Alien sightings, Bigfoot, Little Red Riding Hood. Weird things happen in the woods. Nobody knows this more than our U.S. Forest Service rangers. From vampires to nude people, they experience the strange, funny, and bizarre on a daily basis. Here are a few tales from the forest ranger vault.

We Bare All

Linda Randolph, a ranger in the French Broad District of the Pisgah, says public nudity keeps things interesting. “We had this one man that was always hanging out in the woods. Every day, we’d see him relaxing, naked, in a different spot. It sort of became a part of our routine. It wasn’t a normal day if we didn’t see the naked man out in the field.”

Joan Brown in the Wayah Ranger District of the Nantahala has her own public nudity memories. “About 15 years ago, we had a big Rainbow Gathering, you know those old time hippies that don’t wear clothes. You’d be surprised how many problems 7,000 naked hippies can cause. I’ve got three words for you: personal hygiene issues.”

The Undead

“We got a report about a guy causing a disturbance on the AT,” says Cassius Cash, a ranger in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest. “When we got there, there was this man, wearing a dress, claiming to be a vampire. You don’t see that everyday.”

Beth Merz, area ranger for the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in Virginia says they once had a problem disposing of some remains. “A family was trying to disperse a loved one’s remains in the forest, but they just couldn’t get the hang of it. Our rangers kept finding the same bag of remains on the banks of this creek. We kept returning the loved one to the family, but finally, after the bag showed up for the third time, we just spread the ashes ourselves.”

Rumors

Some of the strangest stories come from the forest’s visitors. “People are convinced the Forest Service drops baskets full of snakes from helicopters,” Linda Randolph says. “Some will even bring empty baskets into the office and tell us they saw helicopters drop the snakes.”

Apparently, people blame the Forest Service for a lot of things. “Some residences have a problem with a certain type of lady bug infesting their homes,” Cassius Cash says. “They’ll accuse us over and over of breeding the bugs as some sort of experiment.”

Predicting the Future

Rangers also field a number of outlandish questions from the general public. “People will call us in November and ask if we can tell them if it will be raining in the forest on June 15 of next year. We tell them yes, it will definitely be raining,” Beth Merz says. “Or we’ll get someone calling to ask if they will see a bear if they come to the forest in July. As a rule, we don’t offer guarantees on wildlife sightings.”

Merz also says hikers will call the ranger stations on their cell phones, saying they’re lost. “When we ask them to tell us where they are, they say, ‘I don’t know.’ When we ask them to describe any landmarks, they say ‘trees.’ So we just tell them to walk downhill. That’s usually the best bet.”

–Graham Averill