A listener writes “My encounter happened in UP of MI. Maybe 20 miles south of Houghton. I was traveling north to houghton to visit the college mi tech. I was with my gf and her family at the time.
It was around 8 pm, march of 2005. It was dark out at the time. Everyone in the vehicle was asleep except for my gfs dad and I. I was in the back seat and he was driving when we saw it. It crossed the road in front of us about 50-75 yards ahead. There was another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction so both of our headlights were illuminating it.
It was just far enough for our head lights to not be directly on it so when we saw it we couldn’t identify it clearly. For years and years I thought we saw a cougar because of how it moved. It obviously wasnt a bear because of how smooth it seemed to move. It was on all fours and seemed to glide across the road. It took up the entire lane we were in. It moved from the right to left and took strides, like one arm reached out with the opposite rear leg at the same time, back and forth. Like a cat walking. I figured a bear running would be more of a gallop. It crossed the road in 3 strides then went up an embankment on the other side of the road and into the woods.
The embankment was probably 45° and 50 yards to climb. It was up it like lightning. I had never seen anything move like that even on tv. And it was so long. Thats way for years I thought it was a big cat. Back then the thought of bf never crossed my mind and what else would move like that. I remember thinking holy s*** if that ‘s a cougar then they are huge and fast! When we saw it I said to my gfs dad what the f is that? And all he said was I dont know.. So for years I thought it was a cougar but looking back, now that im older I know that cougars arent that big.
They don’t stand that tall and aren’t that long. Something I never thought of was how deep the snow must have been. Up there in march there must have been 3-4 feet of snow on the ground. When we walked around the campus of the college the walk ways had snow 4’ of snow next to them. So it must have been a big beast to be able to traverse that. I’ll never forget it.”