A father, son, and their dog are hiking on the Appalachian Trail. That evening they stopped to spend the night at a shelter. Then, an encounter with an unknown being occurs. Later, the realization sets in!
I received the following account:
"My event was in the mid-eighties, including my son and our dog Ginger. When we had our encounter we were at a shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Amherst County, Va. It was the Cow Camp Gap shelter. It was early December and very cold. It would get below 10 degrees that night.
I am comfortable in the woods and teaching my son skills needed to survive is a LIFE SKILL like swimming. It's good 'father-son' time.
We arrived at the shelter shortly before dark and made a fire for warmth and hot food. The shelter faces south and has a spring-fed stream separating the shelter from the AT. The AT runs with an old narrow road separating and climbing north to the top of Cole Mountain.
My son and I were in good spirits sitting, talking, and playing with Ginger.
Ginger saw the figure coming out of the late twilight walking north. It was a surprise that anyone would be at that location since the closest house was a hard three or four miles from the shelter. The figure came within 100 feet. The thing was tall and wore a dark brown "fur coat". I was aware of Ginger's barking changing to something I had never heard from her before that event, or after. Without thinking I called out to the figure to come over and have some hot drink. That's when things got very difficult to explain
First, the creature turned to face us. Its face looked human in shape but not human in appearance. It turned its whole body. When the creature looked at us, Ginger's barking changed. Her hind legs appeared uncontrolled. Her sounds were not barking sounds but a gurgling noise. She was in great pain! I momentarily focused on Ginger reaching down to her which did not stop her suffering! I looked to the creature who returned to continuing its long, athletic strides, taking it out of sight very quickly. Ginger resumed barking her aggression warning, but not the same as before the thing had turned to face us.
My son said, "Dad, what just happened to Ginger"? I was thinking what did that thing do to Ginger when it was 100 feet away? I was not fearful and Ginger was a "handful of Golden Retriever."
We spent a cold night with Ginger at alert the entire time. When we made our way to the warmth of my car the next morning Ginger curled up with my son in the back seat and slept the three-hour drive home.
It would be eight years later before I returned to the area. Ginger refused to follow me off Cole Mountain south towards the Cow Camp Gap shelter. When I got close to the woods half a mile north of the shelter, Ginger sat with ears perked refusing my efforts to get her to come to me.
I decided I would not go without Ginger.
Fifteen years later while on a Sunday drive to the town of Buena Vista, Virginia, a small town about fifteen miles from the AT shelter, I would have a conversation with a teenage waitress. I mentioned my frequent visits to the Mt. Pleasant Trail area. She said I should be careful and not go alone to Cole Mt., because about the time she was born, her uncles had seen something while they were deer hunting that had scared them so badly they would never hunt or go back to that area. SHE WAS SIXTEEN, THE TIME FIT!
I've since learned that the area had a fall and winter with dogs making a lot of noise at night with a large number going missing. A calf went missing without a trace. The owner was uncommitted as to what was going on but said his grandfather had a story about the BROWN MAN. He had not seen anything, but neighbors had.
Something dreadful happened at that shelter in August of 2011. A hiker was found dead and half buried! It's now April of 2016. I have not heard of an arrest!
I am interested if there are any similar accounts of these THINGS harming dogs. I am a skeptic looking for an explanation for Ginger's actions OTHER than Bigfoot having mind control capability over dogs. And maybe humans too!" Bob
NOTE: Here is the incident that Bob referred to:
Federal authorities have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the death of A.T. hiker Scott Lilly in Virginia last summer
Date Published: Apr 25, 2012
Amherst, VA - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever killed Scott A. Lilly, 30, of South Bend, Ind., last summer near the Appalachian Trail in central Virginia.
FBI Special Agent Steve Duenas, the lead investigator, also disclosed at a news conference on April 23 that Lilly “was buried.” Hikers found his “partially buried” body on August 12, another agent said, along a side trail to Cow Camp Gap Shelter in George Washington–Jefferson National Forest in Amherst County, almost five miles north of the U.S. 60 Trailhead.
Duenas said Lilly’s last known contact was from the shelter on July 31. He was not identified until August 16. That shelter is about 0.6 miles east of the A.T. along the Old Hotel Trail, which loops around and rejoins the A.T. again about two miles north.
A state medical examiner in January ruled the death a homicide and said the cause was “asphyxia by suffocation,” noted Mike Morehart, special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Richmond office, who announced the reward.
Most of Lilly’s gear has not been recovered, he said, including new trail shoes (Walmart’s Ozark Trail brand), a blue or purple backpack, a Nintendo game, and “an A.T. handbook.”
Lilly used the Trail name “Stonewall.” He had begun hiking south from Maryland in late June, intending to go all the way to Springer Mountain, resupplying periodically through Walmart gift cards sent by his mother, according to his family.
Lilly’s younger sister, Alysen, joined Sheriff L.J. “Jimmy” Ayers III in urging anyone with information to call the FBI tip line at (800) 261-1044 FREE.
“He was a 30-year-old man living out a dream by hiking the A.T. and visiting Civil War battlefields…. Our family will never be the same. We need closure,” she said, telling reporters later that she thought he planned to find a new place to live in the South after his hike.
Ayers said, “Any information, even if it seems trivial, maybe the piece that solves the puzzle.”
Morehart said the combined investigative team—including National Park Service A.T. rangers, U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers, and Virginia State Police—has conducted 83 interviews of hikers, maintainers, and others, “in multiple states and two other countries,” including all long-distance hikers known to have been in the area in that period.
Timothy J. Heaphy, U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia, noting ATC’s involvement as well, said that “the level of cooperation on this case…is remarkable.” He stressed that his office is placing a high priority on this open case, as well as “unsolved murders” along the Blue Ridge Parkway and a 1996 killing of two women hikers away from the Trail in Shenandoah National Park, but right now he has seen no connection among them.
Duenas, declining to provide more specifics about the coroner’s report or the “many possibilities” being investigated, said the reward announcement and news conference “are part of the investigative strategy—to generate more leads,” particularly from 2011 hikers who might not have seen last August’s news reports and from 2012 hikers noticing something unusual. “I have no reason to believe the Trail is any more dangerous. Hikers just have to be aware and take all the normal precautions."
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