Today, I want to tell you about a journey that I've been on for
most of my life. Ever since I was a kid, I've heard tales
of bigfoot and wild men while spending time with my friends and family. As
I grew older and read more about the paranormal, my interest in encryptids and
other things strange only deepened. That's why I'm so excited to share with you
what I've personally become involved with the Untold Radio Network. The Untold Radio Network
is a live streaming podcast network that airs a new show every day across all
podcast platforms, YouTube, and more. They have eight different shows on all
sorts of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and
much more. I even have my own show called Weird Encounters, where I
talk about all things strange. This is more than just a podcast network.
It's a community that allows me to meet so many amazing people who share their
stories and experiences with strange. If you're interested in hearing more of these stories
and learning more about the paranormal and encryptids, make sure you check out the
Untold Radio Network for all kinds of exciting shows. It's free to subscribe.
So what are you waiting for visit www dot untold radionetwork dot com today.
Hey everybody, this is Left Striving Yes, yes I know aka Survivor Man,
and you're listening to Brian on sasquatch Anys. Hey there and welcome back
to sasquatch Ox. Thank you so much for being with us for the show.
It is Friday. I hope you've had a great week. We have
an amazing guest line though for you. But before we get there, I
want to start where I always do. If you've had an encounter and you'd
like to be on the show, shoot me an email you and get me
at Brian at Paranomoworldproductions dot com. Get head over to the website, check
it out, become a member there and help support the show. I got
to sit down and talk to Rich Over in the UK. This was probably
months ago when I did this interview and I've just got around to putting it
out for you guys. Rich has spent a ton of time out in Area
X with the North American Wood Ape Conservancy and those guys Darry I'll call you,
Brian Brown, Matt Pruitt, and he has had some really really interesting
experiences out there in the area they call Area X and the valley that's next
door to Area X. And he's gonna tell you all about that in just
a month, really quickly. If you haven't already done so, and you
want to pick up a copy of my new book, Sasquatch Unleashed the Truth
behind the Legend. I was out at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference just this past
week. I hung out at Cliff's booth out there, and Cliff Brickman wrote
the forward to my book. So I brought back a limited number of books
signed by Cliff himself. If you want one of those, head over to
paranormorild Productions dot Com. Click on the store button at the top of the
page and you'll see it right there. Get those why supplies last. But
enough of that, I know you guys are ready to get into it.
Rich is on the line. He's ready to go. All this left for
you to do is sit back, relax and enjoy the show. I want
to welcome my guest to the show. It is Rich from the UK.
Welcome to the show man, Hey mate, great to be here. I
am so glad to have you. I been looking forward to this. Let's
get right into it. Let's talk about this bigfoot thing. What game you
interested in the subject to begin with? I had no interest whatsoever. In
the nineteen seven years there was a children's news program called John Craven's News Round,
and I saw the Patterison Gimblin film in mid seventies, so I was
aware that Bigfoot existed. I'd got a paranormal book as a kid, Frame
three five two was in there. I'd seen that. I don't know where
that book is now. I'd love to find that book, but that's gone.
Then twenty eleven, but we were training for Afghanistan in Alberta in Canada.
The British Army's got a massive camp up near a medicine hat. I
had a weekend off. I was down in Waterson National Park purely to go
bird watching. I got up really early in the morning to go and see
a target species, a bird called there it frush. Got there at first
before first light. I could hear one singing, then saw the bird,
and a friend of mine who'd been in Canada before, had told me there
was a location near where i'd gone and see this bird that you could see
grizzly bears. Now I'd set up to look at grizzly bears. Now,
this is a really bizarre thing. I'd got a telescope set up on a
screen line. I got my binoculars and the really odd thing and this could
have been a game changer. On my backseat of my car was a long
lens on a camera. So I'm looking at the screen slope when this animal
walked out. Now, my initial thought was, oh, good, that
was quick a grizzly But then it was really evident that this thing on two
legs and it was walking with a purpose across the screen slope. Now,
it wasn't walking like Patty does, swinging arms. It would walk as if
you were a human and you're walking across. The arms were pretty much down
by the side of the body. But this thing looked really scruffy. It
looked like it had spent the winter trying to survive in the rockies of Canada,
and it looked in the pretty much of a bad way, and it
was unkempt, and it was walking across. I was getting animated because I've
just seen something that doesn't exist. I was looking up and I could see
it between the top of the trees. As always looking at the screen slope
top of the trees were in the way to go between a gap and the
top of the trees, and it disappeared. I was trying to move her
around, trying to see this animal, and then it clearly saw me and
it just dropped. It was like it had been shot by sniper. It
just dropped to the ground. Now, I think it probably knew I was
there and was trying to figure out where it was going to hide, and
then just disappeared, and I just waited out. It didn't move, and
in the end a shot got in the car and then drove into waters them
for breakfast. Now, the funny thing is I can't remember that journey from
getting in my car and driving down. I was in total shock. And
there's a couple of times since then I've been around these animals since where things
have happened and I know they've happened, and I'm trying to then figure out
what's happened later on, And there's bits of that history where I can't remember
what's happened. And there was a time when I was with Darryl call you
in X we were looking at an eye shine. That eye shine stood up.
I can't remember what happened after I'd seen that eye shine. Your brain's
trying to adjust to what's happening. Even now, know that I go out
looking for these creatures, I've seen them. There's a occasionally where my brain
just turned off. It's really odd. It's really odd what your brain does,
because if I see a rare bird, I've seen a rare bird,
I know what it is, and I'm going to look for these animals now,
and occasionally my brain will switch off. And there's certainly two three occasions
where that's happened and the waters and one was one of them. I saw
that creature. I then got in my car. I can't remember the journey,
remember sitting in the cafe afterwards, having breakfast, wanting to shout,
I've seen the sasquatch. This was in January the seventeen, twenty eleven.
I reported this to the BFRO in January twenty fourteen. So between twenty eleven
and twenty fourteen, I got home, I was devouring everything on the internet,
looking at everything I could find on YouTube. Did not tell my family,
I think the first time I ever told any but my son came down
one day and I was sat in the living room and I got an iPad
out and he knew what I was watching. He said, Dad, bigfoot
doesn't exist, at which point I said, son, sit down and told
him the story. He immediately got on his mobile phone and texted my daughter
and said, Dad said he's seen a bigfoot, and then left it at
that. I didn't tell my wife. I didn't tell my wife until twenty
sixteen, after my first weekend in x When I got back from my first
weekend, I walked in. She thought it was a bit odd that was
going to States for a long weekend. I left the UK on a Friday
and got back to the UK early hours of Tuesday morning, so I was
driven back to Dallas mid afternoon on Monday, spent a weekend in there.
I was that desperate to get out there that a long weekend was the only
thing I could do at the time. And I got back and my wife
came in from work and I just said, can you sit down? And
she sat down and I said, right in twenty eleven, I saw a
sasquatch. And she laughed and I said, this isn't a laughing matter.
And then I regaled her with the stories of what happened over the weekend my
first weekend in X. My first weekend in X, I was picked up
by Darryl call you in Dallas, driven up to Oklahoma, and we crossed
the Red River on the way into Oklahoma. It's evident that all of a
sudden you're into forest, and for miles and miles on either side of the
highway is just woods. And Darrel said to me at the time, he
said, anywhere from now on we might see an ape. I thought,
yeah, okay, I'm not going to see one ever again. It's a
once in a lifetime thing. I'm not going to see an epe ever again.
If I get a wood not this weekend, I'll be happy because obviously
you're aware of Woodknox, because you've been watching YouTube and you've been reading up
and I had not heard any vocalizations at this point. Arrived, spent the
nights set around the fire. I'd got jet lag. About eleven o'clock I
went to bed. Everybody else followed, just going beyond midnight. About two
in the morning, there was a tent slap, so everybody got up.
Brian Brown thought he might have been poked through the tent while he was sleeping
and then there was a massive tent slap and he heard a bipedal animal walk
off, effectively almost vibrating onto him because he heard the thing walk off.
So I'd heard a tent slap and we all ran out. And this is
my first time I've stood with civilians with side arms. I've I've been in
the military year for years. I've never come across a civilian side arms,
and all of a sudden, I'm stood outside the tent in my box ashore
with three other guys in their box of shorts with side arms, thinking shit,
what if I got myself into. The whole weekend was beyond all my
expectations. We got up for a group photograph. We had breakfast, and
we got up for a group photograph and we walked over to this scrub to
have a put for a decent background and had a photograph. As we walked
up, I heard this really weird sound. It was like a ooh.
And I looked at everybody and said, did you hear that? And Brian
goes, yeah, something just made a really odd sound, and we stood
there. I'm thinking, that's no animal I recognize. I've been to North
America a few times, and I'm aware of things, but it was almost
like a hum like vocalization, so we heard that. Then we spent the
day walking around the valley where the North American would a conserved operating. That
day, we had whistles. We walked up to an old abandoned cabin area
and something shot through the scrub like a bear going through the scrubby it legged
it through as we got up to this area. And then the whole weekend
we were having things thrown at us. You've heard about area. Actually've heard
the rain of stones where they were having stones continuously thrown at them. We
sat around camp and rocks, walnuts, stones were being thrown through the tree
lining. You could hear them coming through the top of the trees. So
they were being thrown from the hill behind us and dropping into the area,
hitting what they call the hooch. That's what I experienced all weekend. I
was stood with Brian and Daryl Collyer at one point and they called it a
banshee corse. Something was walking through the woods screaming. Now I've heard mountain
lion screams, it wasn't that, And neither of them ever heard this sound,
and we traced it going through the valley and coming up the hill,
and occasionally it just scream. He was a woman screaming effectively, so I
saw it sounded like. And then on the final night we were up late,
I was sat just looking at the tree line behind when I thought alson,
I was looking at two stars. I could see two points of light,
and I think Brian might have explained this to you when he was interviewed.
I could see two points of light, so I said to the guys,
I thought I was looking at stars, but these two points of light
are below the horizon. And they both looked up. They couldn't see them,
and I'm pointing and saying, look, there are two points of light
up there. And Darryl and Brian got their night vision and the firm up
and Brian could see a head looking around the side of a tree like a
tree peaker does with its hand around the other side of the tree. And
when he looked at it, he could see the fingers moving. So this
animal was up looking at us down in the campsite, was unaware that we
were looking at it. And for about twenty minutes, I'm looking through with
my eyes Daryl's got his night vision. Brian's got a firm wore the other
way around, both of my night vision anyway, and they're looking at an
animal looking at us. And it got to the point where Brian needed to
relieve himself, and he wandered down the track, and as he got to
where he's going to relieve himself, he looked up with the head torch on
his headlamp up to where he was seeing this animal, and I watched the
animal drop out of the tree, just disappear and run off. That was
probably my second confirmed sighting of an ape. He could not have been anything
else. It could have been another animal with a head shape, but to
have fingers moving on the side of the tree and you could pick that up
through the night vision. So yeah, my life changed in twenty eleven.
And between them and my time in X, I knew what I'd seen,
but I'd spend a lot of time trying to talk myself out of it,
and I'd always come back to him, No, you saw an ape.
You did see a grizzly bear as an ape. And after that weekend in
X that's sort of that just cemented that there was an undescribed wood ape in
North America and I've been back since then six times, three times we've NAWAC
and I'm now on my fifth trip to the valley adjacent to where the NAWAC
operate. And we found a valley which is pretty much as active as X.
And I think you know that X is the valley that the NAWC operating,
But I think the tag seven data when they believe that they tagged a
wood ape, I think X has probably gone out from that valley. It's
probably in a couple of valleys around there now because that animal moved around over
a few months and certainly went into the valley we operate in now, which
is why we've chosen that. So the following year, Daryl had contacted me
prior to my next trip and said, look, what I'd like to do
is spend a couple of days with you. Be dropped off two drainages away
from we operate, and over two days, two three days, we'll walk
back. We'll check Jai drainage is out where people don't go into just to
see what's around. So Daryl and I were dumped off with our rucksacks some
mileage away from X, and over two days we walked back while camping as
we went. Now, the first night not much happened. I think we
had probably had a bear wandering around in the night round our tent. And
then the following day where we got a pearly breakfasted and we left, and
over that day things started to happen to occur. We'd walked up a hill,
we'd sat down for a breather and something to eat, and I heard
a thud. You've heard these thuds described where something appears to have dropped a
boulder or dropped out of a tree. I heard a thud. Now,
I was a bit aware that I was a bit of a newbie in the
organization, and I didn't want everything to be big for that I experienced.
And I sort of looked at Darryl, and Darryl I didn't suggest that he'd
heard what I I'd heard, so I just kept quiet, and then we
walked. We started walking down into another valley. And as we walked down
this track, it was an old ATV track. The middle was vegetated and
there were saplings all the way down this track. But I noticed that every
sapling at the same height had been snapped and then bent off to the side.
Now, Darrel had walked past these, and at some point I said,
Daryl, have you seen this? And he turned around. He hadn't
noticed, but these saplings had been snapped, and then they were all pointed
in the same direction. Now it wasn't like a vehicle had gone down there
and snapped all the sapling because they're all pointed in the wrong direction to have
been broken by a vehicle. They were all pointing I think it was to
the left of the track. So we noticed that, and we then walked
down into the valley and then we heard what was suddenly like a choir singing
in the middle of nowhere. And I remember turning this Daryl, did you
hear that? And he said, yeah, I've just heard singing. Now,
this isn't a valley where nobody's in. We knew there was nobody in
there. It was difficult to get into, but we heard singing. And
then we continued walking and I got to a point where I knew we were
about four miles away from the the valid x of THEWC operating, and I
sent to Daryl should we just carry on walking when he gets dark, put
on our headlamp to make our way back. He said, no, we're
going to camp. I'm knackered. I want to rest. So we found
a place. We put up the tents, we had something to eat.
We were set around about ten o'clock at night. I was on the sit
pad. We were just chatting. We went to bed and things kicked off
massively. We initially heard whistles, we heard grunts, we heard pant hoots,
and then these whatever they were, I know where they were, but
these animals were becoming there though, and then become very insistent, and they
were coming up towards where we were. They weren't bluff charging, but we
could hear them moving up towards the tent. We'd stick our heads out shine
a torch. It'd all go quiet. Now it got to about one o'clock
in the morning. I'm tired. I've been walking for two days. My
body is shut down. Despite the fact that animals were approaching the tent,
they were making noises, and I'd had probably spent twenty minutes of terror as
things were approaching the tent. We certainly had animals moving up towards and that'd
fall asleep for ten minutes and then it'd start again. We'd either shine a
torch out of the tent around and everything would stop. I'd then fall asleep
for ten minutes. Then they'd start again. They'd start whistling, they'd start
making noises, they'd start to approach the tent. We'd unit the tent,
shine a torch out. Nothing there. And then I fell asleep and was
woken up by Darryl. And we had a lamp just outside the tent and
it was set on red, so this was hanging in the tree. There
was a gap and then there was a tent and something walked in between the
lamp and the tent and the lamp disappeared. And this lamp was at about
six foot seven foot up into the tree and I was walking about. Daryl
up. He said, something's just walked in between the lamp and the tent.
And we got out. There was nothing there. We walked up to
the creek bed, which was at the end of where our tent was,
and there was eyeshine looking at us from the other side of the creek bed.
We started taunting it. We were shouting and we can see you and
it was blinking. You could see this creature who was blinking and he was
looking at it. At us, and then he just rose and then my
mind went blank. I don't know what the animal did. It clearly walked
off. I'd then seen a pair of eyes rise, and then I don't
know what happened after that. I know we went back to bed, and
at about four o'clock in the morning we switched which the lamp from red light
to white light and everything stopped. Nothing happened from then on and stay tuned
from more sasquat Jalousy, We'll be right back. After these messages. We
got up in the morning, we walked back, walked into camp, Matt
Prewit, Sir Alton Higgins, Brandon Lentz, and Brian Brown. Did anything
happen? We downloaded for about an hour on what had happened. Then during
the afternoon the other guy said, we want to go to where you've experienced
all this. I looked at Darryl and thought, I'm not going back there,
and then Darrell looked to me, and I think he probably came up
with the same sort of conclusion that he wasn't going to go back. And
at that point I thought, this might be my last time in x I
may never go here again, so I'm going to go back. The following
night, I took Matt Prewitt, Brian Brown, Brandon Lens back to what
they now call Monkey Hollow, which is named it Monkey Hollo because that's where
they were. We went back we hammock camp that night. We got in
there, I was fully expecting as soon as it went dark for it to
kick off again. It didn't. We all went to sleep and at one
fifty three, and this is imprinted on my brain now, at one fifty
three I was woken up by a rock displacement in the creek bed in front
of me. I sat up and something directly behind my hammock whistled really loudly.
I should have turned round to look, because that thing was probably about
five foot behind my hammock. There was an ape. I'm going to say
there's an ape. There was an ape behind my hammock looking at me asleep
and was clearly watching its friend walk across a creek bed. And when I
sat up, it warned that animal off that it was about to be seen,
and it whistled, at which point I shouted out, people, I've
just heard a whistle. There was no response. Everybody else was asleep.
I then shouted really loudly. Again, people, I've just heard a whistle.
Matt Pruitz sat up in his habit he whistled, and then for the
rest of the night we had mouthpops and whistles from various animals around our hammock
camp. Unfortunately didn't have any night vision, but we were surrounded by three
or four animals that were indicating to each other that they were here. There
would be a mouthpop on one side of the hammer camp, and there'd be
a mouthpop on the other, and there'd be aby whistle, and we were
whistling back and mouth popping back. We were being answered by these creatures.
That was probably a really odd time because I was surrounded by vocalizations, and
I was aware that you could look into the distance, you could shine your
torch around, and you wouldn't see an animal. They clearly knew where they
had to be so they wouldn't be seen. And I've experienced this a few
times in x now. These animals are really tactical. They know where they
have to be not to be seen. They know where they can sit,
and they will sit and they will watch you for a long time. Obviously,
they're not saying they're bored, but we're of interest to them, and
they can just sit there for hours watching you. And we found it several
times that they'll just sit on the hill and you'll just be watched. I've
heard Kathie Strain say we're always being watched in those valleys, and if there's
one, there's probably two, and if there's two, there's probably three.
And that's true. I think we've figured out over the years i've been in
there, and they've not certainly know this, that there's probably more than one
creature at any one time. Now. The following year, I was back
again in September with the same team Brian and Brandon. Darryl hadn't come in
at this point. We'd spent a lot of time and there's a guy called
David as well who was in with us, and we'd spent a lot of
time walking around. We'd been up to a place any WC. There was
a guy in the the wc'd been looking at Google Earth, gone through the
valley and he'd found an image which looked like gorilla walking in the trees.
I've got a copy of an image and if you look at that image,
it's a gorilla in the woods of Oklahoma picked up on Google Earth. So
we went that location to try and figure out was it maybe a shadow of
a tree. We got there, there was nothing would indicate that at that
time there was a tree that was able to produce a shadow that looked like
an ape. So they probably captured an image of an ape on Google Earth.
And we went to that location and we've been wandering around now anything we've
figured out. These creatures were watching when you're walking around, and if you
start to do things which are out of the ordinary, they get confused.
Obviously, they can't count, so if you're in a group of five people,
they will follow five people. But if you then start mixing it up
and maybe leap frog around, one of you will just get down in a
ditch and sit there. The others will walk off and and they'll stop,
and then you'll walk through them. They get confused. They can't keep track
of multiple targets. Over those two days, we confused them on a regular
basis to the fact that at one point Brandon was sat probably about a mile
away from where we were at the time. He was there, sat with
a long rifle. We were walking up and down the track leap frogging,
and Brian and I had heard a woodknock and we were stood and all we're
trying to keep quiet, and all of a sudden we could hear what we
thought was Brandon walking at the track, and Brian got a bit annoyed because
we were trying to be quiet and there was Brandon walking at the track and
all of Brandon gone on the radio and said where are you guys? And
whatever had been walking up that track wasn't Brandon because he was still a mile
away. Now what we should have done is run down the track to where
that noise was, but we both just looked at each other, what the
hell was hat That wasn't Brandon? And again, in retrospect, we should
have just ran towards whatever that noise was. If we'd have gone around the
corner, we might have bumped into an eight, but we both just stood
there, and it's one of those regrets. Again, we should have done
something, but we didn't. You hear about Area X, and you think,
initially, when when I was reading up on it after i'd contacted Anywa,
you think there's so much happening in that wood it can't be true.
But it is people have told me about weeks in x in the past,
which should be part of big Foot law. This is the stuff happened in
there was akin to some of the best events that have ever happened in Sasquatch
would a big put history. Brian Brown once drove out of that valley and
said he'd never go back into there because it was so intense that week that
he drove out of there and thought, I'm never going back into there,
and he came back the following year. To be honest, until recently,
when I was in things would happen and I was really uncomfortable. I've been
in combat. The feeling I got when I was close to these animals was
a kin to being shot at. I had the same sort of feelings.
The adrenaline rush I've experienced is really odd. People say they've been zapped,
give me this. I was zapped, but it was weird. Things happened.
I lay in a tent two years ago. So I'll tell you about
my friend Steve in a bit. I've only told probably five people in the
UK outside my family about what's happened. I've had to be really careful on
who I've told, and I've told five people, and Steve was the first
guy outside my family. I told now, Steve's an ex British Special Forces
soldier. He's a good friend of mine. We were at a meal once
and our wives were sat eating. Steve had gone out for a cigarette.
I don't smoke, but I went out and had a chat and someway in
that conversation, he said, have you ever seen any weird shit? And
I just went y, yes, and then downloaded about Bigfoot. Now fully
expected Steve to laugh, and Steve listened. And after the trips after that,
i'd come back, we'd sit in a pub and I'd download and at
some point Steve said to me, I need to go there. So last
April I took Steve out on his first trip to x and he experienced ape
activity on his first day in that valley. We walked for about six miles.
We got down, we sat down. I was tired, I fell
asleep. I took my daysack off. We were all just sat there.
I was walking up by Brian, who'd seen what he thought was a great
creature walk in the tree line in the distance between two trees, and then
whatever that was he couldn't see. So we were all sat there. I
fell asleep again. Steve, who I told you might get a wood knock,
but don't expect anything more than a wouldnock, was just stood there looking
in the tree line. I then heard him shout there's an effing monkey in
a tree, at which point I jumped up and everybody else who'd been sat
there had jumped up. Brandon and a guy called Chad were looking with Steve
at an ape in a tree and the tree was being thrashed. He was
going left to right and this ape was hanging in the tree. As I
jumped up, all I could see was the tree. This tree was probably
eight inches wide, and this tree was being thrashed by an animal as a
display. Steve had seen this thing hanging in a tree, and the tree
was swaying around. Brandon and Chad had just seen the animal drop out by
the time I'd got a got up, and Brian could only see it as
well. We could only see the tree moving well and truly being thrashed.
This this animal, in probably an aggressive pose, was just freshening the tree
in front of us. I know what Steve's voice sounds it like, but
this was about three octaves higher when he screamed, He's a Special Forces soldier,
or was a Special Forces soldier, and he screamed. And we spent
a good half an hour after we went up to tree and had look at
it, and Steve climbed up in the tree, and we've got photographs of
him in the position where this animal was. This animal was probably about human
sizing, probably a juvenile ape, hanging in a tree, thrashing it in
front of us. When we started heading back to camp, Steve tapped me
on the shoulder and showed me his hand and his hand was shaking. We
talked about this on the way back. Now I've never seen Steve. Steve's
a Special Forces soldier. Steve's hand was shaking and he was clearly nervous.
Now that night he'd put his tent into a position. He pitched his tent.
We were all asleep and I heard a scream and him shout go away.
Now it transpired that Steve had been woken up by footfall walking down a
track, bipedal footfall, and there'd be a pace and then stop, something
that would stopped. Then he had do another pace. Then it had stopped,
and he'd heard this animal walk down the track. He then stood next
to his tent and pointed his finger in so he could see a digit push
into the canvas, at which point Steve will deny this, but he screamed
and then kicked the digit and shouted go away. And then I heard Chad
scream what was that? I got out. I shone my torch. Step
and Chad were there, and they'd both heard this animal walk down the track
standing from of Steve's tent poke it, at which point Steve screamed and kicked
this digit. That was eventful. Having told Steve that he'd only ever have
a woodknock, is there seen one on his first day and something's poked his
tent. We went back entho the future, and Steve's been back since.
We were both back again in April, and then that September back out again.
I put my tent into the same position as Steve had his tent.
Boy, was that a bad idea. What we found is you can't sit
in a camp and expect them to find you. They won't do that.
You may be looking, you may have an a to find your camp,
but you've got to spend time on the ground, wandering around in the hope
of picking one up, and in that valley there's definitely more than one eight
there's probably a troop of them, so the chances of you finding one or
one finding you is pretty high. And we'd walked out on the first day,
we'd spend a lot of time out. We'd spend a lot of time
out on the second day, and then that night I was lying in my
bed early hours of morning when something started to walk down the track in exactly
the same track as Steve had heard it again tactical one pace, stop,
listen, one pace. And I heard this animal walk down the track past
my tent, walk down a bit further, and then there was a bit
of a scrub line at this point between an old logging track and our campsite,
and I heard this animal walking around and it was mumbling as a human
would mumble. It was mumbling I'm not comfortable at this point. And I'm
lying there thinking Brian's listening to this. And at this point there's only Brian
and I in the camp and I'm thinking Brian's hearing this. And then there
was a massive thood and I said, Brian, did you hear that?
And I woke Brian up and he hadn't heard anything, and he said,
should we get out? We got out of our tents. As soon as
you're on zip of tent, if there's something there, it's going to disappear.
It's going to go. So as soon as we got out, we
shot our torches around. There's nothing there, got it back into tent.
I then had a number of podcasts on my phone. I turned my lamp
on my tent, turned my phone on, and spent the rest of the
night listening to podcasts because I was massively uncomfortable about what happened. It then
happened the following night the same thing, whatever it was, walk past my
tent tactically. I then had a massive adrenaline rush. When people say the
binzapped, I think it's adrenaline. My body vibrated. I was lying there
and my body vibrated, at which point again I shouted to Brian. Brian
was asleep. I hadn't heard anything. Now Brian's probably lying there thinking,
bloody ell, Rich, he's now heard things over two nights. He's got
big foot on the brain. We were then joined by two other team members
the following day, Jody and Chad. They pitched their tents. We'd been
out, we'd done a lot of wandering around that day. That night,
I'm lying there and exactly the same thing happened. An animal walked down the
train. It walked past my tent, and I'm thinking everybody in camp is
now hearing this. It then went quiet. I fell back to sleep,
and then something ran past my tent. My body vibrated as this thing ran
past my tent. Jody's tent was just on the track opposite me, and
I shouted, Jody, did you hear that? She woke up, so
did Chad, and so did Brian. So I'm just saying, something's just
ran past my tent, and clearly these three Americans are a going the mad.
Brits has now heard something for the third time in three successive nights,
and certainly Brian hadn't for two nights, and then the other three hadn't heard
it that night. And then we had the loudest power knock any of us
as ever heard. Brian had never heard of power knock this loud, and
I shouted, and that's what Sephyn just ran past my tent. So clearly
whatever the animal was heard us all speaking and just whacked the side of a
tree. Now, funnily enough, over those two days we'd discuss that was
it actually a wood knock or were they vocalizing and it sounded like a would
knock, maybe hitting the chest or doing something with the mouth. This was
clearly wood onward. They may vocalize to sound like wood knocks, but this
was definitely wood on wood. This creature was certainly angry, or it was
letting us know that it was around. So at that point the mad Brit
wasn't the mad Brit anymore because he did it run past nobody else had,
But then that animal would not. Then, going back a couple of years
before with Nawac, and I should have mentioned this earlier. We'd been out
for the day got back. We'd been out for about three or four days.
We've been an ext for about three or four days, and I was
stinking. I smelt, I could smell myself at that point that you need
to clean yourself off, and using wet wipes under your arms to clean yourself
or clearly had worked. The NAWC had got a sort of cold shower at
the back with rain water. I stripped down naked and I showered. I
then dried myself off, and as I bent over to pull my trousers up,
I looked up. And as I looked up, I looked into a
window in the foliage, and a cinnamon creature got off up the hill.
Now, if it was a bear, this thing would have crashed through the
foliage. If it was a deer, it would have crashed through the foliage.
This thing didn't make a sound. I just saw this cinnamon blur and
then it disappeared up the hill. I shouted, I've just seen something.
Brian and Brandon chased this animal up through the trees. Now they found at
one point they think they got near to an ape. And as they got
near to an ape, all of a sudden, just over somewhere else,
there was a lot of commotion. So there's probably two of them, and
one of them had realized Brian and Brandon were near to it and then made
a load of the noise. Then Brian and Brandon went towards the noise,
because that's what you do, you go towards the noise to clearly let this
on the other animal escape. But this animal had run up the hill silently.
And I've heard stories about Awac where the animals had run up hills and
made no noise. And you hear on podcasts that people have said that as
this animal ran off, it didn't make a noise, and whether it's some
more fology of the foot it's able to do this. But I think this
animal ran up a dry creepbread and probably use the boulders and made no sound.
So we then recreated what had happened, and I stood in the shower
area and Brian walked up the creek bed. As he's walking up the creek
bed, he saw a position and he thought, I hope Rich brings me
onto this position, because this position was looking directly down onto camp. It
was a weird sort of square rock, big boulder in the middle of the
creek bed. Now he was thinking, this would be an ideal place for
me to look down into the campsite. And he's going to I hope Rich
stops me here. So I'm saying to Brian, move, move, move.
I stopped him in this window of vegetation, and it was exactly where
he thought I should stop him. That if you were an ape and you
were sat there and you were looking down into the camp, that's where you
would sit. Now, when I went up there to look down into where
I had been showering, there was a load of muss on that rock,
and some of the muss had been rubbed away, And it was almost like
this animal was sat on this boulder looking down at the weird naked humans down
in the campsite. It was a cracking position to just watch us. Now,
a couple of times when I've been there before, when when we've heard
mouth popping, it was from that area. So clearly they got an area
where they could just sit there all night and if they needed to and just
watch the team just sat there though I'd brought Brian into exactly the same note.
I took a photograph of the window and the foliage with Brian in the
middle, And stay tuned for more Sasquat jalousy. We'll be right back after
these messages. Now, this animal was a third bigger on one side and
a third bigger on the other. It was massive. It had been there
watching me shower. Now at that point it seemed me naked. It knows
I am not a threat. I'm not a threat to it because I'm not
ape sized, and it's now seeing the naked human and it had watched me,
and it had only got to a point where I was pulling my pants
up and I'd looked up. I clocked it, it realized that it had
been seen, and it ran up the hill silently. These creatures are really
tactical. Now Steve will tell you that they've read the Closer Reconnaissance Handbook,
because what they do is massively tactical. They know where they can stand and
not be seen, and if you move towards them, they know exactly how
far they need to move back so you can't see them. And if you're
not looking for them, they'll just sit there and they'll just watch you.
They'll follow you. Last year, after Steve's sighting, after Steve's poke,
Steve and I, at the end of the day, having trekked out,
would go out at last light and sit down and just wait till it was
dark and just see what was happening. Because you know what's happened that last
night. You'll get deer out, you'll get things moving around. We had
hugs while we were there. We had deer. The first night we went
out, we were sat in a tree line just looking down on the track
and I heard a sound. I just looked at Steve. Steve was looking
at me with his mouth open, and I said, what if you just
heard? And he went, something just went, and we'd heard this a
good mile out from camp. I was uncomfortable at this point because this was
quite near to us. We couldn't see anything. I just had Steve come
on, we're going back, and we walked back into camp. We told
the team the following night, Steve and I did exactly the same now what
we did. We walked down a track and we were really obvious. We
were being really loud. We were talking loudly, and I'd said to Steve,
at some point we'll stop talking. We'll come off the track quietly,
sit down and just see what happens. Maybe we've been trailed by an eight.
One's paralleling us, and we might see one walking down the track behind
us, and we'd see what we can see. We shut up. We
got to the edge of the track where I wanted to sit. It was
pretty loud. There was a creek bed and it was loud. You could
hear the river. You could hear stones being moved around the river. I
said to Steve, this isn't a good position. Let's find somewhere else and
silently we walked about probably twenty thirty meters and then went over the other side
of the track and sat down for twenty minutes. It's getting towards last night.
Nothing's happening. I'm getting bored. I got mom binoculars out to try
and look and see if as any birds going through, and there was a
scrub line about fifty meters away. I scanned through the scrub line. It's
an object. Moved to the left, look back on the object again,
and I was looking at the back of an ape, conical head, shoulders,
wide body. I turned to Steve and said I've seen an ape.
Steve got up from his position, ran across. I got back and that
animal had gone, but I was looking at wasn't there anymore? So I
got on the radio said to the guys, we got eyes on an ape.
Brian said, do you want us to come? And I said,
no, there's an epe between us and you. I'm not happy with this.
I'm leaving now because this thing was massive and it was really weird,
look like it was tricolored. It was dark and there was bits of light
streaking in it, and it looked a bit weird. I really bizarred.
My brain wasn't working very well when I got back, and we immediately video
encounters and I was being videoed by Brian and I'm describing what he was that
as it looked like Rod Stewart. I don't know where Rod Stewart came from,
but that's the only thing I could describe it as nothing like Rod Stewart,
but that's how I described it. So the following day we went back
and we sat in the position and I got the guys onto where I thought
it was, and it couldn't have been where it was. It knelt down,
probably about ten meters further on, and it was knelt down next to
a tree. Now we figured out we could see two look like dents where
two knee caps would be, but there were knee caps twice a size of
ours. Now, this animal probably been following us. It was watching us.
It was probably in the scrub line. It watched us. It was
paralleling us down the track, and then we jumped into our first area.
It sat down where it thought he could then watch us, but probably while
it was getting itself into position, we moved, so then it sat there
looking at the track. Where it thinks we are, and we're not there
anymore. We somewhere else. And then I saw the back of it,
and when I said to Steve, I've got an ape, and Steve moved
across it clearly knew it had been sprung, and it disappeared and where it's
knee caps were. Then next to this tree was a branch where something had
stood on this branch and snapped it. There was a wide snap, so
this animal had clearly just run off silently again, but that's how they are.
Their tactical. They follow you around. This one had clearly followed us
and had lost us, and I happened to see the back of it.
They're there. There's no doubt that there is an undescribed primate in North America.
Now, if you said that to me in twenty ten, i'd've probably
laughed at you. But so much has happened to me. I count myself
lucky now that I've probably seen three that can't be anything but apes, and
then three things that probably are. There can't be anything else but three definite
SiGe itings of apes. Now I'm counting the eye shine that I saw on
my first trip as an eight because the fingers were moving around. Now.
The funny thing about eye shine as well. The eye shine I saw on
my first two trips in two X it was greenish yellow. I've seen eyeshine
over the last two trips that have been red, which pould and I remember
posing the question on the forum of the NAWAC. I've seen yellow eye shine,
yellow green eye shine, but everybody's describing red and they said it could
be both. You can see both. I don't know how they do it,
but they do. Last year, we walked out a camp Brian shouted,
I've got eyeshine. I didn't see it. Initially, Brian and Chad
saw two red eyes looking at hers, a significant eye, and then eventually
I saw it and then we lost it in the distance. The following day
we went back to where we saw it, and that animal was stood in
a drainage ditch looking at us. So half of its body was in a
drainage ditch, and it clearly moved up a drainage ditch, but where it
was he could look directly intoward the campsite we were in. It was there.
It was stood there looking at us, and then realized we were seeing
it, and he just walked off in the pitch black, and we didn't
see it now Brandon of the time, as we were walking out of camp,
Brian had said to Brandon over, you've got the thermal, and Brandon
has forgotten it, and he'd gone back to the campsite to get the thermal.
By the time he'd got back and we were scanning this animal that had
gone, but it was stood tactically, half of it, bit of its
body in this drainage ditch, the rest of it just looking down into camp.
And then Steve and I this year in October, first night were intense
and there was clearly something wandering around camp at night times. Again tactically it
was. It wasn't the first night, but the second night something was walking
around camp tactically. So the following night, Brian had brought his air stream
down. We're at a trailhead. He's got this wonderful airstream caravan. He
pulled the awning out and Steve and I slept under the awning and we said,
look, if there's an animal walking around and we're intent, we're not
going to see it. And if we don't zip the tent, it's going
to move off. Let's sleep where we are. Let's sleep outside and if
one comes in, we might get sight of it. And that night I
was walking up by Steve and he'd seen eye shine effectively again because we checked
it. The following day there was an animal stood in another drainage ditch looking
into camp. And when Steve had said, Rich, I've got eyeshine and
woke me up, I moved and the eye shiners disappeared. It clearly knew
it had been seen, and it moved off. So that was the first
night we slept out. The second night, what we decided we would do
is we'd sit in Brian's truck all night, just Steve and I because Brian
was in his bed, even if looking to get out of his air stream,
he was a nice double bed in his air stream. He was going
to sleep in there. At last, like Steve and I got into a
Brian's truck. We had the windows open. He's sat in the front,
I'm sat in the back. It was freezing. It was really cold,
and there was cold coming through the bed of the truck and I could feel
it just going on my legs, and I had nothing really to keep myself
warm. And at some point I fell asleep and I lay down on the
back seat and Steve heard clanging metal in the campsite and he woke me up.
I sat up. As soon as I sat up, there was this
pulsating smell came into the truck. Now I just said it was like something
that defecated, but Steve describes it as defecation. And if you drag your
the stick under the bottom of a pond that's got a load of dead leaves
on there, and that smell comes out. He described as that smell mixed
with excrement. I described it as excrement. It was a pulsating smell came
into the truck, then stopped and we were sat there and we were fully
expecting to see an ape walk from the bottom of Brian's airstream and into campsite,
and then nothing happened. We had one more pulsating smell and that was
it. Now the following morning, what we found was Brian had left his
daysack out and he'd got two metal bottles in there. Something had dragged that
day sack about six foot and the metal bottles had clanged, and that's what
Steve had heard. Now I sat up. What we believe may have happened
is something was watching. Steve sat in the front of the truck and then
when I sat up, it was shocked maybe and did that smell that they
do, And it was a pulsating smell that then stopped and then pulsated a
few minutes later on. So that was my first experience of smelling them.
We make notes of everything. We got field notes. Somebody takes field notes
in every trip. Whoever takes field notes, I still do my own,
and I've got a notepad with field notes and photographs everything that happens. So
zero one hundred hours would not to the southeaster camp. I've logged it in
this notebook. Now I've got in the list at the back a list of
things that have occurred. So if there was a book of wood eight behavior,
I've ticked them off. I've written pantut, I've written given call,
would knock mouth pop. And my last one now is I've now written the
stink because I've now smelt them. Now, this trip was really interesting.
We then again spent the day walking out. We've been out all day walking.
We got back into camp. We were sat down in our chairs and
we were drinking and chatting. Now Steve wants to see an them. So
Steve stood up and he's just looking into the woods. He's looking at the
track we'd come up into the campsite. He was just looking into that area.
His idea was if something was going to follow, as it might come
up that track. And he's just stood there, and then he's looking through
the trees and he could see what he described as do you o the wood
burlls on damaged trees? You get some describing as wood cancer, but it's
where the tree has been damaged. He could see out the side of this
tree, this black damaged wood burl, and he's looking at his wood burl.
He's got really bad pair of binoculars for a Special Forces soldier, he's
got the shittiest pair of binocular as ever. And he's looking through these these
really bad binoculars at this wood burl for about two minutes. And then this
wood burl moved and the head poked out, and he describes a black faced
gorilla, at which point he shouted I I don't know what he shouted,
but he indicated he'd seen something peeking out from the tree. We all jumped
up and we stood there and write, Steve, where is it? And
he said, it's on the tree with the sunlight. Now you look down
there, every tree has got sunlight on it. So I'm sca from right
to left and I pick up what looks like what I initially thought was the
legs of an animal, just sticking out, and Steve saying, I can't
see the head anymore, and I'm saying, Steve, I can see hair.
I can see black hair. And at the side of the tree,
I could just see what I thought was from maybe the waist downwards, and
I was trying to get everybody onto it. Then we lost it. We've
taken photographs of it, and if you take photographs of an area, it's
really bizarre. You look at the photograph and you think, how can an
animal ide behind that tree? But actually our ground troof is a lot different,
and photographs don't actually pick up all the scrub that's around either. We
walked down there later on and we've had Brandon stand by the tree and I
looked through by baroculars and what I was probably looking at was probably shoulder downwards.
It wasn't legs downwards, it was actually shoulder downwards. This creature was
bloody massive. I don't know how it hid behind that tree, but it
did. But Steve had seen what he thought as a wood bull and then
the head poked out and it's or a tree peak. That place, I've
heard it described as Jurassic Park, and it is. It really is.
Whether there's one troop in one valley and the moving around or My hypothesis is
that it's probably wrong, but there's a probably a troop of apes in the
valley that see operating. There may be a troop of apes in the valley
we operate in, and they don't mix because obviously there are two troops.
They may mix. You hear descriptions of a gray animal that's walking around,
now, Brian's seeing a gray animal in both of those valleys. Now whether
it's the same animal or whether there are two sort of silver back males wandering
around in different valleys, but it's an amazing place and it shouldn't be Oklahoma.
When I thought of alcohola before I went there, it was just a
load of farmers singing in the song in a movie. But that place is
just it's amazing. The area ANYWC rating is difficult to get into, and
if you listen to Seth Breedlove talk about it, saying how difficult it is
to get into there. It is now the campsite we operated in initially in
the new Valley. We won't drive trucks down into there anymore. Brian keeps
trashing his truck every time he gets in there. It's so difficult to get
into and he's got dents and bits missing off in now. So we don't
camp there anymore. We camp somewhere else and walk into that valley because it's
just too difficult to get into. We don't see many people. We occasionally
get ATV drivers going through. Last year we had a forestry worker she gone
down into there to look at the health of trees. We saw a walk
down in the morning and all day she was walking around the woods and she's
pracing little flags around trees, and we found these flags around cornerfer trees that
I think they're probably going to go in there to do a bit of wood
clearing. She said she was looking at the health for trees. But funnily
enough, when she walked out as she left, Brian and I heard a
whistle just afterwards, and we walked off to where's we walked to where we'd
heard the whistle, and then got a radio call from David who said that
as this lady had walked out of the valley, there was a knock as
she left the valley. See you will describe that there's probably a century on
the valley and his vehicle's come in and come in, they'll get a wood
knock. Now, Brandon and I a couple of years ago tried this and
we knew that Daryl was coming into the valley late. And just before last
night, Brandon and I walked out the valley and we sat either side of
a track waiting for Daryl to come. And the idea was we'd watch Darrel's
truck drive through the valley and we'd hopefully see something following it. Now,
we heard a power knock and I got on the radio, and so Darrel's
on his way in, and about two minutes later we heard Darrel's truck.
So something was sat at the edge of that valley as a century, and
as a vehicle came in, it knocked to let all the other rapes know
that something was coming in. They described that happening all the time. I've
heard it on another podcasts that's a description. You have a century out and
that centry's waiting, and Sunday moves in. They'll knock to let everybody know.
I'm a brick. I shouldn't have experienced this. I know, as
people like Adam Davis has done this sort of stuff, But I fell into
this by mistake. I was at bird watching. My life has changed considerably.
There is not a day where I don't think about that valley. If
I can't get to sleep in the early hours of the morning, I imagine
myself walking around those tracks and eventually I'll fall asleep. And I said to
Steve when we left after our first trip, you will think about this place
every day for the rest of your life. And he does. And I've
told a few friends. I thought I kept its secret on social media,
but I've had two people contacting me on Instagram and said, are you that
rich who was in the podcast a few years ago? And they'd got me
because I'd like people's photographs and they'd start who I am. So those people
know, but I've kept it pretty quiet. I've let certain people know,
but I've got a whole range of really good friends who haven't got a clue.
As far as they're concerned, and as far as work's concerned, I
go to do large mammal surveys. I'm not lying. I'm just not telling
them what large mammal is. Fuddily enough, we had a sort of team
building event a couple of weeks ago, and you had to sit next to
somebody and they had to draw a portrait of you. Then they'd stand up
and they say, this is rich. This is what I think is like,
I've got short hair, i haven't got a beard. He drew a
picture of a man with long hair and a long beard and a sign behind
it saying Bigfoot weather. Some people have so stout and Funnily enough, my
boss has said to me, as anybody ever said they've seen Bigfoot? And
he laugh And I've jokingly said to people I know people who say they've seen
an ape in North America. I haven't said, oh, by the way,
I'm one of them. I've said to people, I'll put it into
conversation. I know people who said there's an ape in North America. I've
not just said that, By the way, I'm one of them. I've
got two seth Breedlove's posters are framed on the wall in my office on the
trailer Bigfoot pictures, they're on the wall. I've got the Grace Harbor track
that used to be on my office. It's now at home. But yeah,
I'm sure some people have probably sussed out what I'm doing, but they're
too polite to say, because we're Brits and we are too polite. But
yeah, it's amazing. I listened to numerous podcasts mainly for validation, despite
the fact they don't need validation anymore. I can pick up and go,
Yeah, that is exactly what's happened to me, and some of the people
who've been on your podcasts, I've just bought shit. Yeah, that is
exactly that has happened to me. People describing stuff that's happened in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, it's happening all over North America, folks, and most of you
don't know. Only they're chosen for you. I think all the people you
decide to go out into those woods, and I think any better wilderness in
North America's got an ape. And we're probably going to go to Oregon later
on in the year. Might not see anything, but I'm going to see
Oregon because I've always wanted to go there, but there's a good chance if
you're in the right place and you've got boots on the ground, you're going
to bump into one or you're going to elicit sort of behavior where you'll start
getting woodnooks and you'll start getting calls. But it's an amazing place. Area
Ex is definitely on my checklist. I think I've made inroads with Darryl and
Brian and all those guys. I'm going to try to work my way in
here. I would love to make a trip out there this spring or summer.
I would love to get out and spend at least four or five days
out in Area Ex. I think it would be I really appreciate you coming
on and sharing your experiences. Rich It's been a blast having you on the
show man. Yeah, I've been looking forward to it all day. Actually,
yeah, we came on this later because it's two o'clock in the morning.
It's now half past three in the morning. I'm going to get to
bed in them and it had a couple of hours sleep before this. But
it's been great to catch up the face to a voice because I've only ever
heard you before. And hopefully we'll see you later run in the year in
the UK, they say you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
And I don't want to be long. We're all uppen trying this job.
That chid everything right back, Joy for me, Joy, stay right,
come in right away, dons side and still states, SUSS still study
statis stands side stay still, SUSS games still steps US and things in fast USS instances