8 Scary Forest Ranger Horror Stories

what was that was it just the snap of a branch the falling of some leaves maybe a squirrel running around the branches or was it something more nefarious stalking you through the woods welcome back to the swamp my friends i'm glad to see you made it back for another episode today's episode's a little different from my normal series these aren't necessarily just park ranger stories they're more broad for stranger stories i'm sure many of you might know that there isn't just one type of park ranger there are many types of them and these stories come from the various types of park rangers out there so sit back relax and get ready for some spooks from the woods if you're a park ranger forest ranger or maybe something completely different and you want to share your story on the show be sure to submit it at swampdweller.net or the email you can find in the description down below now let's get into these creepy stories it'll keep you out of the forest i worked for the united states forest service in texas for about 10 years i love my job and it's rare for anything particularly creepy or scary to occur but having worked this job for so long i have had my fair share of stories i can share that might just make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on in for example we sometimes get jaguars hunting in the forest here a particularly scary big cat and that's because of what they do with their prey once they caught and subdue it so just picture the scene you're walking through the trees on some bright sunny day when all of a sudden you start to smell something rotten you look around but there's absolutely nothing to be seen just the picturesque view of the pines and the sound of birdsong floating through the green then something hits the top of your head something wet you place a hand on top of your head feeling something cold and slimy dribbling through your hair you bring your hand down to see what it is hoping it's not bird poo only it's something much much worse it's blood you look up and hanging in a tree just feet above your head is a mutilated half-eaten corpse of an animal guts torn out skin shredded face half-beaten with hooves or paws missing with broken pieces of bone protruding from the cracked limbs it seems like an utterly bizarre thing to do but the jaguar has a good reason for doing all the heavy lifting if a jaguar does not bother to hoist its kill into the tree it risks losing its meal to another more ground-based predator or scavenger creepy yeah but that kind of natural world stuff is nothing compared to some of the other stuff i've encountered during my time in the forest service so this other time i'm on a routine walk through some of the trails to make sure all the directional signs and information markers for tourists are all in order there's a large rock protrusion about a hundred meters off of this trail like this big sandstone border that just juts out of the earth and makes it look kind of like a shallow cave carved out of one side that had been worn away from thousands of years of wind erosion as i get close i see a guy in what i first thought was camouflage hunting gear hanging around the entrance i call out to him just some friendly greeting nothing threatening and he turns to look at me only he doesn't utter a word he just seemingly runs off through the trees i start getting worried about what he was doing in the cave terrified he's left a body or something there and honestly i thank god that he hadn't but it seems like he did leave something behind i mean i'm not even 100 sure it was him that did this and i've often considered that possibility that it was him that happened to come across at first and seeing me got the idea in his head that he thought maybe it was me that left that thing there he got that idea into his head saw me and just freaked out and ran but when i walked into that little cave and shined my flashlight around i saw something that would completely explain why he was so quick to run away whatever his motivations were for doing so teeth there was a little circular patch of dirt one that looked like it had been raked over to clear some space and in the middle of it all were a bunch of human teeth i don't know why they were there i don't know who left them or why but i did what i could i gathered them up into a plastic bag i had on me and it previously had my lunch in it so don't think i just carry plastic bags i'm not that weird i took them down to the nearest police station giving a little description of that guy that i had seen run from the cave i've got the usual wild animal encounters weird noises during the night etc but i've never forgotten about those teeth i have no explanation to offer up at all but it certainly does make for a good little campfire story everyone i know calls me big jim so feel free to identify me in that manner i work in alabama and i've been with the park rangers for almost two decades my story involves what i believe to be a bigfoot i spend a great deal of my time simply wandering the majestic beauty of our parks i am often on my feet and while i do other things like help local wildlife and repair things etc most of my time is spent simply monitoring and surveying the land during these beautiful walks in nature i have a lot of time to think to myself while working one april afternoon a few years back i saw something hiding out in the trees i initially thought it was an animal of some kind but shortly after i heard a loud sound i guess you could call me a bigfoot enthusiast in my free time having sworn i saw these things multiple times my life now so when i heard the familiar call i believed right then and there i'd had another bigfoot sighting i took my time and very carefully moved closer but as i got closer i stepped on a branch and at the sound of the snapping the bigfoot dashed out of sight now this isn't the only sighting i've had i was working a few years after this when i heard several big feet out in the wilderness i know how that sounds but i just wanted you all to know they're definitely out there also i don't know if big feet is the right plural for bigfoot but you know i was patrolling the area and i heard a couple talking to one another if that makes any sense it is the same exact calling they are known to emit we've had several locals in the area who have also spotted these things i actually wish i could explain away any of this with some amazing thing but i'm not much of a tall tale teller and it has become so normal to me i have such a strong belief in bigfoot that it just seems natural and not some extravagant thing the most interesting sighting i think i've ever had was while working in october of 1998 or maybe even 1999 i'm not entirely sure which year my memory isn't what it once was i was actually with one of my trainees when we heard something walking in the distance i didn't think much of it and actually made a joke saying uh oh watch out bigfoot a few moments after saying this i heard that calling again i remember laughing and saying it really was a bigfoot at first the rookie laughed as well but sure enough a few moments later there it was standing only a few feet away from a clearing now keep in mind this was before camera phones existed and i didn't even have a camera on me i remember having a big old smile on my face as i watched this thing shortly after all this happened it just turned around called out one more time to which we heard another one in the distance and it waltzed off so if you're ever in alabama keep an eye out and maybe you'll spot a bigfoot if you live there there's definitely a strong chance for sure that you've already seen one in 2016 my husband and i went camping in eastern pennsylvania the place we decided to stop for the night was a primitive campsite camping was free with no cell service barely a road etc we did encounter two other people now before i go any further my husband was a forest ranger at the time so we were not newcomers to the woods by any means anyway these people we met might not factor into what happens later at all but they were creepy so i'll describe them the first was a woman who had her truck off to the side of the road just a little bit as we drove past she had the hood open and seemed to be waiting for someone to stop and offer help usually my boyfriend had no problem helping someone but he said this time something was putting him off about her she didn't really seem like she needed help and usually people who needed help would look at you hopefully as you approach she looked like she just expected we would stop that's what my boyfriend said anyway i hadn't really noticed anything strange about her the next person came when we had chosen a spot and were setting up a fire for hot dogs i had noticed people drive by a few times but my boyfriend pointed out each time it was the same car and the man in the car watched us each time as he passed my boyfriend was a little uneasy about this but we had driven around for a while before finding a place we liked it had been raining and everything was muddy and we wanted the driest site possible he could have been doing the same thing i guess we briefly thought about moving out but the road was too muddy we briefly thought about moving but the road was muddy too if he wanted to find us all he had to do was follow our tracks realistically there were some other tracks but not too many you know he'd only have to backtrack a little to locate us again he didn't come by another time so we stayed and spent several remaining hours before getting dark goofing off no one else drove by at least that we noticed anyway whether or not those two had anything else to do with our experience is really to be seen the real fear came later we had gone to sleep in our tent sometime around 3 a.m we were woken up by this very loud noise i can't describe it very well or even remember exactly what it sounded like but my boyfriend said it reminded him of a chain gun revving up it was also similar to how it would sound as someone recorded a shovel being dragged over gravel and played it over a loudspeaker that's another way he described it he jumped up and looked out the window but couldn't really see a thing the sound repeated itself a few more times i was so scared i couldn't even speak so my boyfriend whispered that it was probably miles off and i should go back to sleep i didn't question this as i figured loud sounds could easily be heard miles off after we left he told me it sounded like it had actually been coming just down the road but he didn't want to freak me out looking back i probably should have wondered why he would have bothered to even whisper if he apparently thought the sound was far off i was still terrified though every little thing i heard outside sounded like someone was walking around the tent we laid there for a while longer when finally my boyfriend told me to get dressed because we were leaving i got alarmed by this and even more alarmed when he unwrapped the machete he had brought with us we quickly packed up the car i looked around for footprints that weren't our own but despite the moon providing plenty of light i couldn't really see i did point out something my boyfriend hadn't noticed though before we got into the car there was a beer can by our dead fire that hadn't been there before we didn't even bring beer while we were driving away my boyfriend explained that he was nervous someone might have been trying to lure us out so he didn't think it was a good idea to run from the tent right away he also half expected to find our gas tank had been siphoned out but that wouldn't have stopped us being we had a hybrid car we joked that would make a hybrid car commercial very funny a number of brutal murders avoided by driving a hybrid we only joked because we were about to poop ourselves from fear and adrenaline for the rest of our trip we only stayed in well populated campsites or got a hotel out in the parks of montana we've had a few people go missing in the time that i have been working with the rangers my name is nate and i'm going to tell you about these mysterious disappearances i don't have any way of knowing why or how they are missing i can only say they are missing and it is rather strange due to circumstances i'm going to keep this somewhat short but these people all seem to go missing from the same area of our park we aren't sure if they are being snatched up and sold into trafficking as there are definitely some bad dealings that happen in this area or if they are simply running away in fact we've never figured out anything in relation to these cases as there seems to be nothing to go on the earliest one i can remember was a seven-year-old girl who went with her family into the park and never came out again i remember the girl simply because she was a child and as a dad myself this makes things hit different police and our park ranger services certainly looked for this family but it was as though they went to the woods and then simply disappeared the second disappearance was a college age couple just like the family a few years before them they went into the woods and never came out again there are a few people who claim they believe there's a cult operating out in the area but we've never seen anything like that that would verify the theory i know stranger things happen but it is a bit unnerving to think that people could just disappear like that i often find myself pondering what happens to people who go missing not just in our area but in general the third disappearance to happen late at night in 2010 i do believe if my memory serves me correctly it was a rather fit man in his forties who went into the woods and didn't come out again now some witnesses in the area at the time did say they heard someone shouting for help and they went into the woods toward the sound of the voice but eventually the voice faded out and they never found anyone they were the people who reported the man missing before his family came forward the final disappearance and probably the most disturbing one yet involved a woman in her 30s who went out late one night and much like the man who previously disappeared she was heard screaming another man went into the woods and said he felt shaken and uncomfortable and it was shortly after he found a flashlight that was later identified as having belonged to the missing woman i believe something very dark is happening out there the problem is though where is any real evidence of what happened to the missing i've debated going into the woods on my off time and looking over the area at night myself but i've never worked up the nerve it is pitch black out there and absolutely terrifying i know this story isn't super disturbing as we have no way to know exactly what happened to these missing individuals but it is something i wanted to share if for no other reason then as a warning to always be careful even in state parks if traveling off the beaten path my cousin is with the forest service in the montana wyoming area and i decided to go up there with her to pretty much test the waters she does hydrology and has to ride out in the middle of nowhere to test streams and snow runoff to ensure no contaminants are there so i thought that sounded like a bit of fun and wanted to do a bit of a tour with her we were going to go camp out there for two nights so we packed up all of our gear and bags or saddle bundles and started out the first day and night was amazing beautiful scenery and amazing air quality it really is so peaceful out there i love that this area is just so serene and i wish i got to go up there more often anyway we started out on the second day and my cousin said you want to see something weird of course i said yes so she led me on a bit of a side journey into this tiny little ravine we ended up traveling about two hours from the actual path we had laid out at the very end of this fold in the land she dismounts and tells me to get off my horse we tie them up in this gorgeous little clearing and she tells me to follow this tiny wildlife path and bring our little rechargeable radio it is one of those you can plug in and wind up and it also acts as a lantern if you really need it to but that kills the batteries fairly quickly i bring it and out in the middle of freaking nowhere there is a huge coil of wire sticking out of the ground the wire itself was not weirdly large like some berry transmission wire but small like 10 or 12 gauge wiring for a house it trailed off into the brush and trees so naturally i decided to follow the thing out of curiosity my cousin trails behind me as i do and this wire after coming straight up from the ground is strung across limbs of trees then back to the ground then it snakes around rocks and finally dead ends into an outlet the outlet is mounted into the side of a desk it looks like a school teacher's desk from when i was growing up with a metal base and a pseudo wood plastic top thing there's no chair no building no nothing just this outlet in this desk i am staring confused as hell at this desk in the middle of a forest where my cousin takes the radio pulls the cord and plugs it into the outlet that thing lit up and started blaring static the wire was being fed from somewhere now the place where we have had no road access no buildings for miles and no other people around it somehow had a live outlet it may not be the scariest thing i've ever heard or maybe you've ever shared but it was weird as hell i wasn't a forest ranger at the time but i would become one i used to be in a group that somewhat like the scouts so we spent a lot of time in the woods and some weird stuff would happen but most of the time it was pretty easy to explain one thing happened though that to this day scares the living crap out of me i was the leader for the age group of 8 to 10 year olds and we were out on a camping trip it was the first year we stayed on the terrain and it was huge normally we tend to explore the majority of terrain before the kids arrive so we were aware of any possible dangerous spots to avoid this time though it was impossible every camp we have what we call a night game it's usually a scary game in which the kids have to complete several tasks while the leaders scare the ever loving crap out of them obviously we had one during this camp we mashed up as monsters and hid out in the woods close to the checkpoint they had to pass while running in between checkpoints i found an open stretch of forest with little to no foliage so it was ideal for chasing them there was no real room to hide besides trees so i couldn't use my flashlight or they'd be able to see me from miles away it was dark like the unsettling kind of dark that plays tricks on your eyes and you start imagining things that aren't real during my stay there i saw a shadow that was around my sides running past me quite a few times i couldn't see it all that well so i just assumed it was probably my imagination eventually i turned on my flashlight and i just had to make sure there was nothing there i didn't see anything the game was nearing its end and i saw the shadow again this time i could see it vaguely standing near a tree not too far away from me i thought it was one of the other leaders hiding there to scare kids and decided to go over there as it was about time to go back i aim my flashlight towards the tree while getting closer i noticed that there was indeed someone standing there dressed in what looked like a torn burlap sack and had their head covered with a few white plastic bags that looked like they were tied together i started to feel pure dread something felt incredibly off about this person i asked if everything was okay but they would not respond the only thing i heard was this weird sound that sounded like someone knocking on wood nevertheless i went a bit closer until i was about 10 meters away from this person the knocking sound turned out to be that person smacking his head repeatedly into the tree and i noticed that this person looked to be a male he was barefoot and his arms and legs were covered with crusted mud his hands were in a weird cramped position i was convinced this was just one of the other leaders pulling a prank so i told them to knock it off you're freaking me out he slowly turned his head and started walking towards me something inside me told me to run it didn't matter if i was you know just being pranked i ran away scared as fast as i could running for my life if this wasn't a prank it felt like i was in serious danger so i ran as fast as i could i heard him running after me but i didn't want to turn around to look as i'd probably run into a tree or something i arrived back at the campsite and every single person that could be dressed like that was already there they couldn't have gotten there before me and if they did they sure as hell didn't have the time to change into their regular clothes still i told them that they gave me a good scare with that they all just looked at me weird thinking i was trying to scare them and we left it at that the next day i wanted to go check it out who knows maybe some weirdo ate the wrong mushroom and might have been out there dying from hypothermia i took someone else with me in case there was nothing but endless trees we arrived at the tree where i saw the person banging his head there was a dead skinned decomposing rabbit nailed to the tree we called the cops they looked around quickly and brushed it off as just a prank from another scouting group or some kids from the nearby town and left it at that we didn't notice anything weird after that so it probably was a prank but seriously some people have a really messed up sense of humor i was the lone forest recreation ranger in a smaller district in southern idaho the nearest town from the guard station was probably about a half an hour away by car after moving into the guard station solar power was not working that day for some reason i hadn't slept for about a month due to various factors bats in the cabin something walking on the deck at night the woods were always eerie feeling unlike the southwest ponderosa forest that i was used to about two months into the seasonal job i started to hear something walking and scratching on the deck at night perhaps even on the door itself now this district was known for its badgers and beavers so at first i really didn't think too much of it when leaving the cabin at night i always had an eerie feeling like i was being watched one night i was returning from my grocery run i always went on tuesday nights and i had a bad feeling in my gut now at the time i did not have my shotgun in the vehicle which i would later come to regret after stepping out of the vehicle i looked to the right of the cabin about 50 feet from my front door all i could see were two eyes about three and a half to four feet in the air to say i freaked out was honestly an understatement i started yelling get the heck out of here but the eyes only crouched down and inched closer to me at this point i could tell it was a large animal of some kind and definitely not a coyote i tossed a piece of firewood in the general direction and the creature leaped back a bit but did not make a sound i tossed four or five more pieces and the creature still inched forward at this point i fumbled with the keys and of course the freaking solar power was out again i managed to get inside and grab my shotgun technically you are not supposed to have guns in government housing but who the freak lives where the hills have eyes are back country and does not carry i went outside the creature was a bit closer now i still could not get a good look with my crappy headlamp i loaded my shotgun and continued to throw pieces of fluid with one hand finally the creature walked back into the brush that night i drank about four ipas and slept with my shotgun in my hand in the morning the trail crew came up and we found mountain lion tracks all over the porch rocking bench and compound leading back to the creek after that event i always heard the rocking chair move and someone or something walking on the porch but never found any tracks after that point considering that it was always muddy up there and it was weird not to find any tracks i've been stalked by mountain lions before and never had that eerie feeling like i did in those woods this happened about three months ago me and my family went up to visit fort necessity i get that this story isn't probably the scariest thing you've ever read but it freaked me out in the moment so let's begin we pulled into the parking lot then we got out my mom and i went up to the visitor center it was closed at the time so i looked in through the windows my mom and my brother i think did the same thing then out of seemingly nowhere this guy appeared he opened up the door we stepped back sorry we're closed but we're going to be opening friday he said then he gave us maps i think he was a park ranger at first i thought he was a security guard because he had on a gray like police shirt my dad was a jail guard and it looked a lot like his uniform he had light brown pants on and a brown ranger hat on he pointed us where the fort was my mom said thank you and off we went after we looked at it we went back up towards the visitor center there was the ranger walking down the trail we were close to the top of the trail hey guys he said he asked if we had any questions we all said no and then started talking about different areas and something about a turnpike then he asked a question i don't remember what it was about but i answered it right he was so happy then he started looking up and down my body he eyed me up and down then he told us about washington tavern he told us we could walk up the trail there of course we started walking up a different trail the ranger went walking down towards the fort we didn't walk that far before we could see the fort it was like 70 feet away i looked at it there was the ranger he was standing on top of the house inside the fort or whatever it was he waved at us i turned my head away when i looked back he was gone i didn't really say anything or think much of it this was the part that really freaked me out then we came to a trail that led up a rough hill but it wasn't like much of a hike really when we came to the washington tavern my uncle and my parents were there talking and reading about it i went up to a window and i looked inside of it there was a table and guess what i saw the ranger was inside of there and he had a creepy smile i ran back to my parents then i went back up to the window he wasn't there anymore we started walking back down the trail we got down towards the trail and there there he was again he started talking about a junior rangers program he looked at me and my younger brother when he talked about it and then he told us about this picnic area not far from here he told us the directions as we walked away i saw him staring at my butt we got to the visitor center the ranger was there and he pointed us to the road we should take i started saying how weird it was that this guy was everywhere i started making fun of him i swear to god he turned his head like he could hear everything but we were near the car so how would he be able to hear me we of course drove up to the picnic area my mom pointed out signs warning us about bears we were walking towards the edge of the forest and my uncle heard something it was a growl oh man it might be a bear my uncle stared into the woods then he picked me up and he started running i looked behind him there was a bear and this bear was huge i think it might have even been running after us luckily we weren't far from the car we all got in and drove down the road when we drove past the visitor center everyone was talking about how we just saw a bear i turned and looked out my window and i saw the ranger standing outside the visitor center it looked like he was covered in blood and he had claw marks on his arm it looked like it was from a bear he waved at me and held up a sign and he read never talk bad about the dead again i just waved back and a few days after that i researched the area and it said a ranger had died by saving a child from a bear and that was about seven years ago to this day i don't know what to think i'm very sorry for making fun of a man who died saving somebody's life maybe he just wanted to save mine thanks for listening to these creepy and allegedly true forest ranger stories as i said in the intro of this video i normally only cover park rangers from specific parks you know just the typical state park and park ranger kind of vibe but i get such stories from people all the time about other forest rangers about different types of jobs that park rangers have and the various different little niches that there are in this kind of service so i hope you enjoyed these stories i would love to know which one was your favorite down in the comments below if you enjoyed these stories please hit that like button as it does help me out quite a bit if you're new to the swamp why not join us hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to never miss a new video as i upload them every single day and all things natural and supernatural if you're out and about and you can't turn on youtube you can download and bring your favorite swamp dweller scary stories with you everywhere you go you can download them on itunes spotify stitcher radio and pretty much everywhere else you listen to podcast online i of course wanted to thank you guys as always for supporting the swamp the swamp has been growing fairly great recently and i can't thank anybody but you guys so thank you so much i'll see you guys soon with another creepy video

Channel: Swamp Dweller

Views: 81,341

Keywords: Forest Ranger Stories, Park Ranger Stories, Missing 411, Search & Rescue, State Park Stories, Swamp Dweller, True Scary Stories, Narration, Podcast

Id: Id-y0OVvmgY

Length: 34min 47sec (2087 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020