I live in northeast Ohio, and my house is directly in front of about 2-300 acres of woods, I used to explore it all the time. I had a strange encounter about 2 years ago when I was making a trip through a part of the woods I’d been in at least a hundred times. I’ve always had a thing for the outdoors so I was pretty familiar with that part of it. It was me and my cousin who is only a year younger than I am, and we both just had knives and little bullshit we liked to mess with in the woods. It was the middle of the day and we heard coyote yipping only about 20-30 yards out. So I made me and him climb a tree to avoid them, because the coyotes around here are mean and we weren’t properly armed. We climbed the tree and watched the pack run past not too far away. They seemed panicked like they were running from something, so I watched closely as my cousin covered his eyes because he was scared. Then something large cake running behind the pack, it looked like a large dog, but it was impossibly large, like the size of a small black bear large. It was jet black except for its eyes, they were a weird shade of green but, to be honest, I’m not 100% sure, I didn't get a great look. I asked my cousin about it later but he didn’t see any of it, it didn’t seem super strange until I started reading into stuff like this, and I was curious if it lines up with anything else, or if I just saw the worlds biggest dog. SR
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I live in Chattanooga, TN just a few minutes away from Harrison Bay. This year I started with 4 cats and would let them roam around outside and they would always come back in when it got dark. One of them didn't come back one day and we didn't think much other than they must of wanted to stay out longer and would let them in first thing in the morning.
After a week of no sign of them we gave up hope and thought maybe a stray dog or wild animal or something got her. We kept a closer eye on the cats from then on but didn't have any problems until a couple months later when another one disappeared. We now only let a single cat out who is older and meaner and can protect himself and even then he comes back in before it gets dark at all. Now the beginning of my encounter is from last night (12/28/2018).
I was driving home from work and the closer I got to my house the thicker this strange misty fog became. I came inside after feeling a little uneasy and went to bed after making sure both cats were inside and accounted for. I woke up at 3am to the sounds of a cat making an awful wailing noise outside my front door. It sounded almost like a siren from how it rose and fell in pitch. I looked to make sure my cats were ok and they were huddled up under my TV stand looking terrified at the front door where the wailing was coming from and I listened closer and the wailing sounded...off. It sounded like a wail on the surface but had a guttural growl undertone and I felt a strong urge to open the door but then I had a feeling tell me NOT TO OPEN it. I smacked the door instead and the thing made a loud garbled wailing growl sound as it scampered away. I then went to lay back down around 3:30 at this point and it started back up outside my bedroom window at this point. This time however it would wail and then make a sound like it was fighting another cat but there was only creature making noise and it went back on a loop of wailing. Around 4am it came to a stop. When I came outside this morning to go to work there was this white fluff all over the ground. LH
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I was driving home in the summer of '97 midday, no clouds, turning a corner at the bottom of the hill to my street. It's a hard left turn and opposing traffic frequently miscalculates how much they have to slow down to stay in their lane especially if they don’t look ahead to see if anyone is coming.
So I was turning left, looking far left up the hill when out of peripheral vision to my right there was what could only be described as a large, and by large I mean the size of an SUV, creature wrapped around the base of an old tree. It was gripping the trunk about five feet off the ground like a squirrel, covered in long brown hair except for it’s head where it was darker and short like a horse. The head was anteater like, but nowhere near as long or thin in proportion.
My abrupt turn spooked it. The dense mane on it’s back inflated as it sprinted up the tree like a bear. I could see incredible muscle mass ripple under the thick coat, and it shook the entire four story tree. The whole sighting happened in about a second while I was focused on taking the turn, so movement is what made me notice it. When I looked in it’s direction for a brief flash I saw massive hind legs blast thru bark and propel it’s torso straight up the trunk and then nothing. The sheer size and force of it did scare me but the WTF element made me stop.
I backed up about 20ft to get a better look at the area which was the front yard of a house set back in the woods. Things were completely normal. I didn’t think it was something that was actually there then, or in retrospect. Did I see the ghost of a giant sloth? PS
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I used to live in a more rural area of Tennessee growing up. I spent most of my days traipsing around the backcountry with my friends, logging miles of hiking a day. Usually there were four of us that would venture out but on this particular day only two of us went.
I'll call my friend Tyler. Well, Tyler's family had just moved here from California barely a year before this day. We rode our bikes as far as was feasible and hid them while we traversed the hills.
We meandered through the woods for hours, joking and playing like we usually did. We got to this kind of clearing and Tyler was talking animatedly to me and just...stopped. This was a kid that talked a mile a minute (I don't talk as much, so I was content to listen) and I remember feeling my stomach drop. I figured there was a snake. But when I turned to look at him, his face was twisted into this silent scream. He was looking behind me and UP. He kind of pointed and took off running in the other direction.
By this time I felt the icy grips of terror leeching on to me but still I turned around. I don't know what it was, but it was tall and hairy. Smelled bad. I would have called it a bigfoot but it ran like a dog. I lived in rural areas my whole life and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I did NOT see a bear that day. Bears have sounds I know, they have running styles different than dogs. Bears were a daily sighting depending on what house I was at.
I don't know what I saw but I know enough about life that I don't go telling anyone I know in person about it now. People where I'm from reported similar sightings. Tyler and his family moved back to California less than a month after the incident. He never spoke to any of us (myself and our ragtag bunch) again. If we went to his door he wouldn't answer or his mother would send us away. A couple years later I moved up north. I have told no one besides people I knew in the town I'm from. SJ
The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist)
Native American Myths & Legends
Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History
Cryptid Country (Cryptid Zoo)
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