Ever seen anything too strange to identify?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread reminded me of an encounter I had with a (maybe) wild animal in my neighborhood.

My neighborhood used to have a large ranch of some kind. There’s a stretch of land that has an old gate in the middle of a stretch of brush that’s about to fall apart with rust. Behind the brush, there’s a barn that’s surrounded by untended growth, and the high grass and stray trees attract all sorts of critters like foxes, deer, moles, etc.

One time I was walking the dogs back from the convenience store down the road. As we passed by the aforementioned gate, I saw a face in the grass staring back at us. The dogs didn’t notice the critter, as the high grass blocked their view. I thought it might have been a fox, but something looked off about it. I took out my phone to get a pic and took a step closer. When I did, the critter turned around and bounded away. It wasn’t no fox.

It was some kind of mountain lion. It was large and had a tail that was about 3 feet long. It was a solid color, kind of a lustrous silver-gray. I could tell its flesh was beige-colored. I looked through large cat identifiers online, and couldn’t really find a category that matched what I saw. Mountain lions are usually gold-yellowish. Some might have spots and patterns, but this one didn’t. Panthers have jet black hair, and black skin as well, so it wasn’t a panther. I didn’t see its belly, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t two-toned. It looked similar to this grey mountain lion, but it had longer hair, and I could definitely see its skin underneath the hair, unlike the one in the photo.

This article talk about black pumas, but with a caveat: its existence can be called legendary, as there have been plenty of sightings, but there’s no verifiable proof that they exist. The black puma has kind of a Big Foot reputation, in that they’ve been seen, but virtually no one has ever managed to capture or kill one, much less photograph it. There is a photo on the site of one shot in Costa Rica in 1959, but that’s it. I’m not sure if the one I saw exactly fits that description either, but it’s the closest thing I found to what I saw.

2

Yes. I had recently taken a job in a smallish city adjacent to farm land. The office building had just been built and was nestled in woods. I worked uncharacteristically late one night. Driving down the long driveway my headlights picked up a huge ??? thing. It was huge, tall, four legged, brownish. Much taller than any dog. The next day I went to work and told everyone.

From my description they told me it was a deer. :smack:

OK I know you are thinking I must be nuts; but up to that point my only experience with deer was seeing the movie Bambi when I was a little kid.

Now let me tell you about the time my friend saw a possum (American) he thought it was a huge rat. :smiley:

3

There should be a word for when your brain sees something it doesn’t recognize, tries to make it look like something familiar and then the slight feel of nausea as you realize it isn’t what your brain was telling you.

Or in other words what happened to me once when I thought a possum was a dog for a brief second.

4

In central Missouri, I had access to a cave that was half mile long and open on both ends; a stream coursed through the cave. Spelunking to within 75 yards of other side at just beyond dusk I saw a faint light under the water. When I got closer, it was clearly a plant of some kind (or fungus?) It had branches, was completely under water, had no leaves that I could see and was about 2-3feet across. The tips of the branches where the buds were glowed very faintly.
Never had the opportunity to find it again, never saw it again, don’t know what it was.

5

A couple of years ago on a cloudy weekend in St Augustine , boyfriend and I were dining outside and marveling at the large cloud that never moved, despite the slight breeze. The more we stared at it we decided it looked just like the Eiffel Tower. Two hours later, it still hadn’t moved. I even took pictures of it. It wasn’t until the next day that we realized we’d been staring at construction rigging all night :smack:

6

When I was a kid we had a summer house on a lake in Michigan. We spent a lot of time paddling around in the shallows and were very familiar with the various fish, bugs, turtles, snakes and such that inhabited the area. Then one day we found something completely different. Eventually we did identify it (this was pre-internet), but for a while we thought we’d found something from the dawn of time (which I guess we had.)

http://archive.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110712/NEWS02/110711031/Mudpuppies-cause-stir-Vermont

7

Not unexplained, but one New Year’s Eve I left a large hotel party to walk along the river. Despite the time and day (around 2 am on New Year’s Day) there was construction going on on the steel frame of a very odd building - this one - across the river, and huuuuuuge welding firefalls were dripping off the structure at several points. It looked like an alien version of the Year-2000 Eiffel Tower fireworks.

It’s locally called the ziggurat, and it was the custom-built HQ of The Money Store, which AFAIK has long since failed for extravagant spending like having construction crews work over New Year’s Eve. :slight_smile:

8

When I was a teenager I rode my bike up to the strip mall up the street from our house one day to get something. On my way home I took a detour behind the mall, where the dumpsters were. Next to one of them I saw what I could have sworn was a severed cow head. Now, this strip mall had a supermarket, a liquor store, a hardware store, a drugstore, a clothing store, a video rental place, and a coffee-shop-style restaurant. Nothing that you’d think would generate a severed cow head next to a dumpster.

It kinda freaked me out because I’d never seen something like that before, so I didn’t stop to examine it. Instead, I went home and told my mom about it, and talked her into going back to look at it with me to verify I’d seen what I thought I’d seen.

When we got back it was gone…

<cue Twilight Zone theme…>

9

I had a weird experience like this once, just walking with a friend down the streets of Bendigo in Australia. We both saw something in the gutter, and getting closer, it seemed to be a dead magpie. (Australian magpies are amazing, gorgeous, beautiful and sometimes aggressive birds). We got even closer, and it was actually a beer bottle, the peeling label giving the effect of white feathers against the dark glass.

The next day, alone, I passed by again, and it really was a dead magpie.

OR WAS IT?!

OP, my theory for what you saw is a mangy mountain lion. You shouldn’t be able to see the skin of any healthy felid.

10

There is the mangy coyote/fox that I mentioned in that thread. I’m pretty sure it’s a coyote; it’s awfully big for a fox, and the little bit of fur it has is brown not red, but still…

And one day, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a VERY big cat walk by outside. I mean, it was freakishly big, and it was brown with black points. I’ve always wondered if it wasn’t a bobcat. Although there are no official spottings of them in our county, they have been spotted in the next county over.

And then there was the day I found a bleeding tooth fungus…

11

I saw that furry caterpillar that’s apparently toxic, about fifteen years ago, on my front porch. It was pretty large and moved oddly and totally freaked me out. I was almost hesitant to pass it to enter my home

12

Last year something the size and shape of a badger wandered out in front of my car one night. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a badger, we don’t have those here. Didn’t have a big flat tail, wasn’t covered in quills…no idea what it really was.

13

Bobcats are tall but not that huge and have no tail (hence name). They have distinctively pointed ears and are greyish or tan and spotted all over, not brown with black points like a bay horse. Maybe you saw a VERY big domestic cat.

14

A Spinetail building a nest in a tree near my house in Bolivia, unidentifiable, probably a hybrid
Synallaxis superciliosa x frontalis, but I can find no record of such a hybrid.

15

Fisher cat? Those can be very hard to see and identify. I’ve seen (briefly) two in four years.

16

In 2004, a frined and I were driving home from Florida, coming thru Atlanta. There was a very large, dead animal lying on the side of the highway. I swear to God it looked like a hyena. It was enormous, and the jaws on the thing were wicked looking. She and I both know animals and we both thought it looked like a hyena- striped coat, overdeveloped shoulders, and those jaws. A mile or 2 further on, there was ANOTHER one. We freaked out.

As soon as we got back home we checked the internet to see if any had escaped from the zoo or something. Could not find anything about hyenas in Atlanta. We still wonder what the hell we saw.

17

Maybe if it was hugely pregnant. Whatever it was it was pretty wide, and weasels generally aren’t no matter how big and long they get. Since I was near water, I guess a river otter is a possibility given those are roughly the same size and whatever it was probably brown not black/gray, but it’d be the sole time I’ve ever seen one.

18

A biker bar used to be next door to my parent’s beachside condo.

Playing frisbee on the beach one day, I see what appears to be a football, or deflated beach toy or such, up on the high tide line. Upon closer examination is was a severed sea turtle’s head. The bikers must have made a hearty turtle soup-hope they choked on it…

19

[QUOTE=Knowed Out;17755063I took out my phone to get a pic and took a step closer. When I did, the critter turned around and bounded away. It wasn’t no fox. <snipping happens>
I could tell its flesh was beige-colored. I looked through large cat identifiers online, and couldn’t really find a category that matched what I saw. Mountain lions are usually gold-yellowish. Some might have spots and patterns, but this one didn’t. Panthers have jet black hair, and black skin as well, so it wasn’t a panther. I didn’t see its belly, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t two-toned. It looked similar to this [grey mountain lion]
(http://static.bangordailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/lion050412-3-600x400.jpg), but it had longer hair, and I could definitely see its skin underneath the hair, unlike the one in the photo.

This article talk about black pumas, but with a caveat: its existence can be called legendary, as there have been plenty of sightings, but there’s no verifiable proof that they exist. The black puma has kind of a Big Foot reputation, in that they’ve been seen, but virtually no one has ever managed to capture or kill one, much less photograph it. There is a photo on the site of one shot in Costa Rica in 1959, but that’s it. I’m not sure if the one I saw exactly fits that description either, but it’s the closest thing I found to what I saw.
[/QUOTE]

You shouldn’t have been able to see skin on a cat. Cats that mangy are too sick to run.

I once saw something I thought was a very VERY big black house cat down while I was off roading. I assumed that because I knew that black puma’s were just a myth. As it happens, black pumasare real and very stealthy. None of those are my pics, I didn’t have time to take one before it took off.

I once was standing outside and saw a meteor explode. It was amazing, it was a bright blue light about as big as my fingernail that soared down and then blew up into 6 smaller white/blue hot fragments as it burst.

The next day, I found out that other people had seen it…according to them, it was a flying saucer that had been secretly shot down by the government and they couldn’t find fragments because the ebil government had swooped down and scooped them up to take them to a secret base somewhere in the desert. (there were no planes or helicopters in the area, this was out in the sticks where the stars are so bright that you can read a book by them.)

People tend to see what they expect to see. I was expecting to see “falling stars”, other people were looking out for flying saucers.

I still don’t know what I saw that day in the woods, but if it was a feral cat, it was way too big to ever fit in one of my traps.

20

A puma can appear black sometimes in shadows or morning and evening light. Something about thier coat. I used to hunt chukar in a spot and this female cougar would appear all throught out the day every weekend while we hunted, she was always at least 200 yards away but she would often appear black depending on the light.