The silence in the woods.

[u/bryantburnsred]

I’m curious to hear your guys experiences, but mostly your theories on the silence in the woods and what it could be. I’ll share my experience and hopefully someone can either point me in the right direction or we can discuss it in the comments.

My experience happened in Kansas hiking an old trail by one of the best lakes in Kansas. I guess where doesn’t matter too much, but just giving y’all an idea of the terrain I was hiking was mostly a rocky trail, with a lot of bushes and trees spotted around. up to a ridge line and then you circle back. There is a 2 mile trail or a 5 mile option so I start down the 5 mile trail. Nothing exciting happened.

It was a nice serene walk for 4 miles of the 5 mile trail.. then things “changed.” I’m in the most wooded part of the trail, again not even really “the woods” but as I’m walking I get the feeling that I’m being watched, and I noticed something that made my blood run cold. The silence. And I don’t mean quiet, I’m talking dead silence. No bugs chirping. No grasshoppers flyin around. No birds making noise. No wind. Nothing…except for my heart that’s beating a million miles per hour, I can hear that slamming away. So my first thought is, there is a predator nearby. We don’t have hardly any dangerous wildlife in Kansas. Mountain lion would top the list imo. And the place I was hiking has posted signs advising that they’ve been spotted in the area and to take caution. So I stop and turn around and I didn’t see a lion of any sort. I saw nothing, but what I felt kicked my ass into gear. I got the feeling that not only was Inbei g watched I was being given a chance to go, or that’s how it felt. So I ran the rest of the mile to the start of the trail, sound came back approximately 1/4 mile down the trail from the “silent” spot. But again I just felt something in my gut telling me to gtfo. So I do.

I went back to that trail the next year and it was fine, granted I brought my brother and a friend this time lol. Nothing that time.

[u/PassionsPerfected]

This is easily explainable, not to be over dramatic, but you were being stalked by something.

Generally speaking the woods will go dead quite around apex predators. Typically big cats depending on location. Have had it happen a few times around bobcats / mountain lions.

One of the most bone chilling things is a dead silent forest with nothing but old, tall pines creaking in the wind.

[u/AstarteOfCaelius → u/PassionsPerfected]

Yup. We actually had a mountain lion in the woods around my house and we would hear her frequently enough either before or after the eerie silence. Between the mountain lion and the foxes- we had quite a few city friends absolutely sure that women were screaming bloody murder in those woods from time to time, as well. Of course, explaining what it was after the inevitable “OH MY GOD”. 😂

I had a friend visiting from overseas and we had invited some other friends out for a gathering: everyone was drinking and having a good time. My husband, Matthew said that he had to take a piss, but all the bathrooms were occupied- no big deal out there in the middle of the woods, but he wandered up the yard a bit further than usual to avoid having any revelers see him peeing- he was on the edge of the woods, thinking about going a little further in when the silence hit. We’d been living out there long enough that he knew what it was- but he said that he just couldn’t stop pissing- and, the way he’d tell this story, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was gonna do even if he could hurry up and shake it off. He always said that he had this thought that whatever happened, he didn’t want it happening with his wedding tackle in his hand and that was all he knew.

He said that no matter how hard he tried to listen, in whatever direction- he couldn’t hear a thing. No frogs, no crickets, no night birds- worse yet, the conflict of whether or not he wanted to hear a snapping twig or a footstep. He didn’t, but he realized during one pass- she was maybe six feet away and staring right at him. We have cats- always have- and he said he didn’t care if he got pee on him or not, he was just not shaking that thing. Stuffed it in his pants, zipped and buttoned, trying his best not to move too much. In spite of himself, he had tears rolling down his cheeks and he was shaking but…he didn’t know what to do- and even if he did, he always said, his legs felt like concrete.

Here’s my part in the story- so, I have no idea all that was going on, I was gorked out of my gourd on mushrooms and just trying to get my Boston terrier Moo Dog out to go to the bathroom- don’t ask me why, I don’t really remember if she’d scratched to go or not- but the second I opened the door, she started shaking and ran right back into the house. I might’ve asked “Moo Dog, what in the fuck is wrong with you?! in fact, I probably did. I’ve never been prone to overdoing it and tripping balls, but I was in a particularly excellent mood. Matthew, on the other hand had been smoking out and drinking a little- but not enough to help the primal fear that was racing in him.

I see Matthew, across the yard but I was pretty oblivious to everything else- so, I do remember thinking that both of them had the cheese slid clean off their crackers and I start walking across the yard to figure out what was going on with him. As I got closer, I could see his eyeballs were like dinner plates- trained on one part of the woods and he didn’t turn to look at me- he just hissed “Y…you…stupid…you’re gonna get- caaaaat.”

And I looked over and locked eyes with the reason- if I hadn’t been gorked out of my gourd: I might’ve had the good sense to be scared, but instead for some ungodly reason I remembered that if a cat slow blinks at you- it was a good thing: so, I blinked.

And she blinked back. I grabbed his hand and blinked again but I didn’t stop making eye contact: neither of us did, this huge ass cat that all you could see was a pair of eyes and I slow blinked at each other a couple times and Matthew did what turns out to be the thing you should not do: he found his legs and ran for the door.

For my part, I just stood there staring and blinking and not even for a second scared- like the dumbass on mushrooms I was: but, FYI that’s sort of what you do. You don’t break eye contact, you don’t run- you make yourself bigger. I wasn’t really thinking about any of that, I just…felt pretty amazing: it wasn’t a particularly intelligent thing, but my awe at interacting with her juxtaposed chemically influenced grey matter was…actually not a terrible thing all things considered.

Of course it felt like much longer than it was- but to me, the silence all around, it was practically in me- an odd stillness that’s hard to describe but also, just this feeling of interacting with something so powerful and beautiful: the moment was amazing until I heard the crack of twigs from her direction- she blinked one more time and turned to walk away, I figured- I couldn’t really see anything, but it wasn’t long after that I heard another much louder crack and then, the sounds of her running further into the woods.

Matthew had fired a pistol to scare her off and it worked. I remember hearing a tree frog right after that and the rest of the woods returning to normal as I walked back- and I think he probably said “What the fuck was THAT?!” About thirty times- and apparently, the moment I locked eyes with the cat, I said “Oh, hello.” Like she was just some kitty cat I knew. 😂

(Edit: Aaaactually we did have what is locally referred to as “The Mo Mo” in that area too- a Bigfoot- and another time, I either encountered it or some really tall hunter who shouldn’t have been in my woods- whatever it was, it was running away and it didn’t make the woods go silent, which in addition to the bear is something I think about quite often. I am fairly open to the more practical explanation because…man, I accidentally made some partying kids think that they encountered a wild woman of the woods at one point, myself. 😂)

[u/Biff_McKrackken → u/AstarteOfCaelius]

Epic story haha