We've had a few unexplainable experiences but nothing we could say for sure what it was.
The first was in Chile, it was spring and we were visiting a National Park. It wasn't officially open yet but they let you 4x4 in if you want for free, there was one other vehicle in the parking area. We chose the shortest trail to the Araucaria Trees (Monkey Puzzle) and had a tree knock on our left within three minutes. A couple minutes after we had a tree knock on our right. We joked that the other people there must be Bigfoot hunting. A few minutes later we ran into the other couple that was there, she was all dolled up and he had a ton of camera equipment...an obvious photo shoot. We shrugged it off.
During our second drive of the Blue Ridge Parkway, on our way to Expo East 2019, we stopped at the Linville River Bridge. It was early and we needed a restroom, again only one other vehicle was in the lot. Once we jumped out of the van some strange birds started making a ton of racket above the bathhouse. It was extremely loud but we both had to go so we went into our respective sides. I came out first and it was all quiet. I wandered to the river to take a picture of the bridge and on my way back up I heard someone yelling. The other person there was walking his little dog around the loop that bordered the river and bathhouse and someone up in the woods was yelling at him in a language I couldn't place. He stopped and stared into the woods a little then turned around and walked his dog away from that front parking area. I was curious so I wandered over and started looking up into the woods, it was thick but there wasn't much of it between the parking area and the highway. For some reason one spot drew my attention so I focused on it, then whatever it was started yelling at me. The odd part was I could tell the instant it zeroed in on me as it became very loud and powerful. I was perplexed as I should have been able to see whoever was yelling at me and it dawned on me that they weren't actually yelling but were speaking forcefully. That rattled me to the point where I backed away from the wood line and retrieved a larger firearm from the van, the entire time I was searching for any semblance of any language to make some sense out of it. Mandi came out and asked why I had my backpack on, backwards, and my hand on my weapon that was inside it. I asked if she heard any of the commotion and she said no. She went to walk to the river and I stopped her, the trajectory of whatever had spoken at me and the gentleman was moving in that direction, I told her to get in the van and I'd fill her in. We drove through the parking area and stopped to talk to the gentleman walking his dog, he was as equally perplexed. He did say there was a trail up there and he might check it out. We drove back through, stopped right in front of the spot that had previously drawn my attention, then left. Several hours later I remembered the birds and asked Mandi about them. We both could remember that they were really high in the trees and were almost deafening but neither of us could recall the exact sound they were making even though we each heard it for at least 30 seconds. Mandi asked if I could make out any words and I said maybe Cuba, but pronounced like a Cuban. I then told her I knew it wasn't Spanish though since we had spent all those years in Latin America. She asked why Cuba then. I said it reminded me of her best friend's Cuban husband but only if he became a giant and at one point it's possible I heard HUBA. We chocked it up as weird. **Note - it wasn't Samurai chatter**
In 2021, during our last loop out West we were pushing between states. I can't recall which exact ones but it was somewhere around Utah, Arizona, New Mexico. We drove all day and hit a National Forest along our route for a free camp. The undeveloped sites were dispersed and we picked one that was about 30 yards off of the forest road. Just before it, on the opposite side of the road, there was a small clearing that was maybe big enough for a small truck. That evening we started a movie, about 8ish, and I started hearing a couple voices. I paused the movie but couldn't make it out so I told Mandi someone must have pulled into that small spot. We went back to watching the movie and could hear endless breaking of sticks. It went on for so long we both expected one hell of a party. Voices and stick breaking continued. Our movie ended and I decided to setup the Endless Breeze to hopefully drown out the sounds of our neighbors. It became a nice cool night so when I woke up to pee I shut off the fan, it was early morning and perfectly quiet. We were up and ready to roll at dawn, another big driving day. When pulling out we expected to see our neighbors but no one was there. We thought maybe they left last night but there weren't any tire tracks in the spot, no signs of a fire, and no pile of sticks. Oh well, need to lay some miles.
Last one happened in Argentina (December 2018) but we didn't think anything weird about it until recently. We were deep in Patagonia on our way to Ushuaia. It's endless pampa with lots of fencing making free camping a bit difficult. We finally located a break in the fencing and drove about 100 meters from the road. Sometime around midnight we awoke to some weird chanting. It went on for several hours with approximately 20 minute breaks in between. The next morning there were no other vehicles, we never heard one pull in and we could hear the traffic on the road, and no tire tracks except for our own. We just figured that, as in all things Latin, if anyone came around they would have ended up right next to us. A few months ago while perusing youtube to engage in some mindless entertainment a video about the different forrest people etc. from around the world came up as a suggestion. Wouldn't you know, odd unexplained chanting is something they experience in Argentina.
Who really knows what we experienced all those times but the Linville River Bridge will stick with me forever.
As for the no photo dilemma. The last time we were in Glacier NP, while hiking back to our campground we heard something ripping through the woods so we stopped. Out stepped a fully grown bull moose about 30 feet from us. We backed away slowly to a downed tree we could use to climb another tree. We both had DLSR cameras around our necks. Eventually, when I realized it would only make matters worse, I removed my hand from my carry weapon and I thought to take out the phone to take a picture. While not a blob Squatch, you can't tell it's a moose either. In that moment we both knew not to use our DLSRs, the noise could have spooked it (our phone is always in silent mode). The big guy made his way to the lake and I finally got a half decent zoomed photo of him...because I was no longer in danger of p'ing myself.
Just left of center, I swear.
How can this be so hard to see in the previous photo?