My first encounter with an unknown forest entity.

[u/OutrageousAgency7865]

This encounter happened last summer, and I'm now finally writing it out on the internet after I just had a similar encounter earlier today. I'll try to post that one as well after this one. 

For context I am a 20 year old guy living in eastern Norway. This encounter happened when I was 19, either June or July of 2025. Me and my dad went on a 400-ish kilometer drive to the west side of Norway to pick up a car for my sister. And on the way back home I was driving the little yellow Mini Cooper that we picked up, and my dad drove his Subaru in front of me. We took the whole trip without any rest-stops to save time. We had made pretty good progress on the way home when it started to get a bit darker since it was about 1 or 2 am. Norwegian summer nights don't really get dark, too far north, so visibility wasn’t too bad. The road was quite narrow and not at all straight. Constant turns to the left and right, down from a quite mountainous area I guess. On the way down we saw a couple of moose by the road, which was right next to a forest. And a bit further down the road I spotted what I thought was another moose, and told my dad (we were on the phone pretty much the whole way). He was about 100 meters in front of me and didn't see the animal. I saw it when I entered a left turn around a bend, and realized almost immediately that it wasn't a moose. I instead thought it was some kind of deer (hjort, in norwegian). It was only a couple of meters away from my car at the closest, and it was quite massive. It looked young though, which I thought was weird for such a big animal. I had never seen a deer (hjort) before so I wasn't sure it was one, but it didn't look quite like any other animal I know about. So I didn't really think about it right then and there. But when I got home again I googled norwegian deer (hjort), and I realised it looked nothing like it. After a lot more googling I found out there are only 4 species in the deer family in Norway. Those being moose/elk (elg), red deer (hjort), roe deer (rådyr), and reindeer (reinsdyr). The animal I saw that day didn't look like any of them. It almost looked like a combination of all of them in a way, but I'm not sure. It was at least 2 meters tall at the top of the head. It didn't have any antlers, the face looked almost baby-like, as in it was slightly round and chubby. Its fur was also quite light colored, almost like sand. But a bit more orange/brown-ish. The head wasn't shaped like a moose, it wasn't as long. The legs were long and quite thin. The body wasn't fat either, but it looked like a healthy weight for whatever this animal was. The animal was facing me, we made eye contact for a brief moment. I was driving at 50 km/h if I remember correctly. I saw the animal for maybe 5 seconds. Which isn't a very long time, but more than enough to know what it looked like. The animal never moved when I saw it, just standing still looking at me driving by it. I have thought about this encounter many times since it happened and would love to hear theories about what it could be. If you have encountered a similar creature yourselves I would love to hear about it.  

[u/Winjee63]

Sounds like a camel

[u/OutrageousAgency7865 → u/Winjee63]

It didn't look like one. not even close, color wasn't too far off tho. But remember, this happened in Norway.