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I've seen my fair share of strange things and had encounters that defy conventional explanation, but this is the one-and-only time I can think of that I might have encountered a cryptid.
It would have been about 1985, give or take a year. I lived on a small poultry farm in middle TN, with about 10 acres up front that housed various building or cultivated land, and 30ish acres that was part of a 28 square mile patch of forest, interspersed with small farms and communities. The woods themselves were probably only about 50 or 60 years old (based on ring counts when cutting firewood), as the remains of various long-abandoned roads and settlements could be found at various places within 3-5 miles of our house, some of which I explored. My parents were survivalists in the late 70s/ early 80's, so our forest acreage featured a couple of track roads and various shooting ranges and camp sites.
One particular summer evening I had biked to the furthest point I could reach on our newest road, where we were cutting wood for the fall, when the woods went still. Nowadays, of course, this sets off alarms for me, but then it didn't, as there really wasn't much in the way of insects or birds back there, so it was even possible for a careless deer to shut up the ambient critters, something I'd actually seen before in that very spot. It had been, in fact, the first time I'd seen a deer up close, so I would have been ok with doing so again, but it was too dark under the trees to go looking, so I just got on my bike and started for home.
I rode pretty leisurely. I only had to a couple hundred feet in the trees, then I'd be out on the much wider and clearer main track, where it'd actually be still be sunset for another 5 minutes - and that's plenty of time to make it out before it's too dark to ride. Aside from my unfortunate spider episode, the only thing remotely frightening in the woods was a 10-foot kingsnake, and his territory only overlapped our property in one corner, and you had to walk or use a tractor to get there. We were also one corner of the territory of a large pack of coyotes, but this year they were on the far side of the woods. And they never really came this way, as they were much more interested in my neighbor's cattle than our chickens.
So it came as a bit of a shock when I could hear something large traveling through the woods on my right flank. I actually paused a couple of times to see if I could find what the heck it was. The noise would die down when I paused, then start back up when I rode. I sped up a bit; not yet out of fear, but because this track intersected the main one on my right side. So, if whatever was in there was following me, it'd be forced out into the open to continue.
I made the intersection quickly, and stopped. I hopped off the bike, put the stand down, and watched back along the merged track. I couldn't hear the noise anymore, so for a few moments, I figured it may just be a big deer that couldn't figure out to go the OTHER way to get away from the human. I've seen them dumber than that, believe me.
*WHUMP*
I'm looking south down the main track. The track I came down is on my right. THAT sound came from ahead of me on my LEFT. It sounded for all the world like someone dropped a 50lb bag of chicken feed on the ground. This was the event that alarmed me, because it became obvious to me in that moment that something had jumped down on the ground - specifically something that I never saw cross the open track.
The remainder of this takes place in less than 2 minutes. However, to appreciate it, I have to go into a fair amount of detail. At this point, I am about 1/4 mile from the edge of the forest, and then another 500 feet to the house across the orchard. I started at nearly the far SE corner of our acreage, and the road out was at the far NE of it. But to get there, I had to go in an arc to the far west of the land, then back. I'd link it on Google maps except that my folks still live there.
In any case, on my way out I would pass most of our major areas, all but one of them on my right. First and most important is our rifle range. This is a 500' long, 100' wide clearing we used both as the name implies, and later for fireworks fights with my high school friends; the track is at the target end of things. I had time to hit full speed when I passed it, and as it's on the right, anything chasing me would be forced into the open; I saw nothing as I passed by it. I was forced to slow down as I exited the clearing, as the track narrowed and the woods closed right in on it, plus it held water and mud even in July. Wrecking in it is no fun, and I speak from experience.
Be that as it may, I passed through, skidded a bit, and stopped on the far side, as I heard nothing during that leg of the trip, and I had just about wiped out. I caught my breath by the next open area - the car graveyard (because you can't be rednecks in the south without that feature). Mind you, it was only 3 cars, but still...I walked my bike past it, and mounted again at the pistol range on the other side of it. The sun is now below the horizon, but I can still see details in the trees by the track, so I rode slowly. According to Google maps, I'm about 400ish feet from the boundary with the fields.
As soon as I left the open area, I heard something *big* crashing through the trees, coming at me from the right. I threw myself into it and flew down the remainder of the track. This only took a few seconds, because the last opening on my right was just 50 or 60 feet from the fields, and was where we kept our tractor attachments (plow, bush hog, auger, etc). I looked as I sped by, trying to see what the hell might burst out from the trees, but again nothing happened. I flew out into the fields, zipped by the orchard, and left my bike by the driveway as I ran inside. My dad was asleep and my mom was out, so I just locked the doors and closed the curtains.
As far as the encounter, that's where it ends. I saw nothing, heard nothing other than something large crashing through the trees, and definitely nothing followed me out of the woods. To do so it would have to go right by the chickens, and they never made a peep that night. However, it was a couple of weeks before I went back in, and then I only went when my dad's friends came over to camp and shoot, as they did about every month it wasn't winter. Unlike my dad, all of them were open to what I had to say, so I told them what happened, and they told me they'd take care of it that weekend. Sunday before they left they said it was all clear, and I believed them. I resumed my play in the woods and nothing of that sort ever happened in there again.
At the time of the encounter, I was just scared. I had hunted, and I felt I was being hunted. That wouldn't have bothered me so much, except that the only thing that should have been a threat in there were coyotes. While they do hunt silently, they don't chase through underbrush; they would have come out in the open to try to surround me. But they wouldn't even do that in winter unless they were near starvation, and there was never a shortage of small game or livestock in the area. There were no bears in middle TN, and nobody had seen a bobcat for years by that point - and the only way a bobcat is going to attack a human is if it's cornered and trying to escape.
The noise was only ever to my right. At the beginning that was to the east, then once I passed the rifle range, to the south. This makes some sense, as once you pass the pistol range, the north side of the woods is only 60 feet wide and tapers off as you near our fields, because the area to the north is a 10-acre hay field with no cover for anything large. There was only the noise of one thing moving, and it made a hell of a lot of racket doing it. It was also able to pace me moving through dense foliage while I was doing about 15 miles an hour.
I never really gave it much thought after the guys said they took care of it. Looking back on it years later, I wish I'd gone back in during the day and looked for its spoor; it would have to have left one hell of a path of broken branches given the noise it made. It also would have had to cross at least one area where it would have to have left tracks. I'd actually be less curious if I could pin it as being anything that should have been in the area, but based on the events, the only conclusion I can make is that it was trying to scare me, not catch me. If it could pace me while I was on the open riding a bike and it had to go through woods, it should have easily been able to break into the clear and run me down, especially either time I stopped. At no point, however, did it permit itself to be seen; when it encountered large clearing one of two things had to be true: either it circled behind them, concealing itself in the trees, or else it was invisible. Based on other encounters, I'm not prepared to dismiss either possibility.
I also note that while I heard sounds of passage, I never heard breathing or vocalizations. I don't have any distinct recollection of footfalls, and I did specifically stop pedaling and coasted as I came to the clearing with our equipment, as I wanted to see where it would come out of the woods. Since there was a fence around the field, I knew that, to pursue me further, it had to come out onto the path.
That will do it for the event. Various hypotheses may be devised. Based on behavior, it wasn’t a bear, bobcat, coyote, dog, or person. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t something entirely ordinary. It also clearly wasn’t something constant; as I said, it had never happened before, nor did it happen again. The woods themselves absolutely gave you a feeling of being watched, but this was never threatening, no matter what stupid teenager things I did there.
It would have been about 1985, give or take a year. I lived on a small poultry farm in middle TN, with about 10 acres up front that housed various building or cultivated land, and 30ish acres that was part of a 28 square mile patch of forest, interspersed with small farms and communities. The woods themselves were probably only about 50 or 60 years old (based on ring counts when cutting firewood), as the remains of various long-abandoned roads and settlements could be found at various places within 3-5 miles of our house, some of which I explored. My parents were survivalists in the late 70s/ early 80's, so our forest acreage featured a couple of track roads and various shooting ranges and camp sites.
One particular summer evening I had biked to the furthest point I could reach on our newest road, where we were cutting wood for the fall, when the woods went still. Nowadays, of course, this sets off alarms for me, but then it didn't, as there really wasn't much in the way of insects or birds back there, so it was even possible for a careless deer to shut up the ambient critters, something I'd actually seen before in that very spot. It had been, in fact, the first time I'd seen a deer up close, so I would have been ok with doing so again, but it was too dark under the trees to go looking, so I just got on my bike and started for home.
I rode pretty leisurely. I only had to a couple hundred feet in the trees, then I'd be out on the much wider and clearer main track, where it'd actually be still be sunset for another 5 minutes - and that's plenty of time to make it out before it's too dark to ride. Aside from my unfortunate spider episode, the only thing remotely frightening in the woods was a 10-foot kingsnake, and his territory only overlapped our property in one corner, and you had to walk or use a tractor to get there. We were also one corner of the territory of a large pack of coyotes, but this year they were on the far side of the woods. And they never really came this way, as they were much more interested in my neighbor's cattle than our chickens.
So it came as a bit of a shock when I could hear something large traveling through the woods on my right flank. I actually paused a couple of times to see if I could find what the heck it was. The noise would die down when I paused, then start back up when I rode. I sped up a bit; not yet out of fear, but because this track intersected the main one on my right side. So, if whatever was in there was following me, it'd be forced out into the open to continue.
I made the intersection quickly, and stopped. I hopped off the bike, put the stand down, and watched back along the merged track. I couldn't hear the noise anymore, so for a few moments, I figured it may just be a big deer that couldn't figure out to go the OTHER way to get away from the human. I've seen them dumber than that, believe me.
*WHUMP*
I'm looking south down the main track. The track I came down is on my right. THAT sound came from ahead of me on my LEFT. It sounded for all the world like someone dropped a 50lb bag of chicken feed on the ground. This was the event that alarmed me, because it became obvious to me in that moment that something had jumped down on the ground - specifically something that I never saw cross the open track.
The remainder of this takes place in less than 2 minutes. However, to appreciate it, I have to go into a fair amount of detail. At this point, I am about 1/4 mile from the edge of the forest, and then another 500 feet to the house across the orchard. I started at nearly the far SE corner of our acreage, and the road out was at the far NE of it. But to get there, I had to go in an arc to the far west of the land, then back. I'd link it on Google maps except that my folks still live there.
In any case, on my way out I would pass most of our major areas, all but one of them on my right. First and most important is our rifle range. This is a 500' long, 100' wide clearing we used both as the name implies, and later for fireworks fights with my high school friends; the track is at the target end of things. I had time to hit full speed when I passed it, and as it's on the right, anything chasing me would be forced into the open; I saw nothing as I passed by it. I was forced to slow down as I exited the clearing, as the track narrowed and the woods closed right in on it, plus it held water and mud even in July. Wrecking in it is no fun, and I speak from experience.
Be that as it may, I passed through, skidded a bit, and stopped on the far side, as I heard nothing during that leg of the trip, and I had just about wiped out. I caught my breath by the next open area - the car graveyard (because you can't be rednecks in the south without that feature). Mind you, it was only 3 cars, but still...I walked my bike past it, and mounted again at the pistol range on the other side of it. The sun is now below the horizon, but I can still see details in the trees by the track, so I rode slowly. According to Google maps, I'm about 400ish feet from the boundary with the fields.
As soon as I left the open area, I heard something *big* crashing through the trees, coming at me from the right. I threw myself into it and flew down the remainder of the track. This only took a few seconds, because the last opening on my right was just 50 or 60 feet from the fields, and was where we kept our tractor attachments (plow, bush hog, auger, etc). I looked as I sped by, trying to see what the hell might burst out from the trees, but again nothing happened. I flew out into the fields, zipped by the orchard, and left my bike by the driveway as I ran inside. My dad was asleep and my mom was out, so I just locked the doors and closed the curtains.
As far as the encounter, that's where it ends. I saw nothing, heard nothing other than something large crashing through the trees, and definitely nothing followed me out of the woods. To do so it would have to go right by the chickens, and they never made a peep that night. However, it was a couple of weeks before I went back in, and then I only went when my dad's friends came over to camp and shoot, as they did about every month it wasn't winter. Unlike my dad, all of them were open to what I had to say, so I told them what happened, and they told me they'd take care of it that weekend. Sunday before they left they said it was all clear, and I believed them. I resumed my play in the woods and nothing of that sort ever happened in there again.
At the time of the encounter, I was just scared. I had hunted, and I felt I was being hunted. That wouldn't have bothered me so much, except that the only thing that should have been a threat in there were coyotes. While they do hunt silently, they don't chase through underbrush; they would have come out in the open to try to surround me. But they wouldn't even do that in winter unless they were near starvation, and there was never a shortage of small game or livestock in the area. There were no bears in middle TN, and nobody had seen a bobcat for years by that point - and the only way a bobcat is going to attack a human is if it's cornered and trying to escape.
The noise was only ever to my right. At the beginning that was to the east, then once I passed the rifle range, to the south. This makes some sense, as once you pass the pistol range, the north side of the woods is only 60 feet wide and tapers off as you near our fields, because the area to the north is a 10-acre hay field with no cover for anything large. There was only the noise of one thing moving, and it made a hell of a lot of racket doing it. It was also able to pace me moving through dense foliage while I was doing about 15 miles an hour.
I never really gave it much thought after the guys said they took care of it. Looking back on it years later, I wish I'd gone back in during the day and looked for its spoor; it would have to have left one hell of a path of broken branches given the noise it made. It also would have had to cross at least one area where it would have to have left tracks. I'd actually be less curious if I could pin it as being anything that should have been in the area, but based on the events, the only conclusion I can make is that it was trying to scare me, not catch me. If it could pace me while I was on the open riding a bike and it had to go through woods, it should have easily been able to break into the clear and run me down, especially either time I stopped. At no point, however, did it permit itself to be seen; when it encountered large clearing one of two things had to be true: either it circled behind them, concealing itself in the trees, or else it was invisible. Based on other encounters, I'm not prepared to dismiss either possibility.
I also note that while I heard sounds of passage, I never heard breathing or vocalizations. I don't have any distinct recollection of footfalls, and I did specifically stop pedaling and coasted as I came to the clearing with our equipment, as I wanted to see where it would come out of the woods. Since there was a fence around the field, I knew that, to pursue me further, it had to come out onto the path.
That will do it for the event. Various hypotheses may be devised. Based on behavior, it wasn’t a bear, bobcat, coyote, dog, or person. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t something entirely ordinary. It also clearly wasn’t something constant; as I said, it had never happened before, nor did it happen again. The woods themselves absolutely gave you a feeling of being watched, but this was never threatening, no matter what stupid teenager things I did there.
