WEBVTT

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I was blessed with five children,
two girls and three boys. All of

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my children had odd experiences, but
my middle son was the first to have

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a sighting. Matthew passed away three
years ago due to I'm sorry, I'm

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having trouble pronouncing this metastic lung cancer. I think that's right. He turned

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forty nine on June twenty and left
us thirty two days later. Ma'am,

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I'm very sorry to read this.
This breaks my heart. My kids are

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approaching forty and I just can't imagine. Anyway, Let's move on. Matthew

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was five or six around nineteen seventy
three or nineteen seventy four, and back

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then kids had a lot more freedom
than they do today. They went outside

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to play in the morning, and
they didn't come home until they got hungry

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or their moms blew the whistled or
yelled for them. That's how it was

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in rural southern Maryland where we lived. It was around the time that Matthew

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had discovered his love for huckleberries.
He would go into the woods and pick

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the berries rather than come home for
lunch. All the kids played near the

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woods, or maybe a dozen yards
or so inside the tree line. But

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to get to the huckleberries, matt
had to go a little deeper than that.

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One day, he was picking away
and eating berries by the handful when

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he began to feel like someone was
watching him. There wasn't anyone else around

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that he knew of, but the
feeling was so strong that it made him

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nervous. After a few minutes,
he decided he didn't want to be there

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anymore, and he came to the
house and he told me about it.

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I didn't want to dismiss my son's
concerns out of hand, but I did

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want to reassure him. Matthew wasn't
prone to telling stories are exaggerating, and

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even at his young age, he
was level headed. If he said he

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felt like he was being watched,
then he felt like he was being watched.

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And I told him that it was
probably because he had gone into a

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part of the woods where the shadows
were a little darker than they are on

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the edge. That could make things
feel scarier for anyone. And then I

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told him that he did the right
thing by coming and telling me, and

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to be careful in the future.
The next day, Matthew avoided the woods.

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But little boys are what they are
and curiosity got the better of him.

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By the following day, he had
to know who was out there and

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if they were still there or if
they had moved on. At three o'clock,

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he headed out to the woods to
find the answers to these questions.

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I suggested that he should wait until
the next day and leave earlier. The

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sun was low enough in the sky
to cast long shadows. In the deeper

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woods, it would be even darker
and the shadows there would feel even more

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menacing. Now, Mom, he
insisted, I want to go now.

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I decided the best thing that I
could do was to sit on the balcony

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and drink my coffee so I could
keep an ear out for him. It

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was over half an hour later when
he came back out of the woods with

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a pail full of berries. Well
how'd it go? I ask? Are

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you okay? Yeah? But there's
somebody out there and they need a bath

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really bad. Mom, I thought, oh, good lord, there's a

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bomb out there and he could have
hurt my boy. I know the word

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bum isn't politically correct today, but
we didn't call them homeless people back then.

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We called them bums. I was
worried, afraid, really, I

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didn't know what kind of person was
living in those woods. I didn't know

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if they were dangerous, and I
didn't want my son going back there where

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he could be hurt. I told
him to stay away from the woods for

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a while, and whoever was out
there would surely move on eventually, and

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I would check it out before I
allowed him to go back. The next

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week, Matthew asked if he could
go pick more berries, so I said

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I would go with him to make
sure the stinky guy was gone. We

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went out to the berry patch and
matt started filling his bucket. I took

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a good look around, and then
I hung out for a bit to make

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sure that no one showed up.
Once I was satisfied that my son would

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be safe, I headed back to
the house. At the time, I

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had a six month old who was
taking a nap under a watchful eye of

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my twelve year old. I had
barely reached the porch when matt came running

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out of the woods, sobbing and
crying. Every horrible thing in the world

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went through my mind, and I
ran to my child and I swept him

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up in my arms. Immediately I
noticed that he smelled like he had rolled

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in garbage. I cradled his frightened
little face in my hands, and I

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asked what happened? It was the
hairy man. He hook up through his

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tears. He he it's okay,
it's okay, calm down, I said,

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soothing, What hairy man are you
talking about? He came out from

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behind a big tree. Matt cried, and he grunted at me, doing

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his best to fight the hysteria that
was welling up inside him. My son

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went on to tell that the man
reached out to take his bucket away.

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He said the man was covered in
hair, but he didn't have a real

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face. It was covered in reddish
brown hair like mine. I had auburn

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hair at the time, only this
man's hair was all over him. He

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said. The man was big,
and then he smelled so bad that it

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made him gag. Horrified, I
decided I needed to go see this man

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for myself. Matt flew into a
panic and he begged me not to go.

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He growls and hoots like an animal. Mom, he's not human.

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Another flood of tears took his breath
away, and he had to steady himself

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for a second before he added,
mom, he's a monster. He's a

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man, but he's a monster man. Matthew was so hysterical that I couldn't

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go into the woods. It would
have been too hard on my son.

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So instead I waited for my husband
to come home, and I told him

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about it. He and our neighbor
went to check for a bumb who was

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scaring our children, and they searched
the whole area and discovered bare footprints that

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were eighteen inches long and seven to
eight inches wide, but they didn't find

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the hairy man. They followed the
prince for fifty feet until they disappeared at

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the base of a large tree.
Other than a few freshly broken branches,

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they didn't see any other signs of
him. They said the whole area smelled

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like a rotten meat, which they
attributed to the remains of a dog they

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found twenty five feet from where Matthew
had been picking berries. The dog had

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no midsection and no front legs.
My husband said it looked like it had

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been chewed off. After that,
none of the children in our neighborhood were

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allowed in the woods, but several
other children backed up Matthew's description of this

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thing, and for as long as
we lived there, the parents in the

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area, stood watch over the kids
when they played outside. Was it Bigfoot?

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We'll never know for sure. You're
welcome to form your own opinion.

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We had never heard of bigfoot or
sasquatch at that time, so it wasn't

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something any of us would have made
up. A year after all that happened,

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my uncle and my cousin had a
visit from something for three nights in

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a row. It banged on the
door as it walked through the wrap around

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porch. But that is a story
for another time. Oh that's a that's

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a good story. It's a scary
story. It's kind of a spooky story,

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especially for the kids. I'm very
sorry you lost Matthew. That's the

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saddest part of this story. And
I hated it. I had I kind

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of dwelled on that, but I
anyway, it's just just kind of sad.

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But I'm glad that you shared this
memory of Matthew with us. We

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all enjoyed it. So thank you
man for sending the story. All Right,

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you guys are gonna like this story. This is pretty good. I

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actually think this is fiction. It's
all mourning you now, but it's really

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a good story. So y'all hang
in there and listen to this one.

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See Shahallow State Park runs along the
eastern slope of the cattal Desk Prairies.

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There's some names in here I'm not
gonna be able to pronounce, y'all,

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just hang with me long. That
land, along with the Kantu Hills that

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run from the northern border of South
Dakota east of Minnesota and Iowa, was

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all formed by glaciers during the last
Ice Age. It's a beautiful and mystical

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land full of legends and mysteries.
Sea Jahalla Creek that runs through the park

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is one of the few places in
South Dakota that can still support trout,

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which makes it very unique. But
what makes it even more so is the

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red glow that appears to come from
it at night. The glow has led

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many to believe that the hollow is
haunted, and maybe it is. Sicha

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is a Sioux word for bad or
evil, and there have been many strange

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and tragic events over the years there. Back in the nineteen seventy several people

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went missing in the hollow under dubious
circumstances. Most people will tell you that

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a murderer was on the loose,
actually a serial killer, but the locals

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believe it was something else, something
unknown. The natives from the Sistine Wapatan

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Reservation to this day swear it was
the Big Elder Brother or the Chihatanka that

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caused those disappearances. Every year,
I spend my rifle deer season sitting in

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or stalking the ravines of the hollow
in search of a monster buck. The

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older season bucks notice stay hidden during
that time. Once the duck season begins

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and the sounds of the shot guns
ring through the hollow, those bucks slipped

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even deeper into the wilderness. It's
how they got to be monster bucks,

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and only the most patient and dedicated
hunters can find them. Although it takes

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a lot of time to properly scout
the ravines, determine the bucks' habits,

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and find the best location to intercept
their moves, it is good therapy to

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be out there where it is peaceful. My mind is alert, but the

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normal stresses of life are miles away. There have been rare occasions when I've

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had the feeling of being watched,
and that feeling of peace was overshadowed by

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an eerie silence. But I had
always assumed it was a deer watching me,

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or maybe even a mountain lion.
On two separate occasions, I found

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mountain lion tracks following my path in
the snow. Now that makes a man

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feel vulnerable to realize that he has
been stalked by a predator. It is

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on those occasions that I began to
think that perhaps there is something to those

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legends and superstitions. This year,
there was a tragedy in the area.

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The seventeen year old son of one
of our neighbors to the south was out

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bow hunting and he didn't return.
His bow and phone were found at the

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base of his deer stand, and
his quiver was missing one arrow. My

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family and I participated in the search, and for three days. We were

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out from seven a m. Until
dark, And since I know the area

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so well, I even offered to
continue looking during the night. The sheriff

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seemed interested, but the man in
charge of the search said no. My

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father and I went to the location
where the bow was found. On the

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second day. We found a trackway
of disturbed grass and undergrowth, along with

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three blood spots before we lost the
trail. There was no snow on the

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ground, so it was difficult to
find any major detail in the tracks,

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but they looked much larger than my
father's footprints. He wears a size fourteen

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boot, so we knew that whoever
caused the boy's disappearance was big. We

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staked and photographed and marked the location
of the blood specimens and brought it back

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to the sheriff. A man dressed
in slacks and a thin wool dressed coat

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took the samples from him. I
assumed the strangely dressed men were part of

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the Department of Criminal Investigations or some
other government law enforcement agency. Their stylish

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clothes were not meant for the rugged
terrain or the bitter cold of the upper

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Midwestern winters. On the third day, one of the searchers came across a

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grizzly scene of murder four miles to
the north in one of the neighboring drawls

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along the creek. The poor boy's
remains were a sad sight. He was

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apparently torn apart and then partially eaten. The authorities assumed that scavengers had gotten

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to the boy after he was The
circumstances surrounding his disappearance and death were strange,

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but the sheriff called an abrupt halt
to the investigation and officially declared that

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a large man had abducted and murdered
the boy four miles north of the abduction

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site. That was the day before
rifle season. I didn't let the three

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days of searching for the boy keep
me from my hunting therapy. I set

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out to hike to my spot in
the hollow at five am. A fresh

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blanket of snow fell the night before, perfect for an opening morning in the

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hollow. It takes me some time
to a bushwhack into my favorite areas to

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hunt, and I take my time
and try not to make a racket so

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I don't spook the deer. And
on this morning I went to a stand

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that I had set up two weeks
before. I walked in north of the

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highway, moving slowly through the oaks
and the buck brush of the first ravine,

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there was a game trail that I
knew the deer herds were using to

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move between the ravines. The trail
was a foot wide and already filled with

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tracks, and I looked closely at
all of them. The most were small,

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They were likely yearlings. Two sets
appeared to be a large dough or

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maybe a buck. All of the
tracks were fresh. Within fifteen minutes,

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I was moving down the ravine in
which Jack Standfast used to live. The

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old rock foundation of his house was
still there, standing a foot higher than

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the ground around it. Dad says
that some of his neighbors used to set

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up their hogs to feed on the
abundance of acorns in Jack's ravine. I

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believe it's those acorns that draw the
deer to the area as well. My

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stand was fifteen feet up and attached
to an old oak tree near the edge

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of the hollow. It gave me
a good view of the forest to creek

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bottom to my right and the open
receded native prairie to my left. The

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game cameras that I set up told
me that a monster buck that I had

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been watching was coming through this area
and I was in a likely position to

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intercept it. He was an irregular
buck with seven points on the right and

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six on the left. The seventh
point on the right was a drop time.

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I swept across the area with my
binoculars from right to left, and

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I caught a fleeting movement on my
left at the edge of the draw.

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It was too quick to determine what
sort of animal it was. Seconds later,

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a loud gunshot rang out. It
was of a caliber not generally used

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for deer hunting. Normally, hunters
in the area don't use anything larger than

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a three to eight, but this
sounded bigger, something like a three thirty

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eight magnum I used for elk hunting
out west. Hearing such a report was

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odd to me, so I watched
to the north. The two more shots

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rang out. It was thirty minutes
into the season, and those were the

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only shots I heard. Normally I
would have heard a cacophony of shots as

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hunters began firing on deer as soon
as they began moving in the morning.

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A few seconds later, I saw
a man running through the draw one hundred

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and fifty yards east of where I
was sitting. He looked like he was

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wearing a gilly suit. He wasn't
wearing any orange, so I hollered at

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him to start making noise and announce
himself. Wearing orange is a requirement in

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South Dakota that saves lives every year. I didn't want him getting shot.

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Not all hunters think first and shoot
second. The man didn't slow down or

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appear to hear me. He ran
faster through the trees than I believed anyone

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could, and this was with a
limp in his gait. It looked like

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he was dragging his left leg.
I was so focused on the strange man

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to my east that I didn't see
the man walking in from the north.

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He was also not wearing blaze orange, but he was carrying a shotgun.

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I decided to talk to him about
the safety issue that he was presenting to

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him, and to let him know
about the other man in the gilly suit.

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I thought maybe they knew each other, but it was better to be

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safe than sorry. I climbed down
the ladder and announced myself. Sir,

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I'm a hunter and I'm armed.
I called out, I want to talk

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to you a minute. Well,
thanks for announcing yourself, said a Southern

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accent. Have you seen anything strange
come by here? I told him about

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the man in the gilly suit that
I saw run through the creek bottom.

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He told me that that was who
he was following. I happened to notice

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his rifle barrel. He was standing
close to me, and it said point

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four to sixty Weatherbury magnum. That's
a big rifle for deer hunting, I

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said, makes my sixty five creed
More look like a pea shooter. I'm

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not hunting deer, he said.
If you want to stay safe, you

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should be wearing orange and keep the
other hunters from shooting you. I told

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him, well, I can't do
that. He replied, well, what

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are you doing out here anyway?
I asked, you're not hunting, and

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you're toning a four sixty mag not
a week after a murder just north of

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here. I'm finding the killer,
he quipped, and then added, I

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need to get moving. I stepped
in his way as someone called out,

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Steve, let's go. The trail
leads south. Steve, if you're hunting

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the killer, you'll need the tracker
and someone who knows the hall of the

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boot. I'm both of those,
and the boy who was killed was a

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neighbor and a friend of mine.
I said, we got this. Steve

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said, I don't want to ruin
your hunt. I decided it was best

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to step out of his way and
let him continue his hunt. I heard

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him say, let's go Lewis.
As I stood at the base of my

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tree and watched the man walking away, I decided I wasn't going to allow

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these two individuals to search for the
killer alone. If the man in the

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Gillie suit was the murderer, I
would feel far better seeing his capture or

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demise. I stripped off my blaze
orange vest and stuffed it into my pack.

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Everything else I was wearing was perfect
for stalking. I allowed Steve to

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get out in front of me a
good bit. He and his friend moved

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rather quickly to the south, and
I moved to the trail which the gilly

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suit man used. I knew they
would fare far better with me tracking him.

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When I found the trail, I
didn't find boot prints. I found

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barefoot human looking prince. Instead.
They were really big, big as the

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track's dad and I followed during the
search. This had to be the killer

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that we tracked. I followed the
track and watched Steve and Lewis move into

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a ravine, and as I came
to the wooded edge, I heard Steve

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sayd Whoo, He's a big one, inn'ty Lewis. I snuck forward to

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get eyes on them while staying concealed, and Steve was cutting something while Louis

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was opening a bag, and then
I caught movement of something further past them.

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It appeared there was something stalking.
It was just below the horizon and

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staying behind the trees. It looked
like another big guy in a gilly suit,

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crouching to make a move on them. I settled my rifle on a

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tree branch where I could lean against
the trunk, and then I zoomed in

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tight and I saw the face of
a guy to the south. It was

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ugly and semi human, but definitely
not a real human. I figured it

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had to be the same ugly thing
that Steve had dispatched. I knew the

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range was three hundred yards maybe a
little long, and held the crosshairs directly

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on the nose of the beasts and
I squeezed the trigger. It fell forward

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on its face. Who is that? Steve yelled, one down to your

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south, keep your eyes up,
I responded. Stephen Lewis went back to

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back next to the beast lying on
the ground. One I didn't see started

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running in from the west and I
hollered to the west one target. It

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was in front of Steve, and
he pulled that big four to sixty Weatherbury

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mag and fired. See that A
shot went through the shoulder of the beast.

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Most rifles were sighted to shoot high
between fifty and two hundred and fifty

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yards. I recognized that the heavy
round gets lobbed to touch hollo, I

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hollered to Steve. He reset himself
as the beast was getting closer. It

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was so fast, and the rifle
fired and the beast fell forwards, getting

278
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in the snow. I moved quickly
with my rifle at the ready, checking

279
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three hundred and sixty degrees with every
few steps, and at the same time

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I saw Louis raise his ar and
shoot five rounds into the beast that I

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had shot. Once I got close, Steve said, thanks for the hand.

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You don't mind if I take the
head from your kill? Do you?

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Well? Not at all? I
said, what the hell are those

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things? Man? Those are squatches? Steve said, now you know what

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killed your neighbor. Nice work.
By the way, do you have military

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experience? It was a marine,
I said, do you mean sysquatch?

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00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:03.799
I asked, yes, sir,
that's what it is. Lewis said,

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00:22:04.119 --> 00:22:07.720
I've had bad experience with some former
Marines, but I'm thankful for you.

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Lewis and Steve told me that they
were only tracking three of the beasts.

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They had been watching the infrared footage
for several days until the search was called

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off. My world started spinning.
In the last hour. I had gone

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from hunting therapy to hunter's safety officer, to seeking vengeance for my neighbor and

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learning that the legends of the Chihatanka
were true. Stephen Lewis beheaded the ugly

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creatures and made a call to someone
to dispose of the bodies. I asked

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them if they'd be willing to make
sense of all this for me over coffee

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at my house, and they took
me up on the offer. I walked

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with them to their vehicle and they
gave me a ride to mine, and

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then they followed me to my house. Now I'm a bachelor with nothing but

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cattle, chickens, ducks, and
guineas and two bird dogs. So it

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was just the three of us at
the kitchen table talking while we drained two

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pots of coffee. I was mesmerized
by their stories. My dogs, Noelle

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and Levi. They enjoyed the attention
they got from Stephen Lewis. They let

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me know that the deer will be
out of that area for a couple of

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weeks, so I should hunt somewhere
else. I learned that they love crappie

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fishing, and it just so happened
that I had caught my limit of crappie

306
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two weeks ago at Red Iron Lake. I told them we could go out

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on the ice, since it was
five inches stick, and catch another limit.

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They declined because they didn't like the
idea of walking on top of a

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lake. So I packed three bags
of crappie and a cooler and I sent

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it with them. They told me
they would stay in touch and come back

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to do some crappie fishing someday in
Steve's boat. I showed them around the

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farm after that, and then they
went on their way. I haven't told

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anyone about these events. I had
several neighbors ask who was firing that cannon

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On opening day, the father of
the dead boy asked me about it.

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I told him someone was doing justice, but not to tell anybody. He

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hasn't said anything else about it to
me. The following weekend was Thanksgiving and

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I tagged out. It was the
irregular buck I had been tracking in the

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hollow, but I found him eight
miles to the south of my uncle's property,

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nowhere near the area I had tracked
him with the game cameras. I

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00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.240
have Stephen Lewis to thank for advising
me to look elsewhere. I'll be scouting

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the best crappy areas for Steve and
Lewis for soft water fishing this season.

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Oh it's a Steve Lily story.
I actually I knew this before I started

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00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:45.480
reading this, and this was good. I love this fan fiction that people

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write about Steve Lily. By the
way, I'm almost done with Steve Lily

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00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:55.440
sixteen. It's quite long. It's
going to be if that thing maybe three

326
00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:00.759
hours long, I'm not sure,
but I'm really I'm just taking my time

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00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:03.920
and trying to do a good job
on this number sixteen. I'm trying to

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00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:07.160
act like a real writer. That's
what it is. But I appreciate this

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00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.279
gentleman writing the fan fiction of Steve
Lilly. What a compliment to a character

330
00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:15.559
that I dreamed up in my head
that so many people enjoy. And he

331
00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:18.480
did a good job. He wrote
a great story. It was exciting.

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00:25:18.200 --> 00:25:22.480
I was like I was getting pumped
up as I was reading it. So

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00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:30.960
thanks to the writer. It was
great. Okay, there's two stories that

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00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:36.519
I read to you. Now,
what we're going to do is I was

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00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:42.400
went to the Woodwalkers Meet and greet
in LBL a couple of weeks ago,

336
00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:48.039
actually it was last weekend, and
had a great time and made some new

337
00:25:48.079 --> 00:25:51.599
friends and met some really nice people. But there were three or four people,

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00:25:51.799 --> 00:25:56.160
well, let's see two, maybe
three people who I talked him into

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00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:59.279
letting me put a mic on them, and I recorded their encounter. So

340
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:03.079
you're going to hear three encounters.
I think it's three of people telling their

341
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:07.240
own story and I think these are
fascinating, These are really good. And

342
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:11.839
then Nioma Finn, my good friend
Nioma Finn, she was there. She

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00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:15.440
told a couple of campfire stories that
were spectacular, So I'm going to include

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those two. So this video is
not ending. It's I don't know how

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00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.079
long it's going to be after this, but it's it's really good. You'

346
00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:26.359
all hang on and listen to these
stories by these people. Now for the

347
00:26:26.359 --> 00:26:32.119
Bigfoot Nights out there. These two
stories that Nioma tells, they are legend.

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00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:36.000
They're legend stories, so they may
or may not be true. So

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00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:41.119
nobody accuses me of trying to sneak
fiction in as true. Some people have

350
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:44.319
a bug up their butt about that, so I want to let you know

351
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:47.839
that. And then the last thing
I want to say before we get started

352
00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:52.440
in these camp fire stories is that
the reason I've been gone from you haven't

353
00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:56.480
seen a podcast in a couple of
weeks is because I'm recording Blood Eagle.

354
00:26:56.519 --> 00:27:00.559
I'm trying to finish it up and
do the editings on open In about a

355
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:07.559
week, maybe maybe seven or eight
days, I should have Blood Eagle done.

356
00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.319
No, it may be a little
longer than that, probably because I'm

357
00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:15.039
I'm going to crappie fishing this weekend. I'm gonna be going for four days,

358
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.880
so it may take a couple more
days than ten days. But I've

359
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:22.480
really got this thing cornered up.
I've got most of it recorded, I've

360
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:26.440
got about half of it edited.
So we're going to have another five or

361
00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:32.400
six seven hour audio book coming out. It's Operation Blood Eagle. It's a

362
00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:36.480
wild hunt novel by Da Roberts,
and y'all are going to get a kick

363
00:27:36.519 --> 00:27:41.160
out of my German accents. There's
a lot of German soldiers and there's German

364
00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:45.680
influence in the story, and I
try to do a German accent along with

365
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:51.480
my do some Spanish accents and stuff
like that, so you can listen to

366
00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:52.640
it and probably get a kick out
of it. But I don't care.

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00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:56.720
I ain't afraid to do this stuff. I ain't afraid to try to be

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00:27:56.799 --> 00:28:00.400
creative. That's just who I am. I'm a creative soul. That's who

369
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.480
I am. You'll either get a
kick out of it or you're saying it's

370
00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:06.279
pretty good. I don't think it's
very good. But anyway, I just

371
00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:07.920
thought i'd give you a heads up. All right, now, let's go

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to these camp fire stories, and
I hope y'all can do that. There

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won't be an extra or anything.
They'll just be a there'll be an end

374
00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:18.960
screen at the end of the video, and if you want to hear more

375
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:21.720
of my stories, you can just
click that video. How about that?

376
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:23.519
All right, Thank y'all for watching
it, and I hope you enjoy these

377
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camp fire stories. So me and
my buddy was riding around one night,

378
00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:41.359
just a summer night. I don't
know the light of the exact month or

379
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:47.440
anything like that. I know it
was warm outside because there was They're like

380
00:28:47.480 --> 00:28:49.000
weeds and stuff on the side of
the road and stuff like that, so

381
00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:55.039
they've gotten kind of kind of high
on this road. The weeds did.

382
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So we're riding around and the road
we were on is called New Lake Road,

383
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:03.480
and it's there's there's a new lake
and an old lake in the town

384
00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:08.039
that I live in. And we're
on the side where the dam is and

385
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:11.839
it goes up and kind of makes
a s curve switch back kind of like

386
00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:17.960
it'll wreck. You'll wreck if you're
not if you're going too fast. So

387
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:21.759
we're coming around there. Of course
we're not going I mean probably thirty miles

388
00:29:21.799 --> 00:29:26.920
an hour. Well, we come
around and the headlights are painting around this

389
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.559
way to the right, and in
the middle of the road there's this,

390
00:29:30.759 --> 00:29:36.640
uh what looks like from where we
are as a black dog just sitting in

391
00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:41.240
the middle of the road, and
if you're driving, it's looking that way,

392
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:44.720
like across the road, just sitting
there at like attention or something like,

393
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:48.160
you know, like it's it's got's
ears turned to the road and it's

394
00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:52.160
like full attention is across the road. And then as we're getting closer,

395
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:56.599
I'm thinking, you know, my
friend's slowing down and we're not. Nothing's

396
00:29:56.680 --> 00:30:02.640
kind of raised alarm yet and he
h he starts slowing down, and the

397
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.960
dog turns and looks at us.
But I noticed when it looked at us,

398
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.920
there's there's no eyes there, there
was no eyes. There's you can

399
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:17.359
see like you can see the skin
in the skull in the eye sockets,

400
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:26.200
and it's slick black hair, like
real like slick. And it looked at

401
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.920
us, and then it looked back
across the road, and it took about

402
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.759
two and a half three little trotting
steps and jumped and when it hit the

403
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:41.839
when it hit the high grass,
it just turned to smoke, like it's

404
00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:45.519
half its body was still out of
the still in the out of the grass,

405
00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:48.839
I guess, you'd say, And
it just it turned to smoke.

406
00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:52.680
And I didn't believe what. I
was like, that's crazy. And then

407
00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:56.359
my friend was like, did you
just see that? And I was like,

408
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:02.359
well, what did you see?
Cause I'm not gonna like call myself

409
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:03.799
crazy And he was like, that
dog just turned to smoke. And I'm

410
00:31:03.839 --> 00:31:07.720
like, yeah, then we we
pretty much got the same same what we

411
00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:12.400
saw then, so we hauled out
of there. And it's just I don't,

412
00:31:12.440 --> 00:31:15.880
I mean, it was crazy.
It's I don't know how to explain

413
00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:22.640
it. Don't. If I had
to guess, it would probably when it

414
00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:25.720
was sitting down on its butt,
on its rear end. It probably come

415
00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:29.839
up a little bit above an average
man's knee, if I had to guess,

416
00:31:30.119 --> 00:31:33.880
And when it stood up, it
was it was probably a medium medium

417
00:31:33.960 --> 00:31:37.000
sized dog, thirty five to forty
five ish pounds, maybe in between there

418
00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:41.960
somewhere. It wasn't real big,
wasn't muscled up, wasn't I mean,

419
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:47.640
it just looked like a just like
an average sized, average house dog.

420
00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:55.200
And I mean, just the it
was. I don't know what I don't

421
00:31:55.200 --> 00:32:01.119
even know what to say it could
be, because it's not really I mean,

422
00:32:01.160 --> 00:32:06.559
I've I had a buddy that I
worked with and he was he had

423
00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:09.359
some Native American in him. I
don't know what you know exactly, but

424
00:32:10.119 --> 00:32:13.519
he was like, I don't really
want to talk about that, and I

425
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:17.519
was like, okay, So I
just kind of left it alone. I

426
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:22.400
didn't really want to know what it
was a little bit, I would guess.

427
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:30.799
And the first time I've really talked
about it was on a I don't

428
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:32.359
remember what which show it was.
I remember I was on a show with

429
00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:37.200
Daddy, but I think it was
yours. Yeah, Spencer's so you're not

430
00:32:38.359 --> 00:32:42.559
and all that stuff and I wouldn't
say I'm not into it. I just

431
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:47.240
don't. I haven't seen anything.
I don't. I mean, I believe

432
00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:53.680
it's there, but I'm not gonna
see I can't say. I can't say

433
00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:57.640
if anyone tells me what they've seen, I'm not gonna say, ah,

434
00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:00.240
that you didn't see that, because
I mean, who would believe what I

435
00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:05.000
just said. I mean, so
I can't discredit anybody for I listened to

436
00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:09.400
what you got to say, and
I mean you can tell when somebody's you

437
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:13.720
know, honest about what they're saying
and what there. I mean, hell,

438
00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.559
there's with that that happened to me. I can't really say anybody's full

439
00:33:16.599 --> 00:33:21.799
of anything because I don't. I
mean, I wasn't there, but I

440
00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:25.599
mean I could see where there.
I mean, it would be something out

441
00:33:25.640 --> 00:33:32.440
there. A lot of somethings that
we don't know about how we oh this

442
00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:37.920
was about, but just the simplicity. See, I was probably about eight

443
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.920
nineteen or twenty. It was after
high school because we were graduated, because

444
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:45.680
we weren't in school at the time, and I do remember being out of

445
00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:49.839
high school because I think I we
had just got off work actually, and

446
00:33:49.880 --> 00:33:52.920
we were just riding around. We
weren't drinking, we weren't smoking. I

447
00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:55.400
mean, we were sober, just
talking about you know, whatever the world's

448
00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.759
problems, I guess you'd say,
and we you know, we was just

449
00:34:00.680 --> 00:34:05.759
I guess in the right spot at
the wrong time or whatever. But we

450
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:07.360
was actually talking about it the other
day it got brought up. We was

451
00:34:07.400 --> 00:34:13.639
all watching a basketball game and sitting
around a fire at uh at his house,

452
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.760
and he brought it up around some
of our friends because you know,

453
00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:22.760
we was talking about kind of Bigfoot
and stuff like that UFOs and he was

454
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:25.679
like, what about you remember that
time we saw that? And I was

455
00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:30.119
like, yeah, And I don't
know, It's just kind of something I

456
00:34:30.119 --> 00:34:32.199
don't really talk about because I know
when people hear it, they're like,

457
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:36.480
you know, people that ain't never
seen anything, never been in the woods

458
00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:39.119
never, you know, they don't
have family members that have told them stories

459
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.599
about, you know, stuff that
I hadn't discovered and stuff like that.

460
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:47.000
So I just feel like I'd be
beating a dead horse or whatever if I

461
00:34:47.119 --> 00:34:52.880
was telling the story, well,
according to what you've seen, how would

462
00:34:52.880 --> 00:35:00.079
you measure it? With your dogs? And it was probably in between Honey

463
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:06.199
and my uh, the the long
eared dog over there, Clover, it's

464
00:35:06.199 --> 00:35:08.440
probably in between that size. Not
yeah, I wouldn't say any bigger than

465
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:13.440
it definitely wasn't as big as my
German shepherd, but it was. It

466
00:35:13.480 --> 00:35:15.960
was about the size of in between
Honey and my other one. But it

467
00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:20.280
was jet black, you said it
kind of it was. It was slick.

468
00:35:20.920 --> 00:35:28.840
It was. I actually found a
dog that didn't like like almost like

469
00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:32.559
Honey's hair, honestly, but just
jet black. And and just you know,

470
00:35:32.599 --> 00:35:37.280
the light was shining off of it. And as we're getting closer,

471
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:39.599
I'm like looking at it, and
I'm I got a good look at it.

472
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:45.000
He was like I asked him,
and he was paying attention more to

473
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:46.800
the car in the road and if
if he was gonna have to turn and

474
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:51.360
stuff he saw. I mean,
he saw everything I saw, but just

475
00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:55.679
not he don't remember everything, but
I was. I got a really good

476
00:35:55.719 --> 00:36:00.280
look because when when it jumped across
the road, it was a good ten

477
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:05.519
yards in front of us, and
had went took about like I said,

478
00:36:05.559 --> 00:36:10.800
two and a half three little trot
steps and jumped and when it's when its

479
00:36:10.840 --> 00:36:16.400
head and front legs hit the grass, and it was like a I don't

480
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:20.800
know how to explain it. Like
you lit a you set a black smoke

481
00:36:20.920 --> 00:36:25.199
bomb down and a black gray Charcoali
gray black. Yeah, would you say

482
00:36:25.239 --> 00:36:31.199
i'd kind of had the profile of
your drumm and shepherd? I actually yeah

483
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:36.800
those yeah, those uh yeah,
the erect ears and that kind of stature.

484
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:40.719
But I found a dog online.
It's in it some kind of Egyptian

485
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.079
shorthaired dog that it actually looked a
lot like I think I actually sent the

486
00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:49.920
picture to you Spencer when we were
talking about it. I can't remember,

487
00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:54.000
but yeah, it was it was
about that. That's as close as I

488
00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:57.599
found. I can't remember that what
kind of breed that dog was. But

489
00:37:02.360 --> 00:37:07.000
this is a true story. Can
you hear me now? I mean this

490
00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:10.760
is a true story. It happened
to me when I was We l used

491
00:37:10.760 --> 00:37:15.119
to live upon the hill behind the
our old school. It's torn down in

492
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:17.840
uh uh, the small town that
we live in. And I was between

493
00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:22.360
like four and a half and the
five years old, because I started school

494
00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:24.400
when I was five and and I
I still remember it just like it was

495
00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:30.360
to d to day, uh yesterday. You know. I would be lying

496
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:35.400
in the bed asleep and something would
wake me up every night we lived in

497
00:37:35.440 --> 00:37:40.360
that house. S something would wake
me up every night. It was about

498
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:44.000
it was like it looked, uh, it appeared to be about little over

499
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:47.960
foot tall, had a gesture suit
on, and it would just run from

500
00:37:49.159 --> 00:37:52.159
the corner of the corner, corner
to corner, just with a hysterical life

501
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:57.119
and just terrorize me. Every night
I would run down the hallway. I

502
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:00.039
could see it follow me down the
hallway to my mom and dad's bedroom and

503
00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:04.519
I'd be lying there between them and
it would do the same things, just

504
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.880
just hysterical laughter, just terrorism,
and that the whole time that we lived

505
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:14.679
in that house. And in nineteen
eighty five, Stephen King put a book

506
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:19.760
out Kat's Eye. Has anybody ever
seen that book? That movie which the

507
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:25.440
cats I Stephen King that the Little
Girl Drew Barrymore is Moore is the story

508
00:38:25.480 --> 00:38:29.760
in it and that little thing comes
out of the wall. That was what

509
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:34.320
I saw twenty five years before that
movie came out, and everybody in my

510
00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:37.599
family knows about it that it's true. I just thought it was really when

511
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:42.840
I first saw that movie, it
was like, you know, apparently he

512
00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:45.320
had seen the same thing. I
think I think he saw a lot of

513
00:38:45.320 --> 00:38:50.719
this stuff that he wrote books about. But it's not that long a story,

514
00:38:50.760 --> 00:39:01.559
but it was. It was terrifying
to me. Okay, you're recording,

515
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:05.920
all right, I'm gonna edit all
this, all this chatter and stuff.

516
00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:13.559
Okay. I was born and raised
eleven eleven years old, nineteen seventy

517
00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:20.880
two. My grandfather had taken me
and my friend of mine down to Oakwood

518
00:39:20.920 --> 00:39:27.679
Bottoms. We come from southern Illinois, which would be Murphy'sboro. Oak Wood

519
00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:31.559
Bottoms is probably twelve miles away from
that, and it's about another five to

520
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:37.360
the Mississippi River. The big Muddy
River runs right through or right around town.

521
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:45.320
My grandfather took me down there to
go hunting that morning. Everybody in

522
00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:49.639
that part of the world. I
was brought up poor, so you got

523
00:39:49.800 --> 00:39:54.760
one gun, so I had a
twelve gage shotgwn. I got up early

524
00:39:54.800 --> 00:40:00.159
in that morning. Grandpa took us
down and dropped us off. That time

525
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:06.880
of the year, which would be
in August into August, you took sulfur

526
00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:10.480
tablets back in the days, keep
the chiggers away, keep everything else off

527
00:40:10.519 --> 00:40:14.239
of you. You could roll around
on the ground, it really wouldn't matter.

528
00:40:15.719 --> 00:40:19.119
So he dropped me and my buddy
off. We went back in the

529
00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:22.800
bottoms. I was waiting for the
sun to come up, and the squirrels

530
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:27.480
were up there, running around in
the tree, and I shot two of

531
00:40:27.519 --> 00:40:34.360
them out of the tree. I
just thought I'd just sit there because a

532
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:38.199
you know, their body will cool
off and normally the fleas and stuff like

533
00:40:38.199 --> 00:40:45.079
that to be gone. Within thirty
forty minutes. They've kicked back off again,

534
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:51.000
and I was shooting a twelve gauge
with number six shot. And then

535
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:57.000
I'd been sitting there for a while
and I heard a tree fall. Didn't

536
00:40:57.039 --> 00:40:59.480
think a whole lot about it.
There's no wind in that part of the

537
00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:04.960
world normal. So I'd left the
squirrels just laying there. This thing come

538
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:07.239
from the backwoods and he was looking
at me, and he was looking at

539
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:16.039
my squirrels, and he started pacing
back in between the trees. You know,

540
00:41:16.079 --> 00:41:19.079
eleven years old, you really don't
know what to do with that.

541
00:41:20.199 --> 00:41:22.559
And I was like, I have
three shots in this gun. It ain't

542
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:29.119
nothing gonna hurt this thing right here. So I was like, you know

543
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:32.400
what you want these squirrels. You
can have these squirrels. It's not a

544
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:37.360
biggie and you're just sitting there watching. I'm sitting at the bottom of an

545
00:41:37.360 --> 00:41:43.159
oak tree, sitting there watching.
Yes, he did know I was there,

546
00:41:43.199 --> 00:41:47.480
and he was not happy about it. So, yeah, that's fine,

547
00:41:47.639 --> 00:41:52.280
that's fine. He's pacing back and
forth, and I was like,

548
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:57.960
okay, I'm going back my way
out of here. So I got up

549
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:04.000
sitting there looking at me. I
start working my way back to the levee.

550
00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:06.199
I get to the levee and I
just sit there. You know,

551
00:42:06.440 --> 00:42:08.960
eleven years old, you don't know
what to do with that. And uh,

552
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:12.480
my buddy comes up. I'm trying
to tell him what's going on.

553
00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:20.679
Grandpa's supposed to me to say.
At ten o'clock he shows up and uh

554
00:42:20.840 --> 00:42:22.199
we go home and he's like,
you ain't talking much. I said,

555
00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:27.639
I don't have a lot to say
right now. We get home, drop

556
00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:30.800
off my buddy. Now I tell
my grandfather about it. Yeah, I

557
00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:38.440
told him what had happened. He
didn't question what I was telling him because

558
00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:44.199
I remember my grandfather back years before
that had told me that any time you

559
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:49.440
enter the woods, there's something watching
you. And that kind of set on

560
00:42:49.440 --> 00:42:52.599
me. I was like, I
don't understand what he's trying to tell me.

561
00:42:52.800 --> 00:43:00.320
So probably he was a knower and
not a believer. So the next

562
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:05.960
day, well, let me go
back. He said, I want you

563
00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:07.480
to meet me up here at the
house in the morning at six o'clock.

564
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:13.159
Okay. So I met him up
there. He said, bring your hunt

565
00:43:13.239 --> 00:43:16.760
stuff. Okay. He took me
back down there, dropped me off at

566
00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:22.840
the exact same place. He said, going out there in the woods to

567
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:29.360
your squirrel hunting. I'll be here
when you come back. So I went

568
00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:35.280
out. When did my squirrel hunting
shot? A couple come back up.

569
00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:39.199
What he told me whenever I got
to the car was you don't ever let

570
00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:45.039
anything run you out of the woods
that you enjoy that much. So even

571
00:43:45.079 --> 00:43:49.199
to this day, like this morning, I'm packing my car up and in

572
00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:52.840
the dark, and that's a whole
different experience. You don't get over that.

573
00:43:54.119 --> 00:43:57.440
I had a friend that lives up
on the mountain over there from me.

574
00:43:59.199 --> 00:44:02.280
Last year. He called me up
at two in the morning. He

575
00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:06.599
said, something's something's up here.
He said, to hit the hit the

576
00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:10.119
side of the house, and they
just built his house. So I went

577
00:44:10.159 --> 00:44:13.960
back up the hill, got on
my four wheeler, grabbed my guns,

578
00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:17.440
went up the hill, went and
looked at it, and something grabbed a

579
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:20.719
tree limb and hit the side of
his house with it. And it ain't

580
00:44:20.760 --> 00:44:22.800
like it dropped off out of the
forest because there's a roof there and the

581
00:44:22.840 --> 00:44:28.800
overhang. No, this is a
actually since I moved to Tennessee, Okay,

582
00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:32.880
And uh so, I said,
well, there ain't nothing in this

583
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:37.039
forest that I know of that can
grab a tree limb and beat your house

584
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:42.079
with an eight foot high Right down
the road from me is a old man

585
00:44:42.119 --> 00:44:46.000
that was born and raised in that
hollow, and he's eighty years old and

586
00:44:46.039 --> 00:44:50.960
he's a preacher. I said,
we're gonna find out answers tomorrow, but

587
00:44:50.960 --> 00:44:53.079
we're gonna have to go down there
and talk to him. And we went

588
00:44:53.159 --> 00:44:59.559
down and talked to him and asked
him and said, told him what had

589
00:44:59.559 --> 00:45:04.400
happened that the house the night before
he goes it happens, I said,

590
00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:07.719
you've lived here eighty years. When
it happens, he goes. And that's

591
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:20.960
where I'm going to end this story. Okay. Are you guys all familiar

592
00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:27.840
with Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee, Okay, So I'm sure you've heard

593
00:45:27.880 --> 00:45:31.159
about werewolf springs. Well, let
me tell you about the legend of werewolf

594
00:45:31.159 --> 00:45:37.400
springs. Back in the late eighteen
hundreds, there was a farmer and he

595
00:45:37.519 --> 00:45:39.599
was headed home. I think he
was headed from Burns to somewhere over by

596
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:44.599
Nashville, and he was going by
way of wagon, and he had his

597
00:45:44.719 --> 00:45:49.159
servant with him, and considering the
time frame, the servant was probably a

598
00:45:49.199 --> 00:45:52.480
former slave, but nobody has ever
confirmed that. For me, I just

599
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:55.760
know that the man was in the
wagon and they was getting late at night,

600
00:45:55.880 --> 00:46:00.519
and they were headed east, and
as they were going along, they

601
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:05.760
began to notice that there was something
in the woods around them that sounded like

602
00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:08.400
it was following them. Well,
being late at night, they thought they

603
00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:14.719
were being tracked by bandits, and
they began to get worried. Well,

604
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:16.719
they're in a wagon being pulled by
a horse, so of course they speed

605
00:46:16.800 --> 00:46:21.400
the horse up a little bit,
but whatever's walking in the woods beside them

606
00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:23.840
starts running a little bit, and
it's keeping up with them. So they

607
00:46:23.880 --> 00:46:29.079
go a little bit faster, and
the faster they go, the more this

608
00:46:29.159 --> 00:46:31.760
thing keeps up with them, and
they realize that whatever it is that's following

609
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:37.880
them can't be human because it's moving
as fast as his horses, and there's

610
00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:42.639
no way a human being could be
running through the woods that fast. They

611
00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:47.039
get so panicked and so scared that
the farmer suddenly jumps off the wagon this

612
00:46:47.079 --> 00:46:52.000
way, and the servant jumps off
the wagon that way, and the farmer

613
00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:57.000
rolls in under the bushes. But
whatever was following them went with the servant,

614
00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:02.280
and the farmer laid there and listened
while the servant was torn to pieces

615
00:47:02.840 --> 00:47:07.800
by a creature he could not identify. It was growling and screaming, and

616
00:47:07.880 --> 00:47:12.199
the servant was begging, God,
help me, help me. I can't

617
00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:15.719
take this o me, please,
But it tore him to pieces, and

618
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:20.880
he begged for mercy. He wanted
desperately to get away from this thing,

619
00:47:20.920 --> 00:47:22.960
but he couldn't. It was ripping
at him, and the farmer could hear

620
00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:27.079
the bones crunching, and he could
hear the cries of a servant. There

621
00:47:27.159 --> 00:47:30.519
was nothing he could do, nothing
he could do to save the guy,

622
00:47:30.599 --> 00:47:36.760
until finally, with a horrible crunching
sound, the servant breathed his last.

623
00:47:37.639 --> 00:47:40.800
The farmer he sat there, and
he laid there under the bushes until dawn.

624
00:47:40.800 --> 00:47:44.639
He was too afraid to move.
He was afraid if he got out

625
00:47:44.639 --> 00:47:47.199
and tried to run whatever this thing
that had killed a servant was gonna come

626
00:47:47.239 --> 00:47:51.599
after him. So he laid there
and finally the sun came up and he

627
00:47:51.639 --> 00:47:53.440
got up the nerve and he ran
as fast as he could back to town,

628
00:47:53.760 --> 00:47:58.239
and he told everybody something's killed my
servant. I don't know what it

629
00:47:58.280 --> 00:48:00.199
was, but it tore him to
pieces, and I heard it, and

630
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:04.639
I can't find anything, and I
don't know what to do. So all

631
00:48:04.679 --> 00:48:08.840
the townspeople come out. They search
the whole area. They can't find hiding

632
00:48:08.840 --> 00:48:13.400
her hair of the servant. Nothing, no shreds are close, nothing,

633
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:20.199
it's just gone. Well. Time
passes and more people start reporting hearing things

634
00:48:20.239 --> 00:48:23.679
in the woods, until finally a
group of the townspeople, and I believe

635
00:48:23.719 --> 00:48:28.199
it's people around Burns, but it
may have been Dixon or so. It's

636
00:48:28.360 --> 00:48:31.519
one of those towns in that area, they decided they were going to get

637
00:48:31.519 --> 00:48:36.199
together and they were gonna form a
posse. Now, if you're familiar with

638
00:48:36.239 --> 00:48:40.119
Montgomery Bell State Park, at the
southern tip of it, there's a it

639
00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:45.400
used to be a farm called the
Hall Farm, and there's a spring there

640
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:50.199
and it's just a little it's not
much bigger than that bonfire. It's just

641
00:48:50.239 --> 00:48:54.519
a little hole in the ground,
and they they they decide they're gonna there's

642
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:58.960
a clearing by the spring, and
they're gonna gather there because that's pretty close

643
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:01.840
to where the farmer had his incident. And they all decide they bring a

644
00:49:01.880 --> 00:49:05.679
goat out there, and they they
stake a goat there and the clearing and

645
00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:07.480
they all get in the woods around
the clearing, and they got their guns

646
00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:12.199
and they douse their lanterns and they
sit there in the wait and they wait.

647
00:49:13.039 --> 00:49:15.599
Now it's a kind of a cloudy
night, and the clouds drift across

648
00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:21.320
across the moon and things go kind
of dark, and then of course they

649
00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:24.320
drift out and it gets a little
brighter and they can see the goat,

650
00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:29.920
and then the clouds come across the
moon and it gets dark, and then

651
00:49:29.960 --> 00:49:32.559
the clouds drift away and they can
see the goat, and the goat's starting

652
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:37.639
to pull at the stake. And
then the clouds come across the moon and

653
00:49:37.679 --> 00:49:40.079
it gets dark and they can hear
the goat, and then when it clears

654
00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:44.119
up again, they can see the
goat, and the goat's definitely panicking and

655
00:49:44.159 --> 00:49:46.719
it's pulling and it's trying to get
away, and suddenly this thing, this

656
00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:52.119
giant, hairy, two legged beast
of a thing, jumps into the clearing

657
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:55.360
and grabs the goat, and all
of the farmers, all of the peep

658
00:49:55.440 --> 00:50:00.519
townspeople stand up and they start shooting
at this thing. Everyone no, they

659
00:50:00.639 --> 00:50:04.679
emptied all of their rifles into this
thing. In the meantime, clouds cover

660
00:50:04.760 --> 00:50:08.559
the moon again, everything goes dark. They finally somebody gets a lantern lit

661
00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:14.320
and they hold it up and the
thing is gone. The goat is gone,

662
00:50:15.199 --> 00:50:19.719
and three of the men in the
posse are gone and they're never seen

663
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:23.599
again. Well, word got out
about this. People didn't know, you

664
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:28.719
know, what's what is this?
People are talking about it. They are

665
00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:31.679
talking about it in New York,
in California. There's some kind of a

666
00:50:31.719 --> 00:50:37.519
monster and people are describing this thing
like it's a werewolf. This big game

667
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:40.920
hunter hears about it, and he
decides, well, there's nothing I can't

668
00:50:42.039 --> 00:50:45.960
kill. I've been to Africa and
I've shot elephants, and I've shot lions

669
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:50.920
and tigers in India, and I
can do any of this I did.

670
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:54.159
This is nothing for me. So
he comes there and there's a cabin there

671
00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:58.280
on the hall farm. I'm not
far from the clear from the spring,

672
00:50:59.599 --> 00:51:02.960
and it's got a clear view of
that clearing. And he runs the cabin

673
00:51:04.039 --> 00:51:07.800
for a week. Now. For
the first several days, he goes out

674
00:51:07.800 --> 00:51:10.880
and he tracks during the day and
he doesn't really see anything. But you

675
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:14.800
know, he sits there on the
front and looking out the front window at

676
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:16.840
night and he doesn't see anything go
by, but he keeps looking. He

677
00:51:16.960 --> 00:51:22.280
keeps thinking something's going to show up. And lo and behold, after about

678
00:51:22.280 --> 00:51:25.480
four or five days, he's sitting
there one evening looking out the window and

679
00:51:25.519 --> 00:51:32.360
this tall, walking on two legs, hairy creature walks into the clearing.

680
00:51:35.119 --> 00:51:37.880
The big game Hunter. He's like, well, this is obviously it.

681
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:39.639
This is something I've never seen before. It's got to be it. He

682
00:51:39.719 --> 00:51:45.840
pulls up his rifle, takes aim, fires dead shot. Now you'd think

683
00:51:45.880 --> 00:51:47.320
it would have dropped it, because
this guy's shooting with a big, old,

684
00:51:47.480 --> 00:51:52.679
you know, elephant rifle. But
it didn't. All it did was

685
00:51:52.760 --> 00:51:58.519
serve to make this thing angry,
and it comes charging at the cabin and

686
00:51:58.559 --> 00:52:00.599
the Big Game Hunter he's he's trapped
in the cabin, so all I can

687
00:52:00.679 --> 00:52:04.320
do is climb up into the raptors
and he gets as high up in the

688
00:52:04.400 --> 00:52:07.800
raptors as he can, and this
thing tears down the door and it comes

689
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:10.760
inside. And for the whole night, this guy's trapped up in the rafters

690
00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:15.000
and this thing's circling under him,
and it's reaching up and it's trying to

691
00:52:15.039 --> 00:52:17.159
grab him, and it's growling and
it's hissing at him, and it's the

692
00:52:17.159 --> 00:52:22.159
most horrible looking thing he's ever seen
in his life. And he's terrified.

693
00:52:22.159 --> 00:52:24.320
And every now and then he gets
just the right angle and he fires,

694
00:52:24.440 --> 00:52:30.079
but it doesn't affect this thing.
Whatever this thing is, he can't kill

695
00:52:30.119 --> 00:52:35.519
it. And he's terrified. And
he gets down to this last two bullets,

696
00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:39.679
and he knows he's gonna shoot one
more time, and if he can't

697
00:52:39.760 --> 00:52:45.280
kill it, the last bullet is
for himself. So he takes ay and

698
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:50.360
he's getting ready to make that final
shot at the beast, and about that

699
00:52:50.519 --> 00:52:54.119
time, the sun pops up over
the horizon. The beast looks out the

700
00:52:54.119 --> 00:53:00.159
window, looks up at him,
and it turns and runs out the door,

701
00:53:00.159 --> 00:53:04.159
seen from again, or seen again
by the Big game Hunter. He

702
00:53:04.239 --> 00:53:07.880
immediately climbs down out of the rafters
packs up his stuff and he leaves.

703
00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:10.119
He says, I found something I
can't kill, and this is it.

704
00:53:12.639 --> 00:53:16.800
Well, of course, this is
the story of the werewolf of Werewolf Springs.

705
00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:22.920
Interestingly, there was a little girl
before Montgomery Bell became a park that

706
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:29.639
lived in the Hall farmstead. She
had been sent out to the spring to

707
00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:34.360
get a bucket of water, and
she never came back. After a couple

708
00:53:34.400 --> 00:53:39.320
hours, all they found was the
bucket by the spring. If you're familiar

709
00:53:39.400 --> 00:53:44.440
with the park, there are three
lakes there. It's a really nice park.

710
00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:47.360
We're not talking. It's not wood
like this. It's not rugged terrain

711
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:52.519
at all. It's really well manicured. It's beautiful. They've got a golf

712
00:53:52.599 --> 00:53:58.360
course, they've got three nice lakes
with a swimming beach, and there's a

713
00:53:58.400 --> 00:54:02.800
really nice convention center there. It's
not anything like what you would expect something

714
00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:08.039
like that to be. But to
this day people report while walking in the

715
00:54:08.079 --> 00:54:15.719
southern part of that particular park hearing
growling and feeling like they've been being tracked

716
00:54:15.719 --> 00:54:22.559
by something and they don't know what
it is. On the southernmost, on

717
00:54:22.639 --> 00:54:29.519
the westernmost side of the southernmost Lake, there's a ridge with caves, and

718
00:54:29.599 --> 00:54:32.320
back before it was a park,
sometimes the farmers would take dead animals,

719
00:54:32.360 --> 00:54:37.639
dead livestock up there in the caves
where it could die and rot, or

720
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:42.320
not die, but be dead and
rot without having to smell the rotting carcass.

721
00:54:43.079 --> 00:54:46.880
And so when they went exploring up
there, they found bones of large

722
00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:52.480
animals, as you would expect,
but what they couldn't explain where the human

723
00:54:52.599 --> 00:55:00.239
skeletal remains inside those caves. And
that, my friends, is the storyory

724
00:55:00.760 --> 00:55:07.679
of the Werewolf of Werewolf Springs.
I wish I could tell a story like

725
00:55:07.719 --> 00:55:15.519
that about the background. Has anybody
ever heard of the Moss Mountain Massacre?

726
00:55:16.119 --> 00:55:23.719
Anybody here from Arkansas? Anybody anybody
know where Conway, Arkansas is? Okay,

727
00:55:23.760 --> 00:55:29.639
that's just not too far from Little
Rock. And the Arkansas River runs

728
00:55:29.719 --> 00:55:32.639
right through there, and there's a
little island in the middle of the river

729
00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:39.440
that is called beaver Dam Island,
and there is I don't know if anybody

730
00:55:39.480 --> 00:55:46.239
if you have ever heard of p
Alan Smith. He's a landscape and horticulturist

731
00:55:46.360 --> 00:55:51.480
expert who he used to have and
I don't know if he still does,

732
00:55:51.519 --> 00:55:55.360
but he used to have a channel
or a show on PBS he owns the

733
00:55:55.960 --> 00:56:01.679
plantation that runs alongside that, And
I was looking for something to do for

734
00:56:01.840 --> 00:56:09.000
Halloween one year, and I found
the story about that Every year he hosts

735
00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:15.199
a Halloween party to celebrate the ghosts
of beaver Dam Island. And of course

736
00:56:15.239 --> 00:56:16.840
that made me have to ask,
well, what happened on the island.

737
00:56:17.360 --> 00:56:22.840
So let me tell you. Back
in eighteen nineteen, there was a man

738
00:56:22.960 --> 00:56:28.920
named Thomas Nuttle. Now Nuttle is
if you know anything about birds, you

739
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:32.559
may have heard of the Nuttle woodpecker. That bird is named after him.

740
00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:38.639
He was born in England in the
late seventeen hundreds early now I had to

741
00:56:38.639 --> 00:56:46.679
be late seventeen hundreds. He was
raised and apprentice as a printer in England,

742
00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:51.480
and he got all done with his
apprenticeship, was ready to become a

743
00:56:51.519 --> 00:56:54.039
printer, and he realized that that
was not what he wanted. He wanted

744
00:56:54.039 --> 00:56:59.079
a life of adventure. So we
got on a boat and he came across

745
00:56:59.559 --> 00:57:07.679
the pond and he landed in Philadelphia, where he made friends with the world's

746
00:57:07.159 --> 00:57:15.480
America's foremost botanist. And uh,
he didn't. I can't think of the

747
00:57:15.480 --> 00:57:20.480
guy's name. I want to say
it was Smith, something but he didn't

748
00:57:20.559 --> 00:57:24.719
have formal training, but he had
a lot of knowledge about plants and animals

749
00:57:24.760 --> 00:57:31.039
and in a serious need for adventure. And so this botanist sent him out

750
00:57:31.159 --> 00:57:37.760
and he said, go explore North
America, collect unknown plant species and unknown

751
00:57:37.840 --> 00:57:42.519
animal species, bring them back to
us, let us, let us examine

752
00:57:42.519 --> 00:57:46.440
them, let us catalog them,
and let's get a really good book of

753
00:57:47.000 --> 00:57:53.679
the flora and fauna of North America. So he they all come or he

754
00:57:54.119 --> 00:57:58.960
goes out. And he went out
on his first expedition, I believe was

755
00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:01.920
with Lewis and Clark, or Marquette
and Juliet, and it can never keep

756
00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:06.239
the two apart. And they go
out on an expedition and he sends all

757
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:13.159
of this stuff back and he becomes
very well known. But in eighteen eighteen

758
00:58:13.880 --> 00:58:17.360
twelve, there was a little war
between us in England, and he was

759
00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:22.639
still a little too British and he
really didn't want to get conscripted by accident.

760
00:58:23.039 --> 00:58:27.760
So he went back to England,
and of course we had our little

761
00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:31.760
war, and in eighteen fifteen he
came back and right away they said you

762
00:58:31.800 --> 00:58:36.079
need to go back out, and
you need to start collecting all this fauna

763
00:58:36.119 --> 00:58:40.239
and Flora. Now I want you
to understand, this man, single by

764
00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:46.679
himself, tracked all across Kentucky,
Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina,

765
00:58:46.719 --> 00:58:52.599
the Virginia's which would have been just
Virginia, then all by himself, collecting

766
00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:58.079
these specimens and sending them back to
the University of Pennsylvania to have all of

767
00:58:58.119 --> 00:59:04.199
this stuff cataloged. He was not
a squeamish guy, but in eighteen fifteen,

768
00:59:05.159 --> 00:59:07.199
we had just fought a war with
England and we didn't have a real

769
00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:12.760
high opinion of the British because a
lot of you may not know this,

770
00:59:12.840 --> 00:59:17.679
but we kind of lost that war. In addition to which the areas that

771
00:59:17.760 --> 00:59:22.360
he was about to go explore,
which would have been Kentucky, Tennessee on

772
00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:28.679
down through the Louisiana Purchase, there
were a lot of French settlers and England

773
00:59:28.679 --> 00:59:34.880
had just finished the Napoleonic Wars,
so the French people didn't really have a

774
00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:38.880
high opinion of the British. So
when this man is asked to get a

775
00:59:38.920 --> 00:59:44.599
flatboat and go down the Ohio River
with a crew of men, none of

776
00:59:44.639 --> 00:59:47.559
them really liked this Thomas Nuttle.
They thought he was a little bit of

777
00:59:47.599 --> 00:59:53.239
a you know a prissy boy,
and they weren't very nice to him,

778
00:59:53.280 --> 00:59:58.880
and he wasn't very nice to the
French. But what he was was very

779
00:59:59.039 --> 01:00:05.159
very good communicating with the native people
of the area. In fact, he

780
01:00:05.320 --> 01:00:08.960
had a great relationship with almost every
tribe he came through. Now there were

781
01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:13.960
those that they'd get to and they
weren't very good. They would have arguments

782
01:00:14.039 --> 01:00:16.119
or they you know, they didn't
get along, but most of them he

783
01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:23.000
was able to really develop a good
relationship with. Even so by eighteen nineteen,

784
01:00:23.599 --> 01:00:29.280
when they got to the Arkansas River
and started up, he had to

785
01:00:29.320 --> 01:00:31.880
still be careful because every tribe was
new and he didn't know how they were

786
01:00:31.880 --> 01:00:37.280
going to react. And on top
of that, as they were coming down

787
01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:42.880
the Mississippi, right before they started
up the Arkansas River, they were all

788
01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:51.079
hit by malaria. So these guys
are all sick. They're not feeling really

789
01:00:51.119 --> 01:00:57.519
their best. They're headed up the
Arkansas River and they're not sure if they're

790
01:00:57.559 --> 01:01:00.559
going to meet friendly people. They're
not real ff thrilled with this prissy guy

791
01:01:00.599 --> 01:01:06.679
that's on the boat complaining about every
French person he runs into and how dare

792
01:01:06.760 --> 01:01:12.679
he because he's this prissy British guy
and things are falling apart. They get

793
01:01:12.719 --> 01:01:17.760
to Beaver Damn Island and they camp
there on the island for the night October

794
01:01:17.840 --> 01:01:23.480
thirty first, eighteen nineteen because they're
sick. Some of the people who are

795
01:01:23.519 --> 01:01:30.159
sicker closer to the middle by the
fire because it's they're not sure of how

796
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:34.119
the natives are going to react to
them. Those people are sleeping kind of

797
01:01:34.199 --> 01:01:37.440
out. They're all spread out over
their silence. Some of them are kind

798
01:01:37.480 --> 01:01:42.000
of tucked under the underbrush, and
they're scattered all over the island. They

799
01:01:42.039 --> 01:01:47.719
all fall asleep. October thirty first, eighteen nineteen. Thomas Nuttle wakes up

800
01:01:49.000 --> 01:01:54.679
to a horrific a and he sits
up and he looks around and he realizes

801
01:01:54.719 --> 01:02:01.039
that there are these massive, two
legged beings and they are ripping his men

802
01:02:01.159 --> 01:02:06.719
to pieces, and he's watching it
and he can't believe he's seeing the men.

803
01:02:06.960 --> 01:02:08.880
A man stands up and he's running
and screamed, no, no,

804
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:13.559
no, and he gets his head
ripped right off his shoulders. And he's

805
01:02:13.599 --> 01:02:16.760
watching this and he's like, what
is happening? Because he knows he can't

806
01:02:16.760 --> 01:02:21.360
do anything, he kind of slides
back under the underbrush and he's watching in

807
01:02:21.519 --> 01:02:25.880
horror, waiting for his turn to
be ripped to pieces. And he passes

808
01:02:25.920 --> 01:02:32.679
out because he has malaria and he's
not feeling good. Finally Don comes the

809
01:02:32.719 --> 01:02:37.199
next morning, and he opens his
eyes again and he looks around at the

810
01:02:37.239 --> 01:02:44.360
carnage and this entire or twenty or
thirty man expedition, they're just body parts

811
01:02:44.360 --> 01:02:47.519
at this point. They've all been
ripped to shreds. Arms and legs and

812
01:02:47.559 --> 01:02:52.880
feet and fingers and toes and eyes
and heads. It's everywhere, and there's

813
01:02:52.960 --> 01:02:57.719
blood. It's just a huge blood
bath. And he kind of crawls out

814
01:02:57.719 --> 01:03:00.440
to the fire and he's looking around
and he's, you know, God,

815
01:03:00.719 --> 01:03:08.880
is somebody anybody alive? And one
man kind of moans over in the bushes,

816
01:03:08.920 --> 01:03:13.920
and he crawls over there and he
kind of shakes him. And the

817
01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:15.320
guy looks at and me. He
says, you're alive. You're alive,

818
01:03:15.360 --> 01:03:19.280
And he says, he says,
what happened? He says, I don't

819
01:03:19.320 --> 01:03:22.639
know. I opened my eyes,
I stood up, I was going to

820
01:03:22.679 --> 01:03:27.000
go in and help, and something
hit me from behind and I just woke

821
01:03:27.079 --> 01:03:32.079
up. I don't know. He
finds another guy, same condition, barely

822
01:03:32.119 --> 01:03:40.760
able to speak, battered and beaten
beyond belief. Five men survived that night,

823
01:03:43.400 --> 01:03:50.559
five men and at least three of
them saw a tall, bipedal,

824
01:03:51.119 --> 01:04:00.440
hairy beast. Multiples attacked them.
They continued on their their expedition. They

825
01:04:00.440 --> 01:04:02.280
got to Colorado, they turned around, came back. They went to bi

826
01:04:02.519 --> 01:04:12.079
the Philadelphia and the experts said,
you were attacked by bears. To this

827
01:04:12.320 --> 01:04:18.400
day, the attack the Moss Mountain
massacre is attributed to bears