I am an outdoorswoman, I'm very experienced in hunting, camping, hiking, and general survival.
I'm very familiar and used to wildlife, and I was charged by what I believe was a cryptid called a dogman, it charged me and my cousin, it was not a bear, a bear cannot move how it did, and it was not a normal wolf as they can't comfortably run on 2 legs whereas what charged us seemed natural at doing.
This happened around June or July of 1997 I believe, I was around 17 years old and more cocky then, but still somewhat knowledgeable of the outdoors.
My family used to own a cabin in NW Wisconsin, I basically grew up there in the summer, I knew the woods well, but at night it was wise to stay in the cabin or at least by the bonfire by the beach, because of bears, wolves, and cougars. One of the creepiest things was if you were having a bonfire, the treeline was visible from the fire pit and beach, and at night you always felt like you were being watched from that treeline. But during the day the woods always seemed normal, not so creepy, that is until this incident. So this happened somewhere between 1200-1400.
Me and my cousin were having an airsoft battle, I was in full woodland camo, he was not, I retreated onto the ATV trail into the woods for a tactical advantage and our battle took us about 200 meters in to about a third of the way up the trail. We had enough at this point and were standing at the edge of a clearing on the trail talking and he was maybe 10 feet from me, when I decided to mess with him, I shushed him and said "we're being watched", he froze, then I realized the woods were dead quiet and I got spooked and started scanning the treeline and the other edge of the clearing from left to right when I saw it. It's teeth gave it away, it was panting and staring at my cousin, I don't expect you to believe me, but what I saw was a wolf as big as a black bear, at least 300lbs, but it wasn't normal, this wolf was on 2 legs crouching next to tree with its arm grasping the tree, grasping with a clawed hand, it had reddish brown fur.
I told my cousin that "we have to go" and next thing I know he is sprinting and I look back at wolfy who had locked on and sprinted a few steps on two feet and then I turned and ran when it looked like wolfy was dropping to all fours, it charged us and sounded right on our asses barreling through the brush, but for whatever reason let us go when we broke out of the tree line and headed for the cabin. What stuck with me the most was the sheer size, wolfy appeared to be nearly 7' tall when upright, and that where it should've had front paws it appeared to have large clawed hands.
Now I'm not sure how to explain it away rationally, I have heard wolves will occasionally kind of walk upright but as far as I know they can't sprint on 2 legs, nor do wolves get that big, and black bears more waddle on 2 legs. The closest description is silly, a werewolf or dogman. Thank you for reading. . . .
This is just a pretty generalized idea, but I feel like the majority of cryptids stay concealed because they are basically endangered animals with relatively small populations. They are also probably skittish and elusive by nature, so they avoid places with large amounts of people because of all the noise and such.
Humans pose a threat to cryptids just like we pose a threat to all other known animals. We destroy and pollute their habitats, making it harder for them to survive and thrive.
I enjoy documentaries about cryptids that try to keep things objective and focus mostly on the facts. I feel this makes them the most credible. Although I am also a fan of mockumentaries, as they're very entertaining and allow one to think how a creature would exist with more ability to guess at these things than to just say "well we're not really sure."
I carry my camera around a lot but that's about as far as it goes in terms of looking for cryptids.
I do plan to go searching eventually, I think it'll be a fun experience and I'll get some nice nature pictures in general but I don't expect to find much.
It's my opinion that cryptids are most of the time just undiscovered creatures that developed naturally but humans haven't extensively studied yet. Although I try to keep an open mind and don't think it would be too outlandish to suspect "otherworldly" intervention.
I would consider myself an environmentalist. I think we have the responsibility to stop habitat destruction for the sake of all the animals on Earth, possible cryptids included.
Cryptids as animals are almost definitely elusive and endangered, and we don't want to wipe out an entire species before even discovering it.
I think that the films & the media choose two versions of cryptids. There's the "scary" movie, like The Hollow (2015) that seem to be some kind of warning that cryptids are a naturally destructive force. Possibly that is a projection of our own feelings about our own monstrous destruction that you point out. There's this other side though--mostly in kid's films like the remake of Pete's Dragon, The Water Horse, Fern Gully, or E.T.--where kids have a privileged relationship with the creatures, protecting them from adult threats. It could be an exercise in building little environmentalists, as many children's books and films build implicit and explicit expectations for the world--acculturation.
I've told my family this story a couple times, and I get some weird looks, but it really stands out for me so I will share it with you. It is the only sighting I have ever had, and wouldn't call it an encounter per se, but what the hell. I was a teenager at the time and was enjoying a late season elk hunt in Washington state with my father.
I don't recall the exact area, but it was in the foothills of the Cascades, northwest of the Yakima area.
This was in mid November or so, with a minor skiff of snow on the ground; not enough to completely cover the ground. My dad and I set out from the truck in the early morning and followed a ridge-line that was on one side of a natural bowl that had been logged a few years before. The ridge-line was still treed and fairly dense until you reached the edge of the ridge. We decided to make our way to the bottom of the bowl and follow a road/skid trail that went from the bottom to the top and try to push any hidden game towards my brother in law who went around the other side of the bowl.
It probably took us about 20 minutes to go from the ridge to the bottom. Half-way up the skid trail we stopped to take a break and watch for game sign.
As I turned to look towards the bottom of the bowl I glanced up towards where we had previously been and saw a dark humanoid shape moving at a speedy pace along the ridgeline where we had come from. Now, it wasn't a hunter so far as I could tell; it had no hunter orange on or a discernible pattern of clothing. What was more impressive was the long gate of the figure as it rapidly moved along the edge of the trees. My younger mind told me it had to be a cross-country skier because of the gate and speed that it was moving, but like I said, there wasn't near enough snow for a skier to be moving that quickly. The primary reason to believe it might a skier was the smooth locomotion of it.
The head and shoulders didn't appear to rise and fall as you might expect from a bipedal creature, especially one on the move like it was. It didn't look like a human on the run at all and I had this uneasy feeling as I watched it cover the space of a quarter mile in what seemed like seconds. It continued on down the ridge until it disappeared from view, entering the trees. I remember sitting in stunned silence before we resumed our climb.
At the time I didn't mention it to my dad because I knew he would say it was just another hunter, but even to this day I have very deep doubts about that possibility. I wish I had said something. I wish I had pointed it out.
Maybe Harry and the Hendersons made too big an impact on me when I was a kid, but I feel I spotted Bigfoot that day.
I do a lot of solo backpacking in the backcounty in northern Minnesota and I have had some "odd" experiences in the past.
This is my most recent.
Last August, I was dispersed camping in the Finland State Forests. Dispersed camping is where there are no trails and you are just trekking through the bush and set up camp wherever you want. No permits, no cell service, no people. I usually just park my car in a ditch off of an old logging road and head into the woods. My family knows of my general location and I have a SPOT satellite transmitter if things should go bad. I was 3 days into the woods and about 8ish miles from my entry point and it was well past dark at this point. I had put my small campfire out for the night and I was reading a book in my camping hammock. If you haven't even been in the north woods, it gets really dark at night.
So dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face if the moon isn't out. After about an hour of reading, the woods suddenly got really quiet. Then I heard some footfalls/crunching in the woods followed by a large tree fall in the distance. The sound of a tree falling in absolute silence is very unnerving and it was followed by 2 more tree falls within the next few minutes.
They all seemed to stay a fair distance away from me, but close enough for me to get out of my hammock and fire up a campfire again. I have learned to keep a reserve of quick burning kindling/wood for instances like this and I am glad that I did. I never did see anything and I didn't go looking for it. Whatever it was decided to move on once I had my fire going again. It was probably a large predator of some sort or a moose, but it really freaked me out.
I still go of grid whenever I can, but that experience freaked me out more then usual.