In all my years of spending nights out in the forests of the western United States, I've seen and experienced some pretty crazy things. The devil, thankfully, is something I haven't crossed paths with in the dark of the night, and I'm extremely grateful for that.

From wolves walking through my campsite during a lightning storm to three strangers floating past me while nighttime kayaking, I've had some crazy nocturnal things go down in nature. There's a reason scary stories are told around campfires.

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Former President Theodore Roosevelt spent a great deal of time in the great outdoors as well. He was an avid hunter and had many acquaintances and friends who were trappers, guides, explorers, and frontiersmen. One of his mountaineering pals told him about an experience encountering a being that was half-man and half-devil while exploring wilderness on the border of Montana and Idaho.

Roosevelt's 1892 novel The Wilderness Hunter mentions his acquaintance "Bauman," and a terrifying and nearly fatal experience the hunter claimed to have had in the woods one evening. The man described being stalked by a creature that resembled a combination of Satan, Bigfoot, a goblin, and a human being.

Roosevelt took writing very seriously and didn't have a reputation for making things up or telling tales, so I believe this conversation really happened, and for the twenty-sixth president to include it in a book of his only shows the account had an impact on him.

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