I will never be without goosebumps again. Ever.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

So, some time back I told this story about some of the creepy weirdness going on in the woods where I grew up. I mentioned I took a plaster cast of a weird footprint (this was probably over thirty years ago...the cast has gone missing since I stupidly let someone take it out of my sight and I have not seen it since.)

Your classic "footprint in the woods" story is, of course, a bigfoot story. This is not. I don't know what the hell kind of story this is. It was nothing like a bigfoot cast. It was like a canine print. Only it was huge. Like six inches wide by about five long with a discernable heel. Three toes, with an impression of what might have been a dewclaw or "thumb" type fourth toe. Heavy claw impressions. Found it on a deer trail. They were deep prints. The animal that made it was heavy.

So here is the thing. I'm watching one of these stupid creature shows about a "dogman" or a "wolfman" or some other such nonsense. And they trot out a series of plaster prints.

I think I must have forgotten to breathe. It was dead on. It was the print. I ran it back about fifteen times, my mouth hanging open the entire time.

You know what? You encounter weird goings on in your backyard, you don't want the word "wolfman" coming up in regard to it. There's all kinda things you might be okay with hearing. "wolfman" is not one of them.

Do I believe in werewolves or wolfmen? No. I reckon not. However, there was something weird running around the woods back then. I heard it and I saw prints. It may have stalked me at one point, I have no way of knowing what that was because I didn't stick around to find out. But you see something like that rolled out by cryptozoologists and whatnot, shit gets real.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I feel your pain... It's not at all uncommon to go outside at my parents' house and hear giggling, muttering, or screaming coming from the woods that surround their house. In addition, two people have told my parents they saw the ghost of a woman in old-fashioned clothes standing in the front yard.

As you can imagine, it's always fun to leave their place after dark and have to trek through the yard to get to your car.

[Rantsylvania 6-5000]

*shivers* Creepy! I love hearing about this stuff, but it freaks me out too. I believe there are a lot of things out there we can't explain, and I DO believe in the paranormal, UFOs, and mysterious forms of life.

[KellyHabersham]

Reminds me a little of things which took place in the town where my family used to live, although I think they're related more to possible Bigfoot sightings.


- Apparently there was an area behind one of the local hardware stores where some kind of large animal had made a nest. I never visited the place in question, but it seems that other animals avoided that spot, and nobody had ever figured out what sort of animal had made the nest.

- my sister and a friend had gone for a bike ride in the woods near our house, and came back all freaked out because they had seen a "white thing" walking by the road. From how they described it, it sounded like Bigfoot, and for several years, nobody wanted to ride bikes down that particular stretch of road.

[Frantic Freddie]

Your classic "footprint in the woods" story is, of course, a bigfoot story. This is not. I don't know what the hell kind of story this is. It was nothing like a bigfoot cast. It was like a canine print. Only it was huge. Like six inches wide by about five long with a discernable heel. Three toes, with an impression of what might have been a dewclaw or "thumb" type fourth toe. Heavy claw impressions. Found it on a deer trail. They were deep prints. The animal that made it was heavy.

I believe you have encountered the prints of Ursus americanus.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That wasn't a bear print. I know what bear prints look like. Bears are rare out here, but they have been sighted. And the livestock killings and horrifying growling outside my camp one night may have been bears. I don't rule that out.

But this print was not a bear print. To me, it looked closest to canine. Now, it could be an enormous cat, but the claws didnt' look feline. Nor did the general shape of the foot.

I'm not willing to state with any surety that it was canine, either, but that's the closest comparison I can make. It looked just like the prints in the stupid show.

EDIT: Okay, I just looked up bear prints, just to try and look objectively again. Not wanting to be close minded, I will state that "bear print" is not outside the realm of posibility. That would explain the heel a bit, some of the ones I saw had a sharp, spadelike heel. So definate possibility.

What our track was lacking was the toe articulation you see in bear prints. And it was missing some toes, too. It didn't have the same number of toes a bear should have. It was very narrow at the heel, with the three (possibly four) toes splayed out in a wide, duck-like spread. Bore it's weight forward, the deepest part of the track was in the forefoot.

[Frantic Freddie]

North American big cats have retractable claws,just like house cats,so you don't see claw prints,they look just like Fluffy's prints,just bigger.

Dog & bear prints look similar because they're related (lotta people don't know that,but it's easy to see the similarities i.e. head shape,bad eyesight but excellent sense of smell & hearing,omnivorous,curious & intelligent).

A mountain lion will make a high-pitched screaming noise when they make a kill,it can sound eerily like a child crying,they're saying "Stay away,this is mine!" but will growl when in a fight with another animal.

My story: One night while camping we had just gotten into bed in my van when we heard a big THUMP!,a crash & the sound,the one that reaches into our primordial past & makes our hair stand up,the growl of a BIG cat.
The wife says "Maybe we'd better get the cooler in" I said "You do it,I'll hold the flashlight & .45"
The next morning we found that our aluminum-framed lounger had been bent & the van was surrounded by saucer-sized cat prints.That meant he was watching us as we got the cooler in the van.Had he decided to charge while I was looking the other way I seriously doubt I could've got a shot off before he got one or both of us.

[Frantic Freddie]

What our track was lacking was the toe articulation you see in bear prints. And it was missing some toes, too. It didn't have the same number of toes a bear should have. It was very narrow at the heel, with the three (possibly four) toes splayed out in a wide, duck-like spread. Bore it's weight forward, the deepest part of the track was in the forefoot.

Large canine,stalking something & crouched down,that would account for the shape of the prints.

Or maybe a jackalope,deadly,vicious animals with a taste for blood.

[AdminAssistant]

Don't want to OT too badly, but it reminds me of my own scary footprint story. I was back home, and we had about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. Nice, wet, pretty snow, which rarely happens. I was taking the dog out, and he was throwing a g-d fit. I thought it was just because he didn't like the cold and wet on his feet. Until I saw these paw prints coming from a nearby field up around the house. *Large* paw prints. The dog and I booked it to the house and I told Dad. "Probably coyotes" (we do have coyotes and they tend to come out during snows for whatever reason). "They're too big for coyotes." Dad went out....they were wolf tracks. Big wolf tracks. I didn't even think we had wolves in that area, but Dad figured it was living around the nearby river and got hungry. Still...sheesh.

[MoonCat]

A guy who works here went on a camping trip a couple years ago. He had some sort of hammock to sleep in, complete with mosquito netting, etc.

One night he woke up because something was sniffing at his head. It was a wolf. There was nothing between him and this wolf but the netting.

He just kept as still as possible until it got bored and left.

[Plaidman]

I was walking along the train tracks once, saw a little animal skull. No bigger then a baseball. It had real horns though.

Still no idea what small animal that has horns.

[terakhan]

http://home.mcn.net/~wtu/tracking.html

Based on your description, I am leaning toward a wolverine, based on this site's track images. That said, I am far from an expert on tracking, but its the most likely candidate in my mind.

As for the skull, there are a lot of animals it could be, but details matter. Were they horns or antlers, for one. Horns, I would venture goat or antelope type animals, depending on location.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

And as messed up as this sounds, rabbits can actually contract a virus that makes them sprout horn or tusk-like growths. Probably where the jackalope story came from originally.

[Plaidman]

Horns. On the sides, kinda like er, well Frieza first form and Captain Ginyu from Dragonball Z is the best I can describe them. A longer skull then round, like from nose to back of skull was longer then it was wide.