A listener writes “Ohio has been dealing with rain for weeks. For the past month or so we’ve only had 2-3 days without rain per week, so everything is wet and muddy.
A couple weeks ago (think it was 5/18) the two of us went to Salt fork park on one of the few drier days.
Initially, we were going to go to the cave but they’re redoing some of the roads there at the park so the road to the cave was closed. So we drove on and found a trail that leads to Stone House (it’s either stone house or rock house I forget what it’s technically called).
To get this house, you park and walk across the road to the trail leading to the house. The trail goes for a while then forks to 2 separate paths. One path goes deeper into the woods (the woods there are thicker than one would think for Ohio) and the other down around the side of the lake. Eventually the paths merge again and a couple hundred feet later you get to Stone/Rock house.
We decided that, to get to the house, we’d take the trail the runs along the water first and the other on the way back. We walked a bit then I had an issue I was hoping would go away. Being I had a glass of water and a large iced tea, nature called. And while I’m not promoting nor proud of it, I found a large boulder and relieved myself behind it just enough to feel less bloated (sorry DONR!) and got back on to the trail.
On this trail you can always see the water and at some points the trail is only a couple feet from the water’s edge. At either the first or second on these points, were some water had been draining from the higher ground down to the lake, it was more muddy than other places. I happened to look down and I swear I saw a foot print. It was in the mud coming from the water’s edge and going towards the hill on my left. It wasn’t large-probably about the same size of my 10.5-11 shoe but it looked like I could see 5 toes digging into the mud, like you’d expect for traction coming up from the water in the mud.
I looked and found what seemed to be another print not too far away but it was in the middle of the trail and had been walked on by people (there were 15-18 people on this trail with us).
I did snap a photo of the print with the toes but I couldn’t get a great photo of it (I’ll include all photos and videos on this email). I thought it odd but didn’t put too much into it so we continued to walk, with me in the lead still on the trail at the water’s edge. No more than 4-or so minutes later, I heard something wiz behind my head, between us) and into the bushes to my right, coming from the left where the bushes are thicker and in the direction the print was pointing. Both of us stopped and I spun around and said “did you hear that?” He said he said “what was that?”.
It worth noting that it was a breezy day and it would go from no breeze to a mild breeze and back the entire day. But when this thing passed between us, the wind stopped and they birds went quiet. Like I said the breezes came and went the entire day but no other time did the birds go quiet. I don’t know what it was but it sounded like a large stick spinning with that “whomp whomp whomp” sound you when someone spins a stick or branch or baton really close to your ears; it reminded me somewhat of the spinning blades of a helicopter when they first start up.
We both froze and looked up from where it seemed to have come from. I took a video of the area but didn’t see anything abnormal. If this would’ve happened without seeing what looks like a print I wouldn’t have thought much about it. So we continued on the path to the house right after the other path merged without incident.
On the way back, we took the path that went up the hill deeper into the woods. We weren’t on it for very long when from behind us to our right we heard one loud distinct wood knock. He both stopped, looked at each other with wide eyes. We both said “did you hear that?!?” We scanned the trees but it was so thick we couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t recording so I didn’t capture the noise.
As we started to descend the trail back to were it merges with the lake side trail, I looked down and saw and photographed 2 tufts of orange hair that were stuck to some branches. It could’ve been a fox or a person’s dog or a host of other things. But what we heard and saw earlier, I thought it worth noting.
Nothing else happened and we made it back to the car and went home.”
