The Strange & Unusual – Shared Encounters

By Daniel

The retelling of this experience may take some time. The reason for this is due to what I refer to as “the telling of less significant events” that took place prior to the actual encounter. I classify them this way because at the time, I had absolutely no idea they would form the foundation and ultimately frame what happened that day. Looking back on the experience now, I realize that each individual event fit like pieces of a puzzle, and when the puzzle was complete, the picture became much more clear.

It was 1983 and the second rifle/elk season was about to begin. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife decided to split one long two week hunting season into two shorter seasons with a week long break between them in hopes of minimizing the fire danger that often accompanied a dry Eastern Oregon Fall, and to reduce the pressure imposed upon game animals that have been hunted heavily. I think that there was also the thought that if they could cut back on the number of hunters in the woods, it would substantially reduce the fire danger and the threat of campfires that got out of control, due to any number of reasons; inexperience, intoxicated hunters and careless shenanigan’s that often went with the territory and the excitement of camping, and ultimately “the hunt.”

I had purchased two tags. One for myself and the other for the pastor of a local Pentecostal church. From now on I will refer to him as “pastor.” I had spent several weeks conducting gun safety classes for him prior to our hunt, and was convinced that he possessed the intelligence required to carry a high-powered firearm into the wilderness. He felt comfortable handling the rifle and after shooting a few hundred rounds target practicing, he was confident with a 308 Marlin lever action with a 4 power scope.

The area we intended to hunt was in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. For obvious reasons, I’ll decline to give the exact location, despite the fact that many years have passed since then. As far as I know, the area is still intact and as pristine as it was then. One can only hope.

I still remember my co-workers raised eyebrows and precautionary comments when I shared with them where we were going. Comments like, “Keep your eyes open” “Pay attention” and “Some weird shit has happened up there, Danny….be careful” hung heavy in the air along with the occasional shaking of someone’s head followed by the hushed comments like, “I can’t believe you’re going up there.” When I asked what the big deal was about this specific area, the answers were less encouraging, “You’ll see…..hopefully you’ll be OK.” Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

Pastor and I got up very early opening morning and drove the 45 minutes or so to our “spot.” We sat in the car drinking coffee, waiting for it to be legally light enough to hunt. As we sat there, it had begun to snow lightly. The flakes were the small ones that often accompany temperatures well below freezing. We grabbed our gear, and headed out. The unit was a small box canyon with a small yet wide creek meandering through the bottom. In some places, a good jump would get you across to the other side. Other spots took careful planning or in the water you went. We studied the creek, looking for a place to cross. Other places you would have to “rock hop” to get across. We decided pastor would cross the creek and we would slowly walk up the canyon, keeping each other in sight about 50 yards apart. Both of us looked at each other with weird expressions on our faces. Something was “off” about this place. What it was, we weren’t exactly sure. We ignored it and pushed on. That feeling never left us.

What happened next was unexplainable. We came upon a root ball of a large fir tree that looked as if it were placed in a clearing, and it was burning. I say “placed” because there were no indications in the ground that it was dragged there. There were no signs of heavy equipment from a previous logging operation in the area. It was as if something carried it there and then just dropped it in place. The clearing was about 50 or so yards in diameter, with no other trees in the clearing at all. We stood there looking at it and back at each other with that quizzical look on our faces as if to say, “Where did this come from?” and “why is it on fire?” since there were no footprints, no trackway, nothing that would indicate other hunters in this area and to further substantiate this, there were no tracks, cars or footprints, in the newly fallen snow. We certainly didn’t see any other vehicles where we parked. In fact, it looked as though we made the first tracks on the forest service road….there were literally no other hunters in this unit.

We stood there pondering the burning root wad. Then pastor made his way back across the creek and we continued our hunt.

We decided we would take about 50 paces, stop for about 5 minutes. Look. Listen and wait, and then start out counting 50 more paces. We did this for about two hours. It began snowing harder and I could tell the temperature was dropping since the flakes were small. The snow falling made it difficult to see any distance at all.

Then I heard pastor whistle just one quick note. I stopped and looked across the creek at him motioning for me to come over to him. I slowly walked down to the creek and found a place to cross and walked the 30 or so yards up the bank to where he was standing. That was when the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and turned into wire. I had that feeling I was being watched.

When I got to the pastor, his eyes were as wide as saucers when he asked me, “Do you feel that?” The expression on his face had a serious and almost angry appearance to it. I said, “Like we’re being watched?” All he said was “Yes” and didn’t utter another word. Remember, this is the pastor of a Pentecostal church, and they are not known for being “superstitious” or “spooked” by anything. His trust was in God, and God alone. Humans and all good people of “churchianity” were at the top of the food chain in their minds….no questions asked. I remember feeling even more uneasy to see what I perceived was fear in his eyes….no way….not this Eastern Oregon preacher!

He was pointing up the hill, across the creek close to where I was. I noticed he was straining to see through the fine flakes of heavy snowfall. I looked at him and then back in the direction he was straining to see and then back at him when he said, “Holy crap! What is that? What’s a football player doing out here in the middle of the forest?” As I was straining to look in the direction he was looking, I saw it.  Straining to see through the snow fall, I could see a huge figure, about 30 yards away, under a large tree. It did look like a football player in full uniform, but it was bigger, much bigger. It was huge. I estimate that it weighed on upwards of 750 to 900 pounds, and was at least 11 to 12 feet tall. It’s shoulders were easily 4 and a half to 5 feet wide. No neck. One arm was raised above it’s head as if it were a person waving at us. Then I realized it was holding onto a branch of the tree it was standing under. There was no smell or stench that many others have testified that they have witnessed when encountering one of these beings. The forest was so quiet you could actually hear the snowflakes landing on the brim of your hat. Perfectly quiet….still. No breeze. The snow was falling straight down. The only sound was the snow flakes quietly landing.

Then the pastor said it….words I thought I would never hear come out of the mouth of a deeply religious person. “What the hell is that?” Just as the words were leaving his mouth, the creature brought down his arm from the branch he was holding onto, turned and with two huge steps, vanished into the woods. What was weird about the way we lost sight of him wasn’t that the forest enveloped him and he disappeared in the deep brush. He literally vanished before entering the tree line.

The entire encounter lasted perhaps a minute and a half. We just stood there in complete silence, mouths wide open like a couple of mouth breathers, astonished by what we had just seen, tears streaming down both our faces. Don’t ask me to explain the inadvertent, spontaneous “weeping. I’m not able. ”We stood there staring at where he had stood for another ten minutes, not speaking, not moving….nothing. It was as if our feet were glued to the forest floor. Just then, pastor said, “We need to leave, now.” I had never heard him utter such stern words before and agreed that it was probably time to go. Why, I wasn’t entirely sure. We hadn’t been threatened in any way whatsoever, however, the feeling of being watched never left us.

As we both crossed back over the creek to where I was when pastor motioned me to come over to him, he turned and walked up the hill toward the tree it stood under. I remember asking him what he was doing and he told me he wanted to see where it stood and to see if there were any footprints. I remember thinking, “this is crazy shit right here” but said nothing. As we approached the tree, we could easily determine the “diameter at breast height” (DBH) of the tree to be at least six feet around, easy. You could wrap your arms around the tree and not touch your fingers. The branch that it was holding onto was at least 14 feet off the ground, or thereabouts. The canopy prevented the snow from accumulating under the tree, so there were no footprints, nor were there prints at the edge of the tree line where it had entered the brush/forest.

Keep in mind, we had walked for about 4 hours away from where we had parked the car but were astounded when we got back to the car in less than 15 minutes, the entire way feeling as though we were still being watched. We didn’t speak the entire drive home. Personally, I didn’t know what to say, and for the pastor of a church to be speechless, well…..that right there is a rare and unusual occurrence.

It has been over 30 years since I left beautiful eastern Oregon. I’ve had one telephone conversation with pastor during that time. He did not want to discuss that elk hunting experience. Not one word of it.

I never fully understood why certain people refuse to discuss strange occurrences like this in the woods. I find them fascinating.

That was the second encounter I’ve had in my life. Unbeknownst to me, it wouldn’t be my last. Do these beings have the ability to pick and choose who they reveal themselves to? Are they able to vanish into thin air? How can something that big be so quiet? These are questions I’ve had since my first encounter. Why are our governments lying to us about their existence? I know that I don’t have the answers to these questions. I just know what I saw and what I experienced.