A witness describes several strange incidents while camping that led to him and his family not ever feeling safe in the outdoors. These included unknown canine-like prints and a ripped tent.
"I realized my experiences were not just normal things in the wilderness and outdoors. These experiences continue to trouble me to this day. My first one was when I was a kid. My dad was a logger so we spent most of our time in the outdoors and woods camping and fishing and camping near my dad's job site since it was easier to camp nearby than for my dad to drive those distances every day. Most of those camping trips were normal.
The last camping trip we went on, a job site camping trip, was a weird one. On normal camping trips, my dad would always bring along his rifle or pistol due to the bears and mountain lions that were always around. But this time he was worried. He brought both his rifles and pistol. He specifically told us kids and my mom to not go wandering off or go too far from the campsite. His explanation was that there had been a big bear spotted in the logging site and near camp. It seemed to have shaken him and he was a logger, nothing ever shook him like that. But he never said anything else about it and never wanted to camp again. That was the last time we camped near one of his job sites. He openly says, even to this day, that he hates camping but never says why. I didn't see or hear anything out there on that trip but there was an uneasy feeling that I had not felt while camping before. So I wonder what was really going on.
My next experience was about 6 years ago. I used to take my kids camping about 45 minutes from where we currently live. We'd go every summer. It allowed the kids to be able to just be kids and have fun camping. The last camping trip we went on was at the same place we had been going to every year. It was not a normal camping trip, far from it and it still makes my hair stand on end just thinking about it. We tried camping there two more times after this one I'm going to tell you about but ended up coming back home. It just didn't feel right out there anymore.
It started out normal but quickly went to strange and creepy. We had our tents set up right next to each other. One was mine, and the other two were my kid's tents. They were not small tents, the tops of them stood taller than I am and I'm 51. You'll understand why I added that when you read my experience.
The first night was a bit odd because we heard strange noises in the campground that we had not ever heard before. I figured it was raccoons because they were known to be out there but my kids and I had an uneasy feeling that we could not pin down to anything that would cause it. We all tried to shrug it off and enjoy our camping trip. That night my kids wanted to sleep in the car so I agreed and we all slept in the car. The next day we found tracks too big to be a raccoon so I thought it's got to be a coyote. But the tracks looked odd, so I snapped a couple of pics of them with my phone and sent the pics to my dad. He hunted and worked in the woods for over 20 years so he knows animal tracks. I asked him what they were and his response shocked me. He said he honestly didn't know, which was odd. If it had been raccoons he would have identified that right away. The tracks were all over our campsite and too big to be raccoons but didn't look like coyotes either. They looked canine of some sort with skinny long feet and claws.
We all slept in the car the third night and saw the same prints again but they had circled the car. We talked about it to the fish and wildlife officer that had come out there that day and he shrugged it off and said they get raccoons out there all the time and it was nothing to worry about. He wouldn't even look at the tracks, trying to keep things light and fun. I just told my kids it wasn't anything to worry about but they could sleep in the car again. I didn't want to scare them so I tried to do what we normally do while camping.
I stupidly decided to sleep in my tent that night and my kid slept in the car. My back was on fire from sleeping in the car for two nights so I slept in my tent. I had an overwhelming sense of uneasiness so I stayed away and started reading a book on my Kindle hoping it would put me at ease and take my mind off the feeling I had. It didn't but I tried to go to sleep anyway. After reading for a bit that feeling hit even stronger and harder. Then I heard a deep heavy grunt from something very large. No way that was from a coyote. Whatever that came from had to be very large and heavy from the sound of that grunt or snort. I was scared out of my mind. I thought of my kids in my car. I knew that they were safer than I was in a tent, with no protection from a tent. But I was scared for the safety of my kids and I knew whatever this thing was it was between me and my kids in my car, so I had no chance of getting to them. If I ran and the car was parked far enough from my tent that there was nothing I could do but wait listen and be ready to get my kids at all costs. Luckily that didn't happen. I didn't hear anything after that so I eventually went to sleep after peeking out of the door of the tent and not seeing anything or anyone out there.
The next morning I got out of my tent and got ready to start breakfast. I went to the tent directly next to mine because I wanted to see if an animal had gotten in there or tried to because we had an empty cooler in there. So I opened up the tent and was shocked. Something had torn the back of that tent from the top of it down to the bottom in three long tears about a foot to a foot and a half apart and along the bottom of the tent. Where the back meets the ground was torn all the way across the bottom. I've never seen that before. No way a raccoon did that. The cooler had not been touched, no scratches or bite marks on it and the lid was still on and in place. It didn't have hinges to keep the lid on. I didn't hear the ripping of the tent at all and I should have heard that. There's no way I would have missed it. I didn't sleep heavily that night. I was on edge and ready to protect my kids so I can't explain how I didn't hear that racket of the tent being shredded like that.
I said earlier, we did try to go camping there again after that but none of us felt comfortable there. It was always the same uneasy feeling so we stopped camping. Where we live there are not many campsites unless you want to drive hours away which was and is not an option. But in all honesty, my kids and myself just don't feel the same about camping anymore. There's just no desire for it. I don't know what that was out there nor do I care to know but I do have a few thoughts on what it may have been and it's not a normal animal."
Transcribed Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUmYPpQ6SnY
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