; Phantoms and Monsters - Real Cryptid Encounter Reports - Fortean Researcher Lon Strickler

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

HELP! Wendigo, Skinwalker or What?


I recently came across the following bizarre account:

I’ve been in Alaska for more than 2 years and I’m stationed in Fort Wainwright. Every so often we go to field missions and where we go is super isolated. Me and a few guys were tasked out to drive down this mountain that we are currently doing our training on and we replied “yes,” reluctantly because we just want some real food rather than MREs we have been living off of for the past few days. While two of the soldiers were ground guiding me and my battle I’ll call 'Knox,' out of the runway, we noticed it started to get dark...fast. Being on that mountain is hardly ever ANY light unless it’s from the moon. But just to get a general idea, you could see the northern lights easily.

As we drive, Knox is telling me he has to piss really bad so I just tell him to pull over. As he begins to pull over, it got extremely quite. I felt as if someone punched me in my gut because I started to get this strong sense of something is watching me and I started to get goosebumps. I took it with a grain of salt that maybe it was just the MRE making my stomach hurt and the weather making the hairs on my skin stand. But then I felt paranoid, and I’ve never felt this way before in the field because I’ve been here numerous times before.

As he walks back to the truck I see the foliage on my right hand side fall as if weight was being forced on it. I tap Knox’s shoulder and tell him to look in my direction. It was a moose, but it looked oddly skinny and the antlers just didn’t look “normal.” Our eyes got huge and he responded, “What the f*ck is that thing?”

I stammered because I wasn’t too sure what it was either. He buckled up and pressed the break but we heard “Help,” coming from the direction of the moose. My heart dropped and I felt the heat leave my face and I looked at him asking, “did you f*cking hear that or was it just me?” He replied, “bruh, I heard that.” He laughed nervously and we turned off the truck and shined our headlamps towards the moose’s direction. (We are 89B, so we carry our standard M4s with us in the vehicle when we are transporting ammo weather there is anything in the cans or not, just because it’s for our safety).

Knox and I looked in the cab to just verify we have our weapons on us, and we did. I jumped out the cab and he followed with our headlamps still on the moose. We walked closer and the word “help,” was getting louder and louder. We got a few more feet closer but not extremely too close to the moose and it ran back into the wood line making me and Knox jump. We looked at each other and we were both probably thinking the same thing... “did that moose just cry for help?”

I told him I was getting cold and he agreed, so we paced back to the truck as fast as possible. As I closed the door, we heard the words “HELP,” but louder than what it was earlier. I got that gut feeling right after I heard the words and looked into the dark wood line and saw red eyes. I gulped and told him to look but he put the truck in drive and sped off. We talked for a a few minutes about the situation and complete silence followed right after. When we got done with the mission he sped up the mountain to get back to where the rest of the company was at and he didn’t say a word. He sleeps on the cot next to me and he didn’t speak to anyone about the situation. I’m a bit shook from the situation myself.

Whatever it was that called for help, I’m sorry I never went into the wood line. - FC

I Know What I Saw: Modern-Day Encounters with Monsters of New Urban Legend and Ancient Lore

The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist)

Native American Myths & Legends

Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History

Cryptid Country (Cryptid Zoo)

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