Ghostly Squirrel Hunting Trip

[Spirithawk]

Several years ago I took my brother squirrel hunting. ( We have the same mother, differant dads. ) He is two years younger than me and grew up with our mother in the city. I was raised, from birth, by my grandmother in the country. You need to know that to apreciate the situation.   We got to a farm, owned by a relative of my wife, just before daylight and soon were walking out. It was just getting light enough to see when we got to a fence line but it was a bit foggy, visibility just a few yards at best. My brother had only been hunting a very few times in his life and had never been there before. We were in a low spot, standing at the fence, with a moderately steep hillside on either side of us. I told my brother to turn right and just follow the fence  a short ways, then just sit and wait for good light. There were several big oaks scattered all over the hill and if he'd just sit he'd get plenty of shots at squirrels. I turned and started up the hillside to my left and had gone maybe 50 yards when I heard him yell my name. I thought maybe he'd got snake bit or something. Couldn't understand why he was calling me and sounding very much frightened. I never run into anything blind so I slowly started back his way. As I started up the hill he was on I could just make him out through the mist. He was standing staring farther up the hill and between yelling my name he was raising and lowereing his rifle, pointing it at whatever he was looking at and whatever had him nearly on the edge of panic. From where I was I couldn't see anything past him for the misty fog. When I got just a few yards from him I stopped and quietly aked him what was wrong? He shakily pointed up the hill and almost whispered, " LOOK! " At first I didn't see anything, but then I saw it! There, about 4 foot off the ground, was a ghostly white form floating and swaying side to side! Ever few seconds it would lower to the ground then slowly rise back up.  No mistaking it, it was definitely a very spooky sight! My brother turned to me and with a loud whisper asked,"Should I shoot it?" " Heck no! " I told him. " You don't know what it is! " Heck, I didn't know what it was. I'll admit, I had a few goosebumps rising! And then it hit me! Ever had a  " DUH! " moment? I had one right then! I started laughing, which greatly iritated my brother! I walked up to him and said follow me. Right then he eighther thought his older brother was the bravest man he ever knew....or....the craziest! But he did follow me. Soon we were looking at our ghost. An old WHITE FACED cow! She would lower her head to graze then raise it up and swing it slowly side to side as she chewed her cud. Standing below in all that fog and early light all that showed was the white on her face. I'll never forget that trip and laugh to myself everytime I think of it. I'm grinning pretty wide right now!  

[Hickok]

Good story. I truly believe alot of mysterious sightings of abnormal creatures are explainable, just as the conditions of weather, light and perception caused such alarm for you and your brother. If you had run away instead of investigating the incident, you would have truly thought you had seen a ghost.

I have been born and raised here in the higher elevations of WV, in the twin towns of Davis and Thomas, just outside of Blackwaterfalls and Canaan Valley State parks. On some Bigfoot sites, there are as many as four sightings of the sasquatch reported here in my hometown area. These sightings are by people who visited, or were hunting, and not native to our area. Trust me, I am 55 years old, and I and my friends have lived in the woods since childhood, and no one who lives here has ever seen a bigfoot.

I don't know what these "visitors" imagined they saw, but we have an abundance of bear, some mountain lions, bald eagles, fishers, and beaver, all of which could fool the novice in the woods in the right conditions.

[Specklebelly]

I am just glad your brother didn't start shooting at the "ghost".   

[Spirithawk]

Me too! Actually I think he was too scared to shoot! lol

[Ray Ford]

Something about this reminds me of an incident that occured when I was a teenager.  Several of us kids, on a Sunday afternoon, drove out to what was called the "water works."  That was a water treatment plant on the bank of the river.  An abandoned concrete dam crossed the river, and below that dam was what was said to be the best fishing hole in the eastern end of Oklahoma.  There were always people fishing there.  We weren't fishing--just walking along the river.

We ran into a student from the tech school.  He had the first lever-action .22 that I ever saw and was shooting at first one thing and another.  We talked and looked at his new rifle.  Then he said, "I saw something moving over on the other bank a while ago.  I was aimed and ready to fire at the moving brush when a cow raised her head up."

Rule:  Never shoot unless your target is clearly visible and certainly identified!!!

Incidentally, once while on a bigfoot excursion--we were at a place that had been reported as sure nuff bigfoot haunt--I found some white hair on a barbed wire fence, and, having never heard of a white bigfoot, I determined that it came from one of hereford cows in the wooded pasture.  There are no white bigfeet, are there?

[Gimli]

    This reminded me of my sole encounter with a "ghost." When I was about 8 we lived in a drafty farmhouse and we had a shepherd mix named Toni who was highly protective of our family and the house.  One cold, windy winter night I was awakened in the middle of the night by Toni barking savagely at something in the front yard. I looked out the window and saw the dog squaring off against a shapeless, drifting white mass. It would rise about 10 feet into the air, sink to the ground, then rise again. I thought I knew what it was. "G ... G ... Ghooooost!" I shouted. My parents came running to see what the trouble was, and when Dad saw the ghost he burst out laughing. Then he went outside and snatched it out of the air. Turned out to be a piece of plastic sheeting he had tacked over the kitchen window to help keep the wind out, and it had blown off and scared the bejabbers out of me and the dog.

[pastorp]

Those things will get the blood flowing until u figure it all out. 

Regards,

[IOWA DON]

A friend and I were Jeeping in Colorado and at night we saw what both of us initially thought was a baby black bear climing up an aspen tree. It took a a few seconds but then we realized it was the head of a black cow. It was initially low to the ground, probably grazing. Then it raised its head in our lights. The body was behind trees or bushes.