In nineteen ninety nine, my brother and I were living in the Honey Lake
Valley in the High Desert region of northern California. From our properties, situated
on Highway three ninety five north, we had a clear view of that beautiful
and huge natural lake. We could also see the nearby Sierra Army Depot,
where an unceasing flow of Sea one thirty military aircraft provided us with endless entertainment.
Every evening, six days a week. We got up early, made
our coffee, and headed to town, where we put in long hours working
to make a go of our floor cleaning business. Naturally, we reserved Sundays
for church and family gatherings. But in the evenings, sitting in our yard,
far from the noises and hassles of the world, we watched the distant
planes coming in and going at the depot and talked about whatever came to mind.
It was peaceful. Even when the conversation lagged or we lost interest.
In the plains, there was always the Milky Way. The sky in that
remote location was clearer brighter than it was anywhere else. That's why that Saturday
night, when we sat out there a little longer than usual, I thought
it was so odd that the army depot was getting more difficult to see.
I asked my brother if he was having the same problem or if it was
just my eyes. He said he thought a fog was forming across the lake
and moving our way. Within five minutes, this fog had spread from the
depot across the entire valley and up our mountain, stopping several hundred feet before
it got to us. It covered the highway and we neither saw nor heard
any sounds from the diesels. Then a bright round light appeared to our right,
moving towards us at our elevation. My brother thought it might be a
car on the three ninety five, but I pointed out that we were one
thousand feet above the highway, moving towards our left at what we judged to
be around sixty miles an hour. It flew to the mountain so quickly we
both thought it was going to crash into the north face. Just before contact,
however, it abruptly stopped and hovered motionless. A moment later, another
orb appeared from the same direction, followed the trajectory of the first light,
and stopped just as suddenly beside it. In front of the mountain. Then
another light, and another, and another, until seven lights lined up equidistance
apart in front of the mountain. We sat in silence, our own bodies
equally still as we watched. We knew something was going to happen, we
just didn't know what. A new light appeared, now, this time from
within the mountain. It became larger and brighter as it slowly grew into an
opening. A brilliant, blinding light flooded the hillside until finally it stood fully
agape, almost beckoningly, patiently waiting. One by one, the seven smaller
lights crossed into the gateway and vanished inside. Then, with an almost deliberate
sluggishness, the hole resealed itself, shrinking and extinguishing the light until no evidence
remained of its existence. Neither of us said a word. It was just
amazing. A few minutes later, the fog also receded, the traffic lights
from the highway could be seen again, and life returned a normal. A
week later, we reported the incident to the National UFO Reporting Center. When
I was nine, my sister and I, along with two of our aunts
who were our age, decided to explore a concrete ditch that ran alongside my
great grandmother's house near Memphis. We used a rope to propel down and then
walked along until we came to a cover. We looked inside, but couldn't
see daylight from the other end, just a black, empty space. I
wanted to explore this cave like structure and maybe get a good scare on the
girls at the same time, as kids will do. I dared them to
go in to see who would go the farthest or stay the longest. They
dared me back, and with pride on the line and no one wanting to
be the one who chickened out, we all stepped inside. The eerie feeling
we all had was overpowering. I was certain the girls wouldn't last long in
this environment and I would surely win. After fifty yards, one of my
aunts said, Jim, what's that. I look deeper into the darkness,
and I saw a set of glowing red eyes walking in our direction. A
reason that it must be a cat or a dog, and that the eyes
were catching the light from the opening behind us. But I also knew that
if I made it out to be bigger than it was, the girls would
run and I'd win. I was done exploring this place anyway. I just
needed to turn the fear up a little bit and I would be the victor.
It was working. The closer the eyes got, the more frightening they
became. And then I noticed that whatever was connected to those eyes was getting
bigger and bigger. I think it was on all fours at first, and
then it began to stand up. Okay, I thought dogs and cats don't
walk on two legs. That was when my sister and ants gave up the
ghost. They spun around and they ran screaming from the cave, yelling back
to me to run. I just stood there. I guess I was waiting
for them to get further away. I knew I could outrun them, and
I didn't want one of them to get hurt. I just kept standing there,
hoping to stall it or something. I waited longer than I should have,
and it came at me, quickly, overtaking me. As I ran
backwards towards the entrance, I could hear the girl screaming somewhere behind me,
and I screamed back for them to get help. This thing so tall it
had to stand hunched over to keep from hitting its head on the ceiling of
the covert towered over me, shrouding me in the heavy mist of its breath
and stench of its fur, and it glared down at me. I'm dead,
I thought. I stood still, and my eyes were closed. My
arms and legs were shaking, and I was waiting to become this thing's next
meal. And then it made a rattling noise, almost like a coup or
a purr. The fear started to subside. I found it in me to
start backing away, slowly at first, and then a little faster. When
I backed far enough, I turned and bolted as fast as I could,
and I hit daylight like a runner breaking through a ribbon. At the end
of the race, the girls were up ahead, scurrying up a rope that
we'd use to climb down. I grabbed it and pulled myself to safety.
I was frantic to get away from this thing. I wasn't sure if I
was going to make it. We ran to our parents, hysterically, telling
them about the culvert, the red eyes, and the four legged animal that
stood up on two feet. You stay out of that ditch, was all
they said. They didn't believe us. Years later, I must have been
thirteen or fourteen. It was carnival time in Memphis. The Mid South Fair
was a big deal and I went every year. A couple of weeks before
it started, I checked out a book at the library that was all about
the lock Ness Monster and other cryptids. After my experience, I was fascinated
with this subject. In the back of the book was a story and a
picture of the Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot. My jaw dropped at the sight, even
though I'd been too afraid to look up that day in the culvert, it
seemed like this is what I had seen. It made me wonder how many
people have ever seen these things, and without any form of reference, they
just never knew what they were looking at. That year at the fair,
the freak show was boasting one particular exhibit claiming to be a dead bigfoot on
ice. Most people don't remember or maybe even know that until recently, as
the nineteen eighties, freak shows were a common element of carnivals, fairs,
and circuses around the world. These attractions were always fakes, a mix of
plaster, makeup, costume, and lighting designed to extract money from the fairgoer's
pocket and nothing else. I had no doubt that the bigfoot behind this curtain
was as fake as the mermaid behind the next. Curiosity got the best of
me, though, and I paid for my ticket and I went in to
have a look. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was
bad. I looked around and I saw others holding their noses. I recognized
it. Looking at this thing, I began to reason with myself it had
to be fake. If a man had shot it, he'd be in jail.
This thing is just a big, hairy humanoid. I focused on the
bullet wound visible in its chest. It all looked too real. Well,
my time was up and I had to move on, but what I had
seen was disturbing. I couldn't forget it. The next year, the fair
was back, and I was still obsessed. This year, I brought a
magnifying glass with the hope that the Bigfoot exhibit would be there. I was
not disappointed. First, I examined the bullet wound. I could clearly see
through the ice and the jagged tear where it had entered the creature's chest.
It all looked very real. Its skin appeared to have poorers, the hair
seemed to sprout from individual follicles. There was dirt under the fingernails and toenails.
It was even quite obviously a male. I would pay to see this
thing three more times that year. The next year it was back, and
so was I. This time, I'd used a set of medical encyclopedias to
familiarize myself with the effects of gunshot wounds, dermal layers, hair growth,
and anything else I could learn about anatomy that might prove this to be a
fake. On the other hand, I also studied makeup artistry and prosthetics.
Again, I paid to see the thing multiple times, and again I could
not find a flaw. Even the fingernails and the toenails had lateral ridges with
cuticles. I'm convinced it was real.