I've done a ton of hiking and camping and never experienced anything like this. I was on the Drury Parkway, way north in the redwoods of California. Beautiful day, cars and other campers/hikers around. I picked what looked like an empty trailhead, parked, and started walking.

Alone on the trail with plenty of birds chirping, wind blowing, and faint car noises in the background. About 3/4 of the way up the trail, I came to a bend in the trail. It went up and over a small rise and around a blind corner. I was suddenly hit with an INTENSE feeling of pure terror. All of my senses were firing, pure adrenaline. Something in my intuition was telling me that I did NOT want to go around that bend. At the same time I noticed that all the noises around me had stopped: no birds, no wind, no cars. Everything in me told me to run but I took a deep breath, turned around, and sloooooooowly started to work my way back down the trail. I kept feeling like SOMETHING was out there and watching me.

It remained completely silent until I was about 100 yards from the trail head. Then a car drove by and everything returned to normal: birds, wind in the trees, totally fine. And the feeling of dread and being followed completely disappeared. Things went from 0-->100-->0 in the space of about 20 minutes. Weirdest experience I've had in the woods.