Oddest things found in the woods?

[Spunyarn]

Hi all,
I've been getting out and about alot more recently, and this weekend I've spent a day in the forest of dean, and today I spent the afternoon in a forestry block in the black mountains. Just turned up, practiced a bit of shelter making, and cooking on a fire.
What's odd is that in the deepest darkest depths of the wood I sat down and spent five minutes sharpening my axe, only to go off to hunt for some deadfall and no more than 4 metres from where I had sat with my rucksack, something went creak underfoot. I used my saw to chip away some of the dying pine needles and soil, and found a couple of jam jars with no lids, some old degrading carrier bags, a childs wellington boot, a childs sandal, what looked like a small rubber dogs toy, and several other bits and pieces. I'm sure that there was more stuff, but I was a bit freaked out after finding the kids shoes, and feared for what I might find next, so I packed away feeling spooked, and found a different part of the woods to set up. (About 50mtrs away I found another couple of jam jars, and a load of peel off lids from tins).
I'm far from religious, spiritual, and I don't believe in the blair witch, yet I can't seem to work out a logical explanation for finding such objects other than: Somebody dumping them as unwanted items? (seems odd to dump them in the middle of a woods!), Somebody trying to hide them? (A little worrying given the nature of the items), A Geocache? (I'm no geocache expert but seems odd things to leave for the next person!).

Anyway, I'm sure there is a normal explanation for the odd bits, and no doubt my curiosity will take me back in the not too distant future to find out what else lies in this stash so I can work out why it's there.

In the mean time, what peculiar/ spooky things have you found while out and about?

 

[Robson Valley]

Some folks are poor as rats, maybe on the run, no plans to pack out what they pack in.
That's enough rubbish to suggest that they stayed for a few days and moved on.
Don't ever seem to have any sense of responsibilities for posessions, but they might have
been surprised and had to jump and run. Long ago.

We expect our forests to drop about 1/2" or 1cm of leaf litter on the forest floor in a calendar year.
Does that estimate give you any time-line?

I taught at a comprehensive college (university courses, trades, technologies) for many years.
Spent a little time around the unkept rough bush perimeter on the look-out for useful biology lab specimens.

#1, a hobo house: tent-like plastic sheeting, utensils, blankets, even a bit of mirror hanging in a bush.
Obviously occupied after dark so left well enough alone.
#2, maybe 100yds away, in a light industrial business district, there was a clump of quite large cottonwood trees.
4-12" diameters, maybe 8-10' across the clump and dense leafy branches right to the ground.
In the middle was a camp made of freight pallets, bedding, shelter and all.

 

[wicca]

A few years ago I was on one of my usual wanderings along the South Downs. I occasionally get the train to Winchester and take a few days to walk back to the Eastern end of the Downs.
After a fairly warm day and a respectable number of miles, I decided to camp high on the Downland for the night.
Tent up, and evening meal finished I sat with a brew and watched the lights of the isolated farms below me coming on, and far out in the Channel the navigation lights of the ships twinkling.
Suddenly I became aware of movement off to my right about 30 metres away. Two Roe Deer had appeared as if from nowhere. They stood, one each side of an isolated Blackthorn. At first I thought they were feeding on the grass at the base of the tree, but that wasn't the case, they seemed to be just looking at something. I'm fairly familiar with the habits of Roe Deer, their early and late feeding times, but I was amazed that they had approached so close to where I was camped and seemed untroubled by my presence.
Slowly I reached back into the tent for my camera but as I did so the Deer slowly walked away, not paniced or in flight, they almost casually just walked away.

Curiosity won, I had to see what they had been looking at. Taking my torch I went to the tree and admit what I saw in the gathering darkness slightly startled me for a second, but what I saw somehow belonged under what to some of us, is tree with special meaning and I slept soundly that night.

In the morning I took these photographs..
The Downland looking East..

The isolated Thorn Tree..

And as the morning light grew stronger.

At the base of the tree..

I know what it is, a garden ornament. It's quite heavy and a long way and a steep climb up onto the Down from the nearest easy public access point, yet someone had carried it and placed it at the base of the Thorn Tree.
The burial place of a beloved pet perhaps? A memorial to a child lost to illness? Whatever the reason it seemed appropriate there high on the lonely Downland.
A garden ornament maybe, but to me she will always be the Downland Fairy, the Spirit of the Downs, so I struck camp and left her sleeping undisturbed in the warm Sussex sunshine.

 

[Spunyarn]

Very interesting. Well there was probably between an inch and two inches of fallen foliage, so I guess that would indicate a year or two. The ideas running through my mind at the time were quite macabre, but in reality I imagine somebody has just done some dumping. It's a damn shame to find essentially litter in beautiful seemingly uninhabited woods, but if somebody doesn't have anywhere to live, they don't have any means of disposing stuff either.

 

[Laurentius]

Someday somebody is going to find a lens cap in my favourite woods. I know within a hundred yards where I lost it a couple of years back but there is so much leaf litter I have never been able to find it again.

 

[Spunyarn]

Just read you post wicca, and thanks for sharing that! Great story.

 

[British Red]

I was photographic insects, creeping along quiet with BB when we met a very embrassed looking orc.




I used the old magic and raised my camera. The warding device worked and the orc ran into the undergrowth.







Bloody LARPers, you would think they had no sense of shame, but apparently they have!

 

[Bowlander]

Found a bin bag full of dwarf porn and a WW2 auxillary unit bunker!

 

[British Red]

Were the contents intact?

 

[John Fenna]

When I lived in Belgium I used to walk a lot in the Ardennes around Spa, Bastogne etc.
Going of the track one time (call of nature) I found a very mossy hob nail boot and some unidentifiable rusty metal in amongst the trees.
I am convinced that it was relics of "The Battle of the Bulge", though I did not stick around or hunt for more remains... or even look in the boot to see if it contained bones!

I have also found Dwarf Gold, plastic mushrooms and plastic gem stones... but that was at the Moot - a famous Larping site

 

[DurhamBushcrafter]

i found a roman coin while digging a latrine hole..... problem was,by the time i finished digging it out and running back to show my mates.....i forgot where the squat hole was and my entrenching tool..we searched for an hour and never did find it...

 

[Harvestman]

Years ago whilst hunting for slugs (it was for a university project for my masters degree) I found myself deep in a thicket of hawthorn, in a spot really only accessible by crawling. I found a carrier bag wrapped around a biscuit tin. The tin looked new. I opened the tin, and the contents had been very carefully wrapped in several layers of plastic as if to keep them dry.

At which point I freaked out, and became convinced that I was being watched, and that the stash was probably IRA terrorist explosives or something, and ran away.

I never found the courage to go back. Somewhere in North Wales that tin may still be there...

 

[tim_n]

Probably a geocache

 

[woodsorrel]

I was hiking in an open space preserve when I detoured off-trail to explore. Below the trail, I find a wooded area that appears to experience seasonal flooding. I look down to find the spine of an animal lying on the ground. The spine might have been from a deer. And I think a nearby bone could be the pelvis of a four-legged animal. But anatomy is not my strong suit.

To my shock and disbelief, I find a necklace draped over one end of the spine!!! It was as if the skeleton was wearing it when the animal(?) expired. It was horrifying.

To save weight, I had not packed my camera that day. It never occurred to me to snap pictures with my cellphone. Instead I return home and Email the rangers. I describe what I found and its location.

Honestly, I expected the rangers would have a good laugh at my expense. They would be swapping stories for years about "the guy who reported a deer skeleton in the forest." But finding a skeleton wearing a necklace quite unnerved me.

Several days later I receive a reply to my Email. They sent a ranger to investigate. And she was as freaked-out as I was! The mountains where I found the skeleton overlook an urban area of about 7 million people. With a population that large, there are always unsolved missing person cases. So the rangers phone the local police department, who sends a crime investigation team to the site. The verdict: probably someone's large dog.

Dogs don't wear necklaces, even in California. So I suspect the skeleton had already been there when rains washed down a lost necklace from the trail above.

I have since found other strange things in the woods, but this was by far the creepiest. It is always the first thing that springs to mind whenever someone asks me about strange finds in the woods.

- Woodsorrel

 

[Wildgoose]

When I lived in Belgium I used to walk a lot in the Ardennes around Spa, Bastogne etc.
Going of the track one time (call of nature) I found a very mossy hob nail boot and some unidentifiable rusty metal in amongst the trees.

I think it's traditional that on a foresters last working day he leaves his boots and bill hook at the last tree he cuts.

 

[John Fenna]

When I lived in Belgium I used to walk a lot in the Ardennes around Spa, Bastogne etc.
Going of the track one time (call of nature) I found a very mossy hob nail boot and some unidentifiable rusty metal in amongst the trees.

I think it's traditional that on a foresters last working day he leaves his boots and bill hook at the last tree he cuts.

There was a lot more rusty metal than just a billhook - as I recall some looked more like metal boxes and a tripod...
In North Wales, on Snowdon, I found 303 bullet heads near The Gladstone Rock and 303 casings nearby but up slope .. relics of Commando training in '43/'44 that my father (as a teenager) had got mixed up in when he was on a cycling holiday.
Canoeing on the Teifi in West Wales I found a plastic figurine that I think started life as an Indian religious idol - a very feminine figure with (missing) pose-able arms .. she lives in the back of my van along with other stuff like a plastic Ice-cream cone I found up in the headwaters of the Neath.
On top of the Presceli Mountains I have often come across gemstone, feathers and coloured yarns, decorating Tumuli and cairns.. while in an old trial mine that reaches right under the summit of the highest peak (hidden unless you have been shown the entrance) I have found gemstones and wooden sculptures along with candle stubs...
The Old Religion has many followers around here...

 

[Wild Tuscany Bushcraft]

Hi all,
years ago I found a Palaeolithic jasper tool, but I was near a jasper procurement area used in the past
Ciao a tutti!

 

[JohnC]

I did lose my glasses at Rough Close last year, so if anyone finds them (though Wayland tells me the area has been industrially strimmed) please let me know....

 

[skate]

One of the strangest things I have found was a lock picking tool. It was deep in a forest well off the beaten track.

 

[British Red]

Stripped skeletons hanging in trees are always noticeable



carcas by British Red, on Flickr