I have lots of stories!

First, my mom and brothers' story. They were driving home (probably 14 years ago) and saw a panther sitting on the side of the road. (we live in the mdidle of nowhere). This was in western Arkansas...it was near our house, so my mom called Game & Fish Commission since my brother and I were young at the time. They told her she was crazy and that there are no panthers in Arkansas. They said there used to be but there were no longer. Well, she told a few other people and others had seen them too, not often but they knew they existed. My mom later got into Wildlife Rehabilitation (she loves animals) and the man who trained her for a year or so told her the Game and Fish Commission along with most of our government try to hide things like that (duh, but it makes you wonder what else they lie about). He had no idea why they lied about it but he said he had officers SEE a panther with their own eyes and still deny it. They're endangered, but there.

We live in some pretty thick woods. I've actually lived in 2 different areas. In the first house, we lived in an old house. It came with 2 barns, tons of land, and an outhouse. There was also PART of another, bigger house out back that the slave owners had lived in. We lived in the "slave" house, someone had added on to it. I won't go into details with this house except that it was so old you could push on it and the halls would move, and I'd say it was definitely haunted, but that's a story for another thread. Anyway, the land this farm was on, there was a civil war battle that happened there. If we walked into the woods near the creek, there were some crazy things. The feeling of being watched, we found cannonballs, old buttons, old clothes...I haven't been there in years (lived there when I was 8 and 9) and actually just got married and live nearby. We're going to check the place out this weekend, because I'm so curious.

On the other land we lived on, we had a huge field, a creek, and then behind the house, a hill with a bluff at the top. It took 20-30 minutes to climb up the hill to get to the bluff. About halfway up, someone (Native Americans I'm sure) had taken the time to find a flat spot, flatten it more, knock down every tree and clear it of rocks. My mom and I found this spot and just stopped dead in our tracks. A huge clearing, on the side of a hill that was flat. No trees, no rocks. I haven't dug around much up there but we did find a rock object that looked like it was carved into some kind of...masher. Like you'd mash potatoes or other things with. There was a creek by our house, too, and we once found a rock there that had been hollowed out in the middle like a bowl. We also had places out in the woods that were cleared like someone had been buried there, like body-sized areas with no trees or rocks on it. I found one that looked slightly fresh once, in the middle of the woods, maybe 1-2 years old. I instantly got a creepy feeling and my friend and I had found it, so we went back and got shovels and dug, and dug, and dug, thinking someone was buried there...we never found anything but I'm not sure we dug deep enough either. My parents live there and I always think of going back to dig even deeper. We also had huge trees with rocks collected on one side, definitely where bodies were buried. And on the edge of the woods, huge, huge piles of rocks and dirt...not sure what that would be about. And by the creek on the edge of the woods in the field, we have an area surrounded by these yellow flowers, not sure of the kind. Obviously there used to be a house there, which is super neat to me.

Once we were walking along and by those flowers, we found a little calf just laying there, I guess it's momma had left it there for a while. It was just really unexpected. And near there we also stumbled across a huuuuuge clearing. We crossed the creek and slipped between a few trees, and there was an absolutely huge clearing there, surrounded by trees, but no trees IN it, bigger than 3/4 (1200-1300 sq foot)houses put together...but here's the kicker. It was full of bones. Mostly cow bones (the people who own the land next to us have thousands of cows) but it also had raccoon/armadillo/etc. bones there. I just found it odd that they picked THAT area as their boneyard. Creeped me out the first time I saw it, before I realized it was cows.

Oh, and once when I was 12 or so we were up camping in those woods...about 10 of us. I was in the tent with my cousin, who was about 14 at the time. My dad had the flashlight and I don't remember what he was doing, I knew it had something to do with my brother, who was about 9...I assume he had to go pee and didn't want to do it in the dark. Anyway everyone else besides us, my dad, and brother was sitting around the campfire about 20 feet away. My dad was standing by the entrance to our tent (tent opening was facing west) and we were sitting in the tent (had those mesh windows facing north and south). My dad was facing the north shining the light back and forth. Not sure what my cousin and I were doing in the tent but she said "Oh my god, look" and I could tell she was scared. She pointed out the north tent window and I didn't see anything at first. My dad shined the light around and instantly I saw what she was talking about. I SWEAR it was Bigfoot. I could see the eyes and hair, it was tall...it's head was above a branch in the tree and he was looking straight in at us. I was in shock...my dad shined the light over it's face and then back, when he shined it over again there was nothing there at all. I never heard it move, I don't know how it happened but my cousin and I both saw it. I asked her what she thought she saw and she said Bigfoot so to this day I know it's not BS...not sure what else it could have been. I know my dad didn't see it and he doesn't believe in that stuff anyway.

Another time we were camping on the Buffalo River (I think I was about 14) in the Ozarks, on the bank, not on a campground. Across the bank, there was a huge cliff. Well, everything was fine, until we went to sleep. My brother and I were in the tent and my parents stayed up for awhile by the fire. I woke up to a BOOM, like somebody had slammed something into the rocks on the bank. I noticed my mom and dad were still outside, and said "Mom? What was that?" and she said "Honey, stay in the tent. Shhh" and I knew it was something weird. I heard them talking quietly and then heard a splash. I heard my mom go "oh my god" and so of course I disobeyed and got out of the tent. It happened a few times for me to witness. We couldn't really see up on the cliff but we could tell it was coming from there - something was throwing rocks at us and obviously didn't want us there. Not just something - something big. They were pretty big rocks. It was FREAKY. Scared the crap out of me. It stopped after a few more times but I don't think my parents slept that night, and I'm not sure how I did!