The sheer variety of strange and unidentified creatures that people on the internet report encountering is pretty astonishing. Especially since many of these sightings can’t be so easily explained away as the individual merely having mistaken their own shadow for the bogeyman. From reported encounters with long-limbed, faceless creatures, to being pursued by giant, fur-covered humanoids with 14-inch feet, let’s check out some horrifying run-ins with unknown predators that’re sure to send chills down your spine.
The Long-Armed Thing
Back in 2017, an anonymous Reddit user, who we’ll call Adam, shared an experience he had back when he was 11-years-old, living in a small, southern Oklahoma neighborhood surrounded by woodland. One summer’s day in the 90’s, a friend from Adam’s class came over with his 8-year-old brother. The boys spent the day having fun exploring the woods, but as they returned in the afternoon down a quiet, overgrown trail, a distinctive feeling crept over them: they were being watched. And then Adam spotted it: A figure, standing around 100 feet into the trees, facing them, perfectly still.
It was partially obscured by branches, but the insidiousness of its appearance was unmistakable: it stood around 7 feet tall with white, powdery skin, long, dangling arms and, most unnerving of all, no distinguishable facial features. It certainly didn’t look human, nor like any animal Adam had ever seen.The boys immediately sprinted out into an adjoining field, but the creature kept up with them within the adjacent treeline. It moved effortlessly through the foliage, as if its feet barely touched the ground. It was only when they crossed into another field near Adam’s neighborhood that the figure suddenly vanished. But their problems weren’t over. In their haste, the boys had become separated from Adam’s friend’s 8-year-old brother, meaning they’d need to turn back. Luckily, just as they reached the gate leading to the previous field, the teary-eyed 8-year-old barreled down the path. The poor boy refused to talk for hours, and when he finally did, their blood ran cold. He revealed that while they were running, he stumbled and fell. When he looked up, he saw the creature standing nearby, watching him, utterly motionless, even when the boy got up and raced off.
To this day, the boys haven’t been able to come up with a rational explanation for what they saw, nor why it cut its pursuit short without harming them. Unless Oklahoma has a very fast, very pale giraffe population I don’t know about, it seems the true identity of this seemingly-curious, yet creepy, creature will remain a mystery.
Howler In The Night
After sharing this next story, Redditor ‘Gangbangsters’, will definitely think twice before he sets up camp in the middle of nowhere again!
Excited for a weekend away, he and his girlfriend arrived at their campground in California’s Sequoia National Forest pleasantly surprised that aside from them, the only other inhabitants were the campground host, and an older lady with a dog. The couple quickly got everything set up, and settled into their secluded spot as the sun went down. But the peaceful seclusion wouldn’t last long. That night, the couple were awoken by the sound of something rummaging through the trash-cans around the camp. Being in bear country, Gangbangsters locked and unlocked his car with its key fob to try and scare the creature off, but it kept coming back.
Eventually the rummaging stopped, only to be replaced the eerie sound of bellowing cows, coming from a field about 100 yards from the camp. The Redditor initially assumed the cows were being attacked by coyotes, but then another noise ruptured through the air: a deep, rumbling howl that slowly rose in pitch. And it didn’t stop there. All around the camp, it sounded like branches were being torn off the trees, despite the weather being totally calm. The Redditor had reached the end of his tether. He stuck a flashlight through the tent’s window, and, to his horror, saw something so massive running by, that the ground shook beneath its feet. The creature let out another rumbling howl, and disappeared into the darkness, leaving nothing but silence behind.
The Redditor and his girlfriend passed the night sleeplessly terrified, and the moment the sun came up, they set out to examine the camp. Bizarrely, despite what they’d heard, the trash-cans appeared completely untouched, the surrounding trees were intact, and the only evidence of their visitor was a suspiciously human-looking footprint, only it was much larger than an average foot.
The Redditor, as a self-proclaimed sceptic, tried to be rational, but he simply couldn’t shake the sense of supernatural dread he was feeling. Especially when the old lady with the dog booked it out of there in a panicked hurry at first light. Unsurprisingly, the Redditor followed suit, and as they discussed their experience on the car-journey home, Gangbangster’s girlfriend was quick to dismiss the possibility of their late-night visitor having been a bear. She pulled up various YouTube recordings people have captured in North American woodlands, which some allege to be the howling of the infamous ape-like cryptid, the sasquatch.
While it seemed utterly ridiculous to the skeptical Redditor at first, one particular recording sent a chill down his spine: it sounded identical to what they had heard. Take a listen in the video below.
Ohio Howl by EleanorSabbath Pretty chilling, isn’t it? With noises like that echoing out while they were trying to sleep, no wonder the old lady didn’t want to stick around!
Bushwalking Partner
In 2012, Redditor, Bananana_bread, was enjoying a solo bushwalk in Australia’s Blue Mountains, when she decided to make camp for the night about 330 feet from the footpath, completely out of sight.
Just as Bananana_bread started to drift to sleep, she was startled by the sound of feet sprinting past her through the bush. But because the steps sounded too light and fast to be a person, especially considering how thick the undergrowth was, she chalked it up to stuff falling naturally from the trees.
The next morning, Bananana_bread packed her things and continued her adventure. She passed some people heading the other way, but soon found herself completely alone again. The only sounds were those of the birds in the trees, and her own feet on the path. But then, suddenly, another sound emerged: a twig snapping somewhere behind her. The Redditor spun around, and what she saw nearly stopped her heart. There, in the shadows between the shrubbery, lurked a long-limbed creature, almost 9ft in height, with dark-grey skin, huge, black eyes, and an abnormally-large head.
Bananana_bread was filled with pure dread, and feeling her heartbeat thumping in her temples, she suddenly found herself running. Without looking back, she didn’t stop until she came across some other bushwalkers. Bananana_bread tried to explain everything, and despite not fully understanding her, they could see she was extremely distressed, and let her walk with them rest of the way. As for the creature, the distraught Redditor was convinced she saw an alien. Not only did the creature have no fur, but it was much lankier than any known animal, Australian or otherwise. Plus, the length of its limbs and enlarged head matched the often-reported image of a grey-type alien, albeit much taller than usual. Still, though, there are other possible explanations. For one thing, Bananana_bread could’ve experienced pareidolia, which is the human brain’s habit of seeing patterns or images, often with a face, in inanimate objects. With pareidolia considered, it’s possible the so-called alien was nothing more than a dimly-lit, misshapen tree and its crooked limbs. For comparison, just think of the last time you turned out the lights at night, and suddenly you were unsure if that shape on the chair was actually a person, or a coat you draped over it. Your head might’ve told you it was your coat, but you probably still switched on the lights to check.
But whether pareidolia was to blame or not, I certainly don’t blame that Australian Redditor for not sticking around to find out!
The Buddy System
Summer camps are notorious for the sharing of skin-crawling stories around the campfire, but what if your camp turned out to be the scary story? That’s exactly what happened to Dlight98.
The Redditor went on a boyscout trip where he shared a cabin with 20ish other boys, and had to trek 220 yards down a gravel road every time he needed the communal restroom. One night, after some scary stories around the fire, Dlight98 set off down that gravel road with one of his friends. After using the restroom, as the pair backtracked to the cabin, things took a sinister turn. An instinctual fear inexplicably sunk in, and when the Redditor looked to his side, he could tell his friend felt the same. The boys upped their pace, both wielding their boyscout pocket-knives as protection. But their blades were left feeling like little more than twigs when they satisfied a sudden urge to look behind them and beheld a 6-foot-tall, fur-covered creature with cat-like ears standing hunched over on two feet behind them.
On seeing the creature, whose unnaturally-bipedal appearance matched the strange beast in this image that’s been circling online since 2017, allegedly captured in the Wisconsin wilderness, the boys both screamed and ran to the cabin.
The creature howled, then its footsteps pounded in their direction. The Redditor and his friend banged on the cabin’s front door, and the moment they were let in, they slammed it shut and locked it. Any relief, however, was cut short, when they remembered the back door, which couldn’t lock at all. Despite most of the boyscouts being baffled by the sudden panic, together they all pushed a table against the back door and stood guard with their pocketknives ready. Peering into the darkness outside, everyone listened carefully. Any suspicions of pranking disappeared as the creature approached the back door and bumped against it, trying to break through.
Dlight98 started to expect the worst, but almost as quickly as terror had shrouded the boys, the banging ceased; replaced by an eerie silence. The creature had seemingly given up, and skulked away to whatever awful lair it came from. Not that it made it any easier to sleep that night. And when the adults visited the cabin in the morning, they merely laughed upon hearing the ridiculous tale. Which can arguably be expected, considering young, imaginative boys aren’t always seen as the most trustworthy source. Even so, the camp facilitators shouldn’t have dismissed them that easily. Even if it wasn’t a bloodthirsty cryptid, it could certainly have been an equally-dangerous large cougar, wolf, or even a bear roaming the area. Especially since bears tend to emit breathy howling noises, can stand on their hind-legs, and make mock charges when confronted.
Luckily, Dlight98 and the boyscouts never saw the creature again, and their camp supervisors’ lack of concern, thankfully, didn’t have any tragic consequences. Still, I’ve got a feeling toilet trips were kept to a minimum from that point on!
Hunted Hunter
As a keen hunter, the private, wildlife-filled woodland Redditor John Thena from Kentucky is fortunate enough to own provides the perfect shooting range to test out new firearms.
One day, after purchasing an AR-15-style rifle, John decided to give it a whirl, and entered the woods. But as he proceeded deeper, the hairs on John’s neck stood on end as he became aware of that familiar, unnerving feeling of being watched, although he quickly brushed it off and continued on his hunt.
As he continued, however, he became so uneasy that he stopped and loaded his rifle, heedfully scanning the trees the entire time. Suddenly, John smelled something rotten, like meat left out in the sun. He looked around, and right behind him lay what remained of a possum. It looked fresh, too fresh to account for the intense smell. Something about the possum didn’t sit right with John; he was sure hadn’t initially been there as he’d passed, almost as if it had just been dropped there for him. But, not one for paranoia, he ignored his instincts and kept going, comforted by the enormous new firearm he had to protect himself with. But as John approached a field in which he often let his cows graze, he heard a heavy splash in the adjacent creek. He spun toward the noise, and what he describes seeing made his blood run cold.
A humanoid creature, at least 8 feet tall, extremely skinny, and with light-brown, deer-like skin stretched tight across its body, walked slowly into the creek. The moment the creature looked at him, the panicked Redditor attempted to ready his gun, but despite it being a brand-new, famously-reliable piece of kit, the round jammed. John held his breath as the creature started to move, but instead of attacking, it turned and ran off, silently. Understandably, John didn’t stick around either.
On arriving safely home, he contacted a friend with extensive cryptid knowledge, who was certain John had encountered a Wendigo. These malevolent, cannibalistic creatures originate from Native American folklore, and countless people online have claimed, whether authentic or not, to have captured photos like these of them. Reported Wendigo sightings are often accompanied by an inexplicable stench of death, which lines up with John’s encountering the seemingly-impossibly-rotten smell near the possum. But despite having walked the same route countless times after that day, John never came across the creature again. And with no actual proof or comparable sightings in the area, John’s word remains the only word. As for a more grounded explanation, the stretchy-skinned Wendigo could’ve possibly been a bear suffering from mange, a skin condition resulting in hair loss, potentially perceived as larger than it was due to John’s frightened state of mind. Whatever the case, though, I think it’s safe to assume John made sure his firearm was working properly before
heading out into those eerie woods again!
Eyes Like Fire
As a kid, one cold November evening in Fort Gay, West Virginia, young Scarlett, who shared her story on Liveabout.com, was settling in on the first night in her family’s secluded new home. The family had been unpacking all day, and by 11 PM, Scarlett was exhausted.
After tucking herself into bed in one of the first-floor bedrooms, she was staring out the curtain-less window, half-asleep, when she saw something that would haunt her forever. A 7ft-tall, winged figure was sitting in a tree across the yard. Scarlett felt frozen as its red, glowing eyes looked straight at her.
Just as Scarlett managed to find the strength to hide under the covers, something heavy smacked against the window. Scarlett, thinking the creature had flown over and was trying to break in, leapt out of bed and ran through the house screaming. Tears were streaming from her eyes when her mother found her, but even after explaining what she saw, her parents, surprise, surprise, didn’t believe her. But just because her parents found it easy to dismiss what happened, it didn’t mean Scarlett did too. Thirty-two years later, she and her husband went to see the Mothman Prophecies in theater, when Scarlett’s memories were drawn back to that night. Everything about the ‘Mothman’ described in the movie, and in real-world reported sightings, a humanoid creature with glowing red eyes and ten-foot wings, seemed so familiar, that Scarlett believed with all her heart she had seen it. Especially considering Fort Gay is only about 80 miles south of Point Pleasant, where many of the original Mothman sightings had taken place.
Could Scarlett have really seen this cryptid? Or had she been mistakenly spooked in her half-sleeping state, by a particularly large owl, possibly of the stygian sub-species, known for its red, reflective eyes? You decide!
Fight Or Fright
On the north-eastern side of Washington State’s Mount St. Helens, there lies a place known as Ape Canyon. But with no officially documented wild ape populaces in the USA, you might be wondering how the canyon got its unusual name. Well, it all began in 1924.
A group of five gold miners, with a cabin in the area, were on their way to a nearby lake one day when they encountered four towering animals moving through the forest with erect, human-like strides. Much like the ape men a Swiss geologist, Louis François Fernand Hector de Loys, claimed to photograph in the rainforests of South America four years prior in this now-thankfully-proven-fake image, the creatures were covered with long, black hair, but the ones the miners encountered had pointy ears about 4 inches long!
One of the miners, Fred, was so taken aback by the beasts, he fired his rifle at them, scaring the creatures away. But his violence proved a mistake. That night, the miners were awoken by huge stones pelting their cabin. Then, large bodies began slamming against the walls and door. The ape men were seeking revenge! And they weren’t holding back. When the ape men eventually tore a hole in the cabin roof, the miners opened fire into the darkness with their pistols. This battle went on until daybreak, when the ruckus suddenly stopped without warning. The men inched their way out of the cabin, and Fred briefly saw an ape man staring at him in the distance. Then, suddenly, it was gone. But definitely not forgotten.
After the attack, Fred wrote a book about his experience. He believed the ape-men were extradimensional beings, explaining that he had experienced psychic premonitions and visions his entire life in which he had seen them. Unsurprisingly, his claims were met with many counter-theories, the most popular being that a gang of local youths had bombarded the cabin as a prank. The local Park Rangers weren’t convinced either. In their opinion, the miners had orchestrated the entire thing, including having faked the 14-inch-long footprints later found near the cabin.
Still, the tale was widely run in Washington and Oregon newspapers at the time. Unfortunately, the precise location of the cabin is no longer known, but Ape Canyon continues to be a popular hiking destination. Clearly, it takes a lot more than rock-wielding ape-men to scare people away!
Horror Comes In Pairs
On June 7th, 1951, two families from New Mexico met up at the Santa Fe ski basin for a picnic together. While the adults were preparing the food, 5-year-old Janet, 7-year-old Larry, and 3-year-old Stephen started playing together near the treeline.
Once everything was set up, the parents made the horrifying realization that the kids had vanished. They immediately started looking around, thinking they couldn’t have gone far. But when their search of the immediate vicinity proved fruitless, they knew there was only one other place the children could’ve gone: into the woods. But, oddly, considering the steep and rugged terrain the woods consisted of, traversing it seemed pretty impossible for kids their age. The parents immediately called the authorities, who, as night began to fall, set up two giant spotlights to guide the children out, and thoroughly combed the lower side of the mountain. But despite all their efforts, night rolled on into day and by the following afternoon, things were looking grim. That was, until a volunteer seeker three and a half miles up the mountain made an astounding discovery. Out of the corner of their eye, the volunteer saw the kids poking their heads out from behind a log. They were huddled together and visibly terrified, but otherwise fine.
When the police asked about what happened, 7-year-old Larry left them baffled. Apparently, while they were playing, the children had roamed into the forest, until they realized they couldn’t hear their parents anymore. What they could hear, however, was a growl, shortly followed by a bear leaping from the shrubs and charging at them. The kids sprinted off with the bear in pursuit. But here’s the strangest part: the bear wasn’t working alone. The kids claimed to have seen a gorilla patrolling the area alongside the bear, and the beasts chased them through night and day until they were finally able to hide.
Of course, being young children, there’s no way of telling whether any of it was real or imagined. Plus, a collaboration between two vastly different animals, one of which tends to reside in Africa, does seem unlikely. But if it was fictionalized, it still doesn’t explain how three children that young found their way three-and-a-half miles up the side of a mountain! Maybe they really were being pursued, if not by a gorilla, then perhaps two bears, the adrenaline of such a chase making their mountainous ascent possible? Then again, without anyone there to witness what the kids really saw, who’s to say bigfoot wasn’t vacationing in Santa Fe?
Mark Of The Beast
When he was 10-years-old, Redditor, Nate0113, attended a summer camp in East Tennessee. The experience was normal for the most part: he went rafting, ate questionable-quality food in the mess hall, and, you guessed it, told scary stories around the campfire. The pleasant-sounding camp was meant to last 4 days, but Nate only lasted 2. And it wasn’t because he missed his mother.
On his second night there, Nate had clean-up duty in the mess hall. By the time he was done, all his friends had already gone to bed, and he had the showers all to himself. Halfway through rinsing, he heard shuffling outside the facilities. The Redditor put it down to his friends trying to prank him, so he finished up, gathered his things, and prepared to trek across the pitch-black campgrounds to the boys’ cabin.
Nate could barely see a thing as he tried to navigate his way through the woodland with a tiny lantern that barely provided any light. He made it halfway to the cabin, when suddenly he heard a spine-chilling moan, coming from right in front of him. Terrified, Nate dropped the lantern and sprinted in the opposite direction. But being unable to see anything, he tripped and fell on something, something squishy and soaking wet.
Nate listened in horror as the creature belted out another moan, but the next moment, he was met with flashlights and concerned-looking counsellors, who’d also heard the eerier moaning. As their lights flashed across him, Nate saw it: He was covered in a dark, shiny liquid, somewhere between red and black, which could only be one thing. The counsellors brought Nate back to the cabins to get cleaned up, and the next morning, he was on his way home. Nate didn’t speak about the incident for many years, until one day, a friend told him what had happened after Nate left camp. Apparently, over the remaining nights, the spine-chilling moaning continued, and while searching the woods where Nate had fallen, the counsellors stumbled across what Nate had fallen onto: it was a deer, only, its head was several feet away from its body.
Eventually, Nate chose to believe a mountain lion was responsible, especially given the fact that mountain lions often hide their kills to return to later, not to mention the horrific moans they’re capable of. But others hearing his story have suggested the Redditor might have encountered the
Wampus Cat, a half-woman, half-cat monster that some believe stalks the woods of East Tennessee.
But whether the Redditor encountered a mythological hybrid monster, or a regular old puma, it doesn’t make his encounter any less scary. Whatever it was; it was clearly predatory, and Nate was lucky that he didn’t end up being its next meal. I hope you were amazed at these scariest run-ins with unknown predators! Thanks for reading.
