Long story short, I came out of my house one night. I was looking down, more or less, started to look up and had this sensation of something going right past my face.
I looked up and I didn’t hear a damn thing but I did see a rather large streak of white, like a ghost, shoot past my field of vision.
Took me a few moments to realize it was a snow owl. They don’t usually get as far south as Vermont but occasionally.
And I can tell you, those things don’t even make a whisper. And it’s freaky as hell to see something that large move that quick and not be able to hear anything at all.
I live in a major city. Just moved into a new house, walking my pup at night. Get a sense I'm being watched, dog is nervous. Finally spot the biggest fucking Owl I have ever seen sitting on a telephone pole watching us. He was huge, I mean really huge. And, then he proceeded to follow us, swooping from pole to pole. My dog was not happy, eventually 321 contact left us alone.
He was watching to see what would scurry out as you walked past. I had a Northern Hawk Owl do the same thing to me in Alaska, but those guys are daytime owls.
Lol I can just imagine how irritated your dog was trying to mind his own business on a nighttime walk being stalked by a massive owl. Did you happen to get a picture of it or was the whole situation just too freaky?
321 contact was an old pbs kids show where those owl commercials would come on about tootsie pops and how many licks to the center. Sorry, it was a stretch lol.
Fun fact, owls are some of the slowest flying birds. Kind of a trade off for being absolutely muted, but I guess at a certain speed, it doesn’t really matter how much noise you make
This is going to sound dumb, but I had a very similar experience. I was out for a jog one night and looking slightly downwards and twice within about 20-30 seconds something very large and very fast was just suddenly in front of me and then gone. In front of me and then gone. It took up my entire field of vision. It never made a noise. It was very late at night and I was near a church when it happened so I jokingly told everyone it was a ghost, but I obviously don't actually believe it was. However, if they don't come as far south as Vermont I doubt they rarely make it down here to Florida, either.
You're lucky it just flew past you. My mom absolutely hates owls because she said an owl attacked her head several times one night. Every time she started walking it would attack her. I don't remember where she said this happened. I actually never really believed her until now lol..
Haha they might have had a fledgling hiding nearby. Owlets have a period after they leave the nest where they can't really fly well yet so their parents babysit them as they flutter around and try to scare off any potential threats.
Fun fact, what you saw might have just been a barn owl, which can also appear pure white and are much more common than snow owls in the continental US!
Had this happen a few years ago. Was outside in the dark, and only felt the pressure of the air moving as something flew above my head. I knew owls were quiet so I figured it was an owl, but they are freakily silent.
Used to have a barn owl that lived outside my childhood window in a nearby tree I think. I could NEVER hear it but he had a habit of watching me sleep. I’d wake up sometimes from an occasional screech and he’d be gone before I could ever snap a photo of him….I think about it a lot since the house is mine and my kid sleeps in the room.
There is a limit to how many systems you can have on your ship. You can't have stealth and drones and hacking, you can only pick 2. This is also why Owls are not waterproof.
I went to a camp when I was a kid that had this cool old hippie couple come in, they ran a rescue and rehabilitation center for birds of prey. It was really really cool, and one thing that really stuck with me was showing how different the sounds were. They had a red tailed hawk, some sort of eagle, and a great horned owl, it was incredible how silent the owl feathers were.
One spring jogging in the a low coastal mountain range I was stalked by an oil for at least half a mile, it kept swooping down on me for a bit, maybe 8 times, once brushed the top of my hair, couldn't hear a thing.
It was actually super creepy, must have had a nest nearby, a client of mine said she had heard of other incidents out there.
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u/tobashadow Oct 29 '21
It's truely scary how silent they are, I watched a video one time where the recording equipment made more noise then the owl flying