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Soggy-Chemistry5312 t1_jdwfeod wrote

Reply to comment by Rangermatthias in I found an abandoned Nissan in the Alaska bush, what happened afterward haunts me to this day. by Lynthelia

I think OP has a lot more to worry about than which type of creepy being she’s encountered… But either way, it could be helpful to understand what she may have encountered. I really just recently found out about what they are, so I don’t know much, just that one does have antlers, and the other one possibly doesn’t?

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Rangermatthias t1_jdwjow5 wrote

Wendigo are people who have become cannibalistic creatures - usually evil "medicine men" or "witches" of various North American Native Cultures, however some stories suggest eating human flesh in certain locations can curse someone into becoming one. Wendigo are often pictured with antlers and even desiccated elk/deer/moose heads or skulls

Fleshgait are shapeshifters (to varying degrees). As shapeshifters, Fleshgait can, in theory, take on the appearance of a wendigo, if they had any desire or reason to.

In their 'normal' forms, both tend to be tall, emaciated, and pale, with extremely long arms - often depicted as reaching past their knees. For that matter, the internet phenomenons SlenderMan and The Rake also have some physical similarities with Wendigos and Fleshgaits.

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Forsaken_Article_295 t1_jdx2trk wrote

Are fleshgaits and skin walkers the same thing?

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Rangermatthias t1_jdxfqdx wrote

Uhm, well, that's a bit of a detailed story.

The short version; Skinwalkers are humans (generally Native Americans, where the tales originate) who can transform into animals, usually by wearing the preferred animals' pelt and/or magics/salves. They are closely connected to Werewolves. The Navajo in particular have strong beliefs and don't like anyone to use the actual name.

However, on various internet forums; Reddit, 4chan, creepypasta, etc. started passing along (and flat-out making up) stories, and the terminology got confused.

Wendigo, skinwalkers, and certain were-animals are all generally considered human...or perhaps, ex-humans.

Fleshgaits were never human.

I have a theory - I've posted it in conversations here on Reddit before, so I'll try to be brief; As humanity evolved over the past roughly 1 million years, another animal evolved to become our primary predator. I'm not saying Intelligent Design had anything to do with it, but that's an easy way to process the information. In fact I don't think Fleshgaits are particularly Intelligent. Not Sapient anyway. Clever, but not Intelligent in the way humans are.

They evolved to be able to hunt, trick, and kill us. Keep our numbers low - because honestly, humans are terrible for the environment and nature in general. Think along the lines as Nature creating a means of culling humanity.

And they did such a great job that we, as a whole, are still unaware of their existence. Just glimpses of things in the wilderness. Basically, all we had for the vast majority of the past few thousands of years are scary stories told around campfires - werewolves, vampires, zombies - basically any story of humanoid creatures that kill humans may trace its history to this race of super-predators.

However, sometime in the past, oh, say 150-200 years ago - roughly starting somewhere between the Industrial Revolution and WWII, the human population exploded! It's estimated that the world population was under 1 billion in the year 1800. In the year 2000 it was 7 billion. In 2020 we hit 8 billion. We've doubled from 4 billion in 1975.

I believe this extreme population growth stymied Fleshgaits. They are no longer able to hide. And with the internet spreading their stories, people are armed with knowledge. Thus Fleshgaits are dying off. The ones still out there aren't as well trained/skilled in their ability to mimic. Especially shapehifting. Most stories talk about how someone hears a noise - a baby crying or a woman in distress, and it's pretty convincing. Like OP's post here. But when someone talks about seeing one, there's often something 'OFF' about it.

So, the good news is we seem to be winning. The bad news they're still out there, and they may be pretty pissed!

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