Forest rangers of Reddit, what is the creepiest/strangest experience you've had while on the job?

1. I'm a forester for the US Forest Service in northern California. I've never had anything like supernatural type creepy happen to me. But it always creeps me out a little bit when I come across a kill site from a Mountain Lion. When you're by yourself in the woods you're just another link in the food chain but you don't really think about it until you come across a 1/2 eaten deer and realize a huge cat killed this thing with its face. As for the strangest thing, that would be the time I thought I was about to see a plane crash. As usual I was working alone on a remote hillside and I saw a plane, like a full size commercial plane flying below the ridgeline between mountains. I thought it was going to crash for sure. But it didn't. It just weaved through and kept going. I thought it was weird it didn't have any logos or writing on it. Come to find out we were close to an Air Force base and they were training pilots for Afghanistan and this was not a totally uncommon thing to see in the area.
   — Nimbis207


2. had campers who honked at a moose. The moose took this as a mating call and proceeded to mate with their car.
   — usesformooses06093


3. I work as a forester in northern Alberta (Canada). One of the weirder things I’ve found was an old rusted toboggan in an area of forest that had recently been harvested. It had obviously been there before the forest was cut, because it had about 3 inches of soil on top of most of it with plants growing out of it. This was also 15-20 kilometres off the highway, and not near any well used trails or roads.
   — tallref






4. When I was working for a federal government land management agency in Montana a few years back, something really creepy came over the repeater network. While we were working in a canyon that had very poor radio reception, we heard a very long, creepy, and drawn out moan come over the air. This was followed by a very weak (in both reception and tone) "...help...me..." in a women's voice. All of us freaked the fuck out. These weak cries for help kept repeating low guttural "...help me..."on until dispatch finally stepped in a said "This is a federal emergency network. Unless you have an emergency, get off this channel." This was followed by another plea for help, then a gun shot and screaming. Turns out 2 local crazies were out four wheeling, going straight up steep embankments, when the ATV flipped backwards, pinning the man under the ATV. Both of them being high on some substance, they started freaking out. The man, being perfectly fine, except for being pinned by the leg and high, started to hallucinate that he was bleeding out, pulled out his handgun and shot himself to make it quicker. Because they were four wheeling so far back in the sticks, a helicopter was needed to retrieve the body.
   — knucks_deep


5. Not a forest ranger but prior Marine, we were doing amphibious landings and set up to rack out on the beach. I woke up and walked over the sand dune to take a piss in the middle of the night when I saw a squad of recon guys geared up with night vision goggles maybe ten feet away from me. I said what the fuck pretty loudly and none of them said anything. I walked up to one guy and had to physically touch him before he said they were practicing on us. I told my platoon commander about it and the next day he told me they failed because I noticed them. Startled the shit out of me though, I was halfway through my piss before my eyes adjusted enough to notice 10 or so guys just watching it go down. Would have died for sure.
   — 1836oo


6. Not a forest ranger, but worked in Canadian forestry as a treeplanter for many summers. The weirdest thing I saw, I call "forest carpets". Basically an animal that has decomposed except for its hair, leaving a completely flat, moist blanket of hair on the ground.
   — m3ssenjah






7. My friend and I were going through a more secluded part of the woods off of the trail. We planned to head back soon since the sun was setting and shadows were getting longer - I know it doesn't sound like much, but understand that everything gets creepier when you're surrounded by miles of forest. Then, we noticed it: in the distance was a small wooded platform, a bit rundown. It looked like a man-made structure, completely out of place, and I'd never seen anything like it. I remember we approached with caution and even radioed it in; apparently, nobody had ever seen it before or knew what we were talking about. We didn't have to get very close- the smell hit both of us like a freight train, I felt like I was going to puke. There are no words to sufficiently describe how foul it was. It was the scent of rotten flesh and death but millions of times worse. At that point, we were both seriously spooked and decided to leave since it was getting late, plus we'd already reported it anyway. Found out that when rangers checked, they discovered a couple things. First, the scent *was* actually caused by severely mutilated small animal corpses, ravaged and left to rot around the mysterious platform. Next, they collected several bear set traps surrounding it, even though there are no bears here. They uprooted the platform and found the entire thing was a trap, basically because the boards were weak and a deep pit had been dug underneath it with metal shards waiting at the bottom. Source: USFS botanist. Haven't had major creepy experiences other than this, but be safe and take proper precautions when you're out there. There are weirdos.
   — redriver2394


8. Not a ranger--just work with them. Where we are at, mountain lions are a big issue and their numbers were getting too rampant so we had to cull them. The guy was out with his dogs and let them go (they're all GPS tagged and collared) and most went after one lion and the lone dog went the other way. Most of the rangers went after the group of dogs while the other guy had to go get the lone dog. He follows the GPS tracker and stops. It's a cave. He just stared at it and was like 'well... my dog is dead.' But the state requires him to get proof so he leaned in to find out. THe dog was buried in the snow (still breathing) and the ranger found himself face to face with the cougar. Obviously it attacked, he killed it (they carry weapons after all) and he got his dog out. Last I heard, that dog is still helping tree cougars.
   — Seahawks_12


9. A suicide. I lived near a public park/forest when I was 15 I was walking in the middle of the woods with a friend of my. playing around with a metal detector. Suddenly we where in the middle of this really horrible sene. A woman was hanging there. Here body was there already for a couple days it looked very wet/dead/old/rotten here dead face is something I probably will never forget.
   — thedutch1999