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My father was a trucker and a
veteran of the Vietnam War. He wasn't

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a weak person, and he wasn't
one to tell crazy stories. Once back

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in the nineteen seventies, he had
to drop off an empty trailer to a

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private home in northern Minnesota. He
decided after he dropped it off to stop

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in and visit with a former service
buddy, Logan. Dad's friend got a

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little messed up by his time in
Vietnam, and it turned him into a

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hermit who never left his property.
He owned a good sized piece of land

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with a home on it that had
inner walls made of m o boxes filled

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with sand. Well, they spent
a happy afternoon drinking beer and reminiscing about

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their time in Vietnam and catching up
on all that they had done since coming

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back to the States. At the
end the end of the day, my

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father decided to sleep in the cab
of his truck so that he could leave

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early without waking Logan. It was
eleven PM when he walked out to the

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tractor, crawled inside, and fell
asleep. At one am, he was

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rocked out of his bed by something
hitting the side of the cab really hard.

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He was stunned and unsure of what
was happening, and so he looked

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around him and he tried to get
his bearings. Before he had time to

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fully register what had happened, the
truck was hit again by another loud slam

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that had him thinking Logan was having
flashbacks to the war. Rather than confront

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his troubled friend, he jumped into
the driver's seat and he drove to the

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nearest truck stop, and there he
went inside to use the facilities and get

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a grip on his thoughts. Now, Logan was his friend, but Vietnam

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and all that surrounded had played havoc
on a lot of soldiers' minds, and

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Dad didn't want to become another casualty
of war. So, armed with a

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hot cup of coffee, he headed
back out to his rig, still unsure

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about whether to go back or move
on, And as he rounded the cab,

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he noticed a huge handprint on it
that was nine feet off the ground,

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and whatever left the hand print left
a dent in the side of the

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truck. To go with that,
that was all he needed to make up

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his mind. He climbed in the
truck and he headed home. It was

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another month before my father called Logan
to tell him what had happened that night.

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Oh, that was probably just Zeus, Logan answered nonchalantly. Apparently he

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neglected to mention to my father that
there was a family of Bigfoot living on

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his property. He assured Dad that
he was never in any danger, and

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Zeus was just letting him know that
he was there. Judging by the size

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of the hand print, my dad
was glad he didn't actually go see Zeus.

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The message he left was enough.
My dad kept in touch with Logan.

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They've remained friends for all these years, but Dad never went to visit

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him again. Phone calls were enough
from him. From then on out,

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we don't speak about our encounters much
outside of our family. I've never told

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anyone about the things that we've seen
and heard. It would be useless to

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do so anyway. Most of the
population doesn't believe that Bigfoot exists. Speak

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about it and people will think you're
crazy or self medicating. And for those

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people, ignorance is bliss, and
for us, their existence is accepted.

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From childhood, knowing they exist and
having one or more of them scream at

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you though or two different levels of
reality. We're a family of avid outdoorsmen.

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I spent more time in a tent
in the wilderness growing up than I

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did in our house. I love
being out in the mountains. My husband

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also grew up spending a lot of
time in the mountains. In his twenties,

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he was a wild and firefighter.
That doesn't mean we go out looking

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for these creatures. We believe they
have a right to be left alone like

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any other being. But for us, it was a matter of being in

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the right place at the right time. My life was changed forever when we

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had our first encounter during the summer
of twenty twelve, I wouldn't go back

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into the woods for several months afterward. We had been up in the mountains

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practicing our archery skills and the surroundings
and conditions where we would be using them.

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In September, it was two pm, and despite the cloud cover,

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it was starting to get hot.
I think it was time to pack it

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in and call it a day.
I had moved over to the back of

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our suv to put my bow away. My husband took his last shots and

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had started to walk over to set
his bow down so he could retrieve his

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arrows and the target bag. When
allowed screaming roar erupted from the tree line

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behind where we were parked. We've
spent ample time in the woods, We've

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heard our share of animal noises,
but this scream was nothing like we had

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ever heard before. We barely had
time to register the first scream when another

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one came from our other side.
A few seconds later, we heard a

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third scream off to our left.
I know what you're probably thinking, it

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was echo, but I assure you
that this was not an echo. Each

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scream was slightly different. I was
momentarily frozen in fear, and as soon

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as the third stream stopped, however, I was ready to leave. Not

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much scarce me, but that day
I was terrified. Two years later,

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in twenty fourteen, my husband and
I had another encounter. He and my

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eleven year old daughter were walking down
into what is known as beaver Ponds to

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retrieve our trail cam. I was
supposed to go with them that day,

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but I wasn't feeling well, and
by the time we parked, I was

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feeling bad enough that I decided to
just stay in the vehicle. They had

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a mile to a mile and a
half to hike to where we had set

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up the trail camera. They almost
gotten there when my husband heard that scream

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fifty yards off to their right.
Did you hear that? He asked my

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daughter? Yeah, what was it? Was that a bear? Dad?

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She replied, that wasn't a bear. We need to hurry up and get

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the trail cam and get out of
here, he told her. When they

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got back to the vehicle, they
asked if I'd heard the screams. I'd

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been lying in the back seat of
a locked running vehicle with the air conditioner

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on. I never heard anything,
but judging by the urgency in my husband's

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voice, I knew what he had
heard, and I knew it was time

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to get the hell out of there. We never explained to my daughter what

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the screams were, and shortly after
that she went back to live with her

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dad. I think the way my
husband and I reacted to the screams freaked

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her out. She didn't like going
into the woods after that. My husband

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had one more encounter in twenty nineteen. He was traveling back home from working

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out of state. He was already
tired from working all day, and the

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seven hours of driving in addition to
that, prompted him to pull over and

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get some rest. He picked a
small junction off of I eighty. It

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was late winter night and wyoming,
with very few vehicles on the road.

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He only needed an hour or two
of rest. Then he planned to finish

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the drive home to see our little
boys and get some real sleep in his

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own bed. At two thirty am, he woke up and was getting ready

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to leave again. He was reaching
to turn on the lights when he saw

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an extremely tall, dark figure across
the road. At first he thought it

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was a person out there walking,
but reason told him it was too tall

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to be a man. The road
was icy, but it didn't walk like

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a person wood on ice. It
had an assurance in its gate that humans

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like My husband's instincts told him it
was time to leave. He told me

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about the encounter as soon as he
got home. We try not to talk

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about Bigfoot around our two little boys, but we do tell them that they're

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out there and that we need to
give them a healthy amount of distance and

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respect. We want them to understand
and respect what they cannot necessarily see,

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but what they may someday encounter when
they get old enough to venture into the

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wilderness themselves.