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Cryptids

'Like the Predator Camouflage': A See-Through, Dog-Sized Shape on a Western Washington Driveway

A Reddit user says they and their mother watched a roughly 4 foot gray shape they could see through cross their gravel driveway at night, shrink to about the size of a big dog and vanish into the woods with only its striped back legs visible. One reader says they saw almost the same thing in Northern California in the late 1990s.

WESTERN WASHINGTON By Dead of Night Dispatch

Location About an hour southeast of Seattle, Washington (exact location not given)

Illustration: car headlights on a gravel driveway in dark Pacific Northwest woods, a faint shimmering distortion in the beam where the outline of striped hind legs heads into the trees

WESTERN WASHINGTON (Posted Oct. 21, 2026): It was around 9:30 at night, “the other night,” and the poster and their mom were driving home down a gravel driveway through the woods. They’d almost passed the neighbor’s house, maybe 200 feet from their own, when the mother slowed down.

Where it started

The original social media post

  1. u/hot_2_trot_4_hot_wat

    This is very bizarre and unbelievable, but we could see right through this thing's shape, except for these visible stripes on its back legs.

    Excerpt from a longer first-hand post.

    18 points · 12 comments as of Oct 24, 2026

    View original on Reddit

    From the conversation

    See the full thread on Reddit →

Posts shown as originally published; we don’t verify individual comments. Retrieved . “Load the post here” fetches the original from Reddit, which may set cookies.

There was something in the headlights. Or, as the poster describes it, a “strange obscurity in the middle of the road.”

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

The poster, hot_2_trot_4_hot_wat, told r/cryptids it’s “very hard to explain, as it made no sense visually.”

  • The shape. It was “maybe ~4 ft tall or so, just this strange looking moving greyish thing in the road, heading toward the left.” For a moment, “it almost looked like a moving shadow, but there was no overhead light.”
  • See-through. “It’s like it was transparent, but we could see it, and it was moving in a way that didn’t make sense.”
  • It changed. As it headed for the woods, “we could see the outline of its hind quarters; it’s like it became smaller at this point, about the size of a (big) dog.”
  • The stripes. “We could see right through this thing’s shape, except for these visible stripes on its back legs.” The legs had “similar leg shape to a dog,” but “not fluffy or anything.”
  • The comparison. “As my mom described it, it looked like the Predator camouflage from the movie!”
  • How long. “Less than five seconds. Just enough time for the brain to rationalize, not be able to find an explanation, go ‘WTF is that?’ then it was gone off into the woods.”

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

This is one anonymous account, with two witnesses according to the poster and no photo or video. The poster says they live “about an hour southeast of Seattle,” and more than 20 miles from any military base, after a reader asked. They don’t give the exact date.

They also have a dog who “will bark like crazy at things in the woods almost every night.” “We get raccoons and deer so I just assume it’s that all of the time. Now I’m not so sure.”

A second account

The reply that drew the most attention came from Notchersfireroad, who wrote that they and a friend “saw something almost identical back in the late 90s while walking his dog out in the woods in NorCal.” The dog, they say, “saw it first and took off after it so fast when she got to the end of her leash she did a full backflip. It ran into a thicket of blackberry bushes no animal would run into.”

That’s a second anonymous story, about 25 years old and hundreds of miles away. It’s not corroboration of this sighting, but it shows the description isn’t unique.

What else it could be

Headlights at night do strange things. A gray animal against a gray gravel road can blend in, and the eye can read the blend as “transparency.” Movement at the edge of the beam, from bright light into darkness, can make an animal seem to shrink as less of it is lit. Raccoons have ringed tails, and some animals have barred or striped legs. Western Washington’s woods also hold coyotes and bobcats, both of which can look odd in a quick glance.

Whether any of those fits “4 ft tall,” then dog-sized, then gone, is the question. The poster’s view, after five seconds, is that it didn’t fit anything.

What’s next

A trail camera on that stretch of driveway would answer a lot. If the poster or their neighbors catch anything, we’ll update this story.

Sources

  1. Transparent dog-sized creature with striped legs · Reddit, r/cryptids First-hand account posted Oct. 21, 2026, about an encounter 'the other night.'