Weirdest thing you have ever found in the woods?

Hey all,
I've seen this topic on another board and wondered what this eclectic group would have to say when asked this question?
Thankfully I have spent a good portion of my life in the wilds and have a few doozies of my own.
Growing up in Wisconsin, I stumbled upon old homesteads and such, but I remember a friend and I found a concrete shaft 4' by 4' in the middle of a woods and it went down 20' or so. We got rope and went down and it opened up into a room off to the side! Nothing in there except a few animal bones from unlucky animals that fell ito it, but we never figured out what it was. Took us forever to climb out of there!
When I lived in Colorado I found all kinds of crazy stuff! Found a decomissioned nuclear missle silo without a seal on it on the Eastern plains. So we did the proper thing and tied off to my pickup and repelled down into it. Not much there, but exhaust shafts... or so we thought! Some folks a year later went in to the same one we think and gained access to a bunker complex that was partially flooded. There are some pics I'll try and find of that one.
Also in Colorado, a female friend and I were doing some hiking around Silverplume and came over the hills and down into town. We were a couple hunred yards up this mountain and found a natural sinkhole that was over 150 feet deep and 60 or so feet in diameter. We had gear with us and decided to repel sown into it as it looked like it curved and kept going down. We never made it that far... halfway down my friend says "hey, there's a big crack in the side here and looks like a cave". So in we went and it was a water outlet from a natural spring that flooded the Silverplume mine. We went into the mine in waist deep cold water and explored. The original mine shaft had been sealed long ago. The calcite was fantastic! Lots of cool formations and it was kind of soft, we left bootprints in the stuff and it will be there forever. Lots of tobacco tins cemented in the walls from the calcite. Ore cars and rails were visible every now and then. We only explored a small fraction, but it sure was cool!
I'm sure I have some more from when my wife and I lived in Southern Colorado on our homestead. Lots of turn of the century implements in the desert etc.
How about you folks???

Ok, here's another couple... My family used to go on a yearly fishing trip to Northern Ontario. On year my dad and I were way out, we took the boat and we were easily 15miles by water back in this creek fishing for pike. I had to use the facilities and we went ashore. I came across a weird clear substance about an inch thick and the look of frosted glass "growing" over a mossy patch. It had red tendrils from the top or surface, down into the ground. My dad who is a hortoculturist, botanist said it was probably a slime mold. We took a mental note and we looked it up after the trip. We couldn't find anything in all the almanacs etc. We contacted several universities and still nothing. We think we may have stumbled upon a "slime mold" that has never been documented. We went back the next year and of course it wasn't there. My dad said the conditions need to be perfect for those things to appear, much like mushrooms.
My wife and I came across an old gold sleuce in Southern Colorado in a creek. Just sitting there. We checked and the last folks up on this private acerage were chinese immigrants building the railroad and some soldiers from the nearby fort in the 1800's. Kind of cool.

In the woods close to where I lived as a child, part of it was used as an ammo dump during the second world war. Us kids were forever digging up the leftovers. I remember giving my dad heart failure when I found an AK-AK round and was happily sitting on the doorstep hitting it with a hammer trying to make it go BANG! Needless to say it went into a bucket of earth and the Police were called, who then called bomb disposal, who then gave me a severe telling off! But I did get a reward for showing them where I found it..... I got to press the plunger on the detonator to make said AK-AK round go bang!

found an old homestead site, from before the dam was built and the lake flooded. Found a real rusty kettle too pitted for cooking, I use it to put hot ashes in to be sorted later for lye. another site lent me a metal milk can, which I now use as a smudge pot for smoking hides. We find lots of neat stuff, but probably the wierdest thing we ever found was a hard-hat with a bullet hole in it..

In the middle of nowhere, steep hillside ravine with nothing flat except one overgrown spot about 50'X50'. dry stone wall, small foundation and a rock lined well. Least favorable spot to build anything and unknown to anyone in that area. Checked with metal detector and found nothing at all. Would receive almost no sun.

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Originally Posted by Coot

Would receive almost no sun.

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Perfect spot for a vampire then.

glowing centipedes, caterpillar like larva, and other glowing bugs. also a place in WI where there were spots where the ground was a thin crust and was hollow underneath.

I know I have seen better but the only thing I can come up with right now was hunting season a few years ago. I watched a squirrel jump from treetops and missed. I watched the little guy fall 50 feet or more to the ground and land with a thud. It stayed there for several minutes then ran away.

When I was about 9 and a girl scout I found a penny that seemed flawed like you're seeing double. Since I hadn't started drinking for another year or so, I thought it was just play money and kept it in my treasure box.
15 years later I was going through it, saw the penny and showed it to my boyfriend. He did a little research and it turned out this penny was pretty valuable. (Double Die Penny about $200+) We sold it and treated ourselves to 3 days at Myrtle beach.
Had I kept it, it would have been worth much, much more today. But I got a husband out of the deal so no regrets.:)

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Originally Posted by BENESSE

When I was about 9 and a girl scout I found a penny that seemed flawed like you're seeing double. Since I hadn't started drinking for another year or so, I thought it was just play money and kept it in my treasure box.
15 years later I was going through it, saw the penny and showed it to my boyfriend. He did a little research and it turned out this penny was pretty valuable. (Double Die Penny about $200+) We sold it and treated ourselves to 3 days at Myrtle beach.
Had I kept it, it would have been worth much, much more today. But I got a husband out of the deal so no regrets.:)

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you traded a penny for a husband?

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Originally Posted by Camp10

you traded a penny for a husband?

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Well, the boyfriend became a husband.
Could have been the lucky penny or those 3 days at Myrtle Beach that we otherwise couldn't have afforded.
Or it could have just been the irresistible me.

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Originally Posted by BENESSE

Well, the boyfriend became a husband.
Could have been the lucky penny or those 3 days at Myrtle Beach that we otherwise couldn't have afforded.
Or it could have just been the irresistible me.

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Either way, you got your penny's worth!!:) Nice story BTW!

Once, back when I lived in Colorado, I was on the Eastern plains & saw these idiots rapelling down into an abandoned nuclear silo...:innocent: Lucky for them there was no radioactivity. :sneaky2:

But the wierdest thing I ever saw was this really large guy from our forums here out in the woods wearing nothing but a thong. When he saw me he panicked, picked up a Twinkie suit and put it on, and waddled away! :innocent::sneaky2::cool2:

Found a broken antler, from one side of a nice buck......Was talking to the guy next door, that had shot a buck with a broken antler the fall before.

We got togeather and found out it fit.....and was still in good shape, 200 yds away and 6 months after he killed it.

Its now mounted that way, colors a different on the pieces.
Actually found quite a few sheds over the years.

On a solo backpacking trip, on a DARK moonless night, I noticed some of my firewood had some fungus on it that actually glowed in the dark.

I brought some home to show the family: It was faint, but it did definitely emit light.

-Mert

Oh, I have another one... I was in Cancun in '98 "relaxing" and strolling on the beach when my barefoot contacted with something solid. After cursing a bit and apologizing to some families in the area I wanted to see what I hit. The sand is that beautiful white and very fine stuff and there shouldn't be anything that hard in there I thought. I was really curious as to what this object was. As I started to clear the sand around it, a familiar shape appeared... a cannon! No kidding, a cannon laying in the sand! I got pretty excited and uncovered the whole thing, it was a real old one like off of a galleon. I talked to some of the locals on the beach and they were not impressed, turns out they are all over and that one gets covered with sand and dug up regularly. "bummer". I thought I had hit pay dirt, just stubbed my toe on a common item on the beach. I thought it was cool though!

Came across a naked 80+ something lady sun bathing in the woods once, some things can't be un-remembered.

I have found wood and iron log sled with a 6" dia oak tree growing up inside it, been there a while.

Stopped to take a lunch break while out deer hunting, sat on a rock, noticed a lilac bush growing nearby, (They don't grow wild here).
Turned out the the Rock I was sitting on was a corner stone of an old homestead.

When you got looking around could see the out line of the house.
Was always gonna go back there with my metal detector....put it off, land got sold, so I guess I missed out.

One Evening while deer hunting in a freezing rain I kept hearing this faint whimpering sound.
After using my monocular to search I finally spotted a puppy. I decided the hunt was over so I uncapped my gun, and went to see the little guy.
He was a good two miles from a house, small enough to pick up with one hand, and had already formed a solid coating of ice in his fur.:cold:
I picked him up and stuffed him under my coat for warmth. He must have liked that a lot 'cause he peed all over me. I took him home and named him Buck. By the next summer he had grown over a head taller than my German Shepard, and he wasn't done growing. He was truly a WILD dog. I gave him to my buddy who had enough land for him to roam.
I never did get that dog to quit peeing on things.:mad:

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Originally Posted by Mertell

On a solo backpacking trip, on a DARK moonless night, I noticed some of my firewood had some fungus on it that actually glowed in the dark.

I brought some home to show the family: It was faint, but it did definitely emit light.

-Mert

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i seen that stuff, a few diff types of it. go out at night after it rains and youll probably see more.

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Originally Posted by owl_girl

i seen that stuff, a few diff types of it. go out at night after it rains and youll probably see more.

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Owl Girl:
You are right, as it dried up, the light faded, but as I renewed the water, the light emmision renewed as well. It was really cool.
-Mert

several types of mushrooms glow in the dark, and/or their mycelia.

A few are:
Omphalotus olivascens/illudens,
Armillaria sp.
several Mycena spp.
Panellus stipticus.

Weirdest thing I ever found in the woods was the remains of either a model T or A Ford in the woods about 40 miles from the nearest road.
The next weirdest was what I thought was some dropped whitetail antlers but was in fact the remains of 2 bucks with their antlers locked. They had been chewed on some mostly the guts and hind quarters.

I guess it is not weird, but I used to search for indian artifacts with my grandpa as a kid. We went into a lot of fields, dried river beds, and woods. We found some awesome artifacts in all of them, including the woods. I wish we still had the collection, but someone stole it from my uncle's house in AZ a few years ago.

When I was a kid my dad and I used to walk the woods on the week-ends. The woods was rather large and lay on either side of a mainline railroad. On one occasion we stumbled upon a hobo house. It was a mini log house. He had stacked about five logs high and made a roof. He had to crawl in it but I guess it kept him out of the weather.

An old crawler tractor. Trees and brush were growing up through and around it.

"Weirdest thing I ever found in the woods was the remains of either a model T or A Ford in the woods "

Sarky,

I once found a T or A in the woods myself....was it inside of a highwater mark?

Like a river? I found one one inside of the most mature cypress trees you want to see.

The strangest thing we ever found in the woods was something we actually found in a cypress swamp. In several of the cypress trees we found the remnants of old boards and timbers attached to the inside of several hollow trees with huge nails and bridge spikes. These trees also showed signs of fire inside the trees, but they had not burned out the top of the tree as would have happened if it had been a lightning strike.

After a little visiting and jawing with a few of the old river rats we got our answer. It turns out that several of the old moonshiners brewed shine in the hollow trees during prohibition and even later. The revenuers were able to find them in the cypress swamps and they could deliver by carrying the product up or down the river which was connected to the swamp.

While deer hunting up on Spooky Mnt., heard a deer, no a bear, no a big bobcat........no a wild goat walks under my stand. Hmmm......if he's living out here, who am I to kill a wild goat.

A bunch of friends and I when we were younger chased the Jersey Devil through the pines one night.

While bow hunting north of Laredo, Tx I found an arrow head next to where I was hiding be hind some cactus. I was told it was between 5-7000 yrs old.

Around 1995 me and my cousin were going fishing at our secret spot on the lake and we found 4 stolen chevy pick ups stripped down to the frame. We got out of there quick.


This one wasn't me but a tour guid at the King Ranch told us that they found a 1930's vehicle with 1000 miles on the odometer. There was a skeleton in the seat and broken liquor bottles in the car also. Sounded like a tall Texan tale to me.

We were walking out a 2400 volt line that had gone down and had been frying the sand without tripping the transformer. When we finally found where it had gone down, it had dropped on a deer and killed it (but the line was till energized). There must have been 7 or 8 coyotes dead around the deer. They would come in smelling a good meal, and ZAP!
Par of the job and not leisure I know, but it was weird and I found it in the woods.

Canid & Owl Girl:

I was just about to ask Owl Girl if she could identify the fungis. (plural sp?)
Seems you have done that.

I will look them up.

THANKS!

-Mert

After taking a dump, a dog had scratched up the soil around it, as dogs often do. In doing so he uncovered an 1880 silver dollar which I gladly collected.

In the Maine forest near the town of Monson found a balloon with a message from an elementary school in Michigan asking for it to be returned with information on its found location.

A pot growing operation in the middle of the National Forest. A dangerous thing to discover.

Many old logging camps high in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is quite amazing how high up these men went to log back in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

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Originally Posted by Frank

A bunch of friends and I when we were younger chased the Jersey Devil through the pines one night.

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You sure that wasn't a Wild Turkey you were chasin'?

http://liquorshoppingdeals.com/image...ild_turkey.jpg

Once while tendin' my still, we found some city boys taking a canoe trip down a local rive. One sure had a purty mouth.....

Boker you didnt make one of them squeel like a piggy did you?

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Originally Posted by Stargazer

Boker you didnt make one of them squeel like a piggy did you?

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Say dude, Whose tellin' this story? Me or You?


:D :D :D

I knew someone would get the reference.

Only one print in soft soil:sneaky2:
Cool that they put so much detail in the print.
Unlike me, I would never tell the neighbor kids that I saw a Bear or purchase a coyote call:innocent:

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Originally Posted by Boker

Say dude, Whose tellin' this story? Me or You?.

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Fan of the Duke are ya?

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Originally Posted by RobertRogers

After taking a dump, a dog had scratched up the soil around it, as dogs often do. In doing so he uncovered an 1880 silver dollar which I gladly collected.

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Sure hope you didn't leave without diggin' around some more! Oft-times where's there's one there are others!!!:cool2:

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