A listener writes “Gun Season 2024, November 23rd marked the opening day of Wisconsin’s gun deer season. As usual, my father-in-law (FIL) and I headed out to our stands long before anyone else. I climbed into mine around 5:30 a.m., roughly an hour and a half before sunrise. My FIL had a longer ride and walk ahead of him and didn’t reach his stand until around 6:45.
After getting settled and bundling up against the cold, I sat quietly with half my face tucked into my hood. For the first thirty minutes, all I heard was the occasional rustling of mice moving through the leaves. Eventually, I decided to scan the woods and see if any deer were moving in the moonlight.
I checked to my left nothing. Straight ahead nothing.
Then I looked to my right.
About thirty yards away, next to a tree, I noticed a small reddish-orange light. It shimmered oddly, almost as if it were out of focus. The light appeared to be roughly twelve feet off the ground.
My first thought was that it was a headlight from an ATV or another hunter making their way through the woods. At the time, I didn’t stop to consider that the nearest house was nearly 800 yards away through dense forest and wetlands.
It was still completely dark. Dawn hadn’t broken, and no sunlight was filtering through the trees. Clouds were beginning to move in from the east, making the woods even darker.
As I watched, I tilted my head, searching for a second light that would confirm it was simply a vehicle. I leaned as far to the right as I could.
That’s when I saw it.
A second light.
My immediate thought was, *Man, that looks like a pair of eyes.*
Trying not to let my imagination run away with me, I sat back upright. The moment I did, the lights appeared to move from behind the tree, positioning themselves where I could see both of them without leaning.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
What the hell was this thing?
There was no visible light source to create eyeshine, and whatever I was seeing was clearly right in front of me. At that point, I knew it wasn’t a vehicle.
All I wanted to do was climb down and run for my ATV. Instead, I found myself locked into the “freeze” part of the fight or flight response. I couldn’t move. The only thing I could manage was to look away.
Several minutes passed before curiosity got the better of me. I slowly turned my head back to the right.
The two small orange lights were still there.
But now there was something else.
Farther to the right, I saw a second pair of orange lights much larger than the first. These weren’t round. They had a more defined, eye-like shape.
The unsettling impression I got was that the smaller pair had climbed a tree, while the larger pair remained on the ground.
The larger set seemed to be at eye level with me.
Ten to twelve feet up.
I looked back and forth between the two pairs several times before forcing myself to look away again.
To say I was terrified would be an understatement.
The feeling of vulnerability began to sink in. No one from our hunting group would be nearby for at least another hour. Cell service in the area is unreliable. If something happened, nobody would know until after shooting hours ended and they noticed my ATV was still parked where I left it.
I didn’t want to switch on my headlamp.
I didn’t even want to load my .308.
As strange as it sounds, I found myself recalling stories and podcasts I’d listened to over the years. In many of those accounts, people described Sasquatch simply observing from a distance.
I kept telling myself:
*They’re just curious. They’re wondering what the orange thing in the tree is doing. They’ll move on.*
I didn’t look back toward the lights again until daybreak.
By then, they were gone.
Later that afternoon, I caught the faint smell of sewage drifting through the woods. It was subtle enough that I took several deep breaths to make sure I was actually smelling it.
The odor reminded me of a porta potty baking in the August heat.
Just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.
As opening day finally drew to a close, I climbed down before legal shooting light ended and made a beeline for my ATV. I drove back to the truck faster than usual and climbed inside as quickly as I could.
While waiting for my FIL, I noticed another strange light deep in the woods ahead of the truck.
At first, I assumed it was a vehicle traveling on the nearby road. The road curved in such a way that headlights could occasionally be seen from where I was parked. Another possibility was a hunter tracking a deer after dark.
But after watching the light for a minute or two, something felt off.
I recorded a short video as it bobbed through the trees.
Then it disappeared.
No vehicle ever passed by.
The following morning, I stayed in the truck until shortly before sunrise.
After sitting in my stand for about an hour, I began hearing an unusual sound coming from the marsh to the southeast. At first, I couldn’t make it out.
The more I listened, the more it sounded like a feminine voice calling:
*WoooooOOOO.*
The sound gradually moved farther south.
Then I heard it clearly.
A whoop.
I immediately pulled out my phone, opened Voice Memos, and started recording.
At that moment, I also realized that dogs throughout the area were barking nonstop. Normally, the woods are incredibly quiet, and I hadn’t even known there were dogs nearby.
The barking continued for as long as the whooping did.
Gun Season 2023
After the events of 2024, I started reexamining experiences from previous seasons.
The year before, during gun season, I was sitting in the very same ladder stand when I repeatedly heard what sounded like a large animal crashing through the woods. It wasn’t moving cautiously. It sounded as though it was tearing through the forest, breaking branches and brush in its path.
I heard it multiple times throughout the day.
Another incident from that season involved a strange knocking sound.
It sounded like a large branch striking something solid:
*Knock… knock… knock…*
Then two quick hits.
*Knock-knock.*
Then the slower rhythmic knocks resumed.
That same day, I also heard an odd whooshing sound that I couldn’t identify.
My FIL later told me a story from several years earlier.
He and one of the property owners were clearing trails during the summer when they heard something large moving through thick brush toward them. According to him, the property owner immediately panicked and urged him to shoot it since he was carrying a firearm.
My FIL refused because he couldn’t identify what was making the noise.
Thankfully, he didn’t shoot.
The source of the disturbance turned out to be a lost bear dog wearing a tracking collar.
What struck me about that story was how nervous the property owner became. This was a lifelong hunter who knew the woods better than almost anyone.
You’d think someone with that much experience wouldn’t be so easily rattled.
It makes me wonder whether he had seen or experienced something before.
Especially considering that none of the property owners will enter those woods before sunrise.
Their explanation is always the same:
*”The deer don’t move until 9 a.m.”*
Maybe they’re right.
Or maybe there’s another reason.”