Thread: Bad feeling

Originally Posted by Ftx325

Ok then .... You asked for it.....

Me and my mate , same guy , have been mates since college - 35 + years .
We even got our firearms license's together .
So we have been hunting together for a long time .
He used to be a forestry worker back in our 20's so we had permission to hunt the local forestry blocks and used to go out 2-3 nights or more a week til the early hours spotlighting possum for the skins and extra pocket money selling them , and knock over the odd deer for meat .
(Our record was 68 possums and 2 red deer in just over 2 1/2 hrs so a good little earner back then)

So on this particular night , it was moonless and well past midnight , we already had a reasonable haul but thought we'd just drive over a particular ridge (all our spotlighting was done from the comfort of the ute cruising the forestry roads) into an area we usually did well in .
Driving up the road along the ridge we had the spotlight off as the trees had been felled .
Then we see red eyeshine in the headlight full beam , just on the edge of the light , around 8 feet or so above the middle of the road . We figure its a possum on a branch overhanging the road , forgetting for a minute that the trees had been dropped . We stop the ute .
So my turn to shoot and I'm bringing the 22 up out the window and cocking it and pointing it in the general direction of the possum eyeshine preparing to shoot while my mate is trying to get the spotlight out the window . The eyes are still sitting there watching us as possums usually do .
I line up and sight through the scope and think those are funny looking , just didn't look like possum eyes .
And my mate turns on the spotty .
Now let me clarify , before I get any further... It was normal eyeshine ... I am not claiming the eyes were glowing or anything of the like ....
And there's the eyes still sitting above the middle of the road , pitch black and moonless night .
But I swear black and blue beneath the eyes was a black shadow , standing in the road on two feet .
I say a black shadow as we could not make out any details , just an indistinct outline , and a couple of seconds after the spotty came on whatever it was jumped off the side of the road down the side of the hill . I guess the spotlight blinded it so it decided time to go .
Now we are just sitting there stunned for a few seconds then my mate floors it to the spot where it jumped out and shines the light where we thought it went , and I'm grabbing my 308 , more for protection than anything else at this point....
Couldn't see or hear anything so we start the inevitable WTF was that conversation while we nervously scan the area , and I cling to my loaded 308 ready to shoot at the first thing that moves .
After about 30 seconds of backwards and forwards ' I don't know what the fuck it was - do you ?!!?? ' with the also inevitable reply of ' fucked if I know but it sure as fuck wasn't an 8 foot fucking possum we decide it best to get the hell out of there quick smart before the thing decided to introduce itself .
We have absolutely know idea what it was . We know for certain what it wasn't - possum , deer , rabbit , pig or any other animal you might run into .
But we both agreed , although it looked to be standing on 2 legs it wasn't a person . To tall , wasn't wearing clothes , and was to fast and quiet when it went over the side .
Now I am not claiming that we have a bigfoot running around the bush in nelson , but after seeing that it was naturally the first thing that came to mind ..... It seemed to fit the description .

Don't know what it was and didn't see enough to make any claims as to what it could have been and freaked us out enough to we didn't stick around to find out....

But.... As a little add on to this story , a couple of years ago we were staying in a local hut attached to the same range and just as I was nodding off me and the mrs heard something that sounded remarkably like someone whacking a tree trunk with a big stick , four or five times with an even spacing of 10 seconds or so between whacks ... Just like the yanks reckon bigfoot does ..... Weird.
I had flashbacks to that night in the story....
I slept with my rifle next to me that night....

Well, that seemed to kill the thread off

Thanks for posting, great reading, although in some ways I wish I hadn't read it. One of the great things about NZ bush is that there pretty much isn't anything that can harm you, or so I thought.

In retrospect, what do you think it was?

Originally Posted by MB

Well, that seemed to kill the thread off

Thanks for posting, great reading, although in some ways I wish I hadn't read it. One of the great things about NZ bush is that there pretty much isn't anything that can harm you, or so I thought.

In retrospect, what do you think it was?

I didn't really want to tell that one as I figured it would kill the thread but others wanted to hear it so....
If the eyeshine wasn't red I would have put it down to a big deer ..... Perhaps it was and had just been chewing on someone's dope plants....
I really don't know what we saw . It's one of those things that happened so quickly you don't have time to take it all in . Maybe it was the owner of said dope plants dressed in black....
It certainly never stopped us going out bush...then or now , more often than not in a tent . But I do prefer to have a rifle handy , just in case.....lol

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I didn't really want to tell that one as I figured it would kill the thread but others wanted to hear it so....
If the eyeshine wasn't red I would have put it down to a big deer ..... Perhaps it was and had just been chewing on someone's dope plants....
I really don't know what we saw . It's one of those things that happened so quickly you don't have time to take it all in . Maybe it was the owner of said dope plants dressed in black....
It certainly never stopped us going out bush...then or now , more often than not in a tent . But I do prefer to have a rifle handy , just in case.....lol

All good. Personally, I find the concept of cryptids much more believable than ghosts etc.