Let me preface my story by saying that although I grew up in a suburb
of Raleigh, North Carolina, I've always been a country boy at heart.
My paternal grandparents had a farm in central North Carolina, and when I wasn't
there, I wanted to be. There were rolling hills, creeks, and
milo fields, separated by tracks of hardwoods teeming with squirrels, rabbits, and
quail. Some of the happiest times of my life were spent on this farm,
roaming the woods, camping, hunting, and fishing. For a young
boy who craved adventure, it was paradise. I would disappear into the woods
for days. Back then, it simply wasn't a big deal for a young
boy to go off camping by himself, as long as his parents had a
general idea as to where he would be and when he would return. Looking
back, I was probably safer in the woods on my grandfather's farm than just
about anywhere else. There were no dangerous animals in this part of the state.
The only things that caused concern were tex jiggers in the occasional copperhead.
When I wasn't playing Daniel Boone on the farm, I would often go on
trips with my boy Scout troop in the nearby yu Werry National Forest. If
you aren't familiar with it, this National Forest is about fifty one thousand acres,
with most of it in Montgomery County. I've hiked a considerable amount of
this forest, sometimes willingly and sometimes begrudgingly. Due to a directionally challenged assistant
scout master who we nicknamed lost Again Luis Lost Again Lewis. His shortcuts could
turn a five mile day hike into a twenty mile over night hike. I
mention all this simply to establish that from an early age I would regularly spend
time in the woods. I'm familiar with the local animal and I don't spook
easily. Unfortunately, when relating to stories such as this, you feel obligated
to qualify yourself in order to preemptively silence some of the questions from armchair critics.
I never understood why, but to me, a lot of the Yuey
National Forest has a foreboding feel. There are places that, even on a
sunny day and winter when all the leaves have fallen, seem unnaturally dark and
sinister. Several books written by local Folklorest Fred Morgan support this observation and contain
many accounts of disconcerting and awful and violent events that have occurred in the area.
In early March of twenty twelve, I had some time off decided to
load up my old land Rover and head out for remote camping spot in the
northwest Yuaries. I've always preferred to hike, hunt, fish and camp alone.
To me, the solid it is cathartic. To my delight, the
campground I chose was completely deserted. There was a host site that contained an
older travel trailer, but its condition indicated that it was abandoned. I selected
a site at the very end of the loop road, as far from the
unoccupied trailer and as close to the dense woods as I could get. I
planned on being there at least four or five days, so I set up
my large, six person Cabella's dome tent rather than my smaller backpacking tent.
After eating supper, I decided to turn in early. It was already getting
dark and I was bushed. I settled into my sleeping bag, turned off
my lantern, and was very quickly fast asleep. Around midnight, I was
awoken by distant howl that my sleep addled mind told me was probably a wolf,
even though I knew there were no wolves in central North Carolina. In
response to the cry, I a pack of dogs began to bay. I
lay still for a few minutes, listening to all the racket, but soon
it died down and all was quiet again. Having heard many odd noises while
in the woods and being pragmatic, I chuckled to myself and tried to go
back to sleep. My sixth sense was tapping me on the shoulder and saying
that something wasn't exactly right, but I closed my eyes anyway. Ten to
fifteen minutes later, as I began to drift back to sleep, the howls
repeated, and this time they were closer. Again. It was similar to
the cry of a wolf, but the tone wasn't quite right. It was
lower and deeper. The dogs again reacted with a chorus of yowling, but
they still seemed farther away. They were reacting to the unknown caller, but
they were not following it, or it had eluded them. At this point,
I was a bit puzzled, but certainly scared. It bothered me that
I couldn't identify the animal that was making the yells, but I know for
an absolute fact that there were no dangerous animals in this part of the state.
Also, I had a pistol with me, and what were the eyes
that this animal, whatever it was, would come directly towards me into my
camp. There was no chance at all. Right, Again, I shrugged
and I closed my eyes. This time I fell to a deep sleep,
a real comfortable sleep. Forty five minutes later, I was jolted away by
a rumbling bellow that seemed right on top of me, and it was loud,
very loud. My first thought as I shook the sleep from my head
is that someone was outside my tent, roaring at me through a bullhorn.
It was so close, so unidentifiable, and so loud that I was immediately
terrified. Even more disturbingly, as the scream slowly died out, it was
replaced by heavy breathing and bipedal footsteps in the leaf litter heading towards my tent.
I tried to convince myself that this must be a person playing a dangerous
practical joke, but the steps were much much too heavy. I remember having
a bizarre thought that this prankster must be stomping around with anvils tied to their
shoes. That absurd idea made me quickly realize that this was no prank.
There was an exceptionally large and angry animal outside my tent, and I had
no idea what it was. Sitting up but still halfway in my sleeping bag,
I slowly and quietly scooched to the middle of the large tent, ridiculously
believing that somehow being in the center would provide some safety. I quietly grabbed
my compact nine millimeter out of my duffel bag and slowly flipped off the safety
and I listened. When you're truly frightened, you feel flushed. Your senses
seemed sharp, and time appears to slow. I could hear every leaf and
twig that broke under the creature's feet as it approached. I also vividly recalled
turning my head towards the oncoming noise, and with each footfall, seeing small
ripples being created in a half empty bottle of water across the dark tent,
exactly like in the first Jurassic Park movie. Options ran through my mind.
I could yell out and hope that whatever this was would be startled and leave.
I could step out of the tent and confront it, or I could
remain quiet and see what happened. I had no idea what was outside,
and I decided to sit still and wait. The footsteps were getting closer,
but they slowed in pace. They stopped at what I guess would be about
ten feet away from my tent. I had my pistol pointed in the thing's
direction, and I was debating whether to fire off a couple of blind rounds
through the tent wall. I'm conscious about gun safety and would normally never consider
this, but abject terror can result in bad decisions, and in retrospect,
I genuinely believe that had this creature taken another couple of steps toward me,
I would have emptied the clip. Thankfully it didn't. The animal was now
standing still, and it began making an odd snuffling sound that led me to
believe it was smelling the air. It reminded me of a pig grunting,
only deeper and was always followed by a long and heavy exhale. The animal
was a few feet outside, sniffing, grunning, and snorting, trying to
determine its next step, and I'm sitting in the tent, sweating and horrified,
with a death grip on my pistol. This went on for what seemed
like several minutes, though more likely it was only thirty to forty seconds.
I was so tense that my arm holding the pistol began to shake, and
I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I felt that I was close
enough to physical and mental breaking point, and I know that I desperately needed
for this to end. After a few more frantic seconds of thought, I
realized that, for good or bad, I was going to have to try
to take control of the situation. I resolved to quietly slip out of my
sleeping bag, slit open the back of the tent, and jump out,
ready to shoot. I made some noise while trying to slide my legs out
of the sleeping bag, and the animal let out a grunt that almost sounded
like a question. There was an upward inflection at the end of the noise
that made me think it might have been confused. Looking back, I believe
it may not have been certain that I was in the tent until it heard
me move. I froze, and for a few more seconds there was an
absolute and terrifying sight. Then there was a deep in what I imagined to
be a derisive grunt. It sounded like a bull snorting, but seemed to
have an almost cynical tone. It then began to stomp off in the direction
from which it came, grunting loudly with every other step. As the thing
trudged off, I heard a loud cracking sound, as if a large tree
branch was being broken, and then another deafening roar, the sound of something
being dragged in the leaves, and heavy footsteps continued to move away. I
stayed perfectly quiet until I couldn't hear it any longer, and then I took
a deep breath to relieve some of the stress in my body. I was
still on alert, but slowly beginning to relax a little. After a few
more minutes of silence, I decided that the animal was probably gone, but
there was no way that I was going to spend the rest of the night
in this flimsy nih line. I grabbed my car keys and stealthily unzipped the
tent door to creep to my vehicle, pistol still in my hand, so
I fired up my rover, turned on my headlights into my horror. There
was a large tree limb about ten feet in front of the truck, blocking
my exit. It was big enough that I didn't think I could drive over
it without doing some significant damage to my vehicle, but it was not so
large that I couldn't drag it partially out of the way and drive around it.
I decided, however, that I was not going to get out of
the car until daylight, so I turned off my lights, lowered my seat
all the way back, rolled the window down about a half inch so I
could hear, and I turned off the ignition. The rest of the night
was a blur to me. I didn't go back to sleep, but there
were times that I wasn't completely awake either. I would start to nod off,
but my mind would not allow it. Thankfully, nothing else happened,
and at first light I was able to quickly break camp and move the tree
branch enough to get my vehicle out. When I returned home, my wife
immediately asked, why are you back so soon. I didn't want to lie,
but I simply couldn't figure out a way to explain what happened without sounding
like a lunatic, so I just made up a story about not realizing that
there was no self service and that I didn't feel comfortable being out of touch.
For four or five days before this incident, I had no real interest
in cryptids. However, I immediately began reading everything I could on them,
focusing on reports from the Ewery region. To my great surprise, I found
several accounts from this area, including a rather famous one. I learned that
I was remarkably close to the sighting made by Michael Greene I think that's his
name, who at the time was involved with the BFRO in North Carolina,
and who had recorded thermal video of a humanoid figure snatching a candy bar from
the top of a tree stump at a family gathering. Not long afterwards,
my maternal grandmother, who grew up just outside the northwest boundary of the forest,
became upset when she was told I had been camping there alone. She
said I shouldn't go there by myself. It was dangerous, and when I
ask her why, she wouldn't give a straight answer. She would simply repeat,
don't go there alone. You shouldn't go there alone. Ever, I'm
still not convinced that I had an encounter with a hairy linebacker, But I
don't know what animal walks on two feet, causes the ground to vibrate and
roars louder than a line and breaks tree limbs. If you can come up
with one, please let me know. However, I didn't actually see anything,
and the more practical side of me believes that there must be a rash
explanation. If it was a bigfoot, then I'm glad I didn't see it,
and I'm very happy not having an upclose image of that ugly mug in
my head. The event alarmed me enough that I didn't go into the woods
for a while, but I couldn't stay awake for long. I gave away
my tents, I bought some larger guns, and eventually purchased a small travel
trailer. When I'm out overnight. Now I sleep like a baby. Maybe
it's a false sense of security, but it works for me.