This happened to me I want to know and see more.
I've had two situations happen where I've looked back and learned how lucky I might've been that nothing worse happened than being creeped out. I want to start with that I've never physically seen a dogman or bigfoot with my own eyes, but I've always had an uncanny affinity for feeling when something is off kilter or wrong. It's like my own inner danger radar. I can tell some people who are bad news or have bad intentions or I look at a place and get the "Nope!" vibe. So naturally it should come as no surprise to you to say that I'm neurospicy. I've had two separate situations happen to me. The first was in the Pocket campground/recreation area north of Calhoun. I used to go around finding new hiking trails to hike with my dog all the time. IK found the pocket on all trails and went hiking one day. this is spring-ish of 2022 there's a nice loop there like 5 miles long. I was almost done with less than 2 miles left when I I realized than there was no noise around me. I'm talking none, zip, zilch. There were all different types of signs of life five minutes prior.
I grew up in the woods up north there's ALWAYS noise all day all night the woods of Georgia was no different except for now. So I froze. My dog was looking at the tree line in the distance and acting funny but I couldn't see anything. suddenly it felt like I was being observed. like there were eyes on my watching my every move but I had no idea from where. I stayed still for what felt like forever, but really I might've been 5-10 minutes. it passed eventually, but I was in the middle of the woods. I only had one option: finish the hike back to my car. That's exactly what I did after the feeling of being watched went away.
On another occasion I was hiking the BMT in may/June of 2025 I was up near Blueridge just outside of Cherry Log. I was out for a week long hike. and this was day 5 I believe. Up until now I'd had no issues. Each time I made camp it was a normal night in the woods like I've done all my life. That night though, it was the same as the first story almost. I wasn't originally going to stay there but weather was coming in and my hammock was set up from my afternoon nap so I decided to hunker down and stay. It was only 2 in the afternoon. But around 4 the same thing happened. the woods, on a clear sunny day with a nice breeze going went completely silent and it felt like I was being observed again, measured almost.
There was a creek at camp and I had set up in the trees about 50 feet from the creek and the feeling was coming from across the creek. It was so intense, it was like I'd done something to piss off whoever or whatever was watching me. It wanted me to know it was watching me. I felt this so strongly that I had seriously considered packing up and moving because my stomach was beginning to turn a bit, like I might be sick. I've hiked 1800 miles on the Appalachian Trail back in 2023, I'm an eagle scout and camped out and hiked all of my childhood. I'm no stranger to nights in the woods and things that go bump in the night. I've been chased by a mama bear and Spooked a bear so good it clacked it's teeth at me. but this feeling had me unnerved. I was so uneasy I was realizing for the first time how isolated I actually was from any sort of help. While I had an SOS beacon if anything were to happen I was still too far from anyone to help me. For the first time I had to ask myself if it was time to stop adventuring in the woods alone.
The rain was coming and I stayed. I laid down in my hammock looking across the creek into the trees. The feeling wouldn't going away. That is until the rain came. The rain started and I opened my tarp and hunkered down under it for the night. The second the rain started the feeling stopped. Like whatever it was didn't want to be bothered to get wet or that I wasn't important enough for it to get wet messing with me. My trip was supposed to be 3 weeks I was going to hike the whole 260 something miles but I cut it short a day later. that event really rattled my nerves, and I don't rattle easy. I'm 6'2" 280lbs, Marine vet and adventurer. guts and nerves of steel are a part of me, but something about that was different, even more different than what had occurred at the pocket a few years earlier.
Later on I've found that in both instances the two areas where I've experienced this "watching" two other people have also had their own encounters. one was a bigfoot researcher who was also a doctor. he use to camp at the Pocket and had been chased by a bigfoot up there one time it had come as close as 40 yards from his camper in the campground. the area I was in just south of the Cohutta wilderness was a dogman sighting from someone else. My "watching" event when I was hiking happened about 3-4 miles from the other sighting. I didn't realize how close my situations had been to other encounters.
I'm building a google map overlay out of curiosity for bigfoot and dogman sightings, does anyone else have any stories about their own encounters and where they happened? it doesn't have to be an exact "hey it happened here on the map" but the more detailed the better. I like collecting information, maybe build a map for future expeditions to find more proofs of dogman and bigfoot.