1
00:00:10,199 --> 00:00:15,519
Okay, I have an email here
from a man named Dan. He says

2
00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:18,399
I can use his whole name,
but I just use first name, so

3
00:00:18,440 --> 00:00:22,600
we're gonna stick with Dan. It's
a good story. Here's what he writes.

4
00:00:23,519 --> 00:00:27,559
Is Bigfoot real? That's a question
I found myself asking a lot,

5
00:00:27,719 --> 00:00:34,520
especially after the series Finding Bigfoot started
on an Animal Planet. The eyewitness accounts

6
00:00:34,679 --> 00:00:39,280
on that show we're compelling, but
the lack of irrefutable evidence was frustrating.

7
00:00:40,399 --> 00:00:43,759
I figured I would have to see
one for myself before I could believe,

8
00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:47,799
but it didn't stop me from asking
myself that question. Whenever I had a

9
00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:52,479
spare minute to think about it.
I was surprised by the answer I got.

10
00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:57,320
It was November twelve, twenty fifteen, the day before Friday, the

11
00:00:57,399 --> 00:01:02,200
thirteenth, and two days before my
niece's wedding on the fourteenth. I wasn't

12
00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:04,439
going to the wedding. I was
out of town and I couldn't get the

13
00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:08,159
time off from work, so I
decided to take a day trip to a

14
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,959
semi abandoned a farm outside of Stellville, Missouri, where I had my camper

15
00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:18,599
parked. It was the time of
year to winterize it and I brought my

16
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:23,319
buddy Mike along with me. Mike
is mentally challenged, but he was a

17
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:27,640
good helper and generally a no nonsense
kind of guy. The farm was up

18
00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:32,640
the hill from a Christian summer camp
that we had built. The camp was

19
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,480
closed for the season, but I
used the camper when it was in session.

20
00:01:37,439 --> 00:01:40,519
The farmer who on the land allowed
me to park there year round.

21
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,400
Aside from my camper, there were
several sheds and lean tos for animals and

22
00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:49,439
stalls for horses, and I used
to feed them back there when they were

23
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:55,040
occupied. Back then, I could
plug into the electricity and draw water from

24
00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:57,840
a pump in the yard, but
now that was vacant and I could do

25
00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:02,519
neither. For that reason, I
brought a small generator with me so I

26
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:07,799
could power the lights in the RV
run the air compressor that I would use

27
00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:12,120
to blow out the water line so
that they wouldn't freeze over. The grass

28
00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,639
had grown up quite a bit since
I was there last. It was five

29
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:19,879
feet high in places, and behind
the camper was a barbed wire fence.

30
00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:24,479
Beyond that it dropped off to a
wooded ravine. We got to work right

31
00:02:24,479 --> 00:02:30,000
away and I blew out the lines
and added RV anti freeze where needed.

32
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,159
The last thing I needed to do
before it got too dark and we had

33
00:02:34,159 --> 00:02:38,319
to go home was to put the
covering tart back on the camper and tie

34
00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:42,479
it down. A severe storm had
come through the area of the night before

35
00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:46,120
and had blown it off. While
I was up on the six foot ladder

36
00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:51,120
and Mike held it steady for me, I could hear something walking in the

37
00:02:51,159 --> 00:02:54,840
steep wood hills of the ravine,
and as soon as I finished tying down

38
00:02:54,879 --> 00:02:59,919
the tarp, I turned around and
swept the ravine with a small flashlight.

39
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:06,000
I immediately hit eyeshine and it was
six feet off the ground. Also thought

40
00:03:06,039 --> 00:03:09,520
I detected movement. I looked down
at Mike and I said, Mike,

41
00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:15,599
I think I see bigfoot. Well
Mike laughed and he said, Dan quit

42
00:03:15,719 --> 00:03:19,599
joking around. Well, something big
is walking up there, I told him,

43
00:03:19,719 --> 00:03:23,159
and I'm not joking. Mike had
reason not to believe me. I

44
00:03:23,199 --> 00:03:28,400
had a tendency to tease him from
time to time. Once, while we

45
00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:31,120
were building the camp, we took
turns going out at night to another building

46
00:03:31,159 --> 00:03:36,639
to use the bathroom facilities. When
we went outside in the dark, we

47
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:40,360
would howl and then we came running
back inside, and we'd be breathing heavily,

48
00:03:40,759 --> 00:03:46,520
and we'd tell Mike that we'd been
chased by wolves. Mike held as

49
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:51,000
blighter as long as he could before
finally venturing out with his flashlight and a

50
00:03:51,039 --> 00:03:53,840
stick in his hand. And when
he got outside, someone howled from around

51
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:58,479
the corner of the building, and
then when the door shut, we'd all

52
00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:02,520
howl with laughter. It was good
natured fun, and I'm only slightly ashamed

53
00:04:02,599 --> 00:04:06,080
of all that now, but it
was that kind of stuff that made Mike

54
00:04:06,159 --> 00:04:12,240
look at me now as if I
were the boy who cried wolf. It

55
00:04:12,319 --> 00:04:16,000
wasn't until I repeated myself that he
finally said, in his quiet, no

56
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,600
nonsense way, Hey, let's get
going. Grab my toolbox out of the

57
00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:25,480
camper, I said, and let's
get loaded up. I had my own

58
00:04:25,519 --> 00:04:29,199
doubts as to what it was,
but that lingering question in the back of

59
00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:35,040
my head started whispering, is Bigfoot
real? It was still pretty far away,

60
00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:39,879
so I asked myself what the people
on finding Bigfoot would do to bring

61
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:43,920
it in, and I remembered that
they would do tree knocks. But I

62
00:04:43,959 --> 00:04:46,439
was six feet up a ladder in
the middle of a hayfield. Even if

63
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:49,920
I had something to knock with,
I didn't have a tree, so I

64
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:55,120
decided to slam my hand three times
on the top of the camper, and

65
00:04:55,160 --> 00:05:00,040
that made a loud racket. But
I forgot about Mike being inside. He

66
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:01,560
stuck his head out the door,
and he yelled, Dan, what are

67
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:06,360
you doing. I'm doing Knox to
try to get the bigfoot to come closer,

68
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:11,279
I said, for once, I
wasn't trying to scare him or pull

69
00:05:11,319 --> 00:05:14,879
his leg, but the tremor in
his voice told me that I'd done a

70
00:05:14,879 --> 00:05:17,680
pretty good job of it anyway.
Don't do that, he demanded, Now,

71
00:05:17,759 --> 00:05:21,920
let's get going. I couldn't tell
if Mike believed it or not.

72
00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,519
I wasn't sure if I believed it
yet. The knox failed to draw the

73
00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:30,879
eyes shine in closer, but they
did get its attention. Now there was

74
00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,360
a second set of eyes, low
to the ground and closer to us.

75
00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:40,560
I trained the light on them as
they slowly stood up and became a tall

76
00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:45,879
creature. The hill was too steep
to accurately judge how tall, but I

77
00:05:45,959 --> 00:05:49,680
knew the eyes were set too far
apart to belong to a man. I

78
00:05:49,759 --> 00:05:54,560
decided that the other must have been
curious and was trying to sneak up on

79
00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:58,439
me to get a better look.
Maybe it thought I was another bigfoot.

80
00:05:59,519 --> 00:06:02,399
With the light are mostly hidden in
the tall grass, and from his angle

81
00:06:02,439 --> 00:06:06,560
down the hill, he probably saw
me as being as tall as the camper.

82
00:06:08,519 --> 00:06:12,480
Unfortunately, both sets of eyes were
still too far away to make out

83
00:06:12,519 --> 00:06:17,959
any real detail with my tiny flashlight. Again, I thought about finding bigfoot

84
00:06:18,199 --> 00:06:23,079
and what they would have done to
draw these creatures in, and I thought

85
00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:28,879
they would have made whooping calls.
Whoop, whoop, I yelled. Mike

86
00:06:29,079 --> 00:06:30,879
was back outside, now standing at
the bottom of the ladder, and he

87
00:06:30,959 --> 00:06:34,519
yelled up to me, Dan,
what are you doing now? I'm trying

88
00:06:34,519 --> 00:06:39,120
to get him in closer, I
explained, Man, don't do that,

89
00:06:39,439 --> 00:06:44,439
he said, more agitated than before. Let's go. I was sure now

90
00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:48,680
that I had convinced him that there
were bigfoot creeping around on the hillside.

91
00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:54,680
I flashed the light out into the
increasing darkness, and I now counted three

92
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:59,079
sets of eyes, and due to
my call, they were coming closer,

93
00:06:59,439 --> 00:07:02,000
and Mike was scared. He was
ready to leave, but I wasn't.

94
00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:08,519
They were still too far away to
positively identify them, and that question in

95
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:13,439
the back of my head was begging
for an answer. This might be my

96
00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:19,399
one chance to prove to myself that
Bigfoot does exist. Each time I flashed

97
00:07:19,399 --> 00:07:24,199
the light on a different set of
eyes, they would freeze. Meanwhile,

98
00:07:24,279 --> 00:07:29,120
the other two sets would slowly come
closer. They still weren't close enough to

99
00:07:29,199 --> 00:07:33,959
identify them with my pathetically insufficient little
light. I had a bigger and better

100
00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:38,439
flashlight on my truck show. I
showed Mike the different sets of eyes and

101
00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:42,199
I told him to keep them in
sight while I went to grab it.

102
00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:46,720
The batteries and the other light weren't
very good, so it wasn't much better

103
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,600
than the first light, but at
least now we had two lights on two

104
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:57,199
of them. Now only one creature
at a time was slowly coming ever closer.

105
00:07:58,279 --> 00:08:01,600
We kept them at bay by rotating
the lights from one set of eyes

106
00:08:01,639 --> 00:08:05,920
to another, but not close enough
to fully identify what we were seeing.

107
00:08:07,079 --> 00:08:11,319
Despite this, they were getting too
close for my personal comfort. They'd already

108
00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:16,839
reached that point for Mike, and
once again I asked myself what the people

109
00:08:16,959 --> 00:08:20,639
on finding Bigfoot would do, and
the answer was that they would stay around

110
00:08:20,879 --> 00:08:26,360
and try to get a picture.
I reached into my pocket to pull up

111
00:08:26,399 --> 00:08:30,439
my phone, but common sense was
battling with my curiosity, and at one

112
00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,279
to heck with this, I said, And I told Mike what he'd been

113
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:39,519
wanting to hear for several minutes.
Let's get out of here. We couldn't

114
00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:43,200
just jump in the truck and go
though. The ladder and the compressor and

115
00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:46,240
the generator all had to be loaded. I told Mike to hold them off

116
00:08:46,279 --> 00:08:50,720
with the flashlight while I rounded up
all that stuff and put it in the

117
00:08:50,759 --> 00:08:54,159
truck faster than I have ever loaded
anything in my life. And by the

118
00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:58,320
time I got it done, Mike
was already jumping in on the passenger side

119
00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:03,600
of the truck. Okay, great, I thought, without the flashlights to

120
00:09:03,639 --> 00:09:09,080
slow them down, they could be
anywhere. The barbera fence wasn't likely to

121
00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,399
slow them down. They might even
be in the tall grass close to the

122
00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:16,720
truck. I hit the kill switch
on the generator, which had been running

123
00:09:16,759 --> 00:09:20,759
the whole time in the back of
my truck. The little light inside the

124
00:09:20,759 --> 00:09:28,399
camper. Oh man, sorry to
interrupt the story. There, I just

125
00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,039
had a stink bug crawling on me. I could feel it a few minutes

126
00:09:31,039 --> 00:09:35,759
ago, and I thought I was
just itching, but then I smelled it

127
00:09:35,799 --> 00:09:39,799
and I had to I hate killing
bugs. I don't even like to kill

128
00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:43,639
bugs. But man, these stink
bugs are everywhere. Okay where was I?

129
00:09:46,279 --> 00:09:48,480
Oh? Great? I thought,
without the flashlights to slow them down,

130
00:09:48,519 --> 00:09:52,639
they could be anywhere. The barbar
fence wasn't likely to slow them down.

131
00:09:54,039 --> 00:09:56,919
They might even be in the tall
grass close to the truck. Well,

132
00:09:56,919 --> 00:10:00,679
I hit the kill switch on the
generator, which had been running the

133
00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:03,440
whole time in the back of the
truck. The little light inside the camper

134
00:10:03,519 --> 00:10:07,159
went out, and we were left
in the dark. The silence, however,

135
00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:13,720
was deafening, with nothing but stars
overhead. I made my way up

136
00:10:13,759 --> 00:10:18,159
to the driver's side door. I
reached in and I turned on the headlights.

137
00:10:18,759 --> 00:10:22,639
We still couldn't see beyond the camper
to our sides because of the tall

138
00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:26,720
grass all around us. And I
stood there with the door open, trying

139
00:10:26,759 --> 00:10:30,960
not to make any noise, and
I was listening intently for any sound,

140
00:10:31,519 --> 00:10:35,840
anything, And for the longest time, it was incredibly silent, And then

141
00:10:35,879 --> 00:10:41,159
I heard what sounded like a grunt
or a snort over by the cedar trees

142
00:10:41,159 --> 00:10:46,919
beyond the barberar fence. In a
moment of instant and absolute clarity, I

143
00:10:48,039 --> 00:10:52,960
knew that this was it. This
was my only chance to answer that question

144
00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:56,639
that was eating at my brain.
If I ran now, I might never

145
00:10:56,679 --> 00:11:01,279
have this chance again. I had
to know. I had to know if

146
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:05,720
Bigfoot exists. With my last bit
of courage, I told Mike to wait

147
00:11:05,759 --> 00:11:09,639
in the truck, and I grabbed
a flashlight and I said, I'll be

148
00:11:09,759 --> 00:11:13,000
right back, Dan. What are
you doing? Mike cried, Let's get

149
00:11:13,039 --> 00:11:18,240
out of here. He's gonna rush
you. Bigfoot's gonna rush you. I

150
00:11:18,279 --> 00:11:22,919
could hear the tears in his voice. I could feel the almost tangible panic

151
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:26,279
that was taking over, and I
knew that he was probably right. I

152
00:11:26,279 --> 00:11:30,159
should have listened to him, I
should have got a side of there,

153
00:11:30,639 --> 00:11:35,840
but that question just kept eating at
me. I had to know. Ignoring

154
00:11:35,919 --> 00:11:41,320
every ounce of common sense I had, I continued forward, keeping close to

155
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:45,519
the camper, and with trembling hands, I pointed the light toward the cedar

156
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:52,679
trees and illuminated three horses behind a
fence. Apparently they had been grazing on

157
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:56,399
the hill and I call them up, probably expecting to receive apples for their

158
00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:03,519
efforts. Finally I had my proof, proof that people really do let their

159
00:12:03,559 --> 00:12:07,759
imaginations run away with them. And
to your readers, although this was not

160
00:12:07,879 --> 00:12:13,840
an actual bigfoot encounter, ninety nine
point nine percent of it is true.

161
00:12:13,919 --> 00:12:18,919
The only part that was ever so
slightly embellished to make me look brave and

162
00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:24,759
to make it better reading was the
part about the snort. I was pretty

163
00:12:24,799 --> 00:12:28,159
sure it was a horse when I
heard it, and in my defense,

164
00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:31,919
I had never seen them on that
side of the fence before and the form

165
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:37,080
was deserted. But still I wasn't
one hundred percent certain that they were horses

166
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:41,879
until I actually saw them with my
eyes. After all, the experts on

167
00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:46,279
finding bigfoot had taught me that bigfoot
are known to be excellent mimics. Little

168
00:12:46,279 --> 00:12:50,840
did I know that I had already
encountered them when I was growing up.

169
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:54,080
But I didn't realize that then.
What I was seeing, smelling, and

170
00:12:54,200 --> 00:13:03,279
experiencing my early encounters you have already
recounted in your episode entitled The Missouri Monster

171
00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:09,000
Revisited Bigfoot Encounters all over Missouri Marathon
number eighty two, and that's the end

172
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,759
of his story. He went on
to talk about give his commentary on the

173
00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:18,799
WU subject. You guys, I'm
not really clear on what the WU stuff

174
00:13:18,919 --> 00:13:22,320
is, but I hear that word
all the time, but I've never heard

175
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:24,559
it defined, so I don't really
know what it is. But if I

176
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:30,320
hear it, I know that it's
WU stuff. And he goes on to

177
00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:35,799
say also that he's a pastor,
and he is a minister of the Gospel,

178
00:13:35,799 --> 00:13:39,159
and he encourages people to believe in
Jesus and to take him as their

179
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:46,679
savior. Those are good words.
And he also thinks that some people take

180
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:50,480
the topic of Bigfoot too far and
they almost treat it like a religion.

181
00:13:50,799 --> 00:13:54,919
I agree with that. There's a
lot of people so deep into this.

182
00:13:54,360 --> 00:14:01,720
I don't think any of those people
really listen to my channel anymore. But

183
00:14:01,759 --> 00:14:05,000
because I'm just not real serious about
this bigfoot stuff, I just like the

184
00:14:05,039 --> 00:14:09,480
stories. I've said it a million
times. So to the writer, I

185
00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:13,480
didn't want to. I don't want
you to think I just cut your commentary

186
00:14:13,519 --> 00:14:18,320
at the end of your email out, but we try to just stick with

187
00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:20,679
the story. But I wanted to
mention some of the high points on what

188
00:14:20,759 --> 00:14:24,200
you said, and there you have
it. But I really appreciate this story.

189
00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:28,759
I thought it was great. It's
not a bigfoot encounter, but it

190
00:14:28,879 --> 00:14:35,320
is an absolute testament to probably half
of the stories that I get. People

191
00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:39,879
never see or hear anything. They
are no people never see anything, but

192
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:43,480
they hear, they smell, they
sense, there's all kinds of things going

193
00:14:43,519 --> 00:14:48,360
on, but they never see it. If he had not seen these horses,

194
00:14:50,159 --> 00:14:54,279
how would this story have changed?
That's to me, that's the question.

195
00:14:54,799 --> 00:14:58,600
And I'm guessing he's probably thought about
that, but seeing the horses kind

196
00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:03,279
of confros that. Yeah, I
let my imagination get away with me.

197
00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:07,519
So that's critical thinking right there,
in my opinion. So I appreciate the

198
00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:11,840
letter. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and we'll see you on the next

199
00:15:11,159 --> 00:15:13,039
video. Thanks