As a child, I felt there was something very special about the nights of
the full moon. For two days before and two days after the night of
peak fullness, the natural world is aglow with the blue silver illumination that is
fascinated mankind for thousands of years in the days when superstition ruled the mind of
man. Our ancestors assign great powers to this otherworldly light and the unfailing cycle
of the blue white orb which produced it. Because we have a weakness not
shared by the predators of the night, we naturally fear the things that come
out to hunt in the darkness. Human beings have eyesight that evolved for daylight
activity, not foreseeing the details hidden in the shadows of a forest after the
sun goes down. Therefore, we have an innate fear of the darkness and
the beasts that inhabit it. There are those among us who seem to lack
this fear, at least they give the appearance of not being afraid. Those
are individuals who will have the opportunity to see what I have seen. Only
recently have I developed a deeply felt well. I started to say, respect,
Let's call it what it is. It's fear. That's right. I
now fear the things that I know to be out there in the dark.
We've all heard the stories of were wolves and their remarkable abilities and characteristics,
at least the ones that Hollywood has bestowed upon these terrifying creatures of legend.
I will now tell you about my experiences with the things in the dark.
These are my only encounters with what I believe to be one of these nocturnal
beasts. I pray they are my last encounters. It was early spring,
and the nights on Lookout Mountain in Alabama were cool enough to be uncomfortable without
a jacket. It was a kind of night that you can see your breath
as you exhale. I owned a four wheeler, and I frequently rode the
south ridge of Lookout Mountain. I especially enjoyed riding trails in the thousands of
acres of woods near my home on the nights of the full moon. The
silver light shining through the trees on the narrow, winding roads and trails is
usually bright enough that headlights are optional at low speeds. Riding by moonlight had
always been a special experience, and I looked forward to it. But the
events of two separate nights. This year would change that forever. It was
a Friday night and I had worked later than usual, which caused me to
miss connecting with my riding buddies as was the usual routine. This was before
cell phones were common and very few of my friends had one, plus where
we rode, a signal was hard to find on a good day. I
had called, but had reached no one, so I would have to catch
up with them on the trail. It was well after dark and the moon
was high in the night sky. I grabbed my cooler and shoved off,
hoping to link up with my friends and have some fun. After a short
ride on the paved road, I climbed a steep bank off the road to
access the trail where I expected to find everyone. Fifteen minutes of bouncing over
rocks and roots found me past the roughest part of the trail, and I
was now slowly rolling along on a smooth, sandy road without my headlights when
something roughly the size of a coyote dashed quickly across the road in front of
me, moving left to right. It was no more than a flash in
a tangle of shadows. I hit the brakes and I shut off the engine
so I could listen for whatever it was as it continued its flight through the
undergrowth. The natural predators in these parts are not generally large enough to be
a threat to humans, so I was not alarmed. There are black bears
and mountain lions here, but we see them so rarely that no one worries
about them. I sat silently on my four wheeler, listening, looking,
and hoping to hear or see if whatever had dashed across the road was being
followed by another similar creature, or possibly being chased. After a minute of
silent vigil, I stepped off my ATV, thinking whatever it was was long
gone. I opened my cooler and I took out my first beer for the
evening. I popped the top and took a long drink. Coffee would have
been a more practical choice on the cool spring night, but the beer tasted
good. That night, the whipperwheels were out early this year, and the
night air was filled with their unmistakable calls. These woods at night are such
a sensual place. Your pupils dilate to take in the maximum amount of light.
Your hearing seems to become more acute. Even your sense of smell now
picks up things that ordinarily it would not. One's mind could quite easily run
away with itself on a night like this. To my left, some distance
off the road, I could hear movement in the thickly matted leafy ground cover
of this dense hardwood forest. I first assumed it was a raccoon or a
possum rooting for grubs in the foot deep leaf cover. After only seconds of
listening, I could make out distinct footsteps. They were the same noises a
man would make while walking through the leaves. It certainly was not a possum.
The spot where I had stopped was sheltered. On each side, short
needle pines spaced close together obscured my view on both sides of the road.
The fifteen foot stretch of pines, almost like a tunnel, shaded the road
from the moonlight. I listened as the footsteps came closer. It had to
be a hunter, so I made some noise to alert him to my position.
I didn't want to be mistaken for game, and I spoke up,
don't shoot, partner, I'm standing right on the road in front of you.
The footsteps stopped abruptly, followed by several seconds of silence, during which
I expected to hear a man's voice reply telling me that he wasn't going to
shoot me. That never happened. I spoke up again to confirm my presence,
and still I got no reply. I knew someone was there, but
for whatever reason, they refused to respond. My concern was growing. It's
not unheard of that marijuana growers will guard their grow in this area. The
month of April is a bit early in the growing season for this to have
been likely, but I wondered if I was about to meet one of these
guys. I heard a twig snap to my left. I began talking to
reassure whoever it was that I meant them no harm, and I walked slowly
towards the twig snap. I came to the end of the short needle pine
thicket, where the moonlight was bright and I could see better into the woods.
I heard it breathing, and when I looked in that direction, I
saw the steamy exhaust. When it exhaled, it was panting fifty feet in
front of me. A dark form of an animal crouched. It was motionless
and in front of me, and the steam from its exhales was rising above
its head. I froze. My eyes began to adjust to the moonlight now
illuminating the woods. Two pointed, fur covered ears were visible. Its head
turned ninety degrees, and the silhouette of a large canine muzzle became apparent.
The ears moved in a manner of a horse as it seemed to scan the
immediate area for sounds. I'll never forget those ears. The steam from its
breathing, illuminated by the bright moonlight, rushed from its snout and drifted upward.
My legs suddenly felt weak. The beer can slipped from my hand and
hit flatly on the sandstone road with a clank, causing it to shoot a
stream of foam into the air, which lapped over into the woods in the
direction of this thing. The bea to an upright position on two legs,
revealing its height. It was bigger than me, much bigger. It was
staring straight at me. It paused long enough to issue a deep growl and
calmly strode away into the woods with the same rhythmic leaf crunching footsteps I had
heard moments earlier. I was terrified. Tears poured from my eyes. I
ran for the four wheeler, jumped aboard, and hit the starter. In
a flurry of lightning fast moves, I rode away at full throttle, like
the devil was chasing me. I don't remember driving home, but I know
I covered that eight miles in record time. When I slid to a stop
in my driveway, I jumped off the four wheeler and ran into the house,
locking all the doors and windows. Never had I felt the way I
felt that night. I didn't sleep at all. Rather, I sat in
my living room with my shotgun in my lap until dawn. I contemplated calling
the county Sheriff's office to report what I had seen, but I knew that
I would sound like a nutcase. I picked up the phone several times,
but I never made the call. Over the following days, my mind replayed
the events of that night over and over, each time with the unsettling conclusion
that I had seen what had to be a werewolf. Either I had seen
one or I was delusional. I had always been the guy that made fun
of people who said they saw werewolves and ghosts. I never believed that stuff.
If what I saw was a werewolf, why didn't it attack me.
It had every opportunity to make a meal of me, or to slaughter me
for the fun of it. I can't imagine that it was some trickster that
took me in. Looked and sounded way too real. Besides, most trail
riders are armed, and a joke like this could get a prankster shot.
What I saw was a large, fur covered animal that walked primarily on two
legs. It had very long arms in the head of a canine. Having
considered this incident time and time again, I know what I saw and will
always believe that it was a werewolf. I'm now an undoubting believer in the
existence of werewolves, and that fact would be confirmed a few months later.
By September, I had changed my riding habits. I didn't ride at night.
One Saturday night when my friend Larry called to tell me that he was
in the woods and his ATV had quit on him. To my dread,
he was close to the location where I had seen this creature. I almost
made an excuse to get me off the hook, but this particular friend had
pulled me out of bad spots before with no hesitation, and I felt obligated
to be there for him. I told him that I could be there in
an hour. I was apprehensive about going back at night. I had not
told my writing buddies about what I had seen because I knew they would rib
me until the day I died. They had noticed that I spent a lot
of less time in the woods than I normally did, and had asked why
I didn't ride at night now. Rather than fess up to my unbelievable encounter,
I made lame excuses, jokingly allowing the conversation to move on. I
wanted to tell someone what I had seen, but I didn't feel that they
would take me serious, so I kept it to myself. I got dressed
in warm clothing and strapped on my forty caliber and stuff too magazines in my
pocket. The equipment I needed to retrieve a disabled four wheeler was sitting at
the ready in a watertight box in my garage. I strapped the box on
the back of my four wheeler and made ready to head for the eight mile
long trail that would take me to my friend's location. I could not believe
I was really going back there, but I couldn't leave him stranded, and
he didn't know what I knew. The moon was bright again, and clouds
moved silently across the sky, dragging their dark shadows over the mountainous terrain and
adding a creepy element of mystery that began to play on my mind. The
closer I got to the area where I had seen it, the more apprehensive
I became. I stopped long enough to chamber around in my pistol, and
I put it back into my holster. Before I continued, I topped a
rise in the road and I caught a glimpse of a fire ahead. Larry
had started a fire. Somehow that fact gave me a measure of comfort.
As I approached the fire, it occurred to me that if I could see
it from a distance, other eyes could also see it. That removed the
comfort factor. I could see more than one person standing there. Larry had
not mentioned that there was someone with him. Maybe some help had already arrived.
The more the better, as I saw it. I rolled down the
rough, narrow road and stopped about ten feet from the fire. I shut
off the engine and remained seated on my four wheeler. Susan, Larry's girlfriend,
rushed over and threw her arms around me, greeting me as their hero
and rescuer. She was relieved that I had arrived, to say the least.
I moved near the fire, warming my hands and asking what the problem
was. Larry indicated that the chain had broken and he didn't have a replacement
or any of his tools. I didn't see his four wheeler anywhere, and
I asked about that. He grinned and said that that was the other thing.
He had not set the brakes while working on the chain, and it
had rolled off the road into a steep ravine. We walked over to the
spot where it left the road and he pointed down into the darkness and said,
it's down there. My flashlight is bright, but it only dimly illuminated.
The machine lodged against a tree halfway down the slope. It was a
job for a wench or a bunch of strong men. Realistically, the two
of us could not extract this ATV from its precarious resting place. I expressed
this to Larry, and he was not happy about the prospect of leaving a
rather expensive machine in the woods overnight. I assured him that no one would
notice it that far off the road and it would be safe until the next
day. We were going to need a winch attached to a truck to get
this thing up the hill. Susan was standing by the fire. As we
walked back towards her. Suddenly there was a horribly loud howl coming from the
ridge above us. My heart began to race. Susan rushed Larry and clung
to him as though the devil himself had walked by. Larry's expression was that
of unwonted surprise and fear. The sound came from a big animal, and
it was too close. We gathered around the fire and we listened, Not
wishing to frighten Susan. I jokingly urged our hasty departure while I was experiencing
flashbacks of my first encounter. My hand rested on my pistol. Larry sensed
that I was only half joking and agreed with the suggestion of a prompt exit
from the area. Actually, he looked more puzzled than frightened. I was
keeping an eye on the woods around us. Again. I suggested that we
leave immediately. Susan agreed with my assessment of the situation and became insistent that
Larry speed up the process by leaving their cooler and other gear. To our
right was a thicket of dense growth, from which, during a moment of
silence, came the sound of footsteps. I pulled my pistol and started telling
them the abbreviated version of the story of what I had seen very near this
place just months earlier. Susan was almost in tears and begging to leave immediately.
I completely agreed with her. I just wasn't as dramatic about it.
We stacked one behind the other on my four wheeler, with Larry upfront driving.
I took the rear position, thinking that it would offer the best position
to shine a light behind us and allow me to shoot anything in pursuit if
it became necessary. The box trapped on the back made things a little cramp,
but oddly gave a measure of comfort as my back pressed against it.
We began to move away from the fire, and I was constantly twisting and
turning to maintain vigilance of the area. Still dimly lighted by the fire,
I swung my flashlight back and forth to illuminate anything that might be approaching.
We quickly moved up the rough slope from the fire in the direction of home.
As we approached a rock outcrop that spanned the road. Larry gave it
some throttle to increase the engine power to get us over the rock. Suddenly,
the engine went dead and we rolled back a short distance and we stopped.
Larry had forgotten to open the gas pitcock, which I had closed out
of habit. He quickly opened it and restarted the engine. As I look
back towards the fire, I could see a large figure moving about in its
dim yellow orange light. We moved forward, and as we topped the slope,
I grabbed Larry's arm and got him to stop. We were about fifty
yards from the fire, and at our position on the high ground we could
see the creature clearly. The three of us stared in disbelief as the upright,
hair covered manlike creature leaned its head back and let out another bone chilling
howl. I could see the same fur covered ears and the wolf likes now
that had haunted my dreams since April. The howls subsided, and we saw
the beasts look in our direction, and it began to move towards us.
Larry gunned the engine. Our retreat was like a blur. I remember slowing
down only once about two miles away from our starting point. Larry shouted and
asked if I could see anything behind us, while Susan pounded on his back,
insisting that he speed up. I wasn't seeing anything, and I assured
them that we were safe and that it would be advisable to slow down and
proceed with caution. I wanted us out of those woods in one piece.
An accident would have been a big problem. We arrived at my house and
a spirited discussion began. As soon as Larry shut off the engine. We
hurried inside to warm up and sort out the facts. Larry and Susan had
questions. I had no believable answers. I explained the details of my previous
encounter, and our conclusion was that there was a werewolf in the woods near
our homes. If it wasn't a werewolf, I don't know what to call
this thing. Susan assured us that she would never try ride again. Larry
retrieved his ATV the next day while accompanied by five other well armed men,
and immediately put it up for sale. I still own my ATV, but
rarely use it, and only in the daylight. In all the years I
have been riding trails, I have never seen, or for that matter,
heard of, such an animal. I don't know if I'm glad I saw
it, or if I would prefer to have remained blissfully ignorant of its presence.
I do know my feelings about outdoor activities have changed. I know I'll
never camp out on that mountain again. I know I'll never walk in the
woods unarmed again. The thought of that thing is always with me now.
I'm like a five year old when the sun goes down. I even get
the creeps when a window shade is open after dark. I often wonder if
others have seen it. I've heard nothing about it. If they have,
then again they may be doing what I did, keeping their mouth shut for
fear of ridicule. I feel that I should warn anyone going into the woods
of what I saw. But I've only told a few people, and they're
still making fun of me. I shouldn't care if they laugh. I should
tell everyone, because I'm going to feel responsible if someone is hurt or killed
by this thing. The thought of organizing a hunt to eliminate this terrifying threat
has crossed my mind, but I'm not that brave. An undeniable truth that
can be drawn from this story is just because you've never seen it doesn't mean
that it doesn't exist. Stay out of the woods after sunset. It's very
unlikely that there's only one of these things. It most likely has relatives.
As long as I can remember, I've been a hunting fanatic. I've spent
many days in the field with my buddies in pursuit of the wild and wooly
beasts, mostly deer and elk, can occasionally bear. In the rocky mountains
of Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, my friends and I would
spend many fall nights and we would sit around a crackling fire in the high
valleys of the mountains, weaving tales of hunts gone by. Each story told
would seem to top the one previously recited. Some were new adventures, while
others were old ones revisited every year, but with new, slightly enhanced details.
As the night passed and the stories progressed, they inevitably morphed into tales
of mysterious and unknown, like ghosts, goblins, and bigfoot. None of
us had actually seen a ghost, a goblin, or a bigfoot. In
fact, none of us had ever even heard of anyone in countering any of
them, especially a Bigfoot anywhere near the areas where we hunted. But for
some unknown reason, each of us had experienced strange happenings that we were sure
could be directly attributed to Bigfoot. I don't know how we knew they were
connected to Bigfoot. Nevertheless, we were darn sure, convincingly so when telling
our tales of intrigue that Bigfoot was the culprit. I guess one could say
that we were embellishing the truth slightly, maybe even a little more than slightly.
But it was all in fun, and everyone had a great time trying
to outdo everyone else. Due to the convincing manner by which some could relate
their stories, the lines between truth and fiction often blurred in the minds of
the recipients, making it difficult to decipher between the two. This resulted in
doubt and sometimes confusion in each of our minds about what really lurked in the
shadows of the forests. We hunted one particular warm autumn day, when the
air was clean, fresh and filled with the fragrance of sage, and the
sky was clear blue, and the golden aspen leaves shimmered as a slight breeze
blue and rattled them around. I leaned against the stout but thin, chalky
white aspen tree trunk, intently scanning the grove for movement, hoping to spot
a sly old moss back buck, as my hunting buddies pushed from the opposite
direction. Just when boredom and daydreams started to creep into my mind, Larry,
my hunting buddy, came thundering down the hill from right to left.
His pants were partially down, one hand holding them up and the other hanging
onto a roll of toilet paper that unraveled as he passed, trailing behind an
apparent white flag of surrender. Si squatch, he screamed. Larry was the
kind of young that fancied himself a tall, tough cigar smoking beer, drinking
four by four driving lumberjack of a man that could fell a tree with one
swing of his axe. I started to laugh at the sight of such a
man, nearly streaking past as he half mooned a mother nature, while I
wondered what had rattled him At that exact moment. However, a heart stopping
roar erupted from just over the ridge top twenty yards to my right and slightly
behind me. I jolted to attention, darn near snapping my neck while trying
to orient my head to see what could have made the startling noise, all
the while trying not to move my body and reveal my stealthy position. In
hindsight, I suppose Larry, having just blown by me with all the stealth
of a fire truck on its way to a fore alarm fire, probably negated
that need. That roar was nothing like anything I'd heard in the forest before,
and it scared the crap out of me. The top of a young
aspen tree about seven feet tall, rooted just on the other side of the
ridge, top shook like it had been hit by a truck. A deep
moan followed in a second roar or agonizing growl erupted. Holy smokes, what
the heck is that? I thought, as I turned to face the unidentified
creature. Another sapling, a six or seven foot or just over the ridge
for me, rocked and fell like it had been run over by a bulldozer.
Whatever the heck this thing was, it was big and powerful, and
from the sound of it, it was upset. My mind raced, trying
to categorize the sound into something familiar, but nothing fit. Needless to say,
by this time, I was more than a little concerned for my safety,
as my only defense was a fifty pound recurved bow, not ideal for
toe to toe in your face confrontation with what was Larry screaming? A sisquatch?
But there weren't any sasquatch in this area of the country, I reasoned,
was sasquatch even real? By this time, the unidentified creature had just
crested the top of the ridge twenty yards from me, but I still could
not see it through the younger tree growth. Do I run or stand my
ground? I asked myself. My curiosity wrestled with my common sense, and
I couldn't quite decide until I knew what was confronting me. I crouched and
stretched, peering and peeking through the trees, just catching glimpses, trying to
get a better look at what was coming at me. A moan and a
growl and a roar in sequence. One part of me screamed run, The
other part said, find out what this is and then run. Another tree
bent over and then snapped back into place. It was like in all the
stories you hear around the campfire aint. It looked huge, It was black,
It was covered in fur, and on all fours. There was still
not enough visible yet to make any kind of identification. By this time,
I had no time to run this thing, This big, black, hairy
thing was almost on top of me. I had dilly dally too long,
and all I could do was thump it with an arrow. As soon as
I could get confirmation of identification and a clear shot corridor, I drew my
bow and I took a deep breath, and I let it out halfway.
Tunnel vision was in full effect, and I could only see what I was
looking directly at in front of me. A circus elephant could have walked right
up beside me and even sat on me. I wouldn't have noticed it until
I was as flat as a pancake. Sweat was rolling down my brow and
stinging my eyes. My arms were shaking with fatigue. With my bow at
full draw, the seconds turned into hours. I needed to release my draw,
rest my arm for a moment and wipe the sweat from my eyes,
and quickly I did so, and just as I again drew my bow,
the creature emerged through the thick underbrush into full view. I expected to see
a siequatch, and for just a second I did, but my mind was
playing tricks on me. It was not a sasquatch or a bear. It
was a huge, one thousand pound bull, as in bovine bull. I
released the tension on my bow slowly, and I took a deep breath.
The bull walked painfully past me, moaning and groaning and growling as he took
each step. His wide horns would push saplings down as he passed by,
and they would either break off or snap back into place. I looked for
the source of his pain, and I quickly discovered its call. The bulls
testicles were inflamed and swollen to the size of a small watermelon. Every time
he took a step forward, his rear leg would contact the inflamed portion of
his male anatomy and make him grown and roar with pain. The roar he
made did not in any way sound like a bovine, at least none that
I had ever heard. Of course, I was no expert on the sounds
such an animal made when in extreme pain. He was such a massive bull
that he had a very deep, raspy, grown and roar that sounded like
nothing else I had ever heard. His hair was long, shaggy, and
tangled with sticks and tree leaves and mud. He looked old and fatigued and
almost lost. He could have been blind. I was relieved it wasn't a
sasquatch and that I wasn't going to be torn limb from limb. I began
to laugh and almost cry at the same time. When I emerged from the
tree line, I met a rancher in an old Rundown GMC pickup truck making
his way up the dusty dirt road. He was looking for his bull.
He had not seen it for a while and was concerned that it had been
taken by predators or had died of old age. I told him if he
just waited a few minutes right where we were, and if it didn't deviate
from its downhill course, they would be reunited. Shortly. The rancher was
relieved to hear his bull was still alive and close. He used the CBE
radio to call his sons in another truck to come and get the distressed animal.
That night, back at camp, Larry took a brutal onslaught of jeers
and laughters as I recited the encounter. This ended up being one of those
stories told around the campfire every year. Larry didn't laugh about it the first
few years, but eventually he found the humor in it and laughed right along
with the rest of us up the Sasquatch that wasn't m