe gooseflesh every time I think about this. This may be one of the top "scared as I've ever been" story.)

So, my cousin and I were camping in the woods where we grew up (which we did pretty much any time it was warm enough.). I think we were young adults at the time, I don't remember my age, but I think it was around high school. She and I knew the area. We were not flakey girls afraid of the dark telling ghost stories. We were seasoned county kids enjoying a warm night in the woods, cooking hot dogs over a small fire and chit chatting about nothing in particular.

And just outside the perimeter of the light thrown off by our tiny cookfire, where it kind of reflected off the brush surrounding the clearing we were camped in, came this God awful, gutteral, (geeze, lookit me, I am COVERED in gooseflesh right now), deep-throated growling. The brush was twitching a bit, like something was there.

Two things:
1. We always camped with dogs. Dogs are like portable alarm systems. Girls alone in the woods have to learn to be wary. My dog didn't bark this time. He turned, tail tucked hard between his legs and hauled ass with all the hair on his back sticking straight up.

2. So did we, actually. In fact, neither of us realized we were running full out in the other direction until we'd gotten halfway to civilization. Me, her, the dog. We were that scared. We suddenly all three of us stopped dead and just abruptly turned around, panting, like we'd shaken off whatever panic we'd had.

We actually ended up going back eventually. We stayed the night, but we didn't sleep any. We hiked up to my aunt's place before going back to camp and made a call to the friend who'd helped us carry our gear down, thinking maybe he was pranking us. He answered the phone, so it clearly wasn't him. And anyways, no. Neither of us really thought that it was him, but hey, you look for explanations.

To this day, no clue.

I'm pretty well convinced something odd was down there in that area. I don't know what, and I'm not thinking it was a "bigfoot". But something was down there and in the surrounding areas. That's not the only story I have. It's just probably the scariest.

This was a stone's throw from Fort Jackson Military Reservation. Lotta big woods in the area.

[Food Lady]

Well, I have a few stories about contact with entities I cannot name. (I don't believe in ghosts, per se, but I do believe in other spiritual entities). I was scared at the time, but when I think of them now, I just think of them as things that happened one time.

[Dave1982]

I can't recall any "single event" that terrified me beyond reason like that, nor do I have any unusual phobias, but there was that latch-hook clown.....

Now, I'm not afraid of clowns, nor have I ever been. I've never cared for them (or for the circus in general) but I've never been afraid of them.

That having been said, when I was a VERY little kid, my aunt made a latch hook clown that was hung on my bedroom wall, and that thing scared the HELL out of me at night. During the day I wasn't really bothered by it, but at night, in low light, it looked UGLY and downright terrifying. I would refuse to look at it at night. If I had to get out of bed for any reason, I'd close my eyes as I walked past it. Hell, now that I think of it, I think I started sleeping on my side - which I continue to do to this day - so that if I opened my eyes during the night I wouldn't have to see it's garish smile.

So why didn't I just take it down? Well, for a long time it was hung so high that I [/i]couldn't[/i] take it down. Plus, since it was a hand-made gift (though hardly a high-quality one; it was mounted on a hunk of cardboard cut off the side of a box), I thought I'd get in trouble if I said I didn't like it.

So for YEARS that clown haunted me. It even "followed" me to our new house when we moved when I was 4. It wasn't until around the time my kid brother was born that it finally went away. We were re-arranging my room (and setting up a room for when my brother would be born) and I said the clown should go, finally fessing up that I'd always hated it.

My mother was rather aghast that I'd waited so long to say anything about it (though by that time I wasn't actively afraid of it. It only annoyed me because was a reminder of the times when it DID frighten me). She told my aunt, who later apologized for having caused so much angst, and gave her blessing to get rid of it.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

Once, when I was young (6-ish, I think), I had an incredibly vivid dream that I was floating, and I was in the opposite corner of the room, up by the ceiling, watching myself sleep... and it was like looking through a lens where everything was distorted.

I woke up in a cold sweat and couldn't sleep for hours after that.

That's the only thing I can think of that really freaked me out.











Although, I do get weirded out by low-hanging clouds for some reason. When it's just about to storm, and the cloud cover above looks like you could just reach out and touch it... and then see where the clouds are starting to circle, I'm always expecting a funnel. I have, too... there even was a tornado that touched down a few miles from here, caught on video.

Yeah, that gets a little freaky for me.

[Toujin]

Even though I'm a skeptic, I still enjoy reading about the paranormal. Unfortunately, I also have an overactive imagination, which has resulted in me making a point of not reading that stuff at night...

Still, something normal that unnerves me is oddly enough...the daddy-longlegs. I'm not talking about the cellar spiders that are often given said moniker either, but the arachnids that don't spin webs and scavenge along the ground.

No, it has nothing to do with that ridiculous urban myth about them being the most poisonous creatures on the planet. I actually don't know why I'm so unnerved by them. A friend of mine suggested that it might be those legs, or it might be the way they someimes congregate in those huge hordes. I know they're actually harmless, but still...

[blas]

I have watched multiple documentaries on Bigfoot. With all the supposed sightings of him (in almost every state), it looks like he must get around more than Angelina's inner thighs do!

All joking aside, there was a huge Bigfoot riot around these parts in Wisconsin a little over 10 years ago when a giant footprint was found by a tree. I mean, bigger than Shaq footprint. I think it was a prank.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Scarily enough, we did find footprints...I can't remember if this was before or after this incident, it was so long ago. I should have kept a log. They weren't bigfoot prints, but they were unexplainable, weird, unsettlingly large prints. We took a cast that has since disappeared (of course) in the several decades that followed. Found them on a firebrake frequently used by hunters. Prints were down the other end of the brake, and only one of them was real clear and clean, so we took a cast.

Looked almost like dog prints in some regards, only you could see claw tips (not a canine print feature) and a shallow heel (suggesting that it bore it's weight forward). And it was six inches wide at the toe spread and about about 5 from the long toe to the heel.

Brought the print back and showed it to the menfolk. Who then scoffed, said "dog print" then proceeded to arm themselves like guerilla warriors and comb the woods all freaked out. One of the hypocritical bastards was wearing one of those ammo sash things.

Found nothing.

[Kittish]

RK, sounds like your visitor might have been some sort of cat. I don't know what part of the country this happened in, but it's possible it could have been a bobcat or mountain lion that you heard and/or found the prints of. Though I do have to admit that in either case I can't imagine what one would be doing that close to people, much less a campfire.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I thought about that, too, but two things kind of baffle me. One, the heel. Two, the claws (actually, I mispoke in my earlier post, it's canines that display claws in their tracks, not felines.).

I've heard bobcats in the woods screaming at night and have seen their tracks. And while I've never seen one or really any compelling sign of one, I had a rather reliable, coolheaded, steady friend who swore he saw one of those huge black cats that supposedly don't exist in the southeast once while he was driving a dark backroad.

The growl didn't sound feline (and I've worked at the zoo, so I've heard all kinds of cats growling). In fact, I don't know what the hell it sounded like. I've never heard anything like it before or since. It was deep, and started out like a low rumble, and then (here come the damn chills again) built quickly into an almost bear-like roar. Hell, maybe it WAS a bear, but those are not something we really have a lot of around here. Never seen sign one of a bear. What made it sound so damn chilling was that no lie, it was almost articulate. Which made us wonder at first if our friend was pranking us. But it was way too animal to have been him. I thought cat, boar, bear, huge feral dog. I just don't know.

And my dog would not have panicked and bolted the way he had from our friend.

Oh, almost forgot to tell you. This was in southeast Columbia, South Carolina. Just across the road a bit from Fort Jackson military base, in an area where the woods go on for quite a bit. They are deep woods now, and they were even deeper and more remote then.

[Megg]

In regards to the OP, it most likely was a regular old mountain cat or maybe even a bear, but you sure as heck did the right thing! Even if it wasn't something weird like Bigfoot, if a wild animal came that close to you, he was hungry. Yikes!

I only had one thing freak me out beyond belief, ever. I was 18 -ish and staying with my friend John. He and his roommate were college students, so during the day I was there by myself. I was taking a shower one afternoon and something happened that actually made me move out. I love a steamy bathroom, so the first thing I always did was put a towel against the edge of the door and close the A/C vent. (I don't do that anymore, btw! LOL) So here I was, washing my hair, and I felt a blast of cold air. I was confused. Then I realized, it was staying cold. At that point (I know this sounds cheesy and stupid, but it is what I felt) I felt a presence. It was not a happy feeling, either. I was being watched by someone or something that wished to do me harm. I cannot explain how I knew this, but I did. I booked it, shampoo in my hair and all. I threw on the nearest clothes and went to my friend's house, where I rinsed my hair (lol) and called and left a message on John's machine telling him to call me when he got there. I refused to enter that apartment without him there. When we got to the apartment, he proceeded to tell me that the guy who lived there before him supposedly killed himself after he found out his girlfriend had cheated on him, and her baby wasn't his. I started packing and never went back there.

Wow, that was longer than I thought. Sorry.

ETA: Wow, RK, that gave me chills. I fully believe you when you talk about that growl, you obviously know what you are talking about. Myself, being the paranoid I am (who reads too much Stephen King lol) wonders what the government is really doing out there!

[draftermatt]

I live near Gettysburg, and have gone on 3 of their "ghost walks" lots of fun and very interesting if you're ever in the area.

On the first one we were taken to a barn that's a "hot spot" for paranormal activity.

The guide dared any of us to stand near this one window, as she'd never had anyone be able to stay there for more than a few seconds.

My buddy and I got close, and you could just feel this cold eerie wind coming from this barn. Creeped me out.

I've got pictures from my ghost tours if anyone is interested http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/inde...1095020&page=2.

After my grandfather died I kept having dreams about him where he was still alive. Then when my grandmother (his wife) died 7 years later, the dreams increased. Months later I'd start crying thinking about her.

Then one night I had a dream where she came to me and told me I had to come with her. I started screaming and cussing at her (I never would have yelled at her) telling her I wasn't going anywhere with her, and that she could go to hell, and that she wasn't my grandmother. I then forced myself to wake up.

I haven't cried about her, or dreamed about either of them since.

I often wondered if some "thing" had taken advantage of my grief to get into my head.

[1756GR2]

Irrational fear? The innards of things like old TVs but only when I have to squeeze around behind them to see. Creeps me out. And things, for example, like having to investigate a hole in the ceiling when we had a bad leak in the roof. The lath holding what was left of the plaster was deteriorating and chunks had come out so you could see the roof trusses above it. Dunno why, must have something to do with my claustrophobia, but it actually gives me the shakes and I all but black out. Can't figure out where the fear comes from, either, or I could exorcise it.

[Thuringwethyl]

In regards to the OP, it most likely was a regular old mountain cat or maybe even a bear, but you sure as heck did the right thing! Even if it wasn't something weird like Bigfoot, if a wild animal came that close to you, he was hungry. Yikes!

If it was really hungry, would it have roared before attacking? It would make more sense, hunting-wise, to stay quiet until after the kill (genuinely curious).

I know I've felt things before and have been paranoid. The shopping center I work at was built over a veteran's hospital and sometimes I've seen people out of the corner of my eye that weren't there when I turned to greet them. However I do have an excellent imagination and can create feelings/hallucinations out of nothing.

[Megg]

If it was really hungry, would it have roared before attacking? It would make more sense, hunting-wise, to stay quiet until after the kill (genuinely curious).

That makes sense, now that I think about it. Maybe they were close to a lair? Perhaps it was a mommy something? I dunno, I doubt I would have thought much about it, I would be too busy running. As soon as the dog turned tail, I would make it my mission in life to outrun him. Some things, I don't need to know that bad.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

If it was really hungry, would it have roared before attacking? It would make more sense, hunting-wise, to stay quiet until after the kill (genuinely curious).

.

You know, that is an excellent point.

Man. Talking about it again has made me kind of obsess over it in my head again, like I did back then.

I will say I felt extremely strongly that something was stalking me one afternoon when I was walking along one of the other firebreaks alone. I wasn't real deep in the woods, I was on a road that ran parallel to the fields, down into the edge of the woods. I wasn't really doing a hike, I'd just run down there to grab something I think (we had stuff "stored" in the edge of the woods like barrels, buckets, etc.), so I was barefoot.

Something was walking parallel the firebreak, keeping pace with me. It was down the slope (the road ran along the side of a ridge), down in the hollow where the bushes were thick. The longer it went on the more I realized I wasn't imagining it and it wasn't a coincidence. Eventually, my nerve broke and I tore off running for my parent's house like a scared rabbit.

So I'm walking around my folks house (they weren't home) and I realize there's blood all over the floor. It was from my foot. I'd gashed open my foot and was bleeding like a stuck pig. I was so unnerved and hopped up on adrenaline, I hadn't even felt it.