Unusual happenings in the forest

[Murphydog]

I was wondering if anyone had ever had come across anything strange or unusual while working in the forests?After working in woodlands for 35 years i can recall 2 or 3 things.The worst one was just 3 years ago.We drove down a track to start work and noticed lots of police activity.A cop stopped us and asked what we were doing down there,i said we had come to do some tree felling,'not today lads'the cop said,it turned out a young woman had been raped and strangled and dumped among the trees.One a lighter note,we once arrived at at the edge of a forest fairly early in the morning,the sun was just rising,we were fueling up the cchainsaws when we heard a kind of chanting,on investigating we came across a group of men and women totally naked,they were sun worshipers welcoming the rising sun,they invited us to strip off and join them,which we declined,we were to busy,ha ha,it cheered an old man up though.

[WH_Conley]

Did you invite them back? :D :D

[KBforester]

Old plane wreck. Turns out I wasn't the first to discover it, but the timber company didn't know anything about it. So it was exciting to me anyways!

[Sprucegum]

When I was surveying road locations for the Dept. of highways I drove about 10 miles back on an old logging trail and saw a volkswagen beattle. There was a young couple on the ground - I think they were fighting over who got the blanket  ;)   :-[

I just tooted the horn and kept going.  :D  :D

[Murphydog]

Did you invite them back? :D :D

Ha ha,no sir,i didnt invite em back and i had a heck of a job to get the younger guys to work for the rest of the day.  :D

[Murphydog]

Old plane wreck. Turns out I wasn't the first to discover it, but the timber company didn't know anything about it. So it was exciting to me anyways!

wow,yes,i bet that was interesting.  8)

[Murphydog]

When I was surveying road locations for the Dept. of highways I drove about 10 miles back on an old logging trail and saw a volkswagen beattle. There was a young couple on the ground - I think they were fighting over who got the blanket  ;)   :-[

I just tooted the horn and kept going.  :D  :D

GREAT,I REMEMBER DOING THAT WHEN THE MRS AND ME WERE COURTING ,AND WHO SHOULD DRIVE SLOWLY PAST,HER MUM AND DAD,BUT NOTHING WAS EVER SAID,  :

[Murphydog]

We were always told to make sure we had a clear escape route when felling a tree,well a few years ago my son was dropping a tree and had made sure there was no brash or anything around him,but yours truly here was standing a safe distance away and thought i was safe.As the tree fell a deer ran out of some bushes and headed straight for me,i saw it coming but there was that much stuff around me i couldnt get out of the way and the dammed thing hit me sendind me flying,result a couple  of broken ribs and a gashed hand where i landed on some wood,the deer escaped unscathed.

[Texas Ranger]

Stills and bodies, oh, and grass fields, were all I ever found.

[Bogue Chitto]

We had that happen to us Murphydog.  We were getting deer stands ready for the hunting season and herd a lot of yelling in the woods.  We went to investigate, and we discovered five women running around without any clothes on.  They said they were form the city and wanted to run necked through the woods to feel the freedom.  Of course we did not mind.  They were quite cute. ;D ;D ;D ;D 

[doctorb]

And you don't think that qualifies for your "Strange Things Happening in the Forest?" thread in the General topics area? :D

[Jeff]

I sure do, so I'm going to merge it with that topic.

[Bobus2003]

A Deceased Guy was found Just across the Meadow Less than a 1/8mile from my landing 2 years ago.. Unsure if it was Accidental Shooting or suicide.. I knew they guy...

[John_Haylow]

A couple of years ago a co-worker and I had pulled in a cottage road to do a job with a 58`bucket truck and realized we had the wrong place, we started backing out the road when we heard a tree cracking. It was large maple about 24'' that broke off at the stump and was now lying 15` from us across the road in front of the truck. We just looked at each other in shock. The odd thing was the tree had leaf and there was no wind to speak of. Maybe the vibration of the truck was enough I don`t know.

John

[Magicman]

I have heard trees randomly fall in the woods, but I have never seen one fall.  I wonder if they would have made a racket it I had not been there  ???

[Murphydog]

We had that happen to us Murphydog.  We were getting deer stands ready for the hunting season and herd a lot of yelling in the woods.  We went to investigate, and we discovered five women running around without any clothes on.  They said they were form the city and wanted to run necked through the woods to feel the freedom.  Of course we did not mind.  They were quite cute. ;D ;D ;D ;D

it sure does brighten the working day up.  :

[Misfit]

Back sometime in the early 80's I was driving from Calgary to Vancouver and stopped on the side of the Trans Canada highway to....ummmm....make my bladder gladder. I walked about 50 ft or so into the woods and found two half-rotted backpacks on the ground, still with clothing and the ID's of 2 young women who looked to be in their early 20's.
I reported the location to the next RCMP post I came to but never heard anything more about it. I do recall there had been a couple of cases of hitch-hikers disappearing along that route sometime prior to this.
Why the blazes couldn't I have come across 5 young nubile wenches enjoying nature, au natural?  :

[petefrom bearswamp]

26 years as a consulting forester, found a piece of an airplane in a tree top, a few small pieces on the ground. Landowner told me that the 2 guys survived the crash. found 1 downhill ski in the middle of nowhere, a large crowbar leaning in a tree, several pieces of metal grown into trees, a mylar balloon with a young girls name and address that had traveled about 100 miles to where I found it.
Only had 2 trees fall near me one of which I had foolishly walked under about 1/2 hr earlier. I now walk around all hangers.
Quite a few other out of place objects, but can't remember all of them.

[Rocky_Ranger]

I was cruising timber one day and ran across about 20 cows killed by lightening - it was hot and time had passed, so I moved along pretty quickly.  As far as trees falling; in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon, after it moistened up from a hot and dry summer, those old big ponderosa snags would come down.  Usually in an area of standing old-growth and thick regen.  You'd just hear this "swoosh" and a crash of breaking limbs, etc.  I seen a big old green oak just split and fall one day - zero wind, little if any rot, just its time - I reckon.  Glad I wasn't bent over taking a crap under it....... ;D.  Found some dope plants in Oklahoma, military stripper clips for an M-1 carbine and smoke grenades in Colorado, airplane in Arkansas, airplane in Oregon, Grizzly bear in Montana - (yikes!), if memory serves me I was taking a crap when the bear found me..., not much here in Arizona just yet - I'm gonna start looking for them there "nubians" though.....

[Okrafarmer]

I never found anything really weird in the woods, but there was this ancient abandoned school bus on our neighbors property right in the middle of the woods.

[Okrafarmer]

We had that happen to us Murphydog.  We were getting deer stands ready for the hunting season and herd a lot of yelling in the woods.  We went to investigate, and we discovered five women running around without any clothes on.  They said they were form the city and wanted to run necked through the woods to feel the freedom.  Of course we did not mind.  They were quite cute. ;D ;D ;D ;D

Ouch-- I sure don't recommend that in the woods around here, blackberries, tangle vines, dead pine limbs, holly trees, poison ivy. . . . . not to mention fire ants, yellow jackets, mosquitoes, etc.

[Texas Ranger]

DanG, sounds like Texas.   8)

[Jeff]

Tammy and I, and Pete and Lynda were on a 4 wheeler excursion in the East end of the U.P., and back somewhere where only the jeeps we had at that time could go, and came across and old school bus painted up sorta like the Partridge family bus. It has moss growing all over it and clearly had not been used in a long long time. On the side of it in big letters, that were still discernible, It said  "THE MAJIK SKOOLBUS"  We guessed it was an old commune at one time.  We've went back and tried to find it again with the quads, and never have been able to.

[JohnW]

 Ouch-- I sure don't recommend that in the woods around here, blackberries, tangle vines, dead pine limbs, holly trees, poison ivy. . . . . not to mention fire ants, yellow jackets, mosquitoes, etc.
[/quote]

Now that's the reason Winter is my favorite season -- no poison ivy, no bugs.

[Okrafarmer]

Ouch-- I sure don't recommend that in the woods around here, blackberries, tangle vines, dead pine limbs, holly trees, poison ivy. . . . . not to mention fire ants, yellow jackets, mosquitoes, etc.

Now that's the reason Winter is my favorite season -- no poison ivy, no bugs.
[/quote]

Ok-- so are you recommending running though the woods in, er, "reduced attire" during an Indiana winter???

[Ron Scott]

A few I recall are: Coming across a B-29 SAC bomber crash site deep in a swamp while cruising timber on the Hiawatha N.F. The crash site of a F-16 fighter plane and finding the remains of the pilot while responding to a forest fire on the Hiawatha N.F. I later assisted the Air force in recovering the body and aircraft remains.

Finding the skeleton of a missing female murder victim against a tree on the Manistee N.F. Finding devil worshippers sacrificing sheep and goats at night at one of our fire tower sites on the Manistee N.F. Finding nudists and topless female canoers on the Manistee N.F. Finding several pot growing sites on the Manistee N.F. and private lands.

Enountering a wild steer on the loose in the Monongahela N.F. Encountering several moonshine stills on the Monongahela N.F. The heart attack death and the body removal of a Sierra Club member from the Cranberry Back Country, Monongahela N.F.

The shoot out between Wexford County Sheriff officers and two bank robbers while I was marking timber on private land in the area that the robbers fled to. I didn't know what was going on while hearing all the shooting until I saw a helicopter overhead with a megaphone clearing the area.

I've seen 3 trees fall in the forest for no reason at all. All were healthy trees. One was an aspen that nearly took me with it. I told of this near miss in another thread.

[sandhills]

Gee I can't believe nothing unusual happens out in the woods  !  So far this is the worst I've encountered and I'm sticking to it  ;D (not counting the little "relieving myself incident in front of a trail cam)

 

[WDH]

DanG Ron, that will be hard to top!

[Jeff]

DanG Ron, that will be hard to top!

How about this?

[WH_Conley]

No need to scare everybody away, Jeff. :D

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I'll leave this one alone to the experts. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

Holy cow Ron!
What a career you have had.
A friend of mine who spent his career in the USFS found a body stuffed in an outhouse at a remote cabin site once.
He went to take (or leave as George Carlin said) a crap and the smell made him look as it wasn't the odor of  doo-doo.
Other instances I have had is almost stepping on 3 different fawns in the early summer and once watching a red fox emerge from a den in front of me, stretch and then walk off.

[WDH]

I'll leave this one alone to the experts. 

All I know is trees and wood.  I leave the Aliens to the History Channel  .

[JohnW]

Okrafarmer -- That's a good question.  No, I don't recommend running through the Indiana woods in reduced attire in the winter.  I do recommend Winter as a good time to be in the woods.  (I'd probably be slightly interested if some of the previously mentioned things were happening.

Later.

[Ron Scott]

I've experienced two lightning strikes that hit large white pine trees right beside me while being caught during severe thunder storms. One strike was so close that the force knocked me over as the tree exploded with flashes of fire. It was hard hearing for awhile after. Both instances were on the Ottawa N.F.

[Clam77]

Ouch-- I sure don't recommend that in the woods around here, blackberries, tangle vines, dead pine limbs, holly trees, poison ivy. . . . . not to mention fire ants, yellow jackets, mosquitoes, etc.

Now that's the reason Winter is my favorite season -- no poison ivy, no bugs.
[/quote]


:D  Believe me - you can definately get poison ivy in the winter time..   

[clww]

And Black Widow spider bitten, too! >:(
That happened to me January of 2009 while wearing gloves moving firewood.

[JohnW]

Ouch-- I sure don't recommend that in the woods around here, blackberries, tangle vines, dead pine limbs, holly trees, poison ivy. . . . . not to mention fire ants, yellow jackets, mosquitoes, etc.

Now that's the reason Winter is my favorite season -- no poison ivy, no bugs.

:D  Believe me - you can definately get poison ivy in the winter time..
[/quote]

I believe you  -- I've had the experience.  But there's a lot less poison ivy since there's no leaves.

[Ron Scott]

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,49952.msg722191.html#msg722191

[ouachita]

Cruising timber on a 30 acre out tract separated from the main property.  No easy access even though it was next to a well traveled paved road.  Finally entered the tract.  As Patricia and I were walking through the property we started to go around either side of a yupon bush. We jumped up 6 coyotes that had been sleeping on the other side of the bush.  The coyotes hauled, leaving us severely frightened.  One of the coyotes came back, shaking his head, like trying to get the sleep out of his eyes.  He's thinking maybe what spooked him might be his next dinner.  He got within about five feet (that's 60 inches) away from us when he realized that his possible future dinner was two humans. 

Have you ever seen a coyote back petal, turn around and try to go forward at the same time?

Charles Westmoreland CF, RF
Ivan, Arkansas
Conroe, Texas

[TW]

No exceptional finds though I walk a lot in the woodlands around here.
Just ordinary stuff that belong to the forest and the beaches. Remains of an old moonshine still and some small remnants of some long forgotten shipwreck that had drifted ashore. Parts from an old cast iron stove which followed me home on top of a log load. Some ancient stone foundations and stone walls whose existence was unknown.

[submarinesailor]

Have you ever seen a coyote back petal, turn around and try to go forward at the same time?

Charles Westmoreland CF, RF
Ivan, Arkansas
Conroe, Texas

No, but I had a big sow black bear do that.  It was even funnier to watch her trip over a big log as she tried to turn and run at the same time.  A big bear tripping over a log, landing on her face and rolling completely over before she regainned her footing.  She ran about 10 yards, stopped and started turning over rocks, feeding like nothing ever happened.

Bruce

[VT_Forestry]

I find bits and pieces of airplanes all the time, but this one was in the best condition  :D

Not sure if there were any survivors or not...  ;)

[clww]

That one must be from Langley, not Oceana.

[bigred1951]

hello everybody..just thought id drop in and see who all has stories about things they have found while in the woods logging, walking around or doing just what ever. Ive never found nothing much to mount to anything except a couple run down houses here and there and a old water tower and the occasional car or truck . I know of a place that suppose to have an old train back in the woods. Ive heard of people just out walking around and finding moonshine stills, illegal crops and all kinds of things. So lets hear them stories of what you all have found.

[Jeff]

You mlght want to look in on this very recent topic.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,59702.0.html

[JDeere]

That one must be from Langley, not Oceana.

If that isn't a model plane you sure have some huge leaves there.

[Delawhere Jack]

My sister and her husband were about 40 yrds ahead of me on an ATV riding trails through the woods. I come up on them stopped on the trail, they were arguing about what they had just seen. My sister thought it was a guy hunched over riding a bicycle, her husband thought it was an ostrich...... ???

We found what looked like the worlds largest turkey tracks. A couple days later my brother in law talked to the farmer who farms a large part of the property. Turns out that an animal rescue operation a few miles up the road had some emu's that had escaped. He had seem one on his property just a few weeks prior.

Quite an oddity for the Delmarva penninsula........ ;D

They're still out there, and I've heard that they are VERY TASTY!

[Holmes]

A few years ago my wife looked into the woods from the house a saw an Emu.  She took pictures of it and followed it down a trail for a hundred yards then decided to stay away from it.  Turns out it had been spotted all over our area.

[bigred1951]

thank ya for showing me that link

[pigpen]

bigred1951, I cut with a feller buncher for several years, the company consisted of a large arsenal of equipment with, if memory serves for this time period, 13 skidders. Now not all the skidders were on this job, but I bet 10 of them were, I had found an OLD cabin just outside the sale maybe 40 feet, They never seen it! lol I went back to politely investigate (This is on county land btw) and noticed that the only modern thing there was a 20lb lp cyl. for cooking. peered through the window and just below it, on a table I see a note book that says "journal IV". Walk over to the door, it's unlocked. Rightfully so, NO one knew this existed, it was just over a mile from any road. So... Normally I would never enter any building that I'm not invited into, but I gotta see what, when, who, etc.  You know? so I go read the journal, left a entry in the journal, and explained how I come across it and promised that I would never tell where it was with my phone number if anyone would call me and maybe talk a little on the history of it... By god a gal called me! She tells me it was built in the 50s when her father and others logged the black spruce swamp that it boarded. They still use it to this day! Didn't get much else from her, her father wasn't doing well health wise and her voice started to break a little, so I politely ended the conversation after thanking her for calling and reassured her the secret of the location is safe with me.  ;) I've also found several old moonshine stills with various things around them and a few old foundations that couldn't be explained, but the cabin is by far the best, most exciting thing I've ever come across. I wish I could show you guys and all my friends, but I'll settle for the story I guess.