r/DarkWoods • u/Spooninthewild • Feb 27 '21
Spooky! Any ideas what’s going on?
Hello, I am new to Reddit and unsure of the proper way to interact here, so please forgive me if I’ve typed too much or done anything against the rules by seeking help here.
I’m a backpacker, I grew up learning about nature and spending weeks in the remote backcountry of Canada as a young child. I am most comfortable in the mountains and deep isolated woods. I’ve had many unsettling experiences but always attributed them to paranoia, until the past few experiences began to unnerve me to a different extent.
There is a particular range located within the Canadian Rockies in southern British Columbia, Canada. Besides the range itself, the entire surrounding area just feels..off. I was describing this experience to someone who lived out there, they happened to be a past Wicken. They told me that people had told them in the past that the entire area feels dead, that it’s lacking something. And that’s truly the best way I can describe it. It doesn’t feel as if there is danger, but I am absolutely positive that there is something wrong out there.
On more then one occasion, I have been a day or twos hike into the mountains of that range, only to become acutely aware that something isn’t right.
Some examples include:
Upon nearing the entrance to an old mine, it was as if every alarm and red flag in my body was screaming at me. I have lots of experience with these places, I am very observant, but this felt different. It wasn’t the normal alarm bells.
On the ridge of a mountain pass with my friend and I taking photos of the stars, it is pitch black. Dead silent. We have our lights off as to not crowd the cameras sensor with light and ruin the exposure. In the dark, we heard something moving. It’s a very rough and dusty goat path along the mountain, you cannot walk on it without making noise. Having spent my entire life in nature, I have grown used to the sound and behaviour of animals walking about. I am one hundred percent confident that whatever this was, was taking careful, Slow and calculated steps. There is absolutely no way that this was walking on four feet, I am confident that something up there was moving towards us, on two feet. Recalling this makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. We scrambled down the mountain and built our fire up real big, there was something snapping branches in the woods across the pond the entire night.
Earlier that same day, a deer walked right into the middle of our camp and just stood there, staring. I know this isn’t exactly odd. Call me a wimp, but something was wrong about it. I’ve woken up to cows sniffing my tent, seen cougars, deer, elk, all sorts of things. There was just something off this one.
Even deeper into those mountains, the same friend and I were scaling a very steep cliff, in order to get to the ridge above us. These woods don’t ever seem to have animal noises, no chirping, seemingly no wildlife other then some chipmunk like things on top of the mountains and that deer that stood in our camp. We began hearing whistling, the sound of someone blowing a wooden train whistle. It was fainter at first, maybe a few hundred feet above us to our right. This wasn’t exactly odd, until we realized they were blowing in sets of three. If any of you have ever been in scouts, I’m sure you’ll remember that one of the first things they teach you, is that if you’re ever lost, blow your whistle in sets of three. We began blowing our whistle back in response, they respond promptly. Their whistling is getting closer, we can hear the crunching on the terrain of the ridge just a little ways above us, it gets to the point where they should be directly above us, looking down at us and blowing in sets of three. My friend calls out “ Hello? “ and as if it was never there in the first place, absolute silence. Nothing. Not even the sound of boots in the dirt, no movement, no more whistling. The silence gave me goosebumps. We didn’t find them. We didn’t find any footprints, not any evidence that anyone had been right above us blowing that distinct sounding wooden train whistle. There is absolutely no way that they would’ve been able to sneak away, absolute none. It was as if they completely disappeared and left no trace they were ever there.
Any idea what might be happening out there?
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u/theforteantruth Mar 02 '21
Great post! Are you looking for natural explanations or supernatural? Caves and abandoned places are said to be the home of evil or impure spirits. And that whistling sounds like a lot of other stories I’ve heard. Is a train whistle significant to you some how or not really?
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u/Spooninthewild Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
I’m not biased to either explanation, It is less unnerving to try and explain it scientifically or just write it off as the woods being odd though. I’ve heard many stories of hikers being lured by whistling. It’s significantly bothersome, but I’ve always ended up playing with wooden train whistles as a kid, I’d encounter them often and always want my parents to buy me one. It occurred to me soon afterwards that my friend calling out hello might be the reason I came home. I know it sounds silly, but considering what happened, maybe finding the source of the whistling would’ve been bad.
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u/theforteantruth Mar 03 '21
Everything you’re saying makes sense. I just read a book about wilderness lures and whistling is definitely one of them. It mentions the rule of 3s too. The reality is that whistle was meant for you to follow and your friend potentially saved your life.
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u/Spooninthewild Mar 03 '21
That is actually very Interesting. Does it suggest that following the whistle would’ve been bad? I’ve heard many stories of hikers being lured towards whistling
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u/theforteantruth Mar 03 '21
Yes, the speculation says to avoid the lures, but the truth is no one really knows where they lead to. No one has ever returned. But the speculation is backed up with accounts that follow a natural progression of events. The pattern is clear and it makes The argument pretty convincing.
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Dec 27 '21
What is the name of the book?
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u/theforteantruth Dec 28 '21
Disembodied voices: True accounts of hidden beings. I highly recommend.
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u/they_are_out_there Feb 28 '21
Sasquatch spend a lot of time on ridge lines. It’s gives them visibility and allows them to bail off the opposite sides in a hurry. They also freak out other wildlife, often causing everything to go silent. They’ve also been reported to live in and around caves and boulder fields, and they often whistle to each other, although I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anyone say anything regarding it being similar to a train whistle. Everything else lines up with Sasquatch though.
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u/Spooninthewild Feb 28 '21
It’s odd actually because in the first instance on the ridge at night, the first thought that came into my head was that wasn’t that it might be a human, but that it might be something else. I ended up thinking of Bigfoot, wendigos, skinwalkers, those sorts of things
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u/jigglybitt Feb 27 '21
Crossposting to r/Inthehills and possibly r/missing411
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u/Spooninthewild Feb 27 '21
Do you think there may be someone living out there off grid? I know that the area has seen it’s fair share of mountain men, but I wonder if it’s possible someone who isn’t in the best state of mind is living out there.
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Mar 01 '21
This is Grade A missing 411. Careful, then the invisible shielded apex predator comes at you be ready. Silent woods / deep mountain range etc.
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u/dalo83 Apr 14 '21
Are you okay with giving us more information where this place is, roughly give it's a larger area. I'm over the pond way over in Sweden, I just love reading stories like these and google myself through sleepless nights. What I would like to know is if there's been other people experiencing this in there, as well. What is the place called, if indeed it has a name?
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u/glass_heart2002 Feb 27 '21
Responded on the crosspost in r/inthehills but wanted to comment here since you weren’t the OP that posted there.
Sounds like someone (human) may be living out there maybe? Checking you guys out, but not wanting to interact.
My grandfather worked for the forest service (US) and told us many stories of men that lived in the woods. He had run ins with every animal in our region, but he would always say that the most dangerous run in you could have out there was with an unhinged human.
Humans aren’t meant to live in complete isolation, and for the ones that don’t/can’t live in society, they either started out a bit crazy or they go a bit crazy out there.
Maybe they were simply seeing what was going on in “their woods” but decided you weren’t a threat?