308: Something In The Wilderness - Ch 1: Missing People & Strange Phenomena

[00:00:00] Tonight, I'll be taking a look at several unnerving experiences that occurred in the great outdoors and involved the eyewitnesses reporting unnatural phenomena, ranging from bizarre sightings of strange creatures to being lured away by unseen forces.

[00:00:29] But before I begin, I'd like to recognize Rio Bravo Pictures, Spectra, and Steve for their contributions on PayPal and Patreon. Thank you so much for your support and generosity. And of course, the show wouldn't be possible without all of my amazing listeners around the world.

[00:00:48] I appreciate all of you for listening. And with that being said, sit back, relax, and join me as we enter the strange and fascinating world of the unexplained. I'm your host Nic Ryan, and this is Paranormal Mysteries. There is something in the wilderness.

[00:01:25] It uses the forests, mountains, and wild places to disguise its mysterious intent. What is it? No one truly knows. It presents itself in different forms to different people, with some claiming to encounter strange creatures that shouldn't exist, while others experience disorientation and a feeling as

[00:01:45] though they're being hunted or even led into a trap. In some cases, the victims seem to vanish into thin air, only to be found days, months, or even years later, under extremely bizarre circumstances. I've covered similar topics in many of my other episodes, and while some people dismiss

[00:02:06] the phenomena as nothing more than hallucinations or people simply becoming lost in the woods, those that have come face-to-face with this nameless threat will tell you that what they encountered was very real and anything but innocent.

[00:02:23] Now perhaps in some of these cases it is nothing more than people misidentifying a particular animal they're not familiar with, or just letting their imagination get the best of them. But for the hundreds of other eyewitnesses that have had first-hand encounters, I believe

[00:02:37] that we owe it to them and ourselves to investigate these reports with an open mind, because for all we know, the wilderness could be hiding something far more sinister than we could possibly imagine. Today's topic is one of my favorites because it encompasses so many different types of

[00:02:56] experiences, yet they all have one thing in common. They all took place in the great outdoors. So today I've put together various reports of high strangeness that involve many different oddities, all of which seem to lead credibility to the belief that the wilderness holds many

[00:03:13] bizarre and mysterious forces. As I relay each article and experience, I'll be mentioning the source from which it came, but please be sure to also visit the show notes where I have referenced these reports

[00:03:26] and I urge you to visit the links that I've provided in order to give them the credit that they deserve. I'll begin tonight with a sighting of a strange creature. This report was posted on Mysterious Universe and originates from a website called Your

[00:03:43] Ghost Stories, and it's an account from a woman who had a bizarre experience as she was hiking in the summertime with her boyfriend in the mountains of Italy. On one of these peaceful hikes, she reached the end of a trail before her boyfriend, so

[00:03:57] she decided to wait there and enjoy the tranquil scene while she waited for him to arrive. As she waited, she saw something unnerving. It appeared to be a creature that resembled what's known as a chamois or mountain goat, which are native to the European mountains.

[00:04:14] However, there was something abnormal about this particular animal, as the witness would go on to explain. I was sitting there on a rock and I don't know how, but I felt like something was in the woods behind me.

[00:04:29] Behind me there was a precipice that was not very deep though, and the forest would cover the end of it and all around. I stood up and tried to see if there was something down there, and that's when I saw it.

[00:04:41] I still get shivers when I think about it. Deep down there, there was a chamois, a beautiful one with long horns. I got excited because I rarely see one. I was looking at him from behind.

[00:04:54] His fur was light brown and he had a black line that went from the neck to the tail. But something was very wrong with it, and that's when I froze. His front legs looked like they didn't end in a normal cloven hoof, but he had three

[00:05:08] fingers at the end of his front legs, similar to a bird claw, but not that sharp. The back legs seemed normal, which I could see because he was walking very slowly and calmly through the vegetation.

[00:05:21] Then I noticed with great horror that his face seemed flat, with no muscle. I couldn't look at him directly in the face, and I couldn't see his forehead and nose. But what should have been there just wasn't.

[00:05:34] Thinking about it now, I really wish that I had seen his face, just to see how the eyes and mouth were organized. He disappeared in the pine's shadow, and I was still there shocked when my boyfriend finally arrived.

[00:05:47] I told him what I saw, but he didn't believe me, and he just laughed. I know it's not scary, and it can even be funny if you think about it. A chamois with eagle legs and a flat face.

[00:05:58] I thought about it all the time that we were descending. It was so weird, and at the end I told myself that I must have dreamt it, even if I would love to know that I wasn't the only one to see that thing.

[00:06:10] I'd like to think that it was a deity that took the form of a chamois. There wasn't any village at the mountain's foot, so I couldn't ask if someone else had seen it too, or if someone knew anything about a weird animal that was living in the forest.

[00:06:29] An even odder tale comes from a Reddit poster who claims that at the time he had been in the wilds outside of Houston, Texas, in what he describes as an isolated patch of forest by a creek.

[00:06:41] He had set up a hammock that evening and was relaxing and listening to the sounds of the night when something strange came for him. He describes what happened. This night it was dark, like extra dark.

[00:06:55] I think the moon was covered up, but there was still enough city light to create a dim, atmospheric glow. I heard some movement, definitely coming my way where I was on the creek. It didn't seem as cautious as most of the other animals, which startled me.

[00:07:10] Whatever was coming my way was ballsy. I don't think I had my knife at the time, so I think I grabbed a stick and listened quietly as the sound got closer. It kept walking in my direction, but I could barely see a thing.

[00:07:25] But eventually it got pretty close, and I could faintly see a silhouette. This wasn't an animal I had seen before. It was white with long legs, too tall to be a hog, and definitely not a deer.

[00:07:38] It just stood there staring at me, as if it was pissed that I was in its spot or something. I don't think I made any sudden movements or anything, but I just sat there looking, trying to figure out what it was.

[00:07:51] Eventually it went back into the forest, and honestly, even with how much I go through those same patches of woods, I've never seen it again. I was thinking that it was a wolf or a coyote, but this thing was white, like white enough

[00:08:05] to see him in almost pitch black darkness. And he had long legs, and a real dignified demeanor. He just stared at me, not scared at all, before he calmly disappeared. I ain't seen nothing like that before, and I ain't seen it since.

[00:08:22] Nor have I seen any footprints or anything that really seems indicative of what it was. It just had long legs, white fur, and a really calm, dignified demeanor. After his encounter, the witness also described feeling a sense of power and menace coming from the entity.

[00:08:46] The next couple of reports I'd like to share with you don't involve strange creatures necessarily, but have more to do with bizarre forces that seem to cause confusion or disorientation, resulting in the eyewitness becoming lost or even turning up missing, with no explanation as to why.

[00:09:03] Some people believe that this phenomena could be related to Feyfolk and other unexplained energies. But as always, I'll let you be the judge. This particular report involves a woman who worked as a housekeeper at a sprawling estate in the Irish countryside.

[00:09:19] One evening, she decided to take a walk back to her own village to visit her family. A walk that took her through an area with a hill called Lysard Fort, which was known to locals as a place where fairies dwelled.

[00:09:32] The woman passed through without incident and headed down the hill. Yet she suddenly blinked and found herself walking the opposite way, back up the hill. She couldn't understand how this could have happened, and she turned back around and reached a ditch at the bottom of the hill.

[00:09:48] All she had to do was step over this ditch, and she would be on the road to her village. But every time she tried, she once again found herself going the opposite direction, as if some barrier was preventing her from passing over.

[00:10:02] For hours she was stuck there like this, so it was with relief that she saw a search party approaching to look for her. But when she shouted to them and waved her hands, they couldn't see her.

[00:10:13] She would go on for another hour before whatever spell had been cast was lifted, and she was finally able to continue on her way. A similar case is that of a man who attended a party at an estate and left to walk home,

[00:10:29] with his path taking him across a field. As he walked, he noticed that not only did the field seem to never end, but that it had changed somehow to become quite unfamiliar to him, despite the fact that he had gone through that field countless times before.

[00:10:45] In this case, the man apparently was quick to suspect that this was due to the stray sod, so he quickly turned all his clothes inside out. But this did not seem to work.

[00:10:56] He would walk around the field for hours without any sign of a way out, before he finally found an exit and ended up at the house that he had left, where it seemed that only several

[00:11:06] minutes had actually passed, despite the fact that to him he had been wandering... for hours. There are numerous other reports of this phenomena happening outside of Ireland as well, and there are other versions of what appears to be the same phenomenon in the lore of other areas.

[00:11:26] For instance, in Finnish folklore, there is what is called metsenpieto, meaning forest cover, which, like stray sod, is a magical force produced by forest spirits that causes people to not only become lost, but to also become invisible to other people looking for them.

[00:11:44] Also like the stray sod, one way to negate the effects is to either put on one's clothes inside out, or put their shoes on the opposite feet. Japan also has its own similar phenomenon, called kamikakushi, or spirited away, in which

[00:12:02] people are lured away by spirits to be abducted and brought to another realm. Whatever one calls the phenomenon, it is almost always the same sort of thing, with people getting lost, unable to find an exit, and very often unable to call out for help,

[00:12:18] even when someone else is nearby. Often also describing the sense of being in a sort of parallel realm, with the scenery changed or twisted somehow. There are other equally strange and difficult to categorize cases as well.

[00:12:36] As in August of 1897, a six-year-old girl named Lillian Kearney went missing in the US state of Maine, as she was out with her parents picking blueberries. According to the parents, she had vanished right from underneath their noses.

[00:12:50] A preliminary search of the area would quickly expand to over 200 searchers scouring the area and calling the girl's name, all to no avail. After an extensive search, Lillian was found in the woods in a dazed and trance-like state.

[00:13:06] When asked what had happened to her, the dazed girl replied that she had been in a place in the forest where the sun had shone the entire time she had been there. This was rather odd considering that the weather at the time of her disappearance had

[00:13:20] been partly cloudy. She had been enveloped by a thick canopy of trees far from any town. And she had been missing overnight. For around 46 hours. Before I continue, remember that you can share your experience with me through email or voice message at paranormalmysteriespodcast.com or at sharemyevp.com.

[00:13:46] And if you're interested in showing your support, please consider following and sharing the podcast. You can also help by giving me a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show.

[00:13:57] You can also support me on Patreon, buy me a coffee, or PayPal by making a one-time donation. Or become a member and listen to every episode ad-free. If you're looking for additional ways to get involved, please visit our website and join the forum.

[00:14:12] And be sure to follow me on social media for show updates and information on future content. And of course, links to all of my contact and support information can be found in the show notes. These next reports follow a similar phenomenon, where the witnesses seem to experience some

[00:14:31] type of confusion or the feeling that they're becoming lost, but also involve some type of malevolent creature or entity that they believe is stalking them. This first experience was reported by a poster named Hanny242, who was at Big Bend National Park in southern Texas.

[00:14:52] She had gone out camping in the area with a friend and her husband, and describes the landscape as flat, desolate, and remote, and they thought that it would be fun to take a night hike out to the nearest trail.

[00:15:03] Since it was a bright, moonlight evening through that flat terrain, they thought that it would be easy, but the witness says that as a precaution she had set out some rock piles early on to help them find their way.

[00:15:16] After dinner, they headed out around 10pm, but they were all in for a terrifying experience. This is her story. The first 10 minutes were pretty uneventful, and we were all in good spirits. Suddenly though, we hear a scuttling noise from about 50 feet behind us.

[00:15:34] Having been used to animal noises at night, we wrote it off as a critter. A few minutes later though, we heard the same noise a bit closer, and sounding like a bigger animal. There are black bears here, but we weren't in that area they're normally sighted.

[00:15:49] Like I said, the landscape was wide open, and we didn't see anything with our flashlights. We were a bit uneasy, but willing to go on. The rock piles had been doing a good job of leading us in the right direction. All at once, I stopped, feeling absolute terror.

[00:16:06] It's an indescribable feeling that I see many others in the subreddit reference. I knew we were in danger, I just didn't know why. I looked to my friend and my husband who both looked as terrified as I felt. There was no sound, no wind.

[00:16:22] Then in an instant, the most inhuman scream erupted, seemingly from all around us. We all froze for what felt like minutes, but I'm sure it was just seconds. I don't remember making the decision to run back, but the next thing I remember, we were all running.

[00:16:39] We made it pretty far out, even though I thought that I was running in the right direction of our camp. I remember scanning for the rock piles I had made, but not being able to find any of them,

[00:16:49] and almost turning back, thinking that we were heading in the wrong direction. But I had the instinct not to. We made it to a rather large rock that I knew was on the route back to the campsite.

[00:17:01] I also remembered putting a rock pile beside the rock, so I went to check if it was still there to make sure that we were headed back to our campsite. The rocks were still there, but they had been knocked over.

[00:17:13] This set off all the alarms, and I told my friend and my husband that we had to get back to the camp as soon as possible. We made it back a few minutes later, and by the time we got back, I was entirely freaked

[00:17:24] out and I didn't want to stay. I think my husband was as well, but my friend convinced us that it was just wildlife, so we stayed in the tent that night. I don't know if it was connected, but there was scuttling and footsteps around the tent all night.

[00:17:40] Either way, I didn't sleep. We didn't do any more primitive hiking that trip, and opted instead to stay at a campsite in one of the community camps. I've never felt that feeling before or since, and I've been in the woods at night plenty of times.

[00:17:57] The next day I went out to check if all the rock piles had been knocked down, and they had. I don't think an animal would deliberately go around knocking over the markers, and that's really what makes me think that it was sentient.

[00:18:10] I don't know what it was, but I don't want to know, and I'm glad that we made it out. In the next report, the origin of the strange sounds and inexplicable fear is actually seen.

[00:18:26] This report comes from Reddit user throwaway84648, and it was posted on the Humanoid Encounters forum. The reporter says that on this evening he headed out to a wooded area in Wisconsin to go to a party that some friends were having.

[00:18:41] Along the way they got a little lost, but were able to get directions by cell phone, and they continued making their way through the dark trees, finding their way by the beam of their flashlight. They still seemed lost, inexplicably going around in circles, and passing the same clearing

[00:18:58] several times, and the witness claims that some very strange things would start to occur. This is what he had to say. I joked that she better not get me killed, and as we nervously laugh, we hear a nyah,

[00:19:14] nyah, nyah sound coming from behind us, followed by what sounded like a cross between an old train whistle and somebody blowing. We turn around thinking, what the heck was that? And we shine our flashlights on a deer standing up on its hind legs with one arm against a

[00:19:32] tree looking at us. I know this sounds stupid, but just the way that it was watching us and standing there was the most unsettling thing I've seen in my life. My friend then takes off running, and I'm still just standing there looking at it, trying

[00:19:47] to make heads or tails of it before I start running after Gina, trying not to be left alone with this thing. Luckily for me, Gina runs into a tree, and I catch up with her and start yelling at her

[00:19:58] about leaving me alone, and this is when we hear another whistling sound to the left of us, and we turn our flashlights to see another deer looking at us. However, this one is walking towards us on its hind legs, but not like a person.

[00:20:13] It was like a dog. It gets close, but walks behind a tree with only its head and neck poking out, watching us. I have never been so scared in my life, and I started to cry, and started yelling at Gina and telling her to call the cops.

[00:20:29] At this point, I honestly thought that I was going to die. I was just so scared. And then we heard another whistle somewhere else in the woods, behind us. We heard a rustling sound in the woods, and we were sure that this was it, and we were

[00:20:42] going to die. But instead, out walked a giant black dog. The dog then walked right up to us, looked at us, and then looked at the deer behind the tree, which then started making a nyah-nyah sound like we had heard earlier.

[00:20:57] However, the dog just stood there looking at it, not growling or barking or anything. Just staring. The deer then started to make a coughing sound, but the dog just stared at it without making

[00:21:09] a noise, before turning around and just ignoring it, and then walking over to us, and barking and baying. A minute later, a professor who I'd taken a class with sophomore year burst through

[00:21:20] the brush and started yelling at Baron, his dog who had apparently run away into the woods. He was really confused to see us, but saw that we were crying, and offered to take us back to his house, and drive us back to campus.

[00:21:35] I haven't slept since that night, and have been all over the internet trying to make sense of what I saw. I fully intend to spoil Baron Rotten for saving my life. Just as bizarre and terrifying is a report from a poster called Kaijikai, who was out

[00:21:54] camping at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky with her husband and a friend at the time. They had been there many times before, and on this evening they did something they often

[00:22:03] enjoyed while there, which was making their way to the top of a high trail to go stargazing. They had been up this trail countless times before, and knew it very well, but this evening was to be a bit more unusual.

[00:22:17] They made it to the top and laid down to do their stargazing, but almost immediately they began hearing strange noises all around them. And the witness would describe the following events. We laid down and tried to stargaze, but the clouds were even thicker now. It was miserably hot.

[00:22:36] We could hear voices at times, and my husband kept checking for people that we heard. However, he never saw anyone. We saw flashes of light, but never saw anyone attached to it. Then we heard a bird call, but it wasn't like a real bird noise at all.

[00:22:51] It sounded like a person making bird calls. It was rhythmic, and not really natural. I was convinced we weren't alone, and hadn't been alone, but also I am the most easily spooked.

[00:23:03] I asked to leave as soon as they were ready to, and they were ready right then and there. It scared me that they were just as afraid as me at this point.

[00:23:13] We began going down the way that we came, and it felt like it was taking so long. We were going steady and quick, and it was downhill, but we weren't making any ground it seemed.

[00:23:23] It's hard to explain, but it was so weird that at one point I even said out loud, This feels much longer. And they both agreed with me. I kept looking behind me with a flashlight.

[00:23:34] My husband kept looking out to the sides, and my friend kept hers mostly forward. Now as they made their way down the trail, they could hear all sorts of undefinable noises coming from the dark, and the husband would say that he kept catching what looked like

[00:23:48] eyes in the beam of the flashlight. There were also what sounded like footsteps in the dark, and they were sure that they were being followed by someone or something. Then things got even scarier, and the witness explains what happened next. My husband just stops walking altogether and says,

[00:24:08] What's that? But the question is more of like an alert, and I move my hand lamp in that direction, and I don't see anything at first. Then both of his lights catch a shape, and then my headlamp catches it.

[00:24:22] I move my hand lamp to the center and catch it while my friend simultaneously finds it in her lights as well. All six of our lights shine onto and kind of reflect off of a light gray creature.

[00:24:34] It's bent into a crouching position, kneeling on its right leg, and it starts turning towards us. It starts to slowly stand, and my mind is racing still. It looks human, but it is too big.

[00:24:48] People often mistake human shapes for what's actually bears in the woods, but this is skinny. It's thin and big, and almost white it's so light gray, and its skin resembles dolphin's skin. There's a shine to it, and our lights get reflected a little when they're on it.

[00:25:06] It gradually comes to a full standing position in front of us. Its head is long, and its eyes are in a human position on the face in front, and not on the side like in animals, but I couldn't see any other facial features.

[00:25:20] Just big, almost empty holes or pits where the eyes were. It looked directly at us and our lights. The way it stood was intimidating, almost like when snakes raise up and flex their necks all crazy to show the prey that they're stronger and smarter.

[00:25:37] It was kind of like it was stepping up to a fight. From crouching, then turning, and then standing front on in front of us, the arms hung down low, and the hands seemed long as well. Its hands had to be by its knees.

[00:25:52] I'd guess it stood nine feet or so, and not that far in front of us. It had no hair at all, and its head was large as well. I couldn't process what I saw, and I was frozen.

[00:26:05] Then I feel my husband hitting me on the back and yelling, Run! Run! Run! I start to understand that we have to get away from this thing, and then it pivots and runs to the right,

[00:26:15] going backwards on the trail so it could get around the barrier and onto the trail behind us. We take off running the rest of the way down the trail, knowing that this thing just took off much faster than us, and that after it crossed from behind the barrier,

[00:26:29] it would be gaining on us quick. We didn't talk at all, because when we tried to, it felt like we would get caught. We keep running as we can, but some areas are so steep. It never felt like we were out of sight from this creature,

[00:26:43] and as we made it to the trail beginning with the gravel, we could hear something to the side, crashing down through the forest. We ran until we got to the car, and then we drove as fast as we could,

[00:26:54] and as soon as we got to the main road, it cleared up, and the stars were out. When that thing looked at us, I knew it was smarter and faster than us. I knew that if we hadn't seen it,

[00:27:06] that it could have easily taken one of us and then gotten away. I think that the only reason it hesitated was because so many of us saw it at once. And we stayed together. These experiences are only a fraction of the strangeness being reported in the wilderness,

[00:27:24] and in part two, I'll be looking at even more odd cases, some of which involve people vanishing altogether. I hope you'll join me. In the meantime, I'd like you to reminisce about your previous experiences while hiking, camping, or spending time in nature.

[00:27:42] Perhaps you've seen or heard something that you can't explain. If so, please reach out to me, because I would love to hear about your experience. Until next time, thank you all for listening, and I look forward to having you back here for my next episode,

[00:27:58] as we continue our journey into the unexplained. Right here on Paranormal Mysteries.