Okay, I'll share one but you all will think I'm crazy (half of you already do, so I have nothing to lose I guess
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This happened when I was a small child, but the memory is vivid.
My family lived on a remote mountain in the deep woods of Maine. I was maybe six when this happened. I was sitting in the garden, just sitting there, playing in the dirt. I suddenly got that weird feeling like something was staring at me. I looked up, across the large garden to the edge of the woods. I saw this creature, I have no idea what it was. It was about the size of a small dog, maybe a foot or so high and a couple feet long. It was tan colored and had a lion-like tail, long with a poof of fur at the end. And it had what I would describe as a lions mane, like a male lions mane, full and around it's whole face. Here's the crazy part, it had what looked like a human face. And it was staring at me, just silent and motionless, staring. I literally froze with fright, I had (and have) never seen anything like it in my life. I screamed, really loud, a shriek, and my father came running outside with a shot gun. Not sure why he came out with a gun, but he did. He ran over and I was pointing and screaming and he saw it and shot. I think he missed, and it turned and disappeared into the woods. I asked my father what it was, and he was kind of pale and all he said was "I don't know, go in the house". He walked into the woods and was gone for a while, apparently looking for it to no avail, and came back and that was the end of it. We never spoke of it again.
Years later, in my 20's, I was sitting with some roommates and we were telling stories like this, and I told my story. My roommate looked at me completely seriously and said "Sounds like a Manticore". I had heard of a Manticore, knew it was some sort of mythical creature, but didn't know what one looked like. The next day out of curiosity I went to the book store (this was pre-internet, lol) and looked up a "Manticore". I was totally shocked at what I saw. It was almost identical to my memory, except that some of the drawings of them had wings, and this creature definitely did NOT have any wings that I saw, and I saw it pretty clearly. So I can't explain the wings, but otherwise it looked exactly like what I saw.
For the record, I do not believe in mythical creatures, lol, I swear. But the fact is I did see something, and it really looked like what's known as a "Manticore". And I never even knew what a Manticore was until my 20's. So I don't know what to say, I know it sounds crazy. To this day I think back on it, it's so vivid in my head, even though it makes NO SENSE.
Here's a couple images of Manticores. It looked a lot like these images, but no wings, and very small, not big at all. About the size of a cocker spaniel. The bottom image looks most like it, with no wings, only the mane looked more like the top pic.
Go ahead and laugh, I know it's bizarre. I can't explain it myself and my father won't even talk about it.