1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:04,200
Hey, y'all, how's it going. This is Cam Buckner with the Dixiecrypted

2
00:00:04,320 --> 00:00:08,919
Podcast. This podcast is going to
be different than anything I've ever done.

3
00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:14,000
It's really short, It's only eight
or nine minutes long, but it is

4
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:22,519
an experiment with artificial intelligence voice recordings. Two of the stories are my voice

5
00:00:22,719 --> 00:00:28,079
cloned and it sounds like my voice, but they can't duplicate my accent,

6
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,920
and the others. I think the
story in the middle is just some random

7
00:00:33,079 --> 00:00:37,920
voice I picked off the software just
to read a story. This is probably

8
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,320
the only one I'm ever gonna do, but I thought it would be fun

9
00:00:41,439 --> 00:00:46,359
just to try it out. And
if your story is in this podcast,

10
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:49,799
I will do it in my own
voice in the next week or so.

11
00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:54,640
You're going to hear this these stories, probably twice, but I'd like to

12
00:00:54,679 --> 00:00:58,799
get some feedback from you in the
comments or what you think of story one,

13
00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:02,719
two, and three and how it
sounded to you. And I'm just

14
00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:06,040
here. I think it sounds good. I don't think it's as good as

15
00:01:06,079 --> 00:01:11,799
a naturally read or narrated story,
but it is interesting how this technology is

16
00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:17,599
progressing. And I bought a subscription
to this service. I may probably cancel

17
00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:19,840
it next month, but I want
to get my money's worth out of it,

18
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:23,640
so I got three stories out of
it. Let me know what you

19
00:01:23,719 --> 00:01:26,480
think. I hope you enjoy it. And remember this is probably the only

20
00:01:26,519 --> 00:01:30,480
time I'm going to do this unless
people just really love it. It takes

21
00:01:30,599 --> 00:01:34,760
just as much time to edit these
and get them ready as it does to

22
00:01:34,879 --> 00:01:38,519
record them, so it makes no
difference to me. But I just thought

23
00:01:38,519 --> 00:01:41,959
it'd be a fun little project.
Let me know what you think. I

24
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:53,239
hope you enjoy it. In the
mid two thousands, my friend Eli had

25
00:01:53,239 --> 00:01:57,400
gotten a new video camera. He
was around twelve years old and was eager

26
00:01:57,439 --> 00:02:00,760
to put it to good use.
His camera was not nearly the same quality

27
00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:06,120
as the ones on the market today
and was definitely not as user friendly,

28
00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:12,319
especially when filming something without benefit of
a second pair of hands. Eli lived

29
00:02:12,319 --> 00:02:15,840
way out in a rural area.
There was a clearing near his home that

30
00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:20,400
was overgrown with tall grass and weeds, typical of a country boy his age.

31
00:02:20,439 --> 00:02:23,719
He wanted to film himself on his
four wheeler. Eli set up his

32
00:02:23,759 --> 00:02:28,759
camera and tripod at a safe distance, jumped on his ATV, and began

33
00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,360
doing a series of reckless stunts.
The more dangerous, the better. He

34
00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:37,120
was a beginner as a budding film
director and didn't always capture himself in the

35
00:02:37,159 --> 00:02:40,520
center of the frame. When he
was done, he took the shot footage

36
00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:44,680
back to his house to pull it
up on his computer and review his movie

37
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:50,759
making skills. Watching the videos he
took that day, something unexpected appeared in

38
00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,759
several of the frames. What he
saw shocked him. The footage shows Eli

39
00:02:54,840 --> 00:03:00,080
on his ATV performing a several stunts. Suddenly, in the background, on

40
00:03:00,199 --> 00:03:04,439
dead center, a dark figure walking
on two legs rises up from behind a

41
00:03:04,479 --> 00:03:08,159
tree and walks into the forest.
It's hesitant in its movements, as if

42
00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:14,439
waiting for Eli's attention to be drawn
away so it can escape undetected. Eli

43
00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:17,199
posted it to YouTube, and the
video got ridiculed and labeled his fake.

44
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:23,479
The haters and non believers suggested a
number of scenarios on how Eli used everything

45
00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:29,520
from camera angles, a guerrilla suit, and even photoshopping the image. November

46
00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:32,280
fifteenth is a holiday in Michigan,
as it's the opening day of the state's

47
00:03:32,319 --> 00:03:38,639
firearm deer season. Schools close and
families get together for the annual tradition of

48
00:03:38,719 --> 00:03:42,919
deer hunting. A friend of ours
name Jimmy was a sixteen year old man

49
00:03:43,039 --> 00:03:46,360
child who stood at six two inches
and weighed two hundred pounds. He was

50
00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:51,240
eager to get out there well before
daybreak, park his truck and begin the

51
00:03:51,319 --> 00:03:54,039
mile long trek to his deer blind, which was really more of a shack

52
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:59,520
with windows and a door. He
had been regularly placing deer bait in front

53
00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,479
of it to out the deer.
Jimmy had gotten about sixty yards from his

54
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,960
blind when he heard something off to
his right. What he saw would seriously

55
00:04:08,039 --> 00:04:13,159
change his attitude towards hunting in general. He panned his flashlight in the direction

56
00:04:13,199 --> 00:04:17,240
of the disturbance and saw a huge
figure moving quickly through the trees. He

57
00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:23,279
didn't glimpse any defining features beyond its
enormous, brown haired back. He later

58
00:04:23,279 --> 00:04:27,680
described it like a freight train barreling
through the woods. Whatever it was,

59
00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:31,079
it freaked him out. Too scared
to run back to his truck, he

60
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:35,279
instead headed to his blind and quickly
locked the door behind him. He dropped

61
00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:41,360
to the floor and hid there until
dawn. Once the first rays of sunlight

62
00:04:41,399 --> 00:04:45,519
began streaming through the cracks of the
deer blind, Jimmy wrenched open the door

63
00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,120
and raced to his truck as fast
as he could, never daring once to

64
00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:54,240
stop and look behind him. No
opening morning of deer hunting season was going

65
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:58,040
to bring him anywhere near that place
again, even if we agreed to travel

66
00:04:58,079 --> 00:05:01,279
back there with him. Like me, Eli and the rest of our friends,

67
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:05,000
Jimmy grew up in the sticks and
swears what he witnessed wasn't a bear

68
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:10,160
or like anything he ever saw before
out in those woods. I know I

69
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:15,720
believe him. I've always had a
recurring dream where I was being pursued by

70
00:05:15,759 --> 00:05:19,759
what I don't know. I always
managed to outrun it, apparently, and

71
00:05:19,879 --> 00:05:25,199
wake up before whatever it was had
me cornered. It was really unsettling.

72
00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,720
I couldn't remember if any of my
friends were in the dream. Maybe they

73
00:05:29,759 --> 00:05:32,160
were the ones who got caught while
I escaped. It's like that joke when

74
00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:35,399
you're in the water with a buddy
and a shark attacks. You know you

75
00:05:35,439 --> 00:05:40,560
don't have to outswim the shark,
just the other guy. One weekend,

76
00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:43,879
a couple of my friends and I
were hiking. It was autumn and the

77
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:46,720
ground was heavy with fallen leaves,
the kind that dry up quickly and crunch

78
00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:50,600
under your feet as you make your
way down the trail. Sometimes you can't

79
00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:54,839
tell the sounds of the outdoors from
the sounds of your friends as they laugh

80
00:05:54,879 --> 00:05:59,199
at dumb jokes or struggle to maintain
a heart healthy walking pace through the woods.

81
00:06:00,319 --> 00:06:02,839
We were oblivious to all else.
We'd hiked for hours, so we

82
00:06:02,879 --> 00:06:06,560
stopped by a tree for a rest. It was getting dark and we didn't

83
00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:10,800
have the energy to make the long
trek back to my car, so we

84
00:06:10,879 --> 00:06:14,639
decided to just stay there for the
night. We told more dumb jokes and

85
00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:17,720
laughed until we each started to drop
off to sleep. That's when I heard

86
00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:21,639
something rustling around out in the dark. I grabbed my flashlight out of my

87
00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:26,319
backpack and swept the light beam back
and forth into the darkness, but saw

88
00:06:26,399 --> 00:06:30,959
nothing. The noise stopped, which
only put me on edge. I made

89
00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:34,000
one more sweep of the area with
my flashlight and that's when I saw it.

90
00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:38,360
It looked like something half human on
all fours with its hind end up

91
00:06:38,399 --> 00:06:42,040
in the air. I couldn't tell
if it was wearing a black suit or

92
00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:46,600
if its entire body was covered with
coarse black hair. I flashed my light

93
00:06:46,639 --> 00:06:49,120
back at my friends just to see
if any of them were awake and seeing

94
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:55,120
what I was seeing. They were
still snoozing, totally unaware. Suddenly I

95
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,480
heard this horrible, demonic roar,
like something out of that movie The Conjuring.

96
00:07:00,199 --> 00:07:03,160
I spun around with my flashlight and
there it was some sort of animal,

97
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:08,000
standing upright on two legs like a
man. I ran my light up

98
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,079
its body all the way to its
head. It must have been eight feet

99
00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:15,319
tall. My friends were now wide
awake and scrambling. It was every man

100
00:07:15,399 --> 00:07:18,920
for himself as we ran back down
the trail. After ten minutes of total

101
00:07:18,959 --> 00:07:23,360
panic, we finally ran out of
breath and sat down by a big rock.

102
00:07:24,199 --> 00:07:27,720
We realized we'd left our wallets behind
with our hiking gear, so we

103
00:07:27,839 --> 00:07:31,600
voted to wait until daybreak and go
back. I kept aiming the flashlight into

104
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:35,879
the night, but it appeared that
our monster friend hadn't followed us. Maybe

105
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:40,240
he was as afraid of us as
we were of him. One could only

106
00:07:40,279 --> 00:07:44,279
hope. At the crack of dawn, we went back and recovered our things.

107
00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,480
Our backpack smelled like sewage. When
we got back to the car,

108
00:07:47,519 --> 00:07:51,720
I threw everybody's gear into the trunk. I left my backpack outside in the

109
00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:56,279
rain for weeks before I finally broke
down and took everything to a laundromat.

110
00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:01,160
I didn't want to contaminate my own
washer. Goes without saying that. No

111
00:08:01,199 --> 00:08:05,040
one believed our story, but at
least I knew that, unlike my dream,

112
00:08:05,399 --> 00:08:09,560
in real life, all of us
got away. Not long ago,

113
00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:13,639
my husband and I purchased a small
log cabin that sits on ten and half

114
00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:18,480
acres of land in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan. We're working to restore the

115
00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,079
property and bring it back to its
former glory. It faces a small pond

116
00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:26,399
and we can see a few neighbors
in that direction. To our northeast is

117
00:08:26,439 --> 00:08:31,240
an open meadow. Other than that, we are surrounded by densely forested state

118
00:08:31,279 --> 00:08:37,080
owned land. It's isolated, but
it's the kind of seclusion that induces peace

119
00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,960
and tranquility. I was sitting out
on the open front porch enjoying a tall

120
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:46,000
glass of iced tea one day when
I saw something directly ahead of me that

121
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,440
looked like a massive iridescent bubble floating
about fifteen feet off the ground. It

122
00:08:50,519 --> 00:08:56,080
was moving slowly into the thick forest
and changing shapes and configuration as it was

123
00:08:56,159 --> 00:09:01,360
doing so, I wasn't sure what
I was looking at. After watching it

124
00:09:01,399 --> 00:09:05,399
for several minutes and marveling at how
beautiful it looked, I chalked it up

125
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:11,000
to being some sort of weird natural
phenomenon and went back inside. Later,

126
00:09:11,039 --> 00:09:15,039
we were putting together our log bedroom
set in the small back bedroom when I

127
00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:18,919
was overwhelmed with a feeling of being
watched that raised goose bumps all over my

128
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,120
body. I glanced out the two
side by side windows and saw a gray,

129
00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:26,919
human looking creature with a large elongated
head, two big black oval eyes,

130
00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:31,960
and no eyelids, staring back in
at me where its noose should have

131
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:35,360
been. It had two small slits, but I couldn't see its mouth.

132
00:09:35,399 --> 00:09:39,480
We had a one hundred gallon propane
tank right outside the window that wasn't hooked

133
00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:43,679
up yet, and the creature was
standing behind it. The tank was four

134
00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:48,039
and a half feet tall. The
being had its long fingers stretched out across

135
00:09:48,039 --> 00:09:52,240
the tank and was craning its neck
to look over the tank so it could

136
00:09:52,279 --> 00:09:56,519
watch me. The second we made
eye contact, it ducked down behind the

137
00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:58,840
tank and out of sight. I
ran to the window, but it was

138
00:10:00,039 --> 00:10:03,679
gone. It was mid morning on
a clear day. I reached the window

139
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,879
and plenty of time to see any
human that might have been out there before.

140
00:10:07,919 --> 00:10:11,240
They could have disappeared into the woods, but this thing was gone.

141
00:10:11,519 --> 00:10:16,000
I have never had an experience like
this before. It isn't a story I

142
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:20,039
share with anyone who knows me.
I wasn't frightened by what I saw.

143
00:10:20,399 --> 00:10:24,720
In fact, I was probably as
curious about it as it was about me.

144
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:28,159
But I sure would like to know
what it was. Do you have any ideas