SC EP:1213 The Hunting Shack

John writes “October 2025, there were a few of us sitting around the table in our off‑grid hunting shack, just enjoying each other’s company.

For context, we’re deep in the PNW backcountry: no power, no civilization for miles, and no motorized vehicles allowed anywhere near the place. Out of nowhere we heard a thud on the side of the shack. My wife said, “There’s something outside,” but a friend brushed it off, saying it was probably just a piece of firewood settling in the stove. So we ignored it.

A moment later, another thud, louder this time. Three of us got up, opened the door, and checked down the side of the shack where the sound came from, but there was nothing there. Convinced it was probably nothing, two of us headed back inside while the third said he needed to use the shitter (our name for the outhouse).

We had barely sat down again when, just seconds later, he, let’s call him “J” came sprinting back inside, not even making it to the outhouse. He blurted out, “There’s something out there,” and the fear on his face was real. This is a military veteran who’s seen his share of things, and he said whatever it was made a deep exhale or grunt from just outside.

So J, S, and I went back out. We’d only walked about 15–20 feet toward the shitter before stopping. The outhouse sits around 40–50 feet from where we stood, with no trees between us. Behind it, though, the timber tightens up.

I saw it first. “What the hell is that?” I said. What I saw was a small red glowing light, pulsing faintly. A minute later J said, “What the hell is that?” he had finally locked onto it too. S still couldn’t see it yet.

The red light looked like a tiny, dim LED, pulsing on and off. The night was pitch‑black—so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Whenever I stared directly at the light, it would vanish, and I’d have to move my head around, almost like searching around branches for an angle. Then it would reappear… then vanish again… then reappear somewhere slightly different.

At one point, I saw three separate red lights at the same time, all at different heights but roughly eye‑level. Always single lights, never two together like eyes.

That’s when S finally said, “What the hell…” and he was clearly shaken. He’d been scanning the area with a thermal scope the whole time and seeing nothing until suddenly he saw what he described as a face, a circular white heat signature peeking from behind a tree or stump before disappearing again.

After that, the red light on the far right appeared noticeably closer, now unobstructed by any branches. S kept saying, “Red… off… red… off… red… off…” in rhythm with the pulsing.

We’ve had three other strange experiences over the past decade that we’ve never been able to explain, one was an extremely loud and heavy scream that terrified all of us, and the other involved a group of large ground nests. All of those seemed like possible Bigfoot‑related activity.

Because of that history, it almost feels logical that these red lights might be connected.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether you’ve ever come across anything like this, or if you know of any accounts describing similar red lights. I’m obsessive when it comes to researching things, but I keep running into dead ends, mostly references to red glowing eyes or floating orbs. This wasn’t eye shine; there was no light source to reflect off of. And the orb stories I’ve found don’t match what we saw either.

This experience doesn’t resemble anything I’ve come across in the short time I’ve been digging into it.”

We will also be speaking to Marissa, she writes “I’ve gone back and forth about writing to you because I’m not sure how relevant my experience really is but after hearing witnesses on your show describe encounters with dogman-type creatures, I can’t help wondering if what we saw might fit into that category.

My boyfriend, Brian, and I live full-time in a truck camper, traveling around the U.S. This happened in mid-July, when we were camped on BLM land past the Delta-09 Missile Silo, just outside Badlands National Park. It was a full-moon night, but we set up camp while there was still daylight. We made a fire, Brian cooked dinner and almost immediately after we arrived, I noticed something odd. A herd of cows in the distance suddenly came running over a hill, almost as if they were spooked.

For the next several hours, as we ate and the sun went down, those cows made nonstop distressed sounds. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them, and it was eerie. One of my dogs refused to get out of the truck as well, which was extremely unusual for her. Eventually, once the moon rose, the cows went silent. The night was beautiful, so we decided to take a moonlit walk along the dirt road with our other dog. We walked maybe half a mile and then laid down to look at the stars.

We’d been on the ground less than a minute when my dog gave an alert bark. We sat up, and about 60 yards ahead of us, we saw a large black figure. My first thought was that it was a cow until my eyes adjusted and I realized it had canine features. I tried to convince myself it was a coyote, even though it was far too big.

We aimed our flashlights at it, and that’s when everything turned strange. It had no eye shine at all. I’ve lived in the woods most of my life; every animal I’ve ever seen at night reflects light. But this thing’s eyes were just… black holes. The entire body almost seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. No matter how many times we shone our beams on it, no more detail appeared. It just stayed this pitch-black shape, panting loudly far louder than you’d expect from that distance.

I had the unsettling feeling that it was staring directly into my eyes and that it was intelligent, more so than any wild animal I’ve encountered. We yelled at it, but it didn’t flinch or move. A normal coyote would’ve bolted. I told Brian, “I don’t want that thing behind me,” which is not how I react to coyotes at all. We started heading back to camp me walking forward, Brian walking backward to keep an eye on it.

Later, when we talked it through, things got even stranger. There were two of them. I had been so fixated on the one in front of us that I completely missed a second creature off to our right closer, and according to Brian, noticeably larger. Brian isn’t someone who believes in Bigfoot, dogmen, skinwalkers, or anything of that nature, but he said it felt like the one farther away the one I was staring at was in control of the closer one, almost like an owner and a dog. He also said its legs looked blurry or formless when the light hit them, which matched what I felt but didn’t say out loud.

As he kept watch, both creatures followed us for about a quarter mile, staying just far enough back, until they finally slipped into the hills. Almost immediately after they disappeared, the cows started up again with the same panicked cries from earlier.

We’ve gone over this experience so many times, and we always land in the same place: those were not coyotes. They were something neither of us can explain.

So I’m reaching out to ask have you heard other reports of canine-like creatures with jet-black eyes and no eye shine? Does this sound more like something people attribute to a skinwalker, or is a dogman encounter a possibility? I know humans lack eye shine, but these things were absolutely not human. I haven’t been able to find anything online that matches, other than a general trend of strange reports from the Badlands.

I’d really love to hear your thoughts on what we might’ve seen.”