This is a story that my step-father had told to myself and a few cousins at a campfire one night.
I don't know if it's true or not, but I was pretty shocked by it.. (scared of trees for a week!).

My step-father was walking home from Blue Beach (a coastal fishing spot near Black Duck Brook, Newfoundland) when it started to get dark outside. This was obviously supposed to happen because, well, it was late fall and it got dark early around that time.
Bob (my step-dad), began to feel an eerie feeling, like the classic feeling when you think you're being watched. When he looked ahead, he could see a large tree-shaped figure, on the sand. This was a beach, he thought, there are no trees around. He began to trail towards the tree, and walked around it, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He turned, and saw two large branches spring out of the top of the tree, and catch on fire. Bob began to race home as he had seen something in the water leering at him. All of a sudden it burst out of the water and crashed onto the ground in front of him. He looked down and saw the tree, from before... except this time, it had two white eyes, with large blue pupils looking straight at him. Bob sprinted up onto the grassy field near the beach, and ran all the way home.

At home, later that night, he turned on the news. It seemed that a few teenangers had discovered a man inside of a tree trunk, wrinkled with large blue eyes, while cutting wood for a bonfire. The man had been stapled inside of the tree with nails connecting his sleeves with the tree. My step-dad wondered how the tree had appeared out of nowhere onto the beach, and how it had gotten into the water and jetted onto the crusty beach.

It turns out that he was drinking that night with a few buddies. Maybe he saw into the future? Or maybe, he just had too many?