Linda writes “I wanted to share my experience I had back in April of this year. This was in a large natural area in Southeast Michigan. I was suppose to meet up with my research/ investigating friend on a Friday night in May at a camp.

The weather was not so great on the way down. It was storming off and on throughout the afternoon. When I got to the camp nobody was there. My friend Gabe was still working and had not been able to come yet. It wasn’t dark yet but raining so I stayed in my van. Finally after texting back and forth, we established that He would come out the next morning because the radar showed a huge storm approaching and there were already flash flood warnings out.

So as twilight approached I decided to go outside even though it was sprinkling and load up on my drinks for the night so I would not have to get out again after dark in the storm approaching. I did not have a fire going didn’t see the sense in that. After grabbing two pops from my cooler I approached the opening of my van the slider door on the side.

I had miscalculated my timing and now it was fairly dark with almost no light..I looked toward my left out into this neighboring field there were 4 sets of eyes kind of greenish, and they were heading right at me. Now I figured they were about the right height for coyote or deer but I was a bit confused as to why they were coming at me. I grabbed my little flashlight from behind the seat and turned it on the eyes and yelled out in a very stern voice “Whatever you are that’s far enough!”

The creatures stopped and I realized now they were whitetails. All adult deer no fawns or bucks with them. In that second I thought to myself Why are these deer running up to me that’s not normal behavior, light went off in my head, they were trying to escape a predator.

Soon as I thought that they all raised their heads and looked back at the wood line on the other side of the field. Then bolted across the field taking off and away to the left. I started panning the wood line and bingo there about 7 or 8 feet ( a guess) up in the air were two huge round forward facing eyes set wide apart..And NOW its watching me instead of following the deer. I called out “I see you” in a casual voice but loud enough to let it know I knew it was there.

It kept watching me, I grabbed my bigger flashlight thinking i would light this thing up with my 1500 lumen but no all I could see was the eyes watching me still. Now its very dark and sprinkling harder. I decide to get into my van and get my thermal out thinking Im going to try and thermal this thing. Its still standing in the tree line. I step up into my slider door turn around and sit down on my bed, grab my key fob thinking id shut the slider door while its raining and I’m getting my thermal out..now I hit the keyfob and as the door slides shut I hear this very loud growl/roar and it sounds like it is 6 feet from my van!!

The door finishes shutting I hit lock and alarm. I am in shock now and sitting inside in the dark thinking no way am I going back out there and am I going to have to climb over the middle console to jump in the drivers seat to escape?! I listened intently waiting to see if my door was going to be torn off or what this thing was going to do and then the torrential storm hit …I was not going to turn on any interior light and would just keep quiet..even though it rained most of the rest of the night i could hear screams and howls throughout the night. Something screamed and the coyotes sounded off going nuts…Gabe showed up next morning and crossed over there and found suspicious tracks…upon his return to camp he was going to go back and cast the one but it had been scuffed out, very strange. I was happy to not be alone anymore at camp Ill tell you that! Then in June in a different area I was attempting to hike a trail but stopped on top of a berm to look at a print and got charged from behind in the woods behind me but I couldn’t see it..you are welcome to call me if you want the rest of that experience. Since I have talked to you on the phone years ago.”

Chad writes "Back in 1992, I was stationed at Ft. Lewis in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne). We were running a force-on-force training operation. I don’t recall the exact location—maybe an hour’s drive from Lewis.

Our task was to defend a simulated Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) site consisting of a trailer and container meant to resemble a rocket launcher.

We had two Special Forces Operational Detachment Alphas (ODAs) involved, roughly 20 guys total, plus a few support personnel. The site was backed up against the “no play zone,” so any attacking team could only approach from the west. It was fortified: two M-60 machine gun nests, a perimeter of seasoned operators, M-16s for each of us, a couple of HF radios—basic gear for a simulated “enemy” approach. No high-speed tech, no grenade simulators that I can recall.

The terrain was layered: a track in front of the site, then woods, then a clean trail parallel to a ridge 150 meters to the west. Beyond that, a large field of tall grass. Ferns covered the ridge slope—dense and knee-to-hip high.

Our mission was to intercept and resist any attempt to assault the SAM site, likely between dusk and sunrise. We ran rotating two-man patrols along the trail, each covering a three-hour shift.

The night of the encounter, I was paired with a Sergeant First Class—an 18D medic whom I’ll call “Guy.” He’d been in group for years. I was 22 at the time, on of the youngest on site.

Moonlight was strong—brilliant enough to allow stealth movement. We paced slowly, stopping every few meters to kneel and scan. After an hour, we paused under a shadowed area. Guy lit a cigarette with quiet precision—no glow exposed. I asked how he did that. He smirked and said, “Sniper check.”

Then it happened.

A deafening scream rang out from the ridge. At first, I thought it was an animal. But then came a bizarre shift: halfway through, it took on a human tone. Eight to ten seconds of sustained vocalization that morphed into a frantic, incoherent babble… and finally, a coyote-like cackle or laughing sound. The volume never dropped.

We scanned the ridge. I spotted a silhouette—a massive figure, turning swaying side to side near a tree at the top of the ridge. It looked human. I thought, “Who in group is that size?” We went guns up. The figure turned north and walked away.

We pursued him, assuming a diversion tactic to draw us away from the site. But despite jogging, we couldn’t close the gap. He moved quickly—strangely so. This went on for nearly a kilometer and a half.

The forest thickened. The ridge narrowed – bottle necked. And then the figure veered east—straight toward us—charging downhill like a bipedal rhino through underbrush. Not sticks snapping… limbs breaking.

I think at this moment, I realized It wasn’t human and started to categorize it.

We veered northwest off the trail to intercept. It turned north, the woods were dark – perfect place for a kill zone, an ambush, I could still track its movement. Then… silence. It stopped moving.

Total quiet. We crept forward—as noted this was textbook ambush territory. But nothing came. The smell did.

It hit in layers. First: wet dog tangled with decay. Then: putrid infection, feces, rot. It overwhelmed me. As the stench peaked, dread set in. Danger. Immediate and primal.

I glanced at Guy. He nodded: time to back out.

We backed out—me facing rear, unwilling to turn my back. I feared a charge. Surprisingly, Guy was only 15 feet behind. I suspect he walked backward too.

Eventually we hit the trail again, dazed. We stood in silence. Not tactical—just stunned. I have no concept of how long we stood there. I remember being totally surprised by how far we went, and how far off the trail we went. Almost like an unexplainable time warp.

We never spoke of it again. The only time I had heard what Guy had experienced was later that morning as he debriefed the CO and some of the others.

There is much more to this encounter that I would like to discuss with you.”

Dominic writes “There was two separate occasions with in the same year it happened once when eight years old another when I was about nine. When I lived in the town of Allen in western New York.

We lived on basswood hill and our family owned about Ten acres of land but our neighbors each had 250 acres of land and they were hunters so really only were around on the weekend and or hunting season. So they would let us in there property whenever it wasn’t hunting season. And me and some family members all around the same age as me built a fort in a heavy pine tree area and it was fairly cold out it was late October.

Well we were gonna build a little camp fire but I decided to sneak a pot form in the kitchen and put rocks in there to hold heat. (8) year old take in mind. Well as we were sneaking items in and out of the kitchen on our way back to our fort I saw in the tree opening a face a gorilla face looking in at us and I ran away along with the other kids and grabbed our bigger pocket knives and went back to see it was gone.

The other encounter was on the same property. But in the summer. Me and my nephew were gonna camp out out back and as we were bringing the tents out something caught my eye in our hay field we assumed immediately it was a black bear and they were common in the area but as we looked longer and the sun was setting we realized this thing was massive. So we got our binoculars which these binoculars were garbage kids toys pretty much but also gave us a slightly better look.

This thing kinda was shaped like a gorilla once again. I just remembered seeing very large shoulders and it was on all fours but had its rear end towards the ground. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the movie Tarzan but we grew up watching it . It reminded me of kerchek the head ape. But we went inside to find an adult to show them but by the time they came out it was gone.”