I have had a few -some involving bruins at very close range- but the one I remember the most was deer hunting when I was a teenager in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. I was sitting on a stone wall at the edge of a clear-cut for a power line being very quiet and I noticed something moving up hill and across the cut. It was a squirrel jumping from tree limb to tree limb. As I watched it leapt into space from a tree about 50M distant, across the cut and up the hill from me. I thought, "What the heck??!?!?" The squirrel extended its legs and glided across the open space using it's tail as a rudder of sorts, landing on the tree immediately to my left. A flying squirrel! I sat motionless, listening to the squirrel come down the tree. From the corner of my eye I caught the squirrel, at my head height, looking at me. I didn't move. He came down the tree to the ground, took two short hops, and placed his forepaws on my Sorrel hunting boots and looked up at me. After a quick look, he ran up the tree to my right, and launched himself off into space towards the other side of the clear-cut. I guess he just wanted a look!
That was my first and only encounter with a flying squirrel. At that time I had no idea that they even populated the area I lived in. When I mentioned the encounter to some folks back in town they just looked at me like I was crazy. Only my father supported me saying that he'd seen them occasionally around the farm in the late 40's and early 50's. I still remember that event like it was yesterday.~Muir