Nov 8

I was being watched

A listener writes “I’ve had some strange encounters myself in Oregon. I’m a Oregon native, I’ve fought fires on the coast, and the far eastern part of the state for the US Forest Service. I’ve lived on a farm outside of Ariel Washington for a whole year. I spent a lot of time hunting on the coast too.

My first experience was living on the farm in 2016. We had 68 acres backed up to the Lewis river, I was a farm hand for the guy that owned the property. We had a ongoing issue with something getting into the chicken coop and stealing chickens. Whatever it was would periodically take goats too. We tried to hunt for it whatever it was but could never find it. One day I was exploring around in the thicket along the southern portion of the property in a draw that backed up to the goat pen and the barn where the coop was at. I stumbled into an area covered in bones, blood and feathers. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. It was enough to make me want to get out of there.

A few nights later I was feeding the rabbits about 11pm, backed up to the upper portion of that same draw. Suddenly I felt as though I was being watched. I looked behind me into the woods but saw nothing. That’s when I heard a deep low growl come from the woods behind me. It was so deep I felt it in my chest. I ran to the farmhouse and didn’t go back out until the next day.

A month or so later I was eating dinner with my landlord at the farm house when we hear a commotion outside. We went out on the porch only to hear what I can describe as a succession of strange howls coming from the tree line that surrounded the farm yard. It was strange because it was like something trying to mimic a coyote, but there were multiple of them. They went off one after another, we counted 10 individual sources.

My next experience –
It was 2017, early fall. My engine captain asked me to go hunting with him on the coast, the southern portion of the Siuslaw National forest near newport. I was dropped off at the top of a burmed off, overgrown Forest Service road during Elk season. My buddy showed me on a map where to meet him.

I could follow the road pretty well going down as the bank was on my right. Everything was quiet on the way down. I hit a point in the road that I remembered from the map, and decided to cut up the bank and over into a clearing next to a National Forest boundary sign. It opened up into a bark and fern covered low area with a hill going up before me. I made my way over the hill and down to the other portion of the road that took me down to the drop point.

I got down to the drop point and waited a few hours but he never showed up. As it began to get later in the day, I was getting impatient and decided to head back up. Being the smart ass I am, I figured the ridge of the draw I was in would be the smartest way back up instead of trying to follow the old road. I climbed up the bank on the side of the road, and began making my way through the ferns. Eventually I hit a point where the ridgeline flattened out into what I can only describe as a thicket of pacific bamboo that was a foot or two over my head, and I’m 6’3.

I began pushing my way through the bamboo and that’s when everything got quiet. No birds chirping or anything, just the sound of the wind lightly breezing through the treetops. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and suddenly I felt and heard a loud thud hit the ground. It snapped some of the bamboo to the southwest of me. I just knew I wasn’t alone in the thicket. I felt it. I started taking quiet careful steps forward through the bamboo. Whatever it was mimicked my steps almost to a T. Every time I moved, within a few seconds it would move. If I want faster, it would go faster, if I went slower it would go slower. Eventually I got tired of it and started concertedly pushing my way out of there, it began speeding up. I felt as though I was being chased. I cleared the bamboo and looked back. Nothing came out after me.

I pushed my way further north, then west a little bit looking for the road until I came to an embankment and looked south from atop. Below me was the clearing where I saw the national forest sign a bit off in the distance, and to my immediate left was another embankment that went 15 – 20 feet down to the old road. When I looked back at the clearing I saw something out of place. Where I had walked through was a very large stump. Or so it seemed at first. I was far enough away my vision was slightly obscured, but whatever was there wasn’t a stump. I know this because there was no stump there when I originally went through. That’s when I realized it was something very large and hairy crouched right where I had walked hours earlier. It had it’s back turned to me. Whatever it was, it was covered in reddish brown hair. I felt in my gut that I needed to get out of there. I slung my shotgun over my shoulder and as quietly as I could slid down to the road.

I immediately, and aggressively started making my way through the overgrowth going up the road. At this point not caring about how much sound I was making. As I pushed my way through I heard something coming through the brush behind me. That’s when I heard a very deep low growl. It reverberated in my chest and left me stricken with fear. I recognized it, it was the same type of growl from a year or so earlier on the farm. I turned around and put my shotgun up. Pumped it once to put a slug in the chamber and waited. NOTHING. I backed out of there as best I could, 3/4 of a mile with my gun up as much as possible before I hit the burm. That’s when I heard my buddy John – “What are you pointing your gun at?” I was never so happy to see him in my life. I got out of there and have never gone down that road since.”

2 Responses to “I was being watched”

Leave a Reply