Is something strange out in the woods? (ghost, light, spirits)
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The reported sighting of a Black panther by CNN/Redstate.com commentator Erik Erickson in his backyard over the past few days or so, has received plenty of (mostly) 'wink and a nudge" reporting on the internet and elsewhere. However it brings up a largely ignored subject. The seemingly constant stream of reports across the U.S. (and around the world) of big cats, black dogs, and all sorts of odd creatures from werewolves to Wendigo, Sasquatch to skunk ape. Is there more out in the deep woods than we realize? Or is it all a good bit of imagination mixed with the desire for notoriety. Ghost dog and black cat sightings have been going on for a loooong time. Hundreds of years in fact. And there are others. Sightings of giant birds have been steadily reported as well. And every so often a report of a giant snake is brought forward, many of which predate the "python release" program that Americans have been involved in for a few decades now
Is there something to it? I think Mr.Erickson would tell you...it's easy to disbelieve..until a creature comes ambling through your yard in mid morning. Anybody spot any thing unusual in the woods? Any good stories or legends you'd like to share?
The seemingly constant stream of reports across the U.S. (and around the world) of big cats, black dogs, and all sorts of odd creatures from werewolves to Wendigo, Sasquatch to skunk ape. Is there more out in the deep woods than we realize? Or is it all a good bit of imagination mixed with the desire for notoriety. Ghost dog and black cat sightings have been going on for a loooong time. Hundreds of years in fact. And there are others. Sightings of giant birds have been steadily reported as well.
Chances are a large percentage is imagination. Back in the days when world (surface) exploration and information was incomplete it was natural to assume the big thing you didn't quite see in the woods was some ferocious unknown creature. Now --- not so much, even though every year we get a few surprises : http://www.cracked.com/article_19719...iscovered.html
AS far as what's deep underground and in the oceans - still a lot of discoveries and surprises ahead.
In the small south Texas town that I live in there are persistent rumors of an old mountain lion hiding up in the wooded hills although there have been no confirmed sightings since the 1950s. I had a big scare though when I went out to try and see what my dogs were going crazy about in the wee hours. Armed with only curiosity I went a hundred feet or so into the deep darkness and suddenly I heard this big DEEP full bodied grunt (the kind which could only be generated from a very large animal) and, terrified, fled back to my house for a flash light and gun.
Chances are it was a wild pig which around here can grow to weigh many hundreds of pounds.
Sounded like a gorilla though.
Last edited by firstborn888; 09-22-2012 at 01:32 AM..
We were hiking the Appalachian trail in SE Pa with our dog one late autumn afternoon. We got to a certain point that had an open area that was used by the Boy scouts and walked a little beyond it a little higher spot on the side of the mountain. We've heard of ghost sightings near there and there was a serial murderer who lived nearby about 200 years ago. Anyway from on our right, ahead of us we heard a "Whump". I would say it sounded somehting like somebody dropping a heavy object on the ground, or maybe closing a car trunk. No cars up there, of course. Our dog got nervous and started to pull to go back and my brother and I both had an uneasy feeling so we turned and headed back down the trail. We heard some brush moving off to the side above us so we kept going at a fast walk, now more uneasy. We stooped and heard the same " Whump", this time AHEAD of us but still above us on the mountain. Not really close but not far either. Whatever it was it was paralleling us and moving faster than we were. We got to the fork in the trail and headed down the mountain looking over our shoulders the whole time.
What was it? I don't know. It could have been a deer making the noise in the brush but that heavy thudding whump sound has me puzzled. And I got the distinct impression it was following us and something made our dog uneasy.
Probably drug cartel activity. It's been like that here in the southwest for years. We can't even go out arrow head hunting in the desert anymore for fear of running into them.
There are wood spirits - will O' the wisps that beckon people into the woods. They can appear as a light, the cry of a child or an animal. Anything to get you into the woods.
I am not big of cryptozoology but I do believe in sylvan spirits.
Well I can tell you that Icy Tea's story scared me. I would have been a wreck if that happened to me.
As far as the OP talking about a black panther I'll tell you a quick story of when I saw a black panther in the hills. I lived in a kind of rural area of S. Calif. All around the town were fields and hills. In our town was a place called Jungleland. The best way I could desribe this place was a worn out wild animal park, a small one. They had a lot of wild big cats and put on a cat show once a day for visitors. There were birds and misc. animals. The one thing about it was it was not kept up. These poor cats were in these small cages and just paced. Every once in awhile, like once every few years, a cat would escape and the whole town would be a wreck until they found it. Very often they found the cats somewhere within Jungleland and would shoot and kill the poor things because they didn't have tranquilizing guns then and had to do something. Well one year a black panther escaped and got out of the compound and was not found. Our church was a ways from our home and you had to drive through a lot of open area with hills in the background. On our way to church one Sunday we saw that black panther up against the hills walking. Can you imagine being out in the hills hiking or something and running across something like that? Pretty scary.
Back when I was a pre-teen, my Dad was taking me to school one morning and the traffic was especially bad coming out of our neighborhood. The main chokepoint was an intersection in a wooded area that led to the interstate, more woods and more neighborhoods. We heard car horns honking and all of a sudden some man like creature comes shambling out of the woods, across the road and back in to the woods. We only saw it for a few seconds and it was gone and the ntraffic started moving again. I asked my dad, "Whoah! What was that?" He just shrugged, "looked like a bear." But I knew it wasn't a bear, more like a gorilla, but neither made sense in this area. I never heard anything else about it, never saw anything on the news and none of my neighbors that I knew were in the line of cars that morning to confirm what we had seen. My Dad stopped talking about it and I eventually forgot about it, even to the point where I thought maybe I had dreamed it. Years later, and I mean like a decade or so he just happened to bring it up and I about fell out of my chair. Still have no clue what it was.
There are all sorts of entities "in the woods." The forest pulses with life and energy and spirits.
If you have any stories to share, I think many of us would be interested to hear them.
Was just reading about the Big Thicket in Southeast Texas. A ghost light has been reported there, as well as black panthers with luminous eyes, and wild-man sightings. But what I find even more fascinating is that numerous people over the years have reported seeing and occasionally being tracked by primitive looking Native Americans. Most of these sightings are right on the edge of the swamps. What I find so fascinating about this, is that the descriptions seem to match the Karankawas, a Indian tribe of the 1700's to early 1800's who then promptly vanished from the history books. There doesn't seem to be any great war or famine to account for their disappearance, but disappear they did. Now I'm not sure I can believe that a Native American tribe could remain hidden and unknown in the swamps without being discovered for 200 or so years.. but the reports are fascinating. Really I'm not sure what to make of it, but it is still interesting.
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